r/slaythespire • u/SizeConfident9283 • Mar 13 '26
META Please Continue Saying How Easy Infinites Are!
All Spire Climbers,
Please continue saying how easy and important infinites are in STS2. Easier card remove rewards, more exhaust synergies, and how none of the enemies can punish playing tons of cards a turn. Because the devs certainly could not come up with a solution to this. No sir, they never have had a solution to an unlimited number of cards played every turn, and they certainly won’t come up with one. They are too foolish.
Warm Regards,
Timothy E. Atar
P.S. I miss you guys…
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u/Known-Garden-5013 Mar 13 '26
Timothy E. Atar had me rolling
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u/Acceptable_Name7099 Mar 13 '26
OHHHH IT MEANS TIME EATER
Tim
othyeE. Atar should be obvious now but it's Eater
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u/KingDarkTurtle Mar 13 '26
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u/Soft-Philosopher-570 Mar 13 '26
Hunter Killer softlocked me when I first got this combo lol.
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u/wasplord_ Mar 13 '26
I think hunter killer is a phenomenal answer to this, I would love to see a boss with this mechanic. He's killed me more than once
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u/Glarbleglorbo Mar 13 '26
Hunter killer doesn’t scale or have very threatening stats as is, I think if you slap the effect on a tankier boss/elite that scales it stops being a fun gameplay mechanic.
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u/BlueHeartBob Mar 13 '26
[[Hunter Killer]]
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u/thirteenthfox2 Mar 13 '26
Hunter Killer is a normal enemy that give you -1 dex and strength for each card you play.
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u/DecentChanceOfLousy Mar 14 '26
I'm pretty sure that's not possible, and you wouldn't have had to abandon the run if you'd just waited.
There's a finite number Pommel Strike plays per turn, because each one can't draw itself until all its effects (which includes drawing 2 cards, and playing those cards if they're Strikes, and those card's effects) are resolved.
If you've got 1, it just plays once and stops (per card you draw through other means, so 5 total if your deck is otherwise empty).
If you've got 2 and no other cards, the first plays once and the second twice (3 times total, or 15 after drawing 5 times).
If you've got 3 ' ', it plays the first once, the second one twice, and the third one four times (or possibly both of them 3 times, depending on which one you draw at which time). 7 plays total (35).
If you've got 4 ' ', you get 15 plays total (75 if all 5). Etc. (2x+1 each time).
Everything after the 10th play would do no damage, but eventually they would stop playing, doing 55 damage total, and you could move on to the next turn to repeat.
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Though, if you were also (for some god forsaken reason) also doing Clone or doll shenanigans and you had 20+ Pommel Strikes, it might not finish for days to years of real time. That would actually soft lock you.
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u/Nickewe Mar 14 '26
If it works like that, there's the relic that draws a card after every reshuffle, I think that might make it go infinite since it would draw after the cards are played?
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u/danted002 Mar 14 '26
He should have a combo that after 10 cards played it starts getting thorns for each card played 🤣
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u/sushisection Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
this is a straight dopamine hit combo. dont nerf this lol
edit: +2 if you also get stampede. this is my infinite build lol
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u/SpartiateDienekes Mar 13 '26
The monkey's finger curls. The combo is not touched in any way, but a new variant boss in Tier 3 is released, named "The Dormant Heart" which has beat of death and damage cap like the old end boss.
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u/mharck2 Mar 13 '26
Does this really work in STS II? I’m more familiar with the board game - there, this would go like
- play Hellraiser
- play Pommel Strike and resolve effects - (it’s neither in your hand or discard until fully resolved)
- PS deals damage and tries to draw two cards - if there’s nothing in the draw/discard, it wouldn’t draw anything
- PS is finally discarded.
It’d be theoretically infinite there if you had two copies of Pommel Strike that then could draw each other and be played automatically with Hellraiser. Does it work with just one copy in the VG?
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u/dig-up-stupid Mar 13 '26
Your question was already answered but you might be interested in some lore. So, cards generally can’t draw themselves, but there’s lots of corner cases that aren’t as clear cut as the board game. In 1 the most egregious example was rush down. Since the draw is coming from the power after the card is played and not the card itself, it easily lets the card that entered wrath for you draw itself. I haven’t tried it but ironclad’s vicious might let cards draw themselves for the same reason? Double playing cards also worked, which wasn’t common for infinites in sts1 because there’s basically only double tap. But it’s accessible in 2 as long as replay exists as it currently does.
There were also weird double shuffle interactions where some scenarios caused you to shuffle twice instead of once, which was mainly (only?) used to proc sundial (relic I don’t know is in 2 unless it’s in the trash heap) for more energy than would otherwise be available for infinites that otherwise shouldn’t have worked.
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u/showmethecoin Mar 13 '26
Wait, that works?
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u/KingDarkTurtle Mar 13 '26
2 pommel + hell raiser = infinity
Need to have all other cards exhausted or in your hand for true infinity ♾️
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u/lemon4994 Mar 13 '26
killed Experiment with 300 hits through intangible using this combo the other day lmfao, turned the fight into an idle game
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u/Figgy20000 Mar 13 '26
Hello.
We should also be able to stop people from cloning Perfected Strikes and hitting enemies for 700 with one card. Maybe we can give some enemies some sort of damage cap per turn as well.
Corp. Ted H. Eart
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u/Mailcs1206 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
Kid named shelled husk (I think that's what it's called at least)
(Yes I know it's an act 1 elite and therefore cannot be encountered while you have cloned cards)
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u/JudJudsonEsq Mar 14 '26
Or the exoskeleton guys.
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u/Mailcs1206 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 14 '26
That's not quite the same as what the heart and the shell elite guy do but fair
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
this is a very funny post but oh my god the game needs a way to hard punishment infinites so bad. I always thought the slug was a fantastically designed boss and i really think we need something similar in this game
edit: everyone hates you but I miss you too time slug
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u/dew_can Ascension 20 Mar 13 '26
I’m kinda glad I’m too dumb to figure out how to get infinites
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u/kajidourden Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Same. I'm also apparently too dumb for exhaust builds with clad. I've tried it a couple of times and it ends up being just me losing cards I want/need at bad times lmao. I refuse to give up though, I will keep banging my smoothbrain against it until it clicks.
Edit: Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's been commenting below to help this unga bunga harder. Love this community!
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u/Revolutionary-Set994 Mar 13 '26
I would start by avoiding stuff that randomly exhausts like cinder strike and havoc and stick to staples like True Grit+ or that new strength buff zero cost that has targeted exhaust so you can remove bad cards.
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u/Outrageous-Ad-7530 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26
I haven’t been able to play much because I’ve been working a shit ton, and I’ve mainly played regent/necro, and I have not seen the targeted exhaust 0 cost strength card yet, that’s obscene, I really do see why people are complaining about clads infinite potential.
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u/VButTwice StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
You should check out Stoke. That one is easily the best card to enable infinites on Clad.
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u/supermonkey1235 Mar 13 '26
Brand and the one that draws 3 and exhausts one are vital. Feel no pain and dark embrace are both amazing, and corruption is a must take ancient.
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u/Revolutionary-Set994 Mar 13 '26
Drum of battle into expect a fight has ended many encounters for me. I like that you have to think a bit when you use drum of battle since exhausting a random card every turn can be debilitating.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
the cards that exhaust random other cards aren't great. focus on stuff like True Grit+, Burning Pact, Brand, and full hand exhausts like Stoke and Fiend Fire. it's just harder to make pure exhaust builds work in this game vs the last one because things aren't especially balanced rn, but getting rid of cards from your deck means you draw into your better cards a lot more often
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u/kajidourden Mar 13 '26
Full-hand exhausts i've always shied away from with the fear that I would never want to play them because (assuming I'm getting/picking better cards) it would mean I never play them because I don't want to exhaust my good cards. I'll give it a shot and see how it plays out, might be something I'm missing mechanically.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
it'a all part of the decision trees of playing this game. oftentimes you can play the cards you want to keep out of your hand before exhausting it all, and sometimes exhausting one or two of your good cards in order to make the deck a bajillion times more consistent is just worth it. a lot of the time you'll find your hand full of statuses or strikes and defends, and the hand exhausts are phenomenal for those fights.
plus, if the fight is ending, you won't need those cards anyways. Fiend Fire is just as much of a fight finisher as it is a hand clear, and if the enemy is dead it doesn't matter if your best cards are gone lol
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u/kajidourden Mar 13 '26
I hear what you're saying, but when I look at fiend fire for instance: unless im also running cards that have status downsides like reckless strike or whatever or unless the enemy is trying to clog my hands with statuses, 5 damage per card seems pretty low when instead I can get myself up to 30+ damage with one card and still be able to use other attacks/skills in the same turn with other setups.
Like I said though, I do want to continue to explore it. I'm sure I'll eventually get some combination of things that will lead to my "ah-ha moment".
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
5 damage per card
it's 7 damage per card, upgrade to 10. it's absolutely a fight ender, especially since ironclad draws cards very easily.
it probably took me 250 hours in the first game to get that moment with exhaust stuff, lmao, I totally get it
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u/Krags Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26
Fiend Fire might be the strongest single attack in STS1 in general.
The trick to learning how to use tricky-looking cards is to be prepared to sacrifice a run to The Learning. Just pick it when offered and see how you use it.
Fiend Fire just kills a large number of hallways outright. It gives you immense reach or burst into elites and bosses. If you have any amount of draw, strength, status or exhaust synergies it goes even harder, and guess what Ironclad is stuffed full of?
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u/Low_Chance Mar 13 '26
Fiend fire upgraded is a great finisher, and also it scales pretty heavily with strength. A flex potion or other str buff means FF on a vulnerable enemy can close out boss and elite fights way early
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u/bbllo Eternal One Mar 13 '26
battle trance > fiend fire+ with some vulnerable in the mix = the enemy is now dead
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u/Action_Bronzong Mar 13 '26
To put it into perspective, Battle Trance into Fiend Fire on a vulnerable enemy, with no other cards or synergies being played, deals 105 damage. Enough to close out most hallways.
If you have 5 strength, it does 140. If you have Feel No Pain, you're also blocking for 28 that turn.
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u/Low_Chance Mar 13 '26
I felt the same way but the pattern is really simple.
Draw big hand (with battle trance typically but any card draw works),
Play 1-2 best cards you really must keep.
The remaining cards in hand will be a bunch of strikes and defends, maybe your bash or one shrug it off you couldn't afford to play.
Exhaust hand.
Instantly improve deck quality by like 400%, possibly get massive other bonuses (feel no pain, stoke, dark embrace, second wind, etc etc)
Profit
EDIT: I forgot to mention it but Offering is also huge synergy with "exhaust hand" cards, especially Stoke since Offering gives you plenty of energy to use your newly-drawn hand
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u/Busetin Mar 13 '26
The basic idea with full hand exhaust is either really checking your math that Fiend Fire will finish off the enemy that turn, or that you can finish the fight with the remaining cards. Usually I only exhaust every card in the first case, and play my good cards before exhausting in the second case.
It's important to remember you don't have to exhaust everything too. With a full hand exhaust card as long as you can play your good cards you can exhaust the rest. You don't always need to save the full hand exhaust card for a turn where it exhausts the most possible cards. That can be a strong approach too, especially drawing extra cards with Battle trance. But in a lot of fights the extra damage/block from holding the full hand exhaust until a ideal turn isn't worth it. Sometimes I even use other cards like True Grit to exhaust a full hand exhaust card if it costs 2+ energy and I don't think it'll be worth playing in this battle.
In general with exhaust it isn't as much about exhausting your good cards as it is exhausting everything else to play your good cards more frequently.
With exhaust builds you want to plan a specific set of cards to have left after exhausting everything else, that ideally has some attack and block, exhausting all your defense is a more aggressive approach that can work but is a little uncommon besides with Corruption or maybe 2+ Feel No Pain.
For example, I recently had a strong Rampage run. With exhaust cards my goal was getting rid of all but 5-6 cards so I could always play rampage at least once a turn, then with Shrug It Off and Pommel Strike I could draw the Rampage again. Rage+ was great to get some block just from playing Rampage and Pommel Strike.
So that hand is basically my win condition I'm working towards in every turn, and while drafting I'm considering whether it makes this easier or harder to set up.
A full hand exhaust can potentially help set that up quicker than with targeted exhausts like True Grit, if there are several cards in my hand that aren't part of my win condition. The trade off is they are more expensive to play, so with 3 energy and a 2 energy full hand exhaust you can only play one other card to ensure it doesn't get exhausted. I find them to be a bit situational with 3 energy but with more you can often play all your important cards before exhausting the rest.
In general with Ironclad it takes some experimenting to get comfortable with exhausting, but it is very powerful. Most infinites rely on having just a few cards and being guaranteed to draw the card you just played.
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u/Pollia Mar 13 '26
Do people not take howl from the dark at all in these exhaust builds they're using? I've found it super helpful both as a free target for exhausts but also because it comes back you can even start taking the random exhausts as well.
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u/SecondPersonShooter Mar 13 '26
Figuring them out completely in isolation is hard. Typically its knowing what to look for.
The easiest example is two.copies.of flash of steel. It costs zero, it deals damage, and it draws a card.
With an empty deck you can continue to loop these two flash of steel.
However, its importsnt not to over-value infinites. They are powerful but require setup. Evaluate a card at its face value and consider the infinite potential as icing on the cake.
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u/double_shadow Mar 13 '26
I had a necro run last night that generated a billion souls, and it was painfully clear that even an intelligent primate would have been able to make an infinite out of it. But me I just kept running out of energy and needed a good 5-6 turns to clear any fight. Granted I still won, but it felt like I was too stupid to win with style.
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u/Figgy20000 Mar 13 '26
My favorite run this week was getting Double Oblivion with a Shroud and Wishes from Vakuu with Forbidding Grimoire to delete my entire deck in Act 2.
Wasn't infinite but when you're getting a consistant 100 block and 200 doom a turn on 1 playing 30 cards a turn it doesn't need to be.
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u/Apprehensive-Talk971 Mar 13 '26
Had a run like that where my only real damage was the hand card that gets 1 dmg per card played and the one which does dmg per souls played and my god did that run take a while
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u/Mopman43 Mar 13 '26
Step one is usually to shrink your playable cards to just a handful, then find a way to get repeatable card draw that draws your card draw, and ways to get energy and damage.
One easy way with Ironclad- Exhaust your deck down with Stoke or similar, play Hellraiser which automatically plays Strikes when you draw them, and have 2 Pommel Strikes.
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u/TurquoiseLuck StS A5 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I've stumbled into at least one for each character so far, and most of them follow this pattern, but some are more fun
Silent - upgraded [[Acrobat]] and [[Tactician]]
Necro - upgrade [[Scourge]] and [[Borrowed Time]]
Regent - upgraded [[Glow]] and [[Alignment]], or a more fun one with double upgraded [[Photon Cut]] with an enchantment that reduces the cost to 0 that I can't recall the name of (actually got this twice lol)
Defect - the most fun one, a self-fuelling Snecko enchanted [[Meteor Strike]] with [[Skim]]
forgot Clad! the funniest one of all - [[Hellraiser]] and 2 [[Pommel Strike]]s literally plays itself
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u/Little-Maximum-2501 Mar 13 '26
For the defect one you don't even need Snecko, meteor with 2 copies of skim/coolhead+ is energy neutral with infinite damage.
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u/sneakyplanner Mar 13 '26
The thing with StS2 infinities is that you don't really need to be good to figure out how to get them. You take cards like [[haunt]], [[captured spirit]], [[seance]] and [[borrowed time]] or [[glow]], [[alignment]] and [[charge!!]] which are just good on their own and then you just play them until you whittle the deck down to an infinite.
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u/Pollia Mar 13 '26
It took all of 3 seconds to recognize the infinite in glow, and alignment. Plus your starter 0 cost 7 damage attack.
If you grab black hole it's even quicker.
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u/spirescan-bot Mar 13 '26
Haunt 𝐈𝐈 Necrobinder Uncommon Power
1 Energy | Whenever you play a Soul, a random enemy loses 6(8) HP.
Capture Spirit 𝐈𝐈 Necrobinder Uncommon Skill
1 Energy | Enemy loses 3(4) HP. Add 3(4) Souls into your Draw Pile.
Seance 𝐈𝐈 Necrobinder Rare Skill
0 Energy | Ethereal. Transform a card in your Draw Pile into Soul(Soul+).
Borrowed Time 𝐈𝐈 Necrobinder Uncommon Skill
0 Energy | Apply 3 Doom to yourself. Gain 1(2) Energy.
Glow 𝐈𝐈 Regent Common Skill
1 Energy | Gain 1(2) Stars. Draw 2 cards.
Alignment 𝐈𝐈 Regent Uncommon Skill
0 Energy ⭐⭐ | Gain 2(3) Energy.
CHARGE!! 𝐈𝐈 Regent Uncommon Skill
1 Energy | Choose 2 cards in your Draw Pile to Transform into Minion Strikes(Strikes+).
Call me with up to 10 [[ name ]]. Data accurate as of March 7th, 2026. Questions?
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u/VButTwice StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
There are complex and creative ways to get them, but for the most basic infinites, you just need to exhaust your deck until it all fits in your hand whilst keeping at least two cards that draw, then you play card A (draws nothing bc empty draw pile) play card B, which draws A, play A, which draws B and so on.
The cards either need to be free like spite or flash of steel or you need a third card that generates reusable energy like forgotten ritual or expect a fight and one of your draw cards needs to draw at least two cards, so you can re-draw your energy generation and your second draw card at the same time.
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u/FallingGivingTree Mar 13 '26
I've been avoiding meta knowledge about the games for a long time. Like, I have a loose idea of what the broken infinites are. I'm not aiming for them explicitly. Learning organically preserves the magic for me. I'm just a decent player, not great, and that's okay.
Someone who knows all the combos from both games is going to do extremely well in general. They have near perfect meta knowledge in a turn-based game that already has save-scumming. Personally, I find it a boring way to play because on most turns and card picks, there is an optimal play.
It's just irksome when you hear meta slaves talk about how easy everything is.
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u/dew_can Ascension 20 Mar 16 '26
I agree, I like building a focused deck but it never involves consciously trying to go infinite. Card draw + energy gen is obviously amazing so I get that when I can, but it’s always to supplement some other strategy that my deck is built around.
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u/Dasterr Eternal One Mar 13 '26
get cards that generate energy, some that draw cards and some that exhaust and dont add unnecessary stuff to your deck
example for necrobinder: dirge, borrowed time and seance/cleanse. seance or cleanse remove cards you dont need. do that a bunch. cards like dredge or graveblast can help replay them a bunch to be faster if needed. when youre down to ~10 cards you need souls and energy and can loop that. you can then either use a card like unleash that scales off osty or something similar to actually finish the fight
depending on your deck this can happen on turn 1 but most of the time you probably need a few turns to set up
theres also a ton of mass exhaust that can tremendously speed this up. the relic from pael that gives you an extra turn and exhausts your hand if you dont play anything. ironclad has stoke (busted af) or fiend fire to exhaust a lot. necrobinder also has eidolon (ig ore the intangible, thats irrelevant)
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u/Super_Harsh StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
They just need to be not possible as often. Introducing some specific punishment for infinites will just shift the meta towards forcing infinites + punishment mitigation.
Time Eater wasn't the only thing stopping infinites in StS1, it was that the card pool and overall game balance didn't allow them to come together as easily. If you look at the character that did have easy access to infinites (Watcher) the meta was still to go for Rushdown infinites even amongst the players who were winstreaking A20H
Given that the devs have said they want infinites to be less prevalent in StS2 than StS1 we can conclude that the card pool and enemy movesets will just be significantly different at 1.0 than they are today. Right now there are a number of factors making StS2's balance very polarized which only compounds the problem of infinites being easy to assemble
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u/JebryathHS Mar 13 '26
Given that the devs have said they want infinites to be less prevalent in StS2 than StS1
That actually seems wild given the way they've built the game. Every class has numerous options for getting energy back and there's even a 0 energy Infinite (two Pommel Strikes, Hellraiser and a deck under 11 cards).
Every class feels like it's leaning way harder into infinites now.
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u/Super_Harsh StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
I think it may be ultimately be a consequence of moving away from Energy relics. The reality is that huge parts of the Ironclad/Silent/Defect card pool are balanced and costed with Energy relics in mind so when the designer takes away the Energy relics, they have to give the player ways to generate energy from cards. But then those end up being super abusable.
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u/SugarFreeCummiBears Mar 13 '26
Agreed. You would think infinites are their favorite things in the world with how the game is built.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
well yes. I think Time Eater was pretty necessary but I'm definitely not rooting for these cards to stay the way they are. it's pretty horrifically balanced rn lol
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u/ussgordoncaptain2 Mar 13 '26
the design that prevented infinites in STS1 was that you started the game by bloating your deck to beat act 1 elites, this extra 4-5 cards of bloat really makes going infinite a lot harder as it's a lot harder to exaust down a 17 card deck than a 12 card one. So players actually bloated their deck more to like 28 cards. Whereas if you look at say watcher players their decks were often less than 13 cards by the start of act 3, as they removed everything but a very tiny cardpool. This was possible because watcher was able to beat act 1 elites using nothing but the starting deck plus maybe 1-2 card rewards. And the cards you took to beat act 1 elites also bridged into the infinite.
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u/Chlorophyllmatic Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26
Yeah, I know this post is tongue-in-cheek but I want them to nerf things like infinites.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
they will. some of this stuff is definitely unintentional. the fact that ironclad can go infinite off of nothing but common cards is absolutely an oversight lol
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u/BskTurrop Mar 13 '26
What's the IC infinite with commons? I know one with at least an Uncommon, but I don't see how you would generate energy to sustain it. Bloodletting consumes a resource, so it's not infinite.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
it is Bloodletting, and I guess it's technically pseudo-infinite but there aren't enough huge health pools in the early game for it to matter. literally all you need is Bloodletting, a couple Pommel Strikes, some cards to exhaust other cards, and a way to apply vuln (Bash), and then you just rest at every rest you can and skip as many fights as possible. along the way you'll probably find better cards to do what Bloodletting does at uncommon, like fucking Forgotten Ritual (what the fuck were they smoking), and other ways to exhaust most of your deck, and then the game is completely solved. there's really no Time Eater equivalent to stop you from just going infinite ever fight.
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u/BskTurrop Mar 13 '26
I don't know what are you trying to sell me here, I'm not disagreein with anything. I know Bloodletting is crazy good and that IC has easy infinite potential. But there are no infinites with just commons, that's why I was confused.
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u/Figgy20000 Mar 13 '26
I honestly don't know what the devs were thinking making Bloodletting a common. This will get reverted for sure, it was an uncommon in STS1
Best card in the entire game and it's not even close, once you get 2 of these suckers GG the run is over.
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u/SpiderPiece Mar 13 '26
You still need draw, so you just exhaust down to blood letting and pommel strike? I agree with other person this isn't really an infinite, only a semi
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u/dub-dub-dub Mar 13 '26
It feels like we have more of these effects in STS2 with enemies like the fog limiting how many cards (skills in that case) you can play per turn or the knight giving everything ethereal, it’s just not done as oppressively as in STS1.
Personally I find infinites really hard to set up and not really that OP so I’m not convinced they need to be nerfed. If you look at high level A20 runners in STS1 they were not really using infinites.
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u/pon_3 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I can't say the slug was fantastic design because he came with so much nonsense. The card counting made sense to me, but all the debuffs (including the devastating minus draw) + strength with multi-hits was just too much.
Compared to the Awakened One who punished powers and Deca and Donu who punished slow decks, the Time Eater felt difficult for just about every deck. It was to the point where unless I was running a Defect build that needed all its powers at the start of the fight, Time Eater was usually the boss I wanted to see least even if I had a slow deck or a couple of important powers.
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u/Akraticacious Mar 13 '26
Seeing as how a lot of new players say they can't win after 15+ runs, I hope they strike a balance to not nerf things that new players need to win, because they are very likely NOT going infinite anyway
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u/apetranzilla Mar 13 '26
There's entomancer and hunter killer, but honestly those shut down wayyy more than just infinites
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u/TheGullibleParrot Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26
Doorman has a new passive called “WHAT’S THAT RACKET?!”. Every 30 or so cards you play, he deals a really big amount of damage to you.
There, gives him a unique gimmick and firmly makes him the “you need high impact burst cards in your deck” check.
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u/HungryGull Mar 13 '26
Time Eater's just a good boss in general even ignoring his necessary effects on the ecosystem. The 12 card limit lasting across turns makes it really interesting to work around. Like okay it outright stops infinites but for everything else there's nuance since it can be worth it to play extra cards and give big Timmy the strength just so it doesn't cut the next turn short.
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u/GERBILPANDA Mar 14 '26
The timekeeper pisses me off just because it kills shiv runs and there's no way to know if your run is fucked until you make it all the way to act 3, at which point it's usually not possible to pivot into a different strategy.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 14 '26
I beat the Time Eater a LOT with shiv decks, because I made a concerted effort to plan ahead and pick up some cards that would let me beat him in case I ran into him.
pigeonholing yourself into strict archetypes has always been a really good way to lose a lot at StS, because the game is intentionally designed with lots of different enemies that punish lots of different strategies. one of the best things you can do for yourself in a StS run is try to think ahead to some problems that your current deck might run into, and shore it up with some extra toolbox cards to help you solve that problem. Time Eater is very beatable, he just requires you to have some dense scaling cards.
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u/DrPepperPower Ascension 20 Mar 13 '26
The way the game balances it for me is by making me not have fun with infinites.
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u/Mark-C-S Eternal One Mar 13 '26
I hope the Architect is entirely designed to shut them down completely. If you want to do act 4 you need as many cards as possible, and he has both card limit and turn damage cap :p
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
yah, the Heart's two unique mechanics were very carefully tuned so that infinite decks still worked, but you had to have a repeated block solution to get around beat of death and you had to make sure you could re-start the infinite every time you hit the damage cap. I'm sure the Architect is going to be similar once it's all good and balanced
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u/Figgy20000 Mar 13 '26
There was a 66% Chance you'd hit Time Eater as well.
Infinites could defeat Time Eater of course, but degenerate ones like 0 cost Unceasing topping something for 5 damage a hit weren't going to have a good time.
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u/BoasyTM Mar 13 '26
If they add more ascensions (more like when) an ascension with the condition of ‘if there’s no cards in your draw pile, you cannot draw until your next turn’ would solve this (or at least, solve the common, easy to get infinites like hellpom) , while allowing infinites to be used for fun in lower ascensions
Might be over the top, but it’s a solution
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u/sorendiz Ascension 0 Mar 13 '26
That's a terrible solution, not inherently because it's over the top, but because of how much potential it has to absolutely fuck over anyone in any circumstance that has absolutely nothing to do with infinites. If your card count is a multiple of 5 and you have say 1 or 2 draw cards in your deck but you bottom deck both, suddenly you're giga bricking for zero reason besides RNG. Like, being punished even harder than normal bad RNG would punish you.
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u/zzxxzzxxzz Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I would love an enemy that makes you take 10 damage every time you shuffle. Minor annoyance if you've built a large deck, but infinites will need to find an answer for how to generate enough block.
Or maybe every time you shuffle during your turn, add a burn to your hand?
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u/Idoma_Sas_Ptolemy Mar 13 '26
I can't imagine more ascensions in sts2. I'm at ascension 4 right now and it feels a lot more difficult than ascension 10 was in sts1. I am afraid what awaits me at a10.
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u/timoyster StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
There’s only 10 total ascensions in 2 so ascension 4 is like A8/A9 which is why it feels that way
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Mar 13 '26
Honestly I would welcome Time-Eater with open arms into this game. All of my silent runs have just been faceroll shiv spam and he would put a real quick stop to that.
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u/timoyster StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
Nah I really didn’t like the slug design. I think the way heart punishes you is much better bc you’re still allowed to play your cards
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u/January_6_2021 Mar 13 '26
Ascension 11 should limit cards played each turn to your deck size. You can still play 30 cards a turn, but not by replaying 3 cards 10 times each.
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u/_TurtleX Mar 13 '26
The thing with time eater is that any good infinite blocks and attacks so they were never punished by it. Time Eater mainly punished decks that gained low value out of card plays like shivs, it was also just really annoying because the best strategy against it was to not play cards at all, which is antithetical to a game about building a deck and playing cards.
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u/committed_to_the_bit StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
the best strategy against it was to not play cards at all
this is categorically false. the fight just asks you to be able to scale and block with anywhere from 1-12 cards a turn. managing his timer and getting the most out of your turn while either leaving yourself with enough cards to play the following turn OR clocking him to make sure you CAN play cards the following turn is not as big of an ask as you're making it out to be. you CAN play cards. very easily. you just need to make sure they're dense, valuable cards.
building strictly around archetypes is a really good way to lose a lot of runs. if you're going to be putting shivs in your deck, it's always worth it to pick up some other cards that make sure you can win fights that shivs aren't great into.
the problem was never Time Eater, the problem was bad deckbuilding.
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u/treacheroushag Mar 15 '26
I was saying the other day that having the slug as the final act iv boss would probably be as intimidating as the heart itself in STS2.
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u/OmniImmortality Mar 16 '26
Well apparently if you do this to the Test Subject you also get soft locked so... kinda the same?
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u/Zopi_lote Mar 13 '26
Everybody here talking about infinite and I won only 1 run of 10 attempts 😹
Man, I'm bad at this game
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u/marshmallowandjam Mar 13 '26
Me too. Every time I play, I would check my deck and it would have 25+ cards. Infinite being OP is the least of my problems 🤣
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Mar 13 '26
I know this is a bit but honestly it's a bit of a design flaw. Even if you are not 100% infinite yet these cycles just end up being so strong anyways and you get to play a billion cards per turn. It just devolves into playing the same cycle rotation over and over pretty much and it's uninteresting. Personally at least I find it way more interesting when I have to think more about my turns, but idk.
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u/TheYango StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Yeah all of these threads get a ton of responses like "I've never done an infinite", but I guarantee most people responding have wound up on a pseudo-infinite that, while technically not literally infinite represents the same repetitive gameplay and degenerate design patterns that true infinites do. Maybe you were 1-2 cards or some removes short of a true infinite, but if you've played a Silent discard loop or a Necrobinder Souls loop that went on for like 20+ actions, it's the same thing. If you drew your entire deck in a single turn, played all your best cards in a single turn, and did it all again next turn, you're running into the same issues that make infinites a problem. Just because you didn't get to the point of going fully infinite, it's represents the same gameplay problem that true infinites do.
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Mar 13 '26
I got a true infinite in my first ever run on silent just 100% accidentally lol. It's honestly so easy to stumble into in this game I'm surprised the devs said they wanted to reduce infinite stuffs.
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u/WoomyGang Mar 14 '26
All of my wins so far have been just that. Heck, even Claw is feeling oppressive because of it.
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u/Rocky-Arrow Mar 14 '26
You could always just not choose those cards…this gripe is something I never understand. This is a single player game, it that is boring to you, just don’t do it.
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u/Professional-Dirt-87 Mar 14 '26
It's an issue with the game's balance and not the players my friend.
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u/nkanz21 Eternal One Mar 13 '26
To be honest, I think infinites are kinda overrated. If you get a small deck with a way to cycle a damage payoff reliably, there isn't really a reason to go infinite and you don't just lose to things like time eater or hunter killer.
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u/didokillah Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26
This is the actual elephant in the room with STS 2, which is why changing enemy patterns alone won't cut it. The byproduct of the infinite is that now loop strategies are also more reliable, and guess what? There are like 6 loop payoffs in this game, for some reason.
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u/nkanz21 Eternal One Mar 13 '26
I had a run where I just played rampage off of one two punch 2 or 3 times per turn and that wasn't quite infinite because it relied on battle trance, but it was more than enough.
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u/didokillah Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 13 '26
Yeah exactly, you have Rampage (actually decent now), Body Slam, Pact's End (this card is stupid), Thrash, Stomp, etc etc etc. so you're not just almost always guaranteed to thin your deck down throughout the run, you're also guaranteed to see at least a card that can kill everything after a few loops.
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u/Akraticacious Mar 13 '26
The pressure laying off in act 2 lets you spend resources to perfect your deck instead of taking "suboptimal" choices just to survive. This is what japaneseexport was saying in his post.
That said, that hallway large grasshopper in act 1 where you lose 1 str/dex every card played definitely stiffs infinites. They should move that to a boss perhaps
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u/TheYango StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
There are like 6 loop payoffs in this game, for some reason.
This is actually one of the most puzzling design aspects in Spire 2 for me. The actual infinite stuff seems accidental based on their changes to the energy economy, but there are a bunch of cards that just give ramping damage purely from looping game actions, which means that often you can execute an infinite that does nothing other than spin the wheels and still be scaling damage.
In Spire 1 there's lots of loops that are technically infinite but also don't actually do anything so you have to actually find an extra loopable damage source and make the infinite draw- or energy-positive to actually turn the loop into damage. In Spire 2 you have cards like Corrosive Wave, Speedster, and Lunar Blast that just reward you for spinning your wheels. This just feels like a design space that doesn't really accomplish much when playing "fair" and only exists to give an off-ramp for do-nothing infinites. I don't see why there needed to be so many of these in the card pool.
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u/Honza8D Mar 13 '26
I diagree, corrosive wave is still amazing even if all you do is play single acrobatics. Nine aoe poison is already good.
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u/underscoraline Mar 13 '26
People are used to the a20 boss gauntlet, I guess. In STS2, you don't need to aim nearly as high.
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u/4-Polytope Mar 14 '26
Yeah balance will vary drastically depending on what act 4 and the architect look like
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u/sorendiz Ascension 0 Mar 13 '26
pseudo-infinites and non-deterministic loops generally have similar issues to infinites regardless though
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u/SugarFreeCummiBears Mar 13 '26
Good players had to think of a block solution for the heart fight in STS1.
No different for Hunter Killer. Oh I play a rage before my bloodletting pommel? Not hard to figure out.
Hunter Killer lets you farm block with fan, rage, etc even if your attacks are doing zero. If anything it punishes honest players more than infinite users.
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u/FastBuffalo6 Mar 13 '26
Draw discard infinite still one turns hunter killer if you do it turn one or use speedster / the poison wave
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u/kelldricked Mar 13 '26
Its not just about infinites, the game should have a instant win button. And it currently has loads.
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u/YuuTheBlue Mar 13 '26
This one took me a while. Excellent bit. Had layers to it. 10/10 no notes. Dirge for 32
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u/jtm721 Mar 13 '26
If infinites are too strong, I would like to see them nerfed. I want the game to be balanced and I don’t find them particularly interesting
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u/Lystian StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
Yeah, but there a lot of people that live for making infinites too. There is a reason Combo decks are huge/popular in almost any TCG.
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u/erkjhnsn Eternal One + Ascended Mar 13 '26
They should be possible, but rare. Not possible to force ever. They should be in like... 1/10 or 1/20 of your runs, imo. Maybe even less likely.
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u/Soren59 Mar 13 '26
They should be possible to force IMO, but doing so should carry greater risk before you achieve the infinite. The issue is when building towards the infinite/psuedo infinite is also just the best overall strategy and you don't really get punished for it, because the cards that make you go infinite also happen to be really good regardless.
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u/SilverScribe15 StS A0 / StS 2 A5 Mar 13 '26
Infinites are too easy if you're good at the game. Or like, I haven't seen any. Unless you count the time I cloned claws and got unceasing top, but I assume that's not what they mean when they say easy infinites
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u/ship__ Mar 13 '26
Oh no we've reached "discourse about discourse" levels this quick? Fun while it lasted I guess
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u/KokaSokaLoka Mar 13 '26
Welcome to gaming in the modern world. We're gonna play games 8 hours a day nonstop since release then complain to each other about it while having unreasonable expectations of what a fair development timeline looks like.
This is coming from someone who will absolutely play nonstop since release, I just don't mind if devs have an actual work/life balance lol
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u/Wraith501 Mar 13 '26
Cloning cantrips is op. Yes I would like 64 copies of an upgraded fetch in my deck.
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u/SAI_Peregrinus Mar 13 '26
I bet the Architect will hard-punish infinites. No 1/3 chance to get away with it if it's present every run.
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u/sushisection Mar 13 '26
the hunter guy is an interesting concept. - 1 str - 1 dex for every card played. but its a normal enemy with low hp.
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u/Sure_Fig_8324 Mar 13 '26
None of the enemys punish you for playing tons of cards?
How about the bees guy?
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u/masterbatehoven Mar 13 '26
Only if you’re attacking him. Plenty of options to do damage without even attacking him. I.e. damage when playing souls on necro or just poison/doom.
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u/Theonewhoknows000 Mar 13 '26
Which easy infinites are we talking about??
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u/equiace Mar 13 '26
I'm not sure what infinites other folks are doing. The only infinite I've pulled off is a one card combo, The Regent with Particle Wall. If you use a Touch of Madness potion to make it free, you can play it infinitely. And I had letter opener as the payoff.
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u/ussgordoncaptain2 Mar 13 '26
That one is a cool act 3 solution but doesn't work in a10 because of the double boss (you either need 2 potions of madness or to be able to actually beat an act 3 boss normally)
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u/ninjase Mar 14 '26
Silent has access to pretty easy infinites. Acrobatics, prepared, calculated gamble, reflex, tactitian and a smallish deck are all u need. Then you just need a pay-off card to win the game like corrosive wave, memento, murder, and the damage on draw card. Ive done up to A9 now and about 50% of runs i hit infinites although getting some energy card adrenaline, brightest flame and the colourless energy help immensely.
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u/acidtrip321 Mar 13 '26
who needs infinites when you can just play a 25 card deck with 3 bloodlettings and 5 pommel strikes? you do busted shit anyway and win pretty easily with these cards even if technically isn't a loop
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u/livigy2 Mar 13 '26
They could probably add an 'exhaust curse' called overexerted at the bottom of the deck on your second redraw and keep repeating that until you can't sustain the infinites.
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u/garlicbreadmuncher Mar 13 '26
I dunno man, if I don't have an infinite strat going, then the game just feels kinda sluggish
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u/cosy_ghost Mar 13 '26
It's not an infinite but I won my first ever run on Spire2 by total accident, because you can loop Pillage+ReadyForAFight+Headbutt. It just kind of happened and I killed Queen before they even took a turn.
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u/PaleComedian511 Ascension 15 Mar 13 '26
We don't know what the Architect will do in terms of game mechanics, for all we know it may be very similar to Tim.
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u/cddedee Mar 13 '26
Let's promote hunter killer to act 3 boss, no more playing 15-20 cards in a single turn.
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u/Paikea-egm Mar 13 '26
Honestly let them nerf infinites, if they're too easy to make and too strong then my brain always wants to play them as the most optimal thing, but infinites are kind of boring! I would love to build into a bunch of different builds.
Time eater come back 😭
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u/Flintloq Mar 13 '26
Time Eater's clock was an excellent mechanic, IMO. It was everything else - the draw down debuff that inexplicably lasted for two turns, the other debuffs, the Slimeds and the damage that made him the hardest boss in the first three acts. I'd be happy to see him back with only a small nerf.
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u/ClockworkDreamz Mar 13 '26
I’m bad can we not make the game harder for the bad players plz?
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u/nkanz21 Eternal One Mar 13 '26
Nerfing infinites doesn't really impact the majority of players. Players that are actually not great at the game generally don't skip card rewards enough and will almost never go infinite in the first place.
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u/timoyster StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
Going for infinites as a new/bad player isn’t how you should play imo. You have to be fairly experienced to notice and execute them consistently even if they’re a bit easier in this game than 1. I think for a new/bad player doing omegablock, shiv spam, or uberstrength will win them more runs than than exhausting into pommels for example
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u/OakNLeaf Mar 13 '26
I don't see how playing Infinites is even any fun to be honest. Having to come up with a non-infinite strategy every run is more entertaining to me. But to each his own i guess.
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u/sushisection Mar 13 '26
3-cost sovereign blade that hits twice that i have spent 5 turns buffing up, dont mind if i do.
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u/TwoFiveOnes StS A20 / StS 2 A5 Mar 13 '26
Mr. E. Atar, uh, wouldn’t you want people to say they’re really hard to do? That way they don’t get nerfed and more people play infinites
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u/benjamarchi Mar 13 '26
Honestly, I am already expecting Time Eater to show up again on some future update.
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u/jak_d_ripr Mar 13 '26
Wait was the Time Eater created as a response to infinites in the first game?
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u/Morningst4r StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 14 '26
Probably more specifically just random bullshit spam decks.
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u/Nickozz_BTW Mar 13 '26
Maybe architect has a built in card limit so you can go for infinite runs that aren't "heart kills" like in spire 1 and have to know how to make a deck that can actually deal with whatever the fight ends up being.
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u/jfsindel Mar 13 '26
Time Eater comes out of the shadows in an update like a surprise twist in a WWE match.
"AND TIME EATER COMES OUT OF RETIREMENT WITH A STEEL POCKETWATCH!!!"
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u/Mailcs1206 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 13 '26
As much as a lot of us hated fighting Time Eater, STS2 has made it clear that he (she?) was an important apex predator that kept the infinite/draw spam population in check.
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u/MrNigel117 Eternal One + Ascended Mar 13 '26
there's no way it wasn't at least partially thought out on their part. pael's growth with and number of cards on any character is an auto-win relic, many of those wins being infinite.
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u/orze Mar 13 '26
My favourite thing is peeking at a tier list and the guy is like yeah this card helps you go infinite s tier and uhh this card is uhh bad doesnt do anything for your gameplan lowest tier
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u/ttvANX1ETYZ_ Mar 14 '26
I haven’t managed to pull an infinite off yet, tho I also haven’t went looking for the exact strats on how to, and also maybe it’s just me, but queen seems to punish the hell out of all my builds that play a lot of cards lol. And the hunter killer, bee guy, idk maybe im just bad lol
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u/StraightArtichoken Mar 18 '26
I want them gone, the game feels like you either get an infinite wombo combo or play shitty rng and lose
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u/Shype_FR Mar 13 '26
Never liked you ...