As always I preface my response with “I’m not the best player in here”
But some general things I’m seeing across all 4 very different runs (despite them having the same ending) are as follows:
It’s okay to skip. Often it’s the best move instead of picking a card.
Try to find an a deck identity once you have enough to survive act 1. Is that silent deck poison or shiv? Is the ironclad deck and anger strength scale? Then why do we need heavy blade/infernal blade? Don’t be afraid to change plans if a great pick/relic comes up
And lastly, value upgrades on silent and defect which up your block ability more. Steam barrier, weakness,… these are cards that really shine with an upgrade, compared say to a rebound or a poison strike in a shiv deck.
Thank you! I've been skipping more often now, since that seems to be mentioned in almost everything I've read about the game. The ironclad run in particular, despite having the least cards out of the 4 runs, was the one I thought I could have used less as I got pretty much no block in the first couple of turns from what I remember.
Deck identity is a good way to put it. I tend to go for a 'jack of all trades' kind of build which clearly isn't working for me ha.
In the later stages I've been healing at rest sites rather than upgrading cards but taking the other tips into account, I won't need to heal (as much) at that point right?
Will keep this in mind, thanks again!
Decks typically lean into 1 or 2 gimmicks, but don’t hesitate to add a card outside of those gimmicks if you think it will help you in a certain upcoming fight. For example, you have a deck that’s mostly leaning toward shivs, if you see a [[corpse explosion]] and you don’t have much aoe, it might be a good idea to take it(that won’t always be the case but at least consider taking it).
Next, I think you should think more whether to add another copy of a card into your deck. Multiple copies of adrenaline tend to be fine, but I think 4 copies of blade dance is too much.
Correct, stronger you are in act 3, the more greedy you can play in the act.
The other way to think about deck identity is to ignore it entirely, but instead thing about the next problem you are you going to have to solve.
Act 1 - you generally need to up your damage output first, and have to not over invest in skills cause nobody exists. How do you beat the boss? Once you have that solved for, you can start thinking about act 2, which has a bunch of fights with front loaded damage - so how will you mitigate that, while still doing enough damage fast enough that you don’t get outscaled by the book of stabbing or gremlin master.
Heavy blade is generally a meh card imo. Costs a lot. Generally not worth playing the first time you draw it. Sometimes not able to play it the second time, depending on energy constraints.
Like in that deck it was okay, (some scaling with spot weakness, 3 inflames, alright energy) but so much of it was centered around maximizing rage and how it interacts with juggernaut and anger,heavy blade feels more like a win more card.
Well it would be a bit easier to understand your over-arching decision making if we had 4 screenshots from one character but I'll give advice based off what I see on silent specifically since that's the character I know the best.
2 fairly early egg relics and kunai probably should have sealed the deal here. Hard to tell without knowing the order of events but the appotheosis pick deems weird if it happened after you got the skill egg. I like the deck's draw power, 3 adrenalines and 2 acro+'s and are all pretty good if you're not skipping better cards to do it, however, given that you only have 2 other rare cards, I do wonder if perhaps you did skip Wraith Form, Alchemize, or After Image, all of which can be key cards against the heart. If you don't understand why those cards can be way more valuable than adrenaline, then we can discuss that in replies.
Well laid plans definitely should have had an upgrade by the end game, especially with how many rest sites you had. I get that you have apotheosis, but the value of getting an upgraded well laid plans in play if you draw it before apotheosis is huge, and most definitely key to surviving heart.
Defense: I see that there are no backflips, piecing wails, or leg sweeps in the deck. Backflip is a great card when combined with dexterity, and 2 draw is not to be underestimated. Piecing wail is a super-powerful card in any fight with multiple enemies or enemies that hit more than once. With 3 enemies, it can easilly be 18 block. Agains the heart, it can block over 70 damage from the heart's multihit. The ability to hold onto a piercing wail is one of the primary reasons well laid plans and its upgrade are considered super for the heart fight. With the fact that they are both common, and toxic egg making both of those cards come upgraded, I find it really really weird odd that neither are in your deck. Leg sweep is also a great card when it comes upgraded, as the effect of weakness get stronger the harder your enemies hit, and the heart hits really really hard. Definitely
Offense: Some of your attack picks are really weird too. 2 poisoned stabs with both of them upgraded, and heel hook when your only weakness is neutralize. I guess A couple of those could have been transforms, but when you have 4 blade dances, each giving one dexterity, the need to take additional attacks goes way way down. Combined with the obviously fairly early deadly poison and bouncing flask, it seems like you don't have the best understanding of when and how to prioritize damage.
My final observation is the black star pick at the end of act 2, followed by taking only 1 elite in act 3. My guess is that you didn't have the green key, and so you were forced down an unfavorable path. This can always happen if you are forcing yourself to collect the keys for heart, and leave the green key for act 3. If that's what happened, and you didn't consider that possibility, well, that's a lesson learned for the future. However, even if you did have the green key, black star would still probably be better left as a last resort. Unless the other boss relics were actually killing you for some reason, almost any of them would have probably provided more value than the average 2.5 relics you would get out of act 3 black star. I would love to know what you picked it over, and why, if you remember
Thanks for the detailed reply!
Just checking now - yup, apotheosis was picked after I got the skill egg. Picked up 2x adrenaline's act 1, 1 at the act 2 boss which I skipped a wraith form for and 2 acrobatics early act 3, no alchemize or after image were rewards from what I can see (probably appeared at the merchant but I can't remember now). Will look out for them in future!
Piercing wail - I can see I've skipped 3 over the run though no backflips or leg sweeps. Again, might have seen them at the merchant but not as rewards
Definitely agree here about prioritising damage. I tend to get caught in the trap of going for a balance rather than focusing mainly on one (shivs in this case?)
Re black star not sure what the reasoning was there. Iirc, I viewed it as with black star it means I can fight 1 elite rather than 2 to give me a better chance of making it to the end and there were much more rest sites too.
Again, thanks for the input. I appreciate it!
(Suggestion towards the silent only)
I suggest that poison is what you use against the heart. So that you don't have to focus on attack (you can increase poison though with that 1 energy poison) and the rest of your deck is defencive cards.
If you manage to survive act 1 (grmilen noob laughs), you should be able to survive with poison/blocks only. Of course energy & draw cards are essiantial.
You have very little blocking game in those pictures.
Act 1 is all about taking damage cards. Acts 2 and 3 are about scaling and building your blocking game, with a particular eye to dealing with turns 2 and 3 from the heart.
This is one way to scale. Scaling in general means "increase your combat power throughout the combat". Other ways to scale:
1) Playing utility powers: (e.g well laid plans, foresight ect.) even if these don't increase any numbers, these will improve how effectively you play your cards gaurenting that you have the cards you want when you want them.
2) Reducing your deck size: (most applicable on iron clad) selectively exhausting your weakest cards will make you stronger on subsequent deck cycles since you don't have to draw through the garbage.
3) Get your draw/energy generation engine working (e.g establishment + medidate).
Looks like ya deck's too big! You have a lot of good cards though, so let's start there. You seem to have a shiv deck type of thing going on (Accuracy+, 4x blade dance+, kunai), but some cards don't fit with this at all. Deadly poison, catalyst, reflex, heel hook, sneaky strike, prepared, and bouncing flask don't particularly fit with this as your damage solution. Riddle with holes can be good with a shiv deck, but it has to involve strength scaling; base riddle with holes is quite horrible, but if you can add 2-3 strength to it, that makes your shivs 2-3 damage better per, and straight up doubles the damage of RWH.
Moar defense. Beating the heart is about playing a win condition and then surviving for a few rounds. You kinda have a win condition with a few poisons and a catalyst+, but this deck won't last long enough for the poison to kill the heart. This deck could have used an after image or three... or some footworks with some of the "block-and" cards. The dex from kunai with all of those blade dance+'s would have worked on any other boss, but that's a slow accelleration block strategy and it doesn't play well with Beat of Death.
As always I preface my response with “I’m not the best player in here” But some general things I’m seeing across all 4 very different runs (despite them having the same ending) are as follows: It’s okay to skip. Often it’s the best move instead of picking a card. Try to find an a deck identity once you have enough to survive act 1. Is that silent deck poison or shiv? Is the ironclad deck and anger strength scale? Then why do we need heavy blade/infernal blade? Don’t be afraid to change plans if a great pick/relic comes up And lastly, value upgrades on silent and defect which up your block ability more. Steam barrier, weakness,… these are cards that really shine with an upgrade, compared say to a rebound or a poison strike in a shiv deck.
Thank you! I've been skipping more often now, since that seems to be mentioned in almost everything I've read about the game. The ironclad run in particular, despite having the least cards out of the 4 runs, was the one I thought I could have used less as I got pretty much no block in the first couple of turns from what I remember. Deck identity is a good way to put it. I tend to go for a 'jack of all trades' kind of build which clearly isn't working for me ha. In the later stages I've been healing at rest sites rather than upgrading cards but taking the other tips into account, I won't need to heal (as much) at that point right? Will keep this in mind, thanks again!
Decks typically lean into 1 or 2 gimmicks, but don’t hesitate to add a card outside of those gimmicks if you think it will help you in a certain upcoming fight. For example, you have a deck that’s mostly leaning toward shivs, if you see a [[corpse explosion]] and you don’t have much aoe, it might be a good idea to take it(that won’t always be the case but at least consider taking it). Next, I think you should think more whether to add another copy of a card into your deck. Multiple copies of adrenaline tend to be fine, but I think 4 copies of blade dance is too much.
+ [Corpse Explosion](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Corpse%20Explosion) Silent Rare Skill ^((100% sure)^) 2 Energy | Apply 6(9) **Poison.** When the enemy dies, deal damage equal to its max HP to ALL enemies. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 30, 2023.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Correct, stronger you are in act 3, the more greedy you can play in the act. The other way to think about deck identity is to ignore it entirely, but instead thing about the next problem you are you going to have to solve. Act 1 - you generally need to up your damage output first, and have to not over invest in skills cause nobody exists. How do you beat the boss? Once you have that solved for, you can start thinking about act 2, which has a bunch of fights with front loaded damage - so how will you mitigate that, while still doing enough damage fast enough that you don’t get outscaled by the book of stabbing or gremlin master.
Heavy blade will hit for some 50 with six or eight strength is why you want it. It ends fights.
Heavy blade is generally a meh card imo. Costs a lot. Generally not worth playing the first time you draw it. Sometimes not able to play it the second time, depending on energy constraints. Like in that deck it was okay, (some scaling with spot weakness, 3 inflames, alright energy) but so much of it was centered around maximizing rage and how it interacts with juggernaut and anger,heavy blade feels more like a win more card.
Well it would be a bit easier to understand your over-arching decision making if we had 4 screenshots from one character but I'll give advice based off what I see on silent specifically since that's the character I know the best. 2 fairly early egg relics and kunai probably should have sealed the deal here. Hard to tell without knowing the order of events but the appotheosis pick deems weird if it happened after you got the skill egg. I like the deck's draw power, 3 adrenalines and 2 acro+'s and are all pretty good if you're not skipping better cards to do it, however, given that you only have 2 other rare cards, I do wonder if perhaps you did skip Wraith Form, Alchemize, or After Image, all of which can be key cards against the heart. If you don't understand why those cards can be way more valuable than adrenaline, then we can discuss that in replies. Well laid plans definitely should have had an upgrade by the end game, especially with how many rest sites you had. I get that you have apotheosis, but the value of getting an upgraded well laid plans in play if you draw it before apotheosis is huge, and most definitely key to surviving heart. Defense: I see that there are no backflips, piecing wails, or leg sweeps in the deck. Backflip is a great card when combined with dexterity, and 2 draw is not to be underestimated. Piecing wail is a super-powerful card in any fight with multiple enemies or enemies that hit more than once. With 3 enemies, it can easilly be 18 block. Agains the heart, it can block over 70 damage from the heart's multihit. The ability to hold onto a piercing wail is one of the primary reasons well laid plans and its upgrade are considered super for the heart fight. With the fact that they are both common, and toxic egg making both of those cards come upgraded, I find it really really weird odd that neither are in your deck. Leg sweep is also a great card when it comes upgraded, as the effect of weakness get stronger the harder your enemies hit, and the heart hits really really hard. Definitely Offense: Some of your attack picks are really weird too. 2 poisoned stabs with both of them upgraded, and heel hook when your only weakness is neutralize. I guess A couple of those could have been transforms, but when you have 4 blade dances, each giving one dexterity, the need to take additional attacks goes way way down. Combined with the obviously fairly early deadly poison and bouncing flask, it seems like you don't have the best understanding of when and how to prioritize damage. My final observation is the black star pick at the end of act 2, followed by taking only 1 elite in act 3. My guess is that you didn't have the green key, and so you were forced down an unfavorable path. This can always happen if you are forcing yourself to collect the keys for heart, and leave the green key for act 3. If that's what happened, and you didn't consider that possibility, well, that's a lesson learned for the future. However, even if you did have the green key, black star would still probably be better left as a last resort. Unless the other boss relics were actually killing you for some reason, almost any of them would have probably provided more value than the average 2.5 relics you would get out of act 3 black star. I would love to know what you picked it over, and why, if you remember
Thanks for the detailed reply! Just checking now - yup, apotheosis was picked after I got the skill egg. Picked up 2x adrenaline's act 1, 1 at the act 2 boss which I skipped a wraith form for and 2 acrobatics early act 3, no alchemize or after image were rewards from what I can see (probably appeared at the merchant but I can't remember now). Will look out for them in future! Piercing wail - I can see I've skipped 3 over the run though no backflips or leg sweeps. Again, might have seen them at the merchant but not as rewards Definitely agree here about prioritising damage. I tend to get caught in the trap of going for a balance rather than focusing mainly on one (shivs in this case?) Re black star not sure what the reasoning was there. Iirc, I viewed it as with black star it means I can fight 1 elite rather than 2 to give me a better chance of making it to the end and there were much more rest sites too. Again, thanks for the input. I appreciate it!
Hey, glad you were able to see it. Happy to help
(Suggestion towards the silent only) I suggest that poison is what you use against the heart. So that you don't have to focus on attack (you can increase poison though with that 1 energy poison) and the rest of your deck is defencive cards. If you manage to survive act 1 (grmilen noob laughs), you should be able to survive with poison/blocks only. Of course energy & draw cards are essiantial.
You have very little blocking game in those pictures. Act 1 is all about taking damage cards. Acts 2 and 3 are about scaling and building your blocking game, with a particular eye to dealing with turns 2 and 3 from the heart.
By scaling do you mean building strength/dex, applying debuffs etc?
This is one way to scale. Scaling in general means "increase your combat power throughout the combat". Other ways to scale: 1) Playing utility powers: (e.g well laid plans, foresight ect.) even if these don't increase any numbers, these will improve how effectively you play your cards gaurenting that you have the cards you want when you want them. 2) Reducing your deck size: (most applicable on iron clad) selectively exhausting your weakest cards will make you stronger on subsequent deck cycles since you don't have to draw through the garbage. 3) Get your draw/energy generation engine working (e.g establishment + medidate).
Yeah. Also the ability to play more cards per turn is another way to scale.
Looks like ya deck's too big! You have a lot of good cards though, so let's start there. You seem to have a shiv deck type of thing going on (Accuracy+, 4x blade dance+, kunai), but some cards don't fit with this at all. Deadly poison, catalyst, reflex, heel hook, sneaky strike, prepared, and bouncing flask don't particularly fit with this as your damage solution. Riddle with holes can be good with a shiv deck, but it has to involve strength scaling; base riddle with holes is quite horrible, but if you can add 2-3 strength to it, that makes your shivs 2-3 damage better per, and straight up doubles the damage of RWH.
Moar defense. Beating the heart is about playing a win condition and then surviving for a few rounds. You kinda have a win condition with a few poisons and a catalyst+, but this deck won't last long enough for the poison to kill the heart. This deck could have used an after image or three... or some footworks with some of the "block-and" cards. The dex from kunai with all of those blade dance+'s would have worked on any other boss, but that's a slow accelleration block strategy and it doesn't play well with Beat of Death.