Tome strategy

Your Mystical Bookshelf

Some of the most powerful things on Your Mystical Bookshelf are Tomes, spellbooks that allow you to summon up to three powerful items per day from any combination of your Tomes. This page documents the relative power of all Tome summons in an ascension context.

Best Summons (Turn Efficiency)

These summons usually save the most turns per summon.

Tome	Item	Effect	Notes
Clip Art	frosty halo	+25% item drops	A very powerful item-drop boost usable from turn 0 in most paths.
Sugar	sugar shield	+10 lbs. familiar weight	Provides a large item drop boost on Fairy-type familiars (especially "superfairies"), two more free runaways per day on a runaway familiar, and lots of +meat drop on a Hobo Monkey.
Clip Art	box of Familiar Jacks	Free familiar equipment	Can form the cornerstone of many strategies when used for a quake of arrows or quadroculars.
Rad Libs	papier-mâché toothpicks	+50% meat, +25% items (40 turns)	Requires two Tome summons, but the buff lasts for a really long time. Excellent for the nuns, tomb ratchets, and misc. +item stuff on the final day.
Clip Art	crystal skull	20-turn banish	Often the best use for "extra" Tome summons. Very useful in the Junkyard and moderately useful in many other places.
Clip Art	unbearable light	Yellow ray	Incredibly useful if you don't have a He-Boulder.

Useful Summons

These summons are good, but usually not as good as the ones in the previous tier.

Tome	Item	Effect	Notes
Sugar	sugar shirt	+3 stats/fight	Extra stats are always useful, but the shirt provides just 45 mainstat before it breaks.
Clip Art	shining halo	+3 stats/fight	While this is a very nice boost, it will often conflict with the frosty halo.
Clip Art	furry halo	+5 lbs. familiar weight	Provides one extra runaway from runaway familiars and a healthy boost to +items, but not as much as the frosty halo. If you have no trouble capping item drops (i.e. very high-level Softcore), this might be your ideal halo.
Clip Art	potion of the litterbox	+15% item drops (20 turns)	Can help you cap a 234% (or even 400%) item drop.
Clip Art	ultrafondue	+15 ML (30 turns)	15 ML isn't that big of a boost, but it's at least comparable to the sugar shirt. Might help fill a gap in your diet.

Niche Summons

These summons usually aren't optimal, but may still have their uses.

Tome	Item	Effect	Notes
Snowcones	(all)	(various)	Some effects are helpful, but the randomness limits their usefulness. Purple is only quality-of-life; green is an extra runaway and other small bonuses; orange is a less effective sugar shirt; and you only need one red over a run.
Stickers	(all)	(various)	Does not play nice with halos and Kung Fu Hustler. Very easy to get apples and wrestlers when you want unicorns and UPCs.
Sugar	sugar chapeau	Spell Damage +50%, +spell crits	An excellent quality-of-life summon, and helps with towerkilling, but it's usually possible to towerkill without one.
Clip Art	(jelly donuts)	Spell Damage +100% (30 turns)	Also used for towerkilling, but also generally not required.
Clip Art	cold-filtered water	+100% to all stats (10 turns)	Also used for towerkilling, but also generally not required.
Rad Libs	papier-mochi	+5 Prismatic Damage	Used to skip noncombats in the Tavern Cellar.
Clip Art	graveyard snowglobe	+40 Spooky/Cold damage	Used to skip noncombats in the Tavern Cellar.

Best Summons (Turn Generation)

These summons are difficult to rank against efficiency summons, since they make more turns instead of saving them.

Tome	Item	Effect	Notes
Clip Art	borrowed time	+20 turns	Not quite going to make it? Now you will!
Clip Art	bucket of wine	10 drunk, 27.5 adv	The best nightcap when you need turngen.
Clip Art	time halo	+5 rollover adv.	Lots of turngen, but borrowed time is the same or better if your run is 5 days or shorter. The two aren't mutually exclusive, of course; if you need every scrap of turngen to break a daycount barrier, this will still help.
Clip Art	potion of the field gar	More adv. from lasagna	Rarely applicable in-run, but when it is, it's a lot of turns.

Notes

• Other summons may be speed-relevant in special challenge paths. See your path's particular strategy page for suggestions.

Ascension Strategy
Rankings:	HC Skills - HC Familiars - HC IotMs
General:	Class selection - Familiar usage - Lucky adventures
Paths:	BHY - Fist - AoB - BI - ZS - AoJ - BIG! - KOLHS - CA2 - AoSP - SS - HR - Picky - Ed - Random - AoWoL - Source - NA - GN - LtA - L.A.R. - PF - G-Lover - DD
Additional Paths:	DG - 2CRS - KoE - PotP - LKS - GG - Y,Robot - QT - WF - GY - JM - FotD
IotMs:	Tomes - Faxing - Copying - YR - Garden - Correspondent - Workshed - Tea party - Florist