The Binding of Isaac Rebirth: Character Tier List

Isaac – A tier – Vanilla and middle of the road character, D6 is also nice and has lots of potential.

Magdalene – C tier – Average stats and four red hearts allows you to take a chance with the devil room and get good items like brimstone or incubus, but slow starting speed stat makes beginning floors painfully slow. Otherwise an alright character.

Cain – A tier – NEUTRAL PILLS!!!! YAY!!!! also increased payout on gambling machines, high speed stat. Good character.

Judas – A tier – High starting damage + Book of Belial = ez first floors, watch out for champions because they will instantly kill Judas because he has a single red heart container. Amazing character.

Blue Baby/??? – B tier, almost A – Blue Baby’s big recent buff made him an actual viable character and not a joke. Minus the fact he cannot obtain soul hearts, I believe Blue Baby’s strength comes from his reduced devil deal prices meaning his soul heart container cost is equivalent to the regular red heart container cost. He also has an innate lil larva effect making blue flies common on floor one. Bordering A tier character.

Eve – D tier – This character kinda sucks. The gimmick of Eve’s ability is her “Wh0re of Babylon state” where she gets a damage and speed up when shes down to one red heart or less. This character to me feels like Judas if he always stayed at one heart. Soul hearts or Guppy’s paw are your best friend with this character, also devil deals. Meh character.

Samson – A tier – Take damage to do damage, Samson’s mechanic revolves around taking self damage to get a reasonably sized damage up from Bloody Lust that lasts the entire floor. Encountering a blood machine is always a positive with this character, you either get damage and HP up and money or re-usable blood machine and damage up and money. The better Eve.

Azazel – S tier – You start with a short range brimstone and flight, need I say more?

Lazarus – C tier – This ginger’s gimmick is having a revive every floor that when you take lethal damage, you revive at the cost of a heart container but you gain Anemic and a moderate damage up for the floor and another small permanent damage up. The revive always comes back next floor. Boring character.

The Lost – A tier, almost B tier – You have no health but eventually start with Holy Mantle when you unlock it. This character is usually a mixed bag for me as I usually die since this character has only the mantle that protects it from death. Free devil deals and the Perfection trinket (+10 luck) usually makes the run more chaotic and fun. Very hard and rewarding character. OH also The Lost starts with an Eternal D6 which allows it to reroll items at a two room charge instead of the 6 room charge of the normal D6, but has the slight chance (30%) of making the item disappear completely. Good character.

Eden – C tier – Completely random character. Stats, Items, Space bar items, Trinkets… Its all random. Occasionally has a fun synergy. Alright character.

Lilith – C tier – Lilith has no eyes so a little demon shoots instead, the demon follows Lilith and a lot of the time the shots are delayed. Starts with Box of Friends which doubles all familiars. Just an OK character.

Keeper – B tier – Starts with triple shot and and two coin hearts which act as half hearts, you later can unlock three coin hearts when you defeat hush. Coins restore health. The Keeper is a challenge character but is about on par with blue baby in terms of difficulty. B tier.

Bethany – A tier – Starts with average stats and three red heart containers. Bethany also starts with Book of virtues and it acts as both a space bar and passive item that alone creates wisps that orbit the player doing small damage and blocking shots. Book of virtues can combine with other spacebar/active items to grant both the effects of the newly found spacebar item and a wisp that matches that item. Bethany cannot use soul hearts and instead uses them as charges for the Book of virtues. Very overpowered with single floor use items like Eraser or large charge items like D6. Good character.

Jacob and Esau – C tier – extended hitbox.

The Forgotten – S tier – First and last melee character to exist in Isaac. Starts with a bone club that can be thrown like a boomerang. Pressing Ctrl or whatever the drop key is will switch to The Soul which acts as the Lost but with only soul hearts as health, The Soul is chained to The Forgotten and unless you find birthright you cannot move very far but you can shoot tears in this form. Both characters can only hold six hearts, The Forgotten only using bone hearts, The Soul only using soul/black hearts. Amazing starting damage and fun game-play. S tier.

Oh I forgot one. Sorry to any Apollyon fans but Apollyon gets a C tier ranking. Absorbing items into stats is not fun sorry.

T Isaac – B tier – Average stats but can only hold eight items at a time. Health ups are forever and will not take away hearts when dropped, you can drop items once you try to pick up the ninth item. T Isaac allows all item pedestals to switch between two items allowing you to choose only one. Choose your items wisely and its an ez character.

T Magdalene – A tier – Average stats but instead of four regular heart containers, T Magdalene has instead two regular heart containers and two ‘leaky’ hearts. Those leaky hearts will slowly drain eventually getting to the regular hearts and will stop. Making contact with an enemy will let you ‘hug’ them dealing often lethal damage to normal enemies. This attack will cause them to drop hearts that will refill your heart containers and will despawn quickly if not picked up. Starts with Yum Heart as a pocket active. Powerful character.

T Cain – D tier – Average stats but cannot pick up item pedestals with an exception to story items. T Cain instead uses a pocket active called “Bag of Crafting” which allows T Cain to pick up hearts, coins, bombs, etc to create items. Upon picking up a pedestal the item will disappear and drop pick-ups instead. Different pick-ups have different values for creating items. Tedious and boring character. Meh.

T Judas– A tier – Average stats but can only use soul/black hearts as health. Starts with Dark arts as a recharging pocket active which on use grants a speed up and walking over enemies or projectiles will “mark them” and will be damaged after dark arts expires. After attacking the item grants a temporary damage up similar to dead eye. The better Blue Baby. Fun character.

T Eve – C tier – Same stats as regular Eve except for two hearts as starting health. T Eve starts with Sumptorium as a pocket active and creates little blood clots that follow the player and shoot tears alongside her. Every two seconds she fires she creates a blood clot that takes away half a heart, eventually stopping to only half a heart remaining. If every clot is killed and she only has half a heart left, she gains the Wh0re of Babylon effect and uses her Sumptorium as a “Mom’s Knife” and it lasts until she finds another Heart or creates a clot. Alright character but better than Eve.

T Samson – S tier – Average stats. While in a room with enemies, Samson’s “rage” builds turning him red over time. Eventually Samson will go “berserk” and gain a melee weapon akin to The Forgotten. Eventually the effect wears off but can be increased the more enemies/bosses you kill. Fun to play, easy to master.

T Blue Baby/??? – D tier – Hard and challenging variant of Blue Baby. Blue Baby starts with below average stats and instead rely off of his “poops” that he creates occasionally. Every poop has an effect that I will not go into. Blue Baby also starts with an active item that allows him to save poops for later. Poops are displayed in a cycle with the left most poop used first. Blue Baby does not have bombs and must rely off of his poop bombs for all his bombing needs. An actual challenge character that I find difficult. The worse Blue Baby.
Mechanics are better explained on the Wikipedia page for Isaac

Tainted Azazel – A tier – Loses flight but gains a weaker normal brimstone shot and a sneeze attack. The bloody sneeze marks enemies and when hit with the brimstone causes the attack to do normal brimstone damage + flat 3 damage counting the multiplier from the sneeze. Pretty solid character.

Tainted Lazarus – F tier – Jacob and Esau without the fun of the extra hitbox.

Tainted Eden – B tier – Hot take, but T Eden gets shidded on too much. The characters gimmick is having all of his items and stats rerolled each time you take damage. Though certain items like Holy mantle give immunity when hit with the mantle active. Having that perfect synergy is likely to stay for a while if you get the right defense items. T Eden is about quantity over quality because more than likely you are going to lose those super duper cool quality 4 items making it pointless to not pick up those bad items. Items when rerolled pick from the same item pool. Underrated character.

Tainted Lost – F tier – I would rather smash my balls into a searing hot waffle iron than play this character. :steamhappy:

Tainted Lilith – S tier – FETUS WHIP

Tainted Keeper – S tier – Now has quad shot! Instead has only two coin hearts that cannot be added to without the use of certain items and trinkets similar to regular Keeper. Enemies drop coins on death and can be used to heal or buy items. The catch is that T Keeper must pay for every item pedestal but shops get upgraded and instead contain items from every pool alongside the usual bombs and keys. Steam sale = instant win.

T Bethany – B tier – Another solid character. Starts with lemegeton as a pocket active and cannot use red hearts and instead uses soul hearts for health and red hearts to charge the item. Good character.

T Forgotten – B tier – The Forgotten’s skeleton body becomes a pile of bones… The Soul is left to carry and throw the remains at his enemies. T Forgotten is literally a pile of bones and can still swing and throw to attack at enemies albeit immobile and is moved around by The Soul. Cannot use red hearts and must rely on soul hearts to win. Somewhat of a challenge character.

T Jacob – B tier – Where did Esau go? T Jacob is finally a solo character but his brother Esau will now constantly charge and chase after Jacob (think of Mom’s shadow from that knife piece segment). T Jacob starts with Anima Sola and can be used to chain and hold “Dark Esau” in place and use again to have Dark Esau charge into enemies dealing massive damage. If Dark Esau touches or hits T Jacob once, he turns into The Lost without holy mantle or any protection. Definitely a challenge character but can be cheesed with the right items. Ex. Missing no reroll.

Tainted Apollyon – C tier – Starts with abyss as a pocket active. Turns pedestal items into… Attack locusts? Cool, I guess.