The Port Control Setup

This build is enabled by the “Port Control” core that’s crept up the meta as a 3-item 5-slot core that essentially locks the opponent’s board via extremely quick Frost Potion triggers enabled by Energy Potion’s permanent Haste alongside Port’s one-second charge to Ammo items.

This very strong late-game setup leaves behind five free spaces on the board to be used by the player’s win condition of choice and tech options, with Rarran’s go-to this run being a Deadly The Boulder.

Frost Potion

Energy Potion

Port

The Deadly Boulder

The build’s win condition is The Boulder which simply deals Damage equal to your current enemy’s maximum health. The Damage adapts to each enemy you’re facing, so there’s never a high enough amount of HP that’s saving them from it.

Note that in the video Rarran ends up enchanting The Boulder with Deadly, which is good but not exactly necessary, since there are other ways of giving your items Critical Chance, be it via skills or different items.

Since the goal was to win with only The Boulder, skill choices and the two remaining item slots had to be filled with supportive items that helped complement the build and enable it even more.

Juggler

Port builds really love to get the Juggler skill from the Trash Titan PvE encounter. This build loves the skill especially because it will help with charging The Boulder faster and even if it hits Port, that’s also okay because the Port will charge The Boulder and your defensive items and potions.

Rush

Rush is a pretty good skill to get early from the Giant Mosquito since it will enable your Ammo weapons in the early game and help a smooth transition into The Boulder end game as it is a single weapon build that greatly benefits from the start of combat Haste.

Bloodhound

Much like Rush, Bloodhound is a pretty good transitional skill that finds a lot of value in the early game with weapons. When you eventually swap to The Boulder, it’s sometimes unlikely that the first cast kills the enemy, but it will definitely activate Bloodhound and help you get to the second - and likely final - roll much faster.

Nesting Doll + Second Frost Potion

Since Rarran’s goal here is to win with only The Boulder, the two remaining item slots were filled with supportive items that helped complement the build and push it over the edge.

Nesting Doll isn’t the best defensive item, but its two-second cooldown that turns into one second while Hasted has great synergy with the Juggler skill, Charging Large items very fast.

The second Frost Potion is there because it was generated, but as a pretty rare second pull from Port’s effect, you can flex the second Frost Potion slot with many other crowd control or charging items like Flashbang, Rainbow Potion, Sleeping Potion, Battery or even Holsters.

Since The Boulder is an item that starts at Diamond rarity, you’ll only find it from Pol (Large items) and Cole (Ammo items) after day 9 or from a rare early Luxe (Diamond-tier items) encounter.

This means you have to pull off something that leans towards grabbing The Boulder if you come across it later on and already has some kind of synergy going on. There are two easy ways to do this.

The first way is through having a Poison Pufferfish start. It’s a very low-economy build early on that allows you to save up a bunch of gold to invest in an early Port that will be benched for a few days while it generates free items. This version also leans into a Weather Glass late game build to bring you to 10-wins.

The second way is how Rarran did in the video through an aggressive ammo weapons start that actually uses the Port as Ammo refresher and can lean into the Crow’s Nest instant kill build later on if you happen to not find The Boulder.

A strong consideration is also going for PvE encounters that give you Feathers and Insect Wings as well as grabbing the Knee Bracers from Curio’s shop along the way to greatly decrease The Boulder’s cooldown as soon as you find it. Note that if you put the Knee Bracers on your board before using these cooldown items, they’ll grant extra reduction since the Bracers are increasing the base cooldown of the item.