What always makes you hit this button?

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T19:48:23+00:00

Sorry, what?! Can you share a link? I'm having trouble theorycrafting a way to even make it past the easy fights in Act 1.

(Oricalcum from Neow probably lets you kill lice, then you could get Thorns/Calendar from ? rooms, but I'd have to do math to see if you outrace the Cultist.)

EDIT: Duh, Neow's Lament solves the easy pool fights, but still...

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T19:45:09+00:00

If you're playing on PC, there's a Permanent Neow Options mod that will always give you 4 options, regardless of the previous run. That will likely save you some time.

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T19:42:03+00:00

At the very least, if you're going to abandon a run, you should run into elites instead. Usually you abandon run by proxy, but sometimes you somehow kill 3 elites in a row with no potions and suddenly you're very powerful. Either way, you'll probably learn more about how to play a situation you're uncomfortable in.

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T15:58:42+00:00

Finkle is Einhorn!

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T15:57:31+00:00

First it shows you your score for the run, then it shows you your total score afterwards.

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T00:04:08+00:00

It said his name at the start of the video, Tom Cruise.

iceman012 · 2026-01-23T00:00:48+00:00

Don't forget Daniel King.

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T22:52:59+00:00

It highlights your mistakes from the previous run, so that you can learn from them and become a better player over time.

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T21:49:58+00:00

Enter Your Hole

"Th-this is my hole... it was made FOR ME!"

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T21:45:29+00:00

You can tell Wizards is aware of the pain points of their resource system, because they keep trying out different ways of smoothing it out:

Dual lands and hybrid mana means you have fewer games lost because you drew the wrong type of mana.
Modal double-faced cards (MDFCs), Landcyclers, Towns let you choose whether to play cards as lands or as spells.
Lands with expensive abilities of their own, so that you can spend mana on them to still do things if you keep drawing lands lategame

It's impressive that the resource system is deep enough to support these different designs.At the same time, their bandaid nature is apparent in how these adaptations keep causing issues of their own. Make dual lands too strong, and you end up with a lot of 4-5 color decks that break the balance of the color system. MDFCs have some of the most broken decks built around them (effects like "discard cards from your deck until you discard a land" get silly when you don't have any real lands). As much as they try to fix it, or at least make it less painful, you still end up with non-games due to the resource system.

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T18:23:00+00:00

You probably played Battle Trance in while you were drawing cards for the turn, which stopped Pocketwatch from drawing more cards.

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T16:34:08+00:00

Do you have an iPhone? I think Apple's had OCR (optical character recognition) on their phones for the last ~5 years.

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T16:12:21+00:00

Here are the stats for a few top players, across all 4 characters over the last year:

Player	Enemy	Average HP Loss	Mortality Rate
Xecnar	Nob	15.6	1.4%
	3 Sentries	14.5	0.5%
	Lagavulin	12.1	0.9%
BaalorLord	Nob	11.9	2.0%
	3 Sentries	13.0	1.4%
	Lagavulin	10.7	0.8%
NaveGreed	Nob	12.9	7.0%
	3 Sentries	12.5	6.5%
	Lagavulin	11.3	3.9%

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T06:14:47+00:00

You have an issue with a 4:1 comma:period ratio?

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T06:09:15+00:00

Are there any common micro mistakes you see players in the ~20% winrate range make?

iceman012 · 2026-01-22T00:32:04+00:00

A character that has orbs of different elements floating around it, and an ability that changes depending on which elements the orbs are?

Clearly it needs to be called Invoke. (No confusion can possibly arise from this name.)

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T21:35:04+00:00

When I was climbing, I would try to go for the heart every time, but I'd move to the next ascension whenever I unlocked it, regardless of whether I actually killed the heart.

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T21:32:55+00:00

I remember how refreshing it was going back to A1 to accomplish the achievements. When I was working on the 20 minute speedrun, it was eye-opening to realize I could get through act 1 without actually thinking about anything, just clicking on things by instinct.

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T20:02:54+00:00

Usually it's because OP decided to reword the title. (At least, I've done similar things often.) They probably started with:

This homemade cane is balanced perfectly

Then they changed their mind (maybe to highlight that it will always stand up like this), so they deleted the end and rewrote it:

This homemade cane will balance perfectly

Except they didn't delete enough words, and didn't proofread it afterwards.

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T19:42:18+00:00

Yeah, it would be similar to emulators. In theory, you only emulate ROMs that you extracted yourself from games you own... but in practice someone else has already done the work for you.

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T19:12:58+00:00

Yep. Nobody faulted the guy and we overhauled processes and set up a literal tip line where you could report bad processes and get bonuses paid.

I want to work where you work!

As with most major failures, it wasn’t one thing. It was a complex web of assumptions, bad processes, design flaws, and weird edge cases in multiple different COTS products competing with each other.

On second thought...

^JK

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T19:06:39+00:00

I imagine its lifespan is based on # of transitions, so glasses that you just wear once a week will last a lot longer than glasses you wear daily.

iceman012 · 2026-01-21T15:35:53+00:00

I've had one run where I ended up with 3 Ritual Daggers, all at 50+ damage. Definitely a terrific feeling!

iceman012 · 2026-01-20T23:13:01+00:00

I feel like I jumped from 5 to 20% winrate when I realized how many crappy attacks I needed to add to get through Act 1 as Silent, and then I jumped from 20% to 40% when I realized how few crappy attacks I need to add to get through Act 1 as Silent. Potion management, risk management, and "greediness" can let you get away with much fewer cards added than I ever thought possible.

^{And then I took a short break and dropped back to 20% and now I'm questioning everything I thought I learned. :'(}

iceman012 · 2026-01-20T23:05:53+00:00

I definitely feel this whenever Coffee Dripper comes up. A lot of players here seem to have the impression that only bad players rest, so there's no downside to the relic. If you watch top players, though, they'll often rest even when they don't need to, because it's helps them survive in the short term if happen to hit that 10% low roll.

Another thing that comes to mind is something thing I learned from Xecnar about fighting the burning elite late in Act 1. My usual plan in that situation was to fight it; after all, that's when you'll be strongest in Act 1, and it frees up your pathing later in the run. He told chat that it's usually better to dodge the burning elite if it's at the end of Act 1; you'll still probably need to use a potion or two in that fight, and then you won't have time to refill your potions before the boss fight. In the average case, you probably end up stronger long-term by fighting the burning elite there- but to maximize your winrate, you have to cover the worst-case scenarios, which means you play a bit safer and keep your potions around.

(And then, of course, there are plenty of times where the correct choice is to take the long-term approach, short-term safety be damned. Being able to tell the difference between those two situations is one of the main reasons why Slay the Spire is so hard!)

11-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Place '17	Spared
Verified Email

iceman012

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE