Crown of Curses
	Area:	Preloop Vaults
	Pro/Con:	A lot more Cursed Chests

Sprites:
Selection	Idle	Walk

Tech

Crown of Curses simply increases the odds of cursed chests which can also occur for any other crown, so for the sake of this article it will cover all curse weapon-related tech.

• While running any crown (besides Love), any normal weapon chest has a 1 in 7 chance of becoming cursed.
• Chests will instead have a 2 in 3 chance of being cursed while running Crown of Curses.
• Cursed Chests include weapons from the drop pool from up to two areas ahead.
• Weapons from the 1-1 drop pool will not appear in Cursed Chests, increasing the odds of seeing better weapons.
• Purple clouds will emit from cursed weapons to indicate they are cursed, which can be a useful indicator as cursed weapons can be pulled through portals.
• Cursed weapons can only be swapped with other cursed weapons, however there are methods to uncursing weapons.
• Taking the Last Wish mutation will uncurse held weapons.
• Stepping over the crown pedestal will uncurse held weapons. Does not work if Vault Guardians are awakened first.
• Entering the loop portal on 7-3 will uncurse held weapons, but not the loop portal on 0-1. This is typically the only method to uncurse in later loops.
• Robot can eat cursed weapons but it will damage them for 7 HP, which can be lethal without Strong Spirit.
• Chicken cannot throw cursed weapons. Her active will be unusable with two cursed weapons.
• (Cursed Ammo Pickup link)
• If carrying a cursed weapon while entering 4-1, the area will instead become 4-?, the Cursed Crystal Caves.
• (This will link to the Areas page once completed for more information.)
• Taking Last Wish while entering 4-1 will still trigger the secret area.
• The weapon chest will be replaced with a guaranteed Big Cursed Chest, which will give 3 cursed weapons instead of 1.
• This will also pull from up to 3 drop pools ahead instead of the usual 2 for cursed chests.

Cursed Weapon Sprites
Cursed Weapon Chest	Cursed Big Weapon Chest	Cursed Ammo Pickup	Steroids Cursed Weapon Chest

(Get cursed sprite later)

Strategy Guide

This strategy guide will be focused more on cursed weapons as a whole as this applies to most crowns, but will apply the most to Crown of Curses due to the abundant cursed weapons seen.

Cursed weapons are mainly beneficial for preloop as it can pull from up to 2 drop pools later. The upside of 1-1 weapons being removed from the cursed pool will be useful for the entire duration of the run. There are some situations in which having cursed weapons can hurt the player, but as a whole cursed chests are a useful boost to the run. Crown of Curses is generally considered the best preloop crown, as the drawbacks for the other preloop crowns are too severe.

The downside of cursed weapons is that if an uncursed weapon drops that's an upgrade, the player may be forced to skip it or run two weapons that don't compliment each other well. For this reason it is useful to remember where weapons can be uncursed, as if a 'decent' cursed weapon appears, it's less risky to take if it can be uncursed a level or two later;

Generally it's best to only carry one cursed weapon at a time, leaving an open weapon slot for enemy drops. Running two cursed weapons however will result in cursed ammo pickups, which also has its own pros and cons. 1.5x ammo for a pickup is actually a very useful boost and surpasses Fish's passive, but having to directly walk over them to collect when they also explode when despawning can put the player at significant risk if they're not familiar with the despawn timer, or simply has tunnel vision.

Cursed Crystal Caves (CCC) will have a separate article for tech/strategies, however a brief summary is that this is one of the most dangerous areas in the game as Cursed Laser Crystals teleport around at unpredictable angles and distances, and can even teleport directly on top of the player (telefrag) instantly killing them or causing a Spirit drop. The best way to clear CCC is to hide behind walls they cannot teleport through, and clear the level very slowly, and not taking unnecessary risks for pickups. The benefits of going to CCC in preloop is an excess amount of rads for leveling over normal Caves, and the Big Cursed Chest pulling from up to 3 areas higher. CCC will also provide a higher kill count than normal Caves for score chasers, but due to the risk is usually only taken by experienced players.

Character/Mutation Notes:

• If good uncursed weapons drop, Eyes can easily drag them between levels until he's able to uncurse his weapons.
• Chicken can also bring weapons to new levels if she's only carrying one cursed weapon, however cursed weapons in general can limit her active usage.
• Robot can negate cursed weapons at the cost of 7 HP, which they can rebuild quickly. Be careful of lethal misclicks.
• Fish's Gun Warrant is best used by hotswapping weapons (quickly swapping weapons on the ground to reset cooldown), so be extra cautious of cursed weapons being pulled through exit portals.
• As YV, cursed weapons may want to be ignored when nearing ultra, as Crib will have much better weapon picks in most cases.