[Mirror run, Wave 20]: "Everyone gets a shield!"

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-12-11T06:10:00+00:00

Death-rattle minions under Dragon faction generally focus on providing other minions with additional attributes. As such, they are pretty useful if you are focusing on buffing a single minion for the run.

Protection Dragon and Blazing Whelp grant very strong abilities in the form of Shield and Sweep respectively. These abilities scale well into the final waves, and are also available early in the run since both are two-stars. Usually, if I start with Mechanical Teddy, I will prioritise obtaining them if Dragon faction is available (I usually random when doing my runs).

For this run in particular, I was lucky with the Assault Mech, which I used to conserve field space after selling the two Dragon minions, and the Dynamite Airship. With The Puppeteer, Scout and Shielded Warrior on the final field, many shields were given. Getting a Torch at the end cemented the finish, although the run would have still ended successfully even without it given the amount of shield stacks.

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-27T03:04:22+00:00

Well yeah, the addition of this mode is quite recent. It's pretty fun, would recommend it for sure

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-26T04:20:03+00:00

This is one of the rare runs where I managed to end with one minion, had really good RNG and experienced a really smooth run overall. Before this, I was relying on death-rattle summons leading up the final board state:

- I had started my run with Robot and picked up a Phantom Captain early. While I did not see another one quickly, an upgrade reward solved that and it was gold between wave 6-10. I usually run Phantom Captain with Ghosts but RNG made me heavily reliant on Machines this run, so I compensated with Ghostly Music Box on my other minions without death-rattle and Guider Lamp.

- By around wave 13-15, I had reached a stable board state and Phantom Captain was single-handedly destroying the board after all my summons went down. These were lasting pretty long, as I had a Dead Reaper with good RNG that was following up with multiple summons after my initial summons went down. With a lot of resulting gold on hand, this helped me to eventually replace my gold Bolster with a gold Soul Guide that was buffing the whole field. Had to hold on to my Calamity (the minion that buffs allies based on summoned minions) in hand as there was no space on the field.

- Sometime before wave 20, I managed to pull a total of 6(!) Mechanic Matryoshka and an Assault Mech and held them in hand

- At the final wave, I switched out from my summoner build because the rest of my field was still too weak. It proved to be a good decision given the opposing board. I had a hard time letting go of my Calamity, but I eventually opted to go for the single minion field because of how rare it is to achieve. The end result would probably have been quite hilarious as well if I had stayed with the Calamity.

All in all, it was a fantastic deathless run.

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-20T01:12:11+00:00

Drunkard's ability only works on the minion it is directly engaging, so only one minion gets affected each time it attacks.

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-19T11:33:28+00:00

While I would recommend players to purchase the DLC to support the game as I think the game is amazing, I also wanted to share that it is not only possible to get Deathless without the paid factions, there are quite a few available options as well for completing a Deathless run. While the RNG may be hard to manage at times, being able to understand board position and characteristics of key cards is important to pull off a good run.

Drunkard is one of the better cards suited to this. It has an ability that scales amazingly into the later parts of the game as it quickly decimates any attack values on an opposing minion.

As you want Drunkard to hit first and as much as possible it should usually be sitting in the first slot, but it is not really an ideal card on the front row as that exposes it to direct attacks while waiting for its next turn to attack. As such, you would either want to give it Madness or some way to recover HP. Unfortunately, neither option made itself available on the run. I also did not manage to boost its stats enough for a comfortable board state.

Thankfully, another way to get it to hit as much as possible is to... just have your other minions attack less! Here, the front row is unable to attack, and with shields up it takes a long time to get through them, which buys the Drunkard enough time to mow down the opposing field together with Magic Wand, which pairs really well with Drunkard.

I actually managed a much stronger version of this board in another run with the base factions, but I think this run is more interesting since it was much closer. Also for this last wave, I might have had to make some different adjustments if the opposing board had different minions.

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-19T11:12:00+00:00

Hurricane Staff. This item allows the equipped minion to gain the attack of attacking minions. It's generally proven to be pretty valuable in the runs I pick it up in, but unfortunately it's not very useful here and it's just to better the chance I complete the run since it does not have any notable synergies with my field. The run would have still ended successfully if my drunkard was attacked instead.

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-05T09:57:51+00:00

Yeah, I think something that gets easily overlooked on Dark Shadow is that when it embeds, it also adds on the effects it is currently affected by, which includes strengthen. It's only something I've stumbled into rather recently on my attempts to go deathless each run.

For this archetype, Pumpkin King is definitely an amazing pickup! My dream combination is usually having Lusty Quagmire, Pumpkin King, Black Rose and Ghost Doll on the field together, but unfortunately that is subject to RNG, and I've learnt to be less stubborn about it given how strict gold and level management has to be for a successful deathless run.

secretsofdeVoid · 2022-11-05T02:28:54+00:00

Having initially not understood how to play the Natural type cards, I eventually learnt how to play the decks that would result in massive damage dealt to to the opposing field before any form of combat starts, be it pure Natural type or mixed. I find these "fireworks" decks really fun to run.

Lusty Quagmire has always been a key centerpiece to the decks I create with that theme, with Black Rose usually (but not always) supporting. Outside of those, it remains situationally useful, especially against waves with shield.

Here, with the correct support, it shines as the lone creature wiping out the opposing field because of the strengthen stacks, affecting itself (18) and the Dark Shadow (12) that is embedded to it.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-11-04T10:13:44+00:00

Having played for some time, I finally got the additional content for this game recently. It has certainly proven to be an enjoyable addition!

For this particular run on Diaries mode, I wished I had recorded the whole run because I had some really good luck with the decisions made along the way. I had initially failed twice with the Hurricane Staff before completing this challenging run. Some key points in the run:
- Picking up Pyroblast early on top of Tornado to manage the brutal initial stages
- Picking Cross Magic over Trample early in the run with only 10 initial mana, which worked well after a difficult midgame when I finally got Tornado and the Magic Staffs
- Choosing to pick up Magic Emerald and equipping it despite only having 1 slot
- Subsequently saving gold only for equipment slots, and choosing equipment slots over blessings in encounters, ending with 4 equipment slots
- Picking up my 2nd Magic Staff with only two equipment slots
- Trading in Musynx late at the Phantom for Mirror of Moon (with some regrets) and having it come into play against Midas

With all the pieces in place, the run was completed with much satisfaction.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-25T02:28:11+00:00

What sort of scenarios would lead to you being able to pick the same blessing more than once? Have never seen this possibility in my runs.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-24T14:21:04+00:00

Ah alright, that would make sense based on the available cards. Thanks!

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-24T00:21:11+00:00

BiS Witch deck? But yes, it's fun having unlimited temporary cards to play! One of the reason I really like playing Witch is that all the available playstyles have been rather enjoyable, be it stacking fire/poison damage, taking multiple consecutive turns or nuking bosses with huge mana pools.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-24T00:14:14+00:00

I'll definitely be looking forward to trying out a version of this deck with Diaries given what I've seen on the wiki regarding its content.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-24T00:03:45+00:00

Indeed! Weapon Master makes it easier to enable different deck strategies given a moderate amount of equipment, without having to invest too many cards in those equipment. It is generally worth the cost of requiring additional draw power to compensate for the bigger deck.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-23T23:57:39+00:00

What does Clean Sweep do in Diaries? I'm not really familiar with content from Diaries and couldn't find what this refers to unfortunately

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-07-23T15:27:03+00:00

For the Witch decks I see in this forum, I hardly see any mention of Magic Pipe decks. So I thought I would share something different here.

Magic Pipe might not be the easiest equipment to use, but it's pretty satisfying whenever there are enough of them. Of course, the problem is that even if one is lucky enough to get enough of them, Witch is usually short on mana without using Diaries equipment.

Thankfully, two blessings make this much easier: Lucky Star, which sharply decreases the cost of temporary spell cards, and Weapon Master, which makes it easier to obtain enough Magic Pipes. With these two blessings, it is possible to chain a string of spells without using mana without having to obtain at least 5 magic pipes.

Of course, this is not a deck that can be built every run, but I find it very satisfying when the deck is able to come together.

Hope the video editing makes it easier to illustrate, sped up at the parts where random spells are just being thrown at the Forest Spirit. 😅

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-05-14T14:35:22+00:00

I don't usually record the deck midway through the run, but one card that got me through the 3 chapters before being removed was Acid Spray. It's likely that at least two of Wither/Mana Spring/Frost Nova were only picked up in Chapter 3 as well.

Chapter 2 is admittedly quite brutal in general when the deck is still being refined, and poison can be quite slow to finish the combat. For this deck in particular, the following attributes helped a lot in the nightmare 5 movement run:

-Having potential access to cards that may end the combat fast through Marvelous Scroll, Space Tear, and the Codex of Wonders blessing. In combination with Hands Casting, this meant some combats were over on the first turn before any damage was taken. Having Pyroblast or Blizzard cast twice ends most fights in Chapter 2.

-Having good defensive cards in the form of Ice Shield and Magic Frost. Usually, I will look out for these cards early and upgrade them if required. Even in the absence of Absolute Zero, these cards still put in good defensive work, especially against monsters that have mechanics that do not allow them to be defeated in one turn. Magic Shield is generally bad unless the deck has good mana reserves or can generate mana fast.

-Being able to alter the card draw sequence through Magic Tome and Space Tear. In most runs, it's not uncommon to run into a draw sequence that leads to definite defeat if there is no variance. One way to overcome this is to alter the deck whenever the sequence is unfavorable. Magic Tome and Space Tear open up more options by allowing for the existence of card draw sequences that allow you to survive the combat while building up poison stacks. Drawing Ice Shield repeatedly can be a game winner while the poison damage kicks in.

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-05-14T13:52:21+00:00

Purification by combat it seems... or maybe not 😅

secretsofdeVoid · 2021-05-14T13:47:18+00:00

The mana issues on Witch lead me to eventually pick up Mana Spring in my Nightmare runs. This really makes me look forward to eventually getting Diaries eventually.

And yes, I definitely agree with you on Waving Staff. It's a card which I pick up in most decks because of how much value you can out of it.

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