I
’m not very good at
Slay the Spire, and it’s
been quite a while
since I last took a run
up its steeple, which is
still in Early Access. But the
promise of getting to try its third
character, The Defect, is enough to
draw me back into the intense push
and pull of its card-slinging
strategy. This is the kind of game
where a three-act drama can play
out in just one hand, as joy turns
to despair and back again. Or, for
me, despair, ill-founded joy and
then back to despair. And I love it.
The Defect is unlocked by
completing a game as The Silent,
during which my dim memory of a
favourite strategy of spreading poison
and then playing a card that deals
extra damage to poisoned enemies
carries me through to the second
level. It’s all flooding back to me.
But I soon realise The Defect is
unlike the other classes. The Ironclad
is a knight who builds up armour and
buffs attacks, and The Silent is about
free stabs and status effects. But The
Defect is a robot... wizard? With
orbs? That it channels? And evokes?
The first run goes badly. But it
does help me understand The Defect
a little. Those orbs hang over its head
in three slots which you can fill with
elements, if the cards go your way.
For as long as it’s in a slot, an element
gives a passive effect at the end of
your turn. Lightning causes three
damage to a random enemy, Frost
gives you two block points, Plasma
gives you an extra Energy to spend,
and Dark does nothing except raise
the damage it’ll deal when evoked.
Evoking spends your elements,
dealing an increased effect at the cost
of losing their free passive effect. So
The Defect is all about weighing up
the benefit of cashing in orbs now for
a quick bonus, or saving them for
greater profit over time.“The Defect is a robot... wizard? With
orbs? That it channels?”
WHAT A NOB
On my second run I do better. Until I
meet the Gremlin Nob. This naked
sub-boss has a trait that’s peculiarly
hostile to The Defect: every time I
play a skill card, its attack is
permanently raised. And because skill
cards manage orbs, The Defect is all
about them. But I think it’s worth
investing in some block-giving Frost
to start with. I can manage this.
That’s when the Nob prepares a
33-damage attack on my frail
75-health robot body. Hoping the
attack is an quirk, I evoke both my
Frosts by playing Dualcast, raising ten
extra block to mitigate some of the
hit. But to my dismay I see it’s going
to hit for 42 next turn. I play three
block cards, knowing that yes, they’ll
each raise the Nob’s damage by two,
but they’ll also protect me for five.
And then, with an inspired
evoking of a saved-up Dark orb, I
beat it with just two HP to spare.
What a duel. And what winnings! I
get the Darkstone Periapt artefact,
which raises my HP by six whenever
I get a curse card, and the All for One
card, which deals ten damage and
returns all discarded zero-cost cards
back to my hand! Unfortunately,
though, I last just a single round in
the next battle.ALEX WILTSHIRE
THIS MONTH
Crashed out in the first
level and loved it.ALSO PLAYED
Dicey Dungeons, BattleTechGetting to grips with SLAY THE SPIRE’s mecha-magical new class
THE NOB PREPARES A
33-DAMAGE ATTACK ON MY
FRAIL 75-HEALTH ROBOT BODYTHE GAMES WE LOVE RIGHT NOW
NOW PLAYING
Meet the robot-hating
Gremlin Nob. Load up on Lightning to deal
random damage each turn.