I just died on my first run. No idea how big this game is but it was something like 28th floor which was in act2. Don’t think I chose my route very wisely as I could’ve done with a rest point to heal.

No idea what would’ve been next cos my game crashed on death screen. It’s also been randomly supersizing the screen so I only see a corner. Gone back to smaller resolution now so maybe won’t do it anymore.

If it messes up often I’ll just wait for the bloody Switch version.

I'll give 'em a watch

Woo yeah! Silent run completed!

An absolutely disgusting build that had 3 of the innate shiv powers, multiple shiv accuracy cards, couple of envenoms and the mummy hand that reduces a random card to zero when you play a power the card that turns your hand into shivs, plenty of draw and loads of the block+shiv cards.

Came close to dying against the end boss as the initial round of powering up really boosted the strength of it's first form. Luckily I was able to hold out and then stomped all over his second form once he no longer had that ability. 

Probably the most fun/disgusting build I've had so far. The shiv combo dream!!!

Well I stayed up far too late doing one last run, but it was the challenge run and I cleared that shit as well. What a god. 

This is the guy I was talking about yesterday btw. JoINrbs. He's the only Spire streamer i've bothered with because I found him early on and he is very calm, analytical and good and knows the game inside out. His Spireside chat videos go so deep into the theory behind the game.

A recent video about Nemesis and Optimal players in Poker versus the idea of a StS "perfect" run, and one where he talks about the ways the game fails to challenge his decks in meaningful ways in the most recent patches, are both amazing. 

His "over explained" runs tend to come in at around 3hrs or more, but if you want to understand the game properly, they're essential viewing.





My problem is that to get as good at the game as he has, you really need to be very good at holding a lot of info in your head all at once, and know optimal times to use potions and so on during boss fights. My win rate is really poor right now, under 10%, whereas on Normal it should be around 90-100% possible to win every single seed you play. JoInrbs at one point had a 22 win streak with The Silent on Ascension 15 (back when it was the highest difficulty) and last night my loss streak with The Silent last night was 25 deep, and that's as someone who kinda knows what they're doing.

My issue is macro vs micro. I am ok at telling what cards are good for my deck in the long run, but not what I need right now, or I might need next Act, as I am not familiar enough with the bosses. With regards to the idea of the game "deck checking" via bosses and so on, the bosses at first seem similar but in actual fact they are all checking your deck for a variety of things such as ability front loading damage on specific turns, ability to deal AoE, ability to control your deck and so on. It's all very interesting, and why this game is so incredible.

You should definitely watch the Ascension 20 Over explained run I just posted, because he talks a lot about the questions he gets from MTG/Hearthstone players in there. Ultimately this game is totally different from those. 

Things like relics and powers and potions set it apart instantly, they're free to play cards/actions that are either automatic or contingent on criteria that you'd struggle to track in MTG (think Pen Nib) secondly you're not playing Deck Vs Deck, you're playing Deck Vs Encounters, and that changes the whole dynamic. Win conditions aren't really as much of a thing in Slay the Spire, because you can't construct your deck. You might have a deck with a win condition in it (headbutt/limit break in a 5 card deck etc) but what are the chances of getting that in a run? 1 in 100? That's your win rate? 

Instead, you want tools for situations. How does the game work? This is gonna largely be a shallow explanation of JoINrbs first 30 minutes for people who can't be fucked with video.

For everyone else, let's do a quick run down of why this game is a fucking OG All time Best of Genre, instant classic, by doing a list of all the things you need to think about:

Take the Silent: His relic makes him draw 7 cards on turn one, increasing the likelihood of drawing his best starter card: Neutralise. Other than that he was weak Strikes and Blocks. Strikes are cards you never want to play with Silent, outside specific instances. So what do we want in our deck for act one?  

The first 3 fights of Act 1 are easy, every time, then the fights are hard. Elites come from a pool per act, and they check for specific things: Gremlin Nob murders skill based decks, so you need commons or quality cards that can do huge consistent damage and reduce the need to stall on the big damage turns. Lagavullin needs a way to scale in prep for the debuffs, Sentries need AoE or good block (they're the easiest) So on the first Act you have 3 fights to get your deck ready for one of those outcomes, so you never take cards like Catalyst when they appear, because they're awful against those Elites, and you want an Elite dead for a rare card and a relic. 

So how do you path? Do you take a shop? try and get an Elite after a Bonfire so you can upgrade Neutralise (because it's great against Nob and Lagavullin) Do you plan to avoid the elites altogether? What's the boss of the act? Is it Slime Boss? If so, you need some kind of AoE for an unfavourable split, and a way to mitigate damage/increase your block. If it's Hexaghost you want thing like thorns or a source of intangible, and the ability to discard/manage your deck to avoid burn damage. If it's The Guardian, you'll need a way to control your damage on a single turn or two so you can force his defensive shell, and then a way to block and deal good damage to take down his shell phase. 

The clincher here is only have a handful of card rewards to build to these challenges, so what do you take? Do you take AoE damage if the Boss is Slime Boss but you have an Explosive potion for example? Do you need a big front loaded damage card if your deck is consistent but you have a fire potion? What if you get Caltrops and a Thorn relic? That makes a mockery of Hexaghost cos of his multiple low damage attacks, so you just need to survive. 

Back to the elites - your great skill cards like Piercing Wail and Crippling Cloud are insanely good against Lagavullin and Sentries, and they remain incredibly good all game long, but they will get you eaten by The Gremlin Nob, so when you are presented with a choice of of those versus Heel Hook or Sucker Punch, which do you take if you plan to fight an Elite? Which is best? What can your deck do with or without them? Even amazing cards like Backflip, when of the Silent's almost auto picks is also useless in Act One, because you only have 3 energy and 7 draw on turn one. So do you take it and deal with it weighing your deck down, or do you pray it comes up later?

These are the questions the games asks of you and your deck in Act One, alongside your micro level interaction with every single enemy - when do you use your damage as a resource to get through an elite fight or a hallway fight, when do you rest and when do you forge? It's insane how many things the game asks you to think about over the course of one act. Then there are two more, and your deck can't just be good against Act One. How does it scale for Act two? What are you gonna do against Champ and Hyperbeam? How are you gonna deal with Elite fights on Act Three? How is your Power scaling deck going to work against Awakened one? How does your Infinite Shiv deck beat Time Eater?

Everything we've said about consistency and so on? It goes out of the window with certain cards and relics. You can win hard with a 50 card Power based draw deck as the Defect against the Ancient One if things go well, despite that being a literal hard counter, but it's about planning for them to not go well and picking the right cards for the job the rest of the time.

It's amazing. I think if people are interested I will Stream it tomorrow from about 3pm talking about the myriad ways I love it.

Thing is... that complexity is only relevant if you want to up your win rate. You can still get tons of time out of it and enjoy it whilst bumblingly blindly forward for 60 hours like I did. It’s just a testament to how many layers there are to it. Most runs take me 30 minutes at a time, the game is quite forgiving on its standard difficulty, so you can afford to make mistakes quite a lot. Don’t let the fact that it can be mastered and has massive depth and breadth put you off, it’s just as fun if you want to sling cars around for half an hour.

Gonna be steaming this at 4:45/5pm for anyone who wants to watch.

I’ve been doing it for 80hrs and still having massive fun.

Finally got an Act 3 win, but I took myself up against the final boss and fuck me if he's not a badass.

That's my fault for me stuffing my deck with attacks instead of block.

Kow wrote:

The more I read about this the more I think I'll never be able to play it as it seems too complicated and I don't have any time. It's all you lot's fault.

Nah, there's plenty of play even if you only beat regular bosses.

I've been muddling along.

Came closet to beating proper boss as I have last night. Barrier with intangible relic and flame barrier was doing work.

Watched that Ascension 20 vid you linked Temps, was really interesting to watch the deck management thought process as it relates to each floor throughout. 

Had a go following similar principles with the Ironclad and got to the Act 3 boss but died when my perfected strike build couldnt cycle enough block in between headbutts looking for my double tap or vulnerable/weak cards.

Playing the shit out of this on Arran. Will go to the pubfor internet when the weekly challenge is posted.

Baby steps, baby steps. Ascension Level 1 cleared with a peach of a Silent deck. Ton of powers plus the mummified hand was nice, had a really good shiv game going, the deck was kind of fat but I just kept being offered cards that worked. Then on the last floor I got that colourless power in a shop that does 10 AoE if you play 5 attacks in a turn. I turned to the piles of shivs on the floor around me and laughed. 

Even had the game try to cheese me out with that fucking blue wanker boss that gets buffed if you used powers, so I powered up just enough to where I could keep up just enough armor while dealing with him and his plebs and then once I had him in his second phase I just went ham with the rest of the powers and gave him a lead salad. 

Shiv builds with Silent I think might be one of my favourites so far, chaining armfuls of shivs into enemies just feels really satisfying to me. 

However, after Tempy's exploits on stream earlier, I really want to have a go with a strength build on Ironclad, one of the funniest runs I've seen so far. OH LAWD HE COMIN mode engaged.

Going to stream some of this in an hour. Warning, I am the king of slow play, you remember those hour long Isaac runs? Aw yeah, we back baybee!