I just started playing this game tonight and discovered the Barricade bodyslam combo in my third run. Got a fantastic relic that let me permanently have barricade in my opening hand. Upgraded body slam to cost zero. Supported with big shield buffs, draw 3, & something called entrenched I think. It doubles shields.

Massive agree on this deck. Played it rather recently with Barricade, Entrench, Panic Button, and Impervious. Entrench doesnt count as gaining shield to panic button so it will still double anyway, with barricade and that bringing you to 80 shield in just 2 cards youre unlikely to worry about panic button's negative effect. Exhume can also be a good pickup to add back impervious and/or panic button to the hand. Another really good thing to add is self-damage synergy. With high shield you dont need to worry about your health as much and can use cards like combust, brutality, offering and hemokinesis, with rupture of course to build up alot of strength with minimal threat to yourself, I foubd it to really complement the decks style and gives a great boost to cards like shield bash.

Body slam decks are better without barricade. All barricade does for body slam decks is be a awkward way to guarantee you have block for your body slams. But why draft a rare 3 cost ( 2 when upgraded) card to do that when a warcry also does that as well as draw cards and those are naturally good things anyway as well as the impervious you’d want for body slam and then the deck comes together naturally vs barricade entrench none of those picks are very natural and will make your deck worse until you have all the pieces. Body slam decks are also fast enough to justify small amounts of deck trashing since you play your block cards maybe need some draw then you play a bunch of 0 cost 40 or 50 damage attacks so it’s not unrealistic to not go past first cycle outside of bosses and you’d honestly rather have an evolve as far as powers go where as barricade decks can be rather slow to scale up enough block and play barricade without it being bottled when you could of just been doing massive damage and also taking none from the start so there’s a risk that with bad enough draws you are outscaled by the heart. Also often times taking a barricade will kill you since ironclad will learn towards wanting to take the most elites possible floor one and taking a barricade as a reward in the first of 3 or 4 elites especially if one is empowered WILL kill you unless you get fairy in a bottles or lizard tail

@@ultimaterecoil1136 there are turns where I'm able to accumulate 100+ block, and if I have Barricade active, the next few turns I can just focus on dealing damage, and preserving block can make you deal more damage with Body Slam (especially when paired with Entrench). There are a lot of times where the enemies just intend to buff or debuff, and all cards I get are just block cards, and in those cases having Barricade won't make those turns wasted. I don't see why you wouldn't want Barricade in a body slam build. It's just one card, that makes your deck overall better. I took it multiple times in the first floors of Act 1 and still was able to kill empowered elites, I don't understand what you mean by "often times taking a barricade will kill you since ironclad will learn towards wanting to take the most elites possible floor one and taking a barricade as a reward in the first of 3 or 4 elites especially if one is empowered WILL kill you unless you get fairy in a bottles or lizard tail"

@@fraidei2094 because it’s a rather expensive and cumbersome way to guarantee that you have block when you have your body slams. That’s basically all it does and it requires a bottle to be of use. Things like headbutt burning pack and warcry also achieve the same thing and are much cheaper and more common to boot. Body slam decks are fast enough without barricade that the constant 40 block+ depending on energy amount and the 2 to 3 body spams a turn that the only fight that should go beyond the second cycle is the heart so you can justify using power through and the most impactful power would be evolve specifically for the heart. Good body slam decks practically never get body slam and blocks away from each other thanks to all the deck management tools on offer. And by the time the enemy scales up past your natural abilities to block they are dead. Barricade is very awkward to use however even an upgraded one can cause you to take damage to play it and many fights it’s not even worth playing in a body slam deck and if it shows up too late in your deck you definitely need to worry about the here and now if the enemy is scaling but by that point most enemies would be dead anyway. I’d take a war cry another body slam a evolve a power through dual wielding a headbutt over a barricade unless it was offered alongside a bottle and tbh I’d consider bottled evolve over bottled barricade depending on the amount of power though with the ability to put statuses that end up being effectively just an extra draw on top of my hand from deck management tools being a nice bonus to the second cycle consistency evolve provides for the heart.

I beated the game with silent eternal draw&discard deck on my second try (total third run) but struggling now a bit with ironclad

For whatever reason defect is impossible for me. I finally managed to clear act 3 with him yesterday but i think i just got insanely lucky. I won’t be pulling that off ever again lol

Hope you managed to finally beat the game with them by now! Congrats on your victory(s)! :)

With shiv build on timeeater you have to have the shiv power ups to make them hit harder. With no buffs they simply dont do enough in the 11 card limit you have before timeeater stops you. Try getting the relic that makes 0 cost cards hit for 4 extra also. Paired with the shiv power ups ive had shivs throwing for 20+

@@briancooley8777 same! I got incredibly lucky with a lighting god build coupled with a side claw build. The thing that saved my ass just barely right as I was about to die was the static discharge stacked to 4. Lighting builds are one of my most enjoyable builds I’ve done

I love this build, its honestly insane how much cards you can play in one turn

I love this build in theory but getting all the cards necessary to get it online seems like a pain. Played so many games in a row specifically going for this build and couldn’t get it online. Something like 15 games

Exhaust is a great engine for a deck in order to pull massive draw power. What cards do you combo with it to get the damage though?

@@lololol924 Given that I posted this 2 years ago and haven't played in a while I couldn't tell you exactly. But if I had to guess from what I wrote, the idea was to use dead branch to generate tons of cards, among which could be additional copies of offering, sentinel, etc for card draw and energy gain, alongside any damaging cards it generates and the dark embrace power to draw through the whole deck multiple times all while getting to repeatedly use your newly generated damage cards ad nauseum each time you did. Its a bit lacking in refinement and that's obviously a best of all possible worlds situation for the deck but with the available card draw it was inevitable you reach a state in any drawn out fight where you can perform the win con quite consistently. Regardless, I was, and am still, hardly the best at this game and it was more me just sharing the fun I had with it and my amateur analysis of the strategy than anything more concrete.

Bro add combust and rupture and you have demon form + 7 damage to all enemies/turn. 😩

The strat is to do this, and then use the Reaper card when you have a bunch of strength in order to heal

i like that deck, but it's hard to pull off, many thing can go wrong, you need fire breathing for damage, but it's a really bad card without support, so you'll wanna start with evolve which is really good on its own, then power through, but you migth not get fire breathing to seal the combo and even if you do, just 1 won't be enaugh for boss fight and you may find yourself ina position where you have nothing to block since you rely on a few really good block, so you also need a barricade, but when you do pull it off, it's so powerfull.

Ah yes, combustion, rupture, evolve, firebreatjing, and lots of reckless/wild strike/power through. Dealing 100 damage just for drawing your hand is nice

You probably know by now but he explodes after 4 turns. You either have to stack a ton of shield if you can or do the better route and load up on repetitive damage. Whatever you build around. Silent and poison is the best for him imo

That’s my understanding too man, that it upgrades the once and the second one just gets used and exhausted - but I’m not 100%

No, I just used it it upgrades rampage twice suuuuper good

It removes the strength at the end of your turn. So you just go back to normal.

Awesome good luck! I have guides on the silent and the defect too if that could help :)

@@MedievalMarty I will check them out for sure

Unfortunately after clearing ascension 20 with silent and ascension 10 with the rest. Ironclad with strength build is fun but as ascension increases strength is the only build that can consistently win without a little bit of luck

Yeah there's a few battles with 3 enemies all with a starting attack of 10+ each. This build would kill me!

Apotheosis exhausts so you can only upgrade searing blow once per fight with it. Not so good tbh. Searing blow is fun, but not very good.

Armaments is good tbh. Especially if upgraded, since it upgrades all the cards in your hand. All about getting good synergy with it and getting good cards that upgrade to be better. I will point out, armaments only upgrades them for the fight you use it in. It doesnt permanently upgrade cards.

transients die after 6 turns and any attack you dea on them decreases THEIR attack by that much. so play your defense and attacks well and it quickly becomes one of the easiest enemies in the game - ignore the 999 HP. means nothing if you can do some heavy damage that removes his attacks along with blocks here n there.

@@lilwavesz you're right, I had completely forgotten the dmg reduction mechanic. I encountered one when I managed a Strength deck and got it to 0 or near-0 dmg on every turn

@@depasadaporahi9385 nice!!! i got suuuper close to finishing with a somewhat decent(not great) strength deck last night but got taken out. still have only beaten it with the silent but hoping to get ironclad or defect soon 🤞 lmk if you have any tips!!

@@lilwavesz good luck! I have reached Act III boss once with Defect on my first try with that character (pure luck, I wasn't even really deck building) and beat it once with the aforementioned Ironclad Strength deck, but only thru cheating (restoring save files a couple of times), which is about the only "tip" I can offer. My tolerance for rogue-like games is limited, even if I love the gameplay. With Silent I've only gotten to a few floors before Act III boss, and haven't figured out the Watcher yet, could not even get to the first boss. lame.

@@depasadaporahi9385 ahhh okay thank you!!! for silent what worked for me was focusing on defense and poison!!! once you start stacking poisons with your blocks built up the enemies pretty much kill themselves 😅

I personally like spot weakness, headbutt, and pommel strike

No, its really not. It's good scaling if you have the energy. Though you shouldn't take a demon form in act 1 unless you swap for energy relic

@@golfer435 Ehh, there are a lot of fights that deal damage very quickly. If you have the deck to survive, then yeah it's fine scaling. But I've seen it in my hand, taking up one of my card draws when nemesis is about to hit me for 50 damage. Don't get to play it unless you want to die. Any card *can* be good, but I think demon form is overrated. Have just seen it ruin runs more than it helps runs. There are other, more consistent ways to get strength for much less energy.

@@medude420024 oh i agree. I only take it early in act 1 when damage is low as it helps with nob and damage scaling or if I already have a large energy economy

Yeah but you can keep upgrading Searing Blow past the damage a Bludgeon+ could do

Yep he had lethal but took the hit anyway lmao

Git gud

There’s no problem with trying to enjoy the game. Ascension is stressful and not fun at times. If you want a challenge cool if not it’s not a big deal. Deck building is the same either way