Is Every Game of Slay the Spire Winnable?

June 7, 2022 10:43 AM

There is a lot of randomness in a game of Slay the Spire. From the cards and relics offered, to the potions dropped, to the map layouts and random encounters, very little remains the same between two playthroughs. This is part of the beauty of the game, forcing you to adapt and make the most out of the resources you have been given in each new attempt. However, with such randomness comes a natural question: can every run of Slay the Spire be won? In this article, I will discuss what I believe to be the current state of knowledge about the answer to this question.

A post by ForgottenArbiter about the deck-building roguelike Slay the Spire.

Follow-up: An extremely unwinnable Slay the Spire seed, and how to find more, by gamerpuppy and ForgottenArbiter.

posted by smcg (30 comments total)

I just returned to playing Slay the Spire, and this article has failed to answer my question regarding finding seeds that a very poor player can win. I mean, at some point I beat the game with all the characters and even moved up some Ascension levels, but apparently I've forgotten everything.
posted by nubs at 11:15 AM on June 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

I would simply play optimally!
posted by aubilenon at 11:19 AM on June 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

I installed this game last week thanks to the video game thread and I am TERRIBLE at it and yet the desire to play consumes me all day long. I've never played a deck building game before and I'm having a blast learning by trial and error the best cards to play and the best order in which to play them.

All of this to say they're all basically unwinnable to this noob.
posted by kimberussell at 11:42 AM on June 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

I was having a heck of a time with this game until I listened to a friend's advice and stopped ignoring Strength boost cards. After incorporating this tip into my gameplay I have now completed a full run of StS exactly ONCE. Success!
posted by joelhunt at 11:49 AM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I actually don't play at all optimally, and at Ascension level 20 I feel I have to start-scum my way to victory.
posted by aubilenon at 11:54 AM on June 7, 2022

I love deckbuilding games and spend more time than I should on MTG Arena; in the world of solo deckbuilding games, I had a solid amount of time with Slay the Spire but my go-to for a long time has been Griftlands, which I find much more interesting and rewarding on replay -- after a few plays I do tend to quick-click through all the dialogue, but it's got excellent characters and world-building, the interrelation between the playable characters is really interesting, and I love the "combat vs. negotiation decks" systems.

I've torn through a bunch of others -- Monster Train is a hoot but I got bored after a few cycles; the difficulty curve of Against the Moon made it a bit un-fun after a while, I got decent mileage out of Nowhere Prophet and might pick it up again, and Roguebook is a good time (but I got it really early, and I think it might be priced too high for its value now). Deep Sky Derelicts took a chunk of time but I kind of just lost interest after a while. I think I'm too stupid for Cultist Simulator.

Looking at this in one go is kind of depressing; maybe I should have learned to play the piano or built a birdhouse or something. Oh well.
posted by Shepherd at 11:54 AM on June 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

Absolutely love Slay the Spire! I remember spending dozens and dozens of runs to get that first win, and having a hit rate not much better than that for ages. I mean, it's still not that much better than that, but I'm mostly playing high teens ascension now. Keep the faith, you can totally do it even if it feels impossible right now!

Shout out to the recently released Downfall mod that I discovered when the StS devs endorsed it. A new character with some new mechanics, and an entire new game mode where you play as the bosses and descend to kill the adventurers!
posted by Dysk at 12:05 PM on June 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

I didn't think it was generally known that the Silent was the most difficult character to play, I thought it was just me. Cause I always try to set up a silly shiv or poison deck and end up dying on the second floor, because it rarely comes together.
posted by meowzilla at 12:14 PM on June 7, 2022

Silent was the most difficult character to play

Oh maybe that’s why I have to start scum! But also because I’m not playing optimally, apparently
posted by aubilenon at 12:19 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I play a lot of StS; I have Crohn's disease. So, like, an inordinate amount of StS. And I've developed a playstyle that makes me happy.

I do Endless runs to charge up the Searing Blow card, which can be upgraded any number of times. Then I use Loose Brick and stash it for a future character.

And then I do an absolutely ridiculous run where my character can do absurd amounts of damage. Over three thousand points of damage from one card is hilarious.
posted by MrVisible at 12:24 PM on June 7, 2022 [7 favorites]

This is an interesting question for many roguelike or roguelike-like games. I think the general assumption is “maybe not quite in theory but pretty close” (how close depending on the game and the starting kit) as the best players can win a streak of a few dozen in a row in some games.
posted by atoxyl at 1:09 PM on June 7, 2022

Wait, the Silent is the most difficult to play? I'd have thought the Watcher for sure. Silent feels like the easiest to me ( though granted, I'm hardly an expert.)
posted by Navelgazer at 1:14 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yeah, Watcher definitely feels more difficult and complex than Silent to me. Defect does as well, I think.
posted by Dysk at 1:29 PM on June 7, 2022

Yeah, Watcher definitely feels more difficult and complex than Silent to me. Defect does as well, I think.

Agreed - and I also find the Silent the most enjoyable one to play, out of the 4.
posted by nubs at 2:20 PM on June 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Quoted from the article:

Ironclad, Defect, and Watcher have the advantage over Silent that their starting decks and relics contain much more damage, and therefore early elite fights are less dangerous.

I actually found the Ironclad hardest to play at the endgame - it's too easy to avoid all the cards that actually help you scale as the game progresses, and after an easy first floor you can't do damage quickly enough. Defect seems to scale naturally as you get more orb slots and power up your orbs; Silent scales naturally with poison, or with shivs combined with draw / buff based on number of attack cards; and for Watcher I just tried to stay alive until I could play a Deva Form. But maybe I don't know anything since I never got past Ascension 3 or so.
posted by meowzilla at 2:49 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Yeah I see now what they mean by "hardest" in this context, which has little to do with how li'l Acension-level-2 me is playing the game.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:58 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Meowzilla, I think sometimes you would not want to max out your orb slots for Defect, because as you probably already know, evoking orbs gives you more damage than their passive abilities. I've definitely had runs where my combination of cards meant that I inflicted more damage/accrued more defense points by not expanding my slots. This is especially true if you are channeling a lot of dark orbs, I think!

And this whole chunk of text above is how I know I'm a little too attached to Slay the Spire on my phone.
posted by seapig at 4:13 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Try out Fights in Tight Spaces when you need a fresh deck builder. Very strong slay the spire vibes.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 5:54 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh man, the Downfall mod is hilariously fun. Getting to use some of the abilities that have been used on you for so long is satisfying. Also, some of the interactions of the various enemy characters with the events from the regular game were very cleverly thought out - Hexaghost on Falling, Slime Boss on the Scrap Ooze, etc.

For those looking to have some fun in ways that can be less stress, I offer the following:

Slay the Spire (PC) Pandora Seeds

So the community basically determined which seeds will offer you a Pandora's Box (remove all Strikes and Defends and replace them with other cards) in the "exchange your starting relic for a random boss relic" option at the beginning of the run. And there are some where you can get nothing but a bunch of copies of a single card.

I highly recommend the CLAW IS LAW seeds, where you get nothing but Claw on the Defect. All Pressure Points on Watcher is pretty fun, etc.
posted by Tknophobia at 7:16 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've been trying to beat ascension level 17 for the ironclad for like a month now. I think it's time to start making spreadsheets to min max the problem, but so far I have been too lazy.

The ascension curve is pretty gentle. Most steps either a) make things very slightly harder overall, or b) reduce the utility of relying really heavily on a single strategy. For whatever reason I found level 14 to be really hard, and my progress has slowed down enormously since getting there...
posted by kaibutsu at 7:31 PM on June 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have the highest ascension on the Silent. Playing more cards feels more fun. My favorite is probably the defect though. Really excited to see Downfall (thanks Dysk), I'm not much of a gamer community member, so I hadn't heard about it.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 11:46 PM on June 7, 2022

I first got this game on switch just after our kid was born. I was waking up at 5, and would play until everyone else woke up. A few months in, chatting with some friends about our longest playing times on switch, i guessed i might have about 80 hours on StS. I checked. The actual number was 300.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:11 AM on June 8, 2022

I've heard very good things about Signs of the Sojourner, which is in this genre but your cards are conversational gambits rather than attacks. It does some very interesting things with the way it uses familiar mechanics to model conversations.

Re: Cultist Simulator: the creative force behind that game has a history.
posted by Merus at 2:32 AM on June 8, 2022

I picked up Slay the Spire again when I started dating my GF; we like to play through Random modes with modded characters.
posted by caphector at 10:36 AM on June 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've torn through a bunch of others -- Monster Train is a hoot but I got bored after a few cycles; the difficulty curve of Against the Moon made it a bit un-fun after a while, I got decent mileage out of Nowhere Prophet and might pick it up again, and Roguebook is a good time (but I got it really early, and I think it might be priced too high for its value now). Deep Sky Derelicts took a chunk of time but I kind of just lost interest after a while. I think I'm too stupid for Cultist Simulator.

I actually like Monster Train best out of these, er, Spireslikes, but I've also enjoyed Legend of Keepers, which puts a Dungeon Keeper spin on things where you need to defend against invading heroes, and Across the Obelisk, which adds in some narrative content. Iratus: Lord of the Dead also kind of scratches that itch for me, though technically it's not a deckbuilder per se.
posted by whir at 11:16 AM on June 8, 2022

I played a shit-ton of StS at the beginning of the pandemic, mostly while listening to jorbs on YouTube explaining how to actually win. I enjoyed his videos and actually got a lot better at the game, although I still haven't gotten all the achievements (which is always my ultimate goal.)
posted by restless_nomad at 11:34 AM on June 8, 2022

Roguebook is available on Switch now and is the only non-Slay the Spire roguelike deckbuilder that I’ve been able to play long enough before my brain goes “but wouldn’t you be having more fun right now if you were playing Slay the Spire instead.” But it feels both loose gameplay-wise (which I read is an intentional design choice) and in terms of performance and UI whereas on any platform the UX of Slay the Spire is so smooth and responsive and the combination of that with this super elegant UI design that is such a model of clarity that it really does help create such a particularly pleasing flow state.

If you’re reading this and haven’t played it but are intrigued, it’s great on mobile or tablet and is also available on basically every platform
posted by raisindebt at 8:34 PM on June 14, 2022

It isn't exactly a deckbuilder, but I've been loving Backpack Hero, which combines many of StS's mechanics with a packing-puzzle element. Basically your hero (an adorable mouse) moves through encounters on a map using items in a backpack with a small number of slots. Every time you level up, the backpack gets more slots. You choose which slots to expand to, so every build is different (wide, narrow backpack? square backpack? Diagonal?). Items can interact with each other, depending on how they are placed. For example: this gem gives bonus damage to weapons placed diagonally to it, or this item makes adjacent foods heal more health points, or this item gives you extra actions if nothing is next to it and takes actions away if something is next to it.

And the game is free to play at the link above! It is still being developed, but the current build works beautifully.
posted by Mournful Bagel Song at 7:01 AM on June 15, 2022 [2 favorites]

I only just realised the other day that there's an Android port. Having done a few runs on my phone now, it's a touch fiddly, but it's still Spire so it's awesome.
posted by Dysk at 4:07 PM on June 15, 2022

(oh yeah, my entire recent run of Spire has been thanks to the android port...)
posted by kaibutsu at 8:28 PM on June 15, 2022