Pokey Mans

Character Used
Challenge Number	33
Starting Items	Friendly Ball Mom's Eyeshadow
Available Rooms	: no          : yes
Goal
Unlocks	Charged Key
Unlock Method	Defeat Mom's Heart 11 times

Pokey Mans is Challenge #33. Isaac starts with Friendly Ball and Mom's Eyeshadow with the objective being to kill Isaac (Boss).

Difficulty

• Some spawns from the Friendly Ball can cause unavoidable damage in certain rooms. Hazards or enemies can be hidden by larger allies or if many are in a group, and it will become harder to keep track of Isaac himself as there are more allies in the room. In the case of monsters that fire some sort of projectile or beam, it may be hard to discern allies shots from enemies.

Strategy

• The Friendly Ball works differently in this challenge, being unable to capture enemies, but summoning a random charmed enemy with each use instead. Also, as soon as a charmed friend dies, the Friendly Ball instantly recharges and can be used multiple times per room.
• When one of your monsters dies, it will recharge your active item. In most cases this will be your friendly ball, but it can also include any other active item. This is extremely powerful with Schoolbag and another powerful active item like Head of Krampus.
• Some types of monsters are especially helpful in this challenge. Examples include:
  • Any monster capable of spawning other monsters in any way, as these spawned monster(s) are also friendly towards Isaac. However, friendly monsters spawned by other monsters won't count towards recharging the Friendly Ball upon death. Example: Spawning a Sack will let Isaac generate friendly spiders, but every time a spider dies it won't give him a recharge. On the other hand, if the Sack dies, he will gain a free recharge.
  • Monsters that can fire Ipecac tears, as these shots can do massive AOE damage, break objects, and gain access to secret rooms. Roundy, Gurgle, Splasher, Spit, and Blue Conjoined Fatty are capable of doing this.
  • Monsters that fire Brimstone beams, being able to kill many enemies per shot and doing high damage. Vis, Scarred Double Vis, Red Ghost, Double Vis, Bloodshot Eye, and Soul Sucker (albeit only upon death) fit in this category.
  • Enemies that dig, teleport, or become invincible for a short time, who can stay alive for longer. Such examples include regular Hosts and Wizoobs.
  • Tar Boy, since the black creep that he lays on the ground could slow down enemies and not Isaac, which can be used to an advantage when chased by them.
• Do not leave a room before the Friendly Ball has spawned its monster. Isaac's charges will be consumed and no monster will die to replenish the charges.
• Do not exit and then continue the run as it will cause all charmed enemies to despawn without giving any of the charges back.
• Isaac's bombs or items which explode can't damage his charmed enemies just as their explosions can't hurt him, and enemy explosions can break obstacles just like regular explosions.
• While almost all non-invincible and non-boss enemies can be spawned from the unique Friendly Ball, Wall Creep, Blind Creep, Rage Creep, and The Thing will never be spawned for unknown reasons.
• Mr. Mines can be summoned via Friendly Ball, but they only appear in areas with pits; if the Friendly Ball spawns nothing in a room with no pits, it must have attempted to spawn a Mr. Mine.
• Since the spiked floor in a sacrifice room can hurt flying enemies, they can be used to cycle through the less useful monsters received from the ball.
  • However, sacrifice rooms can also be very dangerous, as monsters can kill themselves on the spikes faster than they can be replaced.
• Spear Of Destiny is not recommended, as it will also kill the charmed monsters spawned from the Friendly Ball.
• Using the Broken Remote trinket with the Friendly Ball charged will allow infinite teleporting.
• Charmed enemies that have multiple "phases" will only recharge his Friendly Ball when their first phase is killed. For example, Lepers will only recharge his Friendly Ball when the first part of their skin detaches from them.
• But above all else, do not solely rely on the charmed enemies to win the run; no matter how powerful the spawns are, remember that Isaac is always stronger. Do not get carried away by the large number of allies and take unnecessary damage.

Reward

• 

  Charged Key - Complete Pokey Mans (challenge #33).

Trivia

• The title of the challenge is a play on the word Pokémon. The use of the modified Friendly Ball (and to some extent, Mom's Eyeshadow) is a reference to Pokémon Trainers battling opposing Pokémon using their Pokémon.

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