Back 4 Blood: How To Use Cards


Back 4 Blood gives you the ability to alter and potentially control your game experience with Cards. These cards can do a number of things that can make your game better or worse, it's all about how you use them and if the game director throws Corruption cards into the mix to alter the game on their terms. There's a lot to learn about them so we're here to show you how to use cards!

Read More: Back 4 Blood: How To Unlock All Cleaners


How To Use Cards

Cards can be used in a couple of different ways. The main way is to use them to build your own custom decks for each game mode and those decks can significantly alter your in-game experience.

The other way to use cards is to collect them when you're exploring a level. Some cards out in the wild are free to use but others will need to be purchased using Copper (the in-game currency). When you collect a card in the middle of a run, that card will remain active for the entirety of that run.

What Are Cards?

Cards are a huge part of Back 4 Blood as they have the power to completely alter your game. They're essentially a custom loadout that you can create to try to tailor the game to how you want it to be. Some cards apply only to you but some can apply to your entire team.

However, you're playing cards against the Game Director and they can lay down corruption cards that can make an aspect or multiple aspects of your game a lot harder.

Once you lay your cards down your deck choice and cards are locked in for that specific run.

How To Collect Cards

You can purchase cards but to do this you will need to collect Supply Points throughout the game. You can collect these points as you play through the campaign and exchange them for cards at Supply Lines.

Also, if you take some time to explore levels you might be able to find free cards that are sitting about in the wild in Intel Folders. When you find a free card, their effects will last you until the end of your run. Sometimes you can find really powerful cards but you will need to use Copper (another in-game currency) to purchase them.

How To Build a Successful Deck

The key to building a successful deck is to remember that many cards have a trade-off. For example, if you have a card that gives you +40% Stamina it can mean it takes away 5% of your damage resistance. To build a successful deck you should make sure that the deck is balanced.



Building a Deck

To build a deck you need to go to Garner in Fort Hope and interact with them to bring up this screen:

Back 4 Blood deck select screen for each game mode
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On here you can see each section of the game that you can build decks for which is all 3 game modes: Solo Campaign, Campaign, and Swarm. Building a good deck is the key to making your game work for you.

Click on your desired game mode and you will be brought to the Deck Manager screen. Here, you can view your existing decks or make new ones.

If you want to make a new one, hit create a deck, or if you want to edit an existing one then select it. For either option you will be brought to this screen:

Back 4 Blood  deck manager for custom deck for solo campaign
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The most important thing to remember when building your deck is that the cards will be drawn in the order that they're laid out in the deck, so try to put the best cards near the beginning.

You can have 15 cards in your deck but you do not need to fill every single slot if you don't want to, it's your choice. However, the more cards you have in the deck can mean you have better perks that can help you through tougher levels.

This displays all of the cards that you can use currently. You can only have 1 of each card in your deck, so if you have one "Slugger" card in play, you cannot have a duplicate of it in the same deck.

All you need to do now is to go through all of your available cards and click on which ones you want to add to your deck.

Swarm Decks

Swarm decks operate a little differently as you start off with a base deck for each type: Soldier, Operator, Medic, and Squad Leader.

Back 4 Blood deck manager for swarm mode decks
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Each deck here is focused on enhancing the abilities of that role. If none of them suit you, then you can build another deck in the same way as you would for the other two modes.

Filtering Your Cards

To make deck building a bit more efficient you can filter your cards down into their affinity categories and the card types, which can help you ensure you're adding a balanced amount of each card type to your deck. Alternatively, if you want to build a deck that is entirely based on Brawn and Offense, then this will allow you to do so.

To filter your cards, look at the top area of your deck building screen.

Hit the filters button and on the left-hand side of your screen you will see 4 options for Affinity:

  • Reflex (The wing symbol)
  • Discipline (The target symbol)
  • Brawn (The weights symbol)
  • Fortune (The dice symbol)

Then underneath that, you will see 4 options for type:

  • Offense - These will be cards that improve your offensive abilities such as how much damage you can do, aim speed, reload speed to name a few.
  • Defense - Mainly cards that focus on healing, damage resistance, and other basic defensive perks.
  • Utility - These cards are less about your weapons and more about you as a Cleaner. These can be anything from actual items such as Shooting Gloves to perks that apply to your weapon swap speed.
  • Mobility - As the name suggests, these cards are about how fast you move and some of them can improve how fast you move whilst firing certain weapons.

Corruption Cards

Corruption cards are cards that are placed down by the game director at the beginning of your run. The corruption cards can make your game a lot harder which is why building a strong deck is crucial. Having a strong deck can mean you have a good chance of being able to counter any corruption cards laid down.

Back 4 Blood Corruption cards laid out by game director
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Some of the corruption cards can alter the weather conditions, time of day, or even the ferocity of The Ridden themselves. Also, some of the cards can be challenges that the game director sets you and if you complete them you can be rewarded with a substantial amount of Copper.


Cards are an important part of Back 4 Blood as it allows the game to be replayed over and over again without becoming repetitive. Having a good deck alongside knowing the perks of each Cleaner will combine to give you a great game experience.

For more articles like this, take a look at our Back 4 Blood and Guides page.