It's not really a hidden mechanic as the card itself explicitly states that it removes 2 strength at the end of the turn.

Nice work, Nick.

nick_md wrote:

Hundreds of hours into this game and I only just realised that Flex only removes the amount of strength it adds when applied, meaning you can use Limit Break after Flex to double the buff, then keep the extra that was added at end of turn. e.g. Flex adds 2str, Limit Break it to 4str, end of turn you go down to 2str. May be old news to some but I just assumed the Flex would remove all strength gained that turn for some reason.

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of cool flex interactions and it might well be my favourite strength card. 

Like, you can absolutely limit break it, even better upgraded. But if you have orange pellets and some card draw you can use the orange pellets to cancel the flex debuff. So now you don't lose strength at the end of the turn and it cost you 0 + the cost of an attack and power. Stick a limit break on that, maybe have 2 flexes and things get tasty.

Doing stuff like that on a deck with decent card draw outpaces pretty much any other strength gain card in the game, imo. Inflame is nice and not expensive, but it's a one and done - if i had dual wield and a mummified hand I might pick it over flex, otherwise probably not. Demon form is powerful, but you get zero benefit until the next turn and it's pricey. Flex though...flex is sexy and has a million interactions. Love it.

Best card draw + strength engine in the game (for me, in terms of FUN) is sth like a necronomicurse + runic cube + flexes + limit breaks + reaper for getting all that health back. It's utterly broken.

Guardian in Downfall leans into the mechanics around debuff numbers heavily. Lots of temp buffs, and lots of cards that remove some of the debuffs. perma 30 damage thorns is quite a thing, I can tell you.

nick_md wrote:

And that's A20 done with ironclad.

Yes lad!

Legend!

Minnesänger wrote:

Just went and grabbed the Common Sense achievement on PC  for beating the game with no uncommon or rare cards.  And this was the Minimalist deck on PC that got me that sweet cheevo And this was the Minimalist deck on Playstation Happy with these recent runs. Last tricky achievement to get is now Speed Runner. Everything else I have on one platform or another.

Nice. I do love a small deck.

Bonkers scenes.

Nice.

I read about people who hold the record for A20H kills in a row for each character and it just baffles me, like I can't ever have the patience, foresight or skill to do that. Xecnar is the Silent guy with a mad number of A20H kills in a row, and his vids he actually explains stuff without whizzing through like Jorbs, but even randoms on Reddit, there was a guy who had 9x A20H kills in a row with defect with proof and I'm here happy to make act 3 and leaning too hard into 'archetype' builds. Madness.

But srs watch a xecnar silent vid man's crazy.

I managed 2 a20 heart kills in a row once, and another time i got 2 out of 3. I don't think my brain is capable of the required level of probability juggling to ever be chaining together consecutive victories regularly. 

It's mad that all these years later, with no formal challenges left, that this is still my most played game on almost any given month. Madder still, it's probably the ugliest game i have ever thrown hours at too, not that i ever notice. 

I love this game so much that it warms me deeply to read of others enjoying it too.

nick_md wrote:

I read about people who hold the record for A20H kills in a row for each character and it just baffles me, like I can't ever have the patience, foresight or skill to do that. Xecnar is the Silent guy with a mad number of A20H kills in a row, and his vids he actually explains stuff without whizzing through like Jorbs, but even randoms on Reddit, there was a guy who had 9x A20H kills in a row with defect with proof and I'm here happy to make act 3 and leaning too hard into 'archetype' builds. Madness. But srs watch a xecnar silent vid man's crazy.

I really like Jorbs, and I've watched enough of him, and played enough of the game that 9 times out of 10 I can tell what his card picks / card removes / shop buys etc are gonna be. Doesn't mean I'm anywhere near as good as him - his turn card orders are insane and overall deck construction is just incredibly efficient. I don't mind his speed now, but it was deffo a lot at first.

If you're looking for another good teacher-style player that doesn't zip at lightspeed, or overexplain every pick for 4 hours, then I think Baalorlord is a great shout. Fantastic player, very friendly, and very into teaching why cards work / why he picks certain things. 

This year Baalor did a custom "mastery" challenge with a community made mod where over the course of the year he had to beat the game at A20 with 2 copied of every card in his deck. That means at some point he beat the game with 2 Meteor Strikes (not too bad), 2 perfected Strikes (sure), but also 2 pains...2 normalities...

For certain curses he'd intentionally have to try to get one, and then hope for a Dolly's Mirror in the shop he could duplicate it. And then he'd still have to go and win the run. It showed a real down to the foundations understanding of the game and forced him to work with the whole deck. Reckon if you were looking for inspiration on Silent, he'd also be a good pick.

And yes, Act 1 on Silent is ROUGH.

The fry up was a good 8.5/10 and I just got another Heart kill on A12 with a slow but effective 2x After Image and Shivs, with a bit of poison to keep the dmg going. Oh and 2x wraith form they came in handy obvs.

Got the Speed Climber achievement for beating the game in less than 20 minutes, with a time on 19 minutes and 56 seconds...

Means there's only one more achievement to get, before the Spire has been well and truly Slayed.