Slay the spire

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

At last a Silent victory.


Cards:


Tools of the Trade
Piercing Wail
Piercing Wail+
Backflip+
Backflip
Bane+
2X Dagger Spray
Deadly Poison
Flying Knee
Neutralize
5X Strike
Survivor
Glass Knife+
Leg Sweep
2X Dash+
Calculated Gamble
Backstab+
2X Footwork
2X Blur+
Bouncing Flask+
Sucker Punch+
2X Defend
Deep Breath
Swift Strike +


The deck was defensive, and built around Weak debuffs and Block.  Poison dealt damage and helped play around the thorny enemies in Act 3.  Not many Powers, which was fortunate because the final boss gained Strength for every Power used.


Relics:


Ring of the Snake
Molten Egg
Mercury Hourglass
Matryoshka
Fusion Hammer
Darkstone Periapt
Bottled Lightning
Happy Flower
Toy Ornithopter
Hovering Kite
Paper Krane
Ancient Tea Set
Meal Ticket


Meal Ticket was pointless because there were no more shops on my Act 3 route by the time I got it.  Hovering Kite was funny during the final boss because discarding Void cards with Tools of the Trade nullified the energy loss.  Molten Egg explains why there are so many upgraded cards.


Score:  635


Bosses:  Slime Boss, The Champ, Awakened One


Seed:  3A9V9S1Q6NAU

[Alhambram]

After laying down game for months, I suddenly got time to play due being in quarantined due my collegaue who tested postive.

I decided to pick up it again and advanced at ascension of The Silent till level 11 and swapped to The Defect for now.

Best run from me so far (almost invincible deck, even Time Eater boss at end of act 3 couldn't damage me):
   
5th relic unceasing top add card when I don't have any cards in hand, with a lot energy and zero-cost cards, I basically used most of cards of my deck in 1 turn.
This results in either or both high defense (mainly thanks Genetic Algorithm which was picked up at first battle in act 1 and improved till over 50 block and on top of that I got a copy of it at end of act 3 due event), or one turn killing enemies by unending barrage of attacks.
Only weakness of this deck is that run can be stopped if enemy manages to put some status cards in that can't be played, therefore Corrupt Heart was a problematic battle and I only won because I got Lizard Tail as backup.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Just won my first Daily Challenge!  And I'm not even good at Slay the Spire.  It was an Ironclad variant with starting cards from other characters, more Elite enemies on the map, and the ability to pick up Colorless cards after battle.


Cards


Cleave+
Clothesline+
Iron Wave
2X Flex
Headbutt
Headbutt+
Bash
Cleave
Bloodletting
Double Tap+
Impervious (don't think I ever used it. . .)
Limit Break
Reaper
Armaments
2X Twin Strike
Sword Boomerang
Pommel Strike+
2X Pommel Strike
Perfected Strike
Strike
Defend
Strike
Survivor
Strike
Defend
Violence
2X Master of Strategy
Mind Blast+


I knew it was a bad idea to make a deck this thick, but Mind Blast and Perfected Strike were too tempting.  Can't believe it actually beat Awakened One.


Relics


Burning Blood
Bag of Marbles
Juzu Bracelet
Charon's Ashes
Unceasing Top
Mark of Pain
Mutagenic Strength
Self-Forming Clay
Bag of Preparation
Girya
Du-Vu Doll
Shuriken
Sozu
Pantograph
Stone Calendar
Mango


Now if I can only win with Watcher. . .

[Gold Ergo Sum]

Now if I can only win with Watcher. . .

Watcher is definitely the strongest character.  There are like four bad cards in the entire card pools and most things synergize.  I tend to focus on replacing the starter cards aggressively.  Also, Talk to the Hand is one of the best cards in the game, and since Flurry of Blows is just an amazing common, you should be able to proc it a lot.

I think the biggest change from other characters is that the energy relics are nowhere near as good on Watcher.  I tend to take Pandoras and Astrolabe really aggressively.  Snecko is probably bad too, which is a big change.  Focus on just getting tons of card draw and energy from stance swaps and replacing your poor starters cards with OP Watcher cards, which is basically all of them.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Watcher is definitely the strongest character.  There are like four bad cards in the entire card pools and most things synergize.  I tend to focus on replacing the starter cards aggressively.  Also, Talk to the Hand is one of the best cards in the game, and since Flurry of Blows is just an amazing common, you should be able to proc it a lot.

I think the biggest change from other characters is that the energy relics are nowhere near as good on Watcher.  I tend to take Pandoras and Astrolabe really aggressively.  Snecko is probably bad too, which is a big change.  Focus on just getting tons of card draw and energy from stance swaps and replacing your poor starters cards with OP Watcher cards, which is basically all of them.

Yeah, I've heard that Watcher is far more consistent than the other characters on high Ascension levels.


I've completed today's Daily Challenge.  This was another Ironclad playthrough, but with different stipulations.  Normal enemies dropped relics instead of cards, the starter deck was "pick 10 out of a list of 30", and cards that did come from Elites or bosses only had 2 options instead of 3.  The final boss was Time Eater, and it was a easy 5 turn victory.


Cards

Limit Break+
Shrug It Off
2X Pommel Strike
Cleave
Iron Wave
Heavy Blade+
Flex+
Shrug It Off+
Uppercut+
Infernal Blade
Spot Weakness
Combust+
Combust
3X Twin Strike
Iron Wave +


Relics

Burning Blood
Dead Branch
Eternal Feather
Strike Dummy
Tiny Chest
Pen Nib
Bag of Preparation
Self-Forming Clay
The Boot
Fossilized Helix
Paper Phrog
Sozu
Shuriken
Captain's Wheel
Anchor
Happy Flower
Mercury Hourglass
Smiling Mask
Question Card
Tungsten Rod
Akabeko
Old Coin
Slaver's Collar
Pantograph
Bronze Scales
Ancient Tea Set
Centennial Puzzle
Maw Bank
Darkstone Periapt
Sundial
Preserved Insect (Only got this after final Elite battle, so it was worthless!)
Bottled Tornado

[Gold Ergo Sum]

I had taken roughly a year off from StS, but I've been playing it again lately.  Even though they made some changes that generally made the game easier since then, I was struggling pretty badly with A20.  The runs on A20 are always on such a knife's edge that it took me a while to get back to making the correct choices in so many of the marginal decision spots.  To try and make it easier, I decided to spam one character for a bit, which was Defect.  I have won 6 of my last 9 A20 runs, so I think it's time to switch it up to Ironclad or Silent.  It takes so long to play a Watcher run by comparison that I have to be in the mood for that one.

Despite what I said about Watcher and Snecko, I did remember that I had far and away my highest score run ever for any character on Watcher with Snecko a little while back.  But Snecko and Gambling Chip with 3 Wish and an Omniscience is kind of a Snecko wet dream.  Good lord...and the Omniscience and TTTH were bottled. I'm pretty sure this was also my highest gold run ever, even without taking the 2 Normality, 999 Gold event.  With essentially 4 Wish+, you could get 120 gold every fight plus fight rewards.  

Plus the deck had 3 Talk to the Hands and a Ragnarok.  Sometimes life just be like that.

   

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Is there a Slay the Spire type game without the "deckbuilding"?  What I mean is that you start with a random deck + relics and try to win the game.  There are many card roguelikes on Steam or Switch, so I wonder if anyone's tried that.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Sakuna:  Of Rice and Ruin arrived in the mail today, so it was time for one last playthrough of Slay the Spire after many failures.  Silent won Ascension 1, but didn't get to the Heart because I lacked one key.  I'm still happy.    It was a terrible but fun idea:  a Shiv deck!  Silent would have lost for sure if Time Eater had appeared instead of Awakened One, and even then she only won with 13/70 HP. (Slay the Spire should have told players all the bosses in advance instead of at the beginning of each Act, so issues like this wouldn't occur.)


Cards


Adrenaline+
4X Defend
Neutralize+
3X Strike
4X Blade Dance+
Cloak and Dagger+
Flying Knee
Infinite Blades+
Backstab+
2X Accuracy+
Survivor


Relics


Ring of the Snake
Anchor
Smiling Mask
Wrist Blade
Horn Cleat
Gambling Chip
The Specimen
Busted Crown
Bag of Marbles
Vajra


The Specimen was completely useless since no poison was involved.  Horn Cleat and Anchor were useful for their automatic Block.  Smiling Mask helped to remove unnecessary cards at the shop, and Gambling Chip dealt with whatever that Innate cursed card was called.  Wrist Blade's damage bonus was essential for Shivs.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

 (Slay the Spire should have told players all the bosses in advance instead of at the beginning of each Act, so issues like this wouldn't occur.)

My understanding is they specifically wanted to force you to build balanced decks that can deal with all the bosses, rather than simply going all in on the one deck that is best for your known boss.  But since you have to fight two Act 3 bosses, plus the Act 4 elite and the Heart on upper Ascensions, I'm not sure it would matter that much if the information was given in advance though.


I had the most insane run of StS I've ever played yesterday.  The run was overall weird period--the somewhat rare 3 energy win.  I did not get good energy relics and still had all my basics, so I took Pandoras, which I traded for N'loths, which is perfect since Pandoras was a free trade. I went through the bizarre sequence of Council of Ghosts to drop my health to 30, Necronomicon to go to 9/30, and then bought waffle to immediately heal to 37/37.  

I had two upgraded Wraith Forms, three Apparitions, and two Ghosts in a Jar, with full health (which was only 37 HP) going into the Heart fight.  I had only a small handful of block cards in the entire deck since I had Orichalcum and was blocking with intangibles and that (with the double Wraith Forms, block cards were essentially useless anyway).  I also had very slow damage (poison without a Catalyst and a Caltrops), so even with 11 turns of intangible, it was going to be close to beat the Heart.  The issue was that I could not really play many cards, since Orichalcum did not kick in until after ending the turn, and without block cards, I took one damage per card played even with intangible.  I used what block I had to avoid taking damage from playing cards, but Orichalcum could only block for 6 at the end of the turn, and the 1 x 15 would be enough to kill me in three go arounds even at only 9 damage per.  I foresaw that issue, so I had grabbed every Piercing Wail in sight, and used that to make the Heart hit for 0 x 15 the first few times through.

Finally, I got to the last turn of the fight.  The heart had 79 poison and 91 health, and I had only two health left, with like -10 dexterity, so none of my block cards gave any block, so at a maximum, I could play one card.  The only damage I drew was an upgraded Bouncing Flask which was exactly lethal.  So I managed to get exactly 91 poison onto the 91 health Heart, and finished the fight with exactly 1 health.  If I played one more card, or took one more attack from the Heart, or did one less damage, I would have lost the run.

I have 890 hours played and that was definitely my closest run ever.