Slay the Spire

[Wraith]

Slay the Spire.

Rogue-lite, turn-based, deck-building, dungeon-crawling, Early-Access, hyphen-fetishist and recent darling of streamers and youtubers across the face of all Steam, proving itself ruthlessly difficult and ripe with meme potential.

I like it a lot. Quite a bit more than I thought I would, to be honest; I expected to run a few hands of each class, get to the last boss and forget about it until it updated, but I keep getting that "just one more game" feeling and going back to it. Success is always tantalising within reach with a large variety of strategies, and failure usually comes with your card and relic choices long before you ever reach the point of trying to play them.

We've been promised a third class in the near future, probably just prior to - or possibly on - release in the Summer of 2018. In the meantime, interest has been renewed with the new daily challenge mode, wherein your poor character is continually handicapped with just the slight inkling of a puzzle to work out to achieve victory.

Tell me. Tell me how to get past the third Act with the Silent, damn you!

[The Hellbug]

Tell me. Tell me how to get past the third Act with the Silent, damn you!

Don't roll the Eater of Time!

More seriously, I've been really enjoying this game although, perhaps contrary to what you've been seeing based on that last comment, I've had more success at actually winning with the Silent. I think it's because her enablers are at common while her win-conditions are at rare, while the Ironclad is vice-versa. Just an hypothesis, though.

[Wraith]

I *think* I know how to win with the Silent, or at least, I've asked a few people who all agree.
She seems to have several different ways to build a winning deck, but you have to get lucky with your relics and get a decent number of key combo cards. A Poison build is going to be almost hopeless if you don't grab the Snecko Skull for example, or a Shiv-heavy deck without the Shuriken/Charon's Ashes.
Or so I'm told; just when I'm on a roll I seem destined to run into the three Bird Cultists who quickly out-DPS me, or the trio of Slavers and I fail to draw any Block while ensnared. Jerks.

The Ironclad on the other hand is quite straight forward; so long as you grab enough things that add to your Strength and hold onto some good Block generating cards to keep your HP high while you're buffing, all of your attacks will do silly amounts of damage and you can outlast most things. One of the best decks I had was Demon Form+, a couple of Inflames and Shrug It Offs and one heavy-hitting card like Heavy Blade or Rampage turning up on time.

[The Hellbug]

The most consistently good Silent deck I've seen is just one that any form of discard synergy. The actual win condition doesn't matter much as long as it's there since Acrobatics and Prepared can run through your deck insanely quickly. Shiv decks also benefit greatly from exhaust synergy since every one of those shivs is getting exhausted (IIRC, that relic that gives you block for exhausts was absolutely brutal in that context). Actually, one more thing comes to mind with the Silent: due to the amount she can run through her deck, reducing your deck size is not nearly as helpful as it is for the Ironclad. By all means, take the trash out, but you don't need to get too crazy with it.

Edit: It was the Bandages giving block for discards, my bad.

[Chen]

Easiest and strongest Silent deck is Poison with high defense. Cards to prioritize:
Attack: Noxious Vapours is all you need for damage. Upgrade it and it will kill everything eventually. A bouncing flask, deadly poison or poisoned blade can help too. Add one or two catalysts to end things quicker.

Defense: Footwork. This is the best card in the game. One or two of these and you're set. Then collect some of the standard cards like Blur, Backflip, Dodge and Roll and Cloak and Dagger. Escape plan is always a good choice if there's nothing else good, since it's "free" in the vast majority of cases.

Remove Strikes at Shops and any other removal events you get. Upgrade Neutralize as early as possible to help the early game. Sucker punch is good early since its extra damage and weakness. Dash as well, though you don't want many of these.

[The Hellbug]

Unfortunately, that deck is still one bad draw away from getting killed by The Champ, as I've seen on a couple occasions. That said, I don't know if there's a solid deck build that still isn't one bad draw away form death on at least one boss.

[Chen]

Unfortunately, that deck is still one bad draw away from getting killed by The Champ, as I've seen on a couple occasions. That said, I don't know if there's a solid deck build that still isn't one bad draw away form death on at least one boss.

Heavy defense builds tend to be the easiest to beat the Champ with. You do need to time the poison well on him though. You want a BIG push over the 50% threshold and then another big push before he cleanses, hopefully leaving him pretty vulnerable to die over the next couple of turns. If you push him over with a lackluster poison stack you're probably going to die.

[The Hellbug]

Agreed. Let's put it this way, though--I've never rolled the Champ with one of my poison decks that actually contained a Catalyze. It really comes into its own for those big pushes.

[Rodin]

Don't roll the Eater of Time!

More seriously, I've been really enjoying this game although, perhaps contrary to what you've been seeing based on that last comment, I've had more success at actually winning with the Silent. I think it's because her enablers are at common while her win-conditions are at rare, while the Ironclad is vice-versa. Just an hypothesis, though.

Even with a Shiv deck the Eater of Time isn't that big a deal. It's all about timing the forced end-of-turn to be when you don't lose too much tempo from it, and with a bunch of 0-mana cards it's fairly easy to set up. I find him to be consistently easier than the Awakened One.

I've tried building a pure discard deck with the Silent a few times, and my build always seems to fall apart in Act 2. Can't get enough synergy going. I guess maybe it requires a decent relic early?

I also keep trying to build an Exhaust deck with the Ironclad, and it just never works. The Exhaust synergy cards don't seem powerful enough to stand on their own.

[Mikemical]

I've beaten the game 5 times with the Armorclad, but my Silent runs always end up with one bad relic synergy or one bad card draw and the whole thing just falls apart. I got to Donu and Deca once, and they buffed each other so much that they were hitting for 76 each turn.

The meme-est deck I've won with was with what I called "It hungers". Demon Form on turn one thanks to Bottled Tornado, Deck is full of Feeds+, Bites+ from the vampire event(gave up Elder's Blood so no max HP loss) and one Reaper+. Combined with the ointement that gives you +2 max HP when you skip a card reward and the one that boosts your heals up to 50%, I was almost never below full health.

[Saph]

Tell me. Tell me how to get past the third Act with the Silent, damn you!

Silent plays differently from the Ironclad - for the Ironclad it's fine to take damage since you're getting +6 HP every fight, whereas with the Silent you really need to be stingy with every single life point.

Some of the Silent decks I've won with:

• Slow Poison: Use Noxious Fumes/Bouncing Flask to poison enemies, then just sit back and defend until they die. Pretty slow, so you'll eventually want an upgraded Catalyst or you'll lose to enemies like Stone Head. Snecko Skull helps a ton.

• Multi-Shiv: Infinite Blades/Cloak and Dagger to hit enemies a million times. Faster than the poison decks but doesn't scale, so you need to either use Envenom or get lucky with relics. Girya, Vajira, and Ornamental Fan help, but the ones you're really looking for are Shuriken and Kunai. Dead Branch is great too.

• All the Powers: Silent has way better Power cards than the Ironclad, so if you get some combination of Bird-faced Urn, Frozen Egg, and (especially) Mummified Hand, you can stack up all the 1-cost powers and just overwhelm enemies that way. Just pray you don't roll the Awakened One for the final boss.

Good luck! I've played the game a ton and I still find it challenging at Ascension 15. The key is adaptability and being careful in your choice of cards.

[Honest Tiefling]

The meme-est deck I've won with was with what I called "It hungers". Demon Form on turn one thanks to Bottled Tornado, Deck is full of Feeds+, Bites+ from the vampire event(gave up Elder's Blood so no max HP loss) and one Reaper+.

I think the thing I love most about this game is that running around as a demonic shapeshifting vampire is a pretty common occurrence. Maybe we're the baddies?

[Knaight]

Unfortunately, that deck is still one bad draw away from getting killed by The Champ, as I've seen on a couple occasions. That said, I don't know if there's a solid deck build that still isn't one bad draw away form death on at least one boss.

Unless The Champ gets a lot of time to build or you've been burning through max HP you can tank any one hit from high HP.

Also infinite combo decks can generally take any boss, as can sufficiently nasty tiny decks. For instance: Whirlwind+, Flex+, Flex+, Flex+, Limit Break+. You don't need any particular relic for this to work, although energy boosting relics help. Turn 1, drop three flexes to push to 12 strength, Limit break pushes to 24, Whirlwind+ does 32 damage per energy to all enemies, you potentially get hit in the face a little. Turn 2, repeat this, flexes push you to 24 strength, Limit break pushes to 48, you drop 56 damage per energy to every enemy (and the minions are dead by now anyways).

That's a very simple example too - no card draw, no energy gain, no madness, and obviously no relics. The Silent is generally better at infinite chain small decks, given just how many ways to draw cards and gain energy they have.

[Neon Knight]

Unless The Champ gets a lot of time to build or you've been burning through max HP you can tank any one hit from high HP.

Also infinite combo decks can generally take any boss, as can sufficiently nasty tiny decks. For instance: Whirlwind+, Flex+, Flex+, Flex+, Limit Break+. You don't need any particular relic for this to work, although energy boosting relics help. Turn 1, drop three flexes to push to 12 strength, Limit break pushes to 24, Whirlwind+ does 32 damage per energy to all enemies, you potentially get hit in the face a little. Turn 2, repeat this, flexes push you to 24 strength, Limit break pushes to 48, you drop 56 damage per energy to every enemy (and the minions are dead by now anyways).

That's a very simple example too - no card draw, no energy gain, no madness, and obviously no relics. The Silent is generally better at infinite chain small decks, given just how many ways to draw cards and gain energy they have.

Isn't Flex's strength gain temporary, so you'd just be doing the 32 damage per energy per turn?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Isn't Flex's strength gain temporary, so you'd just be doing the 32 damage per energy per turn?

Flex is temporary, but the gain from Limit break is not. It "doubles your strength" by giving you the same amount of strength you already have. But while Flex'es strength goes away at turn end, limit break's does not.

GW

[Knaight]

Flex is temporary, but the gain from Limit break is not. It "doubles your strength" by giving you the same amount of strength you already have. But while Flex'es strength goes away at turn end, limit break's does not.

GW

Exactly. Similarly Flex operates by giving you the strength and then giving you a debuff of strength removal. Artifact potions and Panacea can block this debuff.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah i though it was hilarious when i discovered that little nugget. Been playing a lot recently, thing i have managed a win with all the main types of hero decks i can imagine. Except a Ironclad exhaust deck.
Most hilarious got to be the last challenge run though. Got 2 Limit breaks in a 15 card deck. Imagine how swiftly my strenght exploded.

Did manage a silent Discard deck though. got lucky with both discard relics. The one that deals 3 damage on card discard. And the one that gives 3 block.

[Neon Knight]

Exactly. Similarly Flex operates by giving you the strength and then giving you a debuff of strength removal. Artifact potions and Panacea can block this debuff.

Ah, okay, I didn't know it worked that way. Quite interesting.

[Sholos]

Unless The Champ gets a lot of time to build or you've been burning through max HP you can tank any one hit from high HP.

Also infinite combo decks can generally take any boss, as can sufficiently nasty tiny decks. For instance: Whirlwind+, Flex+, Flex+, Flex+, Limit Break+. You don't need any particular relic for this to work, although energy boosting relics help. Turn 1, drop three flexes to push to 12 strength, Limit break pushes to 24, Whirlwind+ does 32 damage per energy to all enemies, you potentially get hit in the face a little. Turn 2, repeat this, flexes push you to 24 strength, Limit break pushes to 48, you drop 56 damage per energy to every enemy (and the minions are dead by now anyways).

That's a very simple example too - no card draw, no energy gain, no madness, and obviously no relics. The Silent is generally better at infinite chain small decks, given just how many ways to draw cards and gain energy they have.

Of course, you have to be incredibly lucky enough to remove all of your starting cards from the deck and not run into anything that outright screws you beforehand. I think that's my main problem with Slay the Spire. Sure, it's easy when the stars align and you get the right cards and anyone with even an ounce of intelligence can think of card combos that work well; but getting those combos assembled is down to pure RNG with very little player control.

[Eurus]

Silent gave me fits until I re-evaluated how I was looking at the class. The trick is that Silent is a much more defensively-oriented class than it looks like at first, I think. They have a lot of really powerful passive damage sources - Noxious Vapors is one of my contenders for best-card-in-the-game, and Caltrops is pretty spectacular as well. Additionally, the lack of free health regen like the Ironclad gets means that every point of HP counts.

The combination of these factors means that, in my admittedly low-ascension experience, the Silent seems to do best when it turtles up while bleeding opponents dry. Machine-gunning free attacks can also be very effective, but runs into a serious wall at the Time Eater. The Silent is also good at turtling, although it's a little card-dependent. Fortunately, Survivor and Neutralize are both excellent starting cards, and Blur is an absolute gamechanger if you can get a few of them or get a Nightmare off on it. Putting up a Blur-wall while your vapors kill everything is very solid.

[lord_khaine]

Of course, you have to be incredibly lucky enough to remove all of your starting cards from the deck and not run into anything that outright screws you beforehand. I think that's my main problem with Slay the Spire. Sure, it's easy when the stars align and you get the right cards and anyone with even an ounce of intelligence can think of card combos that work well; but getting those combos assembled is down to pure RNG with very little player control.

Thankfully reaching the heart of the spire is not dependent on assembling comboes but on building decks.
If you want to reach some of the top score goals, like defeating a boss without taking damage or in turn 1, then you do need a really nasty combo.
But if your just trying to complete a run then its just a question of assembling a good deck. I will say the whole point of slay the spire is to make the best of what your given.

[Rodin]

Today's Daily is pretty damn funny - massive deck that gets benefits for stuffing even more cards in the form of curses.

For the first time ever, I picked Snecko Eye as one of my boss rewards. The random deck already had a ton of 2-cost cards, so why not? 0 cost Bludgeon is hilariously strong.

[lord_khaine]

It was hilarious. I managed to get a dead branch and build an exhaust deck. Ended with a score of 1095.

[Wraith]

I did it the boring way - just grabbed a bunch of Inflames, Flex and a few Block-generating cards for balance and just hit everything until it stopped moving. The best relics I picked up were probably the Sozu and Ginger, just to make fights ends that little bit sooner; I barely missed the Burning Blood at all, until the Act 3 boss.

I think the thing I love most about this game is that running around as a demonic shapeshifting vampire is a pretty common occurrence. Maybe we're the baddies?

I mean, there's nothing anywhere that says our character is righteous. The spire is full of JAX addicts but that doesn't make them necessarily evil, and the Vampires that we meet are at least polite enough to ask before they bite.

Yet here we go - kicking in the door, stabbing up the first guy we see and stealing his stuff? We should hardly be surprised that everyone else hears the commotion and prepares to defend themselves!

[Knaight]

Of course, you have to be incredibly lucky enough to remove all of your starting cards from the deck and not run into anything that outright screws you beforehand. I think that's my main problem with Slay the Spire. Sure, it's easy when the stars align and you get the right cards and anyone with even an ounce of intelligence can think of card combos that work well; but getting those combos assembled is down to pure RNG with very little player control.

Sure, getting a prefect combo is rare, and some runs you just get screwed. Player control can alter the probabilities though, and the player skill really comes through when you're balancing a more complex deck with multiple combinations. There's a lot of little decisions to make, and once you get good at them you can win most of the time - until you start piling on ascension.

[lord_khaine]

Managed my so far strongest Silent deck this daily climb. Turns out the dead branch comboes awesomely with a dagger build. Each time they exhaust you get a random new card. Meaning you can turn your entire hand into daggers, use them, and then be lucky and get another one of those cards. Or an adrenaline to get some more energy.
It killed 2 bosses without taking damage. And would have done the same for the last if not for a bad draw one turn.

[Wraith]

Same here, lord_khaine. By the time I had maxxed out the Girya and picked up a dozen or so Curses, I was rocking something crazy like 24 damage per shiv; by the time that Adrenaline, Acrobatics and Storm of Steel had done their work, having Envenom'd them all actually felt underwhelming.

Not to mention that one time I played Storm of Steel into ~6 shivs, played them all out with the Twig and then combo'd into another Storm of Steel. That was against the Big Head, I think, so unfortunately it didn't live long enough to see if I could have done it a third time.

[lord_khaine]

Yeah, i actually said no to the envenom card. I decided it would only slow the combo down, and that poison would not offer enough compared to just murdering things faster.
I had yet another good run today. This with with a rather nice strenght build, though i made some mistakes in allowing my deck to grow to big. But having 3 limit breaks were kinda awesome along with the base strenght. I almost murdered the last boss without taking damage. And did get the achivement for finishing it with feast.

[Knaight]

Some of the dailies are hilarious - I ran a hoarder deck for yesterday's, and ended up with something like a 90 card deck, which included six Mindblast+ cards. Innate, 0 cost, damage equal to the deck size remaining. It chewed through everything.

[lord_khaine]

Thats still today for some of us

But yeah i got the mindblast at the end as well. The daily mods really do add massively to the replay value.
Cant wait until they get the last class out.