The Tao of Gaming

My win rate is up slightly, probably due more to a balance patch than any mindfulness on my part.

Remember, the four fundamental questions you should be asking yourself are:

1. How will I attack?
2. How will I block?
3. How will I do all-out-attack (“deal with multiple enemies.”)
4. How will I scale?

This article deals with the last question. “Scaling, or ‘Why Furnace is a desperation pick.'”

Things I’m rethinking (from the Prior Article)

(Link to Part 1)

• I’m slightly less enamored of Leafy Poultice, particularly on Necrobinder (with her low Max HP dropping it further means rests have limited value). Similarly I’m experimenting more with Precarious Sheers, particularly if the Act I map has an early rest, because that cancels the current HP loss and removing two starters is a big deal …. long term.
• I feel like I’ve been over-valuing gold. Card removes are more expensive in StS 2. It’s true you have less shot at a Pandora’s Box (which removes all your strikes and defends); but many Ancient Rewards / Artifacts effectively let you remove big chunks of your deck (or improve them enough to be worthwhile), which counterfeits the store’s “remove a card” option. Because of that, I’ve started looking at Cursed Pearl with a much more jaundiced eye. Yes, it might let you snowball, but if it doesn’t …
• Stone Humidifier (“Gain 5 Max HP when you rest”) is also downgraded, because it does nothing for the early fights. You really need to have an extra rest prior to your elite and hope that the Max HP helps. I had a string of runs where I took this and was not quite strong enough to deal with my first elite, even with delaying it.
  • Nutritious Oyster (“Gain 11 Max HP”) provides the Max HP now, so is probably a better choice unless you have a rest-heavy first act.
  • This does confirm that Neow’s Talisman (upgrade a strike and defend) is actually good, which was my guess. It probably saves at least ~3-6 HP in every fight up for most of Act I. (And putting Spiral on an upgraded defend in that early event is a big deal)
• I didn’t mention Phial Holster in the last article (as it was new and I’d only picked it a few times). It gives you two potions and an extra potion slot. This is generally solid, it lets you burn an early potion or two and might let you high-roll into a much earlier elite fight, and the extra slot will likely be useful all game (particularly if you must hang onto a potion or two to deal with a hard elite/boss … now you can still gain and play other potions).

(Many of the examples/explanations below are simplified and not dealing with corner cases.)

Understanding Scaling — Kinetic vs Potential Scaling

I won my low ascension Regent runs grabbing Furnace, a power that gives 4 Forge¹ a turn. It seemed comparable to Noxious Fumes, a power that adds 2 poison a turn. But that was shallow thinking, and at higher ascensions it failed hard. It took me a while to unpack why, but there are multiple reasons.

The first is that Noxious Fumes is “Play and Forget.” It does 2 damage, then, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc². With Forge you also have to play the Sovereign Blade to do any damage. Your sword will be worth 14, 18, 22, etc … but attacking with it costs two mana per attack; then you have to wait and get it back, which also means one less other card in your deck. It costs time and card draw.

Noxious Fumes is active from next turn it’s played … doing damage each turn (but starting smaller). Furnace enbiggens your sword, damage requires further costs. I’ll talk more about Forge below, but the point is that Furnace is passive scaling … If you got a second Noxious Fumes, your numbers and damage would go up, but a second Furnace just makes your potential damage go up.

I don’t love this passive/active terminology, perhaps Poison is “complete” and Forge is Incremental? Or “Potential” vs “Kinetic” is best? Kinetic scaling does actual damage. Potential Scaling might do damage down the line.

But that’s not the only issue

Understanding Scaling — Linear vs Geometric Scaling

Consider Inflame. +2 Strength, once. All attacks do (at least) two more³. It’s a perfectly find card, and may help through early elites and bosses. In theory its potential scaling, but in practice it activates pretty fast. Ironclad is usually playing attacks, so boom. Three attacks a turn (say), means six extra damage a turn. That’s OK. But it doesn’t grow. Noxious Fumes starts off small but gets bigger over time.

But if you double something, it gets bigger much faster. Voltaic channels a lightning Orb for every Lightning Orb already channeled. Play it 5 times (even without any other lightning) and you channel 1,2,4,8,16. A geometric progression. If you have even another orb or two played each time through the deck (like Zap) the number can get ridiculous fast (depending on card order). Voltaic can cause 500 damage on it’s own. Inflame requires 250 attacks. A linear progression. If you added a second inflame your deck would be more reliable. A second voltaic would be a grotesque win.

(Again, I don’t love the terms; perhaps “Additive vs Multiplicative” scaling might be better).

Any card that doubles (or halves) deserves a close look. Colossus blocks, but also halves the damage vulnerable opponents inflict.

There are some other types of geometric scaling built into the game:

• All out Attack
• Any enchantment (etc) that adds “Replay” to a card is literally doubling (or tripling) the card. Hidden Gem can be a great purchase, even though replay is being applied to a random card. It’s just that strong and as your deck gets stronger cards it will proportionally scale.

Back to Furnace, and Scaling vs Big Impact Now

Putting it all together, I was treating Furnace like a scaling card, but it’s the worst kind of scaling — linear (+4 to the swords damage …), and potential ( … when you play the sword). Its much closer to Inflame than Noxious Fumes. It has a place, but that place is providing a bit of extra damage when you are low, against not-particularly fast opponents. It absolutely can make the difference in the Act I boss fight … linear scaling is usually enough.

It just won’t win the game, and the opportunity cost of having it take up a valuable card draw (and mana if you play it) may outweigh that in many fights. And often the damage output it does provide is completely inferior to many other options.

Compare Furnace to Wrought in War⁴. If you play Furnace, next turn you can play your sword for 14. If you play Wrought in War, you can play your sword this turn for 17, plus the 7 you already did. WiW converts 3 mana into 24 damage, a respectable first damage card. That’s its role, with a smidge of linear scaling each further time through the deck. Now granted, if you play Furnace and wait 5 turns, you’ll do more damage, but that’s an eternity in a hallway fight (unless you can consistently block for huge numbers each turn). If you play The Smith (“Forge 30”) and then your sword, you do 40 damage now (for 3 mana and some stars).

The Big Number is much better than scaling in almost all fights. But … you can make The Smith multiplicative by playing it via Decisions Decisions, which plays a skill three times. Now on the turn you play them, your sword hits for a hundred, which would take Furnace 23 turns! (Or you can play it each time it comes through the deck, and if you play your sword each time, it’s a bit multiplicative).

Yes, those cards require a star economy, and are rare, etc. But the point is that the numbers matter, not just the type of growth.

Comparing Forge to Vigor

So I’m not particularly happy to take Furnace. It’s a “I need more damage and haven’t seen great cards” pick. But I’m pleased to grab a Prep Time (“4 Vigor at the start of your turn”) as Regent. Why? Because Vigor can be multiplicative; Regent has lots of targets for multiplication. If you sit and block, you can get 8, 12 or more vigor built up; Build up stars, a card like Stardust (which is an X cost attack, but X is stars, not mana) or Heavenly Drill can quickly grow. Furnace is +4 damage a turn, but even a moderate growth in star economy can turn each point of vigor into 10 or 20 hits, and both numbers can grow each turn …. Geometric, not linear.

You can totally win a Regent run by playing only a single attack. Play two powers Prep Time (+4 Vigor a turn) and Genesis (+2 stars a turn), through out block, and wait for a Stardust to do something like 5 (base damage) + 12 (3 turns vigor) times 20 (stars). As a bonus, you can enchant it to do double damage (or +8 vigor first time played). Prep Time gives you a corner stone you can latch onto; and with a few more pieces (and a lot of block) you have your scaling.

Furnace comes nowhere close.

Redeeming Forge

But Forging can. Summon Forth forges 8 (a reasonable number) …. and puts the sword back in your hand. If your deck was only Summon Forths, you could attack in the following pattern. 18, 26, 34, 42. You gain damage faster and play it more often. Not quite geometric, but much faster linear damage. If you play the Parry power (or two), you now suddenly get damage and block each time you play your sovereign blade. You aren’t multiplying damage exactly, but you are doing two important things (damage and block) each time you play your sword.

Bulwark is a perfectly fine “Block 13 for 2 mana” card … that also forges (10!). I grab it as an early block card, but the damage boost is nice.

The point: Don’t grab a Furnace; get a scaling engine via the following path (or something similar):

• On an early floor I grab a Wrought in War, if no better damage card is offered (“How Will I Attack?“). As mentioned above, it is “24 damage for 3 mana.”
• Grab Bulwark for block (“How will I block?”); but it also forges. Now if I play it and Wrought in War, my Sovereign Blade hits for 27 and I can hold it until it ends the fight (or I have a turn I’m not being attacked).
• At this point, I might get Summon Forth or Parry or Seeking Edge as a multiplier … to (play your sword more often, block as well as attack, or hit all enemies, respectively). All are multipliers in a way, and Seeking Edge answers “How will I handle multiple enemies?“.
• Now there are actual multipliers … Sword Sage makes the sword hit twice (but raises its cost). Conqueror only forges three, but doubles damage that turn. And don’t forget artifact multipliers like Pen Nib⁵.
• Ideally I’ll also grab a Charge or Begone … to trim the mediocre cards (like basic strikes) out of my deck so that I can play the better cards multiple times (if necessary). (The Chapel strategy from Dominion). Multiplication by division.

Each card answers at least one question other than scaling in the first few steps, attack or block. The initial forge on the cards isnt’t the focus of the card, but a “Yes, and …” The forge provides a path for scaling that comes later. (Similar to how an early silent poison may be meant to handle the first boss, but can also provide the entry way for further scaling).

I’m attacking and blocking; a card or two big enough to handle early hallway fights (or mid-game hallway minions) while incidentally building a linear scaling engine via Forge. Then I’ll only need a card or two (hopefully) to make that a geometric engine … or a big enough linear engine to compensate. Furnace doesn’t do any of that.

Now, I’m not saying Furnace is pointless. If I’ve only seen block cards (or am worried about Lagavulin Matriarch, or know I’ll need to scale while paying for Soul Fysh’s beckons), I might pick a Furnace … as a specific use for a fight. Not for scaling. Sometimes you just don’t get great choices and have to make do … but having taken a Furnace I now now that there might be some synergy with more Forge cards … if they appear.

Writing these as I think I have things interesting to say … so part III whenever.

Update — I realized that the above questions are also missing “How can I make my deck set up faster?” (Sometimes also called ‘Velocity’) and I need to ask that question more often to myself.

1. A quick Primer on ‘Forge’ and ‘Vigor’ — Forge X works as follows. If you don’t have a Sovereign Blade, it creates it (in your hand). The blade costs 2 to play, and is retained between turns. The blade’s damage starts at 10 prior to the first forge and is increased (for this combat) by X. (Once you have a sword, Forge X simply increases the swords damage but does not return it to your hand). Vigor X means your next attack (only) does +x damage (per hit), and then the Vigor is spent. ↩︎
2. Poison automatically decreases at the end of each turn so +2 means net +1 each turn once the enemy is poisoned. ↩︎
3. With multi-attacks or X-cost attacks (like Sword Boomerang / Whirlwind) the bonus may apply multiple times per attack. ↩︎
4. Attack 7, Forge 7. ↩︎
5. In multi-player you can also play Hammer Time to let each team-mate forge when you do! ↩︎

This article is an attempt to starting clarifying my (evolving) thoughts about Slay the Spire II by putting them into words. There are presumably (much) better players than me, but are they writing anything? My normal answer is ‘Nope.’ but actually Youtube is awash with videos by people who monetize content, so actually there are. But you are here, so presumably you like the printed word over audiovisual.

I’ve played … a lot. Probably 200-250 hours solo¹. Right now I’m at a roughly 5²% solo win rate³ on the most difficult ascension level (A10) in Slay the Spire II, which is approximately where I was at on the most difficult ascension in the first game first game, but that was with Act IV, which doesn’t exist yet.

So … not great, but not terrible. Good enough to pounce on a great card/combo when it shows up; not good enough to jury-rig a win out of spare parts. (This influences my thoughts). My “micro” could be better. I often take a few extra points of damage due to negligence; which is a huge leak on my win rate; but I’ve been getting quite a few more “almost” wins, which is a good sign.⁴

This post is just a mish-mash of thoughts, but not really re-hashing general thoughts from the first Slay the Spire that transfer. (A few for emphasis). I was going to write some thoughts on cards/etc, but those are ever changing. For clarity, I’ll do this as bullet points.

(Also check out Jorbs’ recent video on “How to win with Silent (and other Characters)“⁵

General Concepts

• You play three of your five cards each turn (in a simple world where everything costs one). So you’d like 1) huge attack(s), to end the fight or when you aren’t attacked 2) huge block(s), when you are being attacked 3) flexibility for the remainder (often long term scaling, covering weaknesses, etc).
  • You don’t care how many “cards” you convert to attack/block/whatever, you want to be able to convert your mana to attack/block/whatever efficiently. This means a “2 Mana — Block 12” card is often (much) better than a “1 Mana — Block 7/8” … you’d get more with two of the latter in your hand, but that also requires two card picks.
  • Realistically, early on you’ll play 2/3 mediocre attacks/blocks. Starter decks lack density.
  • Playing two-three cards leaves room for cards that are dead most of the time (or all of the time for curses), but solve an important fight or two.
  • But, Dead cards leave you vulnerable to variance, particularly multiple dead cards. If you only have three cards you can play, your only choice is the order/targets. So (some decks) may want a bigger deck, to double the staples, which creates space for more specialized cards.
• Extra block survives more variance than extra attack (because if it doesn’t win right now, you take a hit). Even in Act I the elites (and some hallway fights) dish out 20+ damage a turn.
  • The more I play the happier I am taking two cost block cards.
  • This does lead to decks that block for 5 turns then get outscaled, but I lose less often that way than to being to aggressive. I still need to tune that variable.
• As I get better I’m more prone to save a potion for a boss/problem floor.
• I’m fine skipping elites in later acts once I’ve bottled the lightning, unless I’m just confident in the matchups. Even a good start needs to snowball.
• The Act II ancients give you a lottery ticket that’s a winner, but often just a small/medium winner. The Act III Ancients usually grant a golden ticket.⁶ I am OK having no idea how I’m going to beat the Act III bosses if I feel confident that I can get to Act III, and let the blessing (hopefully) clarify things.

Act I

Act I is tough⁷. In StS 1 I’d sometimes die to an early Gremlin Nob (before the middle floor treasure) or the Act I boss; in this version I perished in Act I often — a too early elite or just damage accumulating 3-4 floors in a row. The elites hit hard. For a while I was skipping most of them, but you have to start engine building. To win you need a cornerstone: a card/relic that provides a clear direction towards victory. It may not be the best option, but a cornerstone is an understandable option.

In early games, I hit an early elite and died … then realized my deck would have lost to any of the elites. But that just delayed the loss to the Act I boss or early Act II You need to start that snowball of growth. A good deck will roll through the second half of Act I like butter. Now I prioritize hitting as many late elites as I can, or trying to highroll a gift from Neow into a deck that can hit an early one … and then decide how many elites to take. Ideally I’d fight 3-4 elites in Act I (as late as possible).

Why fight them? If you get 10 relics 7-8 of them are going to be “yeah, that’s OK” but the great ones really help and form your cornerstone. (Best get it early, then you can work on combos and covering weaknesses). Elite fights are lottery tickets, but you aren’t going to win on slow steady investments. You need to hit the lottery (rare card or relic). As you get better what counts as a hit will grow.

And it’s not like the hallway fights are cakewalks. (Moreover, there are only three elites and you won’t duplicate until you’ve seen them all, so you can often tailor your picks against them. The hallway fights have a much bigger pool to select from). Even the events are a mixed bag.

Neow’s Gifts

(I have much less experience with the new ones that just appeared a few weeks ago).

Great

Leafy Poultice is my top pick. You trim out two basic cards via transformation … and get two lottery tickets that may have downside (at worst, a do nothing curse), but usually are strict improvements. Sometimes you high roll and a solid foundation. Losing Max HP is next act’s problem (mostly).

Silver Crucible — Getting an early “Common Attack+” or “Common Block+” really helps your deck’s density and with three upgraded cards you can handle the early elites (maybe not well, but you’ll likely survive). An early upgraded uncommon (or rare) can snowball.

Cursed Pearl … sure the curse is bad (a dead card roughly every other turn at the start), but that first store will hopefully give you at least a spark to bottle, if not lightning. (Golden Pearl to a lesser extent, and these both assume an early store).

Stone Humidifier is another big deal. I know I said Max HP could be ignored for now, but Stone Humidifier can let you skip a few elites for extra rests. Each rest becomes “Upgrade a card OR take a +5HP relic when you rest” (if upgrading a card isn’t that important. Also, Miniature Camp and Waterfall Giant are in the game and a high max HP is a great way to avoid a random loss due to variance. But in the last few weeks I think I might downgrade this a notch.

Winged Boots — These let you path very aggressively into multiple elite fights where variance would likley kill you 25%+ of the time. You take the first fight, if it goes great, you take the second. If not, you jump over to a rest.

Avoid

Precarious Shears — Removes two cards (like the Poultice), but has no possible upside and 13 damage (as compared to Max HP) is a big problem right now.

Lava Rock — You need help now, not at the end of act I.

Neow’s Torment — 10 Damage and some cards back is OK, but there is almost always a better option.

Anything not listed is OK … I certainly take Lead Paperweight and Pomander often enough, I’m just not terribly psyched when doing it. I’m actually kind of fond of Neow’s Talisman, which just upgrades a strike and defend. Partially because the Spiral enchantment event shows up fairly regularly (replay one) and also because removing all your strikes and defends is much harder in this game than in the first. You are probably carrying a 1-2 of them throughout the game. The defend (in particular) can really help with the chip damage accumulating across fights.

Overgrowth vs Underdocks

This has been discussed elsewhere (Jorbs covers it in a video) so I’m not going to touch on it too much, but be aware of which elites are in the pool and which aren’t. The big “Bomb” in the Overgrowth is the Bygone Effigy, a cakewalk if you can slam out the 132 (!) damage by the end of turn 3 (or turn 4, taking a single hit). Without the Effigy, if you can just block for 15-20 a turn (and still do reasonably damage) you’ll be fine, particularly if you have some AOE damage. With the Effigy‘s high HP and massive hits, you need a damage source (or slow source). Both Byrdonis and the Phrog Parasite scale up …. Byrdonis by adding strength and the Parasite by shoving junk into your deck. So you are going to want to favor attack over defense, since long term fights don’t favor you. (Byrdonis is arguably more dangerous than the Effigy, but it’s less of a Bomb. Both are damage races; both can kill you but since Byrdonis attack each turn you probably have to eat 20 damage even if you win on turn three (just going all out) but Effigy gives you three free turns, so a one turn difference is a bigger jump.

But in the Underdocks you can focus more on block than in general. Sure, the Phantasmal Gardners grow (slowly), but they punish multiple hits (and the Skulking Colony caps damage per turn). The Terror Eel is trickier, but big block + poison will work great, unlike in the Overgrowth.

The Underdocks (literal) Bomb is Waterfall Giant, responsible for over 8% of my deaths in the game⁸. Impressive considering it only shows up in ~16% of the games! If your deck is a fast attack deck, you might kill it but still need to tank a hit for 30 (either having block or enough HP left), and if your deck is a big block deck, you are probably slower and will need to tank a bigger hit. The Waterfall Giant is one reason I like the Stone Humidifier. A higher Max HP means a higher current HP in your final fight, so you can eat a bigger hit. This is also true of the Act III double bosses, where you need a buffer (unless your deck is absolutely purring), but with the Giant you need it.

Part II at some point …

1. I am retired, after all. ↩︎
2. There are few enough runs that a single win will drive it up and then drift down, but “1 in 20” seems roughly correct. ↩︎
3. Multi-player games are a whole different thing, with a win rate around 15%. I attribute this to the fact that a) either player can “go off” and win the run more-or-less solo (or with a the partners dealing with a troublesome fight and/or providing support) and b) sometimes you die due to variance in either game, but in multiplayer you get resurrected when your partner survives the fight, a recovery not possible in solo. ↩︎
4. My win rate also crept up after the first adjustments, make to make Act I easier and Act III harder, and I think this is not variance. I have not tried the Beta branch. ↩︎
5. Cliff note’s version: 1) Improve your Worst turn, 2) Improve your Best Turn, 3) Condense your Solution, 4) Improve your initial velocity, 5) Don’t overscale, 6) Understand Short term value vs Scaling Density & 7) There is a max hand size ↩︎
6. Darv (the merchant who offers relics from the first game) complicates things because he can show up in either Act. ↩︎
7. Written before the first balance patch of ~3 weeks ago. Still true, less so. ↩︎
8. This was written a month ago, before the patch, and a) he is now slightly weaker and b) I have really focused on beating him. Now he’s back in line with the rest of the baddies. ↩︎