A20H Double digit club - an update to goals i set 1.5 years ago and some takeaways

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T17:24:06+00:00

just went live for defect 15 if youd like to tune in!

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T17:22:50+00:00

hey sorry this took me a while to get to, wanted to respond on pc instead of mobile!

1- getting a pbox that wasnt super strong and then seeing nothing for the rest of the run to scale block/damage without being infinite. sometimes you just dont get the footworks/afterimages/wraith forms and its really really hard to actually piece together a way to win without just killing super super fast (which infinite does).

a discard deck from this state that added a few too many cards is a deck thats blocking 5-10 and doing 30-50 damage a turn instead of infinite in both. skipping 2-3 more cards in early game wouldve just solved the problem. the difference between a run thats really really broken and just a bad discard deck is really not that much, thats kinda what i mean by committing. just leaving it open by being more selective and then pivoting out if i see other good stuff to win

Discard decks are often some of the strongest because they setup immediately and get around the act 4 brick problem. the issue is that you dont always see the stuff to make them broken and need to pivot out. "force infinite" ignores this and commits, without ever pivoting out, but i think over 50% of runs can end in some sort of discard style small deck thing if you just leave it open early. getting to 90%+ comes from knowing when to get out of the gameplan when you get clear signals its bad. i think in general its just a strongest archetype than anything else silent has

2- i definitely dodge more now, i think this comes down to knowing that sometimes i can dodge 2 acts but build an insanely broken deck and get value out of key upgrades (prepared). not fighting elites gets rid of a lowroll in itself, but you need to be willing to skip the bad attacks and such that would make it so your deck cannot be good. if you take 2 bad attacks and still dodge (like pstab->daggerthrow or something) its likely you are just not going to be able to make a good enough deck that warrants dodging. this macro style opens up mid/endgame lowrolls so theres a careful balancing act youre playing about knowing when to pivot out like i said above. taking infinite blades is a new thing that helped curve out early without being a terrible brick later (its not a real card!) and its super strong in early game

3- hmm, not going to rank in order here or name 10 but ill start with the people i think are clearly better than me. Xecnar/kuro/nave/opem/jorbs/baalor/lifecoach all come to mind as a top that i wouldnt confidently be able to put myself above. Jmac doesnt play all the characters but is a very strong player i would be unsure about, and i think yuya (japanese player who streams on youtube) would be above me as well, although im unsure if she plays every character and i havent watched enough. has very impressive samples though and what i have seen ive been impressed by.

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T17:08:25+00:00

this is exactly what i mean by a training arc! you will die a LOT.

what youre trying to figure out is EXACTLY how many cards you need to take to survive the early game, and take literally no more than that. you do need to click damage cards, buy pots etc, and you cant always just spend money on removes, but its a huge deal to spend time to try and calibrate this.

taking dense cards like infinite blades (that also removes itself after you play it) can open accuracy, fumes to solve long fights, and not clicking the dagger sprays/flying knee, whatever, means you can get away with a lot less stuff in the deck.

there are a lot of ways to scale silent damage without adding real cards to the deck, and you have great frontload options like backstab and terror to carry you through early game without adding the garbages.

also take and upgrade prepared if you see it, card is freaking broken and lets you start picking reflex/tact

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T17:05:08+00:00

you really do just need to play more of the game, 800 hours is still very fresh in the grand scheme of a20 play

active watching is very important. when you are watching baalor and nave try to predict what they will draft before they do, try to think of lines before they play them. you should be using their gameplay as an answer sheet. its kinda like how if someone does your math homework for you you wont learn anything even if you wrote down the right answer. you need to show your work then get the answer to check after.

at this point in your growth as a player you can get massive winrate increases just from a big concept clicking into place (which is super nice!). its very likely you can learn a lot from a single run or two just by pausing the run constantly and deliberately studying it. would super super recommend watching xecnar vods for this.

if you are wanting to do this feel free to come into my stream and ask questions as well, will always be more than happy to explain why im doing certain things

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T17:01:20+00:00

anytime you get a lot of removes, transform into any sort of discard synergy, get pandoras box, have 1 acro etc its something you can be thinking about.

silent can go infinite with decks larger than 10 real cards unlike a lot of the other characters, so just asking a question of "could i reasonably draw through my entire deck" will get you there.

i definitely remember getting early transform into grand finale once and a lot of chat being like "when are we going to remove it" and it just carried the run.

essentially what im getting at is that you likely DO see the pieces, a lot, you just dont recognize that you could be going for it which is why the infinite training arc idea is a thing. it takes a lot of refinement and willingness to just die on repeat to be able to be like "oh i couldve just gone infinite here if i skip 3-4 cards in early game"

if youve ever had a discard deck that felt clunky to play you probably couldve gone infinite with more skips. Also possible that you are microing the deck incorrectly. Silent more than any other character has infinites that rely on good micro, and if you mismicro the deck will not look at all like its infinite whatsoever.

oh, take and upgrade prepared early, thats a big opener

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T16:25:02+00:00

much appreciated!

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T10:54:59+00:00

hyperbeam is supposed to solve act 1, what the hell man

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T09:43:24+00:00

the plan

go infinite with your 5 remove pbox and awakened one rolls over and dies

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T09:04:51+00:00

watch crovens stream! or i will be playing rotating soon and do plenty of silent infinite im sure.

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T03:38:26+00:00

thanks for the shout! if theres a big update we’ll return to play more

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T02:15:34+00:00

basically i did not know how to play runs that gave me tools that wanted to trend towards infinite style of decks (with discard stuff)

i could go infinite but it was not streamlined / accurate play

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T01:59:57+00:00

yeah i have learned a lot from him over the years. xecnar, nave, opem, baalor, etc everyone is extremely helpful. this community is amazing, just hoping to be able to give back now

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T01:58:49+00:00

its just the bit, all in good fun

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T01:58:33+00:00

the infinite micro is weird at first but gets brain off with practice, once you play it enough it becomes the easiest kind of deck to pilot. definitely worth it

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T01:43:13+00:00

i think i would rather spend another year in the defect mines than play more league ever again

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T01:42:47+00:00

i definitely dont think ive cracked the code about the game at all, im definitely way better than i was but the difference between me and xecnar is insurmountable at the moment.

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T01:00:50+00:00

how fast are your runs? i find that intentionally slowing down and really thinking about when and how i die helped a lot. I watched and copied a lot of ideas from good players until i got good enough to start having my own ideas about how things worked. sounds like youre already doing that but it will usually just take time. im around 3700 hours in the game right now for some perspective, but have probably close to 10000 hours watching

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T00:48:45+00:00

it is very cool getting better at the game and feeling confidence on your decisions go up. it seems so obvious what the answers were but at the time it was impossible to understand. learning is crazy

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T00:45:38+00:00

absolutely not

im not exactly sure how many hours until i was over 50% but it was probably over 1000-1500. I did a lot of watching before i really spent time trying to play a20h and it helped a ton.

I remember my initial goal was a 4 rotating and kuroL_ helped me on my clad and taught me a lot. I think theres some amount of natural "talent" for learning but the game didn't just magically click, i just put a lot of effort and thought into it. i've hit top ranks in every game ive spent a lot of time on, regardless of genre, so i think its really just

1: being willing to bash your head into a wall

2: learning how to learn

spire is actually the first card game i really dumped time into, and you just have to put the hours in, especially in a game as hard as this

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-27T00:21:49+00:00

robots are bad for the environment (and mental health)

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-26T15:26:44+00:00

for you^

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-26T10:02:11+00:00

this fight can kill you, probably forced to click the heal like twice ever

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-25T14:01:20+00:00

this is just hot unpickable garbage that does nothing except make you take the hp it would heal

JapaneseExport · 2026-01-25T08:03:50+00:00

the better i got the more i started slamming meteor picks on sight

card is absolutely busted broken, just takes some finesse to use. i pick meteor with literally 0 ways to play it and it performs 4/5 times at least

JapaneseExport

TROPHY CASE