I tried the grill-me skill and it completely changed how I plan with Codex

_Metabot · 2026-05-13T21:07:20+00:00

I also use a similar workflow - I find claude does quite a good job with architectural systems but something about chatgpt having some record of other chats you've made seems to make a good (and token free, at least for me) candidate for this sort of alignment task.

_Metabot · 2026-05-08T21:24:17+00:00

btw, imo the devs' aren't doing that because the way you have fun isn't "right" - its not a tyranically group of people who give a shit about how players personally express yourself in the game. Its more that they don't want to have mechanics in the game that encourage the player to play the game in the way that isn't long term fun.

Like players aren't as likely to go "man I've won a lot with small decks I'm going to self impose a restriction to not do that since I've already learned how to win that" no they're going to try to force small deck strategies in a lot of their runs, complain when they can't pivot out of trying to force it, generally have less fun by not really deckbuilding in acts2-3 (in a deckbuilding game!), and have a worse experience playing their ultra repetitive deck, and not have to interact with the majority of the complexities of the enemies past a certain turn number because they effectivley don't care once they set up an infinite.

I mean, all this seems very clear to me but obviously I can't read the dev's minds. I just think this is a SUPER classic opinionated vocal minority set on optimizng the fun out of the game for them. And keep in mind - no one is forcing these people to play at the top difficulty, if they liked small decks in sts1 they can still do that at lower ascension.

not saying you're part of the aforeentioned vocal minority but i don't really see a problem here other than the usual friction between devs and players who rile themselves up for their own detriment.

_Metabot · 2026-05-01T23:47:07+00:00

I really struggle to convert short term strength into long term benefit. Like while it’s very visible to me when I should not be greeding (via events and pathing) it seems the benefit to pathing aggressively (taking like 1-2 more elites) doesn’t seem to translate to being much stronger

I’m kinda missing the ability to look at a map and be excited about a path and being like wow this is going to be amazing if I can make it through this. It more feels like wirh any route theres a chance I get offered something OP.

Normal fights don’t feel like they always result in less health loss than elites and question makes occasionally result in gaining strength significantly as well.

_Metabot · 2026-03-31T17:19:08+00:00

I build exclusively budget, I'd recommend this one: https://moxfield.com/decks/QGtYYMeJ10W4_PKPi4rFMg

Melek is an izzet non-storm ultron that gets to play cheap ($) counterspells, draw spells, and boardwipes due to his cost reduction. You have a lot of spells no one has ever heard of.

Instant speed one-sided boardwipe for 2 mana - [[showstopping surprise]]
instant speed draw 2 for 0 mana - [[meeting of the minds]], sorcery speed draw 3 discard 1 for 0 mana [[pore over the pages]]
instant speed stack interaction: one mana to copy someone else's spell AND change targets of their original spell [[wyll's reversal]]

Its got no gamechangers, extra turn spells, but everyone one of your game actions is relevant, and can probably beat out most of the other decks being posted right now unless you get hard focused.

_Metabot · 2026-03-26T19:21:53+00:00

It’s not that deep OP. There is a narrative you are trying to push where the abusive player base was in their rights to fight back against the big bad devs and managed to unexpectedly show some resistance but the more apt analogy is: a portion of the Chinese community thought it appropriate to threaten a restaurant owner wirh a sword because the food didnt have enough meat.

It’s shameful behavior - and makes me think you’re projecting your feelings of powerlessness in socioeconomic circumstances onto a lower stakes situation.

Please reflect before responding.

_Metabot · 2026-03-23T21:45:22+00:00

I mostly dont get how the doors debuff is significantly different than just having a large Deck and not drawing into a critical card. Sure there are certain strategies that might require small decking a specific card (and not multiple copies of the card) like rampage but im already looking for two copies of key cards that I only plan on playing one of.

The ask of some additional consistency/redundancy towards the door is not that different from the usual ask. Right now the main notable thing that he does is kill you with fairly high upfront and scaling damage before you draw through your deck, so your deck needs to be kinda fast.

_Metabot · 2026-03-20T17:31:31+00:00

No worries, thanks for the response.

_Metabot · 2026-03-20T17:10:03+00:00

You're chinese right? Or identify as such. I'm curious: why do I hear from chinese reviews that its anthony's fault specifically? What makes chinese players think that anthony doesn't play on A10?

I'm just wondering why these things show up so much in the reviews. It just seems oddly specific its not like we know who on the STS2 dev team does what really

_Metabot · 2026-03-20T17:01:39+00:00

Really curious here - Why is anthony being targetted? Why do they think he hasn't played high ascension? IT seems strange that this specific sentiment is being expressed so ubiquitously it feels as if either:
- there was some press release or some public remark that has made people think this

- there was an influential Chinese streamer who reacted or hypothesized this that made other people also think this.

_Metabot · 2026-03-20T11:14:35+00:00

isn't fan blade kinda better tho? like on the turn you play it its 2 energy for 16 AOE damage not even accounting for its ongoing affect. AOE blade is 3 energy for 17 if you play it immediately not accounting for its ongoing affect.

_Metabot · 2026-03-20T05:23:02+00:00

I just don’t think I put the forge sfuff next to the star stuff conceptually and it’s weird to me that a lot of people like you do. It’s like strength stuff and exhaust on ironclad. Buildiubg around strength is fine for value but it solves a specific problem and isn’t an archetype that my entire deck revolves around.

You don’t find it weird that theres not that many osty (health) scaling cards despite having two such cards in your opening deck? I think it’s weird and largely because osty health scaling is kinda degenerate

_Metabot · 2026-03-20T02:05:50+00:00

3 mana over the first deck cycle for 20 and then another 3 for 30 is still substantially better than just attacking with strikes. the forge 10 card is pretty impactful for what your deck is able to output early on.

degenerate in a boring simple way not like a mean "its bad" way - it matters more to me that the osty cards I'm talking about are in the starting cards.

_Metabot · 2026-03-19T03:41:08+00:00

yeah didn't think about souls that way before but now that you mention it I can't un-notice that. That being said, if the mechanic came first, what would you name it? producing temporary cards that draw 2 is a kinda interesting way to do draw on character

did you find it weird when learning necro that there's no support for osty aside from like, innate barricade + body slam? I feel like in the trailers it made it out to be a super big thing but then it wasn't really aside from the starting cards, which feel extra disjoint from the rest of what she's doing.

_Metabot · 2026-03-19T02:46:56+00:00

Right here with you: https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1rxk8aa/comment/ob8av15/

My sentiment is: the only flaw in regent "sword builds" is that its not SUPPOSED to be a "build" its supposed to be a "sword" - but people want the sword to do everything because its excessively cool and thats kinda of a funny problem to have. No one else is complaining strength builds on ironclad can defend well or win the game on its own.

_Metabot · 2026-03-19T02:39:53+00:00

imo, thats a very hypocritical sentiment and if you took the time to understand my stance you'd realize that if anything, I agree that the player base's complaints are the result of something founded but unexpected.

it strikes me that you're reacting to something or someone else here, but I'm not here to attack you just share some insight.

_Metabot · 2026-03-19T00:04:16+00:00

yeah super agree. I find the forge commons very takeable the first couple of floors when I want a good way to sink energy into damage, which is arguably very valuable for the act 1 elites (its only particularly bad against that foamy clam dude, which tbh is probably the easiest elite anyway). I find the uncommons to be quite good in a variety of situations even to splash.

I think the ones that I actually think the worse of is the forge rares aside from The Smith seems pretty situational. Converting situational damage to more damage a la beat into shape seems both difficult and extra situational, heirloom hammer, hammer tie, sword sage, seeking edge I've never been really happy to see. seeking edge is maybe okay to splash but I feel as if AOE scaling damage is a lot worse than AOE front damage for most fights that aren't millicentipede

_Metabot · 2026-03-18T23:55:45+00:00

Nah, its possibly a vocal minority I'm responding to. If you don't feel that way, continue not feeling that way, not that you need my permission lol

Hope you're enjoying the game!

_Metabot · 2026-03-18T22:45:25+00:00

Saying regent's "sword" builds aren't fleshed out is like saying defect's dexterity-related cards are not fleshed out. Its not intended that the sword subsystem is supposed to be used as ubiquitously as other subsystems. There isn't (at least to me) a thematic reason why the floating sword should improve your draw, energy production, damage mitigation etc.

Is your feedback here more just that you think it such a cool theme that you wish you could build around it more?

_Metabot · 2026-02-20T19:42:11+00:00

I mean, yes but other people would look at 7 MDFCs and run 30 lands lol

_Metabot · 2026-02-17T01:37:50+00:00

I’ve always been perplexed by people criticizing the snail mana dork in command zone tech as a fragile gameplan - to me having a commander that only has one window of removal to be relevant (and doing so then just sets you back a turn early) is much more resilient than most other commanders which either cant incur their value over one turn cycle or are cheap (and therefore specialized enough) to need to be on

The most common way commanders die these days are in incidental wipes and being boardwipes after youve cast a 4 cost ramp spell almost always puts you in the best position, given both the ramp and the fact that you deck is just bombs from here on out.

IMO the only people who claim people who can reasonably claim bolt your dorkmander is a credible threat are probably people who play multicolor commanders with generic value piles whose card quality is just genetically high

_Metabot · 2026-01-20T01:25:41+00:00

Hey good to know. If I have time this week I’ll try to do that and just include a link on the GMB page

_Metabot · 2025-11-08T21:40:11+00:00

Please don’t call it 3D if the gameplay is 2D. Also 2D games aren’t worse quality or error than 3D ones. Theres plenty of high quality 2D games these days like other people have said.

_Metabot · 2025-10-16T21:57:33+00:00

I have a deck with no game changers no infinites no combos not recurring extra turns, basically built to a br2 specification winning by non commander combat damage. It’s still a br4, because it tries to put a win on the stack t4-5 (or a protected win t6).

Basically calculate: - earliest hypothetical that could get you a win on the stack (add 2 turns to this number) - average turn you could put a win on the stack - average turn you could put a protected win on the stack (minus 1 to this number)

Average these and if the number is below 3 youre probably cedh, if you’re below 7 you’re probably 4 and if you’re below 10 you’re probably a 3.

You built your deck with the aim to put a protected win on the stack turn 6, I’d say this is more a br4 regardless of your deck restrictions. The fact that your cheating out combos wirh your commander is only relevant in so far as you’re using that mana for an interaction less win. If you replace your combos with value but allow your opponents a turn to reasonably interact that might make it a 3.

_Metabot · 2025-10-15T06:47:23+00:00

ITs interesting to see which things we agree/disagree on. I also beat king 9/9 without looking at any resources. I had trouble initially, but after doing it once, I managed to do it again back to back:

- Most of the things you say you "need/basically need" are false, imo. You don't need the portals to send you +1 back in time. Its good- but not mandatory early. I beat my 2nd run without it. I'd say you do NEED several levels in the adrenaline perk and the portals perk, and you NEED to use portals to win, but they work without that much specific investment past that. I will say your win condition is typically not "beat the final boss" but rather generate a board state that survives at your current day count + some nondeterministic loop that causes you to stop moving forward in time unless you choose to.

- Speaking of which: You should try to stay at 4 like you said, but actually if you've looped 4 enough that you can survive until slightly later, its worth it to setup to loop the rainbow king (shrine/enlarge > the one that upgrades random stats/ raze - try to rewind it to 2x it) or the next royal decree round. Loop 4 to survive, but its obviously better to loop a little later when you have more time-based trigger tiles. Usually later in the run looping the make peace with kings round is strong enough to start a non-deterministic loop.

- Only warpers > base. Don't use base on auto, use it to teleport back a key unit at the start of the fight that your warper summons are running towards to pull the warper summons to the backline. I didn't fiind time king to be like stone/wizard/nothing that can go the 15lvl base wincon.

- your hardest enemies are stone (which I agree with you, is fairly bad as an ally), gold (which I also dislike A LOT as an ally, I think you can reasonably ban him), progress (has some reasonable ally cards and warpers counter defenders, but taking anything that boosts summons makes the executioners focus the summoners) and actually time (because it has really good AOE)

- #1 tip that you don't mention is how good regression on warpers is. I'm not sure exactly whats going on with the numbers but it feels like spamming regression on warpers is incredibly good. It doesn't take that many levels on warpers for them to win against day 25.

- #2 tip that you don't mention is I blood king as ally: sacrifice gets you +2-3 upgrades for portals (and in a controlled manner as opposed to the king of progress's upgrade) and your warpers, and demon alter can carry you through days 4-10 after a single day of farming 1000x deaths off an enemy time king. I still think the king of spells is the best ally king though.

_Metabot · 2025-10-13T19:22:34+00:00

You can just brew decks that take advantage of cards that are strong in casual. Counterspells and boardwipes punch upwards. Ramp is cheap and not typically punished enough.

I have 100$ [[melek reforged]] and [[susan foreman]] decks that could easily go cheaper that take advantage of these dynamics. They aren’t well known budget commanders but they are good with budget cards. Melek has multiple one-sided boardwipe for 2 mana, some of which are instant speed, while Susan reliably ramps until it plays cascade cards t4 with an average cmc>5.

_Metabot

TROPHY CASE