Dead Cat

Dead Cat is a passive item.

Effects

 * Sets Isaac's Red Heart containers to 1.
 * Does not remove Soul Hearts or Black Hearts unless picked up as, , , , , or.
 * Does not remove Bone Hearts unless picked up as.
 * Grants 9 extra lives.
 * Upon death:
 * Isaac respawns in the antecedent room with 1 Red Heart container.
 * Any active items in Isaac's possession will lose all its charges.
 * The head of Guppy begins following Isaac like a familiar upon pickup but doesn't do anything.
 * When Isaac has lost all of the lives provided by this item, the dead cat familiar will disappear.

Strategies

 * In the context of a Devil Deal,
 * Taking Dead Cat with 1 or 2 heart containers won't kill Isaac because taking Dead Cat will set your health to 1, saving him from the death that would have resulted from having no heart containers.
 * This means that you should always take Dead Cat if he only has one heart container, since Isaac won't gain or lose any heart containers, essentially making it free.
 * If you plan on getting Dead Cat from a Devil Room, then Isaac can exploit the extra lives and the fact that Isaac can get it for free at one heart container to get the other Devil Deals in the current Devil Room for free. Here's the process: If Isaac doesn't already have one heart container, then make deals until he has one heart container. When Isaac has one heart container, purchase Dead Cat. After purchasing Dead Cat, you can then sacrifice a life to get another Devil Deal. Since spending Dead Cat's extra life will revive Isaac in the antecedent room, (the boss room) choose wisely because the Devil Room entrance may or may not still be there when Isaac gets revived.
 * Do note that Dead Cat is 4th on the Resurrection Item Queue, meaning that, , and ' innate extra life will trigger instead of Dead Cat.
 * This strategy is irrelevant to because they can only take one Devil Deal from a Devil Room with The Lost.
 * This strategy is irrelevant to since they can't die from taking a Devil Deal as The Lost.


 * Dying in the Boss Rush arena will revive Isaac inside the Mom boss room, allowing him to retry the Boss Rush if it's still open.
 * The Boss Rush door will only be open if the run timer is less than 20 minutes. If the run timer has passed 20 minutes, then Isaac cannot retry the Boss Rush.
 * As, failing the Boss Rush with Dead Cat on purpose is a good idea. Isaac can trade one of Dead Cat's nine lives for one of the items that appear in the start of the Boss Rush. Isaac isn't forced to initiate the Boss Rush, so he can safely leave if you don't see any items you want. Isaac isn't forced to retry the Boss Rush, so Isaac can just take the item and escape regardless if he wins or not.
 * If you aren't playing as, then failing the Boss Rush on purpose is very risky since Isaac's heart containers will be set to 1 after spending the life. This is particularly terrible because going to the next chapter will make all sources of damage that only deal half a heart of damage deal a full heart of damage instead, meaning Isaac will always die in one hit unless Isaac can generate soul hearts. You shouldn't rely on searching for soul hearts either since tinted rocks are much harder to spot in the , and shops and treasure rooms don't appear anymore in this chapter
 * Taking Dead Cat as will reduce his total number of health coins down to one, meaning he will die upon taking any damage at all. Unless Keeper has immediate access to a Health Up item, it is not recommended to take Dead Cat as the Keeper.

Synergies

 * : After spending a life, Isaac can convert his single heart container into 3 soul hearts, allowing him to get much more out of his nine lives.
 * This can be paired with the to get Isaac back to full heart containers after dying.
 * This synergy doesn't work with characters that can't have heart containers (,, , and ) for obvious reasons.
 * : Isaac gains 18 extra lives in total.
 * Gold Hearts: Gives Isaac many coins when picked up, due to the amount of hearts lost.
 * : Allows Isaac to spend lives to use Suicide King to generate pickups and items.
 * Suicide King + : Allows Isaac to repeatedly use the Suicide King.

Trivia

 * The 9 lives gained by the item is a reference to a myth that cats have 9 lives.
 * The Dead Cat shares the same tuxedo type bicolor fur with Guppy.

Seeds
R96W PFVJ (Dead Cat, Guppy's Head, and Guppy's Collar all on the first floor in the Curse Room) G6GE 0GFV (Curse Room adjacent to spawn, found in Red Chest along with Guppy's Paw) G6GE 0GFV (Curse Room adjacent to spawn, found in Red Chest along with Guppy's Paw) MW2N WAJC (Curse Room adjacent to spawn, found in Red Chest) KEBM C08G (Second floor Devil Room)