Help me be less terrible at Slay the Spire

[lincolnic]

Years after everyone else, I finally picked up Slay the Spire and while I'm having a good time, I am very bad at this game. I'd like to be less bad! I know we've got some real masters around here, so I figured it's time to ask for help.

I've done nearly 30 runs so far (mostly with the Ironclad, I branched out into the Silent today), and only had two wins so far. Both were with strength-heavy builds, one revolving around Heavy Blade (with Snecko Egg, of all things) and the other Perfected Strike. I've reached the boss of Act 3 several other times, but that's usually where things fall apart. Earlier tonight I had an amazing Shiv run with the Silent completely faceplant at the final boss, because it was the Time Eater.

While I understand the basics of the deckbuilding genre -- find synergies, remove as many non-synergy cards from your deck as possible -- I've been having a lot of trouble putting them into practice. The hardest part for me is the early game. A lot of the time, the game starts by offering me cards that just don't seem very good, so I end up taking nothing, and by the time I find something worth building around I might already be outclassed by stronger enemies. It's so expensive to remove a card from your deck that I don't want to take something mediocre only to have to ditch it later.

I know a lot of this is just being new to the game, but I could really use some help developing more consistency in general. How do you salvage a rough start? What are some things that might not be obvious for a new player? What are the mistakes I probably don't know I'm making? I don't care at all about spoilers (I've unlocked all four characters already), if there even are spoilers for a game like this, so whatever you think might be helpful is fair game.

Have at it, Talking Time, help me kill a building's heart or whatever. What even is this game's story?

 

[Mogri]

There are no truly terrible cards in Slay the Spire. There are only cards that don't fit your deck. At the start of a run, basically anything you pick up is an improvement over your starting deck, and before you have any cards, you don't have anything to synergize with. So pick up most cards offered to you in act 1.

In general, prioritize safety. As Ironclad, you might try a Body Slam deck, which can deal big damage without sacrificing defense. As Silent, Dexterity is awesome. As Defect, try Frost + Focus. I don't have a Watcher suggestion - she's very strong but a bit tricky to use. I say all of this, but you really can't count on being able to build a given deck on a given run -- which matters more if you're trying to get consistent than if you're just trying to get a couple wins under your belt.

Getting a tight deck is all well and good, but it's not the end-all. If you have good card draw and energy, that can more than make up for a deck that isn't especially lean.

Get comfortable fighting elites. The right relics can allow you to cruise to victory, and elites are your best source of relics.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I myself prefer a focus on Poison with the Silent; especially if you can luck into making Noxious Fumes Innate. Split that focus with a Shiv heavy deck let’s you whittle enemies down real fast.

My biggest issue is when the final boss winds up being The Unawakened One; never once managed to take that stupid guy down.

 

[karzac]

Another thing to consider is scaling. Most Elites and Bosses get more powerful as a fight goes on, or make you weaker, or both. So as you advance into the later stages, you need to make sure your deck is not just good, but gets better throughout the course of the fight. So for Ironclad, that means cards like Demon Form, Limit Break, Rampage or Barricade; for Silent, Infinite Blades, After Image, Noxious Fumes and Catalyst. There are a bunch of relics that help with this too.

Try to slow things down a bit. When you draw your hand, take a look and everything and get a sense of what order you want to play your cards in. Consider what your enemy is doing, and what your next two turns might look like. For instance, let's say I'm about to get hit for 15 damage, and based on my cards, I've got options for whether I want to block it or ignore it and just attack. That decision should be informed by how close the enemy is to death and what I've got coming up in my deck next. If I can do enough damage this turn to guarantee a kill next turn, then taking some damage myself might be fine. If no matter how much I attach this turn I won't be able to kill them next turn, then I should defend and wait.

Learn the enemies patterns. They're all very predictable, so you'll get more familiar as you play.

Avoid resting, if you can help it, especially in Act 1. Upgrade cards whenever you can.

 

[lincolnic]

Thanks everybody, this is all super helpful information! I thought of one other question -- I'm sure this will vary between runs, but is there a general deck size I should be trying to aim for?

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’ve never bothered with meta gaming to that extent; as long as the cards aren’t too diverse.

Plus, if you get lucky and get a Mind Blast (I think?) you’re going to want a real big deck

 

[ozacrot]

Slay the Spire put me into a deep preoccupation with deckbuilders, and at heart it seems like most of them boil down to developing the experience and situational awareness necessary to spot an opportunity when it shows up.

In StS, that mostly comes in the form of a good relic, which is more transformative to your deck than almost any single card. Good card draws without relics can get you through the game, but good relics can elevate so-so cards substantially. For instance, the Ironclad's Champion Belt relic applies 1 weak every time you apply vulnerable - suddenly Thunderclap (which hits all enemies for marginal damage and applies vulnerable for the current turn) becomes a valuable tool for damage mitigation.

For that reason, relics are the primary asset you should aim for in the early game - they can dictate the kind of deck you want to aim for. Act 1 is stressful even/especially at high levels of play because 9 of the 10 cards you start out with are pretty bad - most attacks you can pick up are clear upgrades from Strike, for instance. Early on, don't worry about don't be too shy about picking up cards even if you don't see a clear synergy for them. In particular, you will want a few more attacks in your deck to take on one of the Act 1 Elites - who you should almost always fight, as they're the most reliable way to get relics.

I'm usually at or around 20 cards by the end of the first act, and will grow the deck from there depending on what I'm aiming for, usually ending up somewhere between 25 and 35. (This is higher than the pros recommend, but I'm greedy.)

It's worth knowing up front that by Act 3, the three types of final boss will counter power-heavy decks, low-cost decks, and slow-scaling decks respectively, so if you're leaning toward one of those decks, you'll want to have some extra damage mitigation to buy you a little extra time.

 

[Mogri]

Mind Blast is a great card for many Daily runs, but it's hard to get a deck that will really benefit from it in a standard run.

I don't think there's one ideal deck size. If you've got the right cards and relics, that number could be 5 or 30. Do keep in mind that you will get something in the neighborhood of 10-15 upgrade opportunities over the course of a normal run. Certainly you don't need all of your cards upgraded, but you need to be cognizant of whether you're actually improving the quality of your deck with the cards you're drafting. In act 1, the answer is nearly always yes (but you should still try to build towards something); in act 3, the answer is rarely yes (but you should still keep an eye out for particularly valuable cards -- I don't think there's ever a situation where you pass if Adrenaline is in the draft, for example).

 

[Patrick]

Making luck (a Dominion podcast) has an episode on Slay the Spire that I found really helpful.

Some general tips are 1) you need to pick cards that will help you now rather than aiming for a huge synergy that will eventually come together. 2) When you're successful early, it snowballs. So, instead of worrying about how your whole deck is going to look at the last boss, you should be worrying about what one card you can pick that will help you beat the next elite monster. The rewards that you get from those fights are what really shape your deck.

3) At very high levels, picking cards that are good is more important than picking cards that work together. This is kind of counterintuitive, and also takes a lot of knowledge of the cards in the game. I found this site helpful. It has a general ranking and some notes on each card/relic. It got me using some powerful cards that I was previously nervous about, and steered me away from cards that sound good but don't actually do much for your deck.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I’m far from being the best spire slayer on this forum, but I have played a whole lot of this game and I’ve managed to kill the super boss with the first three classes. I’m starting to learn the Watcher now and she is both a very fun character to play and also capable of some incredible self-owns. Accidentally leaving yourself in wrath can be game-ending, and Blasphemy is the most stressful, amazing card in the game to use. I made it to the Act III boss with her once, but I was betrayed by my large deck and didn’t draw any block for two consecutive turns - no bueno. I’ll get back on the grind soon, but I often need a short break after losing a promising run in this game.

As for general strategy, I agree that relics are your best bet and can really help steer the direction you take your deck in. I always try to play very aggressive in acts I and II, taking on every elite enemy and resting as little as possible. I also try to maximize visiting ? events over hallway battles - I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I find it a lot more fun. One general thing I recommend for every deck is to increase your energy per turn and to find some way of getting the cards you want into your hand. Typically that’s just by increasing card draw, but you can also make valuable cards innate, or play certain cards that let you search through your draw or discard pile. I basically never want to end up in a situation like I did in my last run, where I had tons of energy but no block cards in my hand and (despite my best efforts) no way to draw more cards in time to save myself.

 

[Octopus Prime]

To echo what everyone else said; let your cards pick your synergy, don’t let a synergy pick your cards; everything is a step up from your starter

 

[karzac]

One other thing, which isn't really about strategy, but might be helpful if you just want to win and have no ethics ( like me!): You can save scum. The game only saves when you enter a new room, or at the end of a fight, so if you save and quit, you can restart a fight with the same random seed. And even if you don't cheat, it can be helpful as an undo button for those times where you end your turn without thinking, or pick the wrong card because you clicked too fast.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Oh, yeah, that's also totally valid

 

[lincolnic]

Thank you all, sincerely, for all your advice -- every single post in this thread has been really great! Biggest mistakes I was making before: not taking more cards in Act 1, trying to force synergies, not fighting Elites for relics, not valuing card draw. I took a lot of this advice to heart for a few more runs this afternoon and while my first couple didn't get too far, I could absolutely feel a difference in my survivability and overall deck strength.

Then, I had an absolutely magical run. I started off very poorly, without many decent cards, and after a rough Elite fight I limped into my first shop with 28 HP. They were selling the Prismatic Shard, and I figured if my run was about to die I might as well try and have some fun along the day. I was able to make it through my next several encounters until my HP ticked back up to a reasonable level, and started building up a very highly defensive build with some of the insane Block cards from other classes like Deceive Reality, Evaluate, Just Lucky, plus a lot of card draw to cycle through and find my two copies of Body Slam+. Who knew this game even had a Scry mechanic? Secret Technique would let me tutor up whatever skill I needed, and at a certain point I was basically just flying through every encounter.

Just when I thought I couldn't lose, the game hit me with Time Eater. Given that my deck revolved around playing a lot of cheap/free cards every turn, I was sure that was the end. But I kept my cool, and at the very last possible moment -- I mean that literally, I was going to die on my next turn and I played my final Body Slam as the 12th card that would've triggered the end of my turn -- I was able to find lethal and prevail.

Does the game give you final bosses that counter your deck on purpose? This same thing happened to me on my otherwise unloseable Shiv run with the Silent yesterday.

In any case, I figured you folks would appreciate seeing the deck:

While I would've liked more chances to remove the basic Strikes, ultimately I had enough card draw and filtering that it hardly mattered if they were in there. A third Body Slam would've been ideal but it never showed up. I know very few runs are going to be like this, but it felt amazing to play.

 

[karzac]

Nice! I've never played around much with Prismatic Shard, seems like fun.

 

[Mogri]

To the best of my knowledge, the final boss is selected randomly.

Congratulations on the win!

 

[Patrick]

Congrats!

Prismatic shard can be a lot of fun. I had one really good run where I got a lot of weird stuff that fit together.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I just managed to get a win with Silent myself!

Getting Corpse Explosion and having the final battle be Deca and Donu is... *pretty great*

Actually, Corpse Explosion is great in general; big love for exploding corpses over here.

 

[karzac]

Yeah, Corpse Explosion is fantastic. Combining it with Catalyst and Burst is especially fun.

 

[Octopus Prime]

And Bouncing Flask and Envenom and a LOT of Shivs and Quick Slices

I was basically giggling the entire fight

 

[lincolnic]

Congrats Octo, I had my first Silent win last night as well! Shivs won the day against Deca and Donu for me.

Deck was super solid: three copies of Blade Dance (two of them upgraded), two upgraded copies of A Thousand Cuts, a bunch of card draw to cycle through and find what I needed, and then Finisher+ to top everything off after playing a zillion cards every turn. I even had Wrist Blade to double the damage of my Shivs. The things that really let the deck pop off were a copy of Bullet Time+ and Gambler's Chip to mulligan my starting hand for combo pieces. It wasn't uncommon for me to start the turn with something like Acrobatics, then Bullet Time+, then both copies of A Thousand Cuts+, and then emptying my hand to melt whatever was in front of me.

I killed Deca on my first turn.

I really wanted to find Envenom in case I ran into Time Eater again, but it never showed up. I was in the final shop of Act 3, checking the map to make sure there weren't any more, and decided to spend the rest of my gold on a relic (can't remember which one). Naturally, the final map space before the boss was a ? that turned out to be another shop with Envenom. Luckily, I didn't end up needing it, but I'm pretty sure I said "Oh come on!" out loud.

 

[Mogri]

You can check who the boss of the act is from the start of each act. Just scroll to the top.

Speaking of first-turn boss kills, here's one from... two years ago:

Before:

Spoiler: After

 

[Octopus Prime]

I am.... intensely jealous of that screenshot

 

[lincolnic]

You can check who the boss of the act is from the start of each act. Just scroll to the top.

I am more than a little ashamed I did not figure this out for myself.

Also, holy cow, those screenshots are wild. I appreciate your dedication to putting googly eyes on the relics as well, but I regret to inform you that you missed the skull and the whale.

 

[Mogri]

It's the googly eyes mod! You should try it!

 

[lincolnic]

I just might!

 

[Octopus Prime]

!!!

I Slew the Spire!

I was using the Defect, specced out for Frost and I wound up getting Calipers as a Relic early on; after a few turns in every battle my shields were so high that it was nearly impossible to damage me (the Heart came very very close though) and I was channeling Frost so often that Blizzard wound up being one of the highest damaging attacks I’d seen so far in all my time playing.

 

[lincolnic]

Nice job, Octo! I haven't yet tried for the titular building slaying, but I have unlocked all the items for the Ironclad, Silent, and Defect. Is it me, or is the Defect the easiest character to get a win with? I feel like it's so trivial to assemble a Frost build compared to...any other deck with any other character. Though my first Defect win was with a really fun "0-cost cards" deck, the likes of which I haven't been able to assemble again since.

I did my first runs as the Watcher yesterday, almost got a win until I accidentally got stuck in Wrath mode against the Act 3 boss and threw the run away. I need to read up on her deck archetypes, I'm not totally sure what to do with that character yet.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Defect is absolutely the easiest for me; this was the first time I went with a Frost deck though; usually I stick with Lightning; less set-up needed to make it a contender (admittedly, that build wouldn’t help much against the Heart)

 

[Violentvixen]

I'm not sure when I bought this but I just started playing it two days ago. I like it! Haven't beaten it yet, I think I like Defect the most but am still figuring things out and haven't unlocked the final character slot yet.

It's the googly eyes mod! You should try it!

Downloading now, that's hilarious.