Manan's notes

Slay the Spire Ascension 17+ tips

Not my advice! Stolen from here. This might be useful to other budding StS players like me. Disclaimer: I don't personally agree with all of these notes, but I don't know anything.

My rule of thumb is: avoid events in Act 1, avoid hallway fights in Act 2, avoid elites in Act 3.

There are too many variable factors in each run to give one specific strategy, but here are some notes from someone who has beat A20 with every character.

General

  • There's a limited pool of possible enemies in each act. keep specific enemies in mind as you select your cards
  • You can see which boss you'll face at the end of the act from the beginning. Plan accordingly. For example, if you see that you'll get slime boss, build to either have good AOE damage, or a deck that can set up a single big burst that you can reliably time out to kill or seriously injury the big slime before he splits. If the boss is hexaghost, make sure to build a deck with good scaling, and try to have cards that will help you survive turn 2 (weak or strength debuff cards are great). If you get the other guy, you'll prolly be fine with any decent deck
  • Once you have a deck with high scaling, figure out the best way to live until then. Card draw is key here.
  • Try to avoid shops when you have less than 300 gold (or equivalent if you have smiling mask, discount card, etc)
  • Snecko is king in all but 0 cost decks.
  • Take the boss relics than limit your campfire options whenever you have a relic that helps make good use of them regardless. eternal feather is a favorite, and of course so is apotheosis.
  • If you pick up apotheosis, upgrade power cards over other ones (unless the upgrade is meh, like metallicize). You can only use them once, so they may not get any benefit from apotheosis in a boss fight if you draw it late.

Act 1

  • Make sure you have high burst damage for the first few elites, or at least save a few choice potions. You can survive a few hits from any of them, but if you take longer than 4 turns to kill gremlin nob you are ded.
  • If you can't reliably output 25 damage in turn 1, make sure to pick up an aoe card in case you run into gremlins/slimes

Act 2

  • This act has the best chance encounters and the toughest hallway fights, so I like to lean towards chance encounters more.
  • For birds, have one of: aoe weak, strength debuff, thorns, or non-attack damage available (non attack damage does full damage)
  • Mage and centurion: Kill the centurion first.

Act 3

  • Chance is good here too.
  • Never go straight to the boss.
  • Save all your potions for the bosses if you can.
  • Remember that pantograph heals you on both fights in A20.
  • Remember never to leave a timekeeper turn with 9-11 cards left on the clock unless you have at incense burner 5 or are sure you'll get an X card next turn.
  • You can use power cards on the second life of the awoken without triggering his strength.
  • Kill the strength-giving donut first.