Ascension 3.

[u/CoconutNew8817]

I hit ascension three and it’s like I don’t know how to play the game anymore lol any advice

[u/ZookeepergameDue9824]

Take good cards and play them 👍

[u/David_Slaughter]

Death is necessary to learn and improve at the game. Don't be scared of death. Enjoy the process of climbing the Spire. Try to tell yourself one thing you learned after each run. And if you're not enjoying it for a bit, take a break.

[u/MrNigel117]

fight the deadlier elites, relics are op so the more the merrier. i just had an A14H where i had 24 relics, and 10 elites (9 if you dont count spear and shield.) that's an average of 3 elites per act. they are very important to progress, and the reason most people say A1 is easier than A0.

while this is kinda character specific, the general rule is that Act 1 needs damage. your starter deck is kinda garbage, so taking cards that deal good damage or help you play your big damage more consistently are good. try to pick up an aoe card. IC has cleave and kinda sword boomerang, Silent has dagger spray and all out attack, Defect has sweeping beam and hyperbeam, Watcher has concecrate and conclude. aoe will help with specific fights in Act 1 such as gremlin gang, slime gang, and most of the hard pool fights having 2 enemies. it'll also help against tri-sentries when going for elites, and slime king for the boss. you should also try to pick up something that can deal significant damage, like 12+ regardless of cost. chunking enemies in act 1 is great cause almost everything has like 25 or less hp. a hyperbeam on defect will solo carry you out of act 1. the big damage means you'll be killing the other 2 elites faster, and out pace the other two act 1 bosses. some cards may not seem like a "big damage" card, but can be. silent's blade dance is a 1-cost 12 (16) damage card, IC's pummel scales with str multiplicatively so pair it with a flex and it goes from 8 damage to 16 damage or 24 if you upgraded flex. events in act 1 are kinda weak, as most of them will damage you in some sort of way, and that gets worse the higher in ascensions you go. taking fights over events is generally better because a fight is guaranteed to give money and a card reward - while an event can just be nothing or even taking damage for nothing. upgrading over healing at campfires is almost always the correct answer. as long as you arent single digit health, you should be fine. upgraded cards will save you more hp over the course of a run by either ending a fight earlier or blocking more damage.

Act 2 is where you kinda start filtering what you decks needs compared to what's coming up. the elites here are gremlin leader, slavers, and book of stabbing. gremlin is a mix of needing to scale faster but also some aoe, slavers is mostly aoe and a little bit of draw manip, and book is pure scaling. events are a lot better here. there's the knock out event where you can get ritual dagger which is an op card if you can set up and stall for a kill with it. there's the aparition event, the vampire event, the golden idol event, etc. still should be scouting for elites, but if your deck is feeling pretty consistent maybe prioritize campfires to upgrade over elites. if you have a ton of gold maybe hit up a shop. you should also be looking at thw act boss to see what you should be going for. bronze automoton and collector both have minions to manage, champ is pure scaling. bronze minions will take your highest rarity cards in your draw pile, so it might be important to have your deck cycle to that card or juat dont rely on the card super heavily. you'll also need some damage mitigation cause the hyperbeam from it hitting for 50+ damage is a run ender. champ you need to beat in scaling. at 50% hp he'll cleanse his debuffs, increase his attack, and start hitting really hard. you've got to be able to either survive the onslaught or kill him 2 turns after getting below 50%. collector's minion spawn can be manipulated a little. she cant have more than 2 at a time, so if you can manage 1 and keep it low health, then when she summons she'll have 1 healthy and one nearly dead, allowing you to instantly kill one.

Act 3 should be where your deck shouldn't need much to be perfect. keep going for elites, you probably shouldn't need many cards and skip is gonna be great option, make sure you got your must-need-upgraded cards upgraded. events can easily swing both ways here, but imo still a bit better than act 1.