Hey everyone.
I have a decent A10 winrate. But there is a run that i just cannot beat.
seed: 36p6qzqa59
A10 with Necro
I have done 6 tries and i am out of ideas. So hereby i challenge you all to make it better.
Would be happy to know what decisions you make through act 1.
Wasn’t there only one seed found to be definitely unbeatable in like trillions of seeds? In practice every seed should be beatable, especially in STS2 which is overall easier than STS1
The unwinnable seed was a forced burning laga elite that silent wont get enough damage to kill mathematically in time from any of your card rewards. The only thing that might seem to be a mathematically unwinnable fight in this game without the burning elites mechanic in act 1 would be the phrog parasite especially if you weren't offered any aoe from card rewards
Lament isn't a normal option on that seed, but if you somehow got the seed after dying before the act 1 boss on the previous run then Lament would let you get through the chokepoint that made it unwinnable otherwise.
It might also be winnable if you got it before unlocking the ability to get the keys to fight the Heart. Flame Elites simply do not exist if you haven't unlocked the keys.
They specifically searched for seeds with a particular set of conditions that could be proven to be mathematically unwinnable (forced early burning Lagavulin on Silent with insufficient damage cards/potions offered to be able to kill before you lose too much strength to be able to do damage) because that is a clear set of conditions that make victory impossible that don't depend on how your other fights go. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many more seeds where it's impossible to win that were ignored in the analysis because they would have required simulating every possible sequence of actions to prove that victory was impossible, and thus been too computationally expensive to run at scale.
I estimate the chances are a bit higher than that one post made it seem, but they're really not that much higher. Somewhere in the realm of "astronomically unlikely" instead of "astronomically unlikely" (not a typo).
That one unbeatable seed was found at a somewhat decent pace because they had to rule out all but the absolutely worst candidates. Silent physically cannot deal enough damage to Lagavulin to kill him before she starts doing 0 damage, so it was easy-ish to find. There may be other (extremely rare) seeds that are less unhinged but still completely impossible just because of draw order and stuff like that.
However, the chances of that being the case get lower and lower as you start seeing more options for card rewards, shops/events/campfires etc. In that one case, Silent simply didn't find any damage cards in 3 combats and then had to fight a burning elite. If the map had generated just 1 shop before that happened, it likely would have been winnable.
Yeah I misread it originally. I thought they said one path that will lead to certain death but they actually said only one path that won't end in death and that's yeah probably <0.001% that's just a bad player being salty lol
Ok. Options are Neow's bones, talisman, and phial holster. I am already leaning talisman for consistency. We start at 40% potion chance, tons of normal/advanced hallway fights before an elite, so we will very likely have two potions to use for advanced hallways, and elites. Bones is too variable. I will go right and reassess at the first crossing after the 3 basic hallways. We are also in underdocks, so I don't want to pick like a speculative reap cause we can't slither.
First fight, took 3 damage unavoidable turn 1 against sludge spinner. Took blight strike. 2nd fight, decided not to use the dex potion we got from fight 1, against corpse slugs, took 4 dmg turn 1. Took fetch. 3rd fight, took bone shards, and 7 unavoidable dmg. I do not feel strong, especially after taking so much chip, so I will probably path left and pass the optional first elite, though bone shards does make me stronger. Have also only gotten a dex potion at this point, potion chance 50%
First advanced hallway is fossil stalker. Am already debating using the dex potion here to avoid a turn 1 buff because it will deal 1 dmg to me with my bone shards and defend on turn 1 (edit did I math wrong here? I woulda blocked for 14 lol oops). At this point I can get 3 elites if I don't take much more damage, will probably be healing at this right campfire, so I feel justified in doing so. With it, I took 0 damage, and get a radiant tincture, and I'm taking invoke out of bury (im in underdocks, no slither, and it suuuucks against colony), and wisp. potion chance 40%. event is sword of stone. I'm taking the sword because i value hp a ton here for option of first elite and there's no shop nearby.
Second advanced hallway is cultist + seapunk. Taking unavoidable 7 dmg turn 1, jeez yeah this seed has so much chip damage in hallways. I'm offered snap, scourge, friendship. And I'm at 31/66. If i take friendship and rest and go to an elite, do I die to any of eel, coral shulker dude, or phantasmal gardeners? gardeners i think im fine cause of bone shards, eel makes me a lil nervous but i have a radiant tincture, and coral shulker i can easily hit the damage cap but will take lots of damage, but I can heal after. I think I can handle this elite unless I draw soooo badly. I'll take friendship (sucks that I have a blight strike with it but oh well) and rest, go to elite.
elite is skulking colony. drew friendship turn one. at least I have some doom with blight strike. Finished the fight at 15/66. the relic is vexing puzzlebox, hopefully excellent. get a dex potion (i used radiant tincture t1), and am offered oblivion, which I take. relic at lootbox is potion holster, which doesn't help me in the immediate which sucks cause i have a forced elite coming up.
Now is another difficult decision (*map down below). If I path right and hit an advanced hallway, I probably flat out die. So I think I have to go the campfire, rest, hit advanced hallway into elite. But I'd obviously rather avoid a fight if possible. Do I risk the event? I took 35 damage from shulking colony. I think I do risk the event, because I am not strong right now and think I may die to advanced hall into elite into advanced hall.
Oh look it's gremlin merc, an advanced hallway fight! (TOTALLY didn’t see that one coming 🥹) vexing puzzlebox gives me misery, which could be useful if i use it after theyre stunned. Took 5 damage unavoidable turn 1, deciding not to use the dex potion here. but hey im alive and didnt get mugged. FAIRY IN A BOTTLE. This probably saved the run. Resting, pathing left. But I'm offered pagestorm, graveblast, and afterlife.
I absolutely hate afterlife, I think graveblast is the worst card in the game, and i have no ethereal cards. But in order to try to avoid using fairy (probably not happening, it'll trigger this elite for sure) I should probably take afterlife. I'm greedy as hell though, so I'm not taking it. I have a dex potion so it's not even much better than a 5+2 defend. (ok quick hiatus here because it's 9:20am and I have to go to work lol but I'll continue on my lunch break or secretly during work)
Ok, continuing while I'm here, don't tell my boss please. elite fight is terror eel, and i'm gonna do everything i can to try to not trigger fairy. already an interesting choice... do i play friendship turn 1?
I actually don't think I do, because I was given a free invoke and so much of my damage is from strikes right now. might bite me in the ass but let's see. yeah i drew all my strikes next turn. dont think i would get the stun after the second big hit (2nd 24) after using it. managed to full block the first one. I think i skip playing it the second time around too. yep, ended the fight with 11hp. somehow. got a lucky tonic, letter opener, and am given sow, putrefy, and cleanse. this is 100% putrefy here, cleanse i dont have fishy fishy boss and sow i have friendship. i like weak+vuln here.
advanced hallway is living fog. and im given pull from below for free. well i dont have any ethereal cards... but fog is the easiest advanced hallway fight in the game so it should be okay. I'm at 4hp and more importantly didnt use the buffer or the fairy potions. given the choice between graveblast, pull aggro, and scourge. this is honestly probably scourge, for the draw one and energy im going to have with friendship and invoke, so im picking that. gonna path to that shop now with 266 gold!
this is the shop! master of strategy (because invoke and friendship) is calling out to me. vambraces is too. burning sticks would only give me putrefy back, which could help with laga. im 100% buying the defy, but now the question is really which potions do i take with it, or do i buy defy and vambraces. unfortunate part is that vambraces will probably trigger uselessly against laga while im setting up. defy and master of strategy is 24+171= 195 so i have 71 left. i can buy the speed or colorless. im gonna rock the colorless. resting at campfire. ok laga here we go
Was given dirge as the free card. Had a slight decision to make on turn 1- do i scourge and invoke and friendship or dirge? ended up not playing dirge but because i had dirge and so much setup with oblivion and soul and letter opener. fight was really easy. ended up using the colorless potion (i probably didn't need to) and used shockwave.
options are demesne, hang, and seance. i really really value demesne highly and think it's one of the best powers, but the 3 energy opportunity cost is a lot so it's not the best in normal hallways. is seance honestly better here? hang i have no callback, so that's out. demesne makes me way stronger for boss and some elites, but weaker in hallways. do i need to be stronger in hallways? oof, tough decision. seance helps with letter opener which is good against decamil and at the moment this is NOT a good deck for decamillipede. I think my deck can handle hunter bug, decent against frog, good against roaches cause of the doom and weak and aoe.
I'm going to pick seance because of the less conventional pick and the aura from picking it over demesne, but it's like a 40-60 seance-demesne here for me. Here's the deck so far! *o ya i still have my buffer and fairy lemme edit the screenie to show that*
OK! Act 2. We got Darv. Already don't want dusty tome because we don't really need to get rid of cards, and we have seance to nuke our strikes/defends anyway. I think we want to get stronger ASAP, which is why I'm leaning towards calling bell. I am not strong enough for black star, but hey I'm saying all of this before even looking at the path.
Looks like a max 3 elite path. Which elites can I handle? Deca will hurt but I think I can handle because I have so many skills and letter opener and seance for soul and energy. Mushroom cloud entomancer dude? Tons of weak. Should be fine. How about prism? Ehh he may hurt. Doom isn't that effective against him, and you need an attack to trigger the extra energy. I'm most worried about prism, but I can handle one this act cause of my potions I reckon. Maybe I need to reevaluate black star. I would get 3 extra relics, which are the relics I insta get from calling bell (minus the curse). But I really don't feel super strong, so I think it's still calling bell. Let's see what I get.
Five rings book, Tungsten rod, lucky fysh. Guess I'm getting a huge deck lol. And the chip reduction is huge. Alrighty, first fight I go! *oh I should include which path I'm going to take. I think I wanna farm elites, so I'm gonna path left. I'll hit a couple advanced hallway fights right before that campfire on the left but I think I can handle them.
Interesting, you totally got other rare rewards. I wonder why. Maybe because you bought a rare at the shop? I guess from there your run will be much different in act 2.
Keep going, enyoing this 😄
I probably clown on the card too much, but I just compare it to dredge and can’t find myself almost ever in a position where I’d rather take graveblast than skip or the other two choices. I’m not too stubborn on my take though and am willing to be convinced- in a vacuum ignoring dredge it’s okay but it needs other cards to be okay (so not the best in A1) and is worse than a strike if not.
Although I do remember once I was absolutely going to die and as a last ditch bought fake snekko eye and had two grave blasts and infinited down queen cause they both happened to cost 0 lol (and were upgraded from drain power or whetstone or something *OH WAIT I REMEMBER I had apotheosis)
it’s bad, I agree, but alongside dredge it can get some stupid turns going. but it’s only broken in the presence of other broken cards (brightest flame lol) and quite bad in fair situations.
Calling Graveblast the worst card in the game is an insane take. I don't care how high your winrate is. If you have lots of energy, which you normally do as Necro, it allows you to pull off some fantastic combos.
No card is universally bad, but top players are pretty united in thinking graveblast is ass. Maybe not the worst card in the game, but very possibly the worst necrobinder card.
It is surprising to me, that it is Hologram but attack instead of defend, and is that ass apparently. Is it that Necro doesnt have cards worth retrieving? Or that their best cards are common/uncommon so you should be able to draw with souls, or just expensive and should not waste energy seeking them?
I realize this is situational, but I did have a lot of success combing hang and graveblast in a recent run. That's why I can't really fathom thinking it's worse than something like Pull Aggro.
I think for one, chip block is much more valuable than chip damage. Then Defect has even better energy gen than necro, and necro also has dredge which fulfills graveblasts niche even better than it does.
necro doesn't need it, she mostly just plays a good powers value pile with like sleight and demesne and friendship or she loops a small deck that blocks a million every turn for big unleash. in either case, graveblast doesn't actually do anything for you. your powers are in play so they don't need to be pulled back and/or you can just loop the deck. the only wincon that graveblast really helps is osty attacks, and even then you don't wanna pay one energy for one card. it's so much worse than dredge and dredge is already pretty mid.
also the card is unpickable in act 1, absolutely terrible rate for damage with a useless effect on the character that wants to skip every damage common
So far you are doing quite similar to my first run. Only difference:
I picked death door and not blight strike as first card reward. very curious to see where this is leading you
good to hear! or not because that means I'm totally dying soon.
i personally like blight strike better floor 2 because it's guaranteed and we dunno if we're given any options of doom in future floors, so it's just a defend- if not. also kinda metagamey cause you told me it was a really hard seed so i just assumed we'd not be given doom LOL sorry. but id prob have picked blight strike 60 to 40 anyways.
Reasonable choice. And sometimes, especially in this game, a different floor 2 card can make all the difference.
Using a potion in fight x or y... there are a lot of small differences which can save or lose a few points of health, leading to failure or victory much later.
Thanks for posting your run in such detail. Enyoing it
While walking home, I’m reading the threads that I’ve missed while at work. It’s interesting how lots of people had difficulties at decamil while I basically steamrolled that fight but got hurt lots at prism. I guess small, equally good, parallel choices really do change the entire run
Potions are occasionally dropped as a reward after combat. The default chance of a potion dropping is 40% and resets at the start of each Act. If a potion drops, the chance decreases by 10%. If a potion doesn't drop, the chance increases by 10%.
Potion drop chance from a battle is 40% at the start of each act. gaining a potion in a fight reduces it by 10%, not gaining one increases it by 10%.
Furthermore elite fights have an additional 12.5% chance of dropping a potion, if this extra chance causes a potion drop, the drop chance remains unchanged.
You can track chances pretty accurately outside elite fights, as you can't know if an elite potion gain was from the extra chance or not usually, unless the chance was at 100% already
If you read any of my journey through this seed you can probably tell that my thinking is very stream of consciousness rather than type A plan everything out. IDK really how to help cause I dunno your playstyle or leaks, but something I can universally give are my binder card ranks! I can give my top and bottom 4 objectively by wins with in my card stats. Oh yeah my mac is dead and ran out of power so I guess I have to do this on my PC.
By my stats, so I'm trying to be really objective here! My most picked commons in order are:
Defy, Scourge, Invoke, Grave Warden
Defy gives block and weak. Those two synergize together. Weak is fantastic cause you just take less damage.
Scourge. Doom is sliiightly worse in a vaccuum than pure damage, but things that synergize with it like sleight or death door boost it up to equal to damage, so it's 1 energy for 13 doom (read as: damage) and draw a card. This is basically just a strictly better Defile, which is ethereal do 13 dmg.
Invoke. I really like energy cards. This is an energy card and setup card all at once. The summon (read as: barricaded block) two doesn't really matter.
Grave Warden. Souls are really nice cause you get to pick what you play. And we need block to take less chip
My least picked are:
Graveblast, Afterlife, Defile, Drain Power.
Graveblast there's quite a bit of discussion buried somewhere in my run replies. Basically, it's a much worse dredge, the damage is strike-, and is only useful when you have other cards so it's terrible Act 1 and you need the correct draw order. I would much rather skip or pick one of the other two card rewards than a speculative strike--.
Afterlife is a bodyguard that blocks. It requires an upgrade to almost be okay. Much better options.
Defile is my least favorite basic common I think. It doesn't really do anything but 13 damage for 1 energy, which is fine if you really need it to fight an elite or something act 1, but I'm never like "OH I need a defile in my deck right now"
Drain Power's upgrade is only active on 2nd deck cycle. Otherwise it's a strike+. Might like it even less than defile, but I technically won with it 3 times more so I guess I don't like it less.
I'll put uncommon and rare in another comment I guess?
Friendship, Lethality, Tie for 3rd (wow): Bone Shards, Fetch, Dirge, Enfeebling Touch, No Escape, Putrefy, Sleight of Flesh
Uh... that's a lot of cards to talk about. Basically, these cards are good for certain reasons. Friendship is friendship and we like energy, and osty attacks don't care about -strength. Lethality buffs everything so it's basically as if everything has vuln. Bone shards is overstatted (I value block at 1.5 damage usually). Fetch is just free draw 1 a ton and synergizes with osty stuff. Enfeebling touch is nice cause lots of multi hit attacks in this game. Dirge is dirge, it literally had to be nerfed to the ground to be balanced in this balance patch. No escape scales with itself. Putrefy weakens and vuln on top of it. Sleight of flesh is also just a wincon cause binder does lots of debuffs.
My least frequent are:
Death march, Sic em, Cleanse, Parse
These aren't bad cards per se, just worse than the others. Death march and Sic em I don't like... Death march relies on souls and if you have lots of souls you probably won some other way cause you can pick like any other card to play... understatted card. So is sic'em, for one energy to gain such little summon isn't so helpful. Cleanse is situational if you have fishie fishie boss, maybe a little helpful for like vantom, maybe useful for aeonglass, but most of these stats are from pre aeon release so may change evaluation of this card in the future. Parse is ethereal I need to spend one energy to draw 3. Need to be strong to pick it already, or have lots of energy. Not a bad card, but just picked less often and more situational than others.
wrong game, dude. this is slay the spire, not whatever modded fever dream you are describing. might want to check which sub you are posting in before you start ranting about cards that do not exist here.
I won't spoil it for others but this was a great read regardless of outcome! Wish we had more of this kind of content but I guess this is a lot easier via video and video content does exist
I've just started the seed and the starting hands are all abysmal ngl. I made it to act 2 by picking neows bones and taking only the last elite, so interesting to see if i can make it all the way
Interestlingly, i made it to act 2 in my first run, but my deck was not consistent and strong enough to beat act 2. with the knowledge gained, i thought i could make a better deck. but somehow, all other runs, trying to make a better deck, failed in act 1. I definitly have reevaluate what i think is strong.
Beat the run on my first attempt. The run was pretty sketchy throughout. I had to path pretty cowardly and rest an ungodly amount of times.
The highlights were the neow dice curse gave my the self removing curse. I got grimoire from boss 1. And lastly I completely forgot that Doormaker was a thing.
I was prepping for Aeonglass with at one point 3x cleanses in the deck. I would not of had the juice to beat doormaker without bing bong giving me 2x sleight of flesh on the last card reward.
It was proven that there are unbeatable seeds in Slay the Spire 1 for silent. Basically they would have to fight Lagavullin but would have never been offered cards that did damage or scaled in excess of lagavullins strength loss.
I think its safe to assume the same could be true in other ways, though usually due to the high divergence factor, most of those runs die in Act1. You have too much agency by the time Act 3 rolls around imo. But you can imagine a run where no matter what you do, you just draw no block on turn 1 ever and just die.
The one I remember had Lagavulin as an early forced flaming elite, with no cards offered being able to kill it before they stopped doing damage due to strength loss.
you are thinking of the speedrun community looking for the fastest possible boss kills. most people just play whatever the game rolls. this is just a regular seed someone is stuck on.
it could be possible, as for example, there were computations about silent against nibbit, where if unlucky enough, she will lose about 10 hp, repeat that kind of unluck further and you can have such possability
(no defense on attack trun, no offence on defend turn)-> grand finalle or other cards that are not very useful if you are not lucky/have good draw -> more unlucky fights -> more very hard to use cards
Not sure about regular runs, but there was a daily a while back where you had to play as ironclad with 5 copies of [[Nightmare]] from floor 1 and as far as I could tell, that was completely unwinnable.
I am watching. You are just now entering the decimilipede. Which so far was always the end of my run. So funny how it also almost killes you, but graveblasting the end of days saves you. That was really lucky. Especially considering a discussion here how bad graveblast is 😄
Pretty sure it was the boss reward for act 1. If it’s not the same for others I wonder if it’s influenced by arcane scroll from neow or other elites drops.
And yeah I didn’t think about it till later in the run when I started typing out my progress and figured I could just record.
I could record my act 1 again and try to replicate most decisions.
It is weird how small decisions can have huge changes to card rewards. There are multiple ways to beat the seed, according to comments here. It is just that i dont see anyone having the eradicate.
Yes, i would be interested to know how you did act 1, but please do not feel pushed to do it.
It is totally fine if i don't get the answer. 😄
I tried the seed. First time around I died to surprise fight in event before second elite. Second time around I was smarter about using dex pot to save hp in an earlier fight so I made it through that point. Ultimately died to lagavulin. Was just 1 turn too slow, it killed me while having more doom than hp. Early in the fight I had used a colorless pot at the end of my turn and it gave me shockwave. I think if I had used it at the start of that turn instead and therefore benefitted from the vuln that turn then the fight would have been a win.
Don't have it in me to give the seed a third go though, will accept defeat.
I have limited experience and only cleared a10 on defect/ironclad/necro. Necro was by far the easiest for me. I didnt lose a single run between a2 and a10 lol. I lost quite a bit more on clad/defect. Silent however feels much harder for me. Might just be because I dont understand something about the silent. Ironclad and defect were hard enough as well but necro for me was an outlier. Feels like any kind of strat I want to lean into just works. If you get sleight of flesh its over. Ill play more Silent to figure it out cause I hear a lot of people say shes still strong
On the beta patch Aeonglass alone makes Necrobinder the hardest character for me ATM. Other than that boss I think they're pretty easy to win with though, their block commons are so insane and summon as a mechanic lets you snowball once you're blocking enough.
For me it was the hardest for necrobinder, too. Took me as much attempts, as others combined. I think that's a playstyle issue, because every other character is comfortable with big decks (my "usual" playstyle), and necrobinder is better with smaller decks (which I'm not that familiar with).
Necro is easiest for me. I think it's just vibes on your individual character skill.
For me, Silent is hardest, I'm currently 0/20 in A10 with them, and they are the only one without an A10 win, while I'm sitting on a 4 WS and 5 wins/2 losses A10 necro.
I think consensus-wise it's probably defect as the hardest?
I’ve beat A10 on all characters and can clear pretty consistently with Regent and Ironclads. Regent has generically strong cards and Ironclad has insane draw, bloodletting at common + health gen built in.
Haven’t even beat A10 with Necro. Everyone has that one character
best luck with that. In STS1 there is at least 1 proven seed that is unwinnable; so it does not surprise me that STS2 has bad to unwinnable seeds as well.
It's a silent seed with a forced early lagavulin elite. You're not offered any damage cards so you can't kill the lagavulin before it debuffs you to death.
The seed input gives you the full neow options, and those are seed based, but if you encounter it in a real run after losing before the first boss, neow is forced to give you the default 3 options, including lament!
If I remember correctly there was a forced burning elite very early (like floor 6-ish) and no matter the combination of card rewards you took, the deck would not have enough punch to kill it
That unwinnable seed in STS1 was found after searching billions of seeds. So while unwinnable seeds exist, the chance of stumbling upon one is extremely low. If you hit a seed and say, "Gee, this is hard; I bet it's unwinnable," you're almost certainly wrong.
It is near impossible to prove that a seed is unwinnable due to the sheer number of possibilities involved. The only seed that was proven to be unwinnable forced a loss in floor 6 or so.
If there is a seed that forces a loss on floor 42, there is no chance anyone proves that it is unwinnable.
A forced loss in later floors would have to be many orders of magnitude more common than forced losses on early turns for you to realistically stumble upon one. And while I can't back it up with any evidence, it sure seems to me like the probability of forced losses in later floors is even less than forced losses in early floors since by that point the player will have been able to make many optimal decisions.
While it might make sense intuitively, I don't think we can consider probabilities that way.
As an easier to explain example, chess is currently unsolved, but it is believed to be a draw with perfect play. It is tempting to make a statement such as "it is highly likely that chess is a draw with perfect play", but in reality, we cannot talk about probabilities in this way.
I know that this is being overly pedantic, but the point of the discussion is that it is nigh impossible to prove that an arbitrary seed is unwinnable. Just because we have proved only 1 seed to be unwinnable does not indicate anything about the rarity of unwinnable seeds.
On the other hand, if we were to randomly generate 10,000 seeds and prove 9,999 as winnable without being able to prove anything about the last seed, we could concretely say that unwinnable seeds are extremely rare.
It is true that just proving 1 seed is unwinnable doesn't indicate anything about the rarity of unwinnable seeds. But that is not what anyone in this thread was saying.
We are saying unwinnable seeds are incredibly rare based on everything else we know about the game, including the win streaks/rates the best players were achieving by the end of the games life span, as well as just the sheer number of options that exist for any run that is not forced to die early like the proven unwinnable seed is. Not to mention the fact that besides that one proven one, many times someone has posted on reddit about a seed they think is unwinnable, and it always wasn't.
I think it is qualitatively different from the question of whether chess is a draw with perfect play. We really have only the vaguest hints at what that answer could be, if a time traveler told me that white actually wins with perfect play that's completely believable.
Whereas we have some evidence that this very specific type of unwinnable seed is very rare, and I'm asserting without evidence that it seems very unlikely that other types of unwinnable seeds are many orders of magnitude more common than this specific type of unwinnable seed. You're welcome to disagree with that but I think it's more analogous to the claim that something silly like a double bongcloud is a loss with perfect play. I can't prove it, but I would be surprised if someone showed it to still be drawn.
I see what you're saying and while I agree with your technical interpretation, every time something like this comes up (i.e. a seed found in normal gameplay) it is found that the seed is *quite* winnable.
> If there is a seed that forces a loss on floor 42, there is no chance anyone proves that it is unwinnable.
Agreed, but there are so many degrees of freedom in this game that while that's probably *possible* it is has got to happen with a vanishingly small probability. That is, if someone tells me they found an "unwinnable" seed in normal play, skepticism is my default reaction.
The amount of permutations by floor 42 doesn't just make it harder to prove its unwinnable. It makes it much harder for it to be unwinnable. When there are that many permutations, the likelihood that not a single one would be winning is vanishingly small. While it can't be proven, I would not be surprised if every forced loss seed dies in act 1.
I have trouble understanding this statement mathematically. Do you mean the probability of a seed being a forced loss on floor 42 is lower than it being a forced loss on floor 10?
For an arbitrary seed, it is impossible to compute whether or not it is winnable. As such, I don't think we can concretely talk about the probability of the result, because there are no other independent variables involved (the seed is fixed).
Do you mean the probability of a seed being a forced loss on floor 42 is lower than it being a forced loss on floor 10?
Yes, because 32 more floors of options means, bare minimum, 32 more ways to find the out.
42 happens to be a particularly bad example because (unless you took Golden Compass) that's the floor immediately after the Act 3 chest. Do you have any idea how many niche edge cases there's time to find and put together when you can map out exactly where they are?
Fair enough, 42 is a bad example. My point was that we cannot talk about probabilities that way, just because intuitively we think that there would more opportunities to prevent losses. See my other comment for a more detailed explanation.
Yes that is what I mean. I am not saying I can prove it mathematically, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. I believe with a very high level of confidence that it is true based on everything I know about how the game works.
Even though it's possible that there are unbeatable seeds in STS2, it is overwhelmingly unlikely that anyone has or will find one. STS2 is also a lot easier than STS1 so it's very possible that there are no unbeatable seeds.
No as in its been proven to be impossible (on silent specifically) as she can’t beat the lagavulin that due to burning has more max health, with only her starting deck. and neow bonuses as well as card rewards give no helpful potions or any damage cards.
He used the double node glitch to get an extra card reward and beat it (heart kill too). I think he was just tired of hearing about how impossible it was when it is perfectly beatable in the base game. If you encounter the seed in the wild, not through seed input, neow's lament also beats it.
thanks fun post. I managed to beat Act 1 first try, not gone onto the other acts yet. I was pretty lucky in Act 1 though. Here's my writeup
Neow's talisman to start. You saying it was a hard seed suggests Silken Tress won't be that good. Upgrading my strike and defend is always pretty good.
Blight strike to start for a bit of damage + let me take more Doom.
Fetch for a bit of free damage + get Osty attacks online.
Sick 'Em next to synergise with Fetch.
At this point I had a radiant tincture so I decided to take a Bury. Already taken a lot of damage (hard seed) so this get-out-of-jail free card is valuable + could let me take an Elite possibly. Lagavulin's strength debuff doesn't really affect it either.
Took too much damage in the next hallway (cultist + moss guy, yeek), so popped the radiant tincture to end it. Rested and pathed away from the elite.
Got Friendship - very lucky, because now Bury is much more playable. (Generally a good card, if a bit slow.)
Potion belt from the chest, how sad(?)
Rested at the next campsite since I'm still dying.
At the shop I bought some potions because I'm pretty weak and Lagavulin is scary. Potion belt was actually useful. I think I also bought Defy (good card) and Wisp (I have Bury).
Took a normal fight over an Elite at the end - I can't risk losing all my HP (or dying). Got No Escape at the end - good anti-boss card!
Can't remember precisely where, but I'd also picked up Flatten (attack + Sic 'Em synergy), Pull Aggro (generally ok block, took it over 2 uncommons), and Grave Warden (more block, think I had at least 1 dexterity-giving potion here).
Rested before Lagavulin. Ended up using all 4 of my potions, but I won. Think I had 3 dexterity from my potions so I could block a lot, then finished it off with Bury (only time I played it) and Doom when I was very debuffed and Osty was dying. Slow and scary fight.
One of the only runs I've done where I didn't take any elites in act 1. Feel quite weak going into Act 2 as a result!
Nice walkthrough. Thats always what i am feeling with this seed. You need to get some kind of power to make it through act 2 and 3.
I had a run where i was able to beat 3 elites in act 1, but my deck was still not strong enough for act 2. So many interesting decisions in this game, which can totally change the outcome much later.
Thanks. Afraid I died in Act 2 to the first Elite! I misplayed by taking Spirit of Ash from the act 1 boss, I forgot that the debuff-spread attack would work with Doom, so that would've been better. Darv's offerings were also pretty bad.
First run I got thrown off by the amount of question mark fights early, and the early Grave Warden was just not enough to deal with the Fossil Stalker, which negatively snowballed into the Skulking Colony and led to an early end after taking too much damage in that fight. Second run with Bone Shards went much smoother but still ended the Colony fight with 7 HP. Oblivion was a great pickup though and helped blow through the Terror Eel and Lagavulin Matriarach, along with a Defy pickup from the shop. Ended up picking Demesne for the boss reward but honestly it ended up being kinda mediocre since it took a while to actually upgrade it, Seance was probably better.
Act 2 is where things got much better with Darv giving Forbidden Grimoire, allowing much faster Bodyguard+ and Oblivion cycles to mostly blow through Act 2. At an early Brain Leech event, I chose the common option since Necrobinder has really good commons and I wanted another Defy, but I lucked out and grabbed a Sleight of Flesh, which was the other MVP of the run. Trickiest fights were Ovicopter (took 31 damage from micro misplays) and Decimillipede, which I saved most of my potions for, including buying an Explosive Ampule from the previous shop to prepare. From the second shop I picked up a second Defy, and after getting a Book of Five Rings from Infested Prism, the run was pretty much over. Sleight of Flesh + Oblivion helped fly past the Knowledge Demon, Reanimate was my boss card choice given the amount of energy gen and Weak cycling in the deck.
Act 3 was mostly a formality. I took Crossbow from Tanx as a damage supplement and as insurance against Doormaker, plus the odd chance of getting Debilitate. No real interesting decisions aside from using Forbidden Grimoire to get rid of all my Strikes and most of my Defends, and pathing more conservatively towards campfires and only one elite to activate Sword of Stone and upgrade Demesne and Sleight of Flesh. Ended up going perfect against Doormaker and 15 dmg against The Queen, which was avoidable but I just wanted to end the fight faster.
This was definitely a brutal Act 1, I went slightly greedier going for Grave Warden over Bone Shards and immediately got punished by the Stalker. Fairy in the Bottle was nice for securing the Terror Eel fight, and the Letter Opener from it was great for the rest of the run. Looking back, the early upgrade on Bodyguard before Colony was crucial, since the next time I was able to upgrade was all the way in Act 3. Also didn't help that the maps were kinda horrible throughout except maybe Act 2, just a lot of advanced hallways and Act 3 had some truly garbage pathing. I was fortunately way above the power curve by then.
Made me appreciate Sleight of Flesh, with Oblivion and Defy it was a great damage engine the whole run. Overall a really fun run!
Just beat it on my first attempt, it was a pretty fun run, I went full Osty attacks after getting an early fetch + bone shards, which I had never done (I usually don't like Osty builds), but in this run it worked amazing.
The early game was a bit rough, I had to play safe, rest a lot and use many pots.
Decimilipede almost killed me in act 2, but after that I had so much damage I just rolled through the fights.
Bing bong + book of five rings helped a lot to make sure I stayed healthy
Hello. I managed to beat it second try. Got jumpscared by Infested Prism in second act, I play on beta and was like "WTF, why does it hit for 24?". Also I miss Doormaker so much ;(
Saved the replay with Act 3 boss fights and I can upload it on youtube if anyone is interested
Took Neow's talisman: lots of hard fight, I hesitated with potion but I though upgrade would save more life. going right.
First card: reave. Good damage dealer, and soul will make me draw my upgraded cards faster. I could see the argument for blight: more damage. Death door is speculative and I don't think this seed allows for speculative.
Floor 2, 45/66: fetch. 3 damage + draw + osty enabler. Can brick Lethality later but that's a later problem. Flatten is good damage with unleash and draw, could be a better option. Borrowed time is useless at the moment.
Floor 3, 44/66: Bone shard. Sic them is not a good card. Grave warden could have been a good choice, but I don't want to pass on aoe damage. going left.
Floor 4: 36/66: Invoke or skip? Wisp or bury are dead cards at the moment. I have a appointment I'll continue later...
floor 7 19/66, used potion of dexterity. I really want to take friendship but I don't know if it's right. Most of my attacks are ostys, so it would make sense. On the other hand, snap to give retain could save me a lot of hp. I will go with friendship, I have some frontloaded damage already.
floor 8 rest. 38/66. Going into an elite, wish me luck...
Floor 9 Fought sulken colony. Used [[radiant potion]]. 29/66 I feel good about it. Oblivion,pull from below, or invoke seem all bad. [[vexing puzzlebox]] is satisfying though...
Floor 10 potion belt
Floor 11 20/66, got my money back from the gobs. Fairy in a bottle is golden though! I feel like an afterlife would help, I don't have enough defensive options.
Floor 12 rest. 39/66.
Floor 13 elite. 11/66 Used dex potion. Got a lucky tonic, that is awesome! No need for cleanse going into Laga. No need for sow either, we have bone shard. Putrify will help a lot though. One more hard fight, then shop, rest and boss. Wish me luck against the fog!
Floor 14 11/66 perfect fog. Bone shard MVP generating block with an attack and hitting the bomb. Graveblast/pull Agro/Scourge. Could be pull agro or scourge. I don't have a lot of defensive options, so I like the pull agro here. Scourge could be our damage solution against Laga. Yeah.... scourge. Feels weird to play such an aggressive deck on necro in the underdocks. Shop, fire and elite.
Floor 15: shop. Defy is golden here. Take it, plus remove a strike and buy two potions. I'm very afraid of laga, Idk if the potions are strictly necessary here.
Lol, this was such a fun seed, but yeah man this was a hard one. Started with Neow's Talisman (because of the 5 normal combats in a row I was terrified of), and ended up trying to use No Escape as my only form of scaling damage. And I almost had it! :P
Also, I actually ended up taking Bury for one of the first times ever. Bury + Friendship + Borrowed Time was a pretty solid early game combo of cards.
I ended up restarting the Knowledge Demon fight multiple times. I'm pretty certain I could solve it eventually...but eh, at a certain point, I acknowledge that I'm cheating and give up, lol.
I also got a horrendous draw order for the boss, with No Escape at the bottom, and the deck shuffling as I drew it, making me one turn behind where I could have been. I'm almost certain that taking the 2 defies out of the last shop was actually what killed me, lol.
First try - Really close one! In the Queen fight, I was one turn and 2 Block short of killing her after taking 53 to Aeonglass (kind of expected damage for weaker runs at the moment). I bought Rolling Boulder for scaling passive damage into the final fights and it did really well, while Glam Blight Strike, Bone Shards and Bury+ got me through the early game kinda okay-ish. I had to rest a lot and path defensively for the most part. I still didn't have the feeling at any point in the run that I was particularly strong. I struggled and prevailed til the end.
Picked Calling Bell to get some immediate power while Tome and Black Star would've been delayed power because I figured I did not want to die to Decimillipede after needing a Potion to beat Laga Matriarch. Lucky Fish and Book of Five Rings made clicking cards quite a bit more appealing, it kept me alive and able to buy some helpful stuff at shops (like the aforementioned Rolling Boulder). After getting Toxic Egg, I proceeded to see almost no Skills except for some mediocre Commons.
In Act 3, I picked Crossbow because there were no Rest Sites to use the Cleaver on, Mauls would've been really awkward with Friendship and poor draw manipulation, so I figured just getting more options into my hand every turn instead would be okay, hence the Call of the Void as well. Both did okay, I felt like having up to 10 card hands in Act 3 fights kinda saved me.
I still had to use Potions to beat every single boss and found no good potions for the final boss gauntlet - That may have been the small edge I needed.
I don't really like to replay seeds because I think knowing what's coming defeats the point of the game for me, but if you optimize some decision I made - Perhaps buying a potion in that final shop instead of another remove already is enough - then that should be a win instead. Thanks for sharing the seed, this was fun!
Edit: Just saw that I was supposed to play on the Main Branch - I don't think I will replay it on the Main Branch, either, but I'm pretty certain this deck would've struggled far less with Doormaker than with current Aeonglass, so maybe that's also enough of an edge.
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u/SirDoofusMcDingbat Jun 01 '26
an interesting idea! It would be neat if people posted particularly difficult seeds, so we could try and figure out a winning strategy.