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Let's discuss: Slay the Spire

I wanted to try a new type of post: just taking a particular videogame and see if there are others who would like to talk about it.

To start I'm taking Slay The Spire. A beautifully balanced game with infinite replayability. What are your favorite classes? What is your favorite way to win the game? What is the highest ascension you've beaten? Are there similar games you enjoy? Let's go!

44 comments
  • I almost exclusively play for A20 heart kills. I play all 4 classes but in a "whichever I feel like today" way. I tried rotating between the characters for a while and really didn't enjoy playing silent or watcher while in the wrong mood for those classes.

    My favorite deck in recent memory was probably a silent discard combo with Grand Finale as the only damage-dealing card in the deck. My favorite archetype in general is probably ice defect. A good all-you-can-eat ironclad run is great too.

    I don't think I agree that STS is especially well balanced - some regular hallway combats do irrationally more damage on average even to players much better than me (for example, floor one jaw worms or any act 3 darklings). In general, the game could be quite a bit harder on A20 and still be fun for players who want a challenge. It's also weird to me that A1 makes the game easier compared to A0. Between the classes, there is a class which is clearly stronger than the others. However I also don't think this is a bad thing. Imbalances create more opportunities for new experiences, and for different kinds of players to have different kinds of fun. And that certainly agrees with "infinite replayability." I'm sure in 5 years' time I will still be seeing interactions I've never seen before.

  • I mostly play it as a kind of chill casual game. I like to do endless more on ascension 1 and slowly build up the most broken deck imaginable (there's many options). I just stop when I get bored of it, I usually don't die ever on endless if I made it past the initial run.

  • I enjoy it, started playing recently! All the fun for me is in trying to find good loadouts completely on my own. I don’t want to watch some YouTuber show me the absolute maxed out best loadout, because that’s the entertainment to me. Progress is slow, I still haven’t cleared the game lol, but when I do, I know it will be my own choices that got me there. No shame in researching how to win if that’s your thing, I just love diving into games like this blind.

  • i will never not simp for shiv silent. easily my favorite way to play. wonderful game.

    i like to play what I call A20EZ cuz I'm not the best at the game: play A20 on custom, with sealed draft, vintage and the ending modifiers. it's very fun to just start with a strong deck and get tons of relics!

    it also feels like it teaches me what is actually strong in terms of raw card synergy, which has been very nice for learning how to get better at the game without suffering through being bad at the game as much.

  • I suck at the game, so winning isn't an option for me. But I really like either going poison or daggers for the skull wearing guy. I haven't even bothered with ascension as I'm still trying to do the keys thing while beating a run with a single character.

    I'd say the closest I've played to Slay the Spire's "pick a path" style deck builder would be Peglin and One More Gate. Peglin is definitely a lot closer to Slay the Spire as you start off a blank slate every run (minus custom mode), whereas One More Gate is, so far, you do a run, come back to the hub area, buy/sell cards/upgrades, do another run to get slightly further.

    Pretty much the only other deck builders I have are ones where you don't get to choose where you go next and go from battle to battle without any path choices or chance based event areas (Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate and Ardor).

44 comments