Slay the Spire Review and the Deckbuilding Habits It Teaches

I keep a notebook for Slay the Spire. It is a cheap spiral one, and by the time I felt ready to write this review it held notes on 63 failed runs and 11 wins. Each failure gets one line: character, floor, what killed me, and the card I should not have taken. Reading those lines back is the most honest review of this game I could give you, because the game is less about cards than about the habits you build while losing.

So this is a review in two parts. The first part is about the game itself, which Mega Crit released in full in January 2019 after a period in early access. The second part is about the deckbuilding habits it teaches, and why I think those habits are the real reason players come back for hundreds of hours.

The shape of a single run

A run is a climb up a spire through three acts, each ending in a boss. You choose your path on a branching map: normal fights, elite fights, rest sites, shops, treasure chests and question mark rooms with events. After most combats you are offered three cards and may take one, or skip.

Combat is turn based. You draw 5 cards, you have 3 energy, and every card costs something. The enemies show their intent above their heads, so you know whether they plan to attack for 12, buff themselves, or put a curse in your deck. That choice turns each turn into a small puzzle, and it is why the game feels fair even when it is brutal.

There are four characters. The Ironclad starts with 80 hit points and a relic that heals a little after each fight. The Silent works with poison and discards. The Defect channels orbs. The Watcher swaps between stances that change how much damage she deals and takes. Each one starts with a small deck of basic Strikes and Defends plus one signature card, and every run is a question of what you turn that starting deck into.

A typical winning run took me about 50 to 70 minutes. A typical losing one took 20 to 35, which matters more than it sounds. Short failures are cheap. Cheap failures are how you learn.

Habit one: take fewer cards than you want

My early notes are embarrassing. "Ironclad, floor 16, died to the Hexaghost. Deck was 31 cards." "Silent, floor 9, elite Gremlin Nob. Took every attack offered." The pattern is obvious now. I treated every card reward as free value, and it was not.

Every card you add makes it less likely you draw your best card on a given turn. If your deck has one great card in 10, you see it in your opening hand about half the time. Grow that deck to 30 and the odds fall to about one in six. The skip button is a real choice, and the game puts it right there on the reward screen for a reason.

The habit I built was a simple question before each pick: does this card fix a problem my deck has right now? Not "is it good," because almost every card is good somewhere. Is it good here, against the next boss I can already see on the map?

Habit two: plan for the fight you have not reached

The act boss is shown at the top of the map from the very start. That is a gift, and new players ignore it. If the boss is the Slime Boss, you want burst damage before it splits. If it is the Guardian, you want to avoid hitting it carelessly while it is in its defensive mode. Knowing this on floor 1 changes which cards you take on floors 2 through 15.

My notebook says I lost 9 runs to act one bosses before I started writing the boss name at the top of each page. After I did, I lost 2 more there in the next 20 runs. That is not proof of anything, but it is enough for me.

Habit three: remove cards, not just add them

Shops sell card removal, and rest sites and some events let you thin your deck too. Removing a Strike can do more for a deck than adding a rare card. A lean deck of 15 cards with two strong combos plays more consistently than a fat deck full of individually strong cards that never meet each other.

The advice I disagree with: always fight elites

There is a popular piece of advice in the community that you should route through as many elite fights as possible, because elites drop relics and relics win runs. For strong players it is mostly true.

For a newer player, I think it is a trap. My notes show 14 of my first 30 deaths came in elite fights in act one, usually against Gremlin Nob or the Lagavulin, and almost always because I chose two elites before my deck had a way to block or scale. The relic you might get does nothing if you never see the next floor.

A better rule for your first 20 or so runs: take one elite in act one only if your deck can deal around 15 damage per turn by the time you reach it. If it cannot, take the normal fights and the shop. Elites are a reward for a deck that works, not a shortcut to one. Once you have a few wins on a character, then start routing greedier paths. The advice is fine. It is just aimed at players who are already past the point where it helps.

The skip button is the most underrated card in the game.

What wears thin

I would be dishonest if I said the game never drags. After the first win on each character you unlock Ascension, a ladder of 20 levels that each add a small penalty. For most players, the jump in difficulty around the middle of that ladder will feel like a wall, and the extra challenge comes from tighter margins rather than new ideas. I enjoyed it. My brother, who watched about 40 of my runs over my shoulder, called it "the same climb with less health," and he is not entirely wrong.

There is also a hidden fourth act, unlocked by collecting three keys during a run. It is a great final test, but the game barely hints that it exists.

The art is plain. It does the job, enemy intents are easy to read, but if you came from something as lush as Hollow Knight, the presentation will feel flat.

How it compares on a shelf of runs

If you like the way Hades builds a loop around short runs, Slay the Spire gives you the same appetite for one more attempt, but every decision is slow and deliberate. Nothing depends on reflexes. It is a strategy game in the purest sense, and it pairs well with story games where choices also stick, like Disco Elysium.

Who it is for

Players who enjoy thinking more than reacting. Anyone who likes to keep notes, compare runs and slowly get better at the same problem. People with short gaming sessions, because a run can be paused at any time and picked up later.

Who should skip it

Players who want a story to carry them, since there is almost none. Anyone who hates losing over and over, because you will, often, especially in the first 10 hours. And if you want multiplayer, this is a solo game through and through. Try something else for game night and keep this one for quiet evenings with a notebook.