History VideoGame / SlayTheSpire

The game received its [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/646570/Slay_the_Spire/ full Steam release]] on January 23, 2019 with three fully-playable characters and a daily run mode. On May 21, 2019, the game released for the UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, followed by subsequent releases for the UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch on June 6, and the UsefulNotes/XboxONE on August 14. A fourth class, the Watcher, was released in 2020. The Watcher would go on to represent the series in ''VideoGame/{{Fraymakers}}''.

* SaveScumming: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with,]] as soon as you make any decisions about where to move on the map or what choices to make in an event they are locked in. However by using the save and quit option mid-battle then choosing continue from the main screen any battle can be restarted. Your deck order will remain exactly the same, and the RNG output will be unchanged (so you can't abuse luck), but you can try different tactics using this method.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The game's [[spoiler:secret final act and its two fights, the Spire Shield/Spear and Corrupt Heart]], are a step high above everything else in the game. As a result, you only have to go through it once with each character to get every achievement, and it can be done on the base difficulty. Ascension level progresses regardless of whether you [[spoiler:enter the Final Act or not]], and losing the run by then still unlocks the next difficulty.

* OneHitKill: The Watcher card Judgment can become this. Judgment kills any enemy which currently has 30 or less HP, or 40 if upgraded. Since some enemies start with low HP, such as Spherical Guardian, Louses, Gremlins, etc., Judgment can be used to kill them straightaway. Due to its specific wording (it "sets HP to zero" rather than dealing damage or merely reducing HP) it completely bypasses all block and immunities, and is a powerful counter to ArmoredButFrail
enemies.

** PlayedWith. The game has two score bonuses for completing a run in under 60 minutes and 45 minutes (though the latter overrides the former). These two, along with other score bonuses, help you progress towards the next level and unlock new cards and relics. However, after unlocking everything, the points stop being useful and simply just show your score.
** Played straight by the Secret Portal event in Act 3, which lets you skip straight to the boss and end the run if you manage to get an Act 3 ? Room in under 13 minutes. Useful if you already have a good build.

* UnstoppableRage: The Watcher's main gimmick is going into a flying rage that doubles her attack, but also doubles the attack of enemies, and the only way to stop it is to gain Calm.

* UnwinnableByDesign: It's theorized that even with perfect play, [[https://forgottenarbiter.github.io/Is-Every-Seed-Winnable/ some seeds are probably completely unwinnable]]: on high ascensions, the Silent mathematically ''cannot'' do damage fast enough to kill Lagavulin with her starter deck, and it's plausible, though extremely rare, that a seed may contain an early forced Lagavulin fight with no additional damage sources dropping beforehand. Such a seed has yet to be found, though.

* KnifeNut: The Silent's primary weapon of choice is daggers, complemented by many, ''many'' shivs. Much more so if you're building your deck around the A Thousand Cuts Power. How many Shivs does the Silent have? One of her powers is called ''Infinite'' Blades.

* MasterPoisoner: If she's not [[KnifeNut shivving her enemies to death]], the Silent is likely poisoning them instead. Or doing both at once with the Envenom Power.

** The Tesseract reveals that the Ironclad asked a demon to make him the strongest of his clan. The demon did this… by killing everybody else and pointing out that since he's the only member of his clan alive, he's strongest by default.

* BloodyMurder: Ironclad's Hemokinesis involves sacrificing HP to spray a deadly spray of blood on enemies for high damage. And since he has "Burning Blood" and a number of flame-related powers, they could tangentially be considered under this trope as well.

* BossInMookClothing: Elite fights are marked on the map and pit you against one of three special encounters depending on the Act (for example, Act I's possible Elite enemies are Lagavulin, Gremlin Nob, and three Sentries), with strength far above the normal fights around them. Beating an Elite is guaranteed to reward a relic, while powered-up Elites (found in a single room in each Act) hold one of the keys needed to fight the TrueFinalBoss on that run.

* EquipmentUpgrade: All cards except curses and status cards can be upgraded once, increasing their power, decreasing their cost and/or reducing their negative side effects (if any). The Ironclad card Searing Blow is the only card that can be upgraded an unlimited amount of times, dealing more damage with each upgrade. Certain cards and relics can upgrade cards for the current fight, though they revert afterwards (except the Watcher's Lesson Learned, which gives a permanent upgrade if it kills an enemy).

* OneHitKill: The Watcher card Judgment can become this. Judgment kills any enemy which currently has 30 or less HP, or 40 if upgraded. Since some enemies start with low HP, such as Spherical Guardian, Louses, Gremlins, etc., Judgment can be used to kill them straightaway.

* UnwinnableByDesign: It's theorized that even with perfect play and luck, [[https://forgottenarbiter.github.io/Is-Every-Seed-Winnable/ some seeds are probably completely unwinnable]]: on high ascensions, the Silent mathematically ''cannot'' do damage fast enough to kill Lagavulin with her starter deck, and it's plausible, though extremely rare, that a seed may contain an early forced Lagavulin fight with no additional damage sources dropping beforehand. Such a seed has yet to be found, though.

* SuperpoweredEvilSide:
** Averted with the Defect's Echo Form, which causes the first card played every turn to be played twice, and the Watcher's Deva Form, which grants an accumulating amount of bonus energy, as both forms are not explicitly 'evil' or 'dark', and seem to be just an empowered version of the characters.

** The ability to remove cards from your deck in general. Adding new cards is surely more exciting, but getting rid of your generally subpar starting set of Strikes and Defends helps streamline your deck and allow you to draw more useful cards more often in battle. Most strategies work perfectly fine with only a handful of specific cards, so any additional ones are more or less just dead weight.

* DeathOrGloryAttack: The Watcher card Blasphemy immediately puts the player into the Divinity stance, which grants three energy upon activation and ''triples'' any damage dealt to the opponent. The Death part comes into the equation when it kills the user at the start of the following turn. On a lesser note, being in Wrath stance doubles all attack damage - yours ''and'' the enemy's.

** Mechanically, the Ironclad has his own set of cards that remove cards from the deck, but they're based on Exhausting (removing them from play entirely) rather than simply discarding them. Special mention goes to the Sentinel card, which is a basic Defend card that gives bonus energy if you manage to Exhaust it.

** Fossilized Helix — a reference to the Helix Fossil from ''VideoGame/Pokemon''.

** Decks which fall into a GradualGrinder archetype of using a bunch of zero cost attacks such as Shivs (for the Silent) and Anger (for the Ironclad) are generally pretty easy to build up in any given run, can be easily boosted by Strength stacking or in the case of Shivs, have a host of cards which play into that archetype. The only thing that makes them inconsistent is that there are several Boss and Elite enemies in Acts II and III designed to punish GradualGrinder style decks, but an experienced player can sometimes work around it.

* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Each of the Act III bosses are designed to punish one particular deck type via specific Strength gain: The Time Eater counters SpamAttack decks (it counts the amount of cards played over time, ending the player's turn and gaining Strength for every twelfth card played), The Awakened One counters Power-based decks (it gains one Strength for every Power played before its second form), and Deca and Donu counter GradualGrinder and GatheringSteam decks (Donu's Strength buffs can stack up very fast if it isn't killed early into the fight). Since your deck should be taking shape by Act III, this can mean matching the "wrong" boss will make for [[ThatOneBoss a really troublesome final fight]]. And if that wasn't bad enough: [[spoiler: on Ascension 20, you have to fight two bosses out of three, and the second one is unknown until you face it.]]

* MysticalLotus: The Lotus Clan is the most magically specialized faction in the game. Its units are all afflicted with some sort of corruption until they transform into a Warlock, at which point they violently expunge this corruption away. This symbolizes the flower's tendency to bloom in the mud, and how it seems so clean despite living in such a filthy place.

** The Ironclad has a pair of powers which mitigate the worst effects of curse and status cards - Evolve prevents them from ruining your draw, and Fire Breathing uses them to burn enemies en masse. An Ironclad run lucky enough to find ''both'' can end up with a deck whose victory condition is to [[CombatMasochist self-inflict curses as much as possible]].

** The Ironclad's Demon Form, which allows him to quickly accumulate Strength, qualifies, as do the Silent's Wraith Form, which makes her intangible, [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] because it doesn't actually seem to make your characters any more evil.

* CursedWithAwesome: Literally in the case of the Du-Vu Doll, which grants one Strength for any curse in your deck at the start of battle.

** The Ironclad is only a colour swap away from becoming [[Franchise/BlazBlue Hakumen]].