Slaying the Spire for Fun and Profit, Part 3: The Silent

 

THE SILENT

The Silent can be a tricky character to play. She has some of the strongest defensive cards in the game, but can struggle to deal damage. Built well, however, she can wear down any enemy while taking little to no damage.

Her starting relic, Ring of the Snake, lets you draw 2 additional cards at the start of combat. This is weak early in the game, as the extra cards you draw are all weak starter cards. Later in the game, however, this can help you get set up quickly by drawing you into your key cards. 

I have found success with two very different strategies with the Silent.

Poison.dek

The Silent has access to the Poison mechanic. An enemy who is Poisoned takes damage equal to their Poison level at the start of their turn, then their Poison level drops by 1. So an enemy with Poison 5 will take 5 damage before they attack, then their Poison level will decrease to 4.

What this means is that applying even small amounts of Poison can yield a significant amount of damage over time. Hit an enemy with one Deadly Poison and do literally nothing but block damage for the next few turns? The enemy will take 5, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1 damage, for a total of 15 damage for just 1 energy. 

That's not bad, especially if you can ramp up the Poison counter instead of letting it tick down, or have cards and relics which interact with Poison.

The Poison deck wants a high amount of efficient defensive Skills, like Dodge and Roll, Leg Sweep, and my personal favorite Blur. Blur not only gives you 5 or 8 block, depending on whether or not it's upgraded, but prevents your Block from being removed at the start of your next turn. Normally, your Block only lasts through the enemy's next turn. With Blur, you can load up on Block and store it for the turn afterwards. Thus, you can get value out of the turns when you draw nothing but defensive cards, even if the enemy is not attacking you that turn.

In addition to defense, your deck also needs to (obviously) apply Poison. While Deadly Poison should be easy to pick up and is quite efficient, Noxious Fumes is your bread and butter. It applies 2 or 3 Poison each turn to every enemy, which starts small, but means that you're applying Poison faster than their Poison levels are ticking down. Initially, they'll only be taking a couple points of damage each, but as combat progresses, a single Noxious Fumes can deal hundreds of points of damage.

This archetype also benefits greatly from cards that apply Weak, for two major reasons. First, Weak decreases the amount of damage the enemy can dish out, which buys you time to assemble your defenses and begin applying Poison. Perhaps more importantly, though, cards that apply Weak help punch through an enemy's Artifact. 

Artifact is a buff that some tougher enemies have which prevents a debuff from being applied. Against these enemies, attempting to apply Weak with Neutralize, Sucker Punch, or Malaise will help clear out the Artifact and make way for your Poison. Subsequently, cards like Crippling Cloud can be absolutely clutch for this deck type.

Sadistic Nature is a strong colorless card for this deck type. It is a 0-mana Power, which makes it a very low investment, yet will trigger frequently as you apply Poison and Weak debuffs.

Shiv.dek

If Poison is too slow for you, perhaps you'll want to try the Shiv deck.  This archetype generates a high number of Shivs each turn and throws them at the enemies. Shivs are 0-energy attacks that deal 4 damage before vanishing in a puff of smoke. It's not a lot by itself, but if you can generate 8 or more of them each turn, you can dish out good damage.

In addition to the Shiv damage, this deck type abuses cards that scale based on the number of cards you play in a turn.

Key cards for generating Shivs will be Blade Dance, Cloak and Dagger, and Infinite Blades.  You'll likely want a mixture of each of these, as they each fill an important role. Cloak and Dagger serves as both offense and defense, giving you Block while creating one or two Shivs to throw at the enemies. Infinite Blades ensures that you'll always have at least one Shiv ready to go each turn. Blade Dance provides you with a big burst of Shivs for your One Big Turn.

Accuracy, of course, will greatly ramp up your damage output. With one Accuracy in play, a single Blade Dance can deal 24 damage for just 1 energy. Not bad at all!

(Note the image to the left is from an older version of Accuracy. The updated version increases Shiv damage by 4, or 6 when upgraded. Let me tell you, dealing 10 damage per Shiv feels EXTREMELY good!)

In addition to generating Shivs, you'll want to pick up cards and relics that reward you for playing a lot of cards in a single turn. Choke is a great example. Hit an enemy with Choke, then throw all your Shivs at a different target; the first enemy will lose 3 HP each time you play a card, and with Shivs, you can play a LOT of cards in one turn.

Finisher is also huge in this deck type. Finisher deals 6 damage to an enemy for each Attack that you played that turn. Since you could easily be chucking 5-10 Shivs in a turn, Finisher can rapidly, uh, finish off the monsters.

My two favorite cards for this archetype are A Thousand Cuts and After Image. They're both rare cards, so you aren't likely to get them right away, but they greatly enhance your deck's power later in the game. A Thousand Cuts is a Power that states, "Whenever you play a card, deal 1 damage to ALL enemies." Upgraded, this damage is increased to 2 per card. With A Thousand Cuts in play, just think of all the incidental damage you can deal with a turn of playing Burst, Blade Dance, Blade Dance, and 9 Shivs.

After Image can be an important piece of your defenses. Whenever you play a card, gain 1 Block. Not a lot by itself, but when you're playing 6-12 cards a turn, it adds up to a lot of incidental Block.

Keep in mind that this archetype, while strong, can be very reliant on Power cards or on drawing the right combination of Skill and Attack cards each turn. This can mean that you may need some time to set up before dishing out the damage. Be prepared to take some damage at the beginning of each combat as you get set up. You'll likely have to heal up at Rest Stops rather than upgrading your cards, unless you're able to acquire some good colorless healing cards or healing relics.

Speaking of colorless cards, Panache is incredible for this deck. Frankly, Panache is my favorite colorless card, and possibly my favorite card in Slay the Spire. It is VERY easy to trigger, often multiple times per turn, with this deck.

Other Ideas

The Silent has a few other strategies you can try. There's a discard-matters theme within the Silent's kit that seems interesting, but I've never been able to make work; it's possible that the payoff cards like Sneaky Strike and Eviscerate just aren't strong enough? If you get a good discard deck going, please let me know in the comments!

The Silent is also capable of drawing a lot of cards under the right circumstances, which makes Flechettes a really intriguing card that can potentially deal a lot of damage. I've had it do good things for me, but only as a part of a deck focused on other things. I'd love to see it used as a payoff card for a One Big Turn deck that draws lots of cards to load up on Skills.