Slay the Spire

It took me a lot longer to get a win with Silent than with Ironclad. I’m still two ascendancies behind with Silent. You’ll get it. just keep trying.

Sounds like you’re doing fine to me, man. You just gotta learn about the cards, relics, enemies etc. and find your groove.

Some basic but maybe unobvious notes:

In other games of this type you may be used to prioritizing deck-thinning and card draw. Those aren’t nearly as powerful here; it’s rare to get enough opportunities to remove a card from your deck to make a noticeable difference, and card draw that costs more than 0 can be very inconvenient to use, e.g. the Ironclad card that is 1: exhaust 1, draw 2 is hard to find a good time to play unless you’ve gotten more AP (action points).

You should get more AP. Most of the boss relics that give you an additional AP are worth taking, though in my experience the one that stops you from getting gold and the one that doesn’t let you see what your opponents are playing are hard to use.

Unfocused Ironclad decks probably still work. Get some Strength boosters and hit some stuff. Silent decks are much more vulnerable to being unoptimized; I’ve found either concentrating on Shivs or on Poison to work well but mixing those is no bueno.

Be conservative with losing health. There aren’t that many opportunities to heal and each one has the opportunity cost of missing out on a card upgrade, and the less health you lose the more elites you can go after.

if you can make it past boss 2, you’re doing fine. Silent is especially unforgiving.

I think card draw is really strong in this game. If you don’t have consistent card draw, you are going to be ladden down especially in the later game with a lot more dazed and curses. also, many turns will necessitate a certain type of play, whether it be defensive or offensive or prep for a future turn. Card draw lets you have more flexability in your turns.

On that note, the Ironclad’s bullet time is an incredibly strong card. Get your dozens of cards out using drawing skills, fire up the bullet time and let the carnage begin. It solves both the expansive cards and the AP crisis of that fighter’s at once, and is much less dependant on relics than a lot of other strategies.

It took me around 20 tries, but I finally won with The Silent. I love Catalyst.

Congrats! Yup, Catalyst Gets it Done!

My first win was brought to you last night by Necronomicon, Whirlwind, and Demon Form. Yowza.

E: oh, and 5 starting power thanks to the “you can’t play more than 6 cards” and “get cursed by every chest” relics. Both downsides were minimal.

Just had an awesome run with the ironclad. Things just fell into place. I was able to generate a lot of block and got barricade. I had several costly cards like demonic form (I think that is what it’s called) and bludgeon and then I got enlightenment. I beat the third boss and now get to play ascension mode.

The third character, the Defect, has been added to the beta branch for testing. Revolves around the concept of orbs which can be held for a passive bonus or consumed for a larger, active effect.

Is there a way to view later areas with the map? The two times I’ve really got a shiv deck going with the Silent ended up facing the Time Eater and going poorly; if I knew earlier on that boss was coming it would change deck design. I like the gameplay of the Silent better but it feels like there are a lot more hard counters where the Ironclad can roll with the punches better.

Nope, you only get to see one area at a time. And yeah, the Ironclad is just more resilient to change I think.

I love the Defect so far, by the way, even if some of his powers seem brokenish.

Oh, shit!

Beta branch need any kind of key to get into, or is it publicly available through the Steam client?

Nope, go into preferences and make the switch.

Awesome, thanks! Looking forward to trying this out. I’ve been slaying the hell out of this spire for the last week or so and pretty much loving it. Daily Climbs are such a fantastic idea.

How to get the Defect unlocked: go into the beta branch game, start an ironclad run. Select abandon run. This will unlock Silent- do the same with her and that will unlock The Defect

Just had a bunch of fun losing a run with the Defect. This is always a sign they’re doing something right, I think.

The defect is really hard. hard to get block, hard to survive, the orbs are kinda weak at times.

Agree. Defect is fun but much, much harder than the other two. Even when you can get a bit of a combo going, it’s about as strong as a bad ironclad or silent deck.

I’ve done a handful of runs with Defect and I don’t think I’ve gotten to the second boss yet. And I’m on Ascension 11 and 9 with the others. It’s hard.

There’s a power that says “when you take damage, Channel a Lightning”, which seems really good except for the part where you have to take a lot of damage. The other deck design I’ve had which worked (until it didn’t) was having a handful of 0-cost cards and the attack that puts them back in your hand, along with the attack that costs 2 but gets cheaper as you use it + Rebound (the attack that puts your next card played on top of your deck).