Slay the Spire

I’m not a fan of the new character, but maybe it’s because I’m still kind of clueless about her. I got through the unlocks and up to A4 or something and then just kind of tapped out. I feel like if I played her more I’d probably find the comfort level of stance manipulation, but I’ll admit I’ve killed myself more than once forgetting that you take double damage in Wrath stance and that you need a way out of it before you go into it.

Edited to add: I do remember one card that is objectively good and should basically always be taken, the one that costs 3(2 upgraded), ends your turn and gives you another turn. Even at 3 cost and 3 energy cap, the worst situation it can be used in, it is pretty much just a 3: discard your hand, draw a new hand, gain 3 energy. Once you’ve got it upgraded and your energy cap is 4+ it’s extremely good.

I’m not very good at this game, but if it ever comes out for phone my free time will be the thing that gets slain.

In case anyone is interested, here are a few tips to easily increase your win-rate:

  1. Take the path with the maximum amount of elites possible, try to avoid the super-elite unless he is on the only path you can hit 3 elites on, in which case it’s better to just go for it. Relics are what win you the game, and elites give you relics.

  2. Recognize the major threats before you encounter them. They are (imho, obviously) as follows -

  • Act 1 - Drawing the big red goblin as your first elite can be catastrophic if you haven’t drafted at least one good high damage attack card. Because it happens so fast, I make getting one of these cards my highest priority at game start. Having Ball Lightning on Defect for example will make the difference in if you win this fight easily with light damage or take way too much damage to make a win likely.

  • Act 2 - You are statistically going to run into at least one Venom Plant and one Book of Stabbing here. One way or another your build needs to be able to mitigate 25+ a round regularly or you will be a very sad panda.

  • Act 3 is easy except that two of the three final bosses hard-counter certain playstyles. On a20 you have to fight two of these guys, so you absolutely cannot build a deck that relies on playing 12+ cards a round unless in those 12+ cards you realistically generate about 40+ block reliably. So unless you know exactly what you are doing, just don’t build Shiv decks, for example.

    The bird cult god kills decks that play a bunch of powers if they give him a chance to fight back. But there are a few power builds with mummified hand that can kill him in 1-2 rounds so you won’t have to worry about getting hit. Particularly thinking of Defect Storm builds here, which still work quite well on him provided you get the engine going.

  1. Skipping draws and removing cards are both better options than most people realize. You shouldn’t add a card just because it’s slightly better than strike unless you are worried about that dumb act 1 goblin. That being said…

  2. At shops the first thing you need to check is what relics are available. Try to plan your shopping trips so you land at them with 350+ gold if possible. My personal order of priority is Card Removal for terrible curse, like take 1 damage for every card played > Top Tier Relic (Ice Cream, Mummified Hand, situationally Dead Branch, etc) > a card CRUCIAL to your build, the crucial deserves emphasis > Card removal for lesser curses> Good Relic > card removal > good card or save if there is another shop before endgame.

That’s as close to a wiki as I can get, but if you aren’t doing one of those things, doing them will improve your win rate in my experience.

This is the first post I’ve ever bookmarked.

My goodness. A few of these in a small deck with the “retain hand” pyramid relic was just… incredibly satisfying.

image

Wow, calling bell got nerfed. Now you get 3 relics for the price of one curse!

I’ve tried the new character and now I wonder if there was any tutorial for previous characters. Cause I don’t remember having to learn them. Here I had to learn what those stances are by practice. Not that I expected to do well on my first try but with previous characters you were kinda able to do it. I know I’ve beated the Act 3 boss on my first try with Ironclad.

I think you had tons of luck to beat the Act 3 boss on first try.

Probably. I got Demon Form very early and focused on using it. And in my later games as Silent and Defect I needed a lot of tries to make it. So Ironclad is just very vanilla and predictable. There’s little arcane in most of the game mechanics, it’s all about being able to plan ahead. It’s just Defect and Watcher require some understanding on top of it, e.g. you might not even know all spheres that Defect can use in your first try.

Just beat Act 3 (Awakened One) for the very first time. Did it with Defect and Snecko Eye, which I agree is probably the best relic I’ve seen. Fifteen hours down, ??? to go.

My only disagreement with the strategies above is waiting for 300+ gold before entering a shop.

I usually keep decks lean and if I have enough gold to shed an attack or defense, I’ll hit the shop.

I always pick the path with the most question marks, as those tend to maximize your chances of getting good stuff.

The current daily is a ton of fun. Draft your perfect Defect deck and see how far you can make it down a single, elite filled path. I wrecked face in it today!

Yea I don’t really love what I said there. I think the best way to put it is I wouldn’t lose a campfire to go for a shop unless I had 350+ gold. If there is one on your optimal route with less than that, you don’t need to avoid it if you can afford the card removal.

Tried the new class last night, seems like a easier start than the Silent or Defect to my untrained eyes. I’ve only ever beaten the heart on Ironclad though, so noob opinion.

After being totally confused about the new character, I watched one Northernlion video from back in the beta to better understand how to play. On my second game I made it to the Heart, but the boss just before it did too much damage for me to have a chance.

I had two innate Battle Hymn (power that gives you an attack card at the start of every turn) and two of the cards that give you two miracles when their drawn. On some turns I simply had too much “junk” in my hand. I kind of knew this as I built the deck, but I decided to go for it and hope for some good draws.

Right, and just window shopping is a weak turn.

I tend towards keeping slender decks. I just did the daily run with 16 cards (a relic heavy starting ruleset).

My fun combo was 2 Biased Cognition for +5 focus and a Core Surge to shut off the penalty debuff from those cards.

Also, I just decided to uninstall it. I’m in a good place with the game and I haven’t seen my family all week. It’s a nice stopping point for now.

Deva Form doesn’t suck.

It kind of does though I think. It costs so much that it basically wastes the turn you played it when you could have been killing enemies. And then the next few turns are marginally better. For combats that will go 5+ rounds and you get it on round one, it’s a good play. Outside that, it’s wasted deck space in my opinion.

I should mention that if you have in your deck and a miracle card so you can double-cast it cheaply then it is tons of fun.