Slay the Spire Trophy Guide & Road Map

Slay the Spire
Slay the Spire Trophy Guide

If you have any questions or comments, please visit the discussion thread

Overview:

Estimated trophy difficulty: 7/10
Offline trophies: 46 (25 , 18 , 2 , 1 )
Online trophies: None
Approximate amount of time to platinum: 50-75 hours (highly dependent on luck and skill)
Minimum number of playthroughs: Numerous
Number of missable trophies: None
Glitched trophies: None
Does difficulty affect trophies?: Yes. One run must be completed on the hardest Ascension, Ascension 20.

Introduction:

Welcome to the Spire! Slay The Spire is a roguelike, deck-building game, where you will play as one of four characters, each with their own unique deck, as you ascend a tower encountering enemies, shops, events, bonfires and bosses. The floors are seperated by three Acts and one secret Act, with each Act increasing in difficulty; testing the power of your deck, acquired relics and the decisions you have made. The game is easy to pick up, but will take hours to master.

Most of your success rate will be highly dependent on luck, both in terms of game difficulty and the platinum. The rest of it comes with the knowledge of the game mechanics and the smart decision making based on the choices the game gives you. You will die a lot. Don't fret though - the game is exceptional and addicting.

The majority of the trophies will come naturally throughout the game, including luck-based and situational trophies. Some on the other hand require you beating the game under specific requirements (e.g., beating the Spire in under 20 minutes) or extremely situational scenarions requiring specific cards and relics - these will take the longest and can be frustrating.

The amount of variables needed to be the game are endless as each run is dependent on the bosses, map layout, cards, relics, potions and enemy encounters. In other words, there is no true way to play the game; however, there are some fundamentals that can be learned early on that can be used as a foundation for multiple runs.

Tips and Approach to the Game:

Slay the Spire is is kind of a unique game in terms of providing tips. Even the most fundamental rules you pick up may not apply as there are hundreds of variables to account for; however, there are a few things to keep in my mind when learning and playing Slay the Spire.

- Prioritize your initial run on the boss you get, followed by how many Elites you want to handle and with a plan on how to handle them.

- Try to prioritize flexible paths that feature shops, rest sites and Elites, as you can adjust if things are not going your or are going better than expected.

- Focus on front loaded damage in Act 1. This may not always be an option immediately as you may get stuck with Skill or Power cards early, but front loaded damge will help you deal with early Elite fights and hard pool fights (spawns after 3 fights).

- Many players recommend keeping your deck small, but in some cases having a large deck may also be benefical. The efficiency of your deck is more of a priority or preventing too much debt of unupgraded cards,

- Lastly, have fun and experiment! Some cards or relics may seem pointless, but just try them out. You may learn something new to prevent a pitfall or enhance another build later.

- I highly suggest checking out the following YouTube channels of players who play this game routinely:

Baalorlord
TerrenceMHS
Jorbs

Walkthrough:

Step 1: Beat the game with each character and achieve Level 5 with each character.

When starting a new game, you will only have access to the The Ironclad, Once you beat the game wth him, you have access to the Silent. Once you beat the game with her, you will unlock The Defect then lastly The Watcher. In addition, you'll want to level each character to Level 5 to unlock all of the game's relics and cards. Each time you play with a character, whether you win or lose, you will get XP. Getting to Level 5 does not take too long.

Trophies unlocked in this step:

The Ghost

The Guardian

The Slime Boss

The Champion

The Collector

The Automaton

The Time Eater

The Crow

The Shapes

Ruby

Sapphire

Emerald

Amethyst

Ascend 0

And more than likely:

Purity

Come At Me

The Pact

Perfect

Adrenaline

Plague
Ninja

Infinity

Powerful

Step 2: Beat The Heart with each character.

This will be your first difficulty spike. In order to access the The Heart, you need to collect three keys over the three Acts. The Emerald key can be acquired by beating a "burning" Elite, a Ruby key can be chosen at rest sites and the Sapphire key can be chosen in the one guaranteed treasure room. Once you beat Act 3, you will be taken to Act 4 which features one shop, one rest site a mini-boss and then The Heart. Although you have to beat The Heart with each character, it can be done on Acension 0 (easiest difficulty) and is not required for any other trophy.

Trophies unlocked here:

Ruby+

Sapphire+

Emerald+

Amethyst+

The End?

Step 3: Beat Ascension 20 with any character.

With each Ascension comes an additional difficulty modifier (e.g., less potion slots) which carries over to the new Ascension. By time you reach Ascension 20, you will have 20 difficulty modifiers making the runs quite challenging and giving you little room for error. I found The Ironclad to be the easiet, but you can do this with any character you find most comfortable grinding the Ascension levels with.

Trophies unlocked here:

Ascension 10

Ascend 20

And more than likely:

Catalyst

Jaxxed

Impervious

Barricaded

Step 4: Trophy clean-up: Challenge trophies and unique scenario trophies.

Technically, you can do this step at anytime. If you are feeling frustrated working your way up to Ascension 20 or beating The Heart, feel free to take a break a try these to help break up the monotony and increase your knowledge of the game. These can all be done at Ascension 0 to make it easier, but I would suggest doing them on Ascenion 1 which has increased Elite spawns - as this can help with extra gold, rare cards and relics.

Trophies earned here:

Common Sense

You Are Nothing

Who Need Relics?

Ooh Donut!

Focused

Neon

The Transient

Speed Climber

and Eternal One

Eternal One

Obtain all other Trophies.
Collect all other trophies.
Shrug It Off

Win a battle with 1 HP remaining.
This will happen naturally through your hundreds of playthroughs and can be done with any character. There is no strategy for this, but having a small health pool can help (i.e., removing Max Health for items or cards).
Purity

Have 3 or fewer cards in hand, draw, and discard pile combined.
This will happen naturally through your hundreds of playthroughs and can be done with any character. Although, in order to have this happen, you need less than 9 cards which is easier in the beginning. One way to maximize this is to have multiple ways to exhaust cards in your deck.
Come At Me

Win a combat without playing an Attack.
This can be done with any character other than the Watcher, but the Silent or the Defect make this much easier. The Silent's deck has Poison cards which are considered Skills not Attacks and the the Defect has orb cards which are not considered Attacks. In fact, you can choose the starting bonus of Neow's Lament (first three enemies have one hit point) with the Defect and let your lone lightning orb take care of it.
The Pact

Exhaust 20 cards in a single combat.
This will more than likely happen during your Ironclad runs, as he has multiple exhaust builds. Doing this on boss fights is probably the most applicable, as they last multiple turns.
Adrenaline

Have 9 Energy during a single turn of combat.
This will happen naturally through your hundreds of playthroughs and can be done with any character. There are several cards, relics and potions that can be used to make this happen. For example, having the Ice Cream Cone relic saves unused energy from turn to turn, so essentially you can just use no energy in 3 turns to get this trophy.
Powerful

Have 10 or more buffs during combat.
(1)
This will happen naturally through your hundreds of playthroughs and can be done with any character. Personally, I found the Defect to be the easiest to achieve this with, due the sheer amount of buff cards he has.
Jaxxed

Have 50 or more Strength during combat.
This will more than likely happen through many of your Ironclad runs. This can be achieved with potions and relics, but more than likely you'll get this through card manipulation. Cards like Flex, Inflame, Rupture, Spot Weakness, Demon Form and the money card Limit Break. Boss fights are probably the likely scenario here, as regular fights won't go on long enough to get your strength up that high.
Impervious

Have 99 or more Block during combat.
See Barricaded.
Barricaded

Have 999 Block during combat.
This will more than likely happen through many of your Ironclad runs, although this could be done with other characters in theory. This can be achieved with potions and relics, but more than likely you'll get this through card manipulation. Barricade and Entrench cards will be your friend here. In fact, if you are going for a Block/Body Slam build with the Ironclad, you'll earn this easily.
Catalyst

Apply 99 or more Poison on a single enemy.
This can only be done with the Silent. Although she has numerous Poison relics and cards, your ideal cards are Bouncing Flask and an upgraded Catalyst. Once you get an enemy up to 33 Poison, you can use an upgraded Catalyst which can triple the poison count. This is also best done on boss fights as they have larger health pools and can tank the initial poison damage.
Plague

Defeat 3 enemies with Poison in a single combat.
The enemies must die from the poison, not by dying while afflicted with poison. Of course, they key here is needed multiple enemies. Ideal fights are the five gremlin or slime fights in Act 1 or the birds in Act 2. An upgraded Grippling Cloud can help get this started along with the Twisted Funnel relic can help achieve this.
Ninja

Play 10 Shivs in a single turn.
This can only be done with the Silent. The key here is in a single turn. More than likely you'll need a combination of multiple Blade Dances, Cloak and Daggers, Infinite Blades, Storm of Steel or various potions like the Cunning Potion or Liquid Memories.
Infinity

Play 25 cards in a single turn.
This will happen naturally through your hundreds of playthroughs and can be done with any character; however, each character has it's own set of card generation and inifinite loops along with different relic combinations.

I found the Ironclad's exhaust build to be ideal here with the Dead Branch relic and Dark Embrace/Corruption cards. Every time you exhaust a card, another is generated. If that card is skill, it will be zero and will exhaust then another will generate, then another. You get the picture.
You Are Nothing

Defeat a boss on turn 1.
This can be a bit tricky. I found this doable with the Ironclad (high immediate damage) vs. the Slime Boss (lowest health pool). Just keep reseting with Ironclad until you get the The Slime Boss, then focus on making a temporary build where you can do 140 damage in one turn. Flex cards, removing Block cards, Battle Trance for extra 4 card draw, Double Tap, Whirlwind, plus multiple potions provide multiple formulas here. Obviously, RNG is a factor here unfortunately.
Perfect

Defeat a boss without taking any damage.
Much easier than the You Are Nothing trophy. As long as your build is balanced and you can beat a boss efficiently, you should have no problem with this. Also, the event in Act 3 which allows you to fight an Act 1 boss will count for this.
Ruby

Beat the game with the Ironclad.
Simply beat the game with the Ironclad.

Ironclad is straight forward character that focused on high damge, high defense and high cost cards. He is probably the easiest to use due to the front loaded damage he can do and multiple health regen opportunities to include his starting relic. Besides high damge and high defense builds, there are some popular other builds:

- Corruption + Dead Branch build
- Perfected Strike build
- Searing Blow build
- Self-damage/regen build
- De-buff build
- Snecko Eye build
- Ramapage build
Emerald

Beat the game with the Silent.
Simply beat the game with the Silent.

The Silent is the weakest in terms of front-loaded damage and has no health regen cards, so her deck mainly focuses on damage over time, scaling defenses and low-cost card play. Although shiv and poison decks are the most popular, a few other builds include:

- Discard/Draw build
- Defensive build
- Grand Finale build
Who Needs Relics?

Beat the game with a single relic.
(1)
One of the most difficult trophies in the game. If given the option for a relic swap at the beginning, this will NOT void the trophy; however, this is a gamble as you may get a less than ideal Boss relic such as the Broken Crown and will have to work around that. Your key to success here is to focus on upgrades, card removal and potions. It is recommnded to do this on Acsension 0 and avoid Elites since you don't need their relics.
Speed Climber

Beat the game in under 20 minutes.
Another challenging trophy. This may seem daunting when you first start playing this game, but it can be done with every character. Here you should be removing defensive cards as much as must as possible and using what you have learned to melt through bosses quickly. Here's a few tips:

- In the settings, change to Fast mode to speed up the animations
- Neow's Lament can save you several minutes by plowing through the first 3 fights...even better if it's an Elite
- Focus on events and rest sites

Baalorlord has a fantastic video featuring one of his playthroughs with additional tips: LINK
Ascend 0

Unlock Ascension mode.
You will earn this trophy by beating the game for the first time.
Ascend 10

Complete Ascension Level 10.
See Ascend 20.
Minimalist

Beat the game with a 5 card deck or smaller.
Another very challenging trophy. The Silent is the only character that is NOT recommended for this, as she starts with two additional cards. Here you will be focusing on removing as many cards as possible while adding specfic cards, whether through events or shops. Cards generated during combat do not void this trophy. Another pitfall are events that make adding cards unavoidable, curses in particular, or a forced card removal after you are set. In other words, you'll need luck and patience.
Ooh Donut!

Finish Donu with a Feed.
This must be done with Ironclad. As well, you must have a Feed card in your deck, Donu & Deca as your Act 3 boss just to have a chance at this. If Donu & Deca is not your Act 3 boss, you will have to reset.
Sapphire

Beat the game with the Defect.
Simply beat the game with the Defect.

The Defect's main attribute is the utilization of orb slots, with his starting one being lightning. He has the most builds out of any character. There are way too many to list here, but some of the popular ones are:

- Lightning Deck
- Frost Deck
- Zero Cost Deck
- Power Card Deck
- Dark Orb Decl
- Energy Deck
Common Sense

Beat the game with a deck containing no uncommons or rares.
One of the easier of the challenge trophies, but it is still no walk in the park. Here you will avoid adding Uncommon cards (blue border) and Rare cards (yellow cards). This also includes colorless cards unfortunately. Try to focus on upgrading, removing cards and relic collecting as much as possible. It is recommended to do this on Ascension 0 for more Elite fights for gold and relics.
Focused

Have 25 or more Focus during combat.
This is a Defect only challenge. There are various ways to gain Focus that include potions and relics, but certain cards will be integral. Echo Form, Consume and Fragment can generate the most Focus and this is best attempted during a boss fight as you'll need the continuous card draw. Note: Biaised Cognition in itself will not work here as the 4 Focus is considered temporary, you will need to have the debuff prevented before playing it.
Neon

Channel 9 Plasma in a single turn.
This is a Defect only trophy and it's a royal pain. Note that this trophy says channel, not maintain. You need a combination of Meteor Strike (channel 3 Plasma), Echo Form and the energy to play them. Potions like Liquid Memories also help as you can the play Meteor Strike again at zero cost. Unfortunately, if you don't have any energy or Plasma generation available by Act 3, you may need to start over.
The Transient

Defeat the Transient before it fades away.
The Transient is a gimmick enemy that appears in Act 3. It does devestating damage, but loses strength each time it takes a HP loss, so the goal is to get it to do minimal damage per turn with consistent attacks. The Transient has 999 health and will die in 5 to 6 turns, so for the trophy, you have to kill before it fades away. The only way to do this is to build some form of infinite deck as even if you have high scaling damage, that may not be fast enough.

Here is a list of possible infinite deck combinations for each character: LINK
Ascend 20

Complete Ascension Level 20.
This is trophy that may take the longest. Fortunately you only have to do this with one character. I would recommend working on the character you feel the most comfortable with and take breaks working on other challenges.
My Lucky Day

Win a Daily Climb.
Daily Climb is a fun arcade mode where you can attempt the beat the game with various modifiers such as "Start the game with 50 random cards." Some modifiers are benficial, other not so much. These modifiers change daily, along with the leaderboards, so you can attempt this when there is one you like.

The Guardian

Defeated the Guardian.
One of three Act 1 bosses. The boss will test your deck's ability to do burst damage or block when needed. Not counting higher Ascensions, you need to do 30 damage to force it into hide mode to prevent massive damage.
The Ghost

Defeated Hexaghost.
One of three Act 1 bosses. This boss is essentially a damage race. Hexaghost does very litle damage while filling up it's flames (6 turns). After that, the fights becomes quite problematic so it's best to do serious damage quickly before it reaches that point.
The Boss

Defeated the Slime Boss.
One of three Act 1 bosses. This boss will see how well you can handle multiple enemies over time, damage management, debuffs and a flooded deck. The Slime Boss splits into two slimes after reaching 50%, two slimes spawned will have the remaining health as their max health. Then, those slimes will split in two more leading up to four slimes. It's best to get the slime's initial health as low as possible before his first split.
The Automaton

Defeated the Bronze Automaton.
One of three Act 2 bosses. All three Act 2 bosses can do massive damage so your deck should be properly prepared to block effectively by now. Other than his Hyper Beam on turn 5, this fight is straight forward.
The Collector

Defeated the Collector.
One of three Act 2 bosses. All three Act 2 bosses can do massive damage so your deck should properly prepared to block effectively by now. This fight is similar to Slime Boss, as you'll have to manage respawning minions while doing damage to the the Collector and learning to mitigate his debuffs. If you were able to handle the 3 Slavers or 3 Gremlin Elite fights in Act 2, that should be good barometer on well you will do here.
The Champion

Defeated the Champ.
One of three Act 2 bosses. All three Act 2 bosses can do massive damage so your deck should properly prepared to block effectively by now. Once Champ goes below 50% health, he will buff himself while removing all debuffs, followed by massive attacks every other turn. The first half of this fight should be spent setting up the second half of the fight to burn him down quickly before his damage gets out of hand.
The Crow

Defeated the Awakened One.
One of the Act 3 bosses. This fight will be two Phases. The first Phase is fairly straight forward with one exception: use of Power cards increases the Awakened One's Strength. If you have a deck built around Power cards, you should wait until Phase 2, where it's safe to play them. Once it reaches 0 hit points, it will regenerate to full health for Phase 2 doing increased damage, increased regen and forces Void cards in your deck.
The Shapes

Defeated Donu & Deca.
One of the Act 3 bosses. This is the most straight forward out of the Act 3 bosses, but not necessarily easier. Donu & Deca will alternate buffing and attacking every round, so you will need to do damage very quickly and block every round. They also have 3 artificates each making them difficult to debuff. If you have a "damage over time" or scaling build, this will be a very tough fight. In any case, the best approach is to focus one one first, so when is alone there will only be an attack every other turn allowing for some breathing room.
The Time Eater

Defeated the Time Eater.
One of the Act 3 bosses. This is the most technical of the Act 3 bosses. For every 12 cards you play, Time Eater will end your turn immediately and buff permanently. If your deck is built around massive decks or involve large, low-cost card play this will be a very difficult fight. In addition to all of this, once the Time Eater reaches 50%, it will regen and buff. Lastly, it has a move called Head Slam which results in a temporary card draw reduction. The main tactic here is to ensure you have all your intended cards in play before you play your 12th and be left vulnerable,
Ruby+

Complete the Ending with the Ironclad.
See The End?
Emerald+

Complete the Ending with the Silent.
See The End?
Sapphire+

Complete the Ending with the Defect.
See The End?
The End?

Complete the Ending with the Ironclad, Silent, and Defect.
As mentioned in the introduction, you need to collect three keys over the three Acts. The Emerald key can be acquired by beating a "burning" Elite, a Ruby key can be chosen at rest sites and the Sapphire key can be chosen in the one guaranteed treasure room. Each Act has one opporunity to obtain one of these keys, so there is some flexibility here. If you have not obtained any keys by Act 3, you will have to run this act trying to obtain all three before reaching the Act 3 boss.

After beating the Act 3 boss, you will be taken to Act 4 and have access to one more shop and rest site before facing the mini-boss Shield & Spear, then The Heart. The Heart is a brutal fight that has a damage cap on its health pool, so inifite combos will not work here. Although there is no surefire way to beat the Heart, the one advantage you have is knowing that you will face it from the beginning of the game and you can start planning for this fight as early as Act 1. Since the Heart has so many (X) damage attacks , you can look out for cards and relics to mitigate or nullifgy these attacks.

Valuable cards: Piercing Wail and Malaise form the Silent, Disarm from Ironclad and the colorless card Dark Shackles
Valuable defensive relics: Tungsten Rod, Torii Gate and the Self-forming Clay for Ironclad

Also, any cards or relics that do counter-damage such as Bronze Scales and Flame Barrier for the Ironclad can help tip the scales in your favor.

2 trophies

Amethyst

Beat the game with the Watcher
Simply beat the game with the Watcher.

The Watcher is the most technical character in the game. The basis of her mechanics are swapping stances from Wrath (deal doube damage and take double damage) and Calm. She can also enter Divinity (triple damage) given the correct build. Here's a few builds that can be applied:

- Stance Dance build
- Mantra/Divinity build
- Pressure Points build
- Card Creation build
- Retain build
- Alpha build