FragPunk guide: The best Shard Cards to pick during matches

3.13.2025
By Jason Rodriguez, Contributor
There are a lot of hero shooters out in the market today, but few can compare to FragPunk, developed by Bad Guitar Studio and NetEase Games. While most other titles in the genre rely solely on heroes with unique abilities, FragPunk goes a step further with its Shard Card system, which grants amazing perks to players if they’re lucky enough.

Our FragPunk best Shard Cards guide discusses our top picks to help you win matches. Since there are 169 unlockable cards in Shard Clash Standard and fewer in other modes, we’ve opted to list those that can truly change the complexion of a match. If you’re interested, we also have a best Lancers guide that details hero abilities and roles.
 

FragPunk Shard Cards: Points, card selection, and relics


The FragPunk Shard Card system is fairly complex. Out of all the available Shard Cards in the selection pool, only three are randomly drawn at the start of a match and in between rounds. As such, you’re not always guaranteed to get the ideal cards that you need, or even those that create beneficial combo effects.
Fragpunk Guide The Best Shard Cards To Pick During Matches Select
Moreover, your team has to collectively spend points to determine which cards become active. Points are also used by players individually to purchase primary weapons before a round begins. Because of this, you really need to be mindful of which cards you should activate, or you might lack the necessary resources for weapons themselves. Players can click on the heart or thumbs down icons to express whether they like a card or not.

In addition, you may select a particular relic from on the left-hand side of the team selection screen, which bestows beneficial effects:
  • Scales of Unity: Gain extra Shard Points when you plant/defuse the converter and when you participate in kill assists.
  • Oasis Guardian: Restore HP slowly once your team has played all three Shard Cards in a round.
  • Pendant of Status: Lock one inactive card. In the next rounds, you can swap a card for the locked one.
  • Astral Blessing: Redraw a Shard Card with a lower cost for free every round.
 

Top-tier Shard Cards


Below are some of FragPunk’s best cards. Once you see them drawn and you have enough points, be sure to grab them so they can be activated for that round:
  • Big Heads: Makes enemy heads bigger.
  • Clone Tech: Allows teammates to choose the same Lancer.
  • Bio-Warrior: If your character perishes, you respawn as a zombie that can attack enemies in melee.
  • Life Saver: Teammates that die can be revived once.
  • Death’s Embrace: When an enemy takes damage for the first time, a grim reaper will spawn after three seconds. The grim reaper then deals 75 damage to any hostile within its zone.
  • Reaper’s Scythe: Create a Reaper’s Scythe at your spawn point. The weapon allows you to fire projectiles that penetrate walls and teleport to an altar beacon.
  • Invest in the Future: Double Shard Point gains for the entire round.
  • Let Them Hear You: Increases your movement speed when you’re actively using voice chat.
 Fragpunk Guide The Best Shard Cards To Pick During Matches Big Head

 

Best Shard Card combinations for damage mitigation


Some of the best Shard Cards in FragPunk greatly diminish the amount of damage that you take, shielding you from bullets that are fired from multiple directions. However, it’s not enough to have just one of these active in a single round; it’s actually better if you can activate two or more, either by using the Pendant of Status relic or through sheer luck of the draw:
  • Blade Master: Grants “Blaze” effect; block bullets and melee attacks from the front.
  • Turtle Back: Equip a turtle backpack to block bullets from behind.
  • Dullahans: Allied teammates’ heads become invulnerable flames.
  • Iron Head: Become immune to extra headshot damage.
  • Prosthetic Enhancements: Limbs become bulletproof.
 

Best Shard Card combination for airborne offense


If you’re playing as Hollowpoint or using a sniper rifle, then you might want to shoot foes while hovering in mid-air. These cards allow you to do just that:
  • Super Jump: Allows you to jump higher.
  • Birdman: Fall slower when in mid-air.
  • Airborne Justice: Increased fire rate and reload speed while in mid-air.
 Fragpunk Guide The Best Shard Cards To Pick During Matches Shimmer

 

Best Shard Cards for health restoration and survivability


Since FragPunk has fast time-to-kill (TTK), it’s quite important to keep everyone’s health in good condition using these perks:
  • Weapon or Life: Sacrifice your primary weapon to negate fatal damage once.
  • Squat Defense: Crouching grants +10% recoil reduction and +20% damage reduction.
  • Dr. Converter: Heal nearby teammates while you’re carrying the Converter.
  • Cure Shot: Shooting teammates restores their HP.
  • Holistic Deadicine: Restore a percentage of your HP when you defeat an opponent; the amount healed is based on the number of points allocated.
  • Squat Master: Increases your maximum HP whenever you crouch.
  • Vampire Night: Increases maximum HP and grants lifesteal; once your team deals 200 total damage, gain slow HP regeneration.
  • Vampire Bullet: Bullets have a lifesteal/restorative effect.
  • Skill Vampire: Grants +100% lifesteal effect.
 

Best Shard Cards for team buffs and skills


Some of the best cards in FragPunk offer amazing boosts to your team’s damage output:
  • Headshot Master: Deal bonus headshot damage based on the number of points allocated.
  • Killstreak Bonus: Gain a +10% stacking damage bonus for each kill.
  • Close Havoc or Time to Snipe: Gain bonus damage for close-range or long-range shots, respectively, based on the number of points allocated.
  • Inherit the Wind: Skills gain +1 extra charge.
  • Skill Replenish: Replenishes cooldowns of skills over time.
  • Swift Support: Teleport to a teammate’s side.
Fragpunk Guide The Best Shard Cards To Pick During Matches Converter
 

Best Shard Cards for enemy team detection


Certain cards let you detect/expose the opposing team easily, allowing you to plan ahead when engaging them:
  • Headache Vision: Getting a headshot exposes all enemies.
  • Scan Reduction: Enemy scans have -50% effective range.
  • Alert: You can sense nearby enemies if you haven’t taken damage in a while.
  • Informant: Killing a foe pings all remaining enemies.
 

Best Shard Cards for projectile and trap effects


A select few cards further enhance the projectiles from your firearms and the traps that you place all over the map:
  • Homing Projectiles: Projectiles track targets.
  • Explosive Shot: Bullets explode on impact.
  • Chain Reaction: Bullets generate chain lightning.
  • Full Firepower: Load all your ammo into one magazine.
  • Black Hole Traps: Traps generate black holes when triggered.
  • Toxic Traps: All teammates can place a single toxic trap that poisons foes.
 

Best Shard Cards for minion and turret usage


If the team has a Nitro or Chum, then you might want to use these quirks to complement the minions and drones that they spawn with their skills:
  • Leader of the Dead: Deplete some of your HP to spawn a bio-warrior zombie.
  • Infernal Hounds: Fiery hounds follow you and attack enemies.
  • Roger, Roger: Deploy two combat bots for your team.
  • Weapon Morph: Dropped weapons turn into turrets.
 

Best Shard Cards related to the Converter bomb


Last but not least, Shard Clash is all about planting or defusing the Converter bomb. As such, it’s important to have cards that alter or completely negate this mechanic, depending on your team’s strategy:
  • Freestyle Placement: The attacking team can plant the Converter anywhere, but the timer is extended by 40 seconds.
  • Site Deletion: Remove one Converter planting site.
  • Psychic Defusing: Automatically defuses the Converter as long as defenders are nearby.
  • Site Ban-type cards: Block site A or B with barricades.
That does it for our FragPunk best Shard Cards guide. These are just some suggestions to help you win matches. Don’t forget that randomness still plays a huge factor, so there are times when you might not draw the cards that you really need. Conversely, there may be instances when your team ends up getting lucky and you obtain an amazing combo that makes your team nigh unstoppable.

Those who want to make use of hundreds of cards and their unique perks should try FragPunk, which is free to play on Epic Games Store. We also encourage you to read our best Lancers guide to find out which heroes are ideal for your preferred playstyle.