Slay the Spire – Endless Mode Guide

Overview

This is a short guide for the Endless Mode of Slay the Spire.The goal is, to build an optimal deck that consistently defeats all encounters without relying on luck.Optionally there are some hints to make the run faster and more convenient.In theory you can go with this deck forever, since it outscales the enemies faster than they are able to grow stronger.

Goal

Do a fast, consistent and convenient infinite run.

Choice of class

Ironclad is the clear winner.
He is best suited due to his cards and starting relic.

Core cards

• Whirlwind[slay-the-spire.fandom.com]

Optional cards

The following cards are not required, but make the run easier/faster:

• Mind Blast (your deck will grow very big and it’s innate)
• Headbutt (setup a second attack, for Awakened One)
• Seek* (inside bottled lightning)
• Corruption (inside bottled Tornado)
• Limit Break
• Apparition (rarely matters, since most enemies die in one turn)
• Secret Weapon (find whatever, for example Whirlwind)
• Secret Technique (find whatever, for example Limit Break)

*Note:
You can get cards of other classes via a modifier, an ? event or the Prismatic Shard relic

Core Relics

• Blue Candle*
  => Play curses, especially Pride[slay-the-spire.fandom.com]

• Medical Kit*
  => Play status cards (far less important than Blue Candle)

• Dead Branch
  => Since you can play status cards and they exhaust, you can now turn Curses/Status cards into potentially useful cards

• Du-Vu-Doll:
  For each Curse in your deck, start each combat with 1 additional Strength.
  => This is our main source of damage (strength)

*Note:
Playing curses or status cards does not count to the Time Maze Curse (“play a maximum of 15 cards per turn limit curse”)

Optional Relics

You will get almost every relic sooner or later regardless, but some are nice to have:

• Necronomicon (big whirlwind twice)
• Suzu Bracelet (less fights -> faster and more convenient climb speed)
• Peace Pipe (Convenient removal of curses, especially Prides at campfires)

Mistakes to avoid

There are only a few things which can screw up your run in the long term:

• Events:

  
  The Divine Fountain
  [Drink] Remove all Curses from your deck.
  Don’t ever drink from that cursed fountain ! It removes curses, which are our source of strength with the help of Du-Vu Doll !

  Mind Bloom

  • [I am War] Fight a Boss from Act 1. Obtain a Rare Relic, normal rewards and 100 Gold.
    => takes time, but can be useful especially if choosen early on. Later it just wastes time (you only receive a circlet from it)

  • [I am Awake] Upgrade all Cards. You can no longer heal. (Grants Mark of the Bloom)
    => NEVER make this choice, it will slowly and painfully lose you the game at some point !

  • [I am Rich] Gain 999 gold. Cursed – 2 Normality.
    => Bad Choice, money is irrelevant.

  • [I am Healthy] Heal to full HP. Cursed – Doubt.
    => Seems like a bad choice, but it’s actually good. Bad early on, later it makes your deck stronger (Duvu Doll for extra strength)
• Relics:

  Velvet Choker:
  Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. You cannot play more than 6 cards per turn.
  => Energy won’t be your limitation. You want to be able to play many cards.

  Ectoplasm:
  Gain 1 Energy at the start of each turn. You cannot gain Gold from ANY source while you have
  => Energy won’t be your limitation. You want to be able to remove cards (curses) and buy stuff from shops.

  Gambling Chip:
  At the start of each combat, choose and Discard any number of cards, then draw as many.
  => This is kinda nice to have, but it takes a lot of time at the start of each combat (and there are a lot of combats if you’re going endlessly). It makes the run easier, but also a lot slower.

• Other:

  I might have forgotten some of the events or relics, but it’s quite obvious: don’t take any event or relic, which permanently hurts you more than it benefits you.
  Please mention if you found something I forgot to mention.

Gameplay Strategy

• During the fights:

  Play Whirlwind, win fight.
  If you don’t have Whirlwind, play curses (or other cards) until you win 🙂

• In the Spire (pathfinding)

  I recommend to favour the campfires, ? events and shops over fights, since they are faster and more convenient, but it does not really matter.

  Card choices:

  Prioritize cards and relics as stated in the chapters before.
  Pick all of the following curses:

  • Clumsy
  • Decay
  • Doubt
  • Necronomicurse
  • Parasite
  • Regret
  • Shame
  • Pain

  They increase your strength in conjunction with the Du-Vu Doll:

  Avoid those curses:

  • Normality
  • Pride
  • Writhe

  Those curses are innate and clump your starting hand, worst case even bottled or other innate cards. Remove them at shops, with the Peace Pipe or with single curse removal events.

Tough Fights

• Time Eater:
  Second worst fight in the game. Beware that Curses count towards the 12 card limit to play per turn, otherwise harmless.

• Awakened One:
  You have to kill him twice, which means you need a second attack after Whirlwind (which is twice as many attacks as almost every other encounter will require !)
  In order to kill him a second time, you have to play curses until you find useful cards to kill him.
  Any search and draw cards are generally useful to find those cards. One of the few occasions where Apparition is handy as well

Choice of Modifiers

The following choices of modifiers should make it most convenient and easy to survive forever.

For Ascenscion I recommend 0 or 1.
Ascension 1 allows you to fight more elites, to gain some relics faster, but it doesn’t really matter.

Obviously, since this sets the game mode, which is the point of the guide 😉

• Colorless Cards:
  There are a few useful cards in there, especially draw or search cards.

• Heirloom:
  Easy choice, free bonus starting relic

• Time Dilation:
  Free extra damage.

• Flight
  Easy pathing in the Spire. Can avoid many fights, very convenient.

• Sealed or Draft
  Makes the game more fun, no real (dis-)advantages.

• Diverse:
  It’s more fun, but there are only very few cards that are useful from other classes.

• Green Cards:
  The Dilent has to offer the least amount of useful cards

• Blue Cards:
  The Defect offers seek, but that’s about it.

  => Better skip those three, they make the run a bit more fun, but less efficient.

• Hoarder:
  I’m not sure about this one, it’s a two edged sword. If you can keep up removing the innate curses, this should increase the power of your deck, but it might also kill you. Better stay safe and skip it (comment on your opinion, not certain here).

The End

Thanks for reading this Guide.

With this guide, you should be able to Slay the Spire forever (or at least until you lose motivation).

If you find any mistakes or additions, please feel free to comment !