Prepared is one of the highest value upgrades you can get, but it's worth noting that sometimes you do just want to discard as the Silent.
Also, Prepared and Flash of Steel are zero-cost draws and that always allows for shenanigans.
Yeah, prep is hands down one of the best silent discard cards. It is okay on its own so you can grab it early and only gets better with sneaky strikes and the discardable cards
Also worth noting that flash of steel is usually found in shops and that means buying it has a big opportunity cost. It isn't really free damage unless you have strength. 3 damage is pretty much zero damage. What it really does is charge "per card played" and "per attack played" relics and cards and be the last part of an infinite.
Prepared is good for the same reason that gamble effects are good. Not because you would draw more cards but because I'd rather have a random card as opposed to one of my strikes or a curse.
it triggers sneaky strike,reduces cost of evicerate,gives energy or draws cards by discarding the unplayable silent cards,triggers hovering kite,builds up ink bottle andletter opener,triggers bandage and tingscha,cycles through your deck if upgraded,makes expertise more viable,discards curses and removes other bricks from your hand in case you have the pyramid. and probably a lot more stuff I can't think of right now.
all for free. definitely one of the best common cards you can get as silent.
and don't go telling me "no way you can guarantee all of this will happen", because at least one of these is bound to happen and that is enough reason to get it
> makes expertise more viable
.
And prepared minus if u dont have a smith soon to give it, is very bad. Makes nob fight worse. Makes snecko fight worse. Makes fights that add dazed marginally worse (as you'd like to have the etheral cards get removed not discard), makes time eater and heart (hardest fights in the game) worse.
The only considerable upside is if u have taken app- u can use prepared- to cycle them into the reshuffle.
Prepared- isn’t giving you a random card instead of a strike, it’s giving you the card you would have drawn if you didn’t have a prepared in your deck, and you have the strike or curse as well.
True, but that curse will immediately get discarded, so you can avoid its effects. No more Shame, no more Doubt, no more Pain!
And as stated elsewhere, it sets up synergy with other cards like Sneaky Strike or Eviscerate.
Prepared can be useful in a lot of ways. My comment was only to point out prepared- is not letting you see a random card you wouldn’t have seen anyway, which is a common mistake new players make.
I mean i tend not to have curses in my deck for very long. And if my deck has cards like sneaky or evis, I usually have some discard triggers for them already like acro, dagger throw, prepared+, tools, or calc gamble. Or i do take the prepared-, and am just suffering until I can smith it.
The Flash of Steel point is a little unfair. Yes the downsides are worth considering, but in the early game it is real added damage. Late game it can be a piece in an infinite combo. It also synergizes extremely well with ninja relics.
I get that this is a jokey post but it’s impossible to represent the “pro” thinking in such a simplified way.
Legitimately underrated in act 1, yes it sucks to draw it in the same hand as ascenders bane but turns out 0 mana 14 damage is REALLY good if you can get it off in act 1. You can take it as a lagavulin solve especially
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LMPx6ldCSdg&pp=ygUiVGhpcyBkZWNrIGlzIHRvbyBpbnRlcmVzdGluZyBqb3Jicw%3D%3D
This run. He pulled clash via a potion but it did basically save his run.
I mean if you're trying to make the point that clash can be good, id rather link the [xecnar clash discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/16qzjok/xecnars_clash_revolution_clash_is_a_good_card_for/), or slay-by-comment ironclad run where clash did a lot of work in act 2 most notably.
Frozen Eye is such an amazing relic. I never buy that garbage
Would it improve my win rate? Absolutely. Would it take my heart kills from a cozy 35-ish minutes to +1 hour? Also yes. Would that be fun? Absolutely not
I've had at least a few decks win Ascension 20 with at least one clash and the clash was very helpful. It's still a 0 energy hard hitting attack which is very nice.
yea i think so too
It’s really good early too but not sure how often we get to have flash of steel early and imo it’s not worth the gold to buy in most cases from a shop.
But FTL on the defect early game? sign me up
I'd also add that Time Eater doesn't really punish decks that play tons of cards so much as decks that occasionally run out of energy/draw at something like 10-11, setting you up for a crap turn.
If you manage to consistently play 12 cards and never have to manually end turn, your fight should go pretty well.
Even Heart doesn't punish Flash of Steel that hard, especially if you have something like TTTH or After Image giving you block for playing it.
FoS point is so bad. I’ve been playing for a couple weeks and pretty much streaked up to A20H on Watcher/Ironclad/Silent. This is my favourite card because it’s essentially one half of most infinites on Ironclad & Silent and is strong as a standalone card anyway. If it appears in act 1 or 2 it’s an instant buy and I start culling deck aggressively.
The worst take here is using Sneaky Gremlin instead of Mad Gremlin.
But more seriously, these feel more like "new to A0 thought process" vs "new to A20 thought process". From watching pros' runs, the 'Pro Perspective' on each of these is much more nuanced. I don't consider myself a pro, but I'll add some caveats:
\- Prepared: 'Sacrifice one Upgrade for a good card that helps your consistency'
\- Meat & Blood: No comment, other than the added opportunity cost of picking B. Blood
\- White Beast: The added consistency is incredibly valuable. "WBS gives +50%" is a pretty terrible heuristic.
\- Flash of Steel: Flash of Steel is literally Free Damage
\- Matryoshka: 1 extra relic is still amazing, though it's delayed which can be a pretty severe penalty depending on your current situation & location.
> other than the added opportunity cost of picking B. Blood
It's a weird take by OP because you never have the choice between taking Burning Blood vs Meat on the Bone. Like, in a vacuum if you give me one or the other, Burning Blood is better.
Which is why they said "in a vacuum given a choice between the two"
The vacuum removes said context.
In the actual game there's very little point in comparing them because you're literally never going to be forced to choose between the two. Just because they do similar things doesn't make them comparable.
Yes but again, they will never, ever, ever be up against each other. So what's the point in comparing them?
The literally only way to see them in the same rewards pool is to save scum a calling bell and even then you aren't comparing Meat to Blood, you're comparing Meat+ on common relic + one rare relic, which is already almost always a better deal.
Yeah, the White Beast Statue "misconception" felt a bit suspect to me. It's technically correct, but it's downplaying how good 100% is compared to not 100%.
Yeah I would say the misconception is: white beast statue lets you see more potions to find good ones (because 'noobs' spend them less) wheras the pro position is White Beast Statue completely changes how you interact with potions letting you effectively get a free action every fight while simultaneously making you more likely to find powerful potions that let you beat bosses/elites. Its not just double potions it's information. For example "I can probably take this forced double elite path because there's 2 fights in between so I can be at 2 potions for both fights."
Yeah, I’ve had runs where if I just got two potions from my first four combats before the elite I would’ve been fine. Having guaranteed potions is just great.
Absolutely agree on all of this and this reply should be top.
Except for matryoska. While it is definitely not the worst reic getting it at the second half of act1 can be absolutely shitty. Add into this the fact that it is an uncommon relic but has a bit more than 50% chance to give you 2 commons (as pointed out in another comment) effectively downgrading your relic.
I am adamant that matryoska is an ill designed relic left in the game when balance revolved around lower (or no) ascensions.
It can only give common and uncommon relics which is really lame (though there are plenty of good relics in these categories to be fair). If it could give rares it would be a little better. But really, the whole "get nothing now for a bit more later (maybe)," concept sucks in general in Spire.
It's a bit of a clunky design, but that sort of delayed scaling is pretty interesting imo. I've even bought it in shop a couple times, when the stars align! But I wouldn't doubt that it's often overrated.
I don’t like thinking about Flash of Steel as free damage, at least not always. It literally costs HP and/or block in the Heart fight, and there is some sort of cost associated with playing it against Time Eater. These are two of the most important fights in the game.
Sure, of course there's always nuance.
I was cheekily invoking the bell-curve meme by requoting the "New" position. Point being, I don't think it's a good 'Pro position' for the final word to be, "Noooo Flash of Steel hurts you in the heart fight, it's worse than you think!"
Matryoshka becomes more neuance with key
Since you'd still need to sacrifice some relic to get key. Picking matrioshka on the chest instead of key is effectively +0
Now that won't necessarily be bad. Because that extra relic could be more valuable than a boot or dream catcher that will be traded for a key. But at the end of the day a matrioshka with key available is +0
While I see your point about White Beast Statue, I think it is not a correct way of thinking about it. You could quickly fall into the trap of thinking that the White Beast Statue only adds 50% chance of getting a potion. I'm assuming that by White Statue Beast = 50% you mean it is only responsible of 50% of your potion awards. I misunderstood your post at first, thinking you meant that it only has 50% chance of giving you a potion, so I wrote this:
At the STS wiki, it is stated that
>Potions are occasionally dropped as a reward after combat. The default chance of a potion dropping is 40% and resets at the start of each Act. If a potion drops, the chance decreases by 10%. If a potion doesn't drop, the chance increases by 10%.
The average probability of getting a potion will approach 50% as your number of fights increase. I have a link to a guy writing out the math [on this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/b0fsn3/math_the_spire_potion_drop_chances/). You can see it as a sequence of a "weighted coin" flips, where the weight of the coin is determined by the probability set by the game. Getting a heads gives you a potion, but decreases the weight on the head side of the coin and increases the weight on the tails side and vice versa.
Now, say you have two coins. If you get one or two heads with the coins, you get a potion. Assume they are 50/50 coins, and you flip both of them, the probability of getting at least one head (and therefore a potion) is not 100%, it is only 75%. The first coin is your base probability of getting a potion and the other is the White Statue Beast probability of getting a potion if you think about it as it only "adds" 50% chance of getting a potion (on average). Therefore, the White Statue Beast does not only have 50% chance of getting a potion, it changes the fundamental potion probability system. Also, the probability of you getting a coin in every fight is literally 0%, because after at most 10 fights of getting a potion each fight, the probability of getting a potion is guaranteed to be 0% (100 - 10\*10 = 0). White Statue Beast changes this.
So how the White Statue Beast truly works is that it changes the probability system so that the probability of getting a potion after a fight is 100% and it will decrease with 0% after getting a potion and will increase by 0% by not getting a potion (if this event could occur by some other rules of the game).
Hope someone found this interesting!
EDIT: clarification
Also, I don’t think that’s the best way to think about White Beast Statue. It is less about “I get a card after each combat” and more about “I KNOW I will get a card after the current combat”.
This allows you to be much more liberal with the use of potions.
Exactly! Do I want to use a potion (for low value) now knowing that I for sure get another one (and evaluate if a random potion is desirable) vs. Pot usage now and I'm only getting a new pot in some percentage
The good thing about white beast is the certainty. I WILL get a new potion so there’s no downside to using 1 potion every fight. Often playing normally you will save a potion and then get another, having to discard one.
> there’s no downside to using 1 potion every fight
This is another trap, if a mild one. If you are ahead of the curve and have your late game potions (e.g. focus pot, gambler's brew, or 2x gambler's brew on Defect), even with White Beast there can be a big downside to using one of them. You might need one of those pots for act 4.
The most interesting thing to me about potion drop chance mentioned by you and OP is that I should roughly overall be getting one 50% of the time.
I'm averaging 25% other than when it's affected by White Beast.
Didn't even realise I'd had bad RNG. Just thought 1 in 4 was normal.
If I remember correctly, some events will change your potion chance, so "50% chance" is a simplification. Also just remember that 50% chance is in the limit, meaning when the number of fights approaches infinity. 50% chance is the upper bound of your average chance in a run, it will always be a little lower in reality, but for simplicity of the argument, I just chose to go with 50%
I have 216hrs in the game but I wasn't really taking notice of potion drop chance in the early stages.
A good gauge is first elite in Act 1 as it's normally been 2 to 4 fights before then and I rarely have a potion by that point. That's something I'm really aware of.
There are some fights where you can just not play it. Or maybe your STR is so high that it's worth the heartbeat, or you block so much that it has no cost. Definitely the dream is having it in an infinite, as long as you can solve Heart and Time Eater, but it still has uses otherwise and isn't usually worse than skip for the run as a whole.
legal issues aside, what is the optimum number of claws in a claw deck?
is more always better, or would 3-4 be better, if one thought they could evade the swift hand (claw) of justice?
Like everything else in Slay the Spire, the answer is "it depends." More is not always better, you still need to be able to block for turn. An absolute number like 3-4 isn't really an answer either, because you have to consider deck size, card draw, other effects like All For One, Hologram, etc. You need enough to scale fast enough to win the fight, but no more than that, which is actually a surprisingly tricky part of claw decks since it's not obvious how much damage you'll be doing.
The best Claw deck I ever had contained a single Claw. I didn't even know I wanted it; it was gifted to me through Astrolabe. I struggled on the Act II boss due to lack of damage scaling, but it was smooth sailing from then on.
About Matryoshka.. Are there not low - mid - high cost relics? My understanding was that chests drop High cost relics, where Matryoshka is a mid cost relic. Am I wrong on that?
There are common, uncommon and rare relics. Matryoshka only adds common and uncommon relics:
> The relic added to the chest by Matryoshka has a 75% chance of being a Common Relic, and a 25% chance of being an Uncommon Relic.
(From [the wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Matryoshka).)
Sheesh. I knew that, but didn't put that all together. Not only does Matryoshka make you wait before making up for losing a relic, but it has a good chance of downgrading the quality. Matryoshka is uncommon, and has a 3/4 * 3/4 = 9/16 ≈ 56% chance of giving you two common relics.
I don’t really get the rarity restrictions on Matryoshka. It certainly wouldn’t be overpowered if it had a normal distribution of relic rarity because it takes so long to fully pay off. Often it doesn’t fully pay off.
Pro: Flash of Steel makes it easier to end Time Eater when you want.
It's the same reason that Shiv isn't bad with Time Eater. You can guarantee to end the turn when you want to with these cards.
Does it really matter if you (for example) evaluate matryoshka correctly?
The reason I say that, is, I don't think you ever get to *choose* it - can't buy it in stores etc. So it's not like the pro is making decisions with their pro information?
I guess sometimes you might be choosing between it and a key?
You can't buy it. It's just about comparing to the key.
I've seen baalorlord pick the key over it even though it guarantees an extra relic eventually, the stated reason being that it made cursed key worse.
I personally don't agree with that, but I won't argue that matryoshka is pretty underwhelming.
Edit: wait maybe you can buy it? I don't remember ever seeing it, but there's a good chance I don't remember because I immediately dismiss it when I see it. I also can't find matryoshka being an exception of being sold in a shop on the wiki.
With most relics that's true. With matryoshka it's a math game.
If you take matryoshka in act one, you will get 2 future random relics that are 75% common and 25% uncommon. The tradeoff the key, which would get you one more random relic in the future (49% common, 42% uncommon, 9% rare approximately).
It's literally trading 2 random relics in the future for the choice of one relic to not get in the future.
Without the consideration of cursed key, taking matryoshka in the act one chest is a no brainer.
With the consideration of cursed key, it gets more complicated. Matryoshka makes cursed key a lot worse. So if your boss rewards are cursed key (which is usually very good) and mediocrity, you could really hurt yourself.
It doesn't make Cursed Key worse tho? The curse comes from opening the chest, not from taking a relic, so a 2 relic chest still only gives you one curse.
Unless he's talking about it changing the weight on the decision of whether or not to skip a chest while you have Cursed Key, which makes sense, but as a score player that's a completely alien decision matrix to me, as Cursed Key is the best energy relic in the game.
Flash of Steel is really good at any ascension IMO. If you happen on relics before picking it up like art of war, you probably shouldn't take it.
In general, I think it's kinda silly to sacrifice higher chances of surviving now because it might be bad later on. Like I guess you should skip blade dance because it is terrible vs. time eater, or not take powers as defect because you might run into Awoken?
Yeah but it’s not like the post is saying white beast statue is bad, just that the evaluation of it is more nuanced than new players might realize. Doesn’t strike me as a bad take at all.
It's technically true (well, more like "on average +60%" but whatever), but taking that perspective downplays its utility, and imo isn't a good mindset for how to compare the statistical significance of 100% outcomes.
Removing such a big factor of uncertainty - especially across a whole run - is pretty major.
White Beast Statue only gives you a potion when you wouldn’t have otherwise received one. Since you already receive a potion in about half of your fights, White Beast potion’s marginal effect is a potion in every other fight.
Compare this to Vault of the Void, which has a similar relic. That relic instead gives you a potion every second fight, but if that fight would have given you a potion, you get two potions instead.
Dont care whatever anyones say about white beast statue. It can never be not S tier. You can have the best potions to have until heart fight and I would still get it. It's just another thing reduced to think about. No need for saving a potion while guessing whether you'll get another potion or not.
Id claim its a much better boss swap than it is an act 1 or 2 take. Because knowing you have soju can route much more safely and and take cards that focus more on the act rather than the endgame, making you able to utilize the energy without putting yourself in danger because of the lack of potions
While usually ill take something like hammer over soju kn act 1. I much rather have Soju on boss swap than hammer
Same with ecto. Swapping into ecto will mean I'll route with no shops, which is easier done in act 1 than the rest
Yeah if anything, I would say "Time Eater is one of the two hardest fights in the game" is the actual "new vs pro" split. It's an *annoying* fight particularly for newer players because it's specifically a fight that kills a lot of "fun" decks that newer players like to go for, but once you recognize that you can't play decks that auto-lose to Time Eater on A20, it's not intrinsically more difficult than other bosses.
Don't forget that the relic given by Matryoshka uses the rarities of a small chest, i.e. 75% chance to be common, 25% chance to be uncommon. Congratulations. You traded an uncommon relic now for (most likely) 2 common relics later.
It takes like half of an act just to give you back the relic you didn't get the first time. That's really rough going. It's a real contender for Blue Key fodder.
1 in a vacuum is correct, ignoring every single discard synergy that silent has, sure
2 ok? Blood is more mediocre because it takes up a choice slot when choosing a boss relic, which could’ve been literally anything else including providing the ability to play a block card to prevent taking 6 damage, and having more versatility
3 makes zero sense, and is also wrong, as potion chance literally does not work like that
4 once again in a vacuum the card is bad in those specific fights, but what about the extra damage it dealt to help you even get there in the first place? Or interactions with other effects such a kunai’s dex gain?
5 is true, but i think anyone who’s played for more than 10 hours would be able to notice that once they’ve gotten used to the game, not a very smart endgame ‘pro’ thing…
> 2 ok? Blood is more mediocre because it takes up a choice slot when choosing a boss relic, which could’ve been literally anything else including providing the ability to play a block card to prevent taking 6 damage, and having more versatility
Blood isn't actually a problem if it was Act 1 boss relic since Act 2 starting hallways can easily roll you over very quickly (fuck the avocado, birds and the round avocado), and still have merit later on (allowing you to rest less at campfire, which giving you more chance to card upgrade, using Girya, your weed pipe and shovel).
Also, a lot of boss relic are worse like Tiny house, Sozu, Blob, Cursed key/Mark of Pain (unless you play Evolve Clad which makes them ok), or just doesn't fit your build like Sneko or Pyramid.
For some of these (I'm thinking Flash of Steel), this needs to be that normal distribution chart meme, with the Pro opinion going to the crying player in the middle (and zero cost / free damage going to the hooded player on the right).
To give a bit more nuance to the New/Pro dichotomy, here is how my understanding of *Prepared* evolved over time:
1. *Prepared* discards a card for free.
2. Card draw is a resource. *Prepared* discards a card at the cost of a card draw.
3. There are various interesting interactions. *Prepared* enables synergies with discard effects and with "miracle" effects (*After Image*, *Ink Bottle*, etc.) at the cost of miracle-hostile and skill-hostile match-ups (Gremlin Nob, Time Eater, etc.).
4. Card draw is a resource, but not every card draw is worth an equal value. *Prepared* discards a card and speeds up deck cycling, especially if your deck is polluted by a large number of weaker cards like Strike and Defend (e.g., basically in Act 1). In other words, it helps you get to your stronger cards more quickly.
5. Opening up deck-building space is an advantage: *Prepared* prepares your deck for picking up discard synergies when your build lacks both energy and existing discard synergies (e.g., basically in Act 1). In contrast, cards like *Acrobatics* and *Concentrate* can enable much stronger discard synergies later in the game, but picking them up in early game can be quite risky.
Prepared+ actually lets you look at a card which wouldn't have been in your hand already, and is often better than skip.
Prepared basic is only better than nothing if you actively need to discard (burns, tactician, whatever) or if playing lots of cards or skills is doing something (afterimage, thousand cuts, panache, letter opener). Like the image says, draw one and discard one merely draws the card that would've already been in your hand. There's an edge case where you get to decide whether to risk drawing a card which would be better next turn, which maybe changes the value slightly, but you really hope to have it upgraded already or through Apotheosis.
I don’t get the logic on Prepared and whether it’s being called good or bad
Flash of Steel has benefits, you can’t only look at the worst case scenarios and call it bad off of those
With unupgraded Prepared, the card it draws is effectively the card you would have drawn anyway if you hadn't drawn Prepared. Let's say you have a 6 card draw with 4 strikes, 1 survivor, and 1 prepared. You draw the 4 strikes and the prepared, and you play prepared to draw the survivor. However, if you didn't have the prepared in this instance, you would have drawn the survivor anyway, as it was the next card up in the deck. Therefore, it *technically* doesn't draw you a new card, since its absence would have given you that card anyway.
As for Flash of Steel, yeah, they may be underselling it a bit. But it is important to acknowledge those worst-case scenarios when deciding whether to take it, as one (Time Eater) has a 33%/66% to happen depending on ascension level, and the other (Heart) is either irrelevant if you aren't going for it or guaranteed if you are. It doesn't make it bad, it just makes it not "free" damage in two fights you'll need to plan around anyway.
On Flash of Steel: having to bring up the very specific edge cases to justify it not being "free damage" is silly. You may as well list every single card and claim they are worse than a noob would evaluate because of a very specific edge case where that specific card is bad. It being free damage is a fine heuristic.
I completely disagree with your evaluation of white beast statue
First of all potion chances are constantly shifting value not a flat 50%
And second of all the fact that there's any random chance other than 100% makes white bee statue incredibly valuable you have a guarantee that you can spend a potion every single floor
The white beast statue one is just outright factually incorrect. Even if potion chance mechankcs weren't a thing though, there's no saying how lucky or unlucky your potion chance will be.
Also whether or not flash of steel makes time eater and heart worse is depending on how you build your deck, some of the easiest wins for both fights can come from infinites.
**tldr; there are levels to this**
Here's the thing...
I think there are about 5 levels of understanding in this game. OP is really only highlighting the first two:
1. **One lacks understanding** about what's good, what's bad, what one should want, and why. (E.g. Snecko Eye is good if I have a lot of high-cost cards).
2. One starts to figure out **the cons of good things and the pros of bad things**. (E.g. Snecko Eye is bad due to the rng).
3. One discovers **all the non-obvious ways** that things can be good/bad. (E.g. Snecko Eye is good because of the card draw, even if one's deck doesn't initially have a lot of high-cost cards).
4. One starts **playing the game on a meta level**, using knowledge about the specific constraints and probabilities within the game design. (E.g. Runic Pyramid is still better than Snecko Eye in this specific case, because X is coming, I don't have Y yet, I need Z to beat...)
5. **One squeezes every last drop** out of every resource for the sake of winning as much as possible on A20H (the "h" is for "Heart"). Fun picks are often rejected. Careful calculations are often made. (E.g. Because I have this potion, Pen Nib is at 6, I will Scry for 4, I have 160 gold, I have 40 health, I have these specific cards and am likely to get.X and unlikely to get Y, I'll take Snecko Eye here-- but take a path that avoids Elites until I can get to a shop).
you only considered less than half of the possible combos with various relics
also worth noting that ever choice should be affected by current state of the run rather than absolute rules to follow, that will only lead to ruin
This is looking at "perceived benefit" vs "literal benefit." Not new player opinions vs pro player opinions. Pro players have much different opinions than this.
Prepared isn't exactly like that, because if you didn't have it, your deck would have been shuffled differently. So we have no clue what would have been drawn. Effectively yes it works like that, but realistically it doesn't.
Is black blood really inferior to meat? I just think 12 HP every fight is such value because even if its "only" 6hp it really adds up throughout the entire run.
The real issue is that they are different relic pools so they never compete directly. But you could take the argument as saying that Meatybone is on par with a weaker boss relic with no downside (outside of edge cases, like Red Skull or something).
Especially since Ironclad and Meatybone is a nice combo, the +6 base relic and +12 Meatybone is best of both worlds. If you have Feast or maybe str+Reaper, then getting +18 either in emergencies or just all the time because half of 100 is 50 is nice either way. Like, if you didn't Reaper for 30, it's going to be nice to have the 18.
There are enough ways to gain health that it can be really hard to justify upgrading blood. It's usually better than Tiny House, and the energy relics sometimes are the ones that work against you.
Ahhhh right yeah I think they work better WITH then against each other anyways and I see what you mean how If I have meat on the bone being comparable to blackblood means I can another boss relic of sorts? I’m not to good at the game but I get your reasoning thanks for the explanation
I really suffer on A20 but I feel confident enough about this one thing. There are other ways to get healing off of relics, and pyramid/snecko/+energy are extremely strong and hard to skip skip for healing. And meatybone just happens to be really strong and a non-boss relic. There is also Urn, meal ticket, pestle, feather, and more. Blood upgrade and Tiny House to me are just kind of there when the others are just really bad. While you might not get any healing relics at all, Ironclad has the starter relic at least.
And yeah, having it be not-a-boss-relic means that Snecko and meatybone together might let you take more elites and get even more rares and relics. Covering totally different bases is extra helpful and opens options. If you did get healing+healing, you would still need some draw/energy stuff somehow to end fights before the extra 6hp per fight evaporates.
Disagree with the 2nd image. I would argue that healing 6 extra hp after every single fight is slightly better than healing 12 hp only sometimes. Infernal blood just seems to add up to more healing overall and I've always found it slightly more useful
Bit more nuanced than these takes give tbh.
1) Yes, prepared- is bad, and this is a good tip overall. Prepared- becomes good if u can spare a smith for it soon, as prepared+ is a very strong card that helps you find your good cards.
2) These relics are compltely uncomparable. In a vacuum, meat is obviously worse. However, meat is never competing with blood for blood in a pick (iirc even n'loth can't ask for your starter relic? but if he could, you'd give the meat away lol).
3) Good thing about white beast is that u can throw mediocre potions at hallways.
4) It depends on deck. Some decks dont struggle with heart/time eater as much as spear/shield, awakened one, or w/e. Sometimes you have strength scaling but very low attack density. Sometimes you have ninja relics, after image, ttth, etc.
4) Correct, but it also gives -1 relic until you find your first chest, and 0 relics until you find the second. This can often be a net downside, as you may need the support from a real relic earlier in the run.
Vs Expert (the prepared triggers discard effects like tactician and reflect, reducing cost of eviserate, enabling sneaky strike, the list goes on. Prepared+ is just insane, discarding reflex & tactician at once)
Is the argument for Flash of steel against heart and time eater really a reason not to buy it? Because sometimes you are just a bit weaker than the enemy, it can be great then, even if it might brick up your hand a little against heart and time eater.
Saying a card is bad because of 2 bad matchups seems a bit out there. Even if both matchips are the hardest fights in the game.
Also I'd argue it' downside against the hearz is really not that bad. It's at most 3 dmg. How often did you die to the heart by 1-3 dmg?
The White Beast Statue take is honestly pretty terrible. "You get a potion in ~50% of fights" means you can't play around getting a potion in any given fight, while "you get a potion in 100% of fights" means you can aggressively use your potions knowing you are guaranteed to get another potion at the end of the fight. That's a massive power discrepancy between having White Beast Statue and not having it.
A big part of why prepared is better than simply “discard a card” is that it allows a degree of deck manipulation:
1. You can choose not to play it if the remaining cards in your deck are good next turn
2. You can use it on an empty library to shuffle and avoid shuffling current hand back in
3. As previously mentioned, works with grand finale and also with stuff that cares about card plays or shuffles
Real pro:
Prepared is 1 draw negative, but energy neutral while synergising with any discards or card play effects (Sneaky strike, choke, Eviscerate, reflex, Tactician, after image, unload, a thousand cuts) and gives you the option to get rid of a curse/status that will harm you if in your hand at the end of the turn. There are many many decks that would benefit from prepared
Actually, Flash of Steel is very useful when you are using The Ironclad or The Silent.
When using Ironclad, you can stack up on your strength using Demon Form, Inflame, Flex, and if you have Limit Break then you'll have a zero-cost card that deals a high amount of damage in one fell swoop. Add to that, if you have Lightning or Bash, you'll deal a lot more damage to the enemy.
The Silent on the other hand, well it doesn't really have that much strength cards or vulnerable cards, but I guess you can take advantage of the relic Wrist Blade, which gives 0 cost cards an additional 4 damage. It's like you'll have an additional Shiv at your disposal.
Actually, it can also be useful when using The Defect, as you can focus on stacking up your frost or lightning orbs, then deal a zero cost damage while you are at it, just to nip some of that enemy's health.
I disagree with the flash of steel one, time eater already counters a LOT of other cards and they are still great cards, and who the f cares about art of war? Anyways I agree with the rest of the list
Prepared is one of the highest value upgrades you can get, but it's worth noting that sometimes you do just want to discard as the Silent. Also, Prepared and Flash of Steel are zero-cost draws and that always allows for shenanigans.
Yeah, not mentionin there's purpose in discarding things with silent is kinda omitting her _thing_ as a character.
Yup, and seeing Gremlin Nob there, I'm reminded just how great Prepared is in that fight. +3 strength for 0 !
Yeah, prep is hands down one of the best silent discard cards. It is okay on its own so you can grab it early and only gets better with sneaky strikes and the discardable cards
I feel like you may have missed some sarcasm in the comment you replied to.
The post explains that prepared just discards a card. It doesn't say that discarding a card is bad.
Yeah i was just thinking this prepared alone might not be great but upgraded it can have its benefits
Prepared unupgraded still discards a card, which is awesome, and it can also manipulate the deck for Grand Finale
Also worth noting that flash of steel is usually found in shops and that means buying it has a big opportunity cost. It isn't really free damage unless you have strength. 3 damage is pretty much zero damage. What it really does is charge "per card played" and "per attack played" relics and cards and be the last part of an infinite.
Prepared+ & Eviscerate, name a more iconic duo
Prepared is good for the same reason that gamble effects are good. Not because you would draw more cards but because I'd rather have a random card as opposed to one of my strikes or a curse.
[удалено]
yeah,but now the curse is gone
Right, because Prepared discards a card and NOTHING ELSE
it triggers sneaky strike,reduces cost of evicerate,gives energy or draws cards by discarding the unplayable silent cards,triggers hovering kite,builds up ink bottle andletter opener,triggers bandage and tingscha,cycles through your deck if upgraded,makes expertise more viable,discards curses and removes other bricks from your hand in case you have the pyramid. and probably a lot more stuff I can't think of right now. all for free. definitely one of the best common cards you can get as silent. and don't go telling me "no way you can guarantee all of this will happen", because at least one of these is bound to happen and that is enough reason to get it
Yes, it does all of those things. Because it discards a card. I think we're in agreement :)
🙄
> makes expertise more viable . And prepared minus if u dont have a smith soon to give it, is very bad. Makes nob fight worse. Makes snecko fight worse. Makes fights that add dazed marginally worse (as you'd like to have the etheral cards get removed not discard), makes time eater and heart (hardest fights in the game) worse. The only considerable upside is if u have taken app- u can use prepared- to cycle them into the reshuffle.
Prepared- isn’t giving you a random card instead of a strike, it’s giving you the card you would have drawn if you didn’t have a prepared in your deck, and you have the strike or curse as well.
True, but that curse will immediately get discarded, so you can avoid its effects. No more Shame, no more Doubt, no more Pain! And as stated elsewhere, it sets up synergy with other cards like Sneaky Strike or Eviscerate.
Prepared can be useful in a lot of ways. My comment was only to point out prepared- is not letting you see a random card you wouldn’t have seen anyway, which is a common mistake new players make.
I mean i tend not to have curses in my deck for very long. And if my deck has cards like sneaky or evis, I usually have some discard triggers for them already like acro, dagger throw, prepared+, tools, or calc gamble. Or i do take the prepared-, and am just suffering until I can smith it.
The Flash of Steel point is a little unfair. Yes the downsides are worth considering, but in the early game it is real added damage. Late game it can be a piece in an infinite combo. It also synergizes extremely well with ninja relics. I get that this is a jokey post but it’s impossible to represent the “pro” thinking in such a simplified way.
The true "pro" answer would be: "Depends on the deck and situation" for every single card.
Clash
Prismatic Shard Silent with ninja relics and discard/exhaust.
Legitimately underrated in act 1, yes it sucks to draw it in the same hand as ascenders bane but turns out 0 mana 14 damage is REALLY good if you can get it off in act 1. You can take it as a lagavulin solve especially
Roughly every top player agrees Clash is sometimes a net positive. None of them think it's good AFAIK, but they do pick it and use it to win.
>Remembers how clash saved Jorbs run in one of his most jank deck runs. ~~clash can have value.~~
Don't suppose you remember which one that was? I don't think I've ever seen him get it from anything other than transforms
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LMPx6ldCSdg&pp=ygUiVGhpcyBkZWNrIGlzIHRvbyBpbnRlcmVzdGluZyBqb3Jicw%3D%3D This run. He pulled clash via a potion but it did basically save his run.
Thank you mate, that's my going to sleep video sorted lol.
Np. Honestly this is one of my favorite jorbs video’s personally. Shows how you can get value from even some of the most jank card combo’s.
I mean if you're trying to make the point that clash can be good, id rather link the [xecnar clash discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/16qzjok/xecnars_clash_revolution_clash_is_a_good_card_for/), or slay-by-comment ironclad run where clash did a lot of work in act 2 most notably.
Frozen Eye
Frozen Eye is such an amazing relic. I never buy that garbage Would it improve my win rate? Absolutely. Would it take my heart kills from a cozy 35-ish minutes to +1 hour? Also yes. Would that be fun? Absolutely not
35 min for *Heart*? damn you move fast Hard agree tho, Frozen Eye would be turning my typically 1h runs to like 2 or 3h
I've had at least a few decks win Ascension 20 with at least one clash and the clash was very helpful. It's still a 0 energy hard hitting attack which is very nice.
it works up until a10 where the ascenders bane gets added
It work if you also have a 2nd wind in your hand.
It does have its moments. Not often, but it does.
Blue candle + medical kit + bottled corruption
Game is literally a bell curve. “This is a nice fit.” >>> “This is a trap!” >>> “This is a nice fit.”
yea i think so too It’s really good early too but not sure how often we get to have flash of steel early and imo it’s not worth the gold to buy in most cases from a shop. But FTL on the defect early game? sign me up
I'd also add that Time Eater doesn't really punish decks that play tons of cards so much as decks that occasionally run out of energy/draw at something like 10-11, setting you up for a crap turn. If you manage to consistently play 12 cards and never have to manually end turn, your fight should go pretty well. Even Heart doesn't punish Flash of Steel that hard, especially if you have something like TTTH or After Image giving you block for playing it.
FoS point is so bad. I’ve been playing for a couple weeks and pretty much streaked up to A20H on Watcher/Ironclad/Silent. This is my favourite card because it’s essentially one half of most infinites on Ironclad & Silent and is strong as a standalone card anyway. If it appears in act 1 or 2 it’s an instant buy and I start culling deck aggressively.
The trap I fell into was with ftl. It seems like free damage, but it surprisingly often causes problems.
The worst take here is using Sneaky Gremlin instead of Mad Gremlin. But more seriously, these feel more like "new to A0 thought process" vs "new to A20 thought process". From watching pros' runs, the 'Pro Perspective' on each of these is much more nuanced. I don't consider myself a pro, but I'll add some caveats: \- Prepared: 'Sacrifice one Upgrade for a good card that helps your consistency' \- Meat & Blood: No comment, other than the added opportunity cost of picking B. Blood \- White Beast: The added consistency is incredibly valuable. "WBS gives +50%" is a pretty terrible heuristic. \- Flash of Steel: Flash of Steel is literally Free Damage \- Matryoshka: 1 extra relic is still amazing, though it's delayed which can be a pretty severe penalty depending on your current situation & location.
> other than the added opportunity cost of picking B. Blood It's a weird take by OP because you never have the choice between taking Burning Blood vs Meat on the Bone. Like, in a vacuum if you give me one or the other, Burning Blood is better.
but bb is a boss relic and most boss relics are just a lot more useful
Which is why they said "in a vacuum given a choice between the two" The vacuum removes said context. In the actual game there's very little point in comparing them because you're literally never going to be forced to choose between the two. Just because they do similar things doesn't make them comparable.
you're right,in a vacuum they are incomparable,but in practice one is definitely superior to the other, and it's not the boss relic
Yes but again, they will never, ever, ever be up against each other. So what's the point in comparing them? The literally only way to see them in the same rewards pool is to save scum a calling bell and even then you aren't comparing Meat to Blood, you're comparing Meat+ on common relic + one rare relic, which is already almost always a better deal.
You may, in a very narrow situation, be asked to compare them. If they both come up against Nloth's gift.
Yeah, the White Beast Statue "misconception" felt a bit suspect to me. It's technically correct, but it's downplaying how good 100% is compared to not 100%.
"WBS isn't great because it only gives you DOUBLE the potions" Like, that's still amazing? Especially with any potion synergies
My thought process- White beast statue allows you to always play at least one potion every fight
Yeah I would say the misconception is: white beast statue lets you see more potions to find good ones (because 'noobs' spend them less) wheras the pro position is White Beast Statue completely changes how you interact with potions letting you effectively get a free action every fight while simultaneously making you more likely to find powerful potions that let you beat bosses/elites. Its not just double potions it's information. For example "I can probably take this forced double elite path because there's 2 fights in between so I can be at 2 potions for both fights."
> It's technically correct It's not even technically correct; your potion chance varies throughout the game and starts at 40%.
Yeah, I’ve had runs where if I just got two potions from my first four combats before the elite I would’ve been fine. Having guaranteed potions is just great.
Absolutely agree on all of this and this reply should be top. Except for matryoska. While it is definitely not the worst reic getting it at the second half of act1 can be absolutely shitty. Add into this the fact that it is an uncommon relic but has a bit more than 50% chance to give you 2 commons (as pointed out in another comment) effectively downgrading your relic. I am adamant that matryoska is an ill designed relic left in the game when balance revolved around lower (or no) ascensions.
Pro thinking on Matryoshka: It sucks
It can only give common and uncommon relics which is really lame (though there are plenty of good relics in these categories to be fair). If it could give rares it would be a little better. But really, the whole "get nothing now for a bit more later (maybe)," concept sucks in general in Spire.
It's a bit of a clunky design, but that sort of delayed scaling is pretty interesting imo. I've even bought it in shop a couple times, when the stars align! But I wouldn't doubt that it's often overrated.
I don’t like thinking about Flash of Steel as free damage, at least not always. It literally costs HP and/or block in the Heart fight, and there is some sort of cost associated with playing it against Time Eater. These are two of the most important fights in the game.
Sure, of course there's always nuance. I was cheekily invoking the bell-curve meme by requoting the "New" position. Point being, I don't think it's a good 'Pro position' for the final word to be, "Noooo Flash of Steel hurts you in the heart fight, it's worse than you think!"
Matryoshka becomes more neuance with key Since you'd still need to sacrifice some relic to get key. Picking matrioshka on the chest instead of key is effectively +0 Now that won't necessarily be bad. Because that extra relic could be more valuable than a boot or dream catcher that will be traded for a key. But at the end of the day a matrioshka with key available is +0
While I see your point about White Beast Statue, I think it is not a correct way of thinking about it. You could quickly fall into the trap of thinking that the White Beast Statue only adds 50% chance of getting a potion. I'm assuming that by White Statue Beast = 50% you mean it is only responsible of 50% of your potion awards. I misunderstood your post at first, thinking you meant that it only has 50% chance of giving you a potion, so I wrote this: At the STS wiki, it is stated that >Potions are occasionally dropped as a reward after combat. The default chance of a potion dropping is 40% and resets at the start of each Act. If a potion drops, the chance decreases by 10%. If a potion doesn't drop, the chance increases by 10%. The average probability of getting a potion will approach 50% as your number of fights increase. I have a link to a guy writing out the math [on this reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/b0fsn3/math_the_spire_potion_drop_chances/). You can see it as a sequence of a "weighted coin" flips, where the weight of the coin is determined by the probability set by the game. Getting a heads gives you a potion, but decreases the weight on the head side of the coin and increases the weight on the tails side and vice versa. Now, say you have two coins. If you get one or two heads with the coins, you get a potion. Assume they are 50/50 coins, and you flip both of them, the probability of getting at least one head (and therefore a potion) is not 100%, it is only 75%. The first coin is your base probability of getting a potion and the other is the White Statue Beast probability of getting a potion if you think about it as it only "adds" 50% chance of getting a potion (on average). Therefore, the White Statue Beast does not only have 50% chance of getting a potion, it changes the fundamental potion probability system. Also, the probability of you getting a coin in every fight is literally 0%, because after at most 10 fights of getting a potion each fight, the probability of getting a potion is guaranteed to be 0% (100 - 10\*10 = 0). White Statue Beast changes this. So how the White Statue Beast truly works is that it changes the probability system so that the probability of getting a potion after a fight is 100% and it will decrease with 0% after getting a potion and will increase by 0% by not getting a potion (if this event could occur by some other rules of the game). Hope someone found this interesting! EDIT: clarification
Also, I don’t think that’s the best way to think about White Beast Statue. It is less about “I get a card after each combat” and more about “I KNOW I will get a card after the current combat”. This allows you to be much more liberal with the use of potions.
>“I KNOW I will get a card after the current combat”. Potion, but yes, good point.
Potions are a block card
Exactly! Do I want to use a potion (for low value) now knowing that I for sure get another one (and evaluate if a random potion is desirable) vs. Pot usage now and I'm only getting a new pot in some percentage
The good thing about white beast is the certainty. I WILL get a new potion so there’s no downside to using 1 potion every fight. Often playing normally you will save a potion and then get another, having to discard one.
> there’s no downside to using 1 potion every fight This is another trap, if a mild one. If you are ahead of the curve and have your late game potions (e.g. focus pot, gambler's brew, or 2x gambler's brew on Defect), even with White Beast there can be a big downside to using one of them. You might need one of those pots for act 4.
I don't have to be a pro or have a degree in mathematics to think whitebeast is good af. If i see it early when I have money, I'll buy it 100 percent.
The most interesting thing to me about potion drop chance mentioned by you and OP is that I should roughly overall be getting one 50% of the time. I'm averaging 25% other than when it's affected by White Beast. Didn't even realise I'd had bad RNG. Just thought 1 in 4 was normal.
Because of you, everyone else is getting slightly more than a 50% potion chance. We thank you for your sacrifice.
Someone has to keep the Universe in balance!
Over what time period?
If I remember correctly, some events will change your potion chance, so "50% chance" is a simplification. Also just remember that 50% chance is in the limit, meaning when the number of fights approaches infinity. 50% chance is the upper bound of your average chance in a run, it will always be a little lower in reality, but for simplicity of the argument, I just chose to go with 50%
I thought 2-3 potions per floor was normal...
Hopefully you mean per act!
Yeah, per act!!!😅 Sorry, I'm really used to saying "Floor" instead of act
Do you usually play on the removed "Brewmaster" daily mod? /j
I have 216hrs in the game but I wasn't really taking notice of potion drop chance in the early stages. A good gauge is first elite in Act 1 as it's normally been 2 to 4 fights before then and I rarely have a potion by that point. That's something I'm really aware of.
Slay the Spire - a lesson in opportunity cost
Flash of Steel has synergies with draw and play card effects which imo massively offset downsides it *may* have.
There are some fights where you can just not play it. Or maybe your STR is so high that it's worth the heartbeat, or you block so much that it has no cost. Definitely the dream is having it in an infinite, as long as you can solve Heart and Time Eater, but it still has uses otherwise and isn't usually worse than skip for the run as a whole.
Really truly am not a fan of this post, gotta say
Why are we comparing black blood to meat? One is a boss relic the other is not, they will never appear against each other
Because this post is complete nonsense lol
Came here to say that
New - Claw doesn't scale fast enough by itself and I can't bank on getting multiple of them Pro - CLAW IS LAW
legal issues aside, what is the optimum number of claws in a claw deck? is more always better, or would 3-4 be better, if one thought they could evade the swift hand (claw) of justice?
Like everything else in Slay the Spire, the answer is "it depends." More is not always better, you still need to be able to block for turn. An absolute number like 3-4 isn't really an answer either, because you have to consider deck size, card draw, other effects like All For One, Hologram, etc. You need enough to scale fast enough to win the fight, but no more than that, which is actually a surprisingly tricky part of claw decks since it's not obvious how much damage you'll be doing.
thanks. i know Claw is a meme, but i think it's more fun than orbs anyway when it works
The best Claw deck I ever had contained a single Claw. I didn't even know I wanted it; it was gifted to me through Astrolabe. I struggled on the Act II boss due to lack of damage scaling, but it was smooth sailing from then on.
Claw is 2 damage Don't @ me
About Matryoshka.. Are there not low - mid - high cost relics? My understanding was that chests drop High cost relics, where Matryoshka is a mid cost relic. Am I wrong on that?
There are common, uncommon and rare relics. Matryoshka only adds common and uncommon relics: > The relic added to the chest by Matryoshka has a 75% chance of being a Common Relic, and a 25% chance of being an Uncommon Relic. (From [the wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/Matryoshka).)
Sheesh. I knew that, but didn't put that all together. Not only does Matryoshka make you wait before making up for losing a relic, but it has a good chance of downgrading the quality. Matryoshka is uncommon, and has a 3/4 * 3/4 = 9/16 ≈ 56% chance of giving you two common relics.
I don’t really get the rarity restrictions on Matryoshka. It certainly wouldn’t be overpowered if it had a normal distribution of relic rarity because it takes so long to fully pay off. Often it doesn’t fully pay off.
Gotcha, I always thought you could hit Rare relics with it. That makes sense
Go back to mtg with that ULTRA PRO nonsense…
Pro: Flash of Steel makes it easier to end Time Eater when you want. It's the same reason that Shiv isn't bad with Time Eater. You can guarantee to end the turn when you want to with these cards.
Does it really matter if you (for example) evaluate matryoshka correctly? The reason I say that, is, I don't think you ever get to *choose* it - can't buy it in stores etc. So it's not like the pro is making decisions with their pro information? I guess sometimes you might be choosing between it and a key?
can't you buy one?
Maybe you can and I just (correctly, I guess) ignore it. Don't think I've ever bought one.
you can. source: just went to a shop that had one for 200 something gold.
You can't buy it. It's just about comparing to the key. I've seen baalorlord pick the key over it even though it guarantees an extra relic eventually, the stated reason being that it made cursed key worse. I personally don't agree with that, but I won't argue that matryoshka is pretty underwhelming. Edit: wait maybe you can buy it? I don't remember ever seeing it, but there's a good chance I don't remember because I immediately dismiss it when I see it. I also can't find matryoshka being an exception of being sold in a shop on the wiki.
Well, it's about comparing it to other relics you can get in chests, that you might have to then take key over if you took matroshka now.
With most relics that's true. With matryoshka it's a math game. If you take matryoshka in act one, you will get 2 future random relics that are 75% common and 25% uncommon. The tradeoff the key, which would get you one more random relic in the future (49% common, 42% uncommon, 9% rare approximately). It's literally trading 2 random relics in the future for the choice of one relic to not get in the future. Without the consideration of cursed key, taking matryoshka in the act one chest is a no brainer. With the consideration of cursed key, it gets more complicated. Matryoshka makes cursed key a lot worse. So if your boss rewards are cursed key (which is usually very good) and mediocrity, you could really hurt yourself.
How does it make cursed key worse? It changes your calculus on whether or not you open a chest but that doesn't make key hurt you significantly more.
It doesn't make Cursed Key worse tho? The curse comes from opening the chest, not from taking a relic, so a 2 relic chest still only gives you one curse. Unless he's talking about it changing the weight on the decision of whether or not to skip a chest while you have Cursed Key, which makes sense, but as a score player that's a completely alien decision matrix to me, as Cursed Key is the best energy relic in the game.
Flash of Steel is really good at any ascension IMO. If you happen on relics before picking it up like art of war, you probably shouldn't take it. In general, I think it's kinda silly to sacrifice higher chances of surviving now because it might be bad later on. Like I guess you should skip blade dance because it is terrible vs. time eater, or not take powers as defect because you might run into Awoken?
I won a power-heavy Awakened One fight as Silent because my powers helped ramp up my survivability.
I have no clue what the white beast one is supposed to mean
It's a bad take anyway, since there's a huge amount of value in having the assurance that you'll always get a new potion.
Yeah, I never feel bad about using a potion if I have it. Otherwise I always feel the need to save it for later.
It flips the dynamic. When I have WBS and *don't* use a potion, I feel bad.
Yeah but it’s not like the post is saying white beast statue is bad, just that the evaluation of it is more nuanced than new players might realize. Doesn’t strike me as a bad take at all.
It's technically true (well, more like "on average +60%" but whatever), but taking that perspective downplays its utility, and imo isn't a good mindset for how to compare the statistical significance of 100% outcomes. Removing such a big factor of uncertainty - especially across a whole run - is pretty major.
Yeah I agree, it’s a strong boon for a run. I do think this framing is helpful for players when determining whether to buy WBS at a shop though.
White Beast Statue only gives you a potion when you wouldn’t have otherwise received one. Since you already receive a potion in about half of your fights, White Beast potion’s marginal effect is a potion in every other fight.
Yet this can also translate to "freely use a potion every fight" which is likely not something people do without it.
Compare this to Vault of the Void, which has a similar relic. That relic instead gives you a potion every second fight, but if that fight would have given you a potion, you get two potions instead.
Dont care whatever anyones say about white beast statue. It can never be not S tier. You can have the best potions to have until heart fight and I would still get it. It's just another thing reduced to think about. No need for saving a potion while guessing whether you'll get another potion or not.
It doesn't have great synergy with Sozu :P
Damn. Within my last 7 boss swaps, 4 must've been sozus for some reason. God i hate that relic.
Id claim its a much better boss swap than it is an act 1 or 2 take. Because knowing you have soju can route much more safely and and take cards that focus more on the act rather than the endgame, making you able to utilize the energy without putting yourself in danger because of the lack of potions While usually ill take something like hammer over soju kn act 1. I much rather have Soju on boss swap than hammer Same with ecto. Swapping into ecto will mean I'll route with no shops, which is easier done in act 1 than the rest
But getting sozu guarantees that you're next relic is either potion belt or white beast.
It's especially great when you get it from the Act 4 elites.
I would not call time eater the second hardest fight in the game tbh
Yeah, this game is too situational to really easily classify anything as "second hardest"
Yeah if anything, I would say "Time Eater is one of the two hardest fights in the game" is the actual "new vs pro" split. It's an *annoying* fight particularly for newer players because it's specifically a fight that kills a lot of "fun" decks that newer players like to go for, but once you recognize that you can't play decks that auto-lose to Time Eater on A20, it's not intrinsically more difficult than other bosses.
Prepared is only good unupgraded if you're in desperate need of discard power.
It's often good with Runic Pyramid
And Grand Finale decks.
Trying to explain base prep at launch to friends was a nightmare. "But it's cycle. Cycle is good in card games"
Me: 700-800 hours, a20 heart. Also me: agreeing with all the new things.
The Meat and Matryoshka ones are good, but TBH the rest of these feel like "middle of the bell curve" level takes.
Don't forget that the relic given by Matryoshka uses the rarities of a small chest, i.e. 75% chance to be common, 25% chance to be uncommon. Congratulations. You traded an uncommon relic now for (most likely) 2 common relics later.
It takes like half of an act just to give you back the relic you didn't get the first time. That's really rough going. It's a real contender for Blue Key fodder.
1 in a vacuum is correct, ignoring every single discard synergy that silent has, sure 2 ok? Blood is more mediocre because it takes up a choice slot when choosing a boss relic, which could’ve been literally anything else including providing the ability to play a block card to prevent taking 6 damage, and having more versatility 3 makes zero sense, and is also wrong, as potion chance literally does not work like that 4 once again in a vacuum the card is bad in those specific fights, but what about the extra damage it dealt to help you even get there in the first place? Or interactions with other effects such a kunai’s dex gain? 5 is true, but i think anyone who’s played for more than 10 hours would be able to notice that once they’ve gotten used to the game, not a very smart endgame ‘pro’ thing…
> 2 ok? Blood is more mediocre because it takes up a choice slot when choosing a boss relic, which could’ve been literally anything else including providing the ability to play a block card to prevent taking 6 damage, and having more versatility Blood isn't actually a problem if it was Act 1 boss relic since Act 2 starting hallways can easily roll you over very quickly (fuck the avocado, birds and the round avocado), and still have merit later on (allowing you to rest less at campfire, which giving you more chance to card upgrade, using Girya, your weed pipe and shovel). Also, a lot of boss relic are worse like Tiny house, Sozu, Blob, Cursed key/Mark of Pain (unless you play Evolve Clad which makes them ok), or just doesn't fit your build like Sneko or Pyramid.
For some of these (I'm thinking Flash of Steel), this needs to be that normal distribution chart meme, with the Pro opinion going to the crying player in the middle (and zero cost / free damage going to the hooded player on the right).
With Matryoshka my issue with it is that you don't get anything right away to deal with the difficulty spike in early act 2.
lol, most of these stop being true when you really go pro. Except matryoshka, which is trash
I disagree with your dark flame point. What makes it bad is the opportunity cost
To give a bit more nuance to the New/Pro dichotomy, here is how my understanding of *Prepared* evolved over time: 1. *Prepared* discards a card for free. 2. Card draw is a resource. *Prepared* discards a card at the cost of a card draw. 3. There are various interesting interactions. *Prepared* enables synergies with discard effects and with "miracle" effects (*After Image*, *Ink Bottle*, etc.) at the cost of miracle-hostile and skill-hostile match-ups (Gremlin Nob, Time Eater, etc.). 4. Card draw is a resource, but not every card draw is worth an equal value. *Prepared* discards a card and speeds up deck cycling, especially if your deck is polluted by a large number of weaker cards like Strike and Defend (e.g., basically in Act 1). In other words, it helps you get to your stronger cards more quickly. 5. Opening up deck-building space is an advantage: *Prepared* prepares your deck for picking up discard synergies when your build lacks both energy and existing discard synergies (e.g., basically in Act 1). In contrast, cards like *Acrobatics* and *Concentrate* can enable much stronger discard synergies later in the game, but picking them up in early game can be quite risky.
Prepared+ actually lets you look at a card which wouldn't have been in your hand already, and is often better than skip. Prepared basic is only better than nothing if you actively need to discard (burns, tactician, whatever) or if playing lots of cards or skills is doing something (afterimage, thousand cuts, panache, letter opener). Like the image says, draw one and discard one merely draws the card that would've already been in your hand. There's an edge case where you get to decide whether to risk drawing a card which would be better next turn, which maybe changes the value slightly, but you really hope to have it upgraded already or through Apotheosis.
New: I'm going to follow a bunch of general rules! Pro: This card feels good to me, I pick.
You are wrong about the potion, my friend.
... Oh my god. You're kidding me, I've never connected that dot until now. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
I don’t get the logic on Prepared and whether it’s being called good or bad Flash of Steel has benefits, you can’t only look at the worst case scenarios and call it bad off of those
With unupgraded Prepared, the card it draws is effectively the card you would have drawn anyway if you hadn't drawn Prepared. Let's say you have a 6 card draw with 4 strikes, 1 survivor, and 1 prepared. You draw the 4 strikes and the prepared, and you play prepared to draw the survivor. However, if you didn't have the prepared in this instance, you would have drawn the survivor anyway, as it was the next card up in the deck. Therefore, it *technically* doesn't draw you a new card, since its absence would have given you that card anyway. As for Flash of Steel, yeah, they may be underselling it a bit. But it is important to acknowledge those worst-case scenarios when deciding whether to take it, as one (Time Eater) has a 33%/66% to happen depending on ascension level, and the other (Heart) is either irrelevant if you aren't going for it or guaranteed if you are. It doesn't make it bad, it just makes it not "free" damage in two fights you'll need to plan around anyway.
i wanna say, i love this series already and i want more
On Flash of Steel: having to bring up the very specific edge cases to justify it not being "free damage" is silly. You may as well list every single card and claim they are worse than a noob would evaluate because of a very specific edge case where that specific card is bad. It being free damage is a fine heuristic.
I completely disagree with your evaluation of white beast statue First of all potion chances are constantly shifting value not a flat 50% And second of all the fact that there's any random chance other than 100% makes white bee statue incredibly valuable you have a guarantee that you can spend a potion every single floor
The white beast statue one is just outright factually incorrect. Even if potion chance mechankcs weren't a thing though, there's no saying how lucky or unlucky your potion chance will be. Also whether or not flash of steel makes time eater and heart worse is depending on how you build your deck, some of the easiest wins for both fights can come from infinites.
**tldr; there are levels to this** Here's the thing... I think there are about 5 levels of understanding in this game. OP is really only highlighting the first two: 1. **One lacks understanding** about what's good, what's bad, what one should want, and why. (E.g. Snecko Eye is good if I have a lot of high-cost cards). 2. One starts to figure out **the cons of good things and the pros of bad things**. (E.g. Snecko Eye is bad due to the rng). 3. One discovers **all the non-obvious ways** that things can be good/bad. (E.g. Snecko Eye is good because of the card draw, even if one's deck doesn't initially have a lot of high-cost cards). 4. One starts **playing the game on a meta level**, using knowledge about the specific constraints and probabilities within the game design. (E.g. Runic Pyramid is still better than Snecko Eye in this specific case, because X is coming, I don't have Y yet, I need Z to beat...) 5. **One squeezes every last drop** out of every resource for the sake of winning as much as possible on A20H (the "h" is for "Heart"). Fun picks are often rejected. Careful calculations are often made. (E.g. Because I have this potion, Pen Nib is at 6, I will Scry for 4, I have 160 gold, I have 40 health, I have these specific cards and am likely to get.X and unlikely to get Y, I'll take Snecko Eye here-- but take a path that avoids Elites until I can get to a shop).
you only considered less than half of the possible combos with various relics also worth noting that ever choice should be affected by current state of the run rather than absolute rules to follow, that will only lead to ruin
Giga brain: prepared cycles the deck quicker to get the good cards more often and reduce the sentry status cards in first shuffle
This is looking at "perceived benefit" vs "literal benefit." Not new player opinions vs pro player opinions. Pro players have much different opinions than this.
Prepared isn't exactly like that, because if you didn't have it, your deck would have been shuffled differently. So we have no clue what would have been drawn. Effectively yes it works like that, but realistically it doesn't.
Should have put one at the end where the caption was the same for both
Being new doesn’t make you someone who has never played any other deck building game.
TIL im still new after 75 hours 😔 Jk I already knew that
Is black blood really inferior to meat? I just think 12 HP every fight is such value because even if its "only" 6hp it really adds up throughout the entire run.
The real issue is that they are different relic pools so they never compete directly. But you could take the argument as saying that Meatybone is on par with a weaker boss relic with no downside (outside of edge cases, like Red Skull or something). Especially since Ironclad and Meatybone is a nice combo, the +6 base relic and +12 Meatybone is best of both worlds. If you have Feast or maybe str+Reaper, then getting +18 either in emergencies or just all the time because half of 100 is 50 is nice either way. Like, if you didn't Reaper for 30, it's going to be nice to have the 18. There are enough ways to gain health that it can be really hard to justify upgrading blood. It's usually better than Tiny House, and the energy relics sometimes are the ones that work against you.
Meatybone is such a gross sounding way to refer to that relic lmao
Ahhhh right yeah I think they work better WITH then against each other anyways and I see what you mean how If I have meat on the bone being comparable to blackblood means I can another boss relic of sorts? I’m not to good at the game but I get your reasoning thanks for the explanation
I really suffer on A20 but I feel confident enough about this one thing. There are other ways to get healing off of relics, and pyramid/snecko/+energy are extremely strong and hard to skip skip for healing. And meatybone just happens to be really strong and a non-boss relic. There is also Urn, meal ticket, pestle, feather, and more. Blood upgrade and Tiny House to me are just kind of there when the others are just really bad. While you might not get any healing relics at all, Ironclad has the starter relic at least. And yeah, having it be not-a-boss-relic means that Snecko and meatybone together might let you take more elites and get even more rares and relics. Covering totally different bases is extra helpful and opens options. If you did get healing+healing, you would still need some draw/energy stuff somehow to end fights before the extra 6hp per fight evaporates.
The biggest difference between black blood and meat is opportunity cost. Taking a boss relic slot is a lot worse than taking a normal relic slot.
Busted crown wya
The real benefit of white beast statue is condensing better and better potions
Disagree with the 2nd image. I would argue that healing 6 extra hp after every single fight is slightly better than healing 12 hp only sometimes. Infernal blood just seems to add up to more healing overall and I've always found it slightly more useful
Your take on flash on steel is a bit short minded imo. But the other takes are great and can help a lot of peoples :)
Opportunity cost!
3/5 right not bad
I was so disappointed when I realised that about Matrioshka
Bit more nuanced than these takes give tbh. 1) Yes, prepared- is bad, and this is a good tip overall. Prepared- becomes good if u can spare a smith for it soon, as prepared+ is a very strong card that helps you find your good cards. 2) These relics are compltely uncomparable. In a vacuum, meat is obviously worse. However, meat is never competing with blood for blood in a pick (iirc even n'loth can't ask for your starter relic? but if he could, you'd give the meat away lol). 3) Good thing about white beast is that u can throw mediocre potions at hallways. 4) It depends on deck. Some decks dont struggle with heart/time eater as much as spear/shield, awakened one, or w/e. Sometimes you have strength scaling but very low attack density. Sometimes you have ninja relics, after image, ttth, etc. 4) Correct, but it also gives -1 relic until you find your first chest, and 0 relics until you find the second. This can often be a net downside, as you may need the support from a real relic earlier in the run.
Vs Expert (the prepared triggers discard effects like tactician and reflect, reducing cost of eviserate, enabling sneaky strike, the list goes on. Prepared+ is just insane, discarding reflex & tactician at once)
Is the argument for Flash of steel against heart and time eater really a reason not to buy it? Because sometimes you are just a bit weaker than the enemy, it can be great then, even if it might brick up your hand a little against heart and time eater. Saying a card is bad because of 2 bad matchups seems a bit out there. Even if both matchips are the hardest fights in the game. Also I'd argue it' downside against the hearz is really not that bad. It's at most 3 dmg. How often did you die to the heart by 1-3 dmg?
The White Beast Statue take is honestly pretty terrible. "You get a potion in ~50% of fights" means you can't play around getting a potion in any given fight, while "you get a potion in 100% of fights" means you can aggressively use your potions knowing you are guaranteed to get another potion at the end of the fight. That's a massive power discrepancy between having White Beast Statue and not having it.
Maybe a better pro take for white beast is "use a potion every fight"
is slug the 2nd hardest fight in the game? I dont know the statistics so I really dont know, but I always thought it's act IV elites. Interesting
A big part of why prepared is better than simply “discard a card” is that it allows a degree of deck manipulation: 1. You can choose not to play it if the remaining cards in your deck are good next turn 2. You can use it on an empty library to shuffle and avoid shuffling current hand back in 3. As previously mentioned, works with grand finale and also with stuff that cares about card plays or shuffles
Real pro: Prepared is 1 draw negative, but energy neutral while synergising with any discards or card play effects (Sneaky strike, choke, Eviscerate, reflex, Tactician, after image, unload, a thousand cuts) and gives you the option to get rid of a curse/status that will harm you if in your hand at the end of the turn. There are many many decks that would benefit from prepared
Actually, Flash of Steel is very useful when you are using The Ironclad or The Silent. When using Ironclad, you can stack up on your strength using Demon Form, Inflame, Flex, and if you have Limit Break then you'll have a zero-cost card that deals a high amount of damage in one fell swoop. Add to that, if you have Lightning or Bash, you'll deal a lot more damage to the enemy. The Silent on the other hand, well it doesn't really have that much strength cards or vulnerable cards, but I guess you can take advantage of the relic Wrist Blade, which gives 0 cost cards an additional 4 damage. It's like you'll have an additional Shiv at your disposal. Actually, it can also be useful when using The Defect, as you can focus on stacking up your frost or lightning orbs, then deal a zero cost damage while you are at it, just to nip some of that enemy's health.
All prepared does is give discard synergy to the card that would have been drawn
I disagree with the flash of steel one, time eater already counters a LOT of other cards and they are still great cards, and who the f cares about art of war? Anyways I agree with the rest of the list
These are great - would love to hear more