Tainted Magdalene
Tainted Magdalene is a character added in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. She is the alternate version of Magdalene. Tainted Magdalene is unlocked by reaching Home and using either the Red Key or the Cracked Key to access a special room in one of the walls while playing as Magdalene.
Tainted Magdalene starts with 2 heart containers, 2 empty heart containers, and 
Yum Heart. Tainted Magdalene's Yum Heart is stored in the pill/card slot, meaning it is used with the pill/card key. It is not dropped when picking up other active items, and cannot be discarded through any means. Tainted Magdalene is still able to hold one pill/card, in addition to the item.
When Tainted Magdalene's health is above 2 red hearts, she will leave red creep on the floor and will lose health at the rate of half a heart per 10 seconds. This health loss affects all types of hearts, but prioritizes red heart health, and the affected hearts on the health bar are faded and slowly pulsating. Bone hearts are drained, but empty bone hearts will not break. She also receives double healing from all sources except heart pickups, and all enemies have a chance of dropping a half red heart upon death which will flicker and disappear in 2 seconds. Additionally, all the leaking hearts, including red ones, will protect against loss of Devil deal chances: only non-leaky red heart damage will impose a penalty.
Tainted Magdalene has a unique melee "hug" attack which is automatically performed on enemies who make contact with her, performing a swing similar to The Forgotten which can synergize with any held items. The melee hits deal 6x damage. Enemies killed by the melee attack will always drop a half red heart.
Contents
Strategy[edit | edit source]
Tainted Magdalene draws her power from having very expendable health early game. Her ability to regenerate hearts from slain foes allows for simply charging into groups of enemies and killing them all with her unique hug attack, whilst being able to sustain her health from the dropped hearts. This comes at the cost of her base statistics, which are significantly lower than other characters. Items that increase her stats (specifically damage) should be a priority early on, so that you can use her effectively later in the run.
It should be noted that soul hearts and black hearts will drain just like red hearts do, so they are much less useful on Tainted Magdalene. Her leaky red hearts protect against the loss of a Devil deal too, meaning soul hearts and black hearts serve even less of a use.
Whilst she excels against groups of weak enemies, Tainted Magdalene suffers against bosses that don't summon many enemies, such as Delirium. Unless she can find a way to sustain her health pool for the fight (with items such as 
4.5 Volt combined with her Yum Heart) she will slowly lose health until she is down to her permanent 2 red hearts, which can be risky to fight bosses with. Items that provide health such as 
XIX - The Sun are extremely useful for these fights.
Good items[edit | edit source]
- Items that grant invulnerability or shield: Melee attack can be used without taking contact damage.
Adrenaline: Gives more damage the more empty heart containers Tainted Magdalene has. Due to them draining naturally, this is an excellent item for bosses.
Athame: Taking damage triggers a ring around you that deals rapid tear damage to everything it touches. Good for bosses.
Bloody Lust / 
Bloody Gust: Taking damage will increase stats, allowing a massive stats upgrade for the floor.
Birthright: Provides another non-leaky red heart, for a total of three.
Candy Heart: Gives small stat boosts whenever you pick up red hearts. This is an excellent item to have as you will constantly gain stats whenever you collect hearts.
Charm of the Vampire / 
Leech: Kills heal for double the amount.
Habit: Gives a Yum Heart charge while using the melee attack, letting you sustain more easily.
- With Habit and
The Wafer, Tainted Magdalene is essentially immortal, as it takes two hearts to charge Yum Heart, the same amount it heals for.
- With Habit and
Immaculate Conception: Gives you angelic familiars after picking up a certain amount of hearts. As Tainted Magdalene can both spawn hearts and drains them naturally it is very easy to quickly gain familiars from this item.
The Jar: Allows you to store disappearing half red hearts. Using the item changes them into normal red hearts that you can use later.
Lost Cork: Significantly increases the size of the creep Magdalene frequently produces.
Maggy's Bow: Dropped half hearts heal for one full heart.
Magneto: Dropped half hearts are drawn to you, making them easier to retrieve.
Meat Cleaver: Multiplying enemies into weaker versions of themselves makes the melee ability more viable and generates more hearts to replenish HP.
Old Bandage: Hearts have a chance to drop every time you take contact damage from doing the melee attack, and they won't disappear shortly after spawning.
Pyromaniac: Explosions heal for one full red heart.
Serpent's Kiss: Coming in contact with enemies will poison them. Poisoned enemies have a chance to drop black hearts.
Sharp Plug: Essentially makes you invincible by letting you permanently be in invincibility frames from the damage while healing yourself with the Yum Heart.
- Sharp Plug +
Car Battery: Allows for infinite red health regeneration.
- Sharp Plug +
Bad Items[edit | edit source]
Abaddon will drain all red heart containers, whilst providing black hearts. The black hearts will slowly deplete over time and are hard to replenish.
Dark Bum can pay out more often, but the black hearts he drops are much less useful. He will also take red hearts that may be needed for healing.
Dead Cat is not recommended, as you will lose nearly all your red hearts. Replacing them with soul hearts to compensate is also more difficult and harder to sustain.
Crown of Light is very rarely active, as your health never stays full for long.- Mine Crafter Will instantly be exploded by Magdalene's swing, doing an explosions worth of damage.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- The Ace cards will transform the half red hearts, which would normally flicker and disappear, into normal consumables. Using them after killing a lot of enemies with the melee ability can be a good way to get a large amount of consumables. Consumables rerolled into by
D20 will still flicker and disappear. - Eternal hearts, Rotten Hearts, and Bone Hearts cannot be depleted.
- Having three or more Rotten Hearts in the first most set of heart containers will cause you to maintain the "drain effect"; allowing the player to have persistent creep.
Unlockable Items[edit | edit source]
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- The achievement for unlocking Tainted Magdalene is "The Dauntless", a possible title for the character.
Birthright effect[edit | edit source]
Gives Magdalene one more permanent red heart container.
Bugs[edit | edit source]
 Bug!
|
PC Battery pickups will charge both the currently held active spacebar item and Yum Heart. Charged keys however will charge the currently held active item, but not Yum Heart. |
|---|
| Bug!
|
PC Rotten hearts will not deplete when playing as Tainted Magdalene. |
|---|
| Characters | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth
| |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Achievements
|
 Attributes
|
 Bosses
|
 Cards and Runes
|
 Challenges
|
 Chapters
|
 Characters
|
 Co-op
|
 Items
|
 Item pools
|
 Monsters
|
 Objects
|
 Pickups
|
 Pills
|
 Rooms
|
 Seeds
|
 Transformations
|
 Trinkets
|
