Greed mode is a game mode introduced in The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth.
Gameplay
In Greed mode, each floor has a Curse Room, a Devil Room/Angel Room, a double-wide Shop, and an exit room all connected to a main double-height arena room with a button in the center. A Super Secret Room is also connected to one of the rooms. Up until the penultimate floor, an already unlocked Treasure Room with a silver door frame and a normal locked Treasure Room are also available. The silver Treasure Room always gives items from the Boss pool. The sixth floor (The Shop) does not have any Treasure Rooms but does have the Shop and Curse Rooms. The final seventh floor has no waves and contains only three rooms, the largest of which contains the game mode's final boss.
When playing Greed Mode, a yellow coin (
) will appear on the HUD, below the consumables.
Shop
As there are no normal drops in Greed mode, the Shop becomes Isaac's primary source of items and pickups. Shops in Greed mode automatically restock. Shops will always have six items/pickups for sale; in order from the left side of the room to the right, these will always be:
- A key
- A red heart
- A Shop item
- A Boss item
- Two random pickups, trinkets, or items from the Treasure Room pool.
There will also always be two shopkeepers near the center of the room.
Layouts
The following room maps were made using Basement Renovator for cleaner viewing.
| ID | Contents | Image preview |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | A restock box and a red heart. | 
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| 1 | A restock box, a locked chest behind rocks, a red heart, and either a trapdoor or random pickup behind rocks. | 
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| 2 | A restock box, a beggar, a devil beggar, a half red heart, and two random pickups behind rocks. | 
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| 3 | A restock box, a red heart, and two random pickups behind key/iron blocks. | 
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| 4 | A random heart and a reward plate. | 
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| 5 | A soul heart, two blue fireplaces, and a chest behind rocks. | 
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| 6 | A restock box, a slot machine, and a red heart behind urns. | 
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| 7 | A restock box, a fortune teller, and a half red heart behind poop. | 
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| 8 | A restock box, a blood donation machine, a random heart, and three random pickups behind key/iron blocks. Note that all blood donation machines are automatically replaced with devil beggars in greed mode. | 
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| 9 | A restock box, a key master, and either a trapdoor or random pickup behind rocks. | 
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| 10 | A bomb chest, a half red heart, and a random pickup and either a trapdoor or another random pickup, each behind rocks and iron blocks. | 
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| 11 | A restock box, a reward plate, and two random pickups behind rocks and spikes. | 
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| 12 | A random heart pickup and a random pickup and red chest behind spikes; the red chest can be accessed without taking damage by walking diagonally between the spikes. | 
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| 13 | A restock box, a shell game, and two random pickups behind spikes. | 
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| 14 | A restock box, a devil beggar, a half red heart, and a reward plate behind spikes. | 
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| 15 | A restock box and a beggar. | 
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| 16 | A slot machine and poop. | 
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| 17 | A restock box and fortune teller. | 
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| 18 | A restock box, a blood donation machine, and two random pickups behind rocks. Note that all blood donation machines are automatically replaced with devil beggars in greed mode. | 
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| 19 | A random pickup behind rocks. | 
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| 20 | A restock box, a locked chest, and two random pickups behind rocks. | 
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There is an overall 71.42% chance (15/21) that a shop will have a restock box.
Arena
The 1x2 room in the center of all floors except the final one is the Arena, where most of the game mode’s coins and enemies come from. These rooms always have a button in the center that, when pressed, bars all the doors and starts spawning waves of enemies and coins. While active, the button has a timer underneath it that counts down; when the timer runs out or all enemies in the current wave are killed, the next wave spawns. This continues until wave 8 or 10 is reached, Isaac dies, or Isaac presses the button again. Pressing the button before all the waves have spawned deals half a heart of damage to Isaac (or removes 1 penny from the next wave if playing as 
The Lost) and stops the timer that causes waves to spawn automatically. Once the timer stops and all remaining enemies are killed, the doors re-open. The button can then be reactivated to continue progressing through the waves. All waves except the optional “nightmare” wave must be completed for the door to the next floor to open.
For the first 8 waves, the timer will start at a set time and then increase by 1 second for subsequent waves. For Template:Stage and Template:Stage, the clock starts at 6 seconds. For Template:Stage, the clock starts at 5 seconds. For Template:Stage, the clock starts at 4 seconds. For Template:Stage and Template:Stage, the clock starts back at 6 seconds again. The first boss wave is set at 30 seconds on all floors.
The enemies spawned by each wave is determined by the wave number and current floor. For the initial set of eight waves, the first three waves will use the floor’s “easy” enemy pool, the three waves after that use the floor’s “medium” enemy pool, and the last two waves use the floor’s “hard” enemy pool. For the ending two waves, the first wave uses the floor’s “easy boss” pool, and the second wave uses the floor’s “medium boss” pool. Upon completing the second boss wave of the floor, an optional nightmare boss wave, which uses the floor’s “hard boss” pool, can be started by pushing the button again. Clearing the wave grants access to the floor’s Devil/Angel Room. Note that “boss” pools can include multiple (mini)bosses spread out across the room.
Enemies can spawn as Champions as normal, but will not drop items, with the exception of gold champion Hollow, which drops coins as normal.
At the start of each wave (except the nightmare boss wave), Pennies are dropped on the ground, which Isaac can use in the Shop to purchase items and pickups. Waves 1-3, 5, 6, and 8 drop 2 pennies, waves 4 and 7 drop 3 pennies, the first boss wave drops 4 pennies, and the second boss wave drops 5 pennies. The mob waves give a total of 18 coins and the boss waves give a total of 9 coins, for a floor total of 27 coins.
Each new wave counts as a new 'room' for purposes of item charges, familiars dropping items or the like. However, one-room temporary effects, such as 
The Book of Belial, will remain across waves, and items that activate upon entering a new room will not activate when a new wave starts.
Floors
Greed mode has seven total floors, five of which are based on floors found in the main game. These floors are 
Basement, 
Caves, 
Depths, 
Womb, 
Sheol, a unique floor called Template:Stage, and the final boss floor. Each floor will spawn enemies and bosses native to that floor in the main game, except for The Shop, which has no counterpart outside of Greed mode. Instead, The Shop spawns mostly Greed enemies, but can also spawn enemies from any floor. The Shop is the only normal floor which does not contain Treasure Rooms.
Greed mode floors can appear as their variants with unique waves including 
Burning Basement, 
Cellar, 
Flooded Caves, 
Catacombs, 
Dank Depths, 
Necropolis, 
Utero, and 
Scarred Womb. Via debug console, if you type stage 8, you get a blank stage, stage 9 is ???, stage 10 is Dross, and stage 11 is Mauseoleum. Any further values will crash the game.
Ultra Greed
The Ultra Greed floor contains only three rooms: An empty starting room, a Mini-Boss Room in which multiple Greeds, Super Greed, Wrath or Monstro will spawn, and the final Boss Room containing Ultra Greed. After Ultra Greed has been defeated, turning him into a golden statue, a Final Boss Chest to end the level and the Greed Donation Machine will spawn. Isaac is given the chance to donate his remaining money to the Greed Machine, which will unlock several rewards including the 
Keeper character.
Greedier Mode 
Greedier mode is a harder version of Greed mode. When playing Greedier mode, a small, red stained coin (
) will appear on the HUD, below the consumables.
Greedier mode changes gameplay in the following ways:
- An additional “hard” wave is added to the initial set of 8 waves, bringing it up to 9.
- The time the clock starts at is shorter (with the exception for Basement and Caves' mob waves).
- For Template:Stage, the clock starts at 8 seconds. For Template:Stage, the clock starts at 6 seconds. For Template:Stage, the clock starts at 4 seconds. For Template:Stage, the clock starts at 3 seconds. For Template:Stage and Template:Stage, the clock starts at 2 seconds. The first boss wave is set at 14 seconds on all floors.
- Coin drops per wave are modified to give less coins overall.
- Waves 1-3, 5, 6, and 8 drop 1 penny.
- Waves 4, 7, and 9 drop 2 pennies. (total 12 coins from mob waves)
- The first boss wave drops 4 pennies.
- The second boss wave drops 6 pennies. (total 10 coins from boss waves, or 22 for the floor)
- The nightmare boss wave still drops no coins.
- Basic enemies have a chance to be champions. They will not drop pickups, unlike the regular game.
- The final boss gains a second phase.
- The Greed Donation Machine's chance to jam is greatly reduced, making it much easier to fill out.
Greedier mode unlockables were separate from Greed mode unlockables; however, as of Booster Pack #5, completing Greedier Mode with a character will also unlock the corresponding Greed mode unlockable.
Donate 500 Coins to the 
Greed Donation Machine to unlock it.
Unlockable Achievements
Greed Mode
Greedier Mode
Completing Greedier Mode with a character will unlock the corresponding Greed Mode unlockable if it hasn't been unlocked.
Greed Machine
Tips
- Completing all waves without pressing the stop button will maximize the total possible amount of coins.
- Flight will not prevent damage from the spiked stop button unless the player is The Lost or Tainted Forgotten.
- However, a Penny is deducted from the next round of rewards if the button is pressed as The Lost.
- However, a Penny is deducted from the next round of rewards if the button is pressed as
- Items with effects that only persist in the room are especially useful in Greed mode. Complete all waves in one go to maximize their efficiency. Examples of such items include Box of Friends, The Book of Belial, Lusty Blood, The Pinking Shears, and Scissors.
- Being teleported by the Curse of the Maze can open the exit door without needing to complete the floor, allowing large portions of a run to be skipped.
- Only a half heart of damage is taken in floors beyond chapter 3, a feature unique to Greed mode.
- Killing all the enemies before the timer resets doesn't increase the number of coins produced.
- The dead shop keepers have a very low chance of dropping Steam Sale when bombed.
- There are methods of achieving infinite coins/items. Although difficult to coordinate, and sometimes heavily reliant on luck, these methods can practically guarantee a successful run. These strategies can be combined with Chaos to allow stronger items to be obtained more easily.
- Method #1: Requires a 2 of Diamonds card, the Blank Card, a Shop selling Lil' Batteries, and enough coins to buy one. This allows infinite coin count doubling with no drawback.
- Method #2: Requires a Rune of Jera rune, the Blank Card, a Shop selling Lil' Batteries, and enough coins to buy one. Similar to the first method, but instead of doubling Isaac's currently held coins, this method allows for infinite duplication of Pennies dropped during waves.
- Blank card with runes no longer copies the ability of the runes
- Method #3: Use Diplopia or the Crooked Penny on a Steam Sale. This will allow Isaac to take as many items as desired for free.
- This method is no longer infinite, as stacking multiple Steam Sale uses a new algorithm.
- Method #4: Requires Swallowed Penny and a discounted red heart (2c). Use the curse door by entering and exiting right after losing only half a red heart and spawning a coin. By repeating the process long enough you can get infinite coins, Swallowed Penny being able to spawn 5c and 10c coins and being guaranteed 1c per half red heart.
- Method #5: Tainted Cain's Bag of Crafting allows him to get unlimited amount of items. It's best to restart game until you get all requirements to craft Steam Sale at least four times (since all next additional copies have diminishing returns (7 copies -> items=2c, 14 copies+ -> items=1c) and buy items in shops.
- Method #1: Requires a
- The D20 can be used in tandem with Lil' Batteries to re-roll all Pennies dropped during combat, some of which will become Grab Bags or chests. The process can then be repeated indefinitely.
- As the D20 re-rolls all opened chests into pickups, chests should not be opened unless the D20 is fully charged.
- Opened chests now no longer reroll into more pickups.
- Using the D20 in conjunction with the Book of Virtues will destroy all pickups in the room; as such, the D20 should not be picked up while playing as Bethany.
- As the D20 re-rolls all opened chests into pickups, chests should not be opened unless the D20 is fully charged.
- In Greedier mode, upon defeating Ultra Greedier, all poops, whether destroyed, damaged or intact, will be converted into golden poops.
- As a result, A Card Against Humanity can be used to guarantee a large source of coins for the Greed Donation Machine.
- As a result,
- Common display resolutions, such as 1920x1080 with aspect ratio 16:9, will show only part of the arena in fullscreen mode. Switching to windowed mode and then resizing the window makes it possible to keep an eye on the entire arena while playing.
Helpful Items
- As mentioned above, all items that grant a temporary buff or benefit that expire once Isaac leaves the room are extremely powerful in Greed mode, as these effects can last an entire floor's worth of waves, and some can be stacked.
Betrayal: Charms every enemy when hit, allowing an entire wave to be cleared at the cost of one hit.
Book of the Dead: Spawns bone orbitals or charmed Bonies when there are killed enemies in a room. Making this item especially useful after the first 8 rounds and before the boss rounds.
Dark Arts: With the sheer amount of enemies appearing, especially in Greedier, this can allow Isaac to gain an immense damage buff and to kill huge swaths of enemies with ease. Additionally, this is even more potent against Ultra Greed, as you can run through the many Greed Gapers summoned to gain even greater damage buff, as the gapers will be clustered very closely together.
Jaw Bone: Familiar that will retrieve pickups for Isaac.
Red Candle: Filling the room with flames before pushing the button will quickly kill all enemies and bosses. This method is no longer effective since Repentance because the flames now extinguish after a set time.
Wooden Nickel: Allows Isaac to easily gain a lot more money very quickly, as it can be used once per wave.
Gallery
Concept for Greed mode room layouts and mechanics by Edmund McMillen.
Edmund McMillen's sketch of the Greed mode layout.
Sketch of the Greed mode store layout.
Trivia
- Ultra Greed’s theme, named “Chorus Mortus”, is a remix of the main menu theme.
- During Greedier mode, beating Ultra Greedier with poop in the room turns it into golden poop.
Bugs
 Bug!
|
If the Super Secret Room is generated behind the locked (golden) Treasure Room, it is possible to get stuck by teleporting into before unlocking the Treasure Room. The Treasure Room doors all become unlocked when one of them is, unlike the normal game mode where a Treasure Room may have only one locked door, which results in the bombable wall between the Super Secret Room and the Treasure Room also being "locked". It cannot be bombed or opened with a key from inside the Super Secret Room, and unless another means of teleporting is available, the run is softlocked. |
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| Bug!
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Red key and cracked key will show that a red room can be generated but will not open one when used. |
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 The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
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