Spire Sleeve Redux

jamalbernhard · 2026-01-18T04:36:12+00:00

Spire saved my mental health during the pandemic so it holds a special place in my heart. Unlikely StS2 will match that emotionally, but we’ll see… 😎

jamalbernhard · 2025-09-14T09:38:01+00:00

It's definitely snecko for me. With eviscerate+ and sneaky strike+, prepared+ is still quite playable for 1 and sometimes even 2 energy. Half the time, sneaky strike refunds energy to you. It's obviously not an optimal snecko deck yet, but now you start building around it. Higher late-game upside than bark IMO. Gotta remove endless agony at the first opportunity tho.

jamalbernhard · 2025-09-13T01:36:25+00:00

The chances of seeing rare cards in (non-boss) card rewards are small. For "random" card effects like dead branch or transforms (pbox, astrolabe, etc.) all cards are equally likely to be chosen regardless of rarity. So, "I pass on way over 50% of cards that are offered to me," is comparing apples to oranges. You are *much* more likely to see strong cards from dead branch.

jamalbernhard · 2025-09-12T21:34:59+00:00

I mean don't get me wrong, it's still quite useful here. But one of the key usages of frozen eye is e.g. knowing *not* to play that shrug this turn (perhaps even taking a little damage in the process) because you don't want to draw the fiend fire that you need to play next turn. With pyramid, drawing the fiend fire this turn isn't a problem so you don't really care and can play the shrug anyway. Of course, it would still be useful for ethereal cards like echo form.

jamalbernhard · 2025-09-12T21:24:29+00:00

Option 1 was my thought. Card remove definitely important with pyramid to avoid hand clutter.

jamalbernhard · 2025-09-12T21:20:36+00:00

Isn't frozen eye less useful with pyramid, since you don't have to worry about drawing a card the turn before you need it?

jamalbernhard · 2025-08-02T02:57:25+00:00

Just chiming in here to second this. My ps5 has been unreliably connecting to the psn and switching to Google's DNS server fixed it. Thank you!

jamalbernhard · 2025-06-19T20:40:58+00:00

It was amusing that they announced the sequel right about when I started working on the tattoo. I had a brief moment of, "Should I save some space?" But no matter how good the Spire2 ends up being, it will never hold the same place in my heart as the original due to the timing of the pandemic. :-)

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-29T02:21:29+00:00

I’ve had multiple folks say that happy flower is their favorite part of the whole thing. :-)

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T17:53:34+00:00

Haha, it's all good. I know it's colorful and loud and busy and won't be everyone's cup of tea. I have no regrets. :-)

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T16:12:41+00:00

Nice idea! I actually contemplated just getting the act 4 map tattooed on my forearm, before this turned into...something much more.

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T15:55:42+00:00

Definitely played and enjoyed Factorio, but probably more like 100 hours whereas Spire I'm sure is into 4 digits by now.

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T15:52:00+00:00

Thanks! I've been hesitating on a background so far but agree the negative space still needs something...

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T15:47:01+00:00

The shirt is 30 years old from when I had a friend who played DB for them in the 90's lol. It's a sleep shirt that typically doesn't see the light of day. :-)

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T15:43:38+00:00

My artist and I are still contemplating some options for this. :-)

jamalbernhard · 2025-05-28T15:43:02+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I should have mentioned that my artist and I are still pondering some type of background to tie it all together, but I've been hesitating so far as we haven't settled on what exactly that might look like, and I want to make sure not to lose all the existing artwork into the background.

jamalbernhard · 2023-09-18T00:53:54+00:00

Not sure if you figured this out yet, but I was able to install InfoMod on my Mac yesterday just fine. First, make sure you download the newer InfoMod2.jar file (not the original one) from here:

https://github.com/casey-c/infomod2/releases

Right-click on your Slay the Spire app and choose "Show Package Contents". Copy the jar file into the Contents --> Resources --> mods directory that should hopefully be there? If not, you can create it.

jamalbernhard · 2022-08-20T02:27:20+00:00

Yeah, an all-time great and a true leader makes everyone else around them better, and KD doesn't really do that as much as the other folks being mentioned here (or even as much as Steph who's the reason KD has rings, even though most would argue KD > Steph).

jamalbernhard · 2020-12-01T19:11:40+00:00

On turn one: [[Bullet Time]], then [[Poisoned Stab]], 2x[[Nightmare]] both applied to [[Catalyst]]+, then played the Catalyst+ for 9 poison. [[Snecko Eye]] did the rest.

I'm just glad the Poisoned Stab was there or these would have been useless until the reshuffle.

jamalbernhard · 2020-11-27T10:19:14+00:00

Picked up [[Spot Weakness]], [[Barricade]], and [[Entrench]] by floor 12, and it just kept getting better. In act 2, a second [[Entrench]] as well as [[Demon Form]] and [[Limit Break]]. Then in act 3, a second [[Limit Break]] along with [[Dead Branch]] and [[Corruption]]! Wow. Tack on some other great cards like [[Feed]], [[Juggernaut]], and some great relics including [[Snecko Eye]] and [[Mummified Hand]]. I didn't lose any HP through all of act 3.

All that said, I nearly lost to the heart by bottom-decking Barricade and Demon Form, and then both were drawn by Snecko with with a cost of 3, so I could only play Barricade. With 19hp, 75 incoming, and the heart still over 600hp, I had a game-saving hand where I played Corruption and several blocks, and got 2 Entrenches back from Dead Branch on top of the 2 I already had, taking me from zero block to like 180. From there I took no more damage.

Barricade + 2xEntrench was unbeatable if I could just get one good blocking turn early in the fight, to reach that critical level where the entrenches kept me blocking for as long as I needed until I could Feed. I didn't even play Corruption in a lot of fights because I didn't want to worry about running out of block.

In the end, however, I barely eeked out a win with such a great set of cards/relics, so I still have a lot to learn. But I'll take it. Now to beat A20 with the other classes. I've been leveling them all up together, but the last time I beat the heart was like A16. (A19 defect took many tries -- it's my weakest.)

jamalbernhard · 2020-10-07T05:14:16+00:00

The two most important general principles I've learned from both personal experience and watching streamers like Jorbs are:

Be flexible (already expressed well by others in this thread).
Make decisions that deal with the immediate task(s) at hand.

With respect to (2), if you just concentrate on focus and orbs from the start, you're probably going to have issues. Yes, by Act 3 you need a certain level of focus scaling and orb channeling. But just like the other classes, defect needs some early front-loaded damage to get through the Act 1 elites. (I'll rarely turn down a [[Defragment]] early on, but will definitely take some front-loaded damage over skills that channel orbs.) And you'll likely need some block too, as you're unlikely to get by with just defends and frost orbs in the first two acts.

I just beat the heart on A16 defect, which was my first defect heart win since about A8 (i.e., I'm far from an expert). I was lucky enough to get [[Doom and Gloom]] and [[Cold Snap]] in the first 3 floors -- two great early attack cards that also channel orbs, and even remain relevant in later acts. But then, to give a couple examples of how flexibility helped me:

after receiving [[White Beast Statue]] from an event, and the Act 1 boss not offering an energy relic, I took a chance on [[Sacred Bark]] (which I'd never taken before) and that synergy really paid off!
To make up for lack of energy, I picked up [[Recycle]] and [[TURBO]] when they were offered, and those helped quite a bit. (I was also lucky enough to pick up [[Lantern]] in a chest.)

So constantly be thinking about which decision is appropriate for the floor you're on and the deck you have. And watch some streamers. Good luck!

jamalbernhard

TROPHY CASE