it's interesting how much the 'meta' of the game changes with literally no balance updates for years. We're in a perfect spot where people are getting a good idea of 'optimal' play after so much trial and error, then STS 2 will come out soon and make all of it feel new again before it has the chance to get stale
i wouldn't be surprised if the meta for StS would've continued to evolve for many years if StS 2 didn't exist. Smash Bros. Melee has had an incredible upset with Donkey Kong arguably becoming one of the better characters in the roster and the ideas of most optimal play in Fire Emblem games have continuously evolving since they first one came out 30+ years ago
DETERMINISTIC game metas (smash bros, chess) develop over tens or even hundreds of years. Adding RNG elements means the StS meta would probably develop for a long, long, long time if it maintained popularity.
Appreciation for Tara for gassing up the channel. I literally only started watching since last Tuesday thanks to the algorithm bridging me from Rarran, and I've only picked up the game as early as last week and I was so excited when I saw you have tierlist videos but I wondered how accurate they are after 2/3 years past.
Maybe, redo relics as well? Would be interesting to see if your views changed here. Edit: Wait, you said "ALL card tierlists". Where are the colorless cards at?
@26:50 Judgement deserves to be higher, IMO. tl;dr is that it basically carries you through the first half of the game and doesn't entirely fall off until the very end of the game-even if it's a dead draw by the end of act 3, it gives you so much benefit along the way that if I see it in the first half the game I'm basically always taking it. If you get it in early act 1 or whatever, it absolutely carries you through the entirety of act 1 (basically everything that isn't an elite dies to upgraded judgement) and helps a ton with early act 2 (bypasses both the bird gimmick and the spheric guardians defense, killing both immediately, works great against Gremlin Leader, looters and muggers both have barely over 40 health so you only need to hit them a couple times before you can kill them, etc.) It does, admittedly, start to fall off in late act 2, but even in act 3, it's not worthless. You're probably not gonna win if you're relying on it much at that point, but it can still help out against Reptomancer's summons and handle spikers, and if you're doing a slower blasphemy deck or whatever, it can help getting minor enemies down before you can pop off. It can help a lot with both the Collector and the Automaton, pairing very nicely with just a tiny bit of AOE to kill the minions (plus, being a rare card, it's inherently fodder for Bonfire Spirits and Automaton's minions, both of which are minor but nice), and even for the act 3 boss, it can sometimes be handy for the awoken one's cultists. It's certainly not a top choice by then, but my point is that it doesn't become dead weight for a very long time and it saves you so much health in the early game that it'll let you upgrade more, take otherwise riskier plays, and generally avoid taking other temporary holdover cards much longer. I put it solidly in high B-tier.
happy to see some of these changes, its been a long time and its nice to hear you explain something and me go like "yeah ive noticed that too over my runs since the last time!" obv, some minor variance, but still nice
reach heaven is almost always a snap pick for me as a watcher main, the amount of situations where having a reach heaven in your deck is bad are heavily outweighed by the opportunity to have access to through violence whenever you want. being able to stack multiple through violences in your hand for a pop off turn makes it perfect for calm or divinity focused decks but it also works super well in stance-swap decks too
First: love a retrospective like this. I think tier lists by themselves aren't nearly as useful as they might seem for struggling players, but the banter and discussion that comes with making them is very informative. And yours is fun and helpful. Now my personal nit-picks: Ironclad -- I'm surprised seeing Corruption, Dark Embrace, Battle Trance, and Burning Pact sharing a crowded tier. These cards I pick pretty early and frequently end up in my winning decks. I would move some of them up to S, and Second Wind, Juggernaut, Carnage, Sword Boomerang, Cleave down. Silent -- Suckerpunch A tier is silly. I would easily swap it with Masterful Stab, which I'm excited to take act 1. As Silent you already have Weak in your starter deck, and have access to even better options like leg sweep and crippling cloud (especially). Terror and Phantasmal Killer should swap. I'm so excited to take terror early and even late if I need the scaling attack damage. Phantasmal Killer has its moments, but it's never a rare I'm excited to see. "Next turn" is a long ways away. Also I wouldn't say Footwork is a noob trap. It makes your blocks 1.5x better, which is a big deal, putting you out of range of many enemies. It often works well in tandem with other block packages. Scaling defence isn't enough to win the game, but it's often necessary. It also gives you much more time to find good scaling damage through Act 1 and 2. Agreed that Choke sometimes solves a damage problem with minimal support that Thousand Cuts does not, although Thousand Cuts can be great with a big discard + shiv/card spam too. Defect -- fission is at least A tier. The upgrade isn't that important. All it needs to do is draw you cards and make energy. Think of it like Offering: you lose 3 frost orbs, resulting in 6 less block, but draw 3 cards and gain 3 energy. Frequently I have orb generation, but no focus, and Fission helps make it work.
Frost, you know what I want to see now? An ascension 25 Heart kill run with Corrupt the Spire + Humility + Infinite Spire ... on your choice of base character ... ... where you start with Singing Bowl and replace your starting deck with one of each A-tier and two of each S-tier card from each character and colorless. Super Prismatic Shard, optional. The challenge: you must take a duplicate card when offered or +2 MaxHP when not, and cannot remove any cards from your A-tier and S-tier starting deck unless hard-required by events. Special: Black cards from Corrupt the Spire, Infinite Spire and card selection from shops are at your discretion, buy as you wish, but you can't remove any you bought afterward.
Thanks for this, Frost! I'm on my A20 climb (got to A18 a couple of days ago) and reference those videos fairly often. Super helpful! Edit: We did it gang. Beat the A20 act 3 bosses with ironclad and got the achievement. Stumbled at the heart (lack of scaling), but I'll be back. Now time to get Silent, Defect, and Watcher up to A20 too.
Watching frost prime's collab with otz and taking their methods to heart im not kidding shot me from hardstuck ascension 8 ironclad to beating ascension 20 in under 2 weeks
@@mortemisntedgy6872 Same, basically. The simple advice to put more thought into what challenges you're facing NEXT rather than trying to just improve your deck overall meant a lot fewer deaths early on.
Im on A18 or 17(cant remember haha) with the ironclad, and have gone to A7-11 with the three others. I feel the ironclad is simpler to get a gold off early on, in my experience at least, what do you guys think ?
@@eric1393that helps a lot and i still don't do it all the time. Especially looking at what act 1 boss im up against, which just feels like second nature to all experienced players
Its crazy how perspective and playstyle can change in this game. For years, when playing the defect I always shied away from using plasma, every time I tried it it never worked out. A few weeks ago, I was just goofing around and when starting my run I decided to choose the lose my starting relic option, and I ended up getting Snecko Eye. I luckily got a Meteor Strike a couple floors in and had the realization that with everything costing 3 or less, Plasma would be busted on this run. Multiple Meteor Strikes, Hyper Beams, All for Ones (because Snecko Eye makes anything potentially cost 0), Skims, Recursions, Fusions, getting the Nuclear Battery. It was crazy how my card options just kept giving me exactly what I needed that run. It was the easiest Defect run I've ever had, and the most satisfying way I've ever played the Defect, just continuously bashing with high damage attacks and getting more and more energy. If only I had the top I could've easily gone infinite, but alas. I think about that run and how crazy it is that after years I can still get those lightbulb moments, where things I may not have liked or understood, suddenly I can see their potential
@@TVDaJa Where my turn would never end, as I just keep gaining energy, and the top makes it so if you have no cards in hand, you draw, so my turns would never end and I could keep going until either the enemy was defeated or I'm stopped by a restriction like Time Eater's or the Heart's.
Terror is S tier. Deal 50% more attack damage for 1 mana. Not that many enemies have artifact and even if they do, there are so many cards that apply weak.
I think it’s good but a lot of later game fights having multiple enemies makes it less valuable. Against bosses of course you would want a terror, but there are also bosses that have cleanse effects or phases that clear it out, making it only sometimes useful.
thanks for the helpful content. i got this game because of your content with Rarran. The mechanic where you discard your hand every turn and reshuffle your discard pile back into your draw pile is really throwing me for a loop. I have a lot of experience with card games but this one is not intuitive to me!
Your videos got recommended in the last month or so, and I've started playing STS a lot more the last few weeks (probably related tbh). This could not have come at a better time. Well deserved $200 indeed.
I was, literally, just wishing you did that the other day, after watching all of your "old" tier lists and imagining how much the "meta" had changed based on +2-3 years of experience with the game added on your backpack. I LOVE IT!
Thank you so much for moving WW up. In your original video you called it a noob trap and I was like "huhhh???" But great video! It's always cool to see these updated lists
That's something I think a lot of people tend to forget when it comes to tier lists and even opinions: they change. Just because I liked the Super Mario Bros movie when I was 8 doesn't mean I like it when I'm 30-something. Our tastes evolve, and for tier lists specifically, something about a card or character we thought was pretty meaningless turns out to be really impactful. Im not going to argue that claw isn't law in fear of the clawtists, but stuff like tier lists shouldn't be taken as absolute truth, just something to use as a reference. Apologies for the long comment, just wanted to speak my mind.
Upgraded white noise is at least B tier, zero cost random power for a character with such broken powers is incredibly busted, especially if you get multiple or combine it with echo form.
Glad to see so many of my favorite Ironclad cards, especially Bloodletting, being moved up the list. Whenever I get lucky enough to set up an infinite combo, Bloodletting is always a huge enabler
Need a full remake of the card tier lists, with explanations and beta art review agian. That shit was fire, and I think I've rewatched all of em at least 3 times.
Fission hella underrated imo. IMO it’s the second best defect card (first is seek). I think that without the upgrade it’s amazing and just gets way better with the upgrade. Like worst case scenario (unupgraded and only have default lighting orb) it’s a 0 cost +1/+1 and at best it’s… well u know if u know lol has a ton of other utility and synergizes with 99% of defect builds Insta-pick and a high-priority upgrade for me
16:48 Grand Finaling is the strongest card of the game if you understand the mechanics of the game and understand how to play your deck correctly. The bottom line is that it is in teer C because many people do not understand how to play it . I can easily take the 20th level of difficulty with this particular map. Not an advertisement for the channel, but look at the Tricky channel. He made a whole separate video on the Grand Finaling
Its so hard to build a deck around grand finale, and at that point you might as well just use eviscerate because its so much easier to play with all the discarding
Interesting tier list. I tried Slay the Spire again after doing 25 hours in 2019 and I discovered I am still just as bad at the game. It's one of the games I enjoy watching really good creators playing more than I like playing it myself. The game itself is an absolute masterpiece and one of the best games ever made, from a developer standpoint.
So happy bash got smote down. I was so confused as a new player a few years ago when i watched the old tier list video. Couldnt figure out how bash was anything more than c tier
I think fission is still an A tier card when not upgraded. It’s draw and energy for orbs that can often be generated passively or might be irrelevant to the build, or possibly already active. Sure the upgrade is amazing but why should it be looked down on because it gets better? That’s the point of upgrades.
You get rid of your orbs to gain mana, to then spend said mana to get orbs. It's also kinda useless until you have at least 2 orbs, and literally unplayable unless upgraded with dark orbs.
@@HaloNeInTheDark27 yeah so it’s not s-tier. But decks that generate a lot of orbs will get a lot out of it, unless you’ve boss swapped out of it then you’ve generally got the passive orbs and zap. Much like most cards, you’re not going to play it every time it’s drawn. But I hold that it’s a good card.
@@HaloNeInTheDark27 oh, and I forgot to add, a lot of those cards that generate orbs have other effects. Like ball lightning. You fission away one orb, gain an energy and draw 1 to draw and play lightning strike. That turn you’re draw neutral, orb neutral, up an energy and did seven damage. If you’ve been dealing with frost, you sacrifice two frost orbs maybe you had. Play fission and now you can play that glacier, you’re up 1 draw, and 11 block and still have three more energy.
Would also add a big thing about Fission is that it's on the Defect, who tends to have these massive pop-off turns where they scale all in one big go. They do well at jamming in a bunch of Powers and key Skills all into one turn and then riding that boost to the end of the fight, but that only works if you have a burst of energy and draw to accomplish that. The fact that a Fission in your deck allows you to essentially turn Orbs into a form of Energy and Draw storage to use when the time is right is excellent, especially because other short-term boost cards either put Void in your deck, decrease Focus over time, or are Overclock and therefore awful.
@@mrbtiger4838 I feel like Overclock gets overhated. It's not going higher than B or C in my book but it's an excellent enabler for either cranking out your setup as fast as possible or ensuring you draw the cards you really want to see together in one turn. It feels great in strong decks that have excellent cards like Seek+, Turbo, Recycle+ that just need a little bit more consistency and have the resources to spare on upgrading Overclock, while it feels awful if your deck is already lacking power and your setup isn't good enough to not care about drawing the burn on reshuffle.
I think outmaneuver could've gotten some consideration for moving up, at least D tier but imo it's C. It ain't premier energy generation, but it's a lot more takeable than F tier for sure.
I get he was basing their placement depending on how often he'd take the card, but especially for the silent there were cards that I feel should've been placed higher purely because if you can get a good synergy with a couple other cards they can become very broken. Like finisher goes crazy with shiv decks. And it's still usable outside of shiv decks.
I still do think that Signature Move is underrated. It's a solid B. It wins runs if you do take it early. On its own. That's it. And the amount of times when you draw full hand of attacks, play all of them and then finish with SM without it being an overkill is surprisingly high.
The thing is watcher doesn't usually need a big fuck-off damage card to win, because she starts with the big fuck-off damage mechanic. That said I have picked sigmove after swapping into crown and it performed surprisingly well (still died to heart though)
Thank you! Made screenshots if anyone is interested. Cannot post a link here so if anyone has a suggestion, I'd be more than willing to share. Keeping in minde the tierlists, than foergetting them and choosing before FP chooses based on current situation is a huge part of the fun
I'd love to share. I just don't know how to since I cannot send you a personal message or post a link to my Drive in the comments. Do you have any suggestions?
I just started getting back into this game and figured I'd start my first run in a couple of days while I watched it and this video made me pick Blood for Blood and holy shit this card is cracked.
Didn't think watching you was going to make me boot up Smash Bros. Warioware music gets me goin. GOOD LUCK BEATING BAALOR'S RECORD FROSTY, YOU GOT DISSS!
I will stand by perfected strike. Getting a perfected strike or two early is great as it gets to be a two cost doing 30 plus damage, and a massive perfected strike deck is how I got my first ascension 20 win.
Watched this today, beat A11 of Ironclad and A5 of Silent because of the knowledge I gained. Just a couple of reward picks different and some tighter play really makes runs feel different and fun
I think it's very interesting to see how much I've improved at the game personally adjacent to Frost, I pretty much called a lot of the changes because I think on a lot of these he's absolutely right.
Perfected strike always gives me tilt when I take it, but it way better than the other cards in the tier. It just solves early damage well upgrades well, and is a weirdly out of combat scaling card. Feels weird to have carnage,and bludgeon above it since they all do the same thing, carnage exhaust can be annoying early and helpful late tho
The description for Reprogram at 26:10 and around there is for a card that looks at the discard pile and discards any of them (a Watcher card, I think). I would have thought Reprogram would rank higher regardless, but I don't know if he's ranking based on what Reprogram does or what it says.
Heel hook in D tier is a bit unusual. Heel hook isn’t for every deck but if you do any status heavy run, it’s good so it should at least be C tier. Maybe B because you sometimes depend on weak more than boosting block cards
The updates are nice and mostly fair. My biggest gripes are on Silent though which happens to be my favorite class at A20. Burst and nightmare can actually be too situational although very pickable in the 2nd half of the game. Definitely not S material though. Noxious fumes is decent, or even mostly good, but very slow, again nowhere close to S material and definitely never an autopick. Neutralize on S? really? no way. At A tier, sucker punch and poisoned stab are overvalued. They can be fine for an act 1 pick when you need the damage the most and are desperate, but they can probably go down a notch or two in tiers. I don't like seeing them with excellent cards such as acrobatics or backflip. Quickstrike is severely overvalued here as well, and one of the weird cards that simply don't fit Silent's plan/deckbuilding. It simply does not do enough for the class, there is so much better stuff to draft. Terror, tools of the trade, skewer, flechettes, bouncing flask, escape plan and backstab are all severely underrated here. Need to watch more baalorlord to realize how great and pickable these cards can be in A20H. Also don't sleep on bane, big amount of recent runs from jorbs and baalorlord mostly prove that it's way better than we ever realized, and very easy to get the condition of double damage, so mostly a great strike+ even with just one source of poison damage.
Sucker Punch and Poisoned stab are just good cards. If they didn't exist Silent would be worse off. Poison Stab is the most premium of act 1 cards and given that Silent struggles so much in act 1 it does a lot for the class. Sucker Punch while not as potent as poisoned stab early game it's one of the best early game cards that you pick that stay relevant later. 9 damage apply 2 weaken is one of the better attacks in act 3 for utility. Playing a card past act 1 for one energy that ends up being the equivalent of two block cards for one energy is so terrible.
How is Catalyst not in S tier? It's an instapick the second you have a poison card, and if you're early enough even without one considering how it synergizes with almost all of Silent's card pool. I understand his position that it's just a 'win more' card, but I find that interpretation to be quite limited.
Not all decks that scale with poison need a Catalyst to win. More importantly, Catalyst is literally useless if you don't have poison. It's very good in the right deck, but I think those alone should keep it out of S tier.
Yeah it might not be S, but still it’s still almost a win condition card that i would put high A-tier. Its definitively not a C-tier card placed alongside defend and storm of steel.
It's good but at the same time it's not the most premium scaling option for the class. A lot of silent runs don't touch it at all even if it's offered. It's definitely not a C but it's a very easy card to overvalue because it grants extreme value in one card. The more you play the worse it gets however it can also be a card that just consolidates a win. S tier is hilarious because it's obviously not as good as wraith form. High B low A. On average but the decks it's good it's usually the most important card. Having your damage be active so you can kill stuff fast is better than having to block multiple turns and widdle them down with poison and catalyst makes a huge difference in those decks but ideally you'd rather not have to take poison as your damage condition in the first place. It's similar to the body slam play style.
Interesring, and it was quick... because here you don’t explain a lot. :-) For example, why Foresight is so low now ? It’s cool to be able to remove up to 4 cards every turn.
I do think that frost has a tendency to underate things that have rng, and overrate draw, but even with that everything is mostly where it goes, maybe 1 tier above/below where it usually should be
Interesting point about dark embrace. I consider it a fairly solid midtier that ill even pick up late act 1 with no synergy if i can afford to do so. Its so easy to grab cards that'll make it good. That said it can be a curse for a bit so upper A makes sense with your explanation. Fair. That said I'm extremely down on Sword Boomerang and I value Heavy Blade higher. I'd even swap them. Sword Boomerang’s random damage is so bad. So so bad. It's so bad that even with strength it can often just screw you over because you just can't direct the damage. I have to be so desperate to take this card. Heavy blade though.... I've found myself taking it more and more often. A20 often requires a pretty rapid scaling. I used to be of the camp that if you had enough strength to make HB work any damage card is already enough. Then I hit A20 were a fairly modest 3 strength is a 9 damage strike versus a 29 damage upgraded HB or 23 damage unupgraded...in one card is a big deal. That is a significant difference and has saved me countless times. I also have experienced the Silent discard revolution though. I vastly underestimated how good those cards were
you need to just remake the tier list videos man. i reference them all the time while playing and going back and forth between this one and the old ones is a major pain. also, glad my intuition about many of these cards was correct when they contradicted your older lists
On the steam store page for slay the spire 2, the creators reference TH-camrs tier lists being dog shit. I'm pretty sure they were referring to your old ones, so I'm glad you made this update lol
It's more that relying on tier lists is inherently not a productive way to play the game. Every card pick is going to be influenced by a ton of context that can't be fully replicated in other runs or even later in the same run. Tier lists are fun to make and discuss, just take them with a grain of salt if you're trying to win more runs.
@@elim9054@elim9054 Yeah the thing is that even when some cards are inheritly more usable in most situations than others, the ones in lower tiers can be really vital depending on your deck, like dual wield
Im surprised that weave is so low. Ive seen frost use that card very effectively multiple times in a turn. Maybe its harder to use than other cards, but An extra 20-30 damage per turn is just more damage.
Terror is S tier. 1 mana -1/3 of the ennemy HP is insane. (yeah artifact, silent has plenty of way to remove them). doesn't synergise with poison, ok. but definitly higher than B tier Interesting to see how the perception of a card move in our mind, right?^^
6:40 Searing Blow is just bad for Heart. If you get it floor 1-5 and haven't locked yourself out of the necessary campfires, you're usually set for the non-heart A20 run if you play around it. Yes, incredibly situational, if you get it even just before the first boss it sucks, but I always think it's way overhated. Like goodbye Time Eater if my hand just deals 260 damage per turn with 4 played cards.
Terror not being moved to match Phantasmal is criminal to me. Better as 1 time use with trade of being 150% vs 200% and how it interacts with artifact (could be considered pro or con depending on situation, typically con probably though)
Not really, Sunder is one of defect's best attacks. If I see it in a run where slavers aren't already dealt with and I can upgrade it before my next elite it's almost an instaclick.
An upgraded and even non-upgraded sunder is really good in the early and middle game. You take it almost every time. If you play it right its literally a free Bludgeon.
it's interesting how much the 'meta' of the game changes with literally no balance updates for years. We're in a perfect spot where people are getting a good idea of 'optimal' play after so much trial and error, then STS 2 will come out soon and make all of it feel new again before it has the chance to get stale
i wouldn't be surprised if the meta for StS would've continued to evolve for many years if StS 2 didn't exist. Smash Bros. Melee has had an incredible upset with Donkey Kong arguably becoming one of the better characters in the roster and the ideas of most optimal play in Fire Emblem games have continuously evolving since they first one came out 30+ years ago
You ever heard of chess?
@grubby9486 hold on DK is still a mid tier he just has a lot of mid tier potential that no one used until recently
its crazy to me because i dont know shit about meta, and ive been highly picking the F teir cards for days. gimme that strength
DETERMINISTIC game metas (smash bros, chess) develop over tens or even hundreds of years. Adding RNG elements means the StS meta would probably develop for a long, long, long time if it maintained popularity.
Hope claw is S+
Riot if not
F- garbage, get outta here
Claw is the Law
Is it? I refuse to watch all the way if it's not 😤😤
he put it below f tier.....
Appreciation for Tara for gassing up the channel. I literally only started watching since last Tuesday thanks to the algorithm bridging me from Rarran, and I've only picked up the game as early as last week and I was so excited when I saw you have tierlist videos but I wondered how accurate they are after 2/3 years past.
hey Rarran brought me here too!! 😂
Now we need the relics tier list updated.
I was gonna comment that haha
Maybe, redo relics as well? Would be interesting to see if your views changed here. Edit: Wait, you said "ALL card tierlists". Where are the colorless cards at?
Took so much scrolling to get to colorless mention
@26:50 Judgement deserves to be higher, IMO. tl;dr is that it basically carries you through the first half of the game and doesn't entirely fall off until the very end of the game-even if it's a dead draw by the end of act 3, it gives you so much benefit along the way that if I see it in the first half the game I'm basically always taking it.
If you get it in early act 1 or whatever, it absolutely carries you through the entirety of act 1 (basically everything that isn't an elite dies to upgraded judgement) and helps a ton with early act 2 (bypasses both the bird gimmick and the spheric guardians defense, killing both immediately, works great against Gremlin Leader, looters and muggers both have barely over 40 health so you only need to hit them a couple times before you can kill them, etc.)
It does, admittedly, start to fall off in late act 2, but even in act 3, it's not worthless. You're probably not gonna win if you're relying on it much at that point, but it can still help out against Reptomancer's summons and handle spikers, and if you're doing a slower blasphemy deck or whatever, it can help getting minor enemies down before you can pop off.
It can help a lot with both the Collector and the Automaton, pairing very nicely with just a tiny bit of AOE to kill the minions (plus, being a rare card, it's inherently fodder for Bonfire Spirits and Automaton's minions, both of which are minor but nice), and even for the act 3 boss, it can sometimes be handy for the awoken one's cultists. It's certainly not a top choice by then, but my point is that it doesn't become dead weight for a very long time and it saves you so much health in the early game that it'll let you upgrade more, take otherwise riskier plays, and generally avoid taking other temporary holdover cards much longer.
I put it solidly in high B-tier.
I lowkey would put you in S in being cool tierlist
Very lowkey tho
@@tomekk.1889bro lowtier has a picture of Tristan above his bed
I was literally watching the Silent Tier list, and i know some of his opinions have changed on the game, so im psyched for this!
ALSO APPARENTLY MASSIVE LOVE TO KARA
22:07 _Get in f*ing A-tier Buddy!_ proceeds to put it in S.
A is for At the top
happy to see some of these changes, its been a long time and its nice to hear you explain something and me go like "yeah ive noticed that too over my runs since the last time!"
obv, some minor variance, but still nice
reach heaven is almost always a snap pick for me as a watcher main, the amount of situations where having a reach heaven in your deck is bad are heavily outweighed by the opportunity to have access to through violence whenever you want. being able to stack multiple through violences in your hand for a pop off turn makes it perfect for calm or divinity focused decks but it also works super well in stance-swap decks too
First: love a retrospective like this. I think tier lists by themselves aren't nearly as useful as they might seem for struggling players, but the banter and discussion that comes with making them is very informative. And yours is fun and helpful.
Now my personal nit-picks:
Ironclad -- I'm surprised seeing Corruption, Dark Embrace, Battle Trance, and Burning Pact sharing a crowded tier. These cards I pick pretty early and frequently end up in my winning decks. I would move some of them up to S, and Second Wind, Juggernaut, Carnage, Sword Boomerang, Cleave down.
Silent -- Suckerpunch A tier is silly. I would easily swap it with Masterful Stab, which I'm excited to take act 1. As Silent you already have Weak in your starter deck, and have access to even better options like leg sweep and crippling cloud (especially).
Terror and Phantasmal Killer should swap. I'm so excited to take terror early and even late if I need the scaling attack damage. Phantasmal Killer has its moments, but it's never a rare I'm excited to see. "Next turn" is a long ways away.
Also I wouldn't say Footwork is a noob trap. It makes your blocks 1.5x better, which is a big deal, putting you out of range of many enemies. It often works well in tandem with other block packages. Scaling defence isn't enough to win the game, but it's often necessary. It also gives you much more time to find good scaling damage through Act 1 and 2.
Agreed that Choke sometimes solves a damage problem with minimal support that Thousand Cuts does not, although Thousand Cuts can be great with a big discard + shiv/card spam too.
Defect -- fission is at least A tier. The upgrade isn't that important. All it needs to do is draw you cards and make energy. Think of it like Offering: you lose 3 frost orbs, resulting in 6 less block, but draw 3 cards and gain 3 energy. Frequently I have orb generation, but no focus, and Fission helps make it work.
Frost, you know what I want to see now? An ascension 25 Heart kill run with Corrupt the Spire + Humility + Infinite Spire ... on your choice of base character ...
... where you start with Singing Bowl and replace your starting deck with one of each A-tier and two of each S-tier card from each character and colorless. Super Prismatic Shard, optional.
The challenge: you must take a duplicate card when offered or +2 MaxHP when not, and cannot remove any cards from your A-tier and S-tier starting deck unless hard-required by events.
Special: Black cards from Corrupt the Spire, Infinite Spire and card selection from shops are at your discretion, buy as you wish, but you can't remove any you bought afterward.
That's a pretty complicated ruleset, and I honestly can't tell if it's easier or harder than a A20 run.
@@haph2087 The hardest part is the setup of consoling in each card to add, but yeah ... I hope Frost runs it ... and we'll find out together.
Thanks for this, Frost! I'm on my A20 climb (got to A18 a couple of days ago) and reference those videos fairly often. Super helpful!
Edit: We did it gang. Beat the A20 act 3 bosses with ironclad and got the achievement. Stumbled at the heart (lack of scaling), but I'll be back. Now time to get Silent, Defect, and Watcher up to A20 too.
Watching frost prime's collab with otz and taking their methods to heart im not kidding shot me from hardstuck ascension 8 ironclad to beating ascension 20 in under 2 weeks
@@mortemisntedgy6872 Same, basically. The simple advice to put more thought into what challenges you're facing NEXT rather than trying to just improve your deck overall meant a lot fewer deaths early on.
Im on A18 or 17(cant remember haha) with the ironclad, and have gone to A7-11 with the three others. I feel the ironclad is simpler to get a gold off early on, in my experience at least, what do you guys think ?
@@eric1393that helps a lot and i still don't do it all the time. Especially looking at what act 1 boss im up against, which just feels like second nature to all experienced players
@@lucasratti he is more offensively potent early game than say silent so i tend to have easier early games with him yes.
Its crazy how perspective and playstyle can change in this game. For years, when playing the defect I always shied away from using plasma, every time I tried it it never worked out. A few weeks ago, I was just goofing around and when starting my run I decided to choose the lose my starting relic option, and I ended up getting Snecko Eye. I luckily got a Meteor Strike a couple floors in and had the realization that with everything costing 3 or less, Plasma would be busted on this run.
Multiple Meteor Strikes, Hyper Beams, All for Ones (because Snecko Eye makes anything potentially cost 0), Skims, Recursions, Fusions, getting the Nuclear Battery. It was crazy how my card options just kept giving me exactly what I needed that run.
It was the easiest Defect run I've ever had, and the most satisfying way I've ever played the Defect, just continuously bashing with high damage attacks and getting more and more energy. If only I had the top I could've easily gone infinite, but alas.
I think about that run and how crazy it is that after years I can still get those lightbulb moments, where things I may not have liked or understood, suddenly I can see their potential
I am fairly new to slay the spire. What does going infinite mean exactly?
@@TVDaJa Where my turn would never end, as I just keep gaining energy, and the top makes it so if you have no cards in hand, you draw, so my turns would never end and I could keep going until either the enemy was defeated or I'm stopped by a restriction like Time Eater's or the Heart's.
Terror is S tier. Deal 50% more attack damage for 1 mana. Not that many enemies have artifact and even if they do, there are so many cards that apply weak.
I think it’s good but a lot of later game fights having multiple enemies makes it less valuable. Against bosses of course you would want a terror, but there are also bosses that have cleanse effects or phases that clear it out, making it only sometimes useful.
@@silentkcat007 that is valid. But usually by act 3 you are strong from other synergies. I also sometimes take multiple (very situational).
@@silentkcat007 at the end of the day I think adding a terror is almost always better than not adding a terror.
I legit think the only silent uncommon I'd rank above Terror is Well Laid Plans
later acts have more enemies and more of them have artifact stacks. i'm only ever taking this early game.
Your Tier Lists really helped me when I was a beginner. Most important were your explanations why the Cards are good or bad
thanks for the helpful content. i got this game because of your content with Rarran. The mechanic where you discard your hand every turn and reshuffle your discard pile back into your draw pile is really throwing me for a loop. I have a lot of experience with card games but this one is not intuitive to me!
Your videos got recommended in the last month or so, and I've started playing STS a lot more the last few weeks (probably related tbh). This could not have come at a better time. Well deserved $200 indeed.
I was, literally, just wishing you did that the other day, after watching all of your "old" tier lists and imagining how much the "meta" had changed based on +2-3 years of experience with the game added on your backpack. I LOVE IT!
Thank you so much for moving WW up. In your original video you called it a noob trap and I was like "huhhh???" But great video! It's always cool to see these updated lists
That's something I think a lot of people tend to forget when it comes to tier lists and even opinions: they change. Just because I liked the Super Mario Bros movie when I was 8 doesn't mean I like it when I'm 30-something.
Our tastes evolve, and for tier lists specifically, something about a card or character we thought was pretty meaningless turns out to be really impactful. Im not going to argue that claw isn't law in fear of the clawtists, but stuff like tier lists shouldn't be taken as absolute truth, just something to use as a reference.
Apologies for the long comment, just wanted to speak my mind.
W comment
The length is just fine, your point is valid, w comment indeed
Upgraded white noise is at least B tier, zero cost random power for a character with such broken powers is incredibly busted, especially if you get multiple or combine it with echo form.
This was so nice to watch. You have gotten miles better at the game and it’s great seeing your tier lists reflect that.
Glad to see so many of my favorite Ironclad cards, especially Bloodletting, being moved up the list. Whenever I get lucky enough to set up an infinite combo, Bloodletting is always a huge enabler
0:13 Literally fell asleep to the tierlists multiple times now 🤣🤣🤣
I fall asleep everytine i watch frostprime
Wake up babe! New Frost Prime video we can sleep to just dropped!
I wish he redid the whole tier list instead of trying to get through his old ones quickly
Sneaky strike is the low key goat of snecko eye runs. Playing it for 0 and getting 2 mana back feels so good
Need a full remake of the card tier lists, with explanations and beta art review agian. That shit was fire, and I think I've rewatched all of em at least 3 times.
Fission hella underrated imo. IMO it’s the second best defect card (first is seek). I think that without the upgrade it’s amazing and just gets way better with the upgrade. Like worst case scenario (unupgraded and only have default lighting orb) it’s a 0 cost +1/+1 and at best it’s… well u know if u know lol has a ton of other utility and synergizes with 99% of defect builds
Insta-pick and a high-priority upgrade for me
16:48 Grand Finaling is the strongest card of the game if you understand the mechanics of the game and understand how to play your deck correctly. The bottom line is that it is in teer C because many people do not understand how to play it . I can easily take the 20th level of difficulty with this particular map. Not an advertisement for the channel, but look at the Tricky channel. He made a whole separate video on the Grand Finaling
Its so hard to build a deck around grand finale, and at that point you might as well just use eviscerate because its so much easier to play with all the discarding
holy, i literally rewatched the ironclad tierlist the other night, what a timing!! Very cool to see :>
I love Sneaky Strike. Love having two in my deck. If you build your deck right (like with backpacks) it’s a free attack.
Interesting tier list. I tried Slay the Spire again after doing 25 hours in 2019 and I discovered I am still just as bad at the game. It's one of the games I enjoy watching really good creators playing more than I like playing it myself. The game itself is an absolute masterpiece and one of the best games ever made, from a developer standpoint.
I'm a new-ish player and this is so validating bc I was SO CONFUSED by your takes when I watched your older stuff
So happy bash got smote down. I was so confused as a new player a few years ago when i watched the old tier list video. Couldnt figure out how bash was anything more than c tier
I think fission is still an A tier card when not upgraded. It’s draw and energy for orbs that can often be generated passively or might be irrelevant to the build, or possibly already active. Sure the upgrade is amazing but why should it be looked down on because it gets better? That’s the point of upgrades.
You get rid of your orbs to gain mana, to then spend said mana to get orbs.
It's also kinda useless until you have at least 2 orbs, and literally unplayable unless upgraded with dark orbs.
@@HaloNeInTheDark27 yeah so it’s not s-tier. But decks that generate a lot of orbs will get a lot out of it, unless you’ve boss swapped out of it then you’ve generally got the passive orbs and zap. Much like most cards, you’re not going to play it every time it’s drawn. But I hold that it’s a good card.
@@HaloNeInTheDark27 oh, and I forgot to add, a lot of those cards that generate orbs have other effects. Like ball lightning. You fission away one orb, gain an energy and draw 1 to draw and play lightning strike. That turn you’re draw neutral, orb neutral, up an energy and did seven damage. If you’ve been dealing with frost, you sacrifice two frost orbs maybe you had. Play fission and now you can play that glacier, you’re up 1 draw, and 11 block and still have three more energy.
Would also add a big thing about Fission is that it's on the Defect, who tends to have these massive pop-off turns where they scale all in one big go. They do well at jamming in a bunch of Powers and key Skills all into one turn and then riding that boost to the end of the fight, but that only works if you have a burst of energy and draw to accomplish that. The fact that a Fission in your deck allows you to essentially turn Orbs into a form of Energy and Draw storage to use when the time is right is excellent, especially because other short-term boost cards either put Void in your deck, decrease Focus over time, or are Overclock and therefore awful.
@@mrbtiger4838 I feel like Overclock gets overhated. It's not going higher than B or C in my book but it's an excellent enabler for either cranking out your setup as fast as possible or ensuring you draw the cards you really want to see together in one turn. It feels great in strong decks that have excellent cards like Seek+, Turbo, Recycle+ that just need a little bit more consistency and have the resources to spare on upgrading Overclock, while it feels awful if your deck is already lacking power and your setup isn't good enough to not care about drawing the burn on reshuffle.
Uhhh corruption and dark embrace are both s tier. Corruption should be ironclads best card.
Thanks for the shoutout Frost. ❤❤love your content!
Berserk was left untouched even though now it gives one less vulnerable and upgraded one can be so easily played with literally 0 downside.
Just found you within the last 2 weeks. Tierlists were that reason. Thank you
Surprised to see reprogram that low, I feel like that card can single-handedly carry some of my runs, especially if you can stack multiple
Focus scaling is usually much stronger for defect and it's generally easier to find, since more cards in the pool scale focus.
I think outmaneuver could've gotten some consideration for moving up, at least D tier but imo it's C. It ain't premier energy generation, but it's a lot more takeable than F tier for sure.
I get he was basing their placement depending on how often he'd take the card, but especially for the silent there were cards that I feel should've been placed higher purely because if you can get a good synergy with a couple other cards they can become very broken. Like finisher goes crazy with shiv decks. And it's still usable outside of shiv decks.
I still do think that Signature Move is underrated. It's a solid B.
It wins runs if you do take it early. On its own. That's it.
And the amount of times when you draw full hand of attacks, play all of them and then finish with SM without it being an overkill is surprisingly high.
The thing is watcher doesn't usually need a big fuck-off damage card to win, because she starts with the big fuck-off damage mechanic. That said I have picked sigmove after swapping into crown and it performed surprisingly well (still died to heart though)
Tier list is definitely how I found you and I used them all the time! Even did some time stamping!
I suggest adding this to your tierlist playlist!
Anger is my favorite card in the game on any character any rarity
So happy to see it in a tier
This is the first video I've seen of yours, while I prepare to sleep. The algorithm is doing its job
Thank you! Made screenshots if anyone is interested. Cannot post a link here so if anyone has a suggestion, I'd be more than willing to share.
Keeping in minde the tierlists, than foergetting them and choosing before FP chooses based on current situation is a huge part of the fun
Can I get the screenshots?
I'd love to share. I just don't know how to since I cannot send you a personal message or post a link to my Drive in the comments.
Do you have any suggestions?
@@ecoconatus8089community post on your channel
I just started getting back into this game and figured I'd start my first run in a couple of days while I watched it and this video made me pick Blood for Blood and holy shit this card is cracked.
Didn't think watching you was going to make me boot up Smash Bros. Warioware music gets me goin.
GOOD LUCK BEATING BAALOR'S RECORD FROSTY, YOU GOT DISSS!
I will stand by perfected strike. Getting a perfected strike or two early is great as it gets to be a two cost doing 30 plus damage, and a massive perfected strike deck is how I got my first ascension 20 win.
Watched this today, beat A11 of Ironclad and A5 of Silent because of the knowledge I gained. Just a couple of reward picks different and some tighter play really makes runs feel different and fun
I think it's very interesting to see how much I've improved at the game personally adjacent to Frost, I pretty much called a lot of the changes because I think on a lot of these he's absolutely right.
the gift of sleep for an insomniac is the best gift a youtuber can give. take it as a compliment! Cant wait to sleep to this!
A challenge where you only take cards that you put in lower tiers might be fun. Maybe if there's a mod to limit certain cards in the pool
7:34 the hate for Searing Blow is so great he moved it to F tier twice.
Perfected strike always gives me tilt when I take it, but it way better than the other cards in the tier. It just solves early damage well upgrades well, and is a weirdly out of combat scaling card. Feels weird to have carnage,and bludgeon above it since they all do the same thing, carnage exhaust can be annoying early and helpful late tho
The description for Reprogram at 26:10 and around there is for a card that looks at the discard pile and discards any of them (a Watcher card, I think). I would have thought Reprogram would rank higher regardless, but I don't know if he's ranking based on what Reprogram does or what it says.
Just scrolling through TH-cam to find something to fall asleep to.
Getting called out by frost immediately
I loved sleeping to this at 1 pm. Wasn't even tired
The intro describes me perfectly haha, found ur content via your teir lists and have stayed for the S teir content 👌
This is the one video I have been waiting for. Thank you Frost!
Heel hook in D tier is a bit unusual. Heel hook isn’t for every deck but if you do any status heavy run, it’s good so it should at least be C tier. Maybe B because you sometimes depend on weak more than boosting block cards
You had me at "like to fall asleep too"....saw u on rarren...was good.
The updates are nice and mostly fair.
My biggest gripes are on Silent though which happens to be my favorite class at A20.
Burst and nightmare can actually be too situational although very pickable in the 2nd half of the game. Definitely not S material though. Noxious fumes is decent, or even mostly good, but very slow, again nowhere close to S material and definitely never an autopick. Neutralize on S? really? no way.
At A tier, sucker punch and poisoned stab are overvalued. They can be fine for an act 1 pick when you need the damage the most and are desperate, but they can probably go down a notch or two in tiers. I don't like seeing them with excellent cards such as acrobatics or backflip.
Quickstrike is severely overvalued here as well, and one of the weird cards that simply don't fit Silent's plan/deckbuilding. It simply does not do enough for the class, there is so much better stuff to draft.
Terror, tools of the trade, skewer, flechettes, bouncing flask, escape plan and backstab are all severely underrated here. Need to watch more baalorlord to realize how great and pickable these cards can be in A20H.
Also don't sleep on bane, big amount of recent runs from jorbs and baalorlord mostly prove that it's way better than we ever realized, and very easy to get the condition of double damage, so mostly a great strike+ even with just one source of poison damage.
Sucker Punch and Poisoned stab are just good cards. If they didn't exist Silent would be worse off. Poison Stab is the most premium of act 1 cards and given that Silent struggles so much in act 1 it does a lot for the class. Sucker Punch while not as potent as poisoned stab early game it's one of the best early game cards that you pick that stay relevant later. 9 damage apply 2 weaken is one of the better attacks in act 3 for utility. Playing a card past act 1 for one energy that ends up being the equivalent of two block cards for one energy is so terrible.
11:46 "switch"
shoutout to this chatter, made me lol
Thanks for not making this video 18 hours long like your usual “guides:tierlist”
This man knows we sleep to his videos. I'm here just to sleep while watching, goodnight
This tier list is how I found your content!
He should really do a tierlist of all question mark encounters or something similar!
Andrew needs raise for this music. Excellent choice
How is Catalyst not in S tier? It's an instapick the second you have a poison card, and if you're early enough even without one considering how it synergizes with almost all of Silent's card pool.
I understand his position that it's just a 'win more' card, but I find that interpretation to be quite limited.
Not all decks that scale with poison need a Catalyst to win. More importantly, Catalyst is literally useless if you don't have poison. It's very good in the right deck, but I think those alone should keep it out of S tier.
Yeah it might not be S, but still it’s still almost a win condition card that i would put high A-tier. Its definitively not a C-tier card placed alongside defend and storm of steel.
It's good but at the same time it's not the most premium scaling option for the class. A lot of silent runs don't touch it at all even if it's offered.
It's definitely not a C but it's a very easy card to overvalue because it grants extreme value in one card. The more you play the worse it gets however it can also be a card that just consolidates a win.
S tier is hilarious because it's obviously not as good as wraith form. High B low A. On average but the decks it's good it's usually the most important card.
Having your damage be active so you can kill stuff fast is better than having to block multiple turns and widdle them down with poison and catalyst makes a huge difference in those decks but ideally you'd rather not have to take poison as your damage condition in the first place. It's similar to the body slam play style.
YESS!! Hope he does the grey cards and relics!
Interesring, and it was quick... because here you don’t explain a lot. :-) For example, why Foresight is so low now ? It’s cool to be able to remove up to 4 cards every turn.
I love the part where you explained why Bash went from S to D tier.
I do think that frost has a tendency to underate things that have rng, and overrate draw, but even with that everything is mostly where it goes, maybe 1 tier above/below where it usually should be
Any chance to get some links to the updated tier lists please? Can't read the screen well enough
I've been wanting this for a while so glad to see it. Also hi Andrew.
Baracade is a S tier card in my opinion
Is their a link to the tierlists?
+1
I've been hoping you'd do a new Tier list for so long
Interesting point about dark embrace. I consider it a fairly solid midtier that ill even pick up late act 1 with no synergy if i can afford to do so. Its so easy to grab cards that'll make it good. That said it can be a curse for a bit so upper A makes sense with your explanation. Fair.
That said I'm extremely down on Sword Boomerang and I value Heavy Blade higher. I'd even swap them. Sword Boomerang’s random damage is so bad. So so bad. It's so bad that even with strength it can often just screw you over because you just can't direct the damage. I have to be so desperate to take this card. Heavy blade though.... I've found myself taking it more and more often. A20 often requires a pretty rapid scaling. I used to be of the camp that if you had enough strength to make HB work any damage card is already enough. Then I hit A20 were a fairly modest 3 strength is a 9 damage strike versus a 29 damage upgraded HB or 23 damage unupgraded...in one card is a big deal. That is a significant difference and has saved me countless times.
I also have experienced the Silent discard revolution though. I vastly underestimated how good those cards were
you need to just remake the tier list videos man. i reference them all the time while playing and going back and forth between this one and the old ones is a major pain. also, glad my intuition about many of these cards was correct when they contradicted your older lists
On the steam store page for slay the spire 2, the creators reference TH-camrs tier lists being dog shit. I'm pretty sure they were referring to your old ones, so I'm glad you made this update lol
It's more that relying on tier lists is inherently not a productive way to play the game. Every card pick is going to be influenced by a ton of context that can't be fully replicated in other runs or even later in the same run.
Tier lists are fun to make and discuss, just take them with a grain of salt if you're trying to win more runs.
@@elim9054@elim9054 Yeah the thing is that even when some cards are inheritly more usable in most situations than others, the ones in lower tiers can be really vital depending on your deck, like dual wield
Hey Frost, if you built a run around only building an S tier or A tier only deck how do you think that would fair?
Im surprised that weave is so low. Ive seen frost use that card very effectively multiple times in a turn. Maybe its harder to use than other cards, but An extra 20-30 damage per turn is just more damage.
Been thinking about this for a while!
This is cooool.
Do you have a photo of the full teir list for reference?
time for a colorless tier list now
Terror is S tier. 1 mana -1/3 of the ennemy HP is insane. (yeah artifact, silent has plenty of way to remove them). doesn't synergise with poison, ok. but definitly higher than B tier
Interesting to see how the perception of a card move in our mind, right?^^
I feel so vindicated on the ironclad calls. Especially Flex, Whirlwind, and Demon Form
can't wait to use this updated ranking against him on stream
6:40 Searing Blow is just bad for Heart. If you get it floor 1-5 and haven't locked yourself out of the necessary campfires, you're usually set for the non-heart A20 run if you play around it.
Yes, incredibly situational, if you get it even just before the first boss it sucks, but I always think it's way overhated. Like goodbye Time Eater if my hand just deals 260 damage per turn with 4 played cards.
Terror not being moved to match Phantasmal is criminal to me. Better as 1 time use with trade of being 150% vs 200% and how it interacts with artifact (could be considered pro or con depending on situation, typically con probably though)
Sunder in A is the most confusing one
Not really, Sunder is one of defect's best attacks. If I see it in a run where slavers aren't already dealt with and I can upgrade it before my next elite it's almost an instaclick.
An upgraded and even non-upgraded sunder is really good in the early and middle game. You take it almost every time. If you play it right its literally a free Bludgeon.
sooo when's the relics and colourless cards getting updated as well?
Sneaky strike apology segment better than most youtuber apologies