Garden of Witches Challenge Mode

Challenge Mode is the post-story exam. Team Tapas shipped an early version during Early Access once chapter four options were unlocked. Version 1.0 reworked the unlock: Challenge Mode now opens after you clear Epilogue 3. If you keep playing on that save, Sil’s house becomes a Challenge Mode cottage and leaving through the door lets you pick the Challenge you want. It is not a hidden difficulty toggle on chapter one. Finish the campaign spine, including the epilogues, then queue it.

If you are still dying to Fiena, you do not need this page. You need getting started and the boss guide.

What Challenge Mode is testing

Story chapters teach witches. Challenge Mode tests whether your Armory identity survives a longer map, denser elites, and scoring rules that pay for speed and cleanliness. Older patch notes added extra floors to later areas, cut elite-room spam so each elite actually matters, and attached Imprint rewards to those fights. Expect:

• More rooms than a story chapter of the same name
• Boss HP that assumes you have a finished imprint
• Score that cares about time, leftover health, and how greedy your curses were
• Modifiers that can strip comfort — always read the card. Some Hard settings in older builds removed dash i-frames. If 1.0 still offers that card, treat dash as a reposition only.

Garden of Witches Challenge Mode — Giant Scissors, Slash, and Ambush

Loadouts that actually belong here

Challenge Mode is where people copy YouTube. Copy the identity, not the 2025 tag list.

The video on this page is a real Challenge run: Giant Scissors, Slash, Ambush, Hard / default. The player stacks Sharpness with Ambush, dumps it into Slash for a six-figure burst, then uses a Giant Scissors crit to clean the room. That burst logic still makes sense in 1.0 because Giant Scissors still has a combo-finisher crit and Ambush still feeds Sharpness. The part that does not make sense is “delete every witch-character tag so only Scissors / Spell / Charge / Cooldown remain.” Tags as a synergy grid are gone. Rebuild the same feeling with:

• Giant Scissors in the Armory
• Ambush in a Spell slot
• An imprint that turns your second Spell into a dump button (Slash-style)
• Relics that raise Sharpness, weapon damage, or crit damage
• Cooldown so the dump is up every elite, not every other boss

Broken Scissors plus Hunger / Frenzy is the other modern burst plan: fill Sharpness, never drop it for two seconds, hit 100%, and live in crits. Magic Scissors plus Threading / Downpour is the poke plan for rooms that punish melee. Singing Scissors are a Maydel toy — if you have not cleared Epilogue 1, they are not in this conversation. Rankings live on the scissors tier list and best builds.

Scoring without lying to yourself

A pretty 192-point Japanese clip from 0.8.2 is a museum piece. Systems moved in 0.9.2 and again in 1.0. Use those videos for room pathing and for “this is what a complete kit looks like when it snowballs.” Do not chase the exact number.

Practical score habits:

1. Clock. Swamp-style maps and some Challenge floors pay for kills inside a timer. AoE beats a slow Charge here.
2. Health. Dying at the door is zero. Fountain heals are score tools.
3. Curses. A curse that prints damage is worth it if you can still dash. A curse that prints damage and eats i-frames is a meme.
4. Dice. Reroll toward the imprint, not toward a funny Relic name.
5. One identity. Mixed kits clear story. Challenge Mode is where mixed kits stall at the last HP bar.

Route thoughts

• Take the Imprint room even if the fight is scary. Challenge without an imprint is a handicap run.
• Elite rooms are fewer than they used to be in some chapters; do not skip the one you are offered.
• Relic rooms can include combat. Budget a dash.
• If the map offers a well that strips a curse, use it unless you are one room from a boss you already know.

Difficulty cards

Story / Casual / Normal taught you the witches. Hard and Challenge are where the Garden stops being cute. If a card says it changes dash, believe it. If a card scales enemy HP to the final boss, your chapter-two Fireball is not a plan. Meta level 70 was the comfort target Team Tapas named during the 0.9.1 beta. You do not need 70 to queue, but you do need the Armory unlocked enough that you are choosing a kit rather than accepting whatever the house still owns.

After a failed Challenge run

Change one slot. If Giant Scissors could not reach the boss, you needed cooldown or a Spell, not a different soundtrack. If you reached the boss and died to a floor pattern, you needed the boss guide, not a new Relic. Then go back to the Armory planner and pick the kit on purpose.

Challenge Mode is optional. The tea party already happened. You are here because scissors feel good when the numbers get loud. Keep it that honest and the mode stays a playground instead of a second job.