Doubling draw cards such as Adrenaline or Prepared, or doubling strength loss from Piercing Wail maximizes the limited resources in the deck, especially with cards that exhaust.īurst can take the place of Nightmare as the core of the deck, though it’s much less capable when used with Catalyst. Nonetheless, Burst allows greater flexibility with the limited deck size this build promotes. The following cards make the build more consistent, though do no make up the essential combo pieces.īurst is not one of the essential cards of this build, as this build realizes the 8100% poison with only Nightmare and Catalyst. This guide discusses both alternatives in another section. Note: This build can replace Deadly Poison with another poison card, such as Noxious Fumes or Bouncing Flask, though they lack the consistency of Deadly Poison. Poison Potions work in a pinch, though they are not a long-term strategy. Additionally, being a common, rewards offer Deadly Poison more consistently than the others, and it combos with Nightmare early one, if rewards haven’t offered Catalyst yet. Deadly Poison offers the most poison for the least energy and stacks it on a single target to increase multiplicity with Catalyst. A measly 10 poison damage turns into 810 damage in two turns.Įven with multiplicity, this build needs some way to get poison going initially. With three upgraded Catalysts (plus the original one), Nightmare effectively multiplies poison 81 times. Nightmare enables massive poison stacking when used on Catalyst. This build requires only one Catalyst, as we combo it with Nightmare. Stacking multiple Catalysts–even with low poison damage–quickly defeats the strongest enemies. Note: Some cards must be unlocked, this build will not work on a new game.Ĭatalyst offers multiplicative damage increases and is the core of this build. You must collect the following cards for this build to work: Elites pose little more challenge than regular enemies after this point, and the relic rewards are substantial.

This includes all curses, not because of their negative effects, but because they increase the deck’s entropy.įight as many elites as possible, especially after acquiring the core cards of the deck. Once the deck acquires it’s core cards, remove every extra card possible. Even cards that seemingly “replace” themselves, such as Dagger Throw or Backflip reduce the likelihood of better draws, especially considering their energy cost (Prepared and Adrenaline are exceptions to this, and this guide discusses them in detail). Most rewards screens will have their rewards left unclaimed, and this is an intentional part of the build. Remember that each card added to the deck reduces the chance of drawing critical combo pieces. Maintaining temperance with card selection is a core component of optimal play. New players often take far too many cards for a deck of this type, resulting in inconsistent draws and the core of the deck suffering (known as entropy). This build is a combo deck and must run as small of a deck as possible (contrast to a traditional deck, which just picks up all the high-quality cards offered). Play Catalysts next turn for > 8100% poison damage.Apply a minimum of 6-10 poison to an enemy with Deadly Poison or similar.This guide works as of the 1 February 2018 build. The build relies on a single “combo turn” utilizing Catalyst multiple times to exponentially increase poison damage.

Slay the spire builds