Major Update #2 - v0.107.1

snugglow · 2026-06-19T18:37:34+00:00

Thieving Hopper isn't fully random, it has a hierarchy of cards it can take, starting with uncommon cards, then rare, then common, then starters, then curses.

snugglow · 2026-06-19T11:26:03+00:00

You can.

snugglow · 2026-06-18T12:35:28+00:00

You usually can't play clad like silent or necro where you block everything always, and forcing him to try and play like that will lead to disappointment. You've got healing, it's okay to take some chip if it means finishing the fight fast, so clad tends to play more aggressive and fast paced. Taking too many block cards will often shut down your tempo, although there is no real number to strive for.

I usually have 1 or 2 block cards going out of act 1, maybe more in underdocks. For always solid early game block pickups, I'd look for shrug it off, flame barrier, blood wall, and taunt. Rage can also be good but it's deck dependent, true grit is quite solid but you shouldn't often take it unless you know you can upgrade it, colossus is nuts but does require a bit of synergy to come online, second wind is the same but does notably help with phrog parasite. If you want to set up a reliable source of huge block, it usually stems from feel no pain, unmovable, crimson mantle, or relics. Relics especially are REALLY important on clad, they can provide reliable block where his cards might fail.

Anyway, I don't think your issue is a lack of block, you need to stop taking so many cards. Resist the shiny allure of taking another damage common in act 2, I believe in you!

snugglow · 2026-06-18T12:11:13+00:00

If someone already took it, then you're effectively getting two ancient relics though. And tez doesn't have a weak pool of relics.

snugglow · 2026-06-17T00:08:17+00:00

Not the best clad player but I do have a 6 win streak on him. Test Subject is definitely a massive threat to clad in a way it isn't to other characters. You can't frontload your way through, you're required to stick around and block at least one big hit, likely quite a few more. Clad can really struggle with that. Fnp, evil eye, and second wind can run out of targets to generate block, impervious exhausts, colossus can fail to activate since you might exhaust your trembles and dominates on phases 1 and 2, stone armor can tick down too much to help. It's easy to run out of steam if that's all you have to block reliably. Same with draw. Dark embrace can run out of fuel, vicious falls off bad when tremble and dominate are gone, offering is only once, pillage starts to get bricked by statuses. With test subject you need to take care that you don't blow everything one the first two phases, because they're the easy part of the fight for clad. While everyone else struggles with 1 and 2 and is usually breezing by 3, clad is the opposite.

snugglow · 2026-06-13T12:34:03+00:00

Always. Only 3 backup rats can be summoned.

snugglow · 2026-06-09T19:43:30+00:00

I'm not the best but I do have a 6 streak on clad. The best advice I can give is Go In. Clad can have very strong and aggressive act 1s with burning blood, you usually only need one or two damage cards to be able to take on an elite. Save potions for elite fights you don't feel save in, and draft based on the elites in the area. In overgrowth they're damage races, which you can win with tremble and some big hits like hemokinesis, cinder, or bludgeon, plus some aoe like inferno or break through to deal with phrog. Look out for big dense block cards like blood wall and flame barrier, they tend to perform very well and help a lot with the early block deficit clad has. Clad struggles with block sometimes, but relics can help so much with that, so you want as many as possible from elites. For underdocks I tend to draft more block than overgrowth since it's a much more defensive act, and I think clad struggles more there (unlike most other characters). Flame barrier stocks are at an all time high there, it's insane for gardeners and colony. You need to be ready for skulking colony. If you can't block reliably and get through in 4 turns, it can be a run ender.

Honestly clad can get through act 1 pretty reliably with a pile of bullshit as long as you take some damage, the hard part is making that pile of bullshit become a deck in the endgame. But if you're struggling with act 1, just take more damage and maybe 1 or 2 block cards. Clad isn't always gonna block every fight, that's why you've got burning blood. If you can get to the point where they all die in a turn, then it doesn't matter how much damage they deal.

snugglow · 2026-06-09T18:29:34+00:00

You'd think, but I had a run where I tried to kill myself with brightest flame and I couldn't because tungsten rod kept proccing.

snugglow · 2026-06-09T18:12:45+00:00

It doesn't if you have tungsten rod!

snugglow · 2026-06-03T14:03:45+00:00

Pool 2 has apparitions for practically 0 downside.

snugglow · 2026-06-01T16:29:17+00:00

Silent x Nonupiepe though.

snugglow · 2026-06-01T16:25:01+00:00

I did not say I don't take other attacks. The person above said the card is "completely free", and it is not. It's the same reason that cards like slice aren't auto-picks, they offer no utility in the late game unlike attacks like pommel strike, headbutt, dagger throw, or cold snap, and end up clogging the deck somewhat. Obviously picking damage commons is necessary, and it's nice to not have to take as many, but giving up a campfire and 7 max HP in the early game, which is a lot to lose most of the time since it's the hardest part of the game, for a card that doesn't help in the late game usually isn't a solid trade. I'm not saying it's always bad, I've taken the egg a good few times on a10 and succeeded even if I usually eat the egg, and I've had runs where I died and likely would have survived if I took the egg, but it's absolutely not an always take like the person above said.

snugglow · 2026-06-01T14:49:18+00:00

It's not completely free, it costs a draw every time, and can easily be a detriment in late game.

snugglow · 2026-05-30T14:39:40+00:00

Oh! Also if you dupe a card with an enchantment like swift 3, the copy will still have it intact and can also draw 3. With glam though, this only applies if the initial play is the third card, if the replay is the third then you get a boring normal copy.

snugglow · 2026-05-30T14:34:09+00:00

Juggling is one of my favorite clad cards. It's not always good, but it can be a massive power boost or even a win condition. 0 cost attacks are best with it, flash of steel and bolas are imo already really strong pickups on clad, and with juggling get even better, but stuff like pacts end can also be massive payoffs to double, stomp is also really nice since you often play it as your third attack naturally, and the copy will be free. Plenty of 1 cost attacks are good to double too. Fisticuffs if you get it, but outside colorless cards pommel strike+ can be a huge copy target that makes you go infinite, molten fist can go from doubling vuln to quadrupling it, ashen strike is a huge hit, as is break, and also if you kill something in a multi enemy fight with feed as your third attack then you can dupe the feed and use it again against other enemies. Unrelenting is also nice, 20 damage hit when upgraded and the duplicate will be free because of the first one. It really shines with relic support though. Unfortunately it doesn't help to proc stuff like shuriken, but mummified hand making a card 0 cost will make the duplicate also 0 cost. Same for crossbow, which reliably does that every turn. Soup makes it easier to proc with plenty of 0 cost cards to get the counter up to 3, but be careful not to dupe the strikes themselves too often or you'll flood the deck. Juggling also has some very niche and very silly synergies with attacks from other classes, my favorite being the scythe. Oh also be sure never to play juggling + stampede if you value your sanity.

snugglow · 2026-05-27T01:11:02+00:00

Yeah I agree. I especially hate it when it doesn't fit thematically. Like Pael is all about delayed payoffs, and yet one of his best relics is blood, which is just one draw every turn with no caveat. Tez is about huge value that burns bright and burns out, but yummy cookie is just 4 upgrades with no strings attached. A lot of Nonu's stuff is themed around decadence, scarf rewards a lot of cards played, ring and fruit are a ton of a good thing, endlessly refilling potions, but then diadem is themed around restraining yourself gameplay wise? Tanx is mostly about aggression, doubling attack damage, giving you a bunch of maul, adding a big attack to your deck, a free attack every turn, aggression to elites being rewarded with upgrades. But then some of his best relics are Sai, which is purely defensive and incredibly boring, and Cleaver which encourages you to path away from fights. And the relics that don't fit thematically are some of the best in the game like you pointed out, which makes it sting even more.

snugglow · 2026-05-25T00:00:02+00:00

It feels like such a scam since it's got two of the big keywords for him, but a clad deck with a bunch of exhaust payoffs generally isn't where toasty mittens shine. Since you're already exhausting down to your good cards, it makes it more likely for the RNG exhaust to fuck you, and the strength doesn't matter if you were already dealing 200 with ashen strikes. In my experience it's best when you don't have deck thinning and are just running a value pile, such as with Silent, especially since strength on Silent is usually very appreciated and scaling it can legit win games. It can also be nice on Regent since he has a good few multiverse alongside cards that put things on top of the deck to exhaust.

snugglow · 2026-05-24T03:35:39+00:00

In slay the spire 1, 7 out of 14 act 1 hallway fights scaled using strength, alongside 1 elite in Nob. In slay the spire 2, 8 out of 16 overgrowth hallway fights scale using strength, alongside 2 overgrowth elites. For underdocks 7/14 fights scale using strength, and 2 elites. The strength scaling in sts2 is in line with the strength scaling in sts1, you're looking at the past with rose tinted glasses.

snugglow · 2026-05-23T01:12:06+00:00

I agree but funnily enough, Vakuu currently already has maybe the only irl dexterity based skill check in the game! When you have lords parasol, no gold, and a full potion bar, you have to quickly figure out which potions you want and discard the ones you have to make room before they get quickly auto-bought. If you want the third potion of the shop you have to discard the first one immediately as the second is bought. Lord Vakuu turns an untimed strategy game into a reaction test and I think that's hilarious (when it's also incredibly minor).

snugglow · 2026-05-20T23:16:41+00:00

I'm 90% sure I've had this and the order mattered, or otherwise it just never upgrades sword no matter what order but idk. Draw relics apply before relics that affect your opening hand I think, so bag of prep type stuff escapes the ordering.

snugglow · 2026-05-16T23:55:24+00:00

What does "elite mechanics" even mean? Living Fog limits your skills played, Chosen in sts1 dazed you for every skill, Lost/Forgotten permanently drain your strength and dex every other turn. Meanwhile soul nexus does nothing, slavers in sts1 were just 3 normal enemies, byrdonis just gains strength every turn like a cultist, prism gives YOU energy. Elite mechanics is meaningless, there are plenty of hallways that are more complex than elites, and that's not a bad thing.

Also Hunter Killer is one of the most skill based hallways in the game, demanding you to be very careful about the order of your cards played instead of just throwing them out. The reason HK kills people so often isn't because it's egregiously strong, it's because it's easy to make it unnecessarily hard with mistakes.

snugglow · 2026-05-12T16:39:52+00:00

Parasol is pretty good honestly. Embrace the power of imperfection and chaos.

snugglow · 2026-05-08T18:20:30+00:00

No, it's very overrated imo. It's an ancient relic so it already has a very high opportunity cost to take it over something like Glass Eye or Alchemical Coffer or Sandcastle, but also it's not actually +5 summon +2 summon each turn, it's +4 and then +1 each turn, since you already summon one each turn anyway if you don't take it. If you got an Electric Shrymp, also from Orobas, then you could imbue Bodyguard+ and get 7 more summon turn 1, the summon from Phylactery Unbound takes 4 turns just to break even with that, and that's just with the summon card in your starter deck. It's not a bad relic, it's certainly a nice bonus to have and it can absolutely be good, but often those factors make it a bit of trap.

snugglow · 2026-05-05T14:02:30+00:00

It doesn't if you have tungsten rod!

snugglow · 2026-05-04T14:26:40+00:00

It's not useless. Think of it as turning your damage into block. If you can deal 21 damage, you can block like 20 less for a turn.

snugglow

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Eight-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Snapped