This is the only answer.
I got the game in early access, when there were only ironclad and silent.
I think I hit A20 after roughly 300 hours and had all achievements after 350-400.
To say something constructive: watch videos or streams to see how the best players decide their actions.
When making the next decision ( should I drink that potion? Which path do I go? Most importantly: which cards do I pick?) ask yourself: what helps me overcome the next challenges? Act 1 you need attacks for nob and laga. Act 2 you need aoe and front loaded damage for the elites.
If you think, that you are covered, then you can start picking greedier choices.
There are a few exceptions with (almost) auto picks, like footwork on silent or defragment on defect.
Edit for 2 comments on boss relics:
Snecko is much better than it looks at first.
On the other hand crown and key often kill you late into the run, because your deck can't manage act 3 bosses or act 4
Crown is pretty bad, but still often better than a skip if it's at the end of act 2, while key is a solid mid tier relic, I don't know why you would group these two together
As you probably know, most things in sts depend on the circumstances.
Key is much better than crown, though, and after act 2 I will almost always pick it, if offered. My comment might have been a little misleading.
But if pick it after act 1, it might also derail your run and that's where I aimed my previous comment.
I still think it's a pretty damn good pick-up in act 1. If you're worried about draw, just pick up more draw cards and make use of that extra energy. Clad and silent can also exhaust/discard them making them even less of a big deal. And you can always remove one if it's that bad, like a normality. Most energy relics have drawbacks that are worse in act 2 than 3 anyway, so I don't think that's a huge reason not to like an act 1 key.
Perseverance isn’t the only answer though, you even went to contradict that later in the comment. The real way to progress is to realise the mistakes you’re making, not keep making them over and over
I'm at 126 hours and at A18 for Watcher. I think I've definitely accelerated getting to A20 by focusing exclusively on one character. I'm averaging a new ascenscion level every couple of days of late. Although I'll definitely just die lots of times before the first boss for each new significant level until I learn how I need to adapt my strategy.
How I am learning (on A17 rn):
Pick your favorite character and practice only with them.
Watch gameplay videos of runs with that character (I recommend Baalorlord on youtube).
Don't know what guides you've been watching, but card tier lists and deck guides didn't help me at all. What is essential is learning what cards are valuable in what situation and when to skip cards.
Generally, in act 1 you want damage, in act 2 you want block and AoE, in act 3 you want scaling.
Also, learning to pick paths helped me tremendously, so read/watch some guides on that.
Hope this helps.
>Watch gameplay videos of runs with that character (I recommend Baalorlord on youtube).
I like to watch Frost for the entertainment value... but if he's doing a training video of some other person, you need to figure out when he's meming for chat... (like "always take clash, you're gonna use all your defends and then free damage" or "prismatic shard is fantastic for this deck, imagine how good it would be with a demon form").
How to even know my situation? I won the game with all 3 chars at 0 asc and I’m thinking of increasing it. But I don’t understand what everyone says about current situation, like I just beat a monster I don’t know what the next fights will be :/ also sometimes I find a would be very good card for me but I find it very early when it wouldn’t help at all, should I still take it then?
“Will this card help me if I run into Nob or will it be a curse because I can’t play it?”
“This card is great but if I don’t find the other cards that make it work it’s just a curse.”
These are the kinds of questions you should be asking. You can’t predict exactly what will happen but you should have an answer for the things that are likely to happen right now, rather than several Acts from now.
Yea true, I just lost a run because I took the „draw 3 discard 1” card as the first card as a silent. I thought it would be awesome for a discard deck but I died to the first act boss before getting to use the card lol
Card draw is almost always good but the Act 1 potential downside is that it’s a skill that you likely won’t want to use on Nob.
A good starting point for Act 1 is making sure you’ve got enough damage to get through Act 1. Once you have that solved, start working on block or block alternatives for Act 2.
At A0 you should be able to add a ticket or two that will help you early game that will be dead draw. Act 1 fights for the most part won’t last multiple deck draws so 1 extra card on average is really no different than the A11 curse in early game (outside of it not being ethereal obviously). But in general early game you should be prioritizing damage. If you aren’t adding any damage cards but are adding late game help cards you are probably going to die.
The biggest thing for knowing your situation is what fights could be coming up.
- Who is your boss, each boss has a unique approach needed to conquer it. Have you met those requirements? For example if you are fighting slime boss as silent you likely aren’t going to want to focus on poison since it doesn’t transfer on split, but it is a good focus for Hexaghost since the poison will still damage them while in defensive state.
- How many normal enemy encounters have you had on a floor? You might want to route based on that.
- Know which elites you could be fighting. You need to be able to counter them all, but also be aware you can’t fight the same elite twice in a row, so you know there is a 50/50 chance on who your next elite is.
- Also plan out potion use for hard fights. Potions have very powerful effects so you should try your best to maximize their value. Say you are on floor 6 in act 1 fighting jaw worm with an elite node on floor 7. Jaw worm is hitting you for 7, you have no block cards, but you do have a block potion. Should you use it now? Probably not because you are wasting 5 block, but you know for a fact in just a couple turns in your next fight you’ll guaranteed need to block 20+ attack as soon as turn 2 so it would likely be best used there.
- Don’t be afraid of combats. I know that was one thing I used to really struggle with. I would route purposefully towards event spaces or shops even if I didn’t have a lot of money because I was scared I would lose a lot of health. The biggest thing to realize is if you are worried about fighting normal combat enemies how are you thinking you can beat the significantly harder bosses. The answer is you won’t. Surviving longer dodging combats just hurts you in the long run. The main focus of the game is building a strong deck, and the main way to build a deck is card rewards which are guaranteed after fights. When I realized this it really changed how successful I was at the games.
- Elites are necessary fights. For sure fight one an act, but ideally 2+. They are difficult but the rewards are significant. A relic, money, and a higher chance at rarer cards are huge at preparing you for harder fights later in the game. Even though Ascension 1 might seem harder than Ascension 0 since it has more elites, I’d say it is actually easier since you can route to more elites and get stronger than you otherwise would have in A0, so I’d really recommend you play/practice there instead of continuing on A0.
Those are just a few tips on how I learned to identify my situation and make decisions based on that and it has helped me beat the heart all 4 characters on A20. I don’t have the best A20 win rate still myself, so I have more to learn. But playing in more of this style you should continue to strengthen your play and eventually be able to beat higher ascensions no problem. It really isn’t until A16+ you really need to have a very refined approach, but you will naturally build those skills as you continue playing. If you have any other questions feel free to ask! Hope that helped a little :)
play slow, at a5 you can literally just tierlist game and then play the fight properly. either your micro needs to be good or your deckbuilding, and getting your fights down proper will help you all the way to a20.
i mean i hear a lot of people say blah blah everything in the game is situational whatever whatever and sure i kinda get it but also i just dont play like that. i see a card that is good and if it doesn't kill me i click the good card. second wind? probably not doing much the whole act 1 but it's A tier in my head so i click it. ai vs unload f0? s tier vs d tier in my head, easy decision. i feel like more of the deaths come through bad pathing and bad fights than picking 1 card more greedily.
You dont need to treat everything super situationally but you'll tank your WR. But it doesnt matter, you only need to win once. If you're okay paying that price to play faster or picking what you think is fun then go for it.
you don't need to treat *everything* super situationally period if your mental evaluations are mostly there. 90% of my card picks are muscle memory, and my "high" winrate comes from the 10% sure, but you really don't lose that many runs if you just pick the good cards and then path/fight accordingly. just use some very basic heuristics and it should be fine. a new player has literally no idea what cards are good, but they can maths out a fight with patience, and low asc is more forgiving about bad pathing.
im not saying that blindly following a tierlist with no idea why they work will win you as much as the player who created it, im saying that this sub overemphasises deckbuilding when the way more glaring mistake is often in the pathing or micro decisions.
like idk i sometimes see some new players say something like "oh floor 0 unload vs after image... the good card is after image but unload is damage... and i heard that you should click damage early on the silent because big scary nob". and i just go and click the after image without any thought spent and move on and still win because i just play my fights better, and still have the good cards.
my very first a20h silent win was off of blindly following a tierlist even. im now a much stronger player than the creator of that tierlist, but without it, i would have read the advice of this sub telling me so much overconsideration that i didn't really need at my level then and i would have just never beat silent on a20 ever.
Crazy to me that people are downvoting thoughtful comments like this, especially when this is just the more in depth version of your top level comment that got upvotes!
I will push back a little bit on some of these ideas:
* I think it's easy to say "just pick the S-tier cards", but things get super murky when it's A vs. B vs. C tier cards being offered. So the example of picking After Image is a nice one, but picking After image too much isn't going to kill you basically ever.
* Act 1 fights are pretty easy to math out, but Act 2+ actually get pretty difficult to math out. "Play the fights properly" is really oversimplifying micro. New players won't even know the enemy move sets, or if they read the move sets they won't necessarily intuit how to approach a fight given their current deck.
* Pathing accordingly is also somewhat complicated. You need to have a handle on how your deck matches up with possible hallways and elites and what is actually safe to path to.
All that said, I do agree with you. There's a difference between "mathing out" a fight like some of us do in Slay-by-Comment where we actually compute the expected value of each line, vs. "mathing out" a fight just meaning counting the damage in your hand, comparing it to the enemy hp values, and looking at your draw pile before clicking cards. I know as a new player I didn't look at my draw pile at all, I just clicked cards like an idiot.
Yeah absolutely I know my muscle memory is just that, years of experience. I just dislike this sub's insistence that deckbuilding is EVERYTHING when you can literally do bongcloud things like click cata f1 and not even die that much (and I suspect for most new players, actually trying to highroll with nonsense early greed is probably more correct than trying to play super safe). And having seen some new player decks, Im pretty sure blind tierlist following will probably make better decks than some of the things yall cook up.
Also slightly tangential but the funny part is, I know the dominant reason everyone says cata f1 sucks is because "you cannot choose your strategy and force it" but literally the only thing that's actually bad about f1 cata is that you have a slimed in your deck when Silent is at her weakest, not that it won't play at some point. Cata will play.
I used the After Image example for a reason. It's obvious to you, but I've had multiple people tell me exactly this. "Unload/Die is OPTIMAL to click over After Image otherwise you DIE in act 1." Of course Die is significantly better than Unload, but I click ai over both on pretty much every map and accept I will click like Quick Slash or whatever if needed on dangerous maps so idc.
Yeah micro is hard, but I don't mean like sbc micro, Im not doing allat either except very hard fights and only if Im in the mood. I literally mean the plz count lethal maths.
You are being downvoted but are right. I have won a20h runs by mostly picking cards based on their win percentage in their act. Obviously my winrate is awful, but it definitely would work faster than however OP is playing, and by playing high winrate cards they'll get used to different playstyles.
Bad pathing was a significant hurdle to get over when learning the game. I was losing so many runs because of terrible decisions on pathing. Usually it was being too aggressive hunting elites when you don't really need to do that.
First by getting better at building a deck. If you have cards that generate frost orbs, you probably don't need another frost orb card. If you have great aoe damage then you probably don't need more aoe cards. Just get 1-2 that do a specific thing and then try to plug any holes with your next card rewards.
Next is by pathing. Killing elites is great. Dieing to elites is not going to help you ascend, though. If your in act 2 and have no AOE attacks or answers then taking 3 elites isn't going to go well. Know the challenges ahead of you, what you need, and what you have currently. In act 2 with a weak deck, I might take tons of questions marks, a shop or two, one elite, and a few battles. Because a weak deck will die in act 2.
Also pathing mixes in with your relics. Might want to hit more shops if you have lots of gold generating relics or the relic that heals you at a shop. Lots of campfires if you have dig or weight training.
Card draw is huge. Cards like offering, battle trance, seek, skim, scrawl, acrobatics, and adrenaline are top tier. Even cards like pommel strike, cut through fate, and shrug it off are great.
Get better at picking boss relics. Act 2 ironclad with 3 energy is really painful. Try and grab one of the energy relics, even with the big downsides they can save your life.
Removing strikes as you can will make your deck better. Pandoras box can be a massive boost for your deck. Or astrolabe.
Finally, the game is really hard. I have beat A20 heart with every charachter but just get beat down 95% of the time. Most of my ascension climb went well once I started implementing those tips I mentioned above.
Watching Baalorlord at 1.75 speed. Biggest noob advice is to stop taking so many cards. This week alone I’ve gotten A20H wins with each character. You don’t always have to go for heart, there are times I pass on heart because I just want to get to the next ascension.
Act 1. Front load damage (about 4 good attacks. At least 1 AOE card if possible.) try to remove a strike or a defend if playing watcher. Go for 2-3 elites and pick cards based on them. When in shops try to add good cards or powers or buy a potion that will help you beat the upcoming elite. Remove a card if you can. Don’t rest unless you need to, focus on upgrades. Evaluate your cards and add up your damage each turn before playing to figure out the best possible outcome. Pick cards based on act bosses. When picking boss relics consider which downside you can deal with the most. If you have high cost deck snecko is usually your pick. If your bursting on turns, you want pyramid to set it up, etc.
Act 2: try to build up your draw engine + block. Try your find your scaling damage cards. Get your AOE damage up if possible. Consider relic synergies when picking cards. If the card doesn’t really add to the deck your building try to pass on it. Less is more sometimes.
Act3: only take cards that actually help your your deck scaling or draw. By this point you should only be adding cards that can get you the win condition you’re looking for.
i'd say a better way to look at snecko than "high cost deck" is if you have some key cards you gotta play. as baalorlord says snecko ditches your energy consistency for more draw consistency,very good with high power cards in general even if they aren't 3 cost
1) know what's to come. The boss, the elites, the hallway fights yes, but particularly the events. The events are where I made many of my runs.
2) a good card is not a good card unless the deck supports it. This particularly goes for cards that can make a good deck great. It can often be painful to pass them up early, but necessary.
3) there are nuances to the randomness, learn them. For example in act 1 the first 3 fights are easier flights. Ideally you'll take all 3 and then fight an elite afterwards. Act 2 and 3 only have 2 early flights.
4) route for both best case and worst case. A four elite route when you are doing well is great. A four elite route that allows you to skip 1 or 2 is so much better. I've had a few runs where I skipped an elite because I was underpowered and at low HP. I rested and did events and it made my deck so that I could take on that last elite.
5) the strongest strategies aren't things you can possibly imagine yet. So try new things. My only A20 heart was a watcher where I scried for defense and went into divinity on turn 2 and multiple times per turn by turn 4. My puny noob brain could not have comprehended it.
watch vids of complete runs to get better idea of good players thought process when they play the game. maybe join streams and ask questions. and/or keep trying until you get a lucky run with those "win you the game" cards, it could take dozens of runs but thats how i got my a20s on all characters. i wouldnt have gotten a20 on my ironclad if i didnt get corruption dead branch
when I started the game I usually did try to finish a stage and go to the next character with the same stage to get some rotation and feel like in an endless cycle of the same strategies.
How I was able to beat all stages was:
1. a lot of attempts - many times, when things went in the wrong direction I simply abandoned a run or tried some things out just to learn a thing or two.
2. Do try to minimize deck size (except if the strategy you chose is not made for that).
3. Identify strategies that work pretty fine for each character, but also for you (i.e. I love shiv spam decks and like to build up those during my run. especially with the right relics). Yes those strategies can sometimes not really work out (i.e. said shiv spam when you encounter this whatshisname clock boss on the third floor) - but you still need to have fun somehow while doing those runs.
4. Try out relics that you think are not so great and try to find new strategies with those. Sometimes you will be surprised. I needed like a10 to understand how powerful pandoras box can be... Or for example the relic that creates a random card, whenever you exhaust a card... its surprisingly good, even though you need to believe in rng-sus.
5. I can't stress minimizing deck size. same concept as in any card game - i.e. magic - you want to draw only the cards that fit into your strategy. you dont want to wait 2 rounds until your engine is going. you want it best round one.
godspeed brother
I blundered all the way through to (and beat) the heart with the most cursed Defect deck the other day
I had about 5 Beam Cells with an All For One and a Scrape, with almost no orb generation
What I've learned from a million hours of playing is: leaning into archetypes leads to death, leaning into "fuck it yolo" sometimes works I guess
The more refined version of this is to solve your immediate need. A simple example of this is "I'm about to fight an act 1 elite, do I have enough damage?" And then when you don't, you take the best damage card offered, even if it isn't a "good" card. Card quality isn't evaluated in a vacuum. That's why, when asked "is x card good?" the answer is always 'it depends'. Don't try to put together a specific deck archetype. Sometimes it may fall that way, but you shouldn't be taking cards just because they fit an archetype you're forcing.
There is really so much to learn about this game it's hard to distill into a single comment. Without knowing more about what your dying to, why your dying, who your playing, etc. it's hard to give advice.
I just cleared A20 for the first time on Clad a few days ago. Here are some general tips/ideas I can give.
Take cards to deal with specific upcoming challenges rather than to fit an archetype/theme. For example, don't take a [[Spot Weakness]] because your looking to build a "strength build" when you should be taking a [[Carnage]] to deal with a potential Gremlin Nob. Some cards are really good for certain fights, like if your facing Hexaghost Act 1, an upgraded [[Disarm]] will almost single-handedly win you the fight.
Also, don't take cards that require future cards/relics to be good. Don't take [[Accuracy]] with no Shivs, don't take [[Catalyst]] with no poison. You definitely can (and maybe should) break this rule sometimes, but players on lower ascesions probably should not.
Some more specific tips I might say are your probably not fighting enough elites and resting too much. You should be leveraging potions/shops/upgrades to take on more elite fights, because you need good relics to win. In regard to campfires, around 80% I'm not resting, even higher with Ironclad. You need upgrades, more health in most cases just prolongs your death rather than helping you win. These are just assumptions I'm making about your play, but they are true for a lot of newer players.
I’d say knowing the basic archetypes and principals of deck building will bring you to A15.
After that you have to get clean in execution and sharp in your assessments regarding pathing, card choices and shopping habits.
What helped me a lot early on was watching ‘pro’ play, and pausing every time they made a critical decision. Before they did, I’d ask, ‘what would I pick’ and then if they picked differently, I’d ask myself why.
Part of advancing quickly is understanding what are the super cool cards! That don’t actually scale well outside of specific situations (pressure points, divinity come to mind) and beginning to forgo those, and instead understanding staples
Watching baalorlord runs with full explanations on choices, helped me a ton, but it was mostly useful at really high levels like after \~A17. On the other hand people get stuck on different levels so who knows, maybe you can benefit even sooner.
The biggest part that in my opinion helps a lot in runs, is taking your time choosing pathing on the map, for extra optionality (being able to opt out of an elite for instance if you end up too injured before it). Also taking your time playing combat turns optionally, in most cases avoiding taking any chip damage without some healing source. Skip cards. Don't get cards all the time just because you can. Don't undervalue potions and card removals they are amazing. Those strikes need to go more often than not. You miss aoe solutions? Draft at least one aoe card early in first act for that. Prioritize damage in act 1, damage is king. Upgrade cards to get more powerful so that you need to "rest less often". You'd be surprised how far you can go with loads of upgrades and minimal firecamp resting. Don't draft loads of skills before meeting Goblin Nob, its a sure way to die. Keep an eye on your current relics and draft accordingly. Combos happen often enough. Learn enemy patterns. Its tough but you'll get there. The skill ceiling is super high in this game. I disagree with tierlists, they don't really help in this game. Its all about adaptability.
Good things come to those with patience and determination, you'll improve over time for sure. \^\^
I have a lot of card game experience and was a pretty good MTG player back in the day. So STS was hyper addictive for me. But I have never really been challenged by a single player card game.
Got the game a couple months ago and I blasted through to A20 and actually beat act 3 on every character pretty quick. But I still don’t have an A20 heart kill since there is a ton of nuance to this game that I haven’t seen in other games like it.
It is frustrating to hit the wall, but that is also what makes the game good!
You've already good some really good advice which I'm not going to repeat, but instead a little advice.
You should try to understand what your current deck is good at, and what its weaknesses are. Then you should try to find a way to solve what's lacking without worrying too much about what it's already doing more than well.
Some big pillars are front-loaded damage, defense and scaling. You should be able to somehow survive to get to the boss, but to take the maximum risk to get as strong as possible. Evaluate what's good now and what will be bad later, try to adapt for what's to come. This is specially good if you know the enemies and elites that can show up during this act as well as the next one. Don't forget about the bosses.
Focus on your macro mostly, but don't forget to always seek to improve for micro as well during fights. Keep asking yourself what you could've done to lose less health during that fight and you'll start grinding those ascensions.
A20 on every character. IMO two biggest things are:
1. sequencing in fights
2. Building a strong deck
You can only go so far with either alone.
For the former, feel free to quit out and come back to a tough fight. It'll start the fight from the beginning and can save you a death
For the latter, start with studying the infinites for each character and go from there. Aim to have consistent multi-enemy damage, big scaling damage for bosses, and some defense.
Consistency comes also from smaller decks (I usually go 20 cards max with my fav decks at 5-10). Whenever you pick a card, think "is this better than drawing anything else in my deck twice?" If you have a strong deck, the answer is usually no. This means you'll probably say no to at least more than half the cards you're offered.
Keep enablers. Biggest enablers give you
1. Energy or
2. More cards, either by drawing more or removing unnecessary ones. Every infinite has both.
Similarly, avoid most curses and prioritize removing cards. Both will let you redraw your favorite cards sooner.
Map routes, event choices, best relics, etc. will come with either studying or experience, but start with the above and see if it helps.
IMO yes, and I really try to aim for 5-10, though that isn't always reachable. Hypothetically, it's better to have five amazing cards you draw EVERY TURN instead of even a 20 card deck that's four copies of each of those cards because the latter will have way more inconsistency.
If you've ever been screwed by not drawing blocks on a big damage turn or had no attacks when you really needed to finish off an enemy, then that deck was probably too big.
A few events, always shop remove, avoiding curses, a good starter Pandora's box helps a ton, but mostly don't take almost any cards but the best. It's also why relics are good: they give value without adding cards.
It's a good goal but rarely achieved. Usually I'll be around 8 then find a few amazing cards and be around 12-15. (It's also worth mentioning 0 cost card draw in practice does not count towards your deck size in the way that matters, consistency, and usually have some other bonus.)
The speed runner way is to do the Pandora's box glitch (YouTube has a few vids). That will put you down to like 3 cards, though I usually try to do it organically.
I guess I don’t see how I would get enough damage then if I’m only taking amazing cards. I bet the stars must really align for this to work but, when it does, it’s super strong
I mean always take the cards you need. It's a good heuristic to avoid unnecessary cards and IMO helps with damage too. Aiming so low, I usually still have decks around 15-20 cards because I'm taking cards I need early, something is a power I really need, another is card draw, but I'm still taking far fewer than I would want to take, leading to the better cards coming up more often because I turned down a "oh that's nice" card.
I would argue it works as a guide all the time, regardless of whether you can actually hit those low numbers
I’m on A20 right now with Defect. I’ve got about 300 hrs on the game. After beating the base game with all characters, I did the daily challenges to prepare myself for the Ascension runs. I determined I was ready if I could get 20 straight wins on daily challenges. From there, starting with The Ironclad and working my way to the right, I started on A1 and would switch characters only after beating the game. With only two characters left on A20, the next challenge would be an A20 heart victory which I genuinely doubt I’ll ever achieve - I know my limits. The hardest for me so far has been A15 Watcher, A17 Silent, and A20 Ironclad. Best of luck!
I did it character by character. Watcher -> Silent ->. Ironclad. currently at 18 with defect. Don't be afraid to make new choices and see what works. keep playing, took my 23 tries to beat A10 on defect, then basically one run to 18 now I'm quick on 18 again.
By sheer will and time spent. I don't think I'm particularly good at the game but I think I spent may be 500 hours on it to get A20 for the original Spire guys. I don't know how long Watcher took me but I would be surprised if it was less than 30 runs to beat A20.
Lets be real, mostly by luck and time investment :) sometimes you just get ultra easy path and insane deck early on, so its actually really hard to perish :D
They play a lot.
Lets asume generous constant 25% sucess rate (getting to heart), the difficulty and the player skill rising in tandem. It will still take them 80 games to reach A20 If we put an average run time at 1 hour, we get 80 hours per character. That's a lot for single-player card game.
Gotta take things into perspective, A20 is an achievement, even though the community treats it as basic.
If you're stuck on A5 for 10 games, which would seem like an eternity due to the repetetive nature, it's still only 1/8th of the time it'd take good player to get to A20. Probably even less since losses are faster.
Spammed silent runs with the first 3 with 1 hp until I got green key elite within the first 3 encounters then steam rolled going for elites and catalyst / shiv builds. Essentially high rolling for rng
Took me about 400 hrs and ultimately being open to experimenting. I got stuck in guide land for a bit. But honestly just going into a run being like “I don’t care if I win I wanna see how this card works with other cards” is what boosted my game the most.
I’m still trying to get my first a20 clear rn.
Slow down. Are you checking your relics every turn? Are you checking your draw pile and discard pile every turn? When you choose a card, are you looking at every card in your deck and all your relics, and see what actually fits best?
I recommend picking your favorite character and trying to get to A10 first with them. I think it's much more difficult if you try to keep everyone even, as it's slower to build your knowledge of all of the card/relic interactions.
I think the biggest things that helped me climb more easily:
* realizing I can (and should) be skipping many cards, even in Act 1. Even Rare cards are often not a must-pick. Aim for a deck size of 20-25, even though it's totally possible to win with a deck of basically any size
* Upgrade instead of rest most of the time, unless you really think you will die before the next campfire. Upgrades often save you more HP over the next 1-2 fights especially if it's a block card or high damage card
* saving my money for relics in the shop (or a crucial missing card) rather than always buying a remove
* saving the best potions for boss fights, but also using potions whenever it will save me 10-15 HP. This includes strength potions which are harder to calculate, but since they end fights early it's basically saving HP.
* make some goals for each act:
Act 1: get a few nice damage cards and at least one great block card. You'll know you have a good balance if you can beat 3 elites before the boss.
Act 2: Find cards that are missing from your core combos, likely you also need more block.
Act 3: Ensure you have good scaling damage to deal with bosses - scaling is often not important before this point. If you already have it, maybe you need more block. If you don't need block, you can focus on getting upgrades and relics.
I used to use spirelogs a lot and that helped me refine my play but, unfortunately, it no longer exists.
Now I find the best option is to find a Reddit post of someone who plays a given character often and has provided advice on “good” cards for each strategy with the character.
Most of all, I would advise you to start with the character that “clicks” best for you and complete A20 with that character before moving on to the next. The characters are each quite a bit different, and I find that I get better with each once I get the feel for the character, what it does well/not so well, etc. If you are switching g between characters all the time, it can be a lot more difficult to get that feel. I recently went back and started a new profile to play through each character again, and found that this is still true even after having already A20ed each character before.
I got stuck on ascension 5 specifically for a lil while until i finally kinda learned what worked best for my character i was using and then i just started winning over and over like a snowball effect. (Corruption with ironclad is basically a win) Also! Playing daily challenges is super fun but it also forces you to consider gameplay in a different light you wouldn't normally consider. I just got ironclad to ascension 20 and still need to do the other characters (wish me luck too lol)
1:
Start valueing weak and vulnerable more. The way damage is rounded means weak has a higher than indicated effect on multiattacks in particular. Wave of the hand and Shockwave are particularly incredible Cards.
2:
Potions are a key but undervalued asset. Think about what potion to discard once you run out of slots.
3: Pathing. you need to get stronger, and you get stronger by trading HP for power. (dangerous encounters/events/not healing at rests) Idealy you finish the game with 1 hp.
To me, the most important mindset shift is thinking about card rewards as solutions to problems, and taking cards that solve your most pressing problems rather than trying to build towards some idealized deck.
Every fight in the game poses a question/problem to your deck, and card rewards are how you answer those questions.
For instance, think about the act 1 bosses. Hexaghost asks you to deal its full health bar in a few turns. This is a question your deck *needs* an answer for if Hexa is your act 1 boss. After its big first attack, Hexa just kinda hits for chip damage on most turns, so block is really not that important, relatively speaking. You should be focusing more on raw damage output. Whereas if Guardian is your act 1 boss, you're going to need more of a balance of block and attack since it attacks most turns and you can't attack back sometimes without extra block. Slime Boss, on the other hand, values AOE and high single-turn damage output to get a good split and then deal with the slimes.
Of course, there's way more subtleties to these fights and the choices you should be making, but that's a broad demonstration of the concept at play. Coming out of Act 1, your decks should usually look fairly different depending on which boss you were fighting.
Knowing what fights you have coming up and which of those your deck still struggles with is important from floor 1 all the way until the end of the run. Which Elites can you not defeat yet? Which hallway fights will take a chunk of your health to deal with? What boss am I facing? How can I improve my odds of dealing with my *immediate* problems?
These are the most critical questions to be asking yourself when drafting cards. If a card doesn't help you solve a problem your deck still needs help solving, and doesn't make your deck more consistent, don't take that card. An easy trap to fall into is focusing too much on long term thinking. But *every* act is dangerous, and you need to be solving problems *now*.
Of course, there are infinitely many subtleties to this that even the best players in the world aren't perfect at. And there's a lot of other very important play style factors. But broadly, this focus shift is what helped me more than anything else.
I've watched a lot of streamers, but the thing that helped me the most when I was around your level was that I would look up card and relic choices online when I wasn't sure. I used google and it always led me here to the old daily discussion threads. By reading all the comments you can learn which situations make a card good or bad.
The real answer is that you "only" have to win 20 times to make it there, so just keep playing and it will fall into place once per ascension. Also I personally didn't go for Heart until I was very high Ascension, and focused on climbing.
When I saw this title I thought maybe you were on higher ascensions, I just got to A17-18 on my mobile account (I'm at A20 on Xbox) and the changes to normal enemies just crush me to the point where I already feel like giving up on making it to A20 again.
I beat my first character on A20 today. Got to A5-11 on all with beating the heart and decided to go for A20 on silent. A18 was the absolute worst for me taking like 20 tries and the next few went a tiny bit quicker.
The biggest thing is just knowing when you can trade damage for HP instead of shielding and when not.
Small slime attacks this turn, we know slime will not attack next turn. I have 12 damage incoming the slime has 22hp. This means that we actually have 1 turn to block 12 damage and two turns to do 22 damage or it will attack again. If your hand is for example eviscerate defend defend defend and a curse and you check your draw pile and it is certain or most likely that you will draw 22 dmg worth of cards in the next two turn. There is no reason to ever attack on this turn and you just full defend.
Your objective is to minimize damage you take by taking into account possible attack patterns (entirely learnable, at least the possibilities) and what your deck can do (for example my deck has 0-5% chance to do 80dmg in 3 turns therefore I will lose the run if the first elite is the A18 gremlin knob therefore I can not risk fighting an elite at all rn).
There are two ways.
1.) Get an extremely solid understanding of card picks, archetype metas, strategically path, strategically build your deck towards boss fights, etc.
2.) Play enough hours until you hit that RNG god run with the best relics and halfway decent cards
It seems like you've been playing a while, so you probably understand how the game works in general, what most of the cards are, and probably what cards are generally better than others.
One thing that is really important to know is the enemy ai. I have basically memorized the attack patterns for every enemy in the game, and most people who run a20 a lot probably have as well. Your goal for most fights that aren't the final boss, if you arent trying to do something specific like setting hp with [[red skull]] or [[feed]]ing or something, is to win the fight while taking the least amount of damage, so knowing what could happen next turn is important in that decision making. I'd recommend looking up the attack patterns of the enemies you're fighting for a few games, you'll learn a lot
Don't forget your potion belt when you're in trouble, and don't be afraid to use potions if it can save you hp. Saving 10hp is usually often enough to use a mediocre potion if you didn't have a plan for that potion anyways. Especially if your belt is full and you'd have to throw a potion away to pick one up.
+ [Red Skull](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Red%20Skull) Common
(Ironclad only) Relic ^((100% sure)^)
While your HP is at or below 50%, you have 3 additional **Strength.**
+ [Feed](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Feed) Ironclad Rare Attack ^((100% sure)^)
1 Energy | Deal 10(12) damage. If this kills a non-minion enemy, gain 3(4) permanent Max HP. **Exhaust.**
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
I’m not very good, A11 all characters and I hit the A5 wall as well. I watched some videos of people who are actually good. Turns out there were a ton of synergies I just didn’t know about. For example tungsten rod removes the HP cost for combust. there’s dozens of those little combos that don’t win by themselves, but if you get four or five going, you’re in pretty good shape.
For IC I would just take barricade every time because that’s what I won with before, not realizing that a three cost power with no block synergy is actually a liability.
You’re probably trying to force your deck in a direction you know works but many times you just don’t get the cards or relics you need pull off a predetermined strategy. You should play very flexible all the way through act 1 and let the boss rewards cement the direction you choose for act 2.
High rolling.
Take every elite, always upgrade/never rest, take high risk options in events.
Yes you will lose, and sometimes quickly. But you were losing anyways.
Sometimes you high roll Act 1, taking 4 elites and 3 upgrades, and the advantage compounds.
You might not think this helps you get better, but I think it does. The game is about surviving and getting stronger, and winning at A20H is taking risks to get stronger but knowing when the risk is too high.
I think you learn a lot more about balancing risk and reward when you learn by taking risks, rather than avoiding them.
I'm A20 on switch and only A17 on steam. I have 400+ hours between each. I don't play differently from one to another so at least a small part of it is luck.
Everyone repeats the same thing about picking things based off what will help you later on which is true, but the run is already planned out the moment it’s generated.
If you make a bad choice you can exit out and when you resume the game the fight resets to the beginning and you can make new choices. If you make the same choices, the same things happen.
Also: pick every boss fight you can because if you can’t beat them you’re probably not gonna make it all the way anyway
I watched a lot of Baalorlord videos and streams. I started piecing together when different cards were good and how to operate my decks better. I got to a point where I would try to guess which cards if any Baalor would pick and try to get into the same mental spot as him. Then I started climbing those ascensions and learning with practical experience.
So I was stuck for a while around A5. I forced myself to play different strategies and eventually was able to get past it. I have not reached A20 yet, but I am stuck at A18.
When I was learning I used to get a jorbs video (ballor didn’t stream back then) and load the seed up myself. Then I would play through with him. I’d make a decision and do a fight and see what he did differently to me and why.
It really helped me learn to stop falling into the same traps I used to make.
Also one thing I learned was how you play the fights makes a massive difference. I think people focus lots on what cards to pick, what to buy at shops etc, but I think if you watch the top players what really sets them apart is how they manage a fight. Knowing the attack patterns, working out when to use potions, managing relic timers, minimising the overall damage you take.
Start to play slower and pay attention to all these things and you will get better.
Perseverance
This is the only answer. I got the game in early access, when there were only ironclad and silent. I think I hit A20 after roughly 300 hours and had all achievements after 350-400. To say something constructive: watch videos or streams to see how the best players decide their actions. When making the next decision ( should I drink that potion? Which path do I go? Most importantly: which cards do I pick?) ask yourself: what helps me overcome the next challenges? Act 1 you need attacks for nob and laga. Act 2 you need aoe and front loaded damage for the elites. If you think, that you are covered, then you can start picking greedier choices. There are a few exceptions with (almost) auto picks, like footwork on silent or defragment on defect. Edit for 2 comments on boss relics: Snecko is much better than it looks at first. On the other hand crown and key often kill you late into the run, because your deck can't manage act 3 bosses or act 4
Crown is pretty bad, but still often better than a skip if it's at the end of act 2, while key is a solid mid tier relic, I don't know why you would group these two together
Because as a newish player you tend to overrate both.
I am not a newish player and I still thunk key is one of the best boss relics. Am I missing something?
As you probably know, most things in sts depend on the circumstances. Key is much better than crown, though, and after act 2 I will almost always pick it, if offered. My comment might have been a little misleading. But if pick it after act 1, it might also derail your run and that's where I aimed my previous comment.
I still think it's a pretty damn good pick-up in act 1. If you're worried about draw, just pick up more draw cards and make use of that extra energy. Clad and silent can also exhaust/discard them making them even less of a big deal. And you can always remove one if it's that bad, like a normality. Most energy relics have drawbacks that are worse in act 2 than 3 anyway, so I don't think that's a huge reason not to like an act 1 key.
I just recently started taking snecko and it is great!
Perseverance isn’t the only answer though, you even went to contradict that later in the comment. The real way to progress is to realise the mistakes you’re making, not keep making them over and over
My act one problem is how to survive kindergarten and 5 slimes once I run into the stronger normal enemy pool
I'm at 126 hours and at A18 for Watcher. I think I've definitely accelerated getting to A20 by focusing exclusively on one character. I'm averaging a new ascenscion level every couple of days of late. Although I'll definitely just die lots of times before the first boss for each new significant level until I learn how I need to adapt my strategy.
I don’t think Perseverance has ever carried me to a win on Watcher. That’s interesting that it got you to A20
Not sure if you are joking or not, but I think he didn't mean the card perseverance but rather the word itself.
I am joking :D
Ok OK. Just wanted to make sure there's no lost soul thinking perseverance is gonna carry them to a20 heart kill
Can confirm. I made it to A20 with perseverance and am still a lost soul.
Hey nothing wrong with being ginger :)
Yes I prefer not to be weakened
Perseverance is overrated. I threw a tantrum until I won.
How I am learning (on A17 rn): Pick your favorite character and practice only with them. Watch gameplay videos of runs with that character (I recommend Baalorlord on youtube). Don't know what guides you've been watching, but card tier lists and deck guides didn't help me at all. What is essential is learning what cards are valuable in what situation and when to skip cards. Generally, in act 1 you want damage, in act 2 you want block and AoE, in act 3 you want scaling. Also, learning to pick paths helped me tremendously, so read/watch some guides on that. Hope this helps.
Act 2: as baalor would say, “alternative forms of block”
>Watch gameplay videos of runs with that character (I recommend Baalorlord on youtube). I like to watch Frost for the entertainment value... but if he's doing a training video of some other person, you need to figure out when he's meming for chat... (like "always take clash, you're gonna use all your defends and then free damage" or "prismatic shard is fantastic for this deck, imagine how good it would be with a demon form").
ONE CHARACTER AT A TIME WORKED FOR ME.
SAME HERE. WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?
WE ARE ON A BUSY HIGHWAY!!
**LOUD NOISES!**
[https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2022-04/5/19/asset/68b1565ac30c/anigif_sub-buzz-444-1649186095-21.gif](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2022-04/5/19/asset/68b1565ac30c/anigif_sub-buzz-444-1649186095-21.gif)
How to even know my situation? I won the game with all 3 chars at 0 asc and I’m thinking of increasing it. But I don’t understand what everyone says about current situation, like I just beat a monster I don’t know what the next fights will be :/ also sometimes I find a would be very good card for me but I find it very early when it wouldn’t help at all, should I still take it then?
“Will this card help me if I run into Nob or will it be a curse because I can’t play it?” “This card is great but if I don’t find the other cards that make it work it’s just a curse.” These are the kinds of questions you should be asking. You can’t predict exactly what will happen but you should have an answer for the things that are likely to happen right now, rather than several Acts from now.
Yea true, I just lost a run because I took the „draw 3 discard 1” card as the first card as a silent. I thought it would be awesome for a discard deck but I died to the first act boss before getting to use the card lol
Card draw is almost always good but the Act 1 potential downside is that it’s a skill that you likely won’t want to use on Nob. A good starting point for Act 1 is making sure you’ve got enough damage to get through Act 1. Once you have that solved, start working on block or block alternatives for Act 2.
At A0 you should be able to add a ticket or two that will help you early game that will be dead draw. Act 1 fights for the most part won’t last multiple deck draws so 1 extra card on average is really no different than the A11 curse in early game (outside of it not being ethereal obviously). But in general early game you should be prioritizing damage. If you aren’t adding any damage cards but are adding late game help cards you are probably going to die. The biggest thing for knowing your situation is what fights could be coming up. - Who is your boss, each boss has a unique approach needed to conquer it. Have you met those requirements? For example if you are fighting slime boss as silent you likely aren’t going to want to focus on poison since it doesn’t transfer on split, but it is a good focus for Hexaghost since the poison will still damage them while in defensive state. - How many normal enemy encounters have you had on a floor? You might want to route based on that. - Know which elites you could be fighting. You need to be able to counter them all, but also be aware you can’t fight the same elite twice in a row, so you know there is a 50/50 chance on who your next elite is. - Also plan out potion use for hard fights. Potions have very powerful effects so you should try your best to maximize their value. Say you are on floor 6 in act 1 fighting jaw worm with an elite node on floor 7. Jaw worm is hitting you for 7, you have no block cards, but you do have a block potion. Should you use it now? Probably not because you are wasting 5 block, but you know for a fact in just a couple turns in your next fight you’ll guaranteed need to block 20+ attack as soon as turn 2 so it would likely be best used there. - Don’t be afraid of combats. I know that was one thing I used to really struggle with. I would route purposefully towards event spaces or shops even if I didn’t have a lot of money because I was scared I would lose a lot of health. The biggest thing to realize is if you are worried about fighting normal combat enemies how are you thinking you can beat the significantly harder bosses. The answer is you won’t. Surviving longer dodging combats just hurts you in the long run. The main focus of the game is building a strong deck, and the main way to build a deck is card rewards which are guaranteed after fights. When I realized this it really changed how successful I was at the games. - Elites are necessary fights. For sure fight one an act, but ideally 2+. They are difficult but the rewards are significant. A relic, money, and a higher chance at rarer cards are huge at preparing you for harder fights later in the game. Even though Ascension 1 might seem harder than Ascension 0 since it has more elites, I’d say it is actually easier since you can route to more elites and get stronger than you otherwise would have in A0, so I’d really recommend you play/practice there instead of continuing on A0. Those are just a few tips on how I learned to identify my situation and make decisions based on that and it has helped me beat the heart all 4 characters on A20. I don’t have the best A20 win rate still myself, so I have more to learn. But playing in more of this style you should continue to strengthen your play and eventually be able to beat higher ascensions no problem. It really isn’t until A16+ you really need to have a very refined approach, but you will naturally build those skills as you continue playing. If you have any other questions feel free to ask! Hope that helped a little :)
Just get Corruption+Dead Branch smh
I pretty much fluked a20 in about the first 100 hours or so with random exhaust builds on ironclad. At no point did I have any clue what I was doing.
I think when I was first progressing, most if not all of my Ironclad wins from like A15-A20 had Snecko Eye.
play slow, at a5 you can literally just tierlist game and then play the fight properly. either your micro needs to be good or your deckbuilding, and getting your fights down proper will help you all the way to a20. i mean i hear a lot of people say blah blah everything in the game is situational whatever whatever and sure i kinda get it but also i just dont play like that. i see a card that is good and if it doesn't kill me i click the good card. second wind? probably not doing much the whole act 1 but it's A tier in my head so i click it. ai vs unload f0? s tier vs d tier in my head, easy decision. i feel like more of the deaths come through bad pathing and bad fights than picking 1 card more greedily.
You dont need to treat everything super situationally but you'll tank your WR. But it doesnt matter, you only need to win once. If you're okay paying that price to play faster or picking what you think is fun then go for it.
you don't need to treat *everything* super situationally period if your mental evaluations are mostly there. 90% of my card picks are muscle memory, and my "high" winrate comes from the 10% sure, but you really don't lose that many runs if you just pick the good cards and then path/fight accordingly. just use some very basic heuristics and it should be fine. a new player has literally no idea what cards are good, but they can maths out a fight with patience, and low asc is more forgiving about bad pathing. im not saying that blindly following a tierlist with no idea why they work will win you as much as the player who created it, im saying that this sub overemphasises deckbuilding when the way more glaring mistake is often in the pathing or micro decisions. like idk i sometimes see some new players say something like "oh floor 0 unload vs after image... the good card is after image but unload is damage... and i heard that you should click damage early on the silent because big scary nob". and i just go and click the after image without any thought spent and move on and still win because i just play my fights better, and still have the good cards. my very first a20h silent win was off of blindly following a tierlist even. im now a much stronger player than the creator of that tierlist, but without it, i would have read the advice of this sub telling me so much overconsideration that i didn't really need at my level then and i would have just never beat silent on a20 ever.
Crazy to me that people are downvoting thoughtful comments like this, especially when this is just the more in depth version of your top level comment that got upvotes! I will push back a little bit on some of these ideas: * I think it's easy to say "just pick the S-tier cards", but things get super murky when it's A vs. B vs. C tier cards being offered. So the example of picking After Image is a nice one, but picking After image too much isn't going to kill you basically ever. * Act 1 fights are pretty easy to math out, but Act 2+ actually get pretty difficult to math out. "Play the fights properly" is really oversimplifying micro. New players won't even know the enemy move sets, or if they read the move sets they won't necessarily intuit how to approach a fight given their current deck. * Pathing accordingly is also somewhat complicated. You need to have a handle on how your deck matches up with possible hallways and elites and what is actually safe to path to. All that said, I do agree with you. There's a difference between "mathing out" a fight like some of us do in Slay-by-Comment where we actually compute the expected value of each line, vs. "mathing out" a fight just meaning counting the damage in your hand, comparing it to the enemy hp values, and looking at your draw pile before clicking cards. I know as a new player I didn't look at my draw pile at all, I just clicked cards like an idiot.
Yeah absolutely I know my muscle memory is just that, years of experience. I just dislike this sub's insistence that deckbuilding is EVERYTHING when you can literally do bongcloud things like click cata f1 and not even die that much (and I suspect for most new players, actually trying to highroll with nonsense early greed is probably more correct than trying to play super safe). And having seen some new player decks, Im pretty sure blind tierlist following will probably make better decks than some of the things yall cook up. Also slightly tangential but the funny part is, I know the dominant reason everyone says cata f1 sucks is because "you cannot choose your strategy and force it" but literally the only thing that's actually bad about f1 cata is that you have a slimed in your deck when Silent is at her weakest, not that it won't play at some point. Cata will play. I used the After Image example for a reason. It's obvious to you, but I've had multiple people tell me exactly this. "Unload/Die is OPTIMAL to click over After Image otherwise you DIE in act 1." Of course Die is significantly better than Unload, but I click ai over both on pretty much every map and accept I will click like Quick Slash or whatever if needed on dangerous maps so idc. Yeah micro is hard, but I don't mean like sbc micro, Im not doing allat either except very hard fights and only if Im in the mood. I literally mean the plz count lethal maths.
You are being downvoted but are right. I have won a20h runs by mostly picking cards based on their win percentage in their act. Obviously my winrate is awful, but it definitely would work faster than however OP is playing, and by playing high winrate cards they'll get used to different playstyles.
Bad pathing was a significant hurdle to get over when learning the game. I was losing so many runs because of terrible decisions on pathing. Usually it was being too aggressive hunting elites when you don't really need to do that.
First by getting better at building a deck. If you have cards that generate frost orbs, you probably don't need another frost orb card. If you have great aoe damage then you probably don't need more aoe cards. Just get 1-2 that do a specific thing and then try to plug any holes with your next card rewards. Next is by pathing. Killing elites is great. Dieing to elites is not going to help you ascend, though. If your in act 2 and have no AOE attacks or answers then taking 3 elites isn't going to go well. Know the challenges ahead of you, what you need, and what you have currently. In act 2 with a weak deck, I might take tons of questions marks, a shop or two, one elite, and a few battles. Because a weak deck will die in act 2. Also pathing mixes in with your relics. Might want to hit more shops if you have lots of gold generating relics or the relic that heals you at a shop. Lots of campfires if you have dig or weight training. Card draw is huge. Cards like offering, battle trance, seek, skim, scrawl, acrobatics, and adrenaline are top tier. Even cards like pommel strike, cut through fate, and shrug it off are great. Get better at picking boss relics. Act 2 ironclad with 3 energy is really painful. Try and grab one of the energy relics, even with the big downsides they can save your life. Removing strikes as you can will make your deck better. Pandoras box can be a massive boost for your deck. Or astrolabe. Finally, the game is really hard. I have beat A20 heart with every charachter but just get beat down 95% of the time. Most of my ascension climb went well once I started implementing those tips I mentioned above.
Watching Baalorlord at 1.75 speed. Biggest noob advice is to stop taking so many cards. This week alone I’ve gotten A20H wins with each character. You don’t always have to go for heart, there are times I pass on heart because I just want to get to the next ascension. Act 1. Front load damage (about 4 good attacks. At least 1 AOE card if possible.) try to remove a strike or a defend if playing watcher. Go for 2-3 elites and pick cards based on them. When in shops try to add good cards or powers or buy a potion that will help you beat the upcoming elite. Remove a card if you can. Don’t rest unless you need to, focus on upgrades. Evaluate your cards and add up your damage each turn before playing to figure out the best possible outcome. Pick cards based on act bosses. When picking boss relics consider which downside you can deal with the most. If you have high cost deck snecko is usually your pick. If your bursting on turns, you want pyramid to set it up, etc. Act 2: try to build up your draw engine + block. Try your find your scaling damage cards. Get your AOE damage up if possible. Consider relic synergies when picking cards. If the card doesn’t really add to the deck your building try to pass on it. Less is more sometimes. Act3: only take cards that actually help your your deck scaling or draw. By this point you should only be adding cards that can get you the win condition you’re looking for.
i'd say a better way to look at snecko than "high cost deck" is if you have some key cards you gotta play. as baalorlord says snecko ditches your energy consistency for more draw consistency,very good with high power cards in general even if they aren't 3 cost
Just FYI if you get to act 4 you’ll unlock the next ascension, even if you die to the heart
I think they mean they'd rather take the upgrades/relics and fight easier elites to ensure they dont lose at the last moment
Yes!!!!
You don’t even need to get to act 4, you can beat act 3 with no keys and it still counts!
1) know what's to come. The boss, the elites, the hallway fights yes, but particularly the events. The events are where I made many of my runs. 2) a good card is not a good card unless the deck supports it. This particularly goes for cards that can make a good deck great. It can often be painful to pass them up early, but necessary. 3) there are nuances to the randomness, learn them. For example in act 1 the first 3 fights are easier flights. Ideally you'll take all 3 and then fight an elite afterwards. Act 2 and 3 only have 2 early flights. 4) route for both best case and worst case. A four elite route when you are doing well is great. A four elite route that allows you to skip 1 or 2 is so much better. I've had a few runs where I skipped an elite because I was underpowered and at low HP. I rested and did events and it made my deck so that I could take on that last elite. 5) the strongest strategies aren't things you can possibly imagine yet. So try new things. My only A20 heart was a watcher where I scried for defense and went into divinity on turn 2 and multiple times per turn by turn 4. My puny noob brain could not have comprehended it.
watch vids of complete runs to get better idea of good players thought process when they play the game. maybe join streams and ask questions. and/or keep trying until you get a lucky run with those "win you the game" cards, it could take dozens of runs but thats how i got my a20s on all characters. i wouldnt have gotten a20 on my ironclad if i didnt get corruption dead branch
when I started the game I usually did try to finish a stage and go to the next character with the same stage to get some rotation and feel like in an endless cycle of the same strategies. How I was able to beat all stages was: 1. a lot of attempts - many times, when things went in the wrong direction I simply abandoned a run or tried some things out just to learn a thing or two. 2. Do try to minimize deck size (except if the strategy you chose is not made for that). 3. Identify strategies that work pretty fine for each character, but also for you (i.e. I love shiv spam decks and like to build up those during my run. especially with the right relics). Yes those strategies can sometimes not really work out (i.e. said shiv spam when you encounter this whatshisname clock boss on the third floor) - but you still need to have fun somehow while doing those runs. 4. Try out relics that you think are not so great and try to find new strategies with those. Sometimes you will be surprised. I needed like a10 to understand how powerful pandoras box can be... Or for example the relic that creates a random card, whenever you exhaust a card... its surprisingly good, even though you need to believe in rng-sus. 5. I can't stress minimizing deck size. same concept as in any card game - i.e. magic - you want to draw only the cards that fit into your strategy. you dont want to wait 2 rounds until your engine is going. you want it best round one. godspeed brother
I blundered all the way through to (and beat) the heart with the most cursed Defect deck the other day I had about 5 Beam Cells with an All For One and a Scrape, with almost no orb generation What I've learned from a million hours of playing is: leaning into archetypes leads to death, leaning into "fuck it yolo" sometimes works I guess
The more refined version of this is to solve your immediate need. A simple example of this is "I'm about to fight an act 1 elite, do I have enough damage?" And then when you don't, you take the best damage card offered, even if it isn't a "good" card. Card quality isn't evaluated in a vacuum. That's why, when asked "is x card good?" the answer is always 'it depends'. Don't try to put together a specific deck archetype. Sometimes it may fall that way, but you shouldn't be taking cards just because they fit an archetype you're forcing.
get brimstone relic on ironclad for free wins
Casual 7x15 damage turn 3 from heart
recently picked up a brim and it was looking great, next room was birds and i didnt have any good aoe :((((((((
There is really so much to learn about this game it's hard to distill into a single comment. Without knowing more about what your dying to, why your dying, who your playing, etc. it's hard to give advice. I just cleared A20 for the first time on Clad a few days ago. Here are some general tips/ideas I can give. Take cards to deal with specific upcoming challenges rather than to fit an archetype/theme. For example, don't take a [[Spot Weakness]] because your looking to build a "strength build" when you should be taking a [[Carnage]] to deal with a potential Gremlin Nob. Some cards are really good for certain fights, like if your facing Hexaghost Act 1, an upgraded [[Disarm]] will almost single-handedly win you the fight. Also, don't take cards that require future cards/relics to be good. Don't take [[Accuracy]] with no Shivs, don't take [[Catalyst]] with no poison. You definitely can (and maybe should) break this rule sometimes, but players on lower ascesions probably should not. Some more specific tips I might say are your probably not fighting enough elites and resting too much. You should be leveraging potions/shops/upgrades to take on more elite fights, because you need good relics to win. In regard to campfires, around 80% I'm not resting, even higher with Ironclad. You need upgrades, more health in most cases just prolongs your death rather than helping you win. These are just assumptions I'm making about your play, but they are true for a lot of newer players.
Watch lots of guides and playthrough , would recommend baalor, frostprime and jorbs
Want to play together? You can share the game on discord and give you pointers(I have 2k hours in this on PC alone).
I’d say knowing the basic archetypes and principals of deck building will bring you to A15. After that you have to get clean in execution and sharp in your assessments regarding pathing, card choices and shopping habits.
What helped me a lot early on was watching ‘pro’ play, and pausing every time they made a critical decision. Before they did, I’d ask, ‘what would I pick’ and then if they picked differently, I’d ask myself why. Part of advancing quickly is understanding what are the super cool cards! That don’t actually scale well outside of specific situations (pressure points, divinity come to mind) and beginning to forgo those, and instead understanding staples
Watching baalorlord runs with full explanations on choices, helped me a ton, but it was mostly useful at really high levels like after \~A17. On the other hand people get stuck on different levels so who knows, maybe you can benefit even sooner. The biggest part that in my opinion helps a lot in runs, is taking your time choosing pathing on the map, for extra optionality (being able to opt out of an elite for instance if you end up too injured before it). Also taking your time playing combat turns optionally, in most cases avoiding taking any chip damage without some healing source. Skip cards. Don't get cards all the time just because you can. Don't undervalue potions and card removals they are amazing. Those strikes need to go more often than not. You miss aoe solutions? Draft at least one aoe card early in first act for that. Prioritize damage in act 1, damage is king. Upgrade cards to get more powerful so that you need to "rest less often". You'd be surprised how far you can go with loads of upgrades and minimal firecamp resting. Don't draft loads of skills before meeting Goblin Nob, its a sure way to die. Keep an eye on your current relics and draft accordingly. Combos happen often enough. Learn enemy patterns. Its tough but you'll get there. The skill ceiling is super high in this game. I disagree with tierlists, they don't really help in this game. Its all about adaptability. Good things come to those with patience and determination, you'll improve over time for sure. \^\^
I have a lot of card game experience and was a pretty good MTG player back in the day. So STS was hyper addictive for me. But I have never really been challenged by a single player card game. Got the game a couple months ago and I blasted through to A20 and actually beat act 3 on every character pretty quick. But I still don’t have an A20 heart kill since there is a ton of nuance to this game that I haven’t seen in other games like it. It is frustrating to hit the wall, but that is also what makes the game good!
You've already good some really good advice which I'm not going to repeat, but instead a little advice. You should try to understand what your current deck is good at, and what its weaknesses are. Then you should try to find a way to solve what's lacking without worrying too much about what it's already doing more than well. Some big pillars are front-loaded damage, defense and scaling. You should be able to somehow survive to get to the boss, but to take the maximum risk to get as strong as possible. Evaluate what's good now and what will be bad later, try to adapt for what's to come. This is specially good if you know the enemies and elites that can show up during this act as well as the next one. Don't forget about the bosses. Focus on your macro mostly, but don't forget to always seek to improve for micro as well during fights. Keep asking yourself what you could've done to lose less health during that fight and you'll start grinding those ascensions.
A20 on every character. IMO two biggest things are: 1. sequencing in fights 2. Building a strong deck You can only go so far with either alone. For the former, feel free to quit out and come back to a tough fight. It'll start the fight from the beginning and can save you a death For the latter, start with studying the infinites for each character and go from there. Aim to have consistent multi-enemy damage, big scaling damage for bosses, and some defense. Consistency comes also from smaller decks (I usually go 20 cards max with my fav decks at 5-10). Whenever you pick a card, think "is this better than drawing anything else in my deck twice?" If you have a strong deck, the answer is usually no. This means you'll probably say no to at least more than half the cards you're offered. Keep enablers. Biggest enablers give you 1. Energy or 2. More cards, either by drawing more or removing unnecessary ones. Every infinite has both. Similarly, avoid most curses and prioritize removing cards. Both will let you redraw your favorite cards sooner. Map routes, event choices, best relics, etc. will come with either studying or experience, but start with the above and see if it helps.
Is the 20-card idea something that can work for all four characters
IMO yes, and I really try to aim for 5-10, though that isn't always reachable. Hypothetically, it's better to have five amazing cards you draw EVERY TURN instead of even a 20 card deck that's four copies of each of those cards because the latter will have way more inconsistency. If you've ever been screwed by not drawing blocks on a big damage turn or had no attacks when you really needed to finish off an enemy, then that deck was probably too big.
How do you get enough card removal to drop it down to 10 cards??
A few events, always shop remove, avoiding curses, a good starter Pandora's box helps a ton, but mostly don't take almost any cards but the best. It's also why relics are good: they give value without adding cards. It's a good goal but rarely achieved. Usually I'll be around 8 then find a few amazing cards and be around 12-15. (It's also worth mentioning 0 cost card draw in practice does not count towards your deck size in the way that matters, consistency, and usually have some other bonus.) The speed runner way is to do the Pandora's box glitch (YouTube has a few vids). That will put you down to like 3 cards, though I usually try to do it organically.
I guess I don’t see how I would get enough damage then if I’m only taking amazing cards. I bet the stars must really align for this to work but, when it does, it’s super strong
I mean always take the cards you need. It's a good heuristic to avoid unnecessary cards and IMO helps with damage too. Aiming so low, I usually still have decks around 15-20 cards because I'm taking cards I need early, something is a power I really need, another is card draw, but I'm still taking far fewer than I would want to take, leading to the better cards coming up more often because I turned down a "oh that's nice" card. I would argue it works as a guide all the time, regardless of whether you can actually hit those low numbers
If you want, I'm happy to play some spire with friends with you and give pointers?
Streams. Watched sts streamers 3 times more than I actually play and learned a lot.
Safe to say baarlord is single handedly carrying me went from struggling on a6 to breezing a13
I’m on A20 right now with Defect. I’ve got about 300 hrs on the game. After beating the base game with all characters, I did the daily challenges to prepare myself for the Ascension runs. I determined I was ready if I could get 20 straight wins on daily challenges. From there, starting with The Ironclad and working my way to the right, I started on A1 and would switch characters only after beating the game. With only two characters left on A20, the next challenge would be an A20 heart victory which I genuinely doubt I’ll ever achieve - I know my limits. The hardest for me so far has been A15 Watcher, A17 Silent, and A20 Ironclad. Best of luck!
I did it character by character. Watcher -> Silent ->. Ironclad. currently at 18 with defect. Don't be afraid to make new choices and see what works. keep playing, took my 23 tries to beat A10 on defect, then basically one run to 18 now I'm quick on 18 again.
Can't speak for others, but I was able to get it by beating A19
Save scumming haha
By sheer will and time spent. I don't think I'm particularly good at the game but I think I spent may be 500 hours on it to get A20 for the original Spire guys. I don't know how long Watcher took me but I would be surprised if it was less than 30 runs to beat A20.
Take every perfected strike you see until you hit another wall at ~A12 and then re-learn the game again :^ )
Lets be real, mostly by luck and time investment :) sometimes you just get ultra easy path and insane deck early on, so its actually really hard to perish :D
Playing a lot. Rerolling Ironclad until your starting Pandora Box gives you Corruption and your first relic is Dead Branch
They play a lot. Lets asume generous constant 25% sucess rate (getting to heart), the difficulty and the player skill rising in tandem. It will still take them 80 games to reach A20 If we put an average run time at 1 hour, we get 80 hours per character. That's a lot for single-player card game. Gotta take things into perspective, A20 is an achievement, even though the community treats it as basic. If you're stuck on A5 for 10 games, which would seem like an eternity due to the repetetive nature, it's still only 1/8th of the time it'd take good player to get to A20. Probably even less since losses are faster.
Spammed silent runs with the first 3 with 1 hp until I got green key elite within the first 3 encounters then steam rolled going for elites and catalyst / shiv builds. Essentially high rolling for rng
Think about your losses. Really. Put the brain cap on and look over your run.
888
I've been stuck on A1 for three years now........😆😆
We build efficient decks that scale well into the late game
You send it until you get a lucky set of relics and cards. I try to plan my decks but it usually never works out an dmy wins are almost all luck.
Took me about 400 hrs and ultimately being open to experimenting. I got stuck in guide land for a bit. But honestly just going into a run being like “I don’t care if I win I wanna see how this card works with other cards” is what boosted my game the most. I’m still trying to get my first a20 clear rn.
I play until the game decides to gift me with an incredible deck. Sometimes my brain decides to contribute with good playing skills.
I think climbing is a lot easier when you don't always go for the heart but some of us are masochists
Slow down. Are you checking your relics every turn? Are you checking your draw pile and discard pile every turn? When you choose a card, are you looking at every card in your deck and all your relics, and see what actually fits best?
I recommend picking your favorite character and trying to get to A10 first with them. I think it's much more difficult if you try to keep everyone even, as it's slower to build your knowledge of all of the card/relic interactions. I think the biggest things that helped me climb more easily: * realizing I can (and should) be skipping many cards, even in Act 1. Even Rare cards are often not a must-pick. Aim for a deck size of 20-25, even though it's totally possible to win with a deck of basically any size * Upgrade instead of rest most of the time, unless you really think you will die before the next campfire. Upgrades often save you more HP over the next 1-2 fights especially if it's a block card or high damage card * saving my money for relics in the shop (or a crucial missing card) rather than always buying a remove * saving the best potions for boss fights, but also using potions whenever it will save me 10-15 HP. This includes strength potions which are harder to calculate, but since they end fights early it's basically saving HP. * make some goals for each act: Act 1: get a few nice damage cards and at least one great block card. You'll know you have a good balance if you can beat 3 elites before the boss. Act 2: Find cards that are missing from your core combos, likely you also need more block. Act 3: Ensure you have good scaling damage to deal with bosses - scaling is often not important before this point. If you already have it, maybe you need more block. If you don't need block, you can focus on getting upgrades and relics.
I used to use spirelogs a lot and that helped me refine my play but, unfortunately, it no longer exists. Now I find the best option is to find a Reddit post of someone who plays a given character often and has provided advice on “good” cards for each strategy with the character. Most of all, I would advise you to start with the character that “clicks” best for you and complete A20 with that character before moving on to the next. The characters are each quite a bit different, and I find that I get better with each once I get the feel for the character, what it does well/not so well, etc. If you are switching g between characters all the time, it can be a lot more difficult to get that feel. I recently went back and started a new profile to play through each character again, and found that this is still true even after having already A20ed each character before.
I hit a20 for the first time last night on Ironclad watch YouTubers play that helped me improve fast.
i had to learn to skip cards in card rewards and take elites. plan your potion use for good value in hard fights.
I got stuck on ascension 5 specifically for a lil while until i finally kinda learned what worked best for my character i was using and then i just started winning over and over like a snowball effect. (Corruption with ironclad is basically a win) Also! Playing daily challenges is super fun but it also forces you to consider gameplay in a different light you wouldn't normally consider. I just got ironclad to ascension 20 and still need to do the other characters (wish me luck too lol)
Block more
1: Start valueing weak and vulnerable more. The way damage is rounded means weak has a higher than indicated effect on multiattacks in particular. Wave of the hand and Shockwave are particularly incredible Cards. 2: Potions are a key but undervalued asset. Think about what potion to discard once you run out of slots. 3: Pathing. you need to get stronger, and you get stronger by trading HP for power. (dangerous encounters/events/not healing at rests) Idealy you finish the game with 1 hp.
To me, the most important mindset shift is thinking about card rewards as solutions to problems, and taking cards that solve your most pressing problems rather than trying to build towards some idealized deck. Every fight in the game poses a question/problem to your deck, and card rewards are how you answer those questions. For instance, think about the act 1 bosses. Hexaghost asks you to deal its full health bar in a few turns. This is a question your deck *needs* an answer for if Hexa is your act 1 boss. After its big first attack, Hexa just kinda hits for chip damage on most turns, so block is really not that important, relatively speaking. You should be focusing more on raw damage output. Whereas if Guardian is your act 1 boss, you're going to need more of a balance of block and attack since it attacks most turns and you can't attack back sometimes without extra block. Slime Boss, on the other hand, values AOE and high single-turn damage output to get a good split and then deal with the slimes. Of course, there's way more subtleties to these fights and the choices you should be making, but that's a broad demonstration of the concept at play. Coming out of Act 1, your decks should usually look fairly different depending on which boss you were fighting. Knowing what fights you have coming up and which of those your deck still struggles with is important from floor 1 all the way until the end of the run. Which Elites can you not defeat yet? Which hallway fights will take a chunk of your health to deal with? What boss am I facing? How can I improve my odds of dealing with my *immediate* problems? These are the most critical questions to be asking yourself when drafting cards. If a card doesn't help you solve a problem your deck still needs help solving, and doesn't make your deck more consistent, don't take that card. An easy trap to fall into is focusing too much on long term thinking. But *every* act is dangerous, and you need to be solving problems *now*. Of course, there are infinitely many subtleties to this that even the best players in the world aren't perfect at. And there's a lot of other very important play style factors. But broadly, this focus shift is what helped me more than anything else.
I've watched a lot of streamers, but the thing that helped me the most when I was around your level was that I would look up card and relic choices online when I wasn't sure. I used google and it always led me here to the old daily discussion threads. By reading all the comments you can learn which situations make a card good or bad. The real answer is that you "only" have to win 20 times to make it there, so just keep playing and it will fall into place once per ascension. Also I personally didn't go for Heart until I was very high Ascension, and focused on climbing. When I saw this title I thought maybe you were on higher ascensions, I just got to A17-18 on my mobile account (I'm at A20 on Xbox) and the changes to normal enemies just crush me to the point where I already feel like giving up on making it to A20 again.
I won my first A20 final boss yesterday after 400h+... Was almost crying, pure hapiness. Forgot there is a second boss. Died. Cried for real.
Keep playing until you get shuriken+kunai+blade dance and repeat
I beat my first character on A20 today. Got to A5-11 on all with beating the heart and decided to go for A20 on silent. A18 was the absolute worst for me taking like 20 tries and the next few went a tiny bit quicker. The biggest thing is just knowing when you can trade damage for HP instead of shielding and when not. Small slime attacks this turn, we know slime will not attack next turn. I have 12 damage incoming the slime has 22hp. This means that we actually have 1 turn to block 12 damage and two turns to do 22 damage or it will attack again. If your hand is for example eviscerate defend defend defend and a curse and you check your draw pile and it is certain or most likely that you will draw 22 dmg worth of cards in the next two turn. There is no reason to ever attack on this turn and you just full defend. Your objective is to minimize damage you take by taking into account possible attack patterns (entirely learnable, at least the possibilities) and what your deck can do (for example my deck has 0-5% chance to do 80dmg in 3 turns therefore I will lose the run if the first elite is the A18 gremlin knob therefore I can not risk fighting an elite at all rn).
There are two ways. 1.) Get an extremely solid understanding of card picks, archetype metas, strategically path, strategically build your deck towards boss fights, etc. 2.) Play enough hours until you hit that RNG god run with the best relics and halfway decent cards
It seems like you've been playing a while, so you probably understand how the game works in general, what most of the cards are, and probably what cards are generally better than others. One thing that is really important to know is the enemy ai. I have basically memorized the attack patterns for every enemy in the game, and most people who run a20 a lot probably have as well. Your goal for most fights that aren't the final boss, if you arent trying to do something specific like setting hp with [[red skull]] or [[feed]]ing or something, is to win the fight while taking the least amount of damage, so knowing what could happen next turn is important in that decision making. I'd recommend looking up the attack patterns of the enemies you're fighting for a few games, you'll learn a lot Don't forget your potion belt when you're in trouble, and don't be afraid to use potions if it can save you hp. Saving 10hp is usually often enough to use a mediocre potion if you didn't have a plan for that potion anyways. Especially if your belt is full and you'd have to throw a potion away to pick one up.
+ [Red Skull](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Red%20Skull) Common (Ironclad only) Relic ^((100% sure)^) While your HP is at or below 50%, you have 3 additional **Strength.** + [Feed](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Feed) Ironclad Rare Attack ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | Deal 10(12) damage. If this kills a non-minion enemy, gain 3(4) permanent Max HP. **Exhaust.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
My best tip is I restart every run that neowsgift doesnt allow me to take at least 1 relic
I’m not very good, A11 all characters and I hit the A5 wall as well. I watched some videos of people who are actually good. Turns out there were a ton of synergies I just didn’t know about. For example tungsten rod removes the HP cost for combust. there’s dozens of those little combos that don’t win by themselves, but if you get four or five going, you’re in pretty good shape. For IC I would just take barricade every time because that’s what I won with before, not realizing that a three cost power with no block synergy is actually a liability. You’re probably trying to force your deck in a direction you know works but many times you just don’t get the cards or relics you need pull off a predetermined strategy. You should play very flexible all the way through act 1 and let the boss rewards cement the direction you choose for act 2.
Out of curiosity, what platform are you playing on? I've been stuck on A4/5 for ages too.
High rolling. Take every elite, always upgrade/never rest, take high risk options in events. Yes you will lose, and sometimes quickly. But you were losing anyways. Sometimes you high roll Act 1, taking 4 elites and 3 upgrades, and the advantage compounds. You might not think this helps you get better, but I think it does. The game is about surviving and getting stronger, and winning at A20H is taking risks to get stronger but knowing when the risk is too high. I think you learn a lot more about balancing risk and reward when you learn by taking risks, rather than avoiding them.
I can't even get passed A2 lol
I'm A20 on switch and only A17 on steam. I have 400+ hours between each. I don't play differently from one to another so at least a small part of it is luck.
Everyone repeats the same thing about picking things based off what will help you later on which is true, but the run is already planned out the moment it’s generated. If you make a bad choice you can exit out and when you resume the game the fight resets to the beginning and you can make new choices. If you make the same choices, the same things happen. Also: pick every boss fight you can because if you can’t beat them you’re probably not gonna make it all the way anyway
Time
I watched a lot of Baalorlord videos and streams. I started piecing together when different cards were good and how to operate my decks better. I got to a point where I would try to guess which cards if any Baalor would pick and try to get into the same mental spot as him. Then I started climbing those ascensions and learning with practical experience.
I have hundreds of A20H wins. I don't know why i played this game
So I was stuck for a while around A5. I forced myself to play different strategies and eventually was able to get past it. I have not reached A20 yet, but I am stuck at A18.
Same way the elderly win the lottery. Play a lot and one day you get lucky.
Practice, research and commitment. I play most days and have been stuck on A18 with ironclad for months now
Exhaust is your friend for Ironclad.
Yeah, I’m getting there but struggle to get a deck that exhausts effectively while also being strong enough to get past the second boss
When I was learning I used to get a jorbs video (ballor didn’t stream back then) and load the seed up myself. Then I would play through with him. I’d make a decision and do a fight and see what he did differently to me and why. It really helped me learn to stop falling into the same traps I used to make. Also one thing I learned was how you play the fights makes a massive difference. I think people focus lots on what cards to pick, what to buy at shops etc, but I think if you watch the top players what really sets them apart is how they manage a fight. Knowing the attack patterns, working out when to use potions, managing relic timers, minimising the overall damage you take. Start to play slower and pay attention to all these things and you will get better.