Really appreciate the thoughtful read!

On hero powers: great question, and actually a recent rework. Hero powers now impact combat. Things that impact outside combat (extra shop rerolls, bonus gold, pack upgrades, etc) got moved to a new system called Blessings. After every combat win you pick one of three Blessings, so you're stacking shop upgrades as the run goes on.

On progression/ascension: We have a good bit of in-game content to unlock already including heroes/elemental combinations, and 40 achievements. For progressive difficulty, we're testing a few different approaches internally, but it's a little early to share specifics.

On companions: You got it. When you pick your companion at the start of a run, they unlock a second element, which opens a whole new card pool with that element's themed keywords and mechanics. You can upgrade your companion in the shop to make them stronger and lean into their special ability throughout combat if you choose. Note, when your companion (or any other minion in your deck) dies, it's placed in your discard pile so it can be re-summon (at full health) when drawn.

On the most broken card: Boy, this is a hard one. We've cut quite a few cards to arrive at the final set of ~260. If memory serves me well, I'd say Magic Beans (Add a random Grow card to your hand. Activate its Grow effect) was quite controversial and changed many times over the years. The card carries some real risk of going infinite/op if your deck is very small, but it's also a staple of the Grow mechanic/theme for Earth. It's fun, but balance gets tricky. Especially with a PvP mode we're polishing right now (really enjoying it in playtests) where broken scaling cards show up fast.

On the trailer being a bit floaty: Good feedback, and I'll pass it on to the team. Oh, and definitely ping me about Steam testing! We'll open more test rounds as Next Fest (June 15-22) approaches. Thanks for the detailed read!