A free power that makes you draw two cards* hehe Dark embrace is one of the best cards in the whole game and upgraded rushdown is still almost always better at 0 cost 🤡
Watcher is literally just Yugioh. Every game starts with drawing 5 cards, figuring out how to do your degenerate combo, dealing with an opponent’s disruption, and building a setup your opponent hopefully can't break.
Honestly, I think it's perfectly fine to have a busted character in a solo game. Plus getting to the infinite in the first place is quite fun, and all characters can do it in one way or another, Watcher just happens to be the easiest to "solve".
The problem with a character being busted in STS is the fact that it means more than half their cards are useless. Watcher is so strong with less than 25% of her cards, so why would you ever need to pick up stuff like Pressure Points, Master Reality, Alpha, etc. etc.?
@@freddiesimmons1394 I had that Ironchad daily the other day and built the best exhaust build that went nearly infinite thanks to dead branch and Corruption
watcher is so much fun, high key. There's several options and probably the easiest infinite, as you said. I got A20 on Watcher way faster than any other character. As a big STS fan, this is such a good video, also really well done!!
You *can* play other characters like watcher -- going hard for card draw, energy generation, and developing a block engine that doesn't need to play cards to get block. It's just different and harder. Silent has so much card draw that she can go infinite with deck sizes in the teens or 20s, given some sort of energy solution like Tactician, Concentrate, or energy relics. This is especially satisfying with Grande Finale, but Sneaky Strike and Eviscerate work as well. Reflex may be the strongest card draw card in her pool since it draws itself. Madness enables infinites on a lot of characters. Ironclad can go infinite with bigger decks by exhausting down to just the infinite combos. Defect can go infinite in a couple of ways as well, and Recycle is sneakily one of the Defect's best cards. The longer I play the more I lean away from energy boss relics and towards other stuff, since the energy generation (or cheats to get around energy) is in each character's card pool.
6:10 this is weird to me because I’ve only won a single run as watcher and it was a battle hymn, master reality, and establishment so when I enter wrath on turn 4 or whenever I would have at least 2 0 mana cards that deal 50. It was so busted
Came here after playing The Watcher in a daily run and made it all the way to Act 3 boss with her. It was so easy compared to The Defect! Still learning each character but it was super fun to give this a try.
The watcher is just so much stronger than the other three characters that it's unreal. I feel like even if idk Barricade was made into an uncommon card and entrench was made into a common the resulting giga-blockstacking ironclad still wouldn't get to be as consistently powerful as the watcher, mostly because the stuff she gets past the base rushdown loops is still so much stronger.
If there was only one or two characters it would be important that they are all very well balanced. But a forth character can definitely break the mold. Nothing wrong with having an easier / more powerful character as an option as long as the gameplay isn't too stale. If you don't enjoy it the same way Op does, it might feel boring to play Watcher over and over, but it's still fun as a change from the other characters from time to time.
16:20 HELL NAHHHHHH as a newer player i must chip in here. i won the game with an alpha deck. you can win the game. is it viable for ascension 20? i have no idea but the thing about this game is that IT IS SINGLEPLAYER. i love how you covered the strategy and can see why it is 100x superior than any other but just because it is meta it doesn't mean you HAVE to use it. if you get bored of it just change it, all that matters is that the player is given the choice of playing their own way.
Huh, based on when the comments were made it seems this video has "the bomb" in it's deck: in one year, blows up for a ton of views. My personal Watcher hot take is that if she had a viable block plan that did not require wrath, she would have no bad cards. Every one of her "bad" cards would probably be fine on the other characters, but they all take time to get strong (like Alpha, Conjure Blade, even Pressure Points). The problem is that Watcher is ESPECIALLY bad at blocking, and her best block cards require entering wrath for the best effectiveness (halt, wollop, mental fortress, ect). So if you want reliable block you want wrath... And if you are going wrath, you want good calm entries, and a rush down, and a smaller deck to cycle through... Hey, where have I seen this before? So she can't stall for thise other cards reliably without wrath, and if she has wrath there's existing archetypes that use it far more effectively. Heck, here's an especially hot take: pressure points would be a B tier card on Silent. Chew on that for a bit.
I genuinely believe like, half of the cards watcher has at her disposal would be so much better utilised on an actually balanced character. Cards like conjure blade and master reality are so goddamn cool but there is literally NEVER a real reason to take them because you are literally playing the watcher bro like, what are you doing?! Not saying you cant have watcher cook with some weird ass deck. I personally love using Deva form and pressure points even if I know its usually more harmful than not, but like. Rushdown is usually just right there.
Tbh I think conjure blade would almost never see use regardless. It's just too slow for most runs, even if we were to take it out of the overpowered packet surrounding it. Ironically, the Watcher is probably the best character at using it, too, since she has so much more energy generation than everyone else, so she's the one that might be able to spare some extra energy to set up a big attack in future turns.
I think Master Reality would be a better card on Silent and Bullet Time would be a better card on Watcher (because Bullet Time doesn't stop your Scry cards from effectively giving you card-draw. Also because the Watcher has more cards than the Silent that cost 2 or more Energy).
I can see why I struggled when I switched over from the free roguelike card games to StS now. I'm too used to the degenerate watcher strat when I never played watcher.
Only 460 views 😳, how is this possible? This video is on another level! I was sure it has at least 100K. Well you got yourself a subscriber, keep up this crazy work 👍
I really enjoy your energy and enthusiasm from this video. I can tell how much this dorky little combo scratches some specific itch in your brain and how much you enjoy sharing this
I played her first time, it was so easy I used 90% of campfires for smithing, and not resting... Then my build that is built around spamming 100 cards per turn faced time eater, and accompanied by my 3 am brain I lost this battle embarrassingly in first phase... I just forgot about his turn stopping ability... four times in a row.
@@88Moebius8 could be, but deus ex machina always adds at least 2 miracles into your hand when drawn, and she only has one in hand before the turn even starts
this video makes me realize how much normally i've been playing The Watcher and how she just kinda became my fav character and also the first to get me to A20 (admittedly after months of grinding). I have never used any infinite of this game, including hers, because 1. I normally don't pay attention to these types of synergies during my run, or any opportunity to pick cards that can help me get to it. And 2. I'm just really bad at setting up these infinites. So I just vibe with what i got and eventually got to enjoy all of Watcher's cards equally. Seriously i even won many runs with a Battle Hymn and Expunger deck
I can't believe this is the only video AND it's almost 2 years old. I entered the channel expecting some other funny analysis on the game i recently discovered only to find a thumbleweed rolling around.
This is wild to find out how broke watcher was. I played sos for the first time in late 2024, 'beat' the first three characters, and then the watcher just fucked me up. Today I learned that is because 93% of the cards are dog shit garbage.
Not true, the fact of the matter is outside of the infinite, she actually is complicated to play so if you don’t know about the infinite, most people are going to look completely clueless with her. Merl has fucking BRILLIANCE in the “Never Pick” tier solely because of his tunnel-visioning for the infinite archetype. Brilliance is basically a Hemokinesis with a built-in scaling mechanic. That shit absolutely doesn’t suck. Gunning for the infinite isn’t the only way to play, which is why Merl’s record got broken by someone who doesn’t depend on the infinite
Fact of the matter is, when you ignore the easy infinites, most of Watcher's kit is still really strong. A lot of those cards would be downright broken on any other character. Watcher trashes new players because her micro game is almost as difficult to learn as Defect, but severely punishing when you mess up.
The problem isn't that that synergy doesn't exist, it's that you don't even have that much reason to run divinity in the first place. Divinity usually is a bonus to the stance dance engines, but going out of your way to get it while neglecting the calm+wrath loops just makes your deck worse.
9:52 I've been running this playstyle, and I have to say that I think Runic Pyramid is really strong for it since you no longer need to be draw positive to fill your hand. Unless I feel like I took too many cards, I'd probably pick Runic Pyramid over Empty Cage.
I don’t play watcher much, but one of my fondest runs involved an infinite with nearly 20 real cards. Almost every card was either an entry into calm or wrath, and with 2 rushdowns and plenty of other draw I could consistently cycle through the entire deck infinitely. I may be mistaken, but I think it also entered divinity every couple rotations
I'm glad people like the Watcher. I don't really play her because of the aforementioned "undercooked" feeling. I love some of the ideas *in* the watcher card pool, like Alpha, PP, the "if the last card was X, get Y" kinds of effects, but I don't quite like how it all comes together. I also have so much to learn, still, about the other three characters that I'm very content ignoring the fourth.
I've been banging my head against a wall trying to get my first win with watcher, the other 3 where pretty easy, but I'm day 3 into watcher and this video will finally help me do it
I legit had that same strat like 5 years ago and suggested that Jorbs, also a very successful STS streamer should also do. But Jorbs did think that the watcher had more consistency outside of "The Cards" strat... But I've believed in the cards since before they were called "The Cards"... I firmly believe this could be a valid way to play The Ironclad as well with all his exhaust cards.
I used to main Silent infinites as my first strategy (before Defect ones) and that "real card" phenomenon immediately popped out to me. I just called them "net draws" because with Silent you need to consider your net draw / discard ratio
Yeah i learned pretty early on in the game the easiest way to win with the first 3 is to just get the prism and a few watcher cards. I have never lost a run with it :)
I play other characters, especially the defect, basically exactly like this. I know it is suboptimal but I don't care because forcing builds and having tiny decks is just what I enjoy most about the game. My friends are constantly confused when I show off a run to them because they know vaguely what the optimal way to play is and then I come in with a combo shiv act 4 win in which by the end of the first act I had 0 strikes and only 1 offensive card because I simply didn't care about not losing the run and instead focused on hyperoptimizing into whatever archetype I first found a legitimately good piece for because that is where I find the game to be most interesting. This is probably a symptom of me having gotten into card based games as a whole through yugioh after yugioh first became combo hell and so my brain is just completely broken
My first win was the result of getting all for nothing in a blessing at the start of the game and then exclusively adding 0 cost cards with no elaboration.
Hello world is youve somehow gotten to the act 1 boss and you need something anything to cope your way into act 2. Thunder strike is just a luxury card.
There is only one broken character and we don't start with er. Isn't it nice that this character makes it easier to experience the infinite... and to start testing certain challenges with a better chance of success?
what I think would be cool is a feature where the game recognizes an infinite and automatically wins you the fight once you've set it up. This way you still get all the excitement from setting up the perfect combo but at the same time you don't have to slog through 10 minutes of calm down, erupt
Just a fun fact I read on Wiki to ruin your day: Japanese kimonos are supposed to be worn left over right, unless the person who wear it is already died. But in both her splash art and in game art, she wear her kimono right over left.
this is fascinating to me because i am straight-up _bad_ at StS (we're talking "over a hundred hours and i've never so much as seen the heart fight" bad) and the Watcher is by _far_ my worst character to the point where trying to get a single win with her was just... painful. hearing all this talk of infinites and her being overpowered and broken is mindboggling to me because i've had the exact opposite experience -- for me, the Watcher is a slog where i struggle to get _anything_ done. basically: this video feels like it's from a parallel timeline to my very existence. wild stuff.
I didnt find rushdown but i found out you can go infinite anways with meditate establishment and 2 draw cards, the only down side is the run took an extra hour and a half due to multiple weak + malleable incidents
Huh... interesting. The Wrath usually gets me killed in 1 or 2 turns whenever I use it. I had no idea people could loop it so easily. The only times I won with the Watcher was by abusing Alpha-draw-turbo or blasphemy.
Funny thing. As soon as I watched this I immediately played StS using Merle's Watcher strategy aggressively. I died a dozen times back-to-back because I couldn't find one essential card to make me go infinite. Maybe I'm just really unlucky, but going infinite isn't anywhere near being a sure thing.
I always play as the watcher. Btw My strategy I used to kill fading spider lookin dude is: vajra, foreign influence, damaru, prostrate, worship, devotion, master reality, alpha, scrawl, infinite, beta, omega, deva, wish for strength, enter divinity, play all attack (only draw card and stance related), signature move, end turn doing A lot of dmg cuz of omega + upgrade from master reality + other dmg killing it. Not in that order.
Honestly, this makes me sad. When I was just trying to figure out Watcher on my own, I was excited at the possibility of making an Alpha>Beta>Omega deck or a scrying deck work. To have so many cards be just not worth taking is not fun or interesting to me.
The absolute best scenario with omega is omniscient honestly you CAN do things with her but the goal shifts and you have to willingly play suboptionally
Dont hate me but i love Watcher runs where i just find a Pressure Point fight one and just start removing everything except the points and Block/Draw Cards is super fun and honestly pretty strong
I bought the game 3 days ago, and got my 1st win on 2nd Watcher playthrough today with my atrocious almost 30+ cards deck (most of wich were at bottom of the tierlist here). Its goal was to survive untill Divinity (mainly using the calm armor power wich name I forgot) and kill all enemies in one turn with retained created cards (upgraded by Master Reality). Oh, and that card wich gave you more and more energy each turn was crucial to this strategy. Needles to say, I managed to beat Time Eater thanks to two Divinity Potions I held for all my run. This game is so fun!
The Watch has this build i like to called "Omega Death Bomb". get the alpha card and 2 omniscience cards. Play the alpha card and then the beta card, use one of the omniscience cards on the other and then use that card twice on your Omega power card and boom. The Watcher now deals 200 damage to all enemies at the end of her turn
Whilst Anthony’s philosophy of incredibly different and original enemys is a great idea that encourages diversity, Balatro did almost the exact opposite to parallel success which I find a brilliant fact of this genre
I never realized this combo was a thing and I am on Ascension 16 on Watcher (20 on the rest). Maybe I can finally get Watcher to 20 with this. God I'm dumb.
@@freddiesimmons1394 dude I wasn't leaving a comment for anyone. I wasn't leaving it for you. I left it for the person who uploaded. Stop being a weirdo to strangers online. I don't know you.
"What if Phantasmal Killer worked right now and gave you free energy? You're right, we need a power that makes you draw two cards too..."
😂😂😂😂😂
A free power that makes you draw two cards* hehe
Dark embrace is one of the best cards in the whole game and upgraded rushdown is still almost always better at 0 cost 🤡
Rushdown was even better before as it triggered upon any stance change lmao
Bro made one video and left... Respect
And the algorithm randomly decided to bless the video, pretty funny
word
Maybe he's stuck in the slowest infinite ever
Bruh 😂
@@joe____ bless? 100k!?
Watcher is literally just Yugioh. Every game starts with drawing 5 cards, figuring out how to do your degenerate combo, dealing with an opponent’s disruption, and building a setup your opponent hopefully can't break.
And now that winstreak record is 52
lifecoach doesnt do merl style though
@korrupt_ which is a very good thing for the game no?
@@Audreythescrub I guess so
Thank you for this strategy guide. Now I know how to play Slay the Spire efficiently.
Creates channel.
Posts a single video, a suber based and amazing STS one
Leaves
Refuses to elaborate further.
Honestly, I think it's perfectly fine to have a busted character in a solo game. Plus getting to the infinite in the first place is quite fun, and all characters can do it in one way or another, Watcher just happens to be the easiest to "solve".
I would rather a 4th interesting character and leave the busted stuff for things like daily challenges
The problem with a character being busted in STS is the fact that it means more than half their cards are useless. Watcher is so strong with less than 25% of her cards, so why would you ever need to pick up stuff like Pressure Points, Master Reality, Alpha, etc. etc.?
@@there-is-weeping-in-the-at1746 because it's funny
@@clowdyglasses True!
@@freddiesimmons1394 I had that Ironchad daily the other day and built the best exhaust build that went nearly infinite thanks to dead branch and Corruption
watcher is so much fun, high key. There's several options and probably the easiest infinite, as you said. I got A20 on Watcher way faster than any other character. As a big STS fan, this is such a good video, also really well done!!
Watcher is balanced if you don’t know what you’re doing
Surprised this is the only video on your channel. Great quality video.
You *can* play other characters like watcher -- going hard for card draw, energy generation, and developing a block engine that doesn't need to play cards to get block. It's just different and harder. Silent has so much card draw that she can go infinite with deck sizes in the teens or 20s, given some sort of energy solution like Tactician, Concentrate, or energy relics. This is especially satisfying with Grande Finale, but Sneaky Strike and Eviscerate work as well. Reflex may be the strongest card draw card in her pool since it draws itself. Madness enables infinites on a lot of characters. Ironclad can go infinite with bigger decks by exhausting down to just the infinite combos. Defect can go infinite in a couple of ways as well, and Recycle is sneakily one of the Defect's best cards.
The longer I play the more I lean away from energy boss relics and towards other stuff, since the energy generation (or cheats to get around energy) is in each character's card pool.
I do this with the silent. Not infinite combos or anything. But I did get my first turn kill achievement with her :D
I love playing Watcher because I'm barely mid at this game and sometimes I want something that feels like a NG+ revenge run.
The three original characters are playing Pokemon, worrying about tempo and beating a variety of opponents.
The Watcher plays Yu-Gi-Oh.
6:10 this is weird to me because I’ve only won a single run as watcher and it was a battle hymn, master reality, and establishment so when I enter wrath on turn 4 or whenever I would have at least 2 0 mana cards that deal 50. It was so busted
Came here after playing The Watcher in a daily run and made it all the way to Act 3 boss with her. It was so easy compared to The Defect! Still learning each character but it was super fun to give this a try.
The watcher is just so much stronger than the other three characters that it's unreal. I feel like even if idk Barricade was made into an uncommon card and entrench was made into a common the resulting giga-blockstacking ironclad still wouldn't get to be as consistently powerful as the watcher, mostly because the stuff she gets past the base rushdown loops is still so much stronger.
If there was only one or two characters it would be important that they are all very well balanced. But a forth character can definitely break the mold. Nothing wrong with having an easier / more powerful character as an option as long as the gameplay isn't too stale.
If you don't enjoy it the same way Op does, it might feel boring to play Watcher over and over, but it's still fun as a change from the other characters from time to time.
I played Watcher 3 times when they were in beta, and went infinite every time. They were nerfed to have fewer infinites after that
16:20 HELL NAHHHHHH
as a newer player i must chip in here. i won the game with an alpha deck. you can win the game. is it viable for ascension 20? i have no idea but the thing about this game is that IT IS SINGLEPLAYER. i love how you covered the strategy and can see why it is 100x superior than any other but just because it is meta it doesn't mean you HAVE to use it. if you get bored of it just change it, all that matters is that the player is given the choice of playing their own way.
super high quality video. explained the infinite in a very fun way that i, as a new player, could understand. subbed.
I'm glad this video exists cause I keep hearing the watcher is OP but is by far my worst character and one I struggle with
Huh, based on when the comments were made it seems this video has "the bomb" in it's deck: in one year, blows up for a ton of views.
My personal Watcher hot take is that if she had a viable block plan that did not require wrath, she would have no bad cards. Every one of her "bad" cards would probably be fine on the other characters, but they all take time to get strong (like Alpha, Conjure Blade, even Pressure Points). The problem is that Watcher is ESPECIALLY bad at blocking, and her best block cards require entering wrath for the best effectiveness (halt, wollop, mental fortress, ect). So if you want reliable block you want wrath... And if you are going wrath, you want good calm entries, and a rush down, and a smaller deck to cycle through... Hey, where have I seen this before? So she can't stall for thise other cards reliably without wrath, and if she has wrath there's existing archetypes that use it far more effectively. Heck, here's an especially hot take: pressure points would be a B tier card on Silent. Chew on that for a bit.
Most cards that suck on their base character would be amazing in another characters deck
I genuinely believe like, half of the cards watcher has at her disposal would be so much better utilised on an actually balanced character. Cards like conjure blade and master reality are so goddamn cool but there is literally NEVER a real reason to take them because you are literally playing the watcher bro like, what are you doing?!
Not saying you cant have watcher cook with some weird ass deck. I personally love using Deva form and pressure points even if I know its usually more harmful than not, but like. Rushdown is usually just right there.
Tbh I think conjure blade would almost never see use regardless. It's just too slow for most runs, even if we were to take it out of the overpowered packet surrounding it. Ironically, the Watcher is probably the best character at using it, too, since she has so much more energy generation than everyone else, so she's the one that might be able to spare some extra energy to set up a big attack in future turns.
I use mods to make Master Reality colourless, some even make it a relic
I think Master Reality would be a better card on Silent and Bullet Time would be a better card on Watcher (because Bullet Time doesn't stop your Scry cards from effectively giving you card-draw. Also because the Watcher has more cards than the Silent that cost 2 or more Energy).
Nah conjure blade is legit just a bad card. It wouldn't work on any character
@@tomekk.1889 Yeah, it would be a lot more balanced if it generated the Expunger directly into your hand at the start of your next turn.
I can see why I struggled when I switched over from the free roguelike card games to StS now.
I'm too used to the degenerate watcher strat when I never played watcher.
Only 460 views 😳, how is this possible? This video is on another level! I was sure it has at least 100K. Well you got yourself a subscriber, keep up this crazy work 👍
Since your comment, it jumped to almost 50x that! On a video that's a year old…
Yeah it's crazy how UA-cam recommendations work...
Yooo good video! Definitely deserves an order of magnitude or two more views!
I really enjoy your energy and enthusiasm from this video. I can tell how much this dorky little combo scratches some specific itch in your brain and how much you enjoy sharing this
incredibly good video, i love your voice and writing style!!!!
Great Vid. Not even this sad to see this is someone's only vid for a while
I played her first time, it was so easy I used 90% of campfires for smithing, and not resting...
Then my build that is built around spamming 100 cards per turn faced time eater, and accompanied by my 3 am brain I lost this battle embarrassingly in first phase... I just forgot about his turn stopping ability... four times in a row.
Amazing Video. You rock at this!
As a defect who has a 1/3 chance to die to gremlin nob at act1
I find this vile sickening
ok i'm losing it trying to figure this out. where did the miracle at 14:41 come from
she just used miracle the turn before to play vigilance. i'm so lost
@@gothwafflezdeux ex machina ??
@@88Moebius8 could be, but deus ex machina always adds at least 2 miracles into your hand when drawn, and she only has one in hand before the turn even starts
this video makes me realize how much normally i've been playing The Watcher and how she just kinda became my fav character and also the first to get me to A20 (admittedly after months of grinding). I have never used any infinite of this game, including hers, because 1. I normally don't pay attention to these types of synergies during my run, or any opportunity to pick cards that can help me get to it. And 2. I'm just really bad at setting up these infinites. So I just vibe with what i got and eventually got to enjoy all of Watcher's cards equally. Seriously i even won many runs with a Battle Hymn and Expunger deck
I can't believe this is the only video AND it's almost 2 years old. I entered the channel expecting some other funny analysis on the game i recently discovered only to find a thumbleweed rolling around.
This is wild to find out how broke watcher was. I played sos for the first time in late 2024, 'beat' the first three characters, and then the watcher just fucked me up. Today I learned that is because 93% of the cards are dog shit garbage.
Not true, the fact of the matter is outside of the infinite, she actually is complicated to play so if you don’t know about the infinite, most people are going to look completely clueless with her. Merl has fucking BRILLIANCE in the “Never Pick” tier solely because of his tunnel-visioning for the infinite archetype. Brilliance is basically a Hemokinesis with a built-in scaling mechanic. That shit absolutely doesn’t suck. Gunning for the infinite isn’t the only way to play, which is why Merl’s record got broken by someone who doesn’t depend on the infinite
Fact of the matter is, when you ignore the easy infinites, most of Watcher's kit is still really strong. A lot of those cards would be downright broken on any other character.
Watcher trashes new players because her micro game is almost as difficult to learn as Defect, but severely punishing when you mess up.
This is a phenomenal video, I hope you end up making more!
And here I thought battle hymn was good for a divinity deck, store up powerful attacks until you hit divinity and burst down enemies
Me too brother
The problem isn't that that synergy doesn't exist, it's that you don't even have that much reason to run divinity in the first place. Divinity usually is a bonus to the stance dance engines, but going out of your way to get it while neglecting the calm+wrath loops just makes your deck worse.
I mean when you are in divinity you can just burst down with any good attacks, BH is a bit redundant in that sense
I'm a simple man.
I see a creature from Magic: the Gathering in your name.
I like the video.
Then again, I might be a bit biased...
"Your not playing Slay the Spire, your playing a different, stupider card game"
Yeah its called Magic: The Gathering
Bold to assume I am not going to mindlessly rush for double omnipotence/divinity every run
Why is this your only video I wanna see more of you 😭😭😭
I need more gaytransmulldrifter in my life
@@fpteamkvitka6223 yep
Feel like Watcher decks generally end up the same way too. Compare that to Silent or Defect where decks can vary a lot.
great vid bro, love to see peaple speaking properly on balance in games
an underrated video on youtube that’s too good to be underrated? this feels illegal
9:52 I've been running this playstyle, and I have to say that I think Runic Pyramid is really strong for it since you no longer need to be draw positive to fill your hand. Unless I feel like I took too many cards, I'd probably pick Runic Pyramid over Empty Cage.
heat quality for a first video
subbing and looking forwards to more slay the slide content!
youtube really gave you a year before letting you pop off
This video is so much fun
I don’t play watcher much, but one of my fondest runs involved an infinite with nearly 20 real cards. Almost every card was either an entry into calm or wrath, and with 2 rushdowns and plenty of other draw I could consistently cycle through the entire deck infinitely. I may be mistaken, but I think it also entered divinity every couple rotations
The watcher just has too much control
my luck. plays 30 runs of watcher and only finds 2 rushdowns.
The hardest part about the watcher is unlocking them.
I'm glad people like the Watcher. I don't really play her because of the aforementioned "undercooked" feeling. I love some of the ideas *in* the watcher card pool, like Alpha, PP, the "if the last card was X, get Y" kinds of effects, but I don't quite like how it all comes together. I also have so much to learn, still, about the other three characters that I'm very content ignoring the fourth.
I've been banging my head against a wall trying to get my first win with watcher, the other 3 where pretty easy, but I'm day 3 into watcher and this video will finally help me do it
The watcher can be broken but you need 3 times the card to do the same as others
This was such a good video
this video fucking rules
Fantastic video!!! I knew The Watcher was OP ad hell, but didn't appreciate how completely nonsensical she is until this XD
1 banger video and dipped. So sad I would love to see your take on other infinites with other characters.
I legit had that same strat like 5 years ago and suggested that Jorbs, also a very successful STS streamer should also do. But Jorbs did think that the watcher had more consistency outside of "The Cards" strat... But I've believed in the cards since before they were called "The Cards"... I firmly believe this could be a valid way to play The Ironclad as well with all his exhaust cards.
"I don't care WHAT character the spire sends, I am NOT PLAYING A WOMAN!"
I used to main Silent infinites as my first strategy (before Defect ones) and that "real card" phenomenon immediately popped out to me. I just called them "net draws" because with Silent you need to consider your net draw / discard ratio
I would usually think of it as "second cycle" as it's the number of cards that _should_ be going into the draw pile when the deck reshuffles.
I started this video when I was midway through a run and ended up winning my first game with watcher lol. Gotta be over powered.
Yeah i learned pretty early on in the game the easiest way to win with the first 3 is to just get the prism and a few watcher cards. I have never lost a run with it :)
I play other characters, especially the defect, basically exactly like this. I know it is suboptimal but I don't care because forcing builds and having tiny decks is just what I enjoy most about the game. My friends are constantly confused when I show off a run to them because they know vaguely what the optimal way to play is and then I come in with a combo shiv act 4 win in which by the end of the first act I had 0 strikes and only 1 offensive card because I simply didn't care about not losing the run and instead focused on hyperoptimizing into whatever archetype I first found a legitimately good piece for because that is where I find the game to be most interesting. This is probably a symptom of me having gotten into card based games as a whole through yugioh after yugioh first became combo hell and so my brain is just completely broken
My first win was the result of getting all for nothing in a blessing at the start of the game and then exclusively adding 0 cost cards with no elaboration.
@@fancydoge5611 Now that's what I call gaming
Hello world is youve somehow gotten to the act 1 boss and you need something anything to cope your way into act 2. Thunder strike is just a luxury card.
There is only one broken character and we don't start with er. Isn't it nice that this character makes it easier to experience the infinite... and to start testing certain challenges with a better chance of success?
what I think would be cool is a feature where the game recognizes an infinite and automatically wins you the fight once you've set it up. This way you still get all the excitement from setting up the perfect combo but at the same time you don't have to slog through 10 minutes of calm down, erupt
this video is so good please come back
Man where are you? Make some more videos this was really good. Hope you're not dead caise that would be kinda awkward
Great vid!
Just a fun fact I read on Wiki to ruin your day: Japanese kimonos are supposed to be worn left over right, unless the person who wear it is already died. But in both her splash art and in game art, she wear her kimono right over left.
That's actually a pretty clever design detail
this is fascinating to me because i am straight-up _bad_ at StS (we're talking "over a hundred hours and i've never so much as seen the heart fight" bad) and the Watcher is by _far_ my worst character to the point where trying to get a single win with her was just... painful. hearing all this talk of infinites and her being overpowered and broken is mindboggling to me because i've had the exact opposite experience -- for me, the Watcher is a slog where i struggle to get _anything_ done.
basically: this video feels like it's from a parallel timeline to my very existence. wild stuff.
My favorite watcher build is going battle hymn and trying to get into divinity asap
I didnt find rushdown but i found out you can go infinite anways with meditate establishment and 2 draw cards, the only down side is the run took an extra hour and a half due to multiple weak + malleable incidents
video peaks thanks vro
Yea this is a banger video. Thanks for the tips. I can now play watcher
Huh... interesting. The Wrath usually gets me killed in 1 or 2 turns whenever I use it. I had no idea people could loop it so easily. The only times I won with the Watcher was by abusing Alpha-draw-turbo or blasphemy.
Funny thing. As soon as I watched this I immediately played StS using Merle's Watcher strategy aggressively. I died a dozen times back-to-back because I couldn't find one essential card to make me go infinite. Maybe I'm just really unlucky, but going infinite isn't anywhere near being a sure thing.
One vid and dip. Great stuff.
I always play as the watcher.
Btw My strategy I used to kill fading spider lookin dude is: vajra, foreign influence, damaru, prostrate, worship, devotion, master reality, alpha, scrawl, infinite, beta, omega, deva, wish for strength, enter divinity, play all attack (only draw card and stance related), signature move, end turn doing A lot of dmg cuz of omega + upgrade from master reality + other dmg killing it. Not in that order.
Honestly, this makes me sad. When I was just trying to figure out Watcher on my own, I was excited at the possibility of making an Alpha>Beta>Omega deck or a scrying deck work. To have so many cards be just not worth taking is not fun or interesting to me.
The absolute best scenario with omega is omniscient honestly you CAN do things with her but the goal shifts and you have to willingly play suboptionally
this should have more views
Oh wow, you guys are getting streaks? I spend hours just to win once!
Dont hate me but i love Watcher runs where i just find a Pressure Point fight one and just start removing everything except the points and Block/Draw Cards is super fun and honestly pretty strong
I bought the game 3 days ago, and got my 1st win on 2nd Watcher playthrough today with my atrocious almost 30+ cards deck (most of wich were at bottom of the tierlist here). Its goal was to survive untill Divinity (mainly using the calm armor power wich name I forgot) and kill all enemies in one turn with retained created cards (upgraded by Master Reality). Oh, and that card wich gave you more and more energy each turn was crucial to this strategy. Needles to say, I managed to beat Time Eater thanks to two Divinity Potions I held for all my run. This game is so fun!
Im not smart enough to use her.
The Watch has this build i like to called "Omega Death Bomb". get the alpha card and 2 omniscience cards. Play the alpha card and then the beta card, use one of the omniscience cards on the other and then use that card twice on your Omega power card and boom. The Watcher now deals 200 damage to all enemies at the end of her turn
That's because she was playtested the least of all characters.
Watcher is fun b/c every hand feels like a puzzle
Whilst Anthony’s philosophy of incredibly different and original enemys is a great idea that encourages diversity, Balatro did almost the exact opposite to parallel success which I find a brilliant fact of this genre
I never realized this combo was a thing and I am on Ascension 16 on Watcher (20 on the rest). Maybe I can finally get Watcher to 20 with this. God I'm dumb.
that last clip was intense af
2:30 omg activate quick mode on setting please
Wish I didn’t see this video for a few more weeks
I'm right now A7 on Defect, i've never won a normal run with the watcher lol, i just hate the stance thing.
Not shocked you like Project M and Slay the Spire, both are goated
That was Melee but it's still cool enough.
@@freddiesimmons1394 you have no clue what I'm talking about. The person narrating this video has done a great deal for the Project M community.
@@GaleblazeXYZ how tf would anyone know that? Guy has one video and showed a clip of melee in it
@@freddiesimmons1394 dude I wasn't leaving a comment for anyone. I wasn't leaving it for you. I left it for the person who uploaded. Stop being a weirdo to strangers online. I don't know you.
@@GaleblazeXYZ weird how you dont understand what a public forum is. You're new to the internet, it's ok
I don't even play the game anymore. I'm just here for your funny words
Amazing video
Welp, looks like I gotta try out the watcher again.