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Guide to Slay the Spire with the best tips and tricks

Guide to Slay the Spire with the best tips and tricks
Leri Koen

Leri Koen

  • Updated:

UpdatedCreation of an extensive guide

This strategy game called Slay the Spire from Mega Crit Games is ideal for those who enjoy the combination of rogue-like elements with card game mechanics. The game takes place within the Spire that is inhabited by strange creatures and powerful relics. You have to try and make it to the top by collecting your unique deck and battling many different enemies. But how do you make it to the top of Spire in this game?

In this Slay the Spire guide, we share more about the game, the best strategies, differences between the characters, and more.

What Is Slay the Spire?

Slay the Spire is a strategy game that fuses card games and rogue-like elements to create a stunning single-player deck-building game. The game was developed by American gaming studio Mega Crit Games and is available on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. 

There are four characters you can choose from to traverse the Spire. Each character has its strengths, and the decks you build for each one will also be unique. As you travel up the Spire, you will have to battle many different enemies, which is where the card game elements come into play. 

The game is also procedurally-generated, meaning that each instance is different from the last, meaning that no two games are ever the same. This gives you a great opportunity to play with all three characters and even reply with the same character for a completely different experience.

Guide to Slay the Spire With the Best Tips and Tricks

Slay the Spire Best Strategies

One of the most challenging things about Slay the Spire is that there is no set strategy to guarantee a run to the top. Each run is completely different, with a different map, different cards and decks, and different enemies. This makes planning a strategy from the start almost impossible.

Instead, you have to think on your feet and handle each situation as it comes up while still also thinking about the path ahead. Throughout the game, you will have to conserve as much health as possible while not being afraid to spend energy during your turn as you travel through the Spire. 

A good strategy when starting a route is to plan carefully. There are six different room types; monsters, elites (mini-bosses), treasure chests, merchants, and mystery; that you can visit. Plan a route that doesn’t have too many battle rooms (monsters and elites) following each other to conserve your health. Also, aim to hit as many of the other rooms as possible along your journey.

Defect Vs. Silent Vs. Ironclad Vs. Watcher

There are four different classes that you can play within Slay the Spire. Choosing which one is the best is a very personal choice that is based on your preferred playing style. As you gain experience with the different characters and get to know their individual strengths and weaknesses, you’ll be able to beat the game with all the classes.

Slay the Spire: Defect Guide

The Defect is a robot character designed around engine building. While it takes a while to get your character strong, you have the ability to create an all-around developed character. The Defect has a very fundamental design which makes it a great character to provide playstyle flexibility.

Slay the Spire: Silent Guide

The Silent is one of the most popular characters in Slay the Spire. This character has a great deck boost that allows you to draw 12 cards from the start, which gives you a lot more options early in the game. This character also has a decent mix of block, attack, and status cards to use. This character is best used by players who enjoy a more stealthy approach, but the development of this character can be a bit slow compared to the others.

Slay the Spire: Ironclad Guide

The Ironclad is the starting character for most players of Slay the Spire. It is a solid character with a lot of strength and attack. If you are an attack-first-strategize-later type of player, then you will enjoy the Ironclads immense attack power. There isn’t a lot of variation with Ironclad, but you can develop a truly formidable character with the right deck.

Slay the Spire: The Watcher Guide

The Watcher wasn’t part of the early release of Slay the Spire, but it has quickly grown into one of the most popular characters. While starting with this character can sometimes be challenging as she is not very strong initially, but if you bear through it, you can have a very strong Watcher on your hands. If you enjoy playing in a ninja-monk style fashion, you’ll love The Watcher.

Slay the Spire Achievements

In our Slay the Spire achievements guide, we’ll be sharing some of the achievements you can get in the game. If you enjoy earning achievements, you’re in luck. Slay the Spire has 46 different ones to achieve.

They’re worth a total of 1070 gamerscore points and can take up to 200 hours to unlock all of them in the base game. Although the achievements don’t unlock anything special, they do contribute towards a saved file’s completion score.

Here are some of the achievements include the following:

  • Shrug it off: Completing a battle with only one health point remaining
  • Come at me: Win a battle without playing an attack
  • The pact: Use 20 cards in a single battle
  • Powerful: Have ten or more buffs active in one battle
  • You are nothing: Defeat a boss on the first turn

There are many more achievements to unlock. Some of them are easy, and you’ll start earning them simply by battling. However, some of the achievements take a bit more finesse and planning to earn.

How to Play Slay the Spire: Tricks and Tips

Now that we’ve covered the basics of the game, here are some more Slay the Spire tips and tricks to get you started with the game on the best possible footing. May the cards be forever in your favor.

Understand the pros and cons of each class

While you’ll likely have a favorite class, there is no doubt you’ll end up playing each of them at some point. It’s important to understand what each one is capable of, and where they struggle compared to the others. For example, the Silent often has bursts of damage through poisoning the enemy or getting free daggers. The trade-off for her, however, is being rather weak defensively and relying on quick kills to survive.

Alternatively, the Ironclad can build blocks or strength and has a healing starting relic, so he can keep safe while applying his burst. The Defect is a little different than these two, focusing on long battles and manipulating his orbs to attack when needed. Each of these classes has unique cards and starting relics, so you’ll need to practice a bit to fully understand what they can do.

Plan ahead

Question marks and campfires are typically the best way to take at all stages in the game. Try to plan your routes to encounter as many of these as possible. Early in the game, you won’t be able to take on many elite monsters, so you should avoid fighting too many. However, once you’re more powerful, these can be very useful since they give you a relic. Keep that in mind when you’re planning your path.

Farm for relics, not cards

Once you have a strong deck strategy, you can stop getting cards for the most part. In fact, you may even want to get rid of some early cards that no longer fit into your strategy. Deck synergy is important in this game, and if you have a huge deck then it’s hard for everything to be beneficial to each other. Just because a card is good doesn’t mean it’s necessary for your deck.

Alternatively, most relics are inherently useful. While some come with downsides (often boss relics), most are fully beneficial. Take advantage of this. When you are shopping, you’re more likely to find use in a relic or card removal, rather than buying an actual card.

Be careful about the risks you take

Risk-taking is necessary for a game that’s partially based on random chance. However, you don’t want to go too far with it. For example, you typically don’t want to forgo your starting relic at the whale, since it’s powerful and you may end up with something useless. That’s not to say that you need to play safe all the time.

One risk you should take pretty frequently is upgrading your cards at campfires, rather than healing. This is because you’ll be automatically healed after each boss, and the upgrade is more valuable, assuming you can survive. The only time you should take the heal is when you absolutely need it.

Be ready to adapt your strategy

You’ll want to start building a strategy early on. For example, you may get access to some really strong block cards as the Ironclad early on in a run. You can build a strategy around this so your cards can strengthen each other. Be careful though, because you won’t always be able to stick with one strategy.

Be ready to adjust a bit when necessary, and make some sacrifices if you need to. Slay the Spire is all about adapting to your situation, and the sooner you learn how to, the sooner you’ll reach the top!

Leri Koen

Leri Koen

Born and raised in South Africa I am the mother of two busy kids and one loving husband. Since leaving school I immediately started working and have been involved in many different industries where I learned a wide range of skills. Some of my skills range from marketing to management and even teaching special needs children, particularly those with severe developmental delays. I am a self-proclaimed holiday nut, taking any chance I can get to decorate and celebrate major holidays such as Easter, Halloween and Christmas, often planning these months in advance! I have a wide range of passions that I persue (as often as I can) such as reading, writing, bonsai, crafting, creating natural beauty products, listening to music and playing games (prefered platforms being PC and Xbox).

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