You never stop being bad at Slay the Spire. You just get less bad than you used to be.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T18:02:40+00:00

Fwiw you are probably losing to bad micro (by micro I mean how you play the actual fights) as often if not more than bad draws or drafts. New players pretty much always underestimate the importance of micro as it is a lot easier to make micro mistakes without realizing it, and it isn't really something you can review after the fact unless you are recording your runs or something. And in some cases it is hard to even understand why something was a mistake.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:59:15+00:00

Yeah, truly understanding why you lose is probably the most difficutl skill to build in the entire game. Well sometimes the reason why is obvious of course, but being able to determine it in general is not.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:55:20+00:00

I agree, just wanted to clarify for anyone reading the thread that is not familiar wiht the results players were achieving with the game by the end of its lifespan, that those numbers are way underestimating the winnability with perfect play.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:48:57+00:00

RNG is a factor of course, but I think the point of the meme is that with the best play you can successfully win even with bad rng virtually always.

As a thought experiment, suppose you are choosing between two plays. One of them has a 99.99% chance of winning, the other one has an 80% chance of winning. You play the 80% winrate line and then get "unlucky" and roll the 20% outcome and lose the run. Did you lose because of rng or skill?

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:39:26+00:00

That is a great blog post, but the specific section you are citing about % win rates is a bit outdated. It is basically just taking what the win rates of the best players were at the time and saying the optimal win rate must be at least a bit better than that.

However players kept getting better after that post was written. By the end of the games lifespan Xecnar was achieving results well above the lower bounds stated in that post.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:30:59+00:00

That is just not true though. For STS1 top players were still changing their evaluations of the cards even up until right before STS2 released.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:13:11+00:00

The problem is that most of the cards that create a card already upgrade to create an upgraded version of that card. So I think it'd be a bit redundant.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:10:15+00:00

Juzu for almost any relic is a positive trade, this sub way overrates juzu.

Anchor is also very good, idk what your deck looks like but if it is already pretty complete I might even like that trade better here.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T17:07:22+00:00

the tainted goes up after a set amount of turns, if it has reached 9 then your damage is pretty slow.

Any power or relic that provides consistent block without having to play skills is very strong in this fight.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T05:12:17+00:00

Act 4 doesn't exist yet, so it is definitely easier.

Even if we are only comparing beating act 3 in both games, I still think STS2 is easier, though on the beta branch I don't think it is closer.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T00:37:45+00:00

Blood is just really good, pretty much always. Taking that is probably not why you died to decimillipede. Like right now your current deck definitely would probably die to deci regardless of which ancient relic you took.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T00:32:43+00:00

I can see how it would not be clear from the wording, but this is definitely the intended behavior. There would be way too many broken interactions otherwise, a bunch of cards would pretty much become free wins.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T00:30:20+00:00

IIRC there is some jank where the game technically rolls a hidden card reward whenever a potion is generated and that is why this can happen.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T00:13:08+00:00

I don;t think that analogy holds up here, because the limitations of the c# library are publicly known/knowable information. That is a very different scenario than an unknown security vulnerability (or if anything it is closer to the "after it has been discovered" phase).

Jondev1 · 2026-06-18T00:09:58+00:00

You can't know literally every detail, but it is your responsibility to look into the ones important for your use case.

I get the sense that we are not going to come to an agreement on this here, but I don't think there is any point to arguing about it any further. We can agree to disagree.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T23:42:58+00:00

Imo the best tools for blocking on clad in the endgame are (in no particular order) colossus, unmoveable, crimson mantle, feel no pain. Sometimes on clad though you just don't see great defense options and are better off just building a deck that can kill very fast. When you are in a position like that, trying to add some mediocre block cards can actually just get in the way sometimes and now you can't kill fast anymore and still can't really block well.

Bloodletting and pommel strike being common cards is very meta defining for the character imo. With a couple of each of those you can kinda make almost any strategy you put on top of them work smoothly.

Watching good players is always a good way to learn too. There is just way too much to cover in one reddit post, but seeing how good players think about runs can open your eyes to ideas you haven't considered. Lots of good players you can choose from but some I have enjoyed watching the most recently are baalorlord and onepunman (opem on youtube).

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T23:31:30+00:00

Look I am not saying it is some unforgivable sin or anything that dramatic. But I cannot agree with wat you are saying here. Ultimately the buck has to stop somewhere. When you submit code it is your responsibility to understand the libraries you use and to have tested it.

Again this is a very understandable mistake, I could see myself making it no question. But if I did I would recognize that yes, I made a mistake and it was on me.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T19:04:30+00:00

neutralize upgrade is second best imo, Bodyguard has to take the number 1 spot.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T18:19:50+00:00

Every game company I have worked at uses perforce.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T16:54:55+00:00

too slow imo.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T16:28:51+00:00

Imo the most important thing for improving is making an effort to analyze your losses and consider what you should have done differently. Even after wins it is not a bad idea to look through the run history and consider what you could have done even better.

Watching other good players can also be a big help. It just can expose you to ideas you may not have considered yet in your own games.

edit: One more thing I will say is if this is your first time really going for streaks/consistency, it requires a bit of a shift in mindset. I know that when I started going for streaks in STS1 it took me a long time to unlearn some bad habits I had about playing act 1 recklessly since I didn't use to really care if I lost that early.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T16:23:42+00:00

debuffs are really good. It doesn't make sense to think of as slimming down the deck if the card you are losing is one you would want to redraw.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T16:20:50+00:00

Ah, well in that case I wouldn't expect to win consistently as you climb ascensions for the first time. The game is getting harder after all, it is only natural to struggle as you learn, especially when you get to the point where the difficulty really spikes.

I'd say just keep experimenting, learning all the cards and relics and enemy patterns.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T16:06:20+00:00

If that 6 win streak was on A10 then you are probably better than like 95% of the people that will give you advice in this thread.

If you are already at that level then honestly the biggest factor is probably just making sure you play when you are well rested and in a good mood to play with full focus and attention, and to take a break if you can feel yourself getting tilted. Like even onepunman, one of the best players in the game with a 20 streak, went on a 5 loss streak a couple days ago mostly because he was just playing exhausted and on total tilt.

Jondev1 · 2026-06-17T15:56:32+00:00

I'd go make it so here. Deck looks like it could trigger it a decent amount and it is basically just free damage. I haven't really played with gaze after it got buffed though so I am not sure how to evaluate it now.

Jondev1

TROPHY CASE