Slay the Spire Review: Three Aces

Thanks justaschema!

Card games. In all the many circles of nerdity in my brain none of them contain any of the card games that have popped up in recent years. Couldn’t even get into gwent even though I tore The Witcher 3 to shreds. Certainly couldn’t care less about Hearthstone and I’ve actively avoided Magic. Why?

No idea. It just isn’t my thing. Fighting games aren't my thing, card games aren't my thing. Which brings me to Slay the Spire. I played it months ago, got pretty into it too. But I didn’t love it and almost completely forgot about it. The art style was drab and uninspired. Also I was pretty sh*t at it. To the point where the game’s greeter (who appears to be an undead whale for some reason) was bemoaning the fact I couldn't even reach the first boss. Thanks Mr. Whale, I’ll try harder next time.

But then it got released for real and I thought to give it another shot. Maybe try out the other 2 characters and see how they feel. Well I tried out the rogue and came away a believer. For those in the dark as to what Slay the Spire actually is, it’s a card game. Kinda. Combat on the enemy's side acts as a classic turn based RPG. The player has a hand of cards. The biggest problem for me was trying to play it as another rpg instead of embracing it’s… cardiness?

In a word I was fighting too much. Leaving myself too open too often and dying halfway. I needed to embrace defense and let fights drag on a little longer so I could survive the bosses. I imagine this is where most of the press was won over. The boss fights are a showcase of game design where all the unspoken rules of combat are thrown out. Made it to the end with full health? You could easily be dead in 2 turns if you don’t keep your head on a swivel. You don’t need to read faq’s to figure them out, you just have to learn how to break a few rules of your own.

I give you my poison turtle deck. The silent character is able to pull hands of 6 cards or more with free cards that can help you shuffle in more useful ones should RNGsus forsake you. The trick to her is causing a lot of damage in one turn while biding your time behind shielding. She also has some interesting poison skills I've grown quite fond of. Say you have a card that can give a boss 6 ticks of poison over 3 hits. Say you have a relic that adds an extra tick for each hit. Then maybe you find another card that doubles that poison. Then you can just turtle up while the boss’s health bleeds away in 4 turns.

That ended up being my best run to date and the start of a beautiful friendship. Like the best rogue likes out there, you can’t guarantee success. But you can hold your own for a while when your luck turns just off of strategy. The only thing keeping me back are the relics. I have no idea how best to use the more common ones. Most of them have sentence long descriptions and seem too niche to be useful “the first time you lose hp in combat, draw 3 cards” great! I just pulled 3 cards I can’t use for the 4th time in a row. Thanks.

But I’ll get better. Most importantly I want to get better. I can finally parse its depths and find myself choosing it over most of my old favorites after work. I mean I liked it before but I get it now. I want to have a poison turtle equivalent for the other 2 characters and I won’t stop playing until I do.

Indeed it is, Mr. Whale.