The day a blind devil deal saved a Challenge Run
The Challenge was Suicide King. One of the hardest challenges in base game Rebirth, and one of only three Rebirth challenges I have left (Cursed and Cat Got Your Tongue are the other two)
The floor was Necropolis I. Curse of the Blind. Maggie's Faith had me sitting at 5 hearts, so I had some wiggle room, but I was never quite comfortable with my HP, and I knew eventually Maggie's Faith would be useless since I would take full hearts in only a few floors and my Soul reserves would deplete fast (and I'm terrible at finding Womb tinted rocks).
I don't get the deal to spawn on this boss fight. But I decide to go back and find my shop for the floor and see if I can't get Mystery Gift or something and try to spawn Pyro or Host Hat with lots of luck. In the shop there's garbage (has anyone in the history of this game ever actually used tear detonator?) but I decide to buy a card (I'm rolling in cash for some reason) in case it's 2 of Hearts or something that could come in clutch. It's Joker. I use it. I remember it's curse of the blind. I panic. But decide I have enough HP to buy one item.
It's Athame. "Meh" I think to myself, it doesn't seem all that great. I want to avoid taking damage, I think, so this won't help. But then I realized something. I was packing 30 damage. Ipecac and a bunch of Damage Ups from the previous floors and I was sitting on something magical. I also had 4 luck, due to a bunch of Lucky Pennies (I got that one neat Shop a few floors earlier with the two guaranteed Lucky Pennies)
So now Lazarus was a punching bag. I'd just face rush enemies, they'd instantly explode to my Athame pulse, and it would rain Black Hearts. I actually wanted to take damage. because my Luck was so high, I could, on a room by room basis, basically guarantee at least my Black Heart back from the damage.
The Womb is where this plan started to fail. At one heart damage per hit, Black hearts would fire off before Athame could get the hearts back. But at this point I was sitting on 7 Red Hearts, but I had no Red Heart regen type items... until...
Beggar in Womb II! Used him, until he dropped an item, expecting an HP Up. Grab it (curse of the Blind again...) and it's Slot Machine. Oh... now this gets interesting. I was at 60 coins for some reason. So now I could just sit and spend coins in empty rooms to get my hearts back. I was also immune to tears due to two Pretty Flies and a Meat Cube, and my Athame damage was like a billion and one shotted everything.
I never even needed to become Lazarus Reborn. By Cathedral, I would have had to make an effort to lose the challenge. Isaac never even got to his other phases, he blew up instantly to Athame before he could even fire off more than a couple shots.
Just Cat Got Your Tongue (I can do this one, I just need to find the Bible. I've gotten to Mom 3 times already, but she's really hard with the items they give you) and Cursed, which I've never tried, so I don't know how bad it is. After that 100% of Rebirth's challenges will be done, and then I need to tackle Afterbirth's challenges, which I've done 4 of, but the ones I have left are the worst challenges in the entire history of the series, so that'll be fun. For Plus, all I have left is Ultra Hard, which I know I can do, I just need to sit down and focus and get lucky with some kind of HP regen item.
I am so close to 100% beating all of Rebirth's content I can taste it. Godhead and two challenges. That's it. I've found 99% of Rebirth's items (just Godhead).
But man. Greed mode with Lost. That's not a fun time. And I can't even come close to beating Greedier with good characters (I got to Sheol with Judas, and that was the end, I wasn't going to beat Greedier, I didn't have the build), let alone the Lost. Greed mode is not fun and no streamers ever really play it, so I don't have the same experience watching good players get through it as I do the regular game. Which helped me a lot get good at the regular game.