Slay the Spire

Meta Gameplay

• You do not have to accept battle rewards, this includes cards. If none of the cards look like they will fit in your current deck, there is no drawback to just not picking one. Remember, the more cards in your deck, the lower your chances of drawing any specific one.

• Curses sound a lot more scary than they are, a lot of the time. Some of them just take up a card draw slot. But some do guaranteed damage which can be a pain. However, curses can be removed like any other card through events or at the merchant, so if you can get a juicy relic by taking a curse it can definitely be worth it.

• Relics, on the other hand, are very far from being easy to remove, so pick with that in mind. You will generally only find relics with drawbacks after bosses though.

• You get a full heal after every boss, so you can play a bit less conservatively.

• Potions do nothing sitting in your inventory, use them. There is no point in dying with potions to spare.

Battles

• Block is more valuable than you might think, as making it to the end often comes down to effective damage mitigation. Cards that give Block + some additional benefit, or synergies that provide free Block while doing other things are frequently amongst the most useful in the game. A good basic rhythm is to shield up when the enemy attacks, and go on the offensive when there's a lull.

• You can select hand cards with the number button row, which will save you a lot of hand movement and carpal bullshit when you play a load of cards in one turn.

• Other good hotkeys: A, S, D will show you your draw pile, discard pile and entire deck respectively. X will show your exhaust pile. E will end turn.

• There is a distinction between "damage" and "attack damage". Attack damage is the damage that result from you playing a "attack" card with "deals X damage" text. Damage that occur from effects or powers, such as poison or relic effects, is not considered "attack damage."

• Enemies will take poison damage before attacking.

• Poison damage is not blocked and will not reduce block when inflicted. Good for getting through some heavy block encounters.

• Cards are resolved in the order their text is written. For example if a card says "Gain 5 block. Draw 2 cards. Discard 2 cards." it will resolve like this:
  • You gain 5 block.
  • You draw 2 cards.
  • You discard 2 cards, you can choose to discard any of the cards that were drawn in the above step.