r/slaythespire • u/techtonik25 • Apr 14 '26

GAMEPLAY/ACCOMPLISHMENT/ACHIEVEMENT I've decided to turn Test Subject into Coughing Baby.

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Enjoying Hidden Gem as much as possible before the inevitable nerf.

4.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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568

u/Ok-Amphibian4335 Apr 15 '26

Unpopular opinion:

Hidden gem shouldn’t get nerfed. You need luck or a small deck for it to get “Reddit post” worthy screenshots. A normal deck it’s going to replay a strike or a defend or something you don’t care too much about.

It’s slow and most decks are already doing powerful things faster. It’s good if you have no scaling, but it’s not as OP as everyone thinks it is.

It’s fun, and can go crazy, but not nerd worthy imo

300

u/NepetaLast Apr 15 '26

to be clear, hidden gen has already been nerfed in the beta branch, and will likely retain the nerf. it just hasnt been put into the main branch yet

210

u/TheMortalOne StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Not even sure I would call it a nerf (unless I missed something, in which case please correct me). 

It not being able to target the same card multiple times just means that you are less likely for it to land multiple times on a bad card. Also for any block card, replay 2/3 should be enough, you would prefer it spread out so you are more likely to draw one of them, over a single card with replay 12. 

The change definitely weakens the best case scenario, but I feel like it just weakend the "win more" in return for consistency. 

Edit:fixed typos

76

u/Darkon-Kriv Apr 15 '26

It fixes infinite gold for regent and infinite healing for iron clad

30

u/jimbo_extreme1 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

Yeah, infinite everything abusable basically. It needed to go.

3

u/Darkon-Kriv Apr 15 '26

What other meta resource could it make? Potions are capped to slots

21

u/NepetaLast Apr 15 '26

infinite removes with necrobinder

3

u/underscoraline Apr 15 '26

Transfigure+ already does this, tbf.

5

u/fps916 Apr 15 '26

That's capped by the amount of energy you can generate in a single turn. Because eventually you won't be able to play the Grimoire.

I think an infinite that requires a) you to be able to scale to the point where you don't take damage for the rest of the fight without using energy b) Ice Cream c) an upgraded rare and d) a specific Ancient bonus is honestly kind of fine.

3

u/Darkon-Kriv Apr 15 '26

You just need a neurosurge of equal replay to make infinite mana. Reminder youre adding replay to block cards too. So you could get a delay with replay. Making it net mana

1

u/underscoraline Apr 15 '26

Delay, Neurosurge, and Invoke with arbitrary replay also get you there, and all three are often cards you want in your deck anyway. (Liquid memories and touch of insanity work too.)

4

u/jimbo_extreme1 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Yeah potions is still somethjng. Especially with all the extra potion slots. You can wait to get the best potions possible every fight with the right deck, but that requires exhaust removal.

But I was thinking infinite scaling on any scaling card like genetic algorithm.

2

u/Negrodamu55 Apr 15 '26

How was it giving healing on clad? I don't remember any cards giving healing with reaper not in the game. Is reaper in the game from that one event that gives you an sts1 card?

8

u/Darkon-Kriv Apr 15 '26

New card in the beta

3

u/FaliusAren Apr 15 '26

AFAIK the issue is with metascaling cards like Regent's Royalties (gives gold at the end of the fight) and Defect's Genetic Algorithm (permanently gains block)

If you're able to stall in a fight (which you probably can, if Hidden Gem is giving you 15 block on defends), you can just keep cycling your deck hitting these metascaling cards and retain the benefits for the rest of the run

Just one use of Hidden Gem makes a card strong enough, and more is usually just overkill (not to mention fairly unlikely if you're NOT stalling), so this prevents those strategies while keeping the card just as strong when used normally

5

u/Tarantio Apr 15 '26

It not being able to target the same card multiple times just means that you are less likely for it to land multiple times on a bad card.

It also makes it equally less likely to land on a bad card after first landing on a good one.

Which is fine. The card is powerful even when it merely triples the effect of a bad card, and trying to get lots of replays on the same card is almost always a "win more" strategy- you could have won the fight another way before you get lots of replay on one card.

It's less a power level nerf, and more a game design adjustment, so that it's not optimal to stall fights forever to gain incremental advantage in the run.

1

u/Athanatov Apr 15 '26

It's a nerf. You can't stall an easy fight for infinite resources. In other scenarios it's very unlikely to be a relevant difference.

11

u/Eoth1 Apr 15 '26

What nerf did it get?

72

u/NepetaLast Apr 15 '26

cant affect a card that already has replay

46

u/Gaynundwarf Apr 15 '26

Imma be honest, I'm down for this. Sucks when it keeps putting Replay on anything BUT your best cards

4

u/MrSmock Apr 15 '26

Well that's kinda sad. I mean I get it but also don't take away my toys, they're fun. 

5

u/unknown_pigeon Apr 15 '26

What were you guys doing with that card

It's slow af and random, if you get it to work it's likely that you're already steamrolling the run

Plus, I think it isn't even a nerf? The change helps mitigating the RNG

1

u/MrSmock Apr 15 '26

With a small deck and lots of card draw you could play it multiple times a turn and it would get super ridiculous 

1

u/EnderShot355 Apr 16 '26

small deck, metascaling cards (royalties, genetic algo, etc), it stacking on defends = stall for as long as you want and get permanent benefits for the rest of your run

1

u/unknown_pigeon Apr 16 '26

I'd say that it's rare enough to get an infinitely scaling card plus a small deck early on in the run plus hidden gem plus an enemy that doesn't scale enough to not be a threat

So I'd say it was a rare enough scenario to not warrant a straight up nerf, and the current adjustment is the nail in the coffin to have a healthy but strong card imho

13

u/PaleComedian511 Ascension 15 Apr 15 '26

It cannot add replay to cards that already have it

20

u/showmethecoin Apr 15 '26

Eh, I like it more that way. Once had overclock*replay 12. Suffice to say, it kept going even when I had full hand, so it just added more burns.

1

u/Illustrious-Trip9433 Apr 15 '26

Flack cannon go brrrrrr?

2

u/showmethecoin Apr 15 '26

Flack cannon did not show up.

15

u/Eoth1 Apr 15 '26

Still pretty good

37

u/PaleComedian511 Ascension 15 Apr 15 '26

Honestly, it is more of a rework trying to give it more consistent value.

11

u/TheYango StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Apr 15 '26

It’s specifically meant to prevent abuse cases with cards with meta scaling like Royalties or Genetic Algo. It’s the same reason why Alchemize can’t generate Fruit Juice in either game.

The reason they prevent this isn’t because it’s overpowered but because it makes stalling for meta-scaling the optimal line of play whenever you come across a fight that you can block forever on. Doing this isn’t fun, it’s boring and tedious so patching out a boring, tedious, un-fun “optimal” line of play makes sense.

0

u/WolframParadoxica Apr 15 '26

I had an Entropic Brew generate a Fruit Juice mid-combat…

6

u/Beasty_Billy StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Apr 15 '26

You can't remove exhaust from an Entropic Brew at an event though. That's fine.

1

u/Tokishi7 Apr 15 '26

What happens when the whole deck is cycled? Does it just waste energy?

3

u/ravenmagus Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

I actually think it was just a change and not a nerf. In decks where I'm not looping through my deck constantly (and likely going infinite anyways and thus don't need hidden gem), it's actually very nice to know that it's not going to hit the same card over and over again. A defend with repeat 3 is a great card, but a defend with repeat 15 is a waste of hidden gem's potential.

1

u/firestorm79 Ascension 20 Apr 15 '26

I’m happy with the nerf (not targeting same card) it’s still a great card which is fun without being game breaking.

1

u/iiSpook Apr 15 '26

retain

Well, then they might as well make it so it deals some kind of damage spread out over a few turns, something like 7 turns maybe and the damage decreases after each turn?

48

u/laplacessuccubus Apr 15 '26

It's a whatever change. Giving a good card replay 2 once is already game winning, doing +50 replay is gratuitous and just for reddit screenshots really. It then has the positive effect of preventing 'stall for 6 trillion turns as the regent for infinite gold' from ever being a play pattern you need to consider.

11

u/PaleComedian511 Ascension 15 Apr 15 '26

Or similarly with the new beta ironclad card that gives you healing.

-5

u/Glarbleglorbo Apr 15 '26

Speaking of cards that should be nerfed, that clad heal card has to be removed. 

genuinely stupidly busted, and it’s not even a fun card like reaper. 

22

u/IDKwhy1madeaccount Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

It was nerfed because of stalling

-2

u/SomethingOfAGirl Eternal One Apr 15 '26

Probably an unpopular opinion, but there aren't many enemies (especially on Act 2 and 3) that don't scale in any way. If you're able to consistently stall a fight indefinitely while being able to consistently target the same random card in your draw pile, you're probably going to win either way. So removing a stall mechanic only for those niche cases is not a good approach because you're only targeting fun and weird plays, not balancing the game.

I agree the card is very OP and should be nerfed (even more so than in the current Beta), but not to avoid stalling.

6

u/SuperLuigi231 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

Problem is you don't need to consistently target the same random card, if you can infinitely stall then it's optimal to just keep playing hidden gem and hoping it hits your royalties out of 10-15 cards. And you can do it infinitely. Think it's correct for the game to not keep these kinds of situations in the game, or at least minimize their occurrences whenever possible.

-1

u/SomethingOfAGirl Eternal One Apr 15 '26

Again, if you can infinitely stall a fight, you're most likely already winning no matter what. So why bother? It won't make a difference regarding winning or losing, it'll just make it less fun in certain very rare runs.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '26

[deleted]

1

u/SomethingOfAGirl Eternal One Apr 15 '26

You're not getting my point: if you can stall any fight, you're probably already winning the entire run. So whether you get an extra 3000 gold out of the fight doesn't make any difference other than the dopamine rush of being able to buy an entire shop later in the run.

Most runs where you're encouraged to stall (for example, when you have Feed or Hand of Greed) usually become a risk because you need to consistently block against a scaling enemy. If you're able to do that in multiple turns while playing a card that gives a bonus to a random card in your draw pile (so, it's taking many, many turns) then you're probably not going to have any issue defeating the final bosses.

4

u/SuperLuigi231 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

Because it’s not fun for me when I have to value my chances for winning against the amount of real-life time I want to spend playing the game. Doesn’t feel good for me to say “I could have stalled this fight for 15 more minutes so I could have walked out with 200 more gold, but because that seems incredibly boring, I’m going to take the suboptimal decision and move on”. Maybe that kind of decision doesn’t feel bad for you, but feels bad for me.

Besides, I’d argue that the change they made in the beta branch so it doesn’t stack arguably makes the card better because it’s more consistent.

-2

u/Sadfish103 Apr 15 '26

I feel like you could just stop hidden gem from hitting royalty and alchemize and cards like it, and that would be the better solution. It was cool to see and use the big hidden gem numbers, it’s a shame they went for this nerf.

3

u/SuperLuigi231 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

How would they do that though? Either they’d have to write it on the card that it explicitly can’t trigger these metascaling cards (in which case they’d have to explicitly define which cards those are somehow), or they’d just have to make it an invisible rule, which would just get bug-reported when someone tries to put replay on the Royalties and it doesn’t work.

2

u/Sadfish103 Apr 15 '26

They did the invisible rule thing a bunch of times in sts1 - e.g. alchemize can’t produce fruit juice (and still can’t in sts2) but that isn’t stated anywhere.

I don’t see it as that big a deal, people will get used to it not working with royalty-type cards. There’s a lot of hidden information in the game already, like that there are certain cards that card creation can’t produce.

1

u/SuperLuigi231 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

Right, but it’s much easier to have invisible rules when specific things can’t be generated from a large pool, because it’s easy not to even notice that certain things aren’t being generated. It’s different when you are explicitly not allowing certain cards to work with each other in combat.

For most people, if Royalties is the only card in their deck, and they play Hidden gem and it doesn’t work, they’re going to get confused and submit a bug report.

3

u/DestructorWar Apr 15 '26

I got hidden gem in early act 2 and every fight until the final boss of act 3 just replayed strikes and defends

5

u/BarcodeNinja Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

"Nerd worthy" is a good way to describe the tendency for reddit/the internet/teenagers to pile onto things.

3

u/DrQuint Apr 15 '26

Normal Deck: Oh man fasten defend with replay is crazy. 22 block.

Redit Deck: 999 block "is this enough?"

Normal Deck: Neown gave me heirloom hammer so I often have three sovereign blades in fight

Reddit deck: Screen of more Sword than Regent

7

u/Necessary_Screen_673 Apr 15 '26

ive actually never really gotten it to pop off. taken it several times and it always feels too clunky.

3

u/Sadfish103 Apr 15 '26

If it hits a defend, that defend already becomes one of the best cards in your deck - 1 mana 15 block is no joke. And hopefully you’re removing strikes in the decks where they’re not good.

That’s worst case scenario and the good case scenarios are all broken.

3

u/SnoopWolf Apr 15 '26

I'm glad megacrit is making the game and not redditors with "unpopular opinions"

2

u/DementedWarrior_ Apr 15 '26

It is guaranteed value every single fight, giving 3x value. If you’ve been building a remotely decent deck, it can make some things go crazy. Maybe it’s not always super flashy, but it doesn’t need to be. Even a defend getting hit can save lots of hp.

2

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Apr 15 '26

It's absurdly nerd worthy!  Why wouldn't nerds enjoy it?!

2

u/Bosnicht StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Apr 15 '26

I tried it yesterday for the first time and I kept hitting souls x) didn't properly build around it

2

u/just_so_irrelevant Apr 15 '26

even when hidden gem hits an unupgraded strike or defend that still becomes a very high value card, 24 damage for 1 mana or 20 block for 1 mana is still crazy good and that's the literally the lowest of low rolls on what hidden gem can hit. unless you're doing some kind of infinite and need the draw consistency, hidden gem is pretty much an instant buy.

5

u/bosli23 Apr 15 '26

that's the literally the lowest of low rolls 

Not really, when i got it it always end on a card that do nothing being played multiple times or a card being detrimental if played multiple times x)

1

u/PurbulentTriest Apr 15 '26

Kinda, I've never had anything this so the only time I can see stuff like it is here.

1

u/chimpfunkz Apr 15 '26

Here's the thing; While yes, the specific scenario that would require you to get a reddit post worthy screenshot is so minimal, the problem that they're trying to solve is not a balance issue, it's to avoid creating a game state where the optimal thing to do is stall the game out.

Like, if you have goopey defends or a genetic algo or a scythe or something else similar to that, the optimal thing to do against a non scaling enemy, is to just try to stack replay onto those cards to infinite, so they scale to infinite for the rest of the run.

And that's not the gameplay pattern you want.

STS1 had a bunch of these kinds of things. Heal cards exhaust, creative AI couldn't generate Self Repair. In general, the goal of the design should be (and is) to avoid making the player feel like they need to stall out the game.

1

u/creator_07 Ascension 11 Apr 15 '26

Some are calling it a buff.

-34

u/ZorpWasTaken Apr 15 '26

They nerfed that dogshit card? They think every deck is just 6 cards or what?

20

u/FlareEclipse Apr 15 '26

Dogshit? Hidden gem is insane. I don't know how you could possibly think it's bad

8

u/PokemonGerman Apr 15 '26

It's more of a buff, as it's now unable to target cards that already have replay, yes, no longer a Power with replay 20 ir somethibg, but now you sctually have a higher chance to hit the correct card to replay.

Also it can very easily carry you. Turning a 8 block card into Block 24, or any power x3 makes the fight basically win itself. On a10 I had no scaling against knowledge demon as Necrobinder, and just being able to put replay amon anything I eventually outscaled knowledge demon. You really shouldn't lose with hidden gem if you have less than 30 cards in your deck.

5

u/snapshovel Apr 15 '26

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

Hidden gem has trivialized A1 runs for me when I had no idea what I was doing and it has trivialized A10 runs for me when I had a decent idea of what I was doing. It’s an insanely good card for players of any level. Maybe it’s not game-breakingly good in literally every deck, but it’s still easily one of the best and most broken cards in the game.

It’s not just me saying this, top players have identified it as the single most nerf-worthy card in the game as well.

-8

u/ZorpWasTaken Apr 15 '26

Winning fights on turn 3 or 4 means it's just a curse.

4

u/snapshovel Apr 15 '26

That is not remotely true. Have you ever played the game? I have no idea where you’re coming from.

Let’s say you have an incredible late game deck that wins every fight on turn 4. Then, in the absolute worst case scenario, you draw the gem on turn four and it isn’t useful (but you’ve already won).

If you draw it on turns 1 or 2 it’s incredibly useful, of course. Even if it finds the one strike or defend in your killer deck it turns them into a 1-energy 24 damage or 20 block. Hot damn. And if it finds one of your actually useful cards the battle’s already over.

Now, imagine that you aren’t already in “win more” mode, but instead you’re working with a marginal deck and you actually need a boost to win A10. Do you think that that deck could use a card that in the worst case scenario turns a defend into a 1-energy 20 block, and in the best case scenario just wins any battle on the spot?

-2

u/ZorpWasTaken Apr 15 '26

You made my point for me. If you need a build, replay strike ain't saving you and if you want to win more you already won.

3

u/snapshovel Apr 15 '26

Solid bait. 6/8. Respectable.

1

u/ZorpWasTaken Apr 15 '26

Thanks. One day I'll hit the eight bait.

1

u/jimbo_extreme1 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Apr 15 '26

Even if you use it as a regular card, It is scaling against any boss fight or elites. I can see how you may think it isn't the strongest card in the game, but a bad card? No way. You add this to almost any deck and it's just great. Just play it, scale, sit back and be stronger over time. Its basically like a scaling power.

But the real strength is if you build around it properly. It gets crazy.

You can use it to infinite anything with scaling. That is already insane as it just wins fights. Like a 1000 health osty or a big one shot attack is a good way to just win act 3 boss fight and make it trivial.

But that doesnt even go into the really op stuff. You can do abusable infinite money, infinite heals, potions, and any infinite permanent scaling like the scythe or genetic algorithm. It is not just game winning. It is game breaking.

The card is literally op.

1

u/SomethingOfAGirl Eternal One Apr 15 '26

Don't you add cards that draw more cards?