History Sandbox / DownfallSlayTheSpire

''Downfall'' is a fanmade expansion mod for the [[{{Roguelike}} roguelike]] DeckBuildingGame ''VideoGame/SlayTheSpire'' created by Table 9 Studios. Its main claim to fame is the new "Downfall" campaign, where you [[VillainProtagonist play as one of eight villain characters]] (most of whom are bosses) protecting the Spire from heroes who seek to destroy it. Each character comes with new mechanics, cards, relics, potions, and more.

* AdaptationExpansion: The developers invented and expanded a lot of mechanics to have enough material for the PromotedToPlayable characters' card pools. The playable Automaton in particular has little to do with the corresponding boss fight, instead taking inspiration from programming.[[note]]The most noteworthy concept of its boss fight, Stasis, is already used by the Guardian. Otherwise the fight is fairly straight-forward, with its memorable HYPER BEAM attack making more sense as an individual attack card than the basis of an entire mechanic.[[/note]]

* DifficultButAwesome: The Automaton's cards have unimpressive rates, and trying to put together a "good stuff" deck with him will probably get you killed. However, his synergies have strong payoffs if you can pull them off.

** Zig-zagged with The Collector's Pyre mechanic. While having to burn her own cards to get an effect is flavoured like the price of her power, between the fact that you can burn unwanted cards ({{Deck Clogger}}s, weak basic cards, anything that doesn't work well against the current encounter...), that some cards reward you for burning them, and that two cards let you get back the Pyred card in a way that helps you play it, there are plenty of ways to turn it into an advantage.

*** Tick is a 1-energy that does nothing but give you a Tock the next turn. Similarly, Tock costs 2 and only gives you a Headcrush next turn. ''Then'', if you spend 3 energy on Headcrush, you get the payoff -- 70 AreaOfEffect damage. While this is not a bad effect -- it devastates multi-enemy hallway fights -- the card suffers from being slow, especially if you draw it late (which is not unlikely considering that you hopefully have a nice Collected pile by the time you reach Act 3). Moreover, if you're so desperate for Area of Effect damage that you'd take Tick, you'll probably die before you even get to pick one up. And, finally, it suffers from the same opportunity cost as all bad Collected cards.

*** Dice Crush is a 2-energy attack that deals random damage between 10 and 16. Not only is this unreliable, but it's unimpressive even if you get the highest value, and a low roll is worse than playing two Strikes. Dice Block is a block card with the same gimmick and the same problems. Their only redeeming quality is that their value is significantly better if you can Muddle their cost down to 1 or 0... but that's also true for the game's myriad of better 2-cost cards (and 3+ cost cards for that matter).

* StanceSystem: The Champ's main mechanic is his Stance system: Berserker and Defensive provide relevant benefits when you play a Skill, and some card have bonus effects that rely on a stance being active. To encourage switching between them, you can only get three Skill bonuses per stance activation, exiting a stance gives a bonus, and there are several "Finisher" cards that can only be played while in a stance and exit your stance. There is also the rare Ultimate Stance, which has the benefits of both stances and will be re-entered if you exit it manually, but only lasts until the end of the turn it was entered in.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: When playing the draft variation of Snecko, most players will pick Ironclad cards if possible. Why? Most ''Downfall'' characters rely on cards designed to synergize with their unique gimmicks, but the Ironclad has a lot of generally useful effects like Vulnerable and Strength scaling, which boost the damage of any attack card. His Exhaust theme is nice too -- you can exhaust bad cards to get rid of them, and Feel No Pain and Dark Embrace (whenever a card is exhausted, you respectively gain some block or draw a card) can be very good with both the Ironclad's own Exhaust cards and other characters who exhaust cards for whatever reason (the Gremlins generate a lot of 0-cost cards that exhaust themselves, the Afterlife and Pyre mechanics get even better..).

*** Igniting the Inferno Ghostflame normally deals damage for each active Ghostflame, then extinguishes all other Ghostflames. However, if it's activated multiple by a card, it will hit the same number of times for each additional ignition instead of making those ignitions near worthless.

* SadisticChoice: If you encounter the Gremlin Leader as the Gremlins, you'll be forced to choose between giving up one of your gremlins permanently, or refusing and having her start the fight with a buff.

* SocketedEquipment: The Guardian has cards with Sockets, and 0-energy cards named Gems with simple effects. At rest sites, you can place Gems into Sockets to add their effect to the Socket card and remove the Gem from your deck. The risk of this mechanic is that when you receive them, the Gems are low-impact cards that make it harder to draw your good cards. Oh, and there's a card that exists solely for you to stuff multiple Gems into it, and an attack that deals a lot of damage if you have a lot of Gems (socketed or not) but removes the Gems for the rest of the fight.
* StanceSystem: The Champ's main mechanic is his Stance system: Berserker and Defensive provide relevant benefits when you play a Skill, and some card have bonus effects that rely on a stance being active. To encourage switching between them, you can only get three Skill bonuses per stance activation, exiting a stance gives a bonus, and there are several "Finisher" cards that can only be played while in a stance and exit your stance. There is also the rare Ultimate Stance, which has the benefits of both stances and will be re-entered if you exit it manually, but only lasts until end of turn.

** The Hermit's starter relic gives him a Memento, a 0-cost card that applies 1 Vulnerable to everyone. The impact can be made asymmetric by using it when the enemies aren't attacking, by killing the enemies before they get the chance to retaliate, or using some kind of damage reduction like Rugged or Intangible.
** An earlier version of Purgatory dealt a large chunk of damage to everyone including the Hermit himself. The idea was to use Rugged to decrease the Hermit's damage to 2 while the enemies still get the full hit.

** Ghost Shield is an infamously good Hexaghost card that arguably did its job of patching up the character's defensive problems ''too'' well. At 1 energy for 7 (10) Block, it doesn't seem too impressive at first, but it has the Afterlife keyword, which lets you have the effect for free if it's exhausted somehow. And it has Ethereal, so it exhausts itself at the end of your turn if it's still in your hand. On top of that, it gives you 1 Blur (which lets you keep excess block for one turn) when exhausted. Not only does this mean the block won't go to waste if you draw Ghost Shield when no one is attacking, but you can rack up stupid amounts of block if you pick up multiple copies - which you'll probably be able to because it's a common card.

*** The Maw is essentially a Bludgeon - a single big hit for 3 energy. This might have been useful if you were the Ironclad in Act 1, where such an attack helps you kill squishy enemies fast, but when you have a far stronger character and are in Act 3 (where it's not [[OneHitKill one-hit killing]] anything), it just sucks. The icing on the cake is the opportunity cost -- you have to waste three essences you could have spent on a ''good'' Collected card to pick up The Maw.

* AdaptationExpansion: The developers invented and expanded a lot of mechanics to have enough material for the PromotedToPlayable characters' card pools. The playable Automaton in particular has little to do with the corresponding boss fight, instead taking inspiration from programming.[[note]]The most noteworthy concept of its boss fight, Stasis, is already used by the Guardian. Otherwise the fight is fairly straight-forward, with its memorable HYPER BEAM attack making more sense as an individual attack card than the basis of a core main mechanic.[[/note]]

* AdaptationExpansion: The developers invented and expanded a lot of mechanics to have enough material for the PromotedToPlayable characters' card pools. The playable Automaton in particular has little to do with the corresponding boss fight, instead taking inspiration from programming.[[note]]The most noteworthy concept of its boss fight, Stasis, is already used by the Guardian. Otherwise the fight is fairly straight-forward, with its memorable HYPER BEAM attack making more sense as an indvidual attack card than a source of a main mechanic.[[/note]]

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: When playing the draft variation of Snecko, most players will pick Ironclad cards if possible. Why? Most ''Downfall'' characters rely on cards designed to synergize with their unique gimmicks, but the Ironclad has a lot of generally useful effects like Vulnerable and Strength scaling, which boost the damage of any attack card. His Exhaust theme is nice too -- you can exhaust bad cards to get rid of them, and Feel No Pain and Dark Embrace (whenever a card is exhausted, you respectively gain some block or draw a card) can be very good with both the Ironclad's own Exhaust cards and other characters who exhaust cards for whatever reason (the Gremlins generate a lot of 0-cost cards that exhaust themselves, the Afterlife and Pyre mechanic gets even better..).

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: When playing the draft variation of Snecko, most players will pick Ironclad cards if possible. Why? Most ''Downfall'' characters rely on cards designed to synergize with their unique gimmicks, but the Ironclad has a lot of generally useful effects like Vulnerable and Strength scaling, which boost the damage of any attack card.

* MirrorMatch: One of the options in the Downfall version of the Mind Bloom event is "I am an Echo", which has you fight the enemy version of your character.[[note]]Although the Gremlin Leader is not part of the Gremlins character, they will still face her Act 2 elite fight instead of the Act 1 Gremlin Gang fight, presumably because an Act 1 hallway fight would be a total pushover by the time Mind Bloom appears.[[/note]]

* EarlyGameHell: The Snecko suffers from a rough early game due to how its Unidentified card gimmick works: early on, you have few to no good cards locked in, and identifying one spends a rest site, meaning that Snecko gets fewer upgrades than the other characters, and for each combat, its gets a new batch of random cards that may or may not be useful. The Snecko's own card pool is not very impressive by itself, so you can't rely on that either. Fortunately, things get better for the Snecko after it identifies some strong cards and manages to pick up some Snecko cards that add a lot of value to other cards.

** The Snecko is notorious for having a lot of crappy cards, with some of the worst stinkers including:
*** Dice Crush is a 2-energy attack that deals random damage between 10 and 16. Not only is this unreliable, but it's unimpressive even if you get the highest value, and a low roll is worse than playing two Strikes. Dice Block is a block card with the same gimmick and the same problems. Their only redeeming quality is that the value is significantly better if you can Muddle their cost down to 1 or 0... but you can also do that with the game's myriad of better 2-cost cards (and 3+ cost cards for that matter).

*** Dice Boulder is an unreliable attack that borrows the gimmick of Searing Blow -- it's underwhelming, but can become good if you upgrade it repeatedly. Unfortunately, the opportunity cost of spending all your upgrades on one card is even worse for the Snecko than for the Ironclad, since the Snecko really wants to spend its rest sites on identifying (i.e. locking in) powerful unidentified cards. At least it's a 2-cost, so it synergizes with Muddle.

*** Dice Crush is a 2-energy attack that deals random damage between 10 and 16. Not only is this unreliable, but it's unimpressive even if you get the highest value, and a low roll is worse than playing two Strikes. Its only redeeming quality is that the value is significantly better if you can Muddle its cost down to 1 or 0... but that's also true for the game's myriad of better 2-cost cards (and 3+ cost cards for that matter). Dice Block is a block card with the same gimmick and the same problems.

*** Tick is a 1-energy that does nothing but give you a Tock the next turn. Similarly, the Tock costs 2 and only gives you a Headcrush next turn. ''Then'', if you spend 3 energy on Headcrush, you get the payoff -- 70 AreaOfEffect damage. While this is not a bad effect, and could in theory help you finish a lot of hallway fights quickly, it suffers from being slow, especially if you draw it late (which is not unlikely considering that you hopefully have a nice Collected pile by the time you reach Act 3). Moreover, if you're so desperate for Area of Effect damage that you'd take Tick, you'll probably die before you even get to pick up Tick. And, finally, it suffers from the same opportunity cost as all bad Collected cards.

*** The Maw is essentially a Bludgeon - a single big hit for 3 energy. This might have been useful if you were the Ironclad in Act 1, where such an attack helps you kill squishy enemies fast, but when you have a far stronger character and are in Act 3 (where it's not [[OneHitKill one-hit killing]] anything), it just sucks. The icing on the cake is the opportunity cost -- you have to waste three essences you could have spent on a ''good'' Collected card.

* LowTierLetdown: The Guardian relic Pick of Rhapsody gives you the option to Mine for Gems at rest sites. Unfortunately, while socketing gems is a free action, you can only do it ''before'' Mining, meaning you're stuck with the Gems in your deck until the next rest site -- not great when unsocketed Gems are pretty underwhelming. If you don't like the Gems you got, too bad, you can't even turn them down. If you want to make your deck better, just using the rest site to upgrade a card is more reliable and less risky. The Pick has the silver lining of letting you mine for one Gem at the Gem Mine event, but even then it's a letdown relic because the issue of getting an unwanted Gem remains, and the relic has no immediate benefit when you receive it.

** Ghost Shield is an infamously good Hexaghost card that arguably did its job of patching up the character's defensive problems ''too'' well. At 1 energy for 7 (10) Block, it doesn't seem too impressive at first, but it has the Afterlife keyword, which lets you have the effect for free if it's exhausted somehow. And it has Ethereal, so it exhausts itself at the end of your turn if it's still in your hand. On top of that, it gives you 1 Blur (which lets you keep excess block for one turn) when exhausted, so the block won't even go to waste if you draw it on a turn where no one is attacking.

** Ghost Shield is an infamously good Hexaghost card that arguably did its job of patching up the character's defensive problems ''too'' well. At 1 energy for 7 (10) Block, it doesn't seem too impressive at first, but it has the Afterlife keyword, which lets you have the effect for free if it's exhausted somehow. And it has Ethereal, so it exhausts itself at the end of your turn if it's still in your hand. On top of that, it gives you 1 Blur (which lets you keep excess block for one turn) when exhausted, so the block won't even go to waste if it happens on a turn where no one is attacking.
* LowTierLetdown: The Guardian relic Pick of Rhapsody gives you the option to Mine for Gems at rest sites. Unfortunately, while socketing gems is a free action, you can only do it ''before'' Mining, meaning you're stuck with the Gems in your deck until the next rest site -- not great when unsocketed Gems are pretty underwhelming. If you don't like the Gems you got, too bad, you don't even get the chance to turn them down. If you want to make your deck better, just using the rest site to upgrade a card is more reliable and less risky. The Pick has the silver lining of letting you mine for one Gem at the Gem Mine event, but even then it's definitely a letdown relic because the issue of getting an unwanted Gem remains.

*** If you play a card that will meet the requirements to Ignite the current Ghostflame, and whose effect also says "Ignite the current Ghostflame", its effect will trigger twice instead of wasting one ignition.

* GameBreaker: The 0-energy card Sadistic Nature, which deals damage whenever you apply a debuff, was removed from Downfall Mode because it turned out to be busted on some of the villain characters, in particular the Slime Boss (who can apply Goop with his spammable "Lick" cards), the Hexaghost (who likes to use Soulburn for damage), the Gremlins (Fat Gremlin applies Weak for free every time you attack with it in front, and the Gremlins have easy access to cheap attacks) and the Collector (who ''has a debuff-stacking theme'').
* LowTierLetdown: The Guardian relic Pick of Rhapsody gives you the option to Mine for Gems at rest sites. Unfortunately, while socketing gems is a free action, you can only do it ''before'' Mining, meaning you're stuck with the Gems in your deck until the next rest site -- not great when unsocketed Gems are pretty underwhelming. If you don't like the Gems you got, too bad, you don't even get the chance to turn them down. If you want to make your deck better, just using the rest site to upgrade a card is more reliable and less risky. The Pick has the silver lining of letting you mine for one Gem at the Gem Mine event, but even then it's definitely a letdown relic because the issue of getting an unwanted Gem remains.

** The Hexaghost's Ghostflame Ignitions are programmed to work in the player's favour instead of strictly following the rules logic: