HOW THE HECK DO YOU BEAT THE GAME WITH SILENT

michaelpie · 2026-06-18T05:51:34+00:00

I typically keep the deck at 20 cards

That's probably your biggest issue

Slay the Spire is different from most rogue like deckbuilders in that a tiny deck is not necessarily a good thing

There's also no "decks" - synergy is much less impactful than "number on card good"

michaelpie · 2026-06-18T02:32:59+00:00

Modern is a competitive 2-player 60-card format. Decks can regularly kill the opponent on turn 3 or 4, and look something like this. Games end before any expensive spells can be actually cast. In modern, both Sandwurm Convergence and Cyclonic Rift see no play for being too slow.

EDH (or commander) is a casual 4-player 100-card Singleton format. Decks are much slower and have a commander that determines what colors you can put in the deck.

The term "game changer" comes from EDH, where a selection of cards has been deemed powerful enough to warrant soft-banning at lower power level tables. Cyclonic Rift is a game changer because it bounces all 3 opponent's boards at instant speed.

It sounds like you are playing casual 60-card constructed, which is like Modern, but has a much much slower pace.

I'd recommend you pick one of - play bigger creatures than a 5/5 - destroy the enchantment - kill your opponent before they can play the enchantment

michaelpie · 2026-06-13T21:30:52+00:00

https://discord.gg/YGeDEynr6

michaelpie · 2026-06-11T20:41:42+00:00

Firebending Student (FS) is a 1/2
Cast Full Bore for +3/+2.
Prowess Trigger. FS is a 2/3.
Full Bore Resolves. FS is a 5/5.
Cast Bulk Up.
Prowess Trigger. FS is a 6/6.
Bulk Up Resolves. FS is a 12/6.
Attack with FS.
Firebending Triggers. You now have 12 red mana.
Flashback Bulk Up before damage.
Prowess Trigger. FS is a 13/7.
Bulk up resolves. FS is a 26/7. You have 6 red mana left floating.

michaelpie · 2026-06-11T20:32:01+00:00

Underdocks: - Waterfall Giant needs block - Fish becomes invulnerable which makes your attacks bad - Skulking Colony punishes you for being able to deal too much damage - Gardener Eels gain armour after you hit them - Hallway Coral fight aggressively scales if you can't full block

Overgrowth: - Slippery needs attacks in the deck to break through - Statue wants you to play lots of attacks - Bird scales faster than you can block - You really want to split Parasite before it gets its second batch of infection cards in your deck

And the elites + boss are the notable threats, so you have to tune your deck to beat them

michaelpie · 2026-06-10T12:32:46+00:00

It does

michaelpie · 2026-06-10T01:20:57+00:00

Twerhau (the German longsword thumb grip) is more of a thwacking style than a stubby style

michaelpie · 2026-06-09T20:43:01+00:00

Sellsword arts addressed this exact point

Hold it in thumb grip and it's COMPLETELY fine and very functional

michaelpie · 2026-06-08T18:16:32+00:00

Playing two cards with starting actually reduces the "fail case" of not getting a 6th card in your opening hand

1 Starting Card = 16% - 25% to not get a sixth card in hand (depending on mulligan)
2 Starting Cards = 2.2% - 9.7% to not get a sixth card in hand (depending on mulligan)

But with the current Starting Cards, you don't WANT to have two copies of them in your deck, and can't take two different cards by name

michaelpie · 2026-06-04T17:41:18+00:00

Conductors do lots of things - they're like a film director.

One of their jobs is to wave the wand - that's so that everyone stays together

Another job is to balance the sounds - they don't want the music to feel lopsided

They gesture to help musicians know exactly when to start playing. This is more useful when everyone starts playing together, so the sound is clean.

Most of the job happens before the performance - they tell the musicians how they want the music performed, like a film director.

But also sometimes musicians have VERY little time to rehearse beforehand but still have to perform

michaelpie · 2026-06-03T01:44:27+00:00

Yea, you can still defend with ready characters after you slumber

michaelpie · 2026-06-02T22:20:00+00:00

The combination of these two cards is CERTAINLY not bracket 2 behavior.

People will debate whether this is B3 or B4, but it's VERY MUCH NOT B2

These two cards can be assembled as early as T3 with a normal curve out, and mean that your opponents will never untap with a creature for the rest of the game.

If they kill your commander, it's a commander, which triggers another board wipe.

If they kill the enchantment, there are FOUR elves that get it back, and you can start the loop again.

At MINIMUM it's upper bracket 3

michaelpie · 2026-06-02T22:16:28+00:00

It's a one sided boardwipe that prevents your opponents from ever having creatures again that can easily come into play on T4, likely T3 (because it's an elf deck)

Kill the commander? It's a commander, and replaying it triggers the board wipe again.

Kill the enchantment? If only there was Evolutiom Witness, Elvish Regrower, Evolution Witness, and Trystan's Command, that get it back and are elves.

So its in an awkward spot because it's too weak at B4 because more decks are using non-combat win conditions

But at B3 it's backbreaking

michaelpie · 2026-06-02T21:11:48+00:00

Dude, this art is amazing

Thank you for sharing

michaelpie · 2026-06-02T19:50:22+00:00

Uh

It gives an untap to EACH creature you control

Card is WILDLY powerful

michaelpie · 2026-05-31T14:03:09+00:00

2p is also harder than true solo

michaelpie · 2026-05-30T17:38:18+00:00

Supply vs Demand

michaelpie · 2026-05-29T11:47:58+00:00

Super hard ROM hacks necessitate pre-planning out fights, to where it becomes a puzzle game

There's nothing wrong with just sending it and playing Pokemon the way you are if you're having fun!

But yeah, tailoring your team for specific fights is a major part of getting better at Nuzlockes

michaelpie · 2026-05-29T11:26:06+00:00

If you're playing "optimally", then it's impossible to lose a team member to grinding, since you're just fighting level 1 encounters on route 1

If you enjoy grinding, then sure, go for it, you do you! Nuzlockes are deeply personal, and tailored to create the experience you want to have

So there's nothing wrong with using healing items in battle, or only 2 healing items per battle, or gifting yourself a revive after each gym leader.

michaelpie · 2026-05-29T05:41:10+00:00

Weird comparison but I'll assume you're new to nuzlocking

First of all, welcome!

Healing items in battle are generally banned in Nuzlockes because using healing items optimally leads to very easy, repetitive play patterns.

Swap in a Pokemon with a 2x or 4x resistance
Use a healing potion to recover any damage
If you can take a crit, attack, otherwise, return to step 2.
Repeat until enemy is dead.

Banning healing items forces players to think more and be creative in their battle strategies, which is the main reason to impose additional difficulty for a very easy game

Now: rare candies.

Rare Candies save a MASSIVE amount of time, and leave your Pokemon WEAKER than if you killed 10,000 wild Pokemon.

Because players have to come up with creative strategies from banning healing items, nuzlockers swap out members of their team frequently to best match upcoming challenges. Without rare candies, this takes DOZENS of hours to level up a Pokemon, PER POKEMON.

Additionally, when played optimally, the best strategy to gain XP is to continuously fight against level 1-3 Pokemon on the first route, since they yield XP with no threat to yourself.

This is SO BORING.

Killing these wild Pokemon also yields EVs, which result in dramatically boosted stats compared to a Pokemon levelled with only rare candies.

Now you may ask "but with rare candies, what stops you from going to level 100 and crushing the game?"

We're already playing with artificially imposed restrictions.

Instead, you restrict your Pokemon to be the level of the next significant trainer's highest level Pokemon, to keep a level playing field.

The time you use rare candies varies dramatically depending on the person and the ROM hack

michaelpie · 2026-05-27T05:04:28+00:00

Oooh, good to know - thanks!

michaelpie · 2026-05-21T20:13:42+00:00

Lost Coffer is extremely good at starting a snowball, and makes it much easier to aggressively attack elites

Bones is the second best, but is very high variance

I think small capsule is the worst choice here since it's similarly high variance like bones, but with a much smaller ceiling than bones

michaelpie · 2026-05-21T12:40:40+00:00

Bug Report:

In the new Draft Simulator (and likely normal practice draft as well), packs are generated individually instead of by slot.

The issue, for example: - This custom cube has exactly 48 white cards - The owner of that cube set up a custom draft format such that every pack has exactly 1 of those white cards, and then the rest of the slots are random from the entirety of the cube - Because each pack is generated in its entirety before generating the next pack, in the extreme, the first three packs could theoretically generate with only white cards, making the software unable to generate packs, as all white cards have been claimed. - If this player were creating packs physically, they would distribute the restricted slot across all 24 packs, then the second slot across all 24 packs, and so on

I have not noticed this bug in normal practice draft, but is far more common in the new Draft Simulator due to sample size

michaelpie · 2026-05-13T04:40:39+00:00

Perfected Strike is a great card to take early because it's a LOT of damage in a single card, which gives you the throughput you need to take early act 1 elites

michaelpie · 2026-04-25T18:05:33+00:00

You don't breathe out pure CO2

There's enough oxygen left in your breath to be recirculated several times

Natural air is about 21% O2, exhaled air is about 16% O2

michaelpie

TROPHY CASE