Slay the spire 2

[patent geode]

Uh, max hp?

[mortal loom]

Please note i lost no hp before that

[patent geode]

...

[mortal loom]

Shit path, but yeah

[patent geode]

I was going to joke about not being able to go into an elite with less than 70hp now in act 1

I didn't expect that to just be real

[mortal loom]

I mean to be fair, going fight, ?? shop to elite

wasnt a good idea

but

[patent geode]

It's reminiscent of Nob

Even more reason to build Doom on Necro in act 1 docks

[mortal loom]

Oooh

ij ust did something spicy

Electric Shrimp on Deathbringer

so every fight now starts with enemies weak and 21 doom.

Seems good.

[patent geode]

Love to see it

[mortal loom]

Kinda feel like Time's up and No Escape should may swithc rarirtit

[patent geode]

I'd hope not, though that's because I consider uncommons to be what helps makes your archetype click.

Whilst Time's up functions well as a rare; a sometimes food you take when the core is already working well.

[mortal loom]

My problem is that it's very redudant

[sweet crown]

I wish they hadn't made prepare cost 1
it feels so bad to play -_-

[mortal loom]

Yyyyeah, i'm sad about that

I think it could have either Cost 1 and stayed in it's previous form

oooorrr it's new fomr, but it costs 0

[sweet crown]

also it feels so hard to actually take sly cards now
bc I'm not gonna just pick up prepare if I don't have good draw support, and I'm not taking sly cards if I don't have discard support

which means I have to find acro or dagger throw
which I guess is still two commons but it still kinda feels bad
idk I know silent needed nerfs but this might've been too harsh

[mortal loom]

It does feel like they've overcompensated on finites

er, infinites*

Ugh

you can't tell which cards the fucker's eaten

whcih really sucks

they arent even exhausted

Also also it ocunts cards you draw at the start of your turn

So fucked if i know how the hell you beat this, i'm genuinely a bity cheesed off here

probably becuase bad time with health and fiannces

oh, and the cards eaten are from what would go in your hand

so it's even worse than drums of battle

What a dogshit fight.

We see you've decided to play the game. What if we punished you for that?

Yeah, i have no idea how you win this.

Other than having a deck that can setup on turn 1 and nuke him turn 2.

He ltierally NEVER stops attacking

[patent geode]

Oh that's weird

[patent geode]

Oof

[mortal loom]

Yeah, this fight is doghsit.

please understand right now i'm pissy and having a bad time in general, so i'm feeling a bith ot

but this isn't fun

It is literally puntivie for just playing the game.

[patent geode]

Yeah no I get you

[mortal loom]

He gets 2 strength every time you draw 10 cards

and destroys the 10th card you drew.

[patent geode]

Always worth taking a breather and returning in a bit just to construct things in a longer argument worst comes to worst.

[mortal loom]

so every other turn if you only play what oyu draw, you get 5 cards then 4 cards and he gets buff.s

Okay, fine. Why the fuck does he start swinging with a 3 multi attack that starts in the hitting you for 30, then a big attack that hits harder than the fucking heart's big attack did.

and then he does a small attack with soem kind of buff or something

[patent geode]

But yeah that stuff seems weird. Tbh I was surprised he even counted the cards you drew naturally

[mortal loom]

He has nothing to do with this theme either!?

Like the problem with the previous fight was it was too easy.

but it was fixeable with numbers

lower the door's health.

make the scaling of the doors more aggressive

Make the door maker himself tougher

heck, even give him a buff where he retreats behind a door after taking X damage or something

so you can't just slam him down perfectly.

He also has abotu 600 hp.

which given yoiu cannot spend turn 1 setting up weak or vulnerable or any other debuffs on him

So i hope you draw all your setup powers turn 1 and can play them.

Like this doesn't just brick infinites, ti bricks any deck. the only way i can actually reliably see to win right now is to build something like a lethality Eradicate deck that can just hard cast a nuke for 600 daamge.

[patent geode]

It certainly seems like a lot right now. Suspect there'll be a fair bit of feedback on it.

I can't really discuss it before I've played against it though, so will have to put a pin in the discussion for now until then.

[restive stirrup]

Mate, at the rate you're posting I think taking a break is probably a good idea

[mortal loom]

Ah, yeah, i've stopped for now. Written up some calm feedback and left it on the the ofifcal server

and leaving it alone , fear not

[pearl ravine]

Oop, typo

In my defense I was half asleep lol

[patent geode]

Here I thought you were just that good 😔

[pearl ravine]

Alas, I am not Spire Jesus.

[patent geode]

Aw

[sweet crown]

they rly noclipped into the architect fight before it even existed

[oblique raft]

i love stupid shiv nonsense

[patent geode]

First time against the new door, though not yet on A10 since I'm still climbing with good ol' ironclad. Honestly speaking my opinion of Glitter continues to rise since it turns out getting replay on a few random cards, even if it only triggers once for each one of them, is really good.

Honestly my only real struggle with ironclad is block

[oblique raft]

does one of the ascensions eat a potion slot

[swift hedge]

Yes

[oblique raft]

gross!

[patent geode]

yeah, it's a little annoying but you survive

[rocky stone]

it's A3 I think?

[patent geode]

Continuing to play through the new beta patch, and can report that hidden gem remains as good a wincon as always. One can probably debate whether the new version is a sidegrade or upgrade, but overall giving your cards replay 3 does win you games.

[oblique raft]

a3 is less gold

[patent geode]

A4

but close

[rocky stone]

yeah I was just going through it in my head

[rocky stone]

it can't hit the same card multiple times, but gives more Replay
which I overall think is better

[patent geode]

But the true question is whether or not you remember A7

[patent geode]

It gives the same amount of replay I'm fairly sure?

[rocky stone]

I thought it was one less before, but I might be misremembering

[patent geode]

Not to my knowledge, it's always been 2/3

[rocky stone]

okay yeah it was, mb

[patent geode]

the only change is that it can't hit the same card, but usually you don't need it to hit the same card anyway so in practice spreading it out is probably technically worse but about on par.

The important takeaway I think is that it remains a strong wincon regardless of which bosses you're facing, as long as your deck can survive until it gets going properly (and you preferably have some recursion).

[shrewd vault]

yippee. second win, no infinite this time. Just good old fashioned Defect jank. Compact is a really fun card.

I might actually remember how to play this game :P

[formal sigil]

:3

[shrewd vault]

Bully that nerd for its lunch money

[formal sigil]

https://tenor.com/view/yungboy-never-broke-again-chip-cash-money-gif-10814543523167440323

[sweet crown]

damn the new forgotten and lost fight in act 3 is fucking brutal at A9 💀 (it was an A10 run but i think it's A9 that makes enemies hit harder)
just lost a clad run to them, although debatably my mistake was thinking an elite into a question room would be safe

[patent geode]

Yeah, A10 is just A9 but with double bosses at the end.

[mortal loom]

Legit jealous you managed to beat him

but also asc 5 instead of 10

so

[mortal loom]

Everything after the first Tear Asunder is what i just got from a Pandora's

so... interesting!

[rocky stone]

Love Pandora's Box

[shrewd vault]

Sealed Throne is really fun, that is all

[sweet crown]

got so lucky with defect against A10 doormaker, i had a focus potion and throwing axe (doubles first card played each combat) and topdecked defrag+ on the very first turn :P
and it was still a bit spooky because he ate my only copy of voltaic

but thankfully i had enough temp focus and frost in the deck to block while i chipped away at his health

honestly i'm starting to think he's not that bad if you prepare early for him
he just makes it unsafe to play a slim deck or a deck that hinges on a few cards
maybe his numbers could be tuned down slightly but i think the core mechanic could be ok to leave as is

[mortal loom]

Right, time to crank into Doormaker 10 again

Okay, killed him this stime

but his numbers are defintely too high

he doesnt need to scale that hard, that fast

My biggest issue right now is he's a very boring damage race now 🙁

[sweet crown]

first time using pael's growth and uhhhhh

would've been real funny if i ended up with no way to get the blade into my hand after all that :P

[mortal loom]

BUG BANG

[shrewd vault]

Regent is such a funny little guy

[patent geode]

I am at a lower ascension in these cases admittedly, though my overall impression of Door is that I think I like them less as a fight now.

The card eating gimmick can be overcome by building things without the intent to go infinite, oddly similarly to how you'd deal with Nemesis I think, but the previous version of the fight where they'd open and close their door was nice.

Whilst they needed something more to them, I liked that gimmick and am a little sad to see it go.

[mortal loom]

Yeah

[mortal loom]

my current propsoal that i've submitted is:

Doormaker doors get less hp, but scale faster.
Doormaker is invincible + stunned when you break open the door - No free wailing on him.
Doormaker has a buff that causes him to retreat behind a door again after taking X damage. Possibly he only retreats after taking X damage, though i like the idea he retreats after 2 turns anyway, so it's a psuh-pull

You could intergrate the card eating mechanic still, probably, if it's only active whenver he's out of door.

I'v eseen suggestions that eaten cards could get locked behind summoned doors that you can break down to get them back

(If this took away his strength for the eaten cards ,taht could also be fun)

[patent geode]

Mm, ultimately I'm myself not focused on suggestions for how to change things (I'll leave that to them), and moreso simply laying out what I've enjoyed more and what I've enjoyed less.

[mortal loom]

Fair. I know from my own playtesting expereince (I do it... semi-rpfoesisoanly? nto paiod, but i have credits in a couple of games now)

a certain amoutn of "What i'd do" is useful, as it helps triangulate the feedback

Part of my frustration right now is that he's wildly overtuned

\i dont actually know if the card mechanic is good or not

because his numbers are simply bonkers

[patent geode]

If I had an active conversation with them then sure, I've done that too and play tested changes I've proposed, but in this case where it's one way I'm happy to just lay out my thoughts as they are and leave it as such.

[pearl ravine]

Was so close to beating Act 3 💀

[swift hedge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3QCqXdzUxU

[shrewd vault]

finally got to go back and finish this run: Sealed Throne feels busted, at least at ascension 1.

[rocky stone]

Its pretty great definitely

But all the Ancient cards are really

[shrewd vault]

yeah. crucially, it's both grea and really fun

[rocky stone]

Grimoire is probably the least hype one I think, but the amount of deck sculpting it gives is still pretty great

[slender forge]

I think sealed throne is so good because you really only need like 1 of 3 relics to turn it from good to AMAZING

Permafrost, Mummified Hand, or Lantern all make it practically free to play turn 1

[stark junco]

Doing a shiv deck on silent...
Get the brilliant scarf
Get a pounce
Get Up my sleeve
Get Ninja scroll
Start with a bunch of free attacks to spam out until I get pounce for free as it's the fifth card, pounce makes my next skill free, which gives me up my sleeve for more shivs and reducing it's cost. 4 cost in cards for free in one turn

I turn one'd the first part of the experiment boss

oh and I have the ornimental fan

[rocky stone]

Scarf is very good

[stark junco]

so the shivs give me block

[rocky stone]

if you can already reliably play four cards

[stark junco]

dammit!

Died due to the intangible on the last one

couldn't get the damage out on the turns it wasn't intangible

so very close

[patent geode]

Aw

Your in wasn't as strong as theirs

[stark junco]

My protection wasn't strong enough ;-;

or honestly should have had poison

[patent geode]

Sly is nice too for some protection, but I run an admittedly lean package there.

[mortal loom]

I still DO NOT LIKE Doormaker

but this was a very, very funny kill on him

You never remove strikes, right? that's the correct way to play this game?

(Yes that is a Meteor Strike in a Hellraiser deck with Icecream, and yes, it was exactly as funny as you'd think)

[rocky stone]

Strike is Strike

[patent geode]

Sadly strike is not always strike.

I was sad to discover that the ancient relic which makes all your strike cards cost 1 less and become eternal only referred to Strike strikes, and not all strike cards.

It's what I expected, since it's be bonkers otherwise, but was a little sad.

[rocky stone]

it's because that one says Strike, while Hellraiser says "cards with Strike in their name" IIRC

[patent geode]

Pretty much, though the game does use evocative language in some places so it's not as if ambiguity is unprecedented if rare.

What the wording says is ultimately less important in a video game by virtue of the wording not determining the rules; they only seek to emulate them.

Either way I didn't expect it to work as I said, but was hoping it would because it'd be fun the first time at least.

(after the first time you'd prolly have some infinites, so yeaaah it shouldn't be a thing.)

[cloud tapir]

okay we gotta ask

what's the appeal of snakebite

compared to just a deadly poison, unupgraded, that's +2 poison and Retain
but also, +1 energy cost

[swift hedge]

ive seen some people say it works well with flechettes if you get a lot of snakebites

[shrewd vault]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bINQBJ2MD_k the short answer is that it's a deceptive amount of damage, and retain is nice

[swift hedge]

https://www.tumblr.com/spiderqueenpc/810623704940838912/why-does-neow-keep-reviving-him?source=share

The Grimm Troupe's tent

why does Neow keep reviving him

-# #slay the spire #slay the spire 2 #slay the spire ii #slay the spire fanart #the regent #regent #musi mi #doodle

Tumblr · Mar 9, 2026, 3:43 PM

[mortal loom]

Arright Door eater, COME AT ME

[cloud tapir]

some flechettes synergy is alright

[mortal loom]

Doormaker is dumb and i hate him.

[light garden]

https://youtube.com/shorts/i0EpPiM_n9Q?si=MPeLTLdmwEHiqw7b

sometimes, a motherfucker really needs to be Cut

[mortal loom]

So, how are they planning ot cast that.

Oh, void form

yeah, that'd work

[mortal loom]

Another door maker kill, so that's 3 wins back to back

All which featured doormaker in it.

Fuck you, Doormaker.

[mortal loom]

Well, i beat doormaker 4 times in a row, but my deck was useless agaisnt Test Subject

i literalyl dont kniow how the deck could ahve won vs test subject, toehr than having a bunch of potions

Pretty funny,, honestly

(also the bit where Doormaker ripped 84 hp off me did not help)

[honest glade]

oh god does a10 already have the double floor 49 boss or something

[mortal loom]

Yes, tehy compressed the Asc levels

[mortal loom]

5 runs in a row where i've killed Doormaker.

Also if you want to know how run over doormaker got

[hybrid fern]

Ok so I know whether to take it, seal of gold, is the gold for energy mandatory or is it like, a choice

Oooh wait I pulled great rng after taking toy box I hadn't even thought about this

The relic trader will take the wax for real! Holyholy

Unceasing top for a fake book of 5 rings we take those

[mortal loom]

It's mandatory.

[mortal loom]

Yeah, i think it needs to be like... 4 or probably 3

tbh

5 is just steep enough to lock you out of a lot of prucahse options

Since it's at minium probably costing you 15g a floor, and you usally only get 10ish g a floor

[hybrid fern]

20 mins after i tried to do a minion dive bomb build and thought it was ass they change it 2 make it 0 cost 😭

these changes r interesting

i need adult byrdonis to have an interaction if you have the chick or egg

OH iim not playing the beta branch! how do i get it

[shrewd vault]

In case you don't know, you can access the beta branch by right-clicking on Slay the Spire 2 in your Steam Library, then clicking Properties > Game Versions & Betas > public-beta
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868840/discussions/0/798964766336102566/

[hybrid fern]

tyty

[hybrid fern]

ok lord parasol and the courier dont give you everything 😭

this is tthe dumbest item ever, genuinely run ruining in some cases i think

but i beat the run with the dumbest clogged build of all timee

[patent geode]

That's how the devil do be

They're still generally decent, if in my experience the weakest of the options you can get in terms of Act 2 Ancients.

[hybrid fern]

im so glad i just had an autoplaying deck basically

the devil is my least fav, but hes kinda saved by being lore important to ironclad

i love the tent so much, got it with girya, so good

[oblique raft]

I basically always take the "get a power to hand" relic from him because the others are so rough

[honest glade]

the tent is one of the best relics in the game

especially with how frequently you're encouraged to rest in this game

[hybrid fern]

i somehow won after ingesting the contents of 2 shops accidently

[hybrid fern]

absolutely i just got it on a regent run with girya and the chimera kings cooking relic, sooo good

[pearl ravine]

I've gone the farthest in with Ironclad and Necrobinder so far. I like em both.

[swift hedge]

ive gotten the furthest with ironclad and regent
i thought i'd do better with silent cause i think i played her the most in sts 1
while i did get a win, maybe 2 idr, those were with poison decks and it seems weaker in 2

[cloud tapir]

it's not something you always want to take, for sure, but an entire shop for free can be a lot of value, especially with courier letting you actually spend gold afterwards

three relics, full stock of potions, and a card removal (even if it's admittedly dulled down by adding 7 cards)

it also helps that colorless cards are, generally speaking, pretty good in sts2

[honest glade]

yeah ive had a lot of good luck with them

[patent geode]

Helps that a good few of them help make playing through your deck easier.

But yeah, if you're picking the parasol chances are you're going to have to commit to some kind of good stuff, high energy build.

[stark junco]

so after having an amazing deck last time that bodied enemies all the way until the final boss

this run I barely clung on to life

I repeatedly left fights with 1 hp

Shaved by the edges of everything

and never got to upgrade any cards cause I was always healing

and I beat the queen from a mixture of thorns and poison and sheer luck at amount I could block each turn

[patent geode]

Love to see it.

[stark junco]

Oh and the somewhat interesting combo of having the relic that never makes you discard your hand, and that mayhem card that plays the top card of your deck for free.

[patent geode]

Oh that synergy, yeah it's a fun one. Basically your hand becomes deck thinning, right?

[stark junco]

Because I never played my left over defends and strikes they were just kinda cluttering up half my hand, meaning it played high value and useful cards each turn

[patent geode]

It's similar to what made the original version of Stoke arguably better than Calculated Gamble; controlling what goes back into your deck is a huge boon.

[stark junco]

my card pulls were both miserable and great in that run though

I didn't even get bouncing flask

But I got two afterimages

and a mayhem

[patent geode]

Afterimage fucks yeah

It's not always the best, but I have a soft spot for it.

[stark junco]

Afterimage is a one cost always useful power that you can toss out there when you have a chance

I also have four fake ??? relics

[patent geode]

Can't believe you'd fake a relic

[stark junco]

I would fake so many

[cloud tapir]

it's like 3-5 block most turns

it's good

[oblique raft]

afterimage shivs 😌

[stark junco]

the dream my man, the dream

[mortal loom]

Why yes, i will buy this tent in the shop right after i took a meat cleaver.

[rocky stone]

Love the Tent

it's so good

[oblique raft]

Tent is probably the best relic

[cloud tapir]

oh we haven't seen the meat cleaver

[mortal loom]

Campfire option: remove 2 cards, gain 9 max hp.

[cloud tapir]

oh dang

[rocky stone]

and it's somehow even better in multiplayer

since you also get a free Mend every camp too

[mortal loom]

So, ignoring mutliplayer ,from an A10 persepctive... i think Tent is mostly overrated

in that the better you get, the less you need to rest and the less it does as a result

where i do think it's good is once you have relics that do things on resting

Or have stuff like Lift/Dig avalaible

at that point, rest sites start becoming very,very strong

[rocky stone]

this was a dumbass run

just won by gaining a shitload of Strength and sustaining through massive max HP from Feed and Crimson Mantle

[sweet crown]

tracking fisticuffs is a very silly combo
they should probably nerf that power lol

[mortal loom]

Which power?

The weak enemies take double damage?

[sweet crown]

yeah
it could just be 1.5x damage and it'd still be strong, imo

[patent geode]

Admittedly I think that's mostly because of tracking.

Multipliers are dangerous, especially when you have multiple

[mortal loom]

I did the upgrade everything, 1 Max HP event + miniature cannon+ tracking earlier today

So much damage

Then I died turn 1, 2nd fight in act 3 because I didn't buy anchor and never saw any max health relics or events

[patent geode]

-Icarus, colourised

[shrewd vault]

it's more than a little because I keep getting ridiculously good starts (toxic egg from neow, decent powers into a mummified hand act 1), but I think Regent might be my best character

[pliant night]

we don't have a ping role for STS coop do we?

[mortal loom]

Little bit

[mortal loom]

Not to my knowledge, we can probably hit the mods up about it?

[pliant night]

@shrewd vault any chance we could get a ping role for coop ?

[shrewd vault]

Checking now, I don't actually know our policy for setting those up

[pliant night]

also while y'all are here I guess, any interest in a coop run in like 15 min or so?

[shrewd vault]

I've been meaning to try, but unfortunately I am le tired

[pliant night]

real

its fun, but kinda funky

the scaling in some areas (cough artifact cough) is wack, but its pretty well done I think

[mortal loom]

I'm wiped by health, atm

[pliant night]

also real

[mortal loom]

Minion: But sir, the Doormaker will eat our cards!
His Majesty: I CAST SPACE ROCK

This was a joyfully silly run. Got given Comet on floor 1 (I really like Hefty Tablet). Then I got Dying Star from Vantom. Then Orobos offered me Meteor Shower, and like, at that point i've just gotta commit, right?

[mortal loom]

I'm sorry, white star does what

I thought it was like the power one, where it tapes on a random rare to the existing card rewards

NO

It's an entire 3 fucking rares for you to choose from

[spare shoal]

Its crazy

I got it from neow the other day

[mortal loom]

Sadly it turned out my deck was very bad into Mr. Bees

Damn mr bees.

[warm wadi]

wanted to share the biggest Osty and the biggest unleash/protector that I've ever had

[swift hedge]

Cool s my beloved

[manic kestrel]

that cool s is wrong

the tails are pointed inward it should look like an 8

[honest tundra]

Told him so

[manic kestrel]

appreciate u

[honest tundra]

He said no

[patent geode]

Yet the wiki page on the cool S contradicts him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_S?wprov=sfla1

[manic kestrel]

it's trade marked?? what the fuck lol

[shrewd vault]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/meet-the-guy-who-just-trademarked-the-s-thing-cool-s-pointy-s-stussy-s/ hm

I like this linked article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henohenomoheji he's just a little guy

wait, this is the slay the spire thread. please disregard the little guy.

[radiant plaza]

we in off topic

[swift hedge]

i beat ascension 0!!!!
had a tough time with the crab boss in act 2, but act 3 was surprisingly smooth

[pliant night]

alright I can confirm, the History Course Whistle combo works exactly as expected

[pliant night]

...or maybe not?

it worked in one fight, but now its only repeating the first time and I dont know why

[patent geode]

Congrats!

[honest tundra]

Very good

[swift hedge]

thanks!!

i'd been having some trouble with silent lately so i'm pretty proud of that run

[radiant plaza]

Okay

Carve it in stone

If you take Toasty Mittens and try to play Exhaust synergy Ironclad, the game actively hunts down all your Exhaust synergies and deletes them first

I just watched Toasty Mittens exhaust Ashen Strike, Feel No Pain, and then Evil Eye in that order while trying to fight the act 3 boss

[rocky stone]

Oof

[radiant plaza]

This isn’t YASD this is the game actively manifesting hatred towards me in specific for trying to play outside my comfort zone

now I will say, is it my fault for letting RNG decide whether an Ironclad motherfucker lives or dies, maybe? but god damn was that a bad shuffle

[mortal loom]

Yeah, i think Toasty Mittens is a trap

or at least requires you to hbuild a deck with a ton of junk

I have similar feelings about Drum of battle

but that at least lets you choose twhen to fire it

[rocky stone]

Drum does feel rough

Unless you just really need to exhaust more cards

[mortal loom]

Drum is basically commitnig to i want gas, and i want to exhaust cards and id ont really care what

and that;'s.. fine

[rocky stone]

Also I had Drum active while having some Headbutts, and it feels bad haha

Need to put your garbage on top so it gets exhausted

[pliant night]

A9 necrobinder get!

Electric Shrymp on Reanimate is a pretty killer combo that pretty much carried me thru the entire run

I didn't take damage at all in act 3 until the boss

[cloud tapir]

shrymp is play on combat start right?

[pliant night]

yup

[cloud tapir]

on a skill specifically

which, with reanimate, yeah, that's pretty good

[pliant night]

got really solid ancient rewards all around honestly

arcane scroll -> sentry mode set the trajectory for the run, Shrymp basically solved my block for a ton of the run, and Crossbow came in really clutch, esp against queen

literally all of the damage I did to the queen herself was random hits from sentry mode/powers/relics/whatever else, and 2 squeezes crossbow gave me

[warm wadi]

chose the Neow's Blessing to transform one strike and one defend

[honest glade]

mmmmmm hamber

[warm wadi]

managed to get through Act 1. No colourless cards yet

did get offered a third 😄

okay

I think the run just started

[honest glade]

oh my god lmao

[mortal loom]

I'm on such a loss streak currently

Turns out long covid brain fog is bad for playing, who knew?

[slender forge]

oooh luminesce and hammer is a one in a million synergy

good luck

[cloud tapir]

A3 down on the Regent

[mortal loom]

Finally broke my horrid loss streak. It's real hard to win with covid brain fog
Act 1 was interesting TM, but starting with Ultimate Strike is preddy good and bagged me 4 elites. Getting past the exploding giant was Fun (it was not fun), but i did it. Really interesting choice at start of act 2: COrruption, Runic, or Pandora's. Pandora's could have been very good, Corruption seemed actively bad at the time (I just didn't have that many skills, and the skills i did have, namely, Colossus, i wanted to keep). End of act 2 scored me Bing Bong, who's actually just really strong to take - you have to think more about your card picks, but generally speaking, getting 2 copies of whatever good card you want to pickup pays off.

Oh, and during act 2 i picked up a Tracking. Which, like, i only had one way to apply weak, and only for two turns, but doubling the damage ontop of Cruelty and Pen Nib made for some serious Funny Number.

Tanx kindly gave me a meat cleaver, and that made for an easy act 3 routing, into a toughish queen fight, and a not nearly as tough Doormaker, because what's doormaker gonna do agaisnt Runic Pyrmaid and all this damage output? (Answer: Just die embarrassingly). So huzzah! Victory!

[patent geode]

Admittedly it's also just a really hard game in general.

[rocky stone]

very funny to me that Jorbs apparently absolutely loves the new Doormaker

for exactly the reasons a lot of people hate it

[manic kestrel]

cus doorman is a nasty bitch?

[oblique raft]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2868840/view/507357499795439629

new beta branch patch

doormaker reworked, prepared reverted

[rocky stone]

Doormaker getting a different thing based on which part is in the door does make a lot more sense to me

also good to see Pendulum is less deck size dependent now

Parry going up more, lmao

honestly still not sure if it's worth it at 10(14)

oh shit Sword Sage doesn't increase Blade cost anymore

I might actually take it now if I'm Forging

Voltaic nerf 😔

[cloud tapir]

god damn, regent eating today

[rocky stone]

Spoils becoming a draw card is probably also gonna be good for Regent

[patent geode]

Tbh I've found myself fine with it, largely because I build midrange valuepiles anyway which is its "weakness". The only real shame has been that I liked the previous gimmick a lot conceptually.

[rocky stone]

So specifically, he likes that it sometimes just deletes a key card from your deck

Because he thinks its interesting to need to play into that possibility and have a backup

Because he came at it from "if you assemble a good engine by act 2, the game is basically over"

[patent geode]

Mm, it forces some degree of redundancy and identifying lines, or to not build a super tight combo deck. I'll have to see how the reworked doormaker ends up playing though.

[rocky stone]

And you can just use HP as a buffer to smooth out some variance on that

[patent geode]

Kinda difficult to separate the I suppose now previous reworked doormaker from just simply having very high damage numbers.

[rocky stone]

Very curious what the new powers it has now are yeah

[patent geode]

Buffed Parry card: Block gain increased from 8(11) -> 10(14)
Also, parry slowly inching towards being good. I do love that it's now almost twice as strong as the original version.

[rocky stone]

And the funny part is I'm still not sure it's good

[patent geode]

Goes to show how differently they seem to have imagined blade decks would be played.

[patent geode]

Yeah, but at least it's situationally nice now.

[rocky stone]

It's definitely more viable now

Stapling two defends to your Blade does make it easier to play and not eat shit

[patent geode]

Overall like I said with the previous patch, this patch was the one I was curious about how they'd handle and they've done so well. Writing their thoughts and motivations is neat, and probably does some work towards assuaging reactions.

[rocky stone]

People got really mad about the Prepared removal damn

[patent geode]

Yeah, which I'll admit I do also really like prepared and am happy they'll look at sly and stuff like Doormaker instead to deal with it.

[rocky stone]

I probably should take Prepared more often

[patent geode]

Suspect sly will be strong for quite a while though as its one of Silent's better defensive options, even before all the mana cheating.

[patent geode]

Prepared plus the sly block card is a very efficient core to many a deck.

[rocky stone]

I generally prefer Acrobatics and Tools of the Trade as Sly enablers

[patent geode]

Which they're good, but you don't always get enough of them.

Prepared made it easier to hit a critical mass, plus y'know looting being a good effect.

[rocky stone]

And I'm also just not always sure I have cards I wanna filter out necessarily
But I guess you usually have a card you can pitch even if you don't draw into Sly

[patent geode]

Also

For the Gloom change, although it did make the game more difficult it was not in a satisfying or fun way as it just made maps less interesting. Instead I will be looking to rework Gloom entirely in the future to a modifier that makes the game harder but in a more interesting way.
I'm honestly quite happy about this one, since whilst I didn't mind fewer camp sites and honestly barely thought about the fewer ? rooms, the fact that I noticed neither probably means it's a fairly safe ascension to rework.

[rocky stone]

Since its still -1, you just get selection

[patent geode]

With status enemies or the queen for example, you'll almost always have something.

[rocky stone]

Fair yeah

Need to play a bit more

[patent geode]

Looking through these, I wonder if I'll ever actually pick Cinder. It is definitely more tempting now, though it's funny how the buff is that it exhausts a random card in your hand.

I like it though

The change to Arsenal is also neat. I think it's overall a nerf, especially since Regent's better card generators created colourless cards anyway, but it opens up for new directions to take it rather than being about abusing 0-cost colourless cards from the shop.

Overall it's easy to say I like what I'm seeing from a patch which largely consists of buffs to players and nerfs to NPCs, but still I like it and where they're looking to change things. Still surprised Master Planner survives at 2(1) mana though.

[stark junco]

If you could make a relic, what relic would you add to the game?

[patent geode]

Hm, what would be the most Icarian relic I could make.

The easiest would be something like "The first time an enemy gains poison, gain 4 block", bur that's one of those uncommon ones that certain decks will love to see.

And not too interesting

[stark junco]

Hmmm

"Calcificator: Each battle lose 1 Max HP, gain plating for the amount of Max HP lost this way at start of battle"

[patent geode]

Oh that'd be incredibly strong.

Maybe as an ancient relic?

One of the things I've enjoyed about ancients is that they make scaling relics more feasible as a design (not that there are too many amongst the ancients admittedly ;p).

[stark junco]

It makes it an interesting run because it encourages you to rush at the beginning of the fight

cause the longer the fight goes on the more the plating ticks down

And once the plating is gone you have half the health you're meant to

[mortal loom]

Cinder was already good, i actually think this might be a nerf, lol?

I susepct the logic re master planner is that Sly in general is borked, and Master Planner while good, is actually v. slow

(and only really goes off if you have a critical mass of acrobatics/prepareds and ways to make energy ot play your cards while drawing through your deck )

like it's good and all, but it only does something on yhte second time you draw that card, and only if you played it the first time

this is very slow

[stark junco]

Okay but consider

Nightmare + Prepared

[patent geode]

Same tbh; it wins around the same time plenty of other wincons win

[patent geode]

Even then I suspect it's really, really good and not too much of a risk

But that should be fine for an ancient relic

Which also lets it be more consistent when you get it.

[patent geode]

It's funny to contrast with true grit now at least, though in my biased, feeling based opinion which has nothing to do with strength, I enjoy exhausting from hand more than from top of deck even if the latter is better typically I think.

[mortal loom]

Like Cinder's main thing is it's just an early game nuke

that also provides osme ehxaust support

...

Wait

is this it? is this the time i finally take CRASH LANDING?

lol, no, it's still a bad card

Good to try things thoiugh

[patent geode]

I'm honestly just surprised crash landing isn't an ironsworn or defect card.

But I suppose that's why it's a regent one; it's good to have odd little cards not belonging to an obvious archetype.

Though now that I think of it, it does count as card generation.

So, uh, new arsenal all-star?

[mortal loom]

Ironsworn?

lol

[spare shoal]

It triggers the power that gives block when you create cards

Collision course is a great defense card

[mortal loom]

Ehhh

I actualyl just tried that

I was not impressed

(tbh, i think it was just a bad pick for what my deck is doing)

Damn, killed by the gambit due to bad draws and not having enoguh soul production to fix them

That's okay

Was very fun taking the ballsy play of let's take hte gambit

and it made all the floors up until the insitable incredibly sweet

[mortal loom]

Wait, shit, i have Bing Bong, i only want 2 coppies of Refract+, not three

[mortal loom]

ahahaha

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS DECK IS DOING

Gods i love this game sometimes ❤️

Poor, poor Test Subject

Penguin, what does your deck do?
Penguin: I HAVE NO IDEA BUT IT IS WINNING

[patent geode]

Clad ;p

[honest glade]

beautiful

[mortal loom]

Oh, i know, but it was mausing

also, m eanwhile

Dear mr bees, we have heard your petition to be allowed to kill us, and concluded: lol get wrecked nub.

[mortal loom]

Oh no

||NuNUDoormaker steals strength and dex on turn 4 and every 3 turns afterwards||

You cannot dwardle in that fight

[honest glade]

nice

[mortal loom]

Thsi is ontop of: ||Turn 2, any skill or attack you play exhausts|| and Turn 3: ||YOu can't draw any more cards during that turn.||

Just a hilarious, hilariousand "fuck you!" to infinites

[honest glade]

holy shit

[honest glade]

i assume hes attacking on all of these turns

[mortal loom]

He dosnt attack when he buffs himselfa nd debuffs you

You get turn 1 vs the invincible door to setup

[honest glade]

oh so its like

turn 1 he ||applies the nightmare fuck you concoction that does a different thing each turn||

then its off to the races

[mortal loom]

Nono

Turn 1, trhe door is closed, you can setup

then the door opens and he's buffed up

it's a buff on him, not a debuffo n you

[honest glade]

ohhh i see

[mortal loom]

oh and also on his debuff/buff turn, the first card played costs 1 more energyu

[honest glade]

does he not attack on the turn he does this

holy shit this fight is MEAN

[mortal loom]

Yup, you always have a "quiet" turn after his two attacks

It'sh ilarious

[honest glade]

close enough, welcome back time eater

[mortal loom]

Well his previous version on teh beta branc hnever stopped attacking

while eating every 10th card you drew

So far i have beaten him on silent, then died to queen right after

Defect what is this deck doing deck just ran him over

and this silent run is too slow to kill him

[honest glade]

oh god this is the first real anti particle wall mechanism

though if your payoff for the particle wall infinite is like... panache or black hole or letter opener, you can particle wall him to death t3

[shrewd vault]

the card creation/transform archetype on regent feels really weird to me still. for one thing, it's a pretty dilute archetype. Forge creates one card, one common creates debris, three uncommons create colorless cards (one every turn), one rare creates debris (lots) and two create colorless cards

it's even totally separate from his other mini-archetype in the minion cards, unless transforming counts as creation

[honest glade]

did they revert the changes to charge! and begone

[patent geode]

Nope

[patent geode]

It's a bit odd since the centrepieces are kinda the two create colourless cards IME, but they're rare and fairly good on their own so it's a bit whatever.

Most of the good card creation spam is ironically found amongst colourless cards themselves, such as Jackpot.

[shrewd vault]

Foul potion no longer damages Osty
Osty is a merchant lore (not clickbait)

[honest tundra]

How hard is it to get an infinite?

[shrewd vault]

mm, yeah. I should probably pay more attention to colorless cards in general, and on regent in particular.
it also makes me wonder how many times you need to trigger Arsenal for it to be good. once is an inefficient Inflame (which at least now triggers before you play your Blade on the beta).

[shrewd vault]

easier than 1, but hard to quantify. I oopsed into one for my first necrobinder win, when I never pulled it off in StS 1 (but I'm not a great player)
plus they're actively trying to make it harder in the beta branch

[honest tundra]

I had one infinite so far but that was due to keeping the deck very slim. A bunch of powers, fusion+, skim+, coolheaded+, zap+ hotfix. The only reason it was infinite is because every second card that cost me one energy would evoke plasma. It did scale though which was nice

[honest tundra]

Why make it harder? Isn’t it the fun of slay the spire to go overboard?

[shrewd vault]

you'd have to ask them. if I had to guess, an infinite will usually, deterministically, win you the game. if they're too easy to put together, with no downside, then the meta becomes very centralized. And at a certain point it just removes the difficulty of the game, and whether or not going overboard is a design goal, difficulty definitely is

[patent geode]

They are ironically probably a bit worse on regent now, since previously for example Bolas were absolutely busted with Arsenal.

Why yes I'd love a 0 cost attack which returns to my hand every turn and gives me more and more strength.

[patent geode]

To borrow from MtG for a second, infinites aren't only centralising but honestly tend to prevent you from doing interesting things with many a card because they're too easy to combo off with.

This being a very good example.

Displacer kitten let's you do tons of finicky things such as protecting key permanents you control from removal, get additional Enter the Battlefield triggers, and more.

Or you could win the game

[shrewd vault]

oh, the other thing that occurred to me after the first beta patch: the slay the spire boardgame is the first (official) multiplayer entry in the series. and they very deliberately removed a lot of infinites, partly because it was multiplayer: comboes are fine in singleplayer, but waiting for your friend to win the combat (and then every other combat) isn't very engaging

[patent geode]

Infinites seldom have complex lines once you've built your deck for them (with some rare exceptions), which is why by making them more difficult to reach you both promote building your deck with it in mind sinc the beginning, and prevent people from just forcing an infinite because it's the easiest way to win.

[patent geode]

Yeaaaah

[shrewd vault]

oh, true. post-patch I guess the only real synergy is Heirloom Hammer

related: jackpot is, like, actively bad on Regent, right? because his zero energy cost class cards usually cost stars instead

[honest tundra]

Would glow+ 2x and Alignment make a black hole infinite?

[honest tundra]

Yes, I think

[shrewd vault]

if your deck is thin enough, yeah. if you have a set of cards that either costs zero or generates their cost, and collectively draws at least that many cards, then it has the potential to go infinite

I think the main payoffs for regent are blackhole and Make it So

[honest glade]

the main thing about this is that in my experience having played a lot of sts2 multiplayer, someone going infinite tends to be incredibly hype

like "holy shit theyre still going, that rules"

[shrewd vault]

big turns are defintiely hype, that's been one of my favorite parts of the boardgame (stance dancing ❤️ ). but is it as fun the second, third, and fourth time?

[oblique raft]

I do love seeing a knife trap hit the stack and then seeing the number it says in parentheses is (53)

[honest glade]

it depends on the big turn

ig its more fun when its not quite an infinite

and its just one long nondeterministic combo

[patent geode]

Depends on the deck and how many stars you make. I've had some okay luck with it.

Like I'm probably not going to complain over getting a comet if I can consistently cast it.

[shrewd vault]

that's a fair point. I've had a lot of regent decks where I get ridiculous star generation and never get offered a big star payoff. jackpot is something to watch out for in that case

[patent geode]

Mm, in the context of the new arsenal it's also just a plain ol' 3/6 points of strength.

The biggest benefit of Jackpot in Regent though might actually be the plethora of good defensive 0-cost cards, since the issue with a 3 mana attack is that you may struggle getting any block.

Though the other characters are decent at it too.

[cloud tapir]

crash landing's big draw is just that it deals like a Ton of damage for its energy cost to All enemies, and if you can clean up the fight before you have to redraw, then hey look bye bye debris

[shrewd vault]

it's basically trying to be Hyper Beam, right?

[cloud tapir]

we watched someone take two of them to frankly staggeringly effective... effect, and it was good

[cloud tapir]

hyper beam is honestly more niche

crash landing is 1 cost, 26(?) to all

and until you actually draw into those statuses, it doesn't actually hinder your offense

and like

you're playing the regent your offense is probably good

[oblique raft]

god i wish we still had ways to gain artifact

soaking the Biased Cognition penalty with Artifact always felt good

[patent geode]

I'm okay with what we got as a trade-off, but I miss it too

[rocky stone]

Don't think we're getting player artifact or Orange Pellets again

[patent geode]

Nope, for good reason

I miss them but I don't really expect 'em back

[honest glade]

particle wall at an expensive price?

satisfactory

[mortal loom]

It is the end of act 1 and i have 15 block defends.

not defend+, just defends.

[sweet crown]

fasten + footwork?

[spare shoal]

How

How do you even get more

[patent geode]

Fasten would be able to do most of the work yeah

Since fasten gives defend an extra 5/7 block.

[mortal loom]

Fasten + Bulk Up

N amely, Fasten+

because i took large capsule and got Frozen Egg & Bag of Marbles

and at that point of course i'm slamming a Fasten the moment i see it

[patent geode]

That'll do it. Suspected it was fasten and then either an extra power or an extra power plus the oddly shiny stone.

Gaze upon the shiny stone.

[patent geode]

Fasten is some damn good bang for your buck.

[rocky stone]

Fasten is interesting

[spare shoal]

How do you get more defend cards?

[rocky stone]

you don't

[spare shoal]

Then how this happens?

Oh I can't read

[spare shoal]

You have defends that give 15 block, I thought you had 15 defend cards

[mortal loom]

Not *quite8 correct - one of the whale bonuses gives you +1 defend and +1 strike

[rocky stone]

true

[mortal loom]

but it also gives you two random relics and i can't prove it, but i think it acts similar to transofrms and ignores rarity

My deck is getting progressively sillier.

[rocky stone]

pretty nice

Mayhem is always fun

[patent geode]

I guess you could also pick the clone relic and choose defend if you wanted to

Which, uh, go king?

Questionable support?

[sweet crown]

bruh moment

[patent geode]

Get got

[mortal loom]

And silier.

[sweet crown]

the next floor is a shop too lmao

[mortal loom]

Now the interesting thing here is i'm fighting the insitabile

so ifi ifire the flak cannon at the wrong time...

[rocky stone]

Are the Escape cards status?

[patent geode]

Honest to god I like the reworked signal boost so much because being able to play it even when you don't have a power in hand currently is so nice.

[patent geode]

We goblins shall overthrow ye cruel Tyrants!

[mortal loom]

YUP

i just compacted a couple of them too XD

[patent geode]

Which I presume you have tyranny in your deck rn, since otherwise this is awkward.

[rocky stone]

Oof

[patent geode]

Oh damn the new compact art fucks.

[mortal loom]

Well, i just fired the flak cannon for 77 damage

and then the boss died

So.

Hmm

...Double damage flak cannon you say, Tanx?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

[patent geode]

Man, double damage on Tanx is the dream.

Sure no infinites with it, but I'm not complaining.

[mortal loom]

My other chocies werethe spiked bracers

which seems actively determinemtal in a deck that;s like 90% by volume

[patent geode]

Lmao, my beloved

[mortal loom]

and the sai

which is honestly just really strong

[patent geode]

Sai is one I've seldom picked despite wanting to

[mortal loom]

but i felt like the upside of "YOu have a 40 damage ultiamte strike"

[patent geode]

Bjg that's because all of Tanx's options tend to be good.

Probably the consistently best ancient you can get in act 2

The lady is also great, but a bit more conditional.

[mortal loom]

...I just keep putting powers in this deck, right? that c an't possibly be bad.

[patent geode]

I have to date only lost one (maybe two, maybe) runs to the electric ball guy due to this.

[rocky stone]

I liked old Tri Boomerang more tbh, but the double damage can also be quite good yeah

[mortal loom]

I am legit very scared of him right now XD

[rocky stone]

Sai is quite good IME

[patent geode]

The old Tri boomerang fits my design principle that people love to play free stuff, which thus means that letting them play cards on the cheap tends to feel good.

However, combo decks y'know

[rocky stone]

but I also mostly take it usually when the other options aren't as great

[patent geode]

So I get the change.

[rocky stone]

I mostly liked to use it to reduce 2 and 3 cost cards

[patent geode]

Same, which is why I recognise it as both good and rarely picked by me.

[mortal loom]

Deck is having a good time.

Yup.

[patent geode]

I really should try some more status defect lol

Overclock especially is a card I know I underpick.

0 mana draw 2 is good

[mortal loom]

Ayup.

Well, poor Test subject

never ever did damage to me

Queen did... 12.

[mortal loom]

Arright

I've decdied

Test subject is not allowed to play

Well, this deck was filthy

it turns out you can just say 'my only damage is Serpent form" and then build a 40 card deck aroudn this

[stark junco]

I support this

[oblique raft]

few things in this world are more beautiful than end of days+ in your opening hand against the gardener eels

[mortal loom]

This is the third time the game ahs offered me Feral+ in act 1.

Please note i have not seen a single 0 cost attack

Four. FOUR times

Finally offered along side... a go for the eyes. unupgraded

[shrewd vault]

😌

[mortal loom]

Okay

Important note

Bing Bong doubles every card added to your deck.

Every. Card.

This includes curses

[honest tundra]

Yeah

[mortal loom]

Turn 1'd queen.

Pretty sure i just loose to doormaker tho'

Oh, interesting

Feral overrides the exhaust

Yup, couldn't take down Doormaker! oh well

[shrewd vault]

I love how goofy Creative AI + Subroutine gets

[patent geode]

Creative AI is indeed good

Also, what are people's thoughts on the dragon relic which gives you an extra energy if you end your turn with any left over?

[mortal loom]

Strong.

You tank one turn to have a variable 4-5 energy.

also lets you use stuff like wisp without upgrading it

[patent geode]

Mm, so far I've found it to be a worse ice cream, but ice cream is also good so y'know

Tend to prefer the other options generally, but will pick it if I don't like them.

[shrewd vault]

worse ice cream seems about right. good versus statues and with a little extra energy gen, since it buffers you from turns where you get, like, Charge Batteries off and then only draw three energy worth of good cards

[sweet crown]

i'd argue it's more like a better bread
also it comboes extremely well with ice cream, incidentally

[mortal loom]

Yeah, it's immensly flexible

you can for instance sacrifice it fora big burst turn

[pliant night]

I think better bread is a good assessment

Minus the crazy synergy bread has with hot cocoa

[mortal loom]

Damn

Beat the doormaker with a pretty scrappy deck

but traded on the second form with Test subject

it kileld me and itself at the same time 🙁

[pliant night]

zamn

just had almost the same thing happen with soul fysh actually lol, had it dead to doom on its buff turn, but got got by beckons first

A9 is thoroughly kicking my ass rn

also, gotta say, the beckons not exhausting feels supremely ass to me

like, I don't care if they'd have to buff it otherwise to make up for removing that, but the endless war of attrition except you can't actually make up any ground whatsoever feels profoundly unfun

[mortal loom]

@pliant night We should mutilplayer sometime

[mortal loom]

I.. actuually dont mind soulfish, but i've abosltoeuy started drafting cards that let me exhaust/transform cards just to deal with them

L.ike i will slam Begone or Burning Pact in a Soulfysh act

[pliant night]

We should! Would you be up for a run tonight? Maybe in like an hour or so

[mortal loom]

@pliant night Are you on the beta branch?

I'm jumping into some helldivers, but hit me up in like an hour

and i'l let you know how i'm doing

[pliant night]

I'm not, but I can switch over RQ

Sounds good!

[mortal loom]

i apologize, but i am def too tired

i am gonna go crash in bed

[pliant night]

No problem at all! That's very real lol

[honest glade]

here are my opinions on the ancients

[manic kestrel]

vakuu is my favourite because the choices are the hardest for me

[rocky stone]

Vakuu has some fun ones

my favorite act 2 ancient is Pael I think
and act 3 it's Tanx

[oblique raft]

tanx is my favorite off vibes alone

he's just here to have a great time

[slender forge]

Vakuu gives the earrings and I love those

[oblique raft]

how good is he at playing your first turn?

[rocky stone]

depends on how good your deck is at spamming out your hand turn 1

[manic kestrel]

pretty sure he just plays cards from left to right until he runs out of energy or cards to play

so pretty bad

[rocky stone]

Correct

He plays the leftmost card at the leftmost enemy until he runs out of energy or cards

Which notably, Innate cards start on the left in your hand

So those will get played at least

[manic kestrel]

its nicer if you have innates that give block or stuff that gives t1 block or your powers are innate

[shrewd vault]

I can't wait for someone to somehow get him to do an infinite

[rocky stone]

also has synergy with stuff that gives extra turn 1 energy, ie Lantern, Teaset, Cocoa, etc

[oblique raft]

panache, hellraiser, pommel strike, pommel strike, perfected strike, mummified hand, empty deck

[rocky stone]

that would do it, yeah

[mortal loom]

He's having such a great time

also sometimes he gives me Iron Club

[cloud tapir]

if hellraiser is the rightmost card then you sob n cry but otherwise

sounds like it'd work

[oblique raft]

simply luck into it

[honest glade]

is snakebite the new claw

[slender forge]

Looks like it

[warm wadi]

haha

[shrewd vault]

Snakeclaw, 0 energy skill, apply 2 poison. Increase the poison of all snakeclaws by 1

[honest glade]

what the fuck

[honest glade]

hmmm

[warm wadi]

within such a short time of each other too

[honest glade]

the issue is that part of snakebite's identity is costing 2

[warm wadi]

hell of a coincidence

[honest glade]

while part of claw's identity is costing 0

OH

snakeclaw
2 energy skill, retain, whenever this card is retained increase the poison of all your snakeclaws by 2, apply 7 poison

[warm wadi]

snakebite isn't as bad as it looks, but it's not really good either

[honest glade]

snakebite rules earlygame

like

[rocky stone]

it still just seems bad Iunno
sorry Jorbs but I don't really buy it

[honest glade]

its kinda hard to play sometimes but it stays there until you can play it

and seven poison is seven poison

[shrewd vault]

I've gotten pretty good use out of it. And ten poison is even more than seven poison, if you don't have a better target at your first campsite

[oblique raft]

simply pull Bookmark

[honest glade]

poison cards always feel great to upgrade

because 1 more poison goes so much farther than 1 damage

the least good card that applies poison is still a card that applies poison and is therefore good and worth taking sometimes

been playing on the beta lately bc of the phobia mode

and god damn do begone and charge feel worse to play

[shrewd vault]

I switched to the beta for the allure of New Stuff, but I haven't drafted minions in it yet. The old Charge was really fun when I got music box in the same deck: turns out zero mana draw two deal 20(?) damage is really good with monologue

[honest glade]

i do love the reworked Arsenal tho

[swift hedge]

how is poison in 2? i heard some people say they felt like it was nerfed

[honest glade]

really good imo

[shrewd vault]

They nerfed some cards 1->2, and they're nerfing cards on the beta branch. It's really good, but discard synergies are really really good so they're struggling to find a sweet spot

All of silent's archetypes got fun toys at pretty much every rarity, so she's eating well

[rocky stone]

poison still feels pretty good in 2 to me

no more Catalyst, but Accelerant fills a similar niche

Silent in general is just very good I think

[shrewd vault]

no corpse explosion either, right?

[rocky stone]

nope

[patent geode]

Yeah, the corpse explosion equivalent is instead Malice, which is a Necro exclusive.

Though we did get a power which deals a bunch of damage every third time you inflict poison

[rocky stone]

Outbreak is pretty nice

[patent geode]

Losing catalyst is the big blow, but conversely it opened up for a more diverse set of cards meaning poison is in a good plac offensively. The fact that the only defensive poison card though is a block card with exhaust however means that you will need to combine poison with something else.

As for snakebite, it's honestly just a decent damage option for act 1; similar to poison dagger in that regard.

Deals decent damage early whilst you're still searching for synergies, is common and thus readily available, and not too cumbersome to have in your deck in future acts.

[rocky stone]

Accelerant still kind of fills a similar niche in doubling/tripling your poison output
It just makes it tick down faster too

But yeah you're not gonna do a Nightmare Catalyst one-shot anymore

[patent geode]

Makes it tick down faster, is a rare, and doesn't scale as aggressively which is the big thing.

Since the scaling is now 1+N, instead of 2^N, where M is the amount of accelerants/catalysts

[rocky stone]

True yeah

[patent geode]

Poison was in retrospect in a very weird place in the last game, which considering how Time Eater got funky with shivs (and shivs themselves had rather disparate support) put Silent herself in an odd if functional position in the game. Have enjoyed her a lot more in StS2, and she was my favourite class in the first game.

[rocky stone]

Modifiers get very silly

Sealed Deck and Big Game Hunter are very funny

deck was basically infinite once I make it through one rotation

[cloud tapir]

defect a3 down

we took The Advice and took fewer cards

[patent geode]

Damn, The Advice has to be a strong relic.

Nah but congrats!

[manic kestrel]

I love the sord

[pliant night]

i cry

[shrewd vault]

Here's something I keep thinking about in my routing: what's the earliest you're willing to go to a shop and what are you looking to buy?

[mortal loom]

Act 3 ancient reward, The Advice: You no longer see card rewards. +2 energy/turn

[sweet crown]

busted crown should stay in spire 1 where it belongs >:(

[mortal loom]

Nonojo, this is worse than busted crown

Lol

[mortal loom]

Definitnely a way to win

[cloud tapir]

sovereign blade duping via heirloom hammer is very real

[mortal loom]

Read what the soverign blade says

The duping wasnt the strong part 😛

the bit where it's 126 damage 3 times is the strong part

[cloud tapir]

if we wanted to comment on that we would have

[mortal loom]

Fair.. But seriously, i toolk heirloom hammer because it got me 20 hp.

That's the main reason it's in the deck

[cloud tapir]

honestly fair

book of five rings is not that impressive on paper, or necessarily in effect, but
it is kinda handy.

[mortal loom]

it did help to bonk through his earlier phases

poor test subject

[paper plover]

Hellraiser my beloved

it’s so stupid

[mortal loom]

CULMATIVE SPEED: TOO FAST TOO LIVE

this defect deck is very dumb

Hot Cocoa + Swift enchanted Trash to Treasure and Machine learning

and a super critical as well

...

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAA

But penguin, how do you deal with Bad luck?

My cunning plan: Just take the 13 damage from bad luck to the face

[patent geode]

The casual 78 card deck.

[mortal loom]

Yup.

I mean, i had 4 innate cards with Swift and also Hot Cocoa.

so

you know

[patent geode]

Mm, hot cocoa

I do love the lone glacier+, the final card to be picked up.

[mortal loom]

Look

SOmetimes you need to stay frosty.

[patent geode]

Glacier is my favourite card so I get it.

Never too early, never too late

(sometimes actually too late, but I love it still)

[mortal loom]

I think it was just nice and solid there

[mortal loom]

Hmm

This v aku guy aint very good at StS

[pliant night]

I need a break from getting my ass kicked by A9, anyone want to do some coop?

@mortal loom

[mortal loom]

I am lying down, sorry 🙁

[pliant night]

all good!

[patent geode]

It do be difficult. I just completed a weird Necro run at 8, so should have only hee and Ironclad left for it.

Which honestly I'm not sure how Necro came to take so long, but she did.

[pliant night]

kinda ironic lol, Necro is the only character I have with A9 unlocked

next best I have is clad at 4 lol, I've just been grinding her so far

for single player at least, I think im up to A6 for multiplayer

[mortal loom]

I apparently haven't won necro on a10 since my first time. She's really easy to loose with

Very powerful if she gets going, but it's a lot to juggle

[patent geode]

Yeah, she also really likes her extra energy.

[mortal loom]

Like Regent looks like a lot to juggle, but I think Stars are so overttuned right now you end up crushing stuff

[patent geode]

The run I just won was in large part thanks to the neutral axe attack which returns to your hand carrying the early game

[mortal loom]

Necrobinder has osty attacks which... I haven't quite made work, Doom stuff can go nuts but it's slow, hang just looses to 2/3 bosses currently

I uno, Jorbs sees a lot of success with her so I think I'm just doing things wrong

[patent geode]

Osty attacks IMO are mainly value cards which may serendipitously synergize with eachother

But I'm not picking Bone Shards nor Fetch for their osty synergies

[pliant night]

imo you don't go looking for osty builds usually, they're hard to force

I've had a lot of success with them, but usually bc key pieces just kinda get dropped into my lap

[patent geode]

Usually it's some defense and whatever decent damage/doom can carry the early game

[pliant night]

so far I think ethereal has felt the most consistently powerful to me, but I haven't been playing on the beta branch with nerfed banshee's wail

[patent geode]

Honestly I think the only reason I took so long to climb with her compared to the others was just me being slow and unlucky with rolling her with the random wheel.

[pliant night]

and necro big spells is a very real build too

she has a ton of variety, which is why I latched onto her I think

[patent geode]

Ethereal is good value, which again she does good synergistic value well across almost all her packages.

Though do be careful if you face the test subject.

Since they're not targetable in-between scene transitions, meaning you'll burn all your targeted ethereal cards.

[pliant night]

yeah thats bit me before

still managed to pull it out, but I was dead to self-doom the turn I won

[slender forge]

Absolutely fantastic Silent run. Girya from the Neow capsule was such a great get and I was able to just tear through everything with shivs and other attacks. Killed doormaker in 3 turns

Also got the dream combo of potion shelf with the fill potion slots every combat relic

Very fun power fantasy run after so many losses with regent

[pliant night]

asking again if any folks here would be up for some coop

@mortal loom I summonst thee

[mortal loom]

I only just got up, nto up for multiplayer >.<

sorry

[pliant night]

all g!

[mortal loom]

Also, boo, lost a run to Vakku.

Just got a dogshit line on the first turn of the queen fight that fucked me badly

[pliant night]

ill be up for a while yet, so feel free to ping me if you do feel up to it

[spare shoal]

I could go for some spire multiplayer rn

[mortal loom]

I will let you know ,but it's very dobutful atm. I'mm really battling with the Long Covid 🙁

Otoh, i did just do this solo

[mortal loom]

Oh, that's a fascianting way to loose

I should have taken Tri-boomerang and gotten the triple damage on my Richoetts and Fasten+, instead of taking Iron Club

didn't realzie my damage was as low as it was

genuinely, Very cool!

[dry glacier]

Cheese Lotus supremacy

(Sleight of Flesh is so damn strong when you can get it off)

[shrewd vault]

cheese lotus?

[dry glacier]

oh fuck sake it's Dragon Fruit, not Lotus

it reminded me of the STS1 relic lmao

Cheese Wheel + Dragon Fruit gave me giga money, even if I picked up Lotus rather late

[shrewd vault]

motion to rename dragon fruit to cheese lotus? motion carries *gavel gavel*

[dry glacier]

LMAO

[patent geode]

I do love the irony of extolling the virtues of cheese and dragon fruit with a screenshot where you're at literally full health.

I don't doubt that they helped you get there, but it's still funny to me.

[dry glacier]

Honestly? They didn't even help there that much, the set-up I was was low-key fucked

Shroud with the Doom generation I had gave me a lot of HP to boot and Sleight of Flesh genuinely just. SHREDS

[patent geode]

They did give you big number, and big number better

[dry glacier]

Like I am genuinely expecting it to get nerfed, that's how good it is right now

[patent geode]

Shroud is weird in that it's generally quite good, but it's not too uncommon for you to also have combats were it triggers maybe once or twice a turn at most.

[dry glacier]

Yeeeeeeah it's the curse of survival power without Innate

[patent geode]

Stuff like Reaper and Oblivion are where it truly shines against single foes, but what I think makes it so popular is in part the fact that the most difficult fights in the game are against multiple foes.

[dry glacier]

Yeah, which makes it scale rather easy with the AoE Doom cards

[patent geode]

Shroud is in part really good because it's really good in the combats which are the most threatening, and I personally think that's fine as is?

[dry glacier]

actually let me just get a screenshot of the deck

oh yeah no Shroud is not the problem child imo, Sleight of Flesh is

like I don't mind it being strong, buuuut turning Negative Pulse into a 13 damage card on top of its usual stuff is kinda BM

here

Scythe was at 80 dmg by the time the run ended

[shrewd vault]

I should give shroud a chance, but I keep skipping over it because of how it looks next to Child of the Stars

[dry glacier]

It's pretty good, though I personally advise getting it once you get Doom generation going in some form, like with some Negative Pulses, Countdown, whatever

[shrewd vault]

oh, for sure

[dry glacier]

this includes Neurosurge btw! Shroud triggers from any Doom application

makes a good card even better

[spare shoal]

I've found the silent power that deals damage on card draw very underwhelming

[shrewd vault]

I've had a couple runs where it's most of my damage

[spare shoal]

tried building around it and it was like "I've drawn 15 cards this turn, that is uhh... 45 damage"

[shrewd vault]

but I don't play at high ascension

[dry glacier]

Speedster? I feel like the cost screws it over a bit, but when it gets going it's genuinely kinda insane. You need a super strong draw engine though.

Though yeah I also haven't gotten to super high ascensions on Silent yet, or anyone for the matter

currently hovering at Asc4

[spare shoal]

I'm on ascension 1-2 rn

[patent geode]

Shroud is weird in that against single foes I think it's neat but not great unless you have Oblivion or Reaper (both rares). However where it shines is again with AoE Doom in fights against 3+ enemies.

So all in all it's a card in a good place with good synergies.

This being based on experience up til A8, since I'm lazy with Necro and haven't done my A9 run yet. She's quite easy to win with so I've put her off lol.

[shrewd vault]

yeah. and in fairness, I want to say group fights are often the biggest block checks? so getting to spend more energy on Killing and less on blocking helps you get ahead of the curve

[dry glacier]

Yeah, it does also help that Necrobinder's best Doom card imo is also a rather strong Block card too lol

Necro's just crazy in general ngl

[shrewd vault]

I'm going to miss spamming dirge, but it's probably for the best that they're taking away spamming dirge

[patent geode]

Does depend on when during the game where at, since I think Days is the best card you can get at the start of a run.

[mortal loom]

Finally brokem y loss streak on Necrobinder

[patent geode]

Pull from below my beloved.

[mortal loom]

"Dark orbs are trash" my arse

(Someone on a different server claims dark obs are trash because... Recycle doesnt exist anymore???)

[slender forge]

No one told them

[mortal loom]

? Is it called a different name? oh, it's not Recycle. Recursion./

The one that evoked an orb and then channled it again

[slender forge]

ohhhhhh yeah that's gone

[mortal loom]

Well well well, if it isn't the consquences of my actions.

[honest tundra]

How do you build Ironclad?

Trying the epoch with the A1 req

[mortal loom]

Take all teh cards

.>

Honestly, act 1, that's actually a pretty legit approach

Ironclad likes BIG NUMBY and HIT WITH STICK

[honest tundra]

How make big stick

[mortal loom]

BIG STICK. HIT.

uh, okay, more seriously

Ironclad has lots of good strength options.

Dominate is esp good (If you're on the beta, which i am)

The vuln package in general is very good

with a lot of ways to take it

Dominate to turn it into strength

Thrash is really good in small decks

[shrewd vault]

vulnerable is like 50% more stick per stick

[mortal loom]

The best way to think about vulnerable is every 2 poiints of damage becomes 3.

This gets even more bonkers when you add in strength, or stuff like Cruelty and Paper Phrog

[honest tundra]

👍

[shrewd vault]

exhaust cards are also a good way to thin your deck, to get to your better cards (though with defect getting ironclad's status package, you can't turn wounds into damage anymore)

[mortal loom]

Thrash lets you turn scaling cards like Rampage into Even Better s caling

since it eats the card and hits twice

the blockpage is even stronger -Colossus, the one that doubles the first block card you play each turn, grapple , juggernaught

Armaments is still very good

Especially when you have lots of draw and you upgrade it

[shrewd vault]

thrash is one of a couple of ways ironclad trains you to take big expensive cards (which are, broadly, already good) -- thrash turns them into +damage, stampede plays them for free, bloodletting and your other energy gen let you cheat them

[mortal loom]

one thing with ironclad is what you pick early

ois very differnet to what you pcik late

early i often pickup any junk, becuase a lot of ironclad ocmmons hit like trucks

like Cinder or Bludgeon basicalyl solves damage for act 1

add some aoe in and you're gucci

Perfected strike is also good early

etc

like, here's my last IC win

started with silver Crucible, so i don't get a chest, but my first 3 card rewards come upgraded

so straight off, stomp+ - expensive, but it's good aoe.

Pommel Strike+ the next floor - cheap draw, which plays into making Stomp cheaper.

Shop next, so remove a strike, and buy armaments to go with my Pommel strike -i can upgrade this at a campfire, use the draw to help me upgrade other cards in my deck