AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
... can I have the freaking All For One already? Geez.
Auralynx on
+1
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
I cleared A18 Defect with the most generically "Defect deck" you can imagine. I'm not even going to post a screenshot. I had 4 copies of ball lightning, 4 copies of cold snap, Biased Cognition, Electrodynamics, 2 Core Surges, a Thunder Strike, and a handfull of leaps and charge batteries. There were some relics that supported it. I took some damage, I rolled stuff over. :P
Maybe I should re-evaluate D&G as part of a vs-bosses with summons package, but I think it ought to be like 12/18 upgraded and tick + create like Darkness+ on the upgrade.
Clothesline is okay base and an eh upgrade, which is the part I object to.
I'm not sure I agree that needing to hit Snecko or a relic+card combo counts as "not demanding," and think you're being influenced by a what-works-at-A20 perspective there. I'm coming more from a mindset that my run shouldn't be over if I don't luck into something strong early perspective - if Meteor did the same kinda-poor damage, gave 2 orbs, and cost 4 you could fire it up by Act 2 easily in most decks if you wanted to.
I'd again cite the make-Immolate-playable revisions they did as evidence that rares are meant to just work more often than not.
Why though with D&G - Like that's so insanely strong in my books, you'd have to make it a rare. Defect's got weak AoE options in general, so D&G is a card i'll treasure even coming across it mid act 2 or things - early act 1, it can carry me through act 1 almost solo. Like Darkness+ Is already a super strong card, stapling it's effect onto D&G would be crazy even without buffing the aoe.
Re: A20 perspective - Hmm. i can see that. But i think there's another role to cards like Grand Finale, Clash, Meteor Strike etc which is valuable -and that is the "How do i play this?" angle. It challanges the player to think outside the box and figure out HOW those cards could be made to work, and i think that's a pretty useful/valuable role for learning the game. (Also i'd say MS payoff is huge - It's not just raw damage, it can evoke up to 3 different orbs and produces at least 6 energy. It's crazy strong IF you can cast it)
Fair though! I'm enjoying the differing perspectives here, even if i dont agree with them - debates are fun.
I am unironically playing an A20 Hand of Greed ironclad deck. We just turned Hexaghost to gold on stream.
WHAT IS HAPPENING
Edit: Stabbed to death by book of stabbing is what's happening. The dream is dead.
Still, that was a loooot of gold. Walked into a shop on floor 4 with 649 gold. had 98 when we left, 248 by the shop on floor 9. Left with 24. By the shop on floor 19 we had 435 again.
First off, here's a deck where Captalism was our mortal foe. I'm assuming i blame this winning run for the Hand of Greed run going off the rails.
To wit: I literally announced on stream maybe we'll just find immolate on sale. Walk into store: Immolate on sale. Few more fihgts, next store: Immolate on sale... but we're short 2 gold. I for one blame @mysticjuicer and their "Git gud, Comrade
Still! Fun run. Immolate/Necronomicon, Demon Form, Bites with Magic Flower... Corruption with Dark Embrace and Charon's ashes, it was just a Good Stuff Ironclad deck, 10/10 chompy boi, would chomp through spire again. Even got to dig at campsites (Scoring Oddly Smooth Stone and Self Forming Clay, which is like what the hell even level of Good Relics to get from digging). Didnt get to live the Mind Bloom/Courier/Membership Card dream though, alas. Not that it really needed it.
Here's a vod too - sadly showing my mad heart reloading skills, but the two reloads were at least informative Lesson 1: Dont over focus on defence rather than setting up and Lesson 2: Dont hit end turn early. Whoops.
The kill was pretty sweet though. Also lookit that chunkchubby lil deck. 40 cards of goodness
Then i got this defect run just now which was the Defecty defects thing ever. Got Biased Cog, Self Repair, Echo Form and Core Surge all by the end of act 1. Took 2 damage to slime boss, which i believe was self-inflicted from Pain. Turns out Energy pot -> Echo'd Tempest with Biased Cog up does LOTS of damage. Funny that. Sadly not recording for this one, though. Really not much to say on it, though - that was such a powerful set of cards to get act 1, some really strong relics - though i did badly misplay Incense burner, setting it up so it was always going off when the heart wasn't attacking. Dammit.
So yeah! Fun Heart kills. See you all on the morrow with mooooar streams.
Hello Spire Slayers! I just started playing last 2 weekends ago. I was able to beat act with the Ironclad within a couple of days with no real strategy except going for elites for relics. I then tried The Silent, and had a lot of trouble just trying to wing it. I finally beat act 3 with The Silent last night. I'm a STS newbie, so, tips would be appreciated!
The skip button is always an option. Don't feel like you have to put cards in your deck every fight.
Learn what each fight does, pay attention to attack patterns.
Take your time.
Health is a resource. spend it if you need to.
+3
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited March 2019
Honestly, just play a bunch. Form some baseline card evaluations. A bunch of them will be wrong, but some of them will be right. Don't be afraid to experiment - you'll practically be forced to as you climb higher ascensions (you can get away with a lot of really dumb, really bad things at early levels), and some cards that seems bad really, really aren't.
Also a big one: you can learn a lot from losing. Don't get discouraged. Everyone climbs the spire at their own pace.
mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Also, starting out by allowing a theme to guide your card picks is a pretty good way to get familiar with the game.
Take a poison card? Pick more cards that do stuff with poison. Pick a card that makes lots of shiva? Take more stuff that does stuff with shivs/card spam.
Eventually you’ll get a broader sense of what synergies are good, but a straightforward theme is a good place to start as you get familiar with the various fights and events in the spire.
Also, starting out by allowing a theme to guide your card picks is a pretty good way to get familiar with the game.
Take a poison card? Pick more cards that do stuff with poison. Pick a card that makes lots of shiva? Take more stuff that does stuff with shivs/card spam.
Eventually you’ll get a broader sense of what synergies are good, but a straightforward theme is a good place to start as you get familiar with the various fights and events in the spire.
Also, if you're just starting out with the Silent, I've generally found Poison to be the most consistent "winning" archetype. Get a Noxious Fumes and 1-2 other Poison cards, then a bunch of really good block, and gg!
And don’t be afraid to “retry” a fight by using the Save and Quit option. You can also use this for random events and shops. For instance, it helps if you get hosed by bad RNG in the card match game.
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+3
AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
And don’t be afraid to “retry” a fight by using the Save and Quit option. You can also use this for random events and shops. For instance, it helps if you get hosed by bad RNG in the card match game.
I got one with what turned out to be 4 copies of Doubt yesterday! That was neat.
I mostly reload only when I realize I made the wrong choice of relic after a boss, though.
And don’t be afraid to “retry” a fight by using the Save and Quit option. You can also use this for random events and shops. For instance, it helps if you get hosed by bad RNG in the card match game.
I got one with what turned out to be 4 copies of Doubt yesterday! That was neat.
I mostly reload only when I realize I made the wrong choice of relic after a boss, though.
I’ll retry when offered the 3 curse/3 relic bell or the transforming relic.
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0
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
And don’t be afraid to “retry” a fight by using the Save and Quit option. You can also use this for random events and shops. For instance, it helps if you get hosed by bad RNG in the card match game.
Honestly, I didn't discover this until I was around A15 with all the classes. I'm rather glad I didn't know about it sooner - mistakes are impactful, and while it's nice to know you can retry when you're _pretty sure_ you can eek it out, I feel like it really breaks the spirit of what the game is early on. It sucks to die when you're sure you should be able to win, but the emotional weight of losing with no take-backs will force you to be a better player.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited March 2019
Funny enough, I've never reloaded a save after the sorts of events you guys are talking about. I pretty much exclusively use it when I actively play the wrong card and it's actually super important, when I think I can beat an Act 3 boss and want to retry, or that one event where you fight the 2 spider-bots for a rare relic and I know I can win if card X is near the top of my deck and will lose otherwise. ... Oh, and the odd tangled mass fight because fuck that guy.
Everything else I just let the chips land where they fall.
mysticjuicer[he/him] I'm a muscle wizardand I cast P U N C HRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I'll reload a fight just to see if there's any possible way to make it through, or if I misclick on something in a shop that I didn't intend to buy, but I accept my lumps in the matching game and other events.
I've been struggling to go up in ascensions with Ironclad - I'm around 7 or 8 with silent and defect, but only 4 with Ironclad. Tonight I decided to give him another try, and man did I stumble across a fun run.
The second half of act 2 was a breeze once the combo pieces were in place, mainly getting an upgraded Apotheosis linked up with the lightning in a bottle relic so I started every combat with it. Made it so I didn't need to upgrade any apparitions, or really anything after that. At the start of Act 3 I decided to go for the heart. It was actually a pretty close fight, but at the end I got a key double flame barrier up on one of this 15-hit attacks and that was that.
Also, I did a silent fist pump when I saw the boss of act 3 based on my deck
Hello Spire Slayers! I just started playing last 2 weekends ago. I was able to beat act with the Ironclad within a couple of days with no real strategy except going for elites for relics. I then tried The Silent, and had a lot of trouble just trying to wing it. I finally beat act 3 with The Silent last night. I'm a STS newbie, so, tips would be appreciated!
Lots of great advice has been posted so far!
I'm kinda leery of how good my advice would actually be for a newbie, but:
Dont be afraid to ask questions. Both in run "What does this card/relic/squidlyspoogch do for me", and here in the forums if you're just plain stumped on why you'd bother taking a card, or the purposes of a relic. Some interactions are weeeeerid. Fun. But weeeeeeerid.
Context is everything in the game. It's rare there's a truly actively bad card - but there are plenty of situations where a card or relic is bad with your current deck. Figuring those situations out is mostly just about playing the game - be very wary of anyone saying X is a bad card (Without at least backing it up on why. And even then "Bad" cards still have a role).
To give a concrete example: Flex. Flex is generally a "Bad" card. It takes a card draw, tends to provide less damage per card than other cards, and just doesnt do much by itself. But when you have Runic Pyramid (Lets you hold all your cards at end of turn, instead of discarding them), or an Artifact Potion or way to consistently generate Artifact(Flex applies both strength and a strength down debuff - the artifact potion can block this, letting you keep the strength permanently), or just plain you need a source of strength in your deck to work with Limit Break - Flex can rapidly become a very good card instead.
Beyond that - Just have fun. it's a deep rich game, it'll kick your arse, and dying ina blaze of glory is going to be common. So dont stress out when you loose - just try and figure out what went wrong, and what you can do better next time! Dont be afraid to just take cards because you've never taken them before and want to figure them out - nothing beats actual play experience, and you'll develop your own play style. (Which also ties into context above - everyone in this game will evaluate cards diffenrelty according to how they play the game. even the best players in the world have different approaches! It's a VERY subjective game, which is part of it's beauty)
Hope that helps!
(To toot my own horn - i also do educational slay the spire streams at twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin - Though i'm playing at the highest difficulty level and tend to play pretty fast. These may or may not help!)
Yeah, I learned to stop adding cards to my deck just because I can. My Silent run was indeed poison heavy. I've tried a couple of defect runs now. The first one got pretty far, all about them orbs. Second run, I couldn't get that same power card that lets lightning hit everyone, I didn't get as far. Recursion seems to be the best offense card for the Defect, and that card that deals damage based on the number of channeled orbs. I've been trying to basically keep my defenses up, and get as few offense cards as possible, and only try to get the really good ones. I'm still not sure which ones are good. Ball lightning seems good, a couple of power cards were good(forget the names). One made lightning hit everyone, another gave 3 extra orb slots. The Defect seems easier to play than The Silent.
Yeah, I learned to stop adding cards to my deck just because I can. My Silent run was indeed poison heavy. I've tried a couple of defect runs now. The first one got pretty far, all about them orbs. Second run, I couldn't get that same power card that lets lightning hit everyone, I didn't get as far. Recursion seems to be the best offense card for the Defect, and that card that deals damage based on the number of channeled orbs. I've been trying to basically keep my defenses up, and get as few offense cards as possible, and only try to get the really good ones. I'm still not sure which ones are good. Ball lightning seems good, a couple of power cards were good(forget the names). One made lightning hit everyone, another gave 3 extra orb slots. The Defect seems easier to play than The Silent.
I think most of what you've said here is pretty spot-on. I'll just say that I don't really like Recursion in most decks, but if it's working for you, great!
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited March 2019
I know A20 wins aren't as impressive when they aren't heart kills, but this was absolutely stressless fun. ;P #GoodStuffIronclad
I think this is the first time I ever had an X card with the opportunity to get Chemical X. Whirlwind and Immolate were both acquired before the halfway point of Act 1, and the deck felt pretty clear from there. I completely destroyed both A20 bosses, losing just over half my life because skull triggered, but I also could have Reaper'ed for 50 at some point so ... shrug The deck honestly wasn't even going down-then-up with Reaper - it just killed things so effectively that the 8 heal per fight was more than enough to keep me healthy. And if I happened to go below 50, great, sudden strength boost made me kill things even faster to recover.
Yeah, I learned to stop adding cards to my deck just because I can. My Silent run was indeed poison heavy. I've tried a couple of defect runs now. The first one got pretty far, all about them orbs. Second run, I couldn't get that same power card that lets lightning hit everyone, I didn't get as far. Recursion seems to be the best offense card for the Defect, and that card that deals damage based on the number of channeled orbs. I've been trying to basically keep my defenses up, and get as few offense cards as possible, and only try to get the really good ones. I'm still not sure which ones are good. Ball lightning seems good, a couple of power cards were good(forget the names). One made lightning hit everyone, another gave 3 extra orb slots. The Defect seems easier to play than The Silent.
I think most of what you've said here is pretty spot-on. I'll just say that I don't really like Recursion in most decks, but if it's working for you, great!
Recursion is pretty okay, but best have-an-offense pickup out of the box is Ball Lightning.
Your standard Barricade/Body Slam build, although I'm shocked I got just about every piece of that synergy pie. Barricade from Act 2 boss, Corruption, Body Slam x2, Dual Wield, Feel No Pain, and good Block cards.
Only one good Relic with the Egg, but boy did it do work for what I was doing here. Admittedly, I had a really hard Act 2 boss fight (the Ghost guy that summons 2 dudes) and retried to get it right. Also almost died one fight before the last campfire on Act 3 when I got the 999 health thing. My turn 3 was brutal and he put me down to 6 hp (and burning my Fairy potion) going into Decu/Donu fight. With Coffee Dripper, I didn't know how I was gonna survive.
Fortunately, I grabbed a Regen potion from the shop earlier and the asshole monster dropped a heal 10% max hp potion. On top of that, I got Barricade, Offering, into Corruption on turn 1 and never looked back. 5 turns later, they were both dead.
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Dammit, Wiped out on the heart with a Heel Hook deck. Even with a Panache, i just didn't have the damage - I was literally a thorns or intangible pot short. Oh well! It was interesting, i'll post the deck-list later for people to have a look at - still a fun run.
What the fuck? I just walked into 3 question marks in a row, every single one was a Chest. Tiny Chest doing WORK.
Sadly, it didnt do enough work for that run to be a win. Oh well!
Then i got a dead branch off of a floor 2 tiny chest in act 1, and then found Corruption on floor 19. Welp. perfect heart kill. Didnt even drop buffer.
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
edited March 2019
Was talking about STS over lunch with a coworker, who had come back to the game since mods started exploding. He was telling me about The Guardian, which - other than sort of overlapping with the Silent's block+thorns stuff a fair bit - had some really interesting mechanics that sound a bit odd on the Guardian itself, but seem ripe for lifting onto a 4th and potentially 5th character class.
Obviously a transformation mode of some sort does have merit, but I think what the Guardian does is too much retreading of existing ground. There's room for this idea to be fleshed out better methinks.
However the second mechanic is that cards have gem slots, and you can play gem cards which can then be slotted into the other cards at campfires. Exactly as you expect, that turns into "build your own cards" and just seems like an interesting idea for a class. It doesn't need to be permanent like it is here, but something where cards add text to other cards rather than having an effect themselves sounds like a solid avenue for exploring~
The third idea is "Stasis" which should probably have another name and is a mechanic I remember from Magic 12-ish years ago. Effectively, you can put a card in stasis, which will tick down each turn, and then comes back into your hand at 0-cost. Some cards do things while they're in stasis, some cards impact other cards in stasis ... you get the idea. Anyway, that also seems like a rather solid idea to focus a character on.
So while everything in The Guardian is treated as an archtype, I really feel like you could dig into each one to turn it into a full design and generate archtypes from there. Definitely neat to see the community adding things like this, though simultaneously makes me wonder where the game itself will head if it wants to make some community content "official" (please god make googly-eyes an official part of the game already :P ).
I'm watching Joinrbs from a mid-Act 1 run. Meat on the Bone, Paper Frog, and Red Skull carried him through Act 1 and he took Pandora which left him with 1 Block card. I had no idea how he was going to live...
Turns out Feed, Dead Branch, Corruption is absolutely bonkers. He's about to start the Heart fight with 145 max health.
Edit: He ate the Transient at 600hp and finished by eating the Heart.
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I'm watching Joinrbs from a mid-Act 1 run. Meat on the Bone, Paper Frog, and Red Skull carried him through Act 1 and he took Pandora which left him with 1 Block card. I had no idea how he was going to live...
Turns out Feed, Dead Branch, Corruption is absolutely bonkers. He's about to start the Heart fight with 145 max health.
Edit: He ate the Transient at 600hp and finished by eating the Heart.
That was a fun one to watch (probably going to go up on Youtube too). Watching him eat the Transient made me so happy.
In other news, I accidentally deleted my saves folder finally moving off of the Beta branch back to live so I have to climb from A10/6/0 on all three characters in order. I took Grand Finale because I figured I should be able to make it work (I had a Well-Laid Plans) without being too much of a detriment yet.
I accidentally Pen Nibbed one in the final fight while Phantasmal Killer was active. 240 without vulnerable or any strength. I haven't taken one on purpose or played it in so long that I forgot it has its own unique effect when played what a great card.
I'm watching Joinrbs from a mid-Act 1 run. Meat on the Bone, Paper Frog, and Red Skull carried him through Act 1 and he took Pandora which left him with 1 Block card. I had no idea how he was going to live...
Turns out Feed, Dead Branch, Corruption is absolutely bonkers. He's about to start the Heart fight with 145 max health.
Edit: He ate the Transient at 600hp and finished by eating the Heart.
As awesome as it is, I'm really starting to wonder if feed needs to be nerfed (like decrease it's damage to make it harder to use reliably, or decrease it's mhp gain to 2(3))- it seems like feeding every fight just snaps the games balance in half. The fact that the ironclad can recur feed, potentially leading to +16 Max hp in some act 3 fights just adds to the issue.
Still. That filthy licker can be far to much fun to watch (also getting meat on the bone and paper phrog in the first three floors)
Number Uno: A Corruption/Dead Branch run. See if you can find the point i just shut my brain off. Perfect heart kill though - Really, it should count as a double perfect as i went in with Buffer and never lost it.
And a I dont even know Defect run. Not super satisfied with this one as beating the heart came down to a reload and what felt like pure luck - I think casting creative ai would have been the right choice ,but having it chain into echo form and... arrgh. i dunno, it just stuck sourly with me. To be fair to it, i think up to that point it's actually a really interesting run? Like it just... didnt have a lot that was powerful EXCEPT bottled Echo form and everything being upgraded - no focus, no real way to scale it felt like except throwing Multi-casted Dark orbs at things. Creative Ai was a desperation take that paid off with a run win.
Pretty funny to have a run that starts off with Warped Tongs, then gets Molten and Toxic eggs in act 1. Warped Tongs got to do... very little. (Though it was cool when it just started upgrading Creative Ai powers for me). Good example of why Pandora's box with eggs is great though.
One frustrating bit is loosing Bird Faced Urn to Sapphire Key - When you get Matroshyka , it dosent let you choose whcih relic you keep and which one you leave for the key - you just get the bonus relic and have to leave the second relic in the list behind. So i got Pen Nib and lost Bird Faced Urn with an Echo Form/Creative Ai deck. *Shakes fist*
Soooo yeah. How to win at Slay the spire: Get lucky. Failing that, actually apply tactics.
Edit: Speaking of, Just take Black Star after act 1 because everything else is crap, then get 9 elite kills with it so you get a stupidly big pile of relics. Seems reasonable. Oh and do it as a 3 energy deck, just to send those elites a MESSAGE. (The message is Hand Over Your Brains And No One Gets Hurt). Points for having one of the worst opening hands ever.
One bit of the run i was happy with as a inspire decision - turning down Cursed Key to take Ring of the Serpent instead. That 6th card draw every turn was amazing, and Ring of the Snake was useless (Bag of Prep AND Ninja Scroll AND infinite blades+ will do that to your opening hand). Getting 2x Nightmare+ in act 3 was just sweet, sweet hilarious revenge on everything.
Hope this content's proving useful/amusing/informative to people!
...Double Edit: I just noticed my act 2 routing had no campfires. Damn. I was feeling freaking brave/crazy wasnt i?
Was doing a sort of Poison/Block thing until the end of Act 2 when I got Shuriken and Kunai back-to-back. Yup, I'm a Poison/Shiv deck now. Blade Dance+ is a much better card when it reads: 1 Energy, deal 12 damage, gain 1 STR and 1 DEX.
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+3
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
Someone here has probably mentioned this before, but Bloody Idol + Maw Bank when your deck is already capable of beating Act 3 is kind of hilarious.
So that's my Defect A19 down. :P
I'm a simple man. If I'm offered a Ball Lightning, I take it. Started the run with a "Transform a card" and turned a Strike into a Defragment. Then I got offered back-to-back Ball Lightnings. Didn't get much defensive stuff until Act 2, which was pretty rough. Act 2 boss dropped Echo Form and Sozu. By Act 3, I had the core of the deck in place and just focused on upgrading my Defragments and Echo Form. Fights were just a matter of playing Echo Form, then my three Defrags for +10 Focus.
The Helix Relic and Genetic Algorithm allowed me to take a turn to play an early Echo Form safely, while the Crane Relic thingy gave me more orbs slots. Worked out well.
GET WRECKED TIME ASSHOLE!
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Posts
... can I have the freaking All For One already? Geez.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
I was right, though; it's a little less disorienting fighting the buffed regular guys when I probably want to play defense most turns anyway.
Why though with D&G - Like that's so insanely strong in my books, you'd have to make it a rare. Defect's got weak AoE options in general, so D&G is a card i'll treasure even coming across it mid act 2 or things - early act 1, it can carry me through act 1 almost solo. Like Darkness+ Is already a super strong card, stapling it's effect onto D&G would be crazy even without buffing the aoe.
Re: A20 perspective - Hmm. i can see that. But i think there's another role to cards like Grand Finale, Clash, Meteor Strike etc which is valuable -and that is the "How do i play this?" angle. It challanges the player to think outside the box and figure out HOW those cards could be made to work, and i think that's a pretty useful/valuable role for learning the game. (Also i'd say MS payoff is huge - It's not just raw damage, it can evoke up to 3 different orbs and produces at least 6 energy. It's crazy strong IF you can cast it)
Fair though! I'm enjoying the differing perspectives here, even if i dont agree with them - debates are fun.
Gonna go live for a bit, quiet stream time.
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Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
I am unironically playing an A20 Hand of Greed ironclad deck. We just turned Hexaghost to gold on stream.
WHAT IS HAPPENING
Edit: Stabbed to death by book of stabbing is what's happening. The dream is dead.
Still, that was a loooot of gold. Walked into a shop on floor 4 with 649 gold. had 98 when we left, 248 by the shop on floor 9. Left with 24. By the shop on floor 19 we had 435 again.
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First off, here's a deck where Captalism was our mortal foe. I'm assuming i blame this winning run for the Hand of Greed run going off the rails.
To wit: I literally announced on stream maybe we'll just find immolate on sale. Walk into store: Immolate on sale. Few more fihgts, next store: Immolate on sale... but we're short 2 gold. I for one blame @mysticjuicer and their "Git gud, Comrade
Still! Fun run. Immolate/Necronomicon, Demon Form, Bites with Magic Flower... Corruption with Dark Embrace and Charon's ashes, it was just a Good Stuff Ironclad deck, 10/10 chompy boi, would chomp through spire again. Even got to dig at campsites (Scoring Oddly Smooth Stone and Self Forming Clay, which is like what the hell even level of Good Relics to get from digging). Didnt get to live the Mind Bloom/Courier/Membership Card dream though, alas. Not that it really needed it.
Here's a vod too - sadly showing my mad heart reloading skills, but the two reloads were at least informative Lesson 1: Dont over focus on defence rather than setting up and Lesson 2: Dont hit end turn early. Whoops.
The kill was pretty sweet though. Also lookit that chunkchubby lil deck. 40 cards of goodness
Then i got this defect run just now which was the Defecty defects thing ever. Got Biased Cog, Self Repair, Echo Form and Core Surge all by the end of act 1. Took 2 damage to slime boss, which i believe was self-inflicted from Pain. Turns out Energy pot -> Echo'd Tempest with Biased Cog up does LOTS of damage. Funny that. Sadly not recording for this one, though. Really not much to say on it, though - that was such a powerful set of cards to get act 1, some really strong relics - though i did badly misplay Incense burner, setting it up so it was always going off when the heart wasn't attacking. Dammit.
So yeah! Fun Heart kills. See you all on the morrow with mooooar streams.
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The skip button is always an option. Don't feel like you have to put cards in your deck every fight.
Learn what each fight does, pay attention to attack patterns.
Take your time.
Health is a resource. spend it if you need to.
Also a big one: you can learn a lot from losing. Don't get discouraged. Everyone climbs the spire at their own pace.
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Take a poison card? Pick more cards that do stuff with poison. Pick a card that makes lots of shiva? Take more stuff that does stuff with shivs/card spam.
Eventually you’ll get a broader sense of what synergies are good, but a straightforward theme is a good place to start as you get familiar with the various fights and events in the spire.
Also, if you're just starting out with the Silent, I've generally found Poison to be the most consistent "winning" archetype. Get a Noxious Fumes and 1-2 other Poison cards, then a bunch of really good block, and gg!
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Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
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I got one with what turned out to be 4 copies of Doubt yesterday! That was neat.
I mostly reload only when I realize I made the wrong choice of relic after a boss, though.
I’ll retry when offered the 3 curse/3 relic bell or the transforming relic.
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Honestly, I didn't discover this until I was around A15 with all the classes. I'm rather glad I didn't know about it sooner - mistakes are impactful, and while it's nice to know you can retry when you're _pretty sure_ you can eek it out, I feel like it really breaks the spirit of what the game is early on. It sucks to die when you're sure you should be able to win, but the emotional weight of losing with no take-backs will force you to be a better player.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Everything else I just let the chips land where they fall.
Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
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Also, I did a silent fist pump when I saw the boss of act 3 based on my deck
Lots of great advice has been posted so far!
I'm kinda leery of how good my advice would actually be for a newbie, but:
Dont be afraid to ask questions. Both in run "What does this card/relic/squidlyspoogch do for me", and here in the forums if you're just plain stumped on why you'd bother taking a card, or the purposes of a relic. Some interactions are weeeeerid. Fun. But weeeeeeerid.
Context is everything in the game. It's rare there's a truly actively bad card - but there are plenty of situations where a card or relic is bad with your current deck. Figuring those situations out is mostly just about playing the game - be very wary of anyone saying X is a bad card (Without at least backing it up on why. And even then "Bad" cards still have a role).
To give a concrete example: Flex. Flex is generally a "Bad" card. It takes a card draw, tends to provide less damage per card than other cards, and just doesnt do much by itself. But when you have Runic Pyramid (Lets you hold all your cards at end of turn, instead of discarding them), or an Artifact Potion or way to consistently generate Artifact(Flex applies both strength and a strength down debuff - the artifact potion can block this, letting you keep the strength permanently), or just plain you need a source of strength in your deck to work with Limit Break - Flex can rapidly become a very good card instead.
Beyond that - Just have fun. it's a deep rich game, it'll kick your arse, and dying ina blaze of glory is going to be common. So dont stress out when you loose - just try and figure out what went wrong, and what you can do better next time! Dont be afraid to just take cards because you've never taken them before and want to figure them out - nothing beats actual play experience, and you'll develop your own play style. (Which also ties into context above - everyone in this game will evaluate cards diffenrelty according to how they play the game. even the best players in the world have different approaches! It's a VERY subjective game, which is part of it's beauty)
Hope that helps!
(To toot my own horn - i also do educational slay the spire streams at twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin - Though i'm playing at the highest difficulty level and tend to play pretty fast. These may or may not help!)
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I think most of what you've said here is pretty spot-on. I'll just say that I don't really like Recursion in most decks, but if it's working for you, great!
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Perhaps I can interest you in my meager selection of pins?
Recursion is pretty okay, but best have-an-offense pickup out of the box is Ball Lightning.
Your standard Barricade/Body Slam build, although I'm shocked I got just about every piece of that synergy pie. Barricade from Act 2 boss, Corruption, Body Slam x2, Dual Wield, Feel No Pain, and good Block cards.
Only one good Relic with the Egg, but boy did it do work for what I was doing here. Admittedly, I had a really hard Act 2 boss fight (the Ghost guy that summons 2 dudes) and retried to get it right. Also almost died one fight before the last campfire on Act 3 when I got the 999 health thing. My turn 3 was brutal and he put me down to 6 hp (and burning my Fairy potion) going into Decu/Donu fight. With Coffee Dripper, I didn't know how I was gonna survive.
Fortunately, I grabbed a Regen potion from the shop earlier and the asshole monster dropped a heal 10% max hp potion. On top of that, I got Barricade, Offering, into Corruption on turn 1 and never looked back. 5 turns later, they were both dead.
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*Watching multiple hands of 3-cost cards go by*
Oh right, that's why I hate Snecko. Regardless of how good it is overall, it's just frustrating when RNG hates you.
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Yeah, I tend not to take it if I don't have additional card draw. Drawing into cards that let you draw more makes it super powerful.
Sadly, it didnt do enough work for that run to be a win. Oh well!
Then i got a dead branch off of a floor 2 tiny chest in act 1, and then found Corruption on floor 19. Welp. perfect heart kill. Didnt even drop buffer.
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Obviously a transformation mode of some sort does have merit, but I think what the Guardian does is too much retreading of existing ground. There's room for this idea to be fleshed out better methinks.
However the second mechanic is that cards have gem slots, and you can play gem cards which can then be slotted into the other cards at campfires. Exactly as you expect, that turns into "build your own cards" and just seems like an interesting idea for a class. It doesn't need to be permanent like it is here, but something where cards add text to other cards rather than having an effect themselves sounds like a solid avenue for exploring~
The third idea is "Stasis" which should probably have another name and is a mechanic I remember from Magic 12-ish years ago. Effectively, you can put a card in stasis, which will tick down each turn, and then comes back into your hand at 0-cost. Some cards do things while they're in stasis, some cards impact other cards in stasis ... you get the idea. Anyway, that also seems like a rather solid idea to focus a character on.
So while everything in The Guardian is treated as an archtype, I really feel like you could dig into each one to turn it into a full design and generate archtypes from there. Definitely neat to see the community adding things like this, though simultaneously makes me wonder where the game itself will head if it wants to make some community content "official" (please god make googly-eyes an official part of the game already :P ).
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Turns out Feed, Dead Branch, Corruption is absolutely bonkers. He's about to start the Heart fight with 145 max health.
Edit: He ate the Transient at 600hp and finished by eating the Heart.
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In other news, I accidentally deleted my saves folder finally moving off of the Beta branch back to live so I have to climb from A10/6/0 on all three characters in order. I took Grand Finale because I figured I should be able to make it work (I had a Well-Laid Plans) without being too much of a detriment yet.
I accidentally Pen Nibbed one in the final fight while Phantasmal Killer was active. 240 without vulnerable or any strength. I haven't taken one on purpose or played it in so long that I forgot it has its own unique effect when played what a great card.
As awesome as it is, I'm really starting to wonder if feed needs to be nerfed (like decrease it's damage to make it harder to use reliably, or decrease it's mhp gain to 2(3))- it seems like feeding every fight just snaps the games balance in half. The fact that the ironclad can recur feed, potentially leading to +16 Max hp in some act 3 fights just adds to the issue.
Still. That filthy licker can be far to much fun to watch (also getting meat on the bone and paper phrog in the first three floors)
Edit: Going live!
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Number Uno: A Corruption/Dead Branch run. See if you can find the point i just shut my brain off. Perfect heart kill though - Really, it should count as a double perfect as i went in with Buffer and never lost it.
And a I dont even know Defect run. Not super satisfied with this one as beating the heart came down to a reload and what felt like pure luck - I think casting creative ai would have been the right choice ,but having it chain into echo form and... arrgh. i dunno, it just stuck sourly with me. To be fair to it, i think up to that point it's actually a really interesting run? Like it just... didnt have a lot that was powerful EXCEPT bottled Echo form and everything being upgraded - no focus, no real way to scale it felt like except throwing Multi-casted Dark orbs at things. Creative Ai was a desperation take that paid off with a run win.
Pretty funny to have a run that starts off with Warped Tongs, then gets Molten and Toxic eggs in act 1. Warped Tongs got to do... very little. (Though it was cool when it just started upgrading Creative Ai powers for me). Good example of why Pandora's box with eggs is great though.
One frustrating bit is loosing Bird Faced Urn to Sapphire Key - When you get Matroshyka , it dosent let you choose whcih relic you keep and which one you leave for the key - you just get the bonus relic and have to leave the second relic in the list behind. So i got Pen Nib and lost Bird Faced Urn with an Echo Form/Creative Ai deck. *Shakes fist*
Soooo yeah. How to win at Slay the spire: Get lucky. Failing that, actually apply tactics.
Edit: Speaking of, Just take Black Star after act 1 because everything else is crap, then get 9 elite kills with it so you get a stupidly big pile of relics. Seems reasonable. Oh and do it as a 3 energy deck, just to send those elites a MESSAGE. (The message is Hand Over Your Brains And No One Gets Hurt). Points for having one of the worst opening hands ever.
One bit of the run i was happy with as a inspire decision - turning down Cursed Key to take Ring of the Serpent instead. That 6th card draw every turn was amazing, and Ring of the Snake was useless (Bag of Prep AND Ninja Scroll AND infinite blades+ will do that to your opening hand). Getting 2x Nightmare+ in act 3 was just sweet, sweet hilarious revenge on everything.
Hope this content's proving useful/amusing/informative to people!
...Double Edit: I just noticed my act 2 routing had no campfires. Damn. I was feeling freaking brave/crazy wasnt i?
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Was doing a sort of Poison/Block thing until the end of Act 2 when I got Shuriken and Kunai back-to-back. Yup, I'm a Poison/Shiv deck now. Blade Dance+ is a much better card when it reads: 1 Energy, deal 12 damage, gain 1 STR and 1 DEX.
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So that's my Defect A19 down. :P
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I'm a simple man. If I'm offered a Ball Lightning, I take it. Started the run with a "Transform a card" and turned a Strike into a Defragment. Then I got offered back-to-back Ball Lightnings. Didn't get much defensive stuff until Act 2, which was pretty rough. Act 2 boss dropped Echo Form and Sozu. By Act 3, I had the core of the deck in place and just focused on upgrading my Defragments and Echo Form. Fights were just a matter of playing Echo Form, then my three Defrags for +10 Focus.
The Helix Relic and Genetic Algorithm allowed me to take a turn to play an early Echo Form safely, while the Crane Relic thingy gave me more orbs slots. Worked out well.
GET WRECKED TIME ASSHOLE!
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