Intro to Slay the Spire II + My First A20 Win!
Original image made in Canva using a screenshot from within the game and the official announcement image by Mega Crit Games.
Greetings, travelers!
I have been writing bits of this post for more than three week now, but unfortunately there are things beyond our control that we have to cope with. And if there's something of good in it at all, is that while I was writing the original only part of this post, about my first win in Slay the Spite in the Ascension 20 difficulty, the creators announced about 10 days ago that the sequel will be officially launched in 2025! This news really hyped me, and sparked in me the idea to add to this post information about the announcement trailer and its Steam page, which you can acces here.
Slay the Spire is a revolutionary game, that was beta launched in late 2017 and officially released in January 2019, by Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti, who started the independent game studio Mega Crit Games together. I stated that it's revolutionary because it created a whole new genre of games, combining Rogue-like features with Dynamic Deck Building, which results in a really deep strategical game, both in the micro interactions in fights and encounters, as in the macro developments in constructing your deck of cards and gathering special relics that give you unique powers and buffs. Another outstanding feature is its Intent System which allows players to see enemies' next moves, thereby strategizing in advance to mitigate incoming attacks or maximize their offensive tactics.
I've been a card game enthusiast my whole life. Since playing a lot of card and board games my whole childhood, to playing online poker and competing in bridge throughout college. But a card game that really had an impact in my life was Hearthstone, a game that also inspired Yano and Giovannetti to create Slay the Spire. It's been some years since I stopped with the first game, but one day last year, when I was visiting a dear friend who also played HS with me, he mentioned that there was a famous card game available in his PS Plus subscription, and installed StS for us to play in his PS5. We spent about seven hours straight playing the game, and I fell in love.
My biggest demise was around Christmas, when I got the Google Play Pass free trial month, which made possible for me to play StS in my phone. I have since accrued more than 150 hours of play time, and I plan on beating the highest difficulty, Ascension 20, with each of the four base characters. Whenever you finish a run, beating the third act boss (or bosses in A20), you unlock the next Ascension Level. Therefore, when you first start the game, you're in Ascension Zero, and you have to beat the game 20 times in total to get to the maximum level, and another time to win in this difficulty. It was a really difficult and fun grind, that led to my first A20 win two weeks ago, on the 7th of this month, with the first character, the Ironchad.
Having said all that, I hope you now have some introductory knowledge about Slay the Spire that makes this post in some way interesting for you. There's a special mode called Daily Run Challenge, in which there's a different custom seed run each day for you to challenge your skills and knowledge of the game in different and unique situations. I even made a short series of seven in a row Daily Runs here some months ago, that maybe I can get back to someday.
All of the above images have been published by Mega Crit Games in the official Steam page of the game, and all of the rights are reserved to them. I used them here to illustrate what the current state if StSII might be looking like, and for players of the first game to compare the features and art style between games.
Now that I have provided useful information, I want to also use this post for my own personal gratitude in registering these images from my first run in which I achieved my first A20 win.
In my opinion and gameplay style, the most consistent and winnable strategy for the Ironclad is combining exhaust and block, in order to prevent damage and deal ridiculous amounts with the Body Slam attack.
The final bosses in this run were the edgy polyhedra and the evil birb boss, and I was fortunate enough to demolish them with my Body Slam.
I had gotten all three keys, and entered Act 4 to fight the Spire.
Thanks to well laid plans and good thinking, I was also able to Body Slam this mthfckr and saved the day by Slaying the Spire!
Above are my final scores distributed, and below you can find my complete registered run log to be eternalized here.
I hope you have enjoyed reading, and be sure to try out the game if you can!! I promise you it is a really unique experience. May our week be great, wherever you are, whenever you might be reading me, I hope it's absolutely fantastic :)
Upvoted. Thank You for sending some of your rewards to @null. It will make Steem stronger.