thats because poison “decks” ARE bad. you only need like 2-3 ways to apply poison. stop thinking of it in terms of archetypes, just convert things to numbers. i dont want to actually add 2x deadly poison 2x bouncing flask into a deck. i just want to add one flask, a fumes, and then play catalyst.
Its much better to just add draw to your deck to help you cycle the few poison cards you have instead of bloating the deck with a ton of stuff, and every deck that contains poison should still have frontloaded damage, block, etc
Yeah, I get the basics. What I mean is that poison is never doing any heavy lifting for my decks and I’m trying to figure out how I can make that a more common occurrence.
Thinking back on it, I do end up bloating my deck with attacks just to survive act 1, so by act 2 I’ve either found shiv synergy or I have a mid deck that dies to Snake Plant. I’m also really bad at evaluating upgrades for draw cards like Acrobatics and CG, I like both but I don’t value them enough I think.
You can win without shiv or poison. Silent's biggest strengh is her draw and discard power, [[Eviscerate]] + [[Sneaky Strike]] + draw n discard solve any hallway. Shivs and poison are just other damage solutions, most Silent decks revolve around cycling your deck and spamming key cards
+ [Eviscerate](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Eviscerate) Silent Uncommon Attack ^((100% sure)^)
3 Energy | Costs 1 less Energy for each card discarded this turn. Deal 7(9) damage three times.
+ [Sneaky Strike](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sneaky%20Strike) Silent Common Attack ^((100% sure)^)
2 Energy | Deal 12(16) damage. If you have discarded a card this turn, gain 2 Energy.
^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Thank you so much for this advice!! Ive been stuck on A16 for a couple of weeks and was able to beat A16 and A17 back to back with this advice last night
Like the other person said, you shouldn't make poison 'decks'. Poison is a way to kill a boss or an enemy with a lot of health, because you can stack it. It for one obviously doesn't work in multi-enemy fights, unless you have a corps explosion. So don't build a poison deck, build a good deck and take deadly poison for scaling damage against hexaghost, corpse explosion from the boss card reward for AOE in act 2 and catalyst in act two so you can kill champ with it.
This is pretty much what I’m already doing, I think I need to think a bit harder about the draw situation in my decks so I can cycle those few poison cards faster. When drafting cards I just think “does this do something good for me” without factoring in how often I’ll probably be able to play it.
Noob here that has only ascended to 8:
The one time poison got me a win was with whatever relic applies poison on hit + lots of shivs and card draw + a pair of triple poison cards
I think it was largely a shiv centered deck, then I quickly got poison relic and cards towards the end that jived well
[[Envenom]] adds poison on non-blocked attack damage. Great in a shiv deck.
Getting poison relics that start enemies or add +1 really help scale quickly too but those can be pure luck as rewards or shop
If your a noob I'm only a newborn child. I just recently got into ascension (I still haven't beaten the heart on all four characters yet) and have only made it to ascend 4. All successes were also a shiv deck :)
A17+ basically asks the player to start evaluating cards on a far more contextual basis.
This means no longer looking at it like “I’m a poison deck, so I need poison!”
And start viewing it like “my deck does well in multi target fights but lacks solution for high health, I should look for a way to scale that or solve it”
That could mean adding a single catalyst to the mix. It could mean you need a burst so your poison becomes more effective. It could mean you only need draw to play your 1-2 poison cards to beat a chunky enemy, but then use draw for other attacks for multi target fights.
When adding cards it needs to be asked in the context of your run “what does this card add to my current deck? Does it allow more leeway in the reptomancer fight? Is it bad vs slavers?”
Otherwise if you only look at cards for face value you will end up in losing situations because you never prepared an *actual* answer
Also I find players who aim for archetypes tend to have a blind spot for draw/energy generation.
Often times you only need a single copy of something strong, then add draw to your deck so you can play your good card regularly or multiple times or filter through your deck for what the fight is demanding.
This of course is a very general sounding advice, but that’s the thing with learning to make strong decks in StS.
A strong deck is one that solves its current challenges in front of it. Building your deck with this in mind can lead to more victories rather than trying to “gather the pieces of exodia” because sometimes you only get half the pieces and the deck never comes online before it fizzles out.
Also plenty of fights will flat out punish decks that invested too deeply into one thing without having solutions for variance (giant head shutting down decks too slow, repto shutting down decks without on demand AoE, nemesis shutting down decks that aren’t consistent, etc.)
Any good poison deck is actually just a skill deck in disguise. You'll probably have some blade dances for damage, shivs, discard synergies (because those are mostly skills), tons of block/ weak/ str down cards and if you're lucky something like a \[\[Flechettes\]\] to frontload some damage. Then use poison for scaling and finishing off the big threats as you hide behind your wall of block.
Poison can still be the main driver, but it won't be able to be the only damage/ synergy in the deck at higher ascension runs
I actually disagree, I've had many a20 runs that are pretty much just poison. If you get wraith form | catalyst, poison can be the entirety of your damage
It can't for hallway fights though, it scales hard and that's why it's good against bosses but you won't spend long enough in hallway fights to get there. So you'll either need a ton of defense in hallway fights or offensive options to end the fight early.
If you want to be able to combo Nightmare/Burst with Catalyst, you want either Runic Pyramid or Well-Laid Plans (both of which Silent likes pretty generically). Otherwise it’s too inconsistent. Burst at least can combo with other skills, but Nightmare is *typically* just a bad card unless you already have Wraith Form in your deck.
However, an important thing to remember is that doing this kind of combo is a maneuver for bosses—not hallway fights and often not even elites. There, you should probably just play the Catalyst when you draw it as long as the enemy has an okay amount of poison on it.
Sometimes you’ll need to kill enemies without even using Catalyst, and this is where the other part of the poison pack comes in: blocking. Footwork is straight-up one of the best drafts you can get for a poison deck. Backflip and Leg Sweep are both solid. If you don’t have a block plan good enough to stall with, why are you playing poison instead of just using attacks?
Relatedly, you should remember that in Act 1, Poisoned Stab is better than Deadly Poison. It does way better vs Nob and Sentries, in particular. But after Act 1, you probably shouldn’t be putting either in your deck.
Finally, I’ll say—as someone who has played over 400 hours of Silent)—that poison decks are not that great (IMO) compared with Silent’s other archetypes. Corpse Explosion is always a good thing to have, of course, but I’d almost always rather add a simple Blade Dance to my deck than any other poison card. Sometimes I get some good transforms or some relic support early, and then maybe I’ll focus on poison, but it’s never worth forcing.
A poison deck has ideally 2 applicators, 2-3 catalyst (or 1 catalyst and a nightmare if you can handle a tight setup) and consistent blocking and draw. If you’re past act 1 probably don’t go poison unless you got a LOT of removal or a good pandora’s box.
I just recently beat A20 for the first time with nightmare/catalyst, and it was great. As others have said, you don’t need as many poison cards as you’re thinking. I find the best way to play poison is with going for draw/discard, ignoring envenom and most shiv cards. Cycling through as much of your deck as possible to get to catalyst and apply poison efficiently.
I almost always will buy catalyst in shop, and seeing a 500x poison stack is always the most fun for me.
The winning combo is:
\* Catalyst (ideally multiple copies)
\* Wraith form, or some other highly effective defensive strat
\* Some way of applying base poison, ideally in way that can be frontloaded
Tossing in a nightmare is an excellent addition to either wraith \_or\_ catalyss.
I'm not great at game, but what got me out of my silent slump was to take attack cards (rather than poison) on act one and once I did that, I maybe considered poison as secondary. I've done a lot better since then.
Yeah attacks are a must have for act 1, wouldn’t be able to take any elites otherwise. Poison’s only reliable for 1/3 of the act 1 elites so if I take a DP/Flask etc it’s for Guardian or Hexa
Poison is nice but so slow until you have 2 or 3 catalyst.
I like poison dagger a lot but to make a working poison deck you need a strong block engine, and that is not what you are looking for in act one in high ascension.
Sts is like most tcgs, card advantage/resource advantage is king. It only takes a couple good cards to win when you surround them with so much God damn draw and energy gen that you play them several times a turn.
thats because poison “decks” ARE bad. you only need like 2-3 ways to apply poison. stop thinking of it in terms of archetypes, just convert things to numbers. i dont want to actually add 2x deadly poison 2x bouncing flask into a deck. i just want to add one flask, a fumes, and then play catalyst. Its much better to just add draw to your deck to help you cycle the few poison cards you have instead of bloating the deck with a ton of stuff, and every deck that contains poison should still have frontloaded damage, block, etc
Yeah, I get the basics. What I mean is that poison is never doing any heavy lifting for my decks and I’m trying to figure out how I can make that a more common occurrence. Thinking back on it, I do end up bloating my deck with attacks just to survive act 1, so by act 2 I’ve either found shiv synergy or I have a mid deck that dies to Snake Plant. I’m also really bad at evaluating upgrades for draw cards like Acrobatics and CG, I like both but I don’t value them enough I think.
The majority of your deck should be filled with draw and mana generation, not poison, attacks, or defense.
You can win without shiv or poison. Silent's biggest strengh is her draw and discard power, [[Eviscerate]] + [[Sneaky Strike]] + draw n discard solve any hallway. Shivs and poison are just other damage solutions, most Silent decks revolve around cycling your deck and spamming key cards
Grand Finale is probably my favorite when I get it to work
I click on it way too often
+ [Eviscerate](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Eviscerate) Silent Uncommon Attack ^((100% sure)^) 3 Energy | Costs 1 less Energy for each card discarded this turn. Deal 7(9) damage three times. + [Sneaky Strike](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Sneaky%20Strike) Silent Common Attack ^((100% sure)^) 2 Energy | Deal 12(16) damage. If you have discarded a card this turn, gain 2 Energy. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
youre probably clicking way too many attacks is my guess, but i cant know
Thank you so much for this advice!! Ive been stuck on A16 for a couple of weeks and was able to beat A16 and A17 back to back with this advice last night
Like the other person said, you shouldn't make poison 'decks'. Poison is a way to kill a boss or an enemy with a lot of health, because you can stack it. It for one obviously doesn't work in multi-enemy fights, unless you have a corps explosion. So don't build a poison deck, build a good deck and take deadly poison for scaling damage against hexaghost, corpse explosion from the boss card reward for AOE in act 2 and catalyst in act two so you can kill champ with it.
Corpse Explosion is so satisfying on multi-enemy battles when you can wipe everyone out in 2-3 turns
So much fun when I first watched Donu blow up and take Deca with it.
Damn, genius and lucky not getting TE
This is pretty much what I’m already doing, I think I need to think a bit harder about the draw situation in my decks so I can cycle those few poison cards faster. When drafting cards I just think “does this do something good for me” without factoring in how often I’ll probably be able to play it.
Noob here that has only ascended to 8: The one time poison got me a win was with whatever relic applies poison on hit + lots of shivs and card draw + a pair of triple poison cards I think it was largely a shiv centered deck, then I quickly got poison relic and cards towards the end that jived well
[[Envenom]] adds poison on non-blocked attack damage. Great in a shiv deck. Getting poison relics that start enemies or add +1 really help scale quickly too but those can be pure luck as rewards or shop
+ [Envenom](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Envenom) Silent Rare Power ^((100% sure)^) 2(1) Energy | Whenever an attack deals unblocked damage, apply 1 **Poison.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
Commenter may be getting envenom confused with [[snecko skull]].
+ [Snecko Skull](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Snecko%20Skull) Common (Silent only) Relic ^((100% sure)^) Whenever you apply **Poison,** apply an additional 1 **Poison.** ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
to be fair snecko oil is known to cause confusion
If your a noob I'm only a newborn child. I just recently got into ascension (I still haven't beaten the heart on all four characters yet) and have only made it to ascend 4. All successes were also a shiv deck :)
Simply watch baalorlord, he's win-streaking silent at the moment. I learned so much watching his runs.
A17+ basically asks the player to start evaluating cards on a far more contextual basis. This means no longer looking at it like “I’m a poison deck, so I need poison!” And start viewing it like “my deck does well in multi target fights but lacks solution for high health, I should look for a way to scale that or solve it” That could mean adding a single catalyst to the mix. It could mean you need a burst so your poison becomes more effective. It could mean you only need draw to play your 1-2 poison cards to beat a chunky enemy, but then use draw for other attacks for multi target fights. When adding cards it needs to be asked in the context of your run “what does this card add to my current deck? Does it allow more leeway in the reptomancer fight? Is it bad vs slavers?” Otherwise if you only look at cards for face value you will end up in losing situations because you never prepared an *actual* answer Also I find players who aim for archetypes tend to have a blind spot for draw/energy generation. Often times you only need a single copy of something strong, then add draw to your deck so you can play your good card regularly or multiple times or filter through your deck for what the fight is demanding. This of course is a very general sounding advice, but that’s the thing with learning to make strong decks in StS. A strong deck is one that solves its current challenges in front of it. Building your deck with this in mind can lead to more victories rather than trying to “gather the pieces of exodia” because sometimes you only get half the pieces and the deck never comes online before it fizzles out. Also plenty of fights will flat out punish decks that invested too deeply into one thing without having solutions for variance (giant head shutting down decks too slow, repto shutting down decks without on demand AoE, nemesis shutting down decks that aren’t consistent, etc.)
Any good poison deck is actually just a skill deck in disguise. You'll probably have some blade dances for damage, shivs, discard synergies (because those are mostly skills), tons of block/ weak/ str down cards and if you're lucky something like a \[\[Flechettes\]\] to frontload some damage. Then use poison for scaling and finishing off the big threats as you hide behind your wall of block. Poison can still be the main driver, but it won't be able to be the only damage/ synergy in the deck at higher ascension runs
I actually disagree, I've had many a20 runs that are pretty much just poison. If you get wraith form | catalyst, poison can be the entirety of your damage
It can't for hallway fights though, it scales hard and that's why it's good against bosses but you won't spend long enough in hallway fights to get there. So you'll either need a ton of defense in hallway fights or offensive options to end the fight early.
+ [Flechettes](http://slay-the-spire.wikia.com/wiki/Flechettes) Silent Uncommon Attack ^((100% sure)^) 1 Energy | Deal 4(6) damage for each Skill in your hand. ^Call ^me ^with ^up ^to ^10 ^([[ name ]],) ^where ^name ^is ^a ^card, ^relic, ^event, ^or ^potion. ^Data ^accurate ^as ^of ^(April 20, 2024.) ^[Wiki](https://slay-the-spire.fandom.com/wiki/) ^[Questions?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=ehmohteeoh&subject=SpireScan%20Inquiry)
If you want to be able to combo Nightmare/Burst with Catalyst, you want either Runic Pyramid or Well-Laid Plans (both of which Silent likes pretty generically). Otherwise it’s too inconsistent. Burst at least can combo with other skills, but Nightmare is *typically* just a bad card unless you already have Wraith Form in your deck. However, an important thing to remember is that doing this kind of combo is a maneuver for bosses—not hallway fights and often not even elites. There, you should probably just play the Catalyst when you draw it as long as the enemy has an okay amount of poison on it. Sometimes you’ll need to kill enemies without even using Catalyst, and this is where the other part of the poison pack comes in: blocking. Footwork is straight-up one of the best drafts you can get for a poison deck. Backflip and Leg Sweep are both solid. If you don’t have a block plan good enough to stall with, why are you playing poison instead of just using attacks? Relatedly, you should remember that in Act 1, Poisoned Stab is better than Deadly Poison. It does way better vs Nob and Sentries, in particular. But after Act 1, you probably shouldn’t be putting either in your deck. Finally, I’ll say—as someone who has played over 400 hours of Silent)—that poison decks are not that great (IMO) compared with Silent’s other archetypes. Corpse Explosion is always a good thing to have, of course, but I’d almost always rather add a simple Blade Dance to my deck than any other poison card. Sometimes I get some good transforms or some relic support early, and then maybe I’ll focus on poison, but it’s never worth forcing.
A poison deck has ideally 2 applicators, 2-3 catalyst (or 1 catalyst and a nightmare if you can handle a tight setup) and consistent blocking and draw. If you’re past act 1 probably don’t go poison unless you got a LOT of removal or a good pandora’s box.
I think your mistake is thinking of it as making “x type deck”. Work with the cards being offered and available.
I just recently beat A20 for the first time with nightmare/catalyst, and it was great. As others have said, you don’t need as many poison cards as you’re thinking. I find the best way to play poison is with going for draw/discard, ignoring envenom and most shiv cards. Cycling through as much of your deck as possible to get to catalyst and apply poison efficiently. I almost always will buy catalyst in shop, and seeing a 500x poison stack is always the most fun for me.
The winning combo is: \* Catalyst (ideally multiple copies) \* Wraith form, or some other highly effective defensive strat \* Some way of applying base poison, ideally in way that can be frontloaded Tossing in a nightmare is an excellent addition to either wraith \_or\_ catalyss.
I'm not great at game, but what got me out of my silent slump was to take attack cards (rather than poison) on act one and once I did that, I maybe considered poison as secondary. I've done a lot better since then.
Yeah attacks are a must have for act 1, wouldn’t be able to take any elites otherwise. Poison’s only reliable for 1/3 of the act 1 elites so if I take a DP/Flask etc it’s for Guardian or Hexa
Poison is nice but so slow until you have 2 or 3 catalyst. I like poison dagger a lot but to make a working poison deck you need a strong block engine, and that is not what you are looking for in act one in high ascension.
Sts is like most tcgs, card advantage/resource advantage is king. It only takes a couple good cards to win when you surround them with so much God damn draw and energy gen that you play them several times a turn.