When he was talking about Demon Form and Flex I thought he was gonna talk highly of them because they just got me my ascention 9 and 10 win, how wrong I could be 😹
@@halosaft Same! I just walked into Demon Form by chance, and it synergized really well with the tanky deck I was building and got me over the ascension 10 hump.
@@accountlol7409 Yeah, was some time ago that I wrote that comment, has since gotten all the achievements in the game and I very rarely, if ever, take Flex or Demon Form anymore, and *never* both if I do take one of them 😹 It's good enough on earlier Ascensions, but not something I ever take on Ascension 20.
I take Whirlwind every time in the hope, the absolute cope, of getting Chemical X, Bloodletting and Flex and Necronomicon. I got it once, as well as some crazy Strength stacking with Demon Form and Inflame with Duel Wield, then one-shotted every Elite and Boss in Act 3. I'm still riding that high.
1:13 Anger (C Tier) 2:35 Armaments (B Tier) 4:16 Barricade (A Tier) 5:25 Bash (S Tier) !! 6:34 Battle Trance (A Tier) 8:18 Berserk (D Tier) 9:23 Blood for Blood (B Tier) 11:22 Bloodletting (D Tier) 12:43 Bludgeon (A Tier) 13:30 Body Slam (B Tier) 14:44 Brutality (B Tier) 17:34 Burning Pact (A Tier) 20:00 Carnage (A Tier) 21:43 Clash (FFFFF Tier) 22:00 Cleave (A Tier) 23:25 Clothesline (B Tier) 24:10 Combust (A Tier) ?? 25:20 Corruption (A Tier) (not S) 27:01 Dark Embrace (B Tier) 27:50 Defend (F Tier) 27:55 Demon Form costs too much energy (C Tier) 29:37 Disarm (S Tier) 30:35 Double Tap has a low chance of being effective (C/D Tier) 33:39 Dropkick has weak damage (D Tier) 34:40 Dual Wield (B Tier) 36:55 Entrench (B Tier) 37:50 Evolve makes specific fights very easy (S Tier) 39:01 Exhume lets you reuse strong cards (S Tier) 40:25 Feed (S Tier) 41:33 Feel No Pain (A Tier) 42:47 Fiend Fire (S Tier) 43:32 Fire Breathing (D Tier) 45:06 Flame Barrier (A Tier)
Upgraded Heavy Blade is my favorite card in the game for the ironclad. Period. Hands down. Idc if its bad, doing 300 damage in a single hit is actual euphoria.
@@wasifchowdhury2004 neither of those work with Necronomicon or do as well with velvet choker/sneko eye, also Pummel Strike is single use and Sword Boomerang is unreliable in multi fights
@@Ghorda9 In other words in 90% of cases heavy blade sucks and in the 10% of cases where you get specific event based relics it's just about usable (and it's not even the best synergy with Necronomicon lmao)
Gotta say the feeling for these cards changed DRAMATICALLY when you start doing ascension, hell I'm only on 5 and I'm doing some fun synergies with stuff I hadn't thought of before, like my last game I had 4 Power Throughs and a Medkit in my Juggernaut Barricade deck
I really like Whirlwind, the amount of times I've gotten Akabeko and turn one clapped a hallway fight or combined with Strength boosting cards and Pen Nib for insane damage is quite high. Even when it's a dead card I tend to find ways to make it useful like playing it for zero mana just to proc Kunai or Shuriken. On the runs where you get next to no AoE damage I take it over a cleave, just cause the ability to multi-cast it is more beneficial even it's dmg per mana cost is less efficient. I know like it sounds like a lot of one off situations to justify a bad card, but it's good in enough varied situations that I think its flexibility should have it in C tier.
All the situations you describe are excellent situations for Whirlwind, but even without those ideal relic situations Whirlwind has it's place in many battle situations where you have multiple enemies. I've had some of my most dominant runs with Whirlwind. It can also play really well with the Ice Cream relic. It's a must upgrade card though. His take on whirlwind is off. His worst card ranking though is his Boomerang Sword on A tier, which is an atrociously bad card 100% of the time (it only does 3 more damage than strike and it's undirected damage).
Heavy Blade has its drawbacks for sure but witnessing it smack for almost 400 damage on the 10th tick of PenNib on a high strength build by turn 3 the first time i ever encountered Time Eater will always give it a special place in my heart
Ya know what, after watching these friggen not only informative, but amusing videos, I've gone on a winning streak. Lot of trap cards in there I never really considered to be bad. The more ya know! Thanks dooder!
I know this content isn’t going to get as many views, but it’s so fantastic to hear your serious opinions on all this. I hope we get tier lists of the other characters as well, or also just more watcher runs
I was always sleeping on corruption thinking it was bad, the first time i decided to give it and a few exhaust synergies a go i got my first ever heart kill, just the other day. If you get the other pieces it is fucking insane. Turn 1 barricade, 300 block, 5 intangible, exhaust every card in my deck other than the 5 attacks and only used the 0 energy attack that deals damage equal to your block every turn to kill the heart and it couldnt even do anything. Altough im glad i didnt have to fight time eater, not sure how well i would have done against it with the deck, probably would have died
It's kinda funny but also sad seeing Frost get to Demon Form and Flex, two cards that I usually instantly take, and see him call them noob traps. Which is fair, my highest ascension is like 6
39:00 I came into STS as an ex-competitive Yu-Gi-Oh player and I LOVE Exhume. I used to run Zombies back in 2010/2011 so it just feels like playing Burial from a Different Dimension. Good shit.
I think flex has 1 niche use in strength builds. Have you ever drawn 2-3 flex+ and a limit break+??? You keep the strength that got tripled and you get 24-36 strength for 1 energy for the turn and keep 16-24 of it. That’s not including if you already had some strength built up.
Yeah it's a great combo, you just have to absolutely have lots of reliable card draw or setup. Otherwise you get some turns where your deck cannot do anything.
Ok, so my first run ever was a win with Corruption + dark embrace + a relic that set cards to 0 Mana when I used powers. Turns out, if you can use 10+ powers in the first turn, and then have a bunch of heavy attack cards and micellaneous stuff to burn, plus pretty much infinite Mana, you destroy all bosses (except time-keeper, but I fought the awakened)
Body slam, maybe, especially in a well-oiled barracade deck, but I wouldn't say the same about Dark Embrace: Ironclad don't have much card draw, Embrace is one of only a handful, and 1/3 of its card pool have exhaust written on it, and status cards exist.
@@abridge2 Body Slam works best in decks that need literally any offense to win, so it can fill that roll sure but I think if there's one thing Ironclad doesn't usually have a problem with it's finding damage. It's fine, I just think situations where it works were almost always winning situations in the first place
Body slam absolutely, if you have 300 block youre probably gonna win the fight without it. Dark embrace helps you get to your win condtions faster, definitely not a win more card
I just managed to win on ascencion 9 with clash. I had 4 energy, 1 barricade, 3 clash, 2 basic attack, 1 basic defend and 3 shrug it off. I feel like this was one of the best case scenarios for clash... And it was both extremely lucky *and* unoptimal ^^u body slam was the play there, and honestly, i feel like it is overall just superior x. X
I've been playing this game for about two years now and Ironclad isn't my favorite character, but I've been trying to branch out. This video helped me shake some bad habits and try out some different strategies. For one, I always thought Pummel was a bad card so I never took it. Two damage, five times, then it exhausts? Big deal! And then I remembered/you pointed out that strength scaling is a thing and uhhhh Pummel was a big reason why I just had a great run and reached the heart. I lost the run, but it was very close! Thank you for making this, I look forward to the other character's tier lists. Edit: Pummel is so fucking good holy shit. I'm currently playing a run with an upgraded Limit Break, upgraded Pummel, two Inflames, and Exhume and I'm just melting stuff.
I just got done Act One boss and my choices were: impervious, fiend fire or feed. In my head, I keep thinking fiend fire is just too much fun, but objectively speaking you're right that if you get feed early on it's almost always better
43:43 Im not arguing that fire breathing is good however there was 'one' case where it actually won me a run when i comboed it with a status deck and evolve and did 20 dmg per status card and upto 160 dmg a turn. Great tierlist Frost
@@jonymush1443 Pretty much. At some point you are going to have so many status cards that you just dont need to play anything, but they're definately very situational.
Love the Tierlist, and I agreed with your decisions throughout and could follow the logic behind each placement. Also helpful for me to acknowledge which noobtraps I love. *cough whirlwind*
For me, hard disagree with infernal blade, at least by your metrics. I always get that dopamine spike at an upgraded infernal blade. more so due to the fun of the card over the utility.
I had FNP, Corruption, and Dark embrace in my last Ironclad game and it kept giving me upgraded Disarms... After my fourth disarm, I questioned if there was value to adding more. The answer is yes. Disarm is OP.
If fire breathing was innate (or at least its upgrade), I could see it move up to a C for conditional. Putting wounds into your deck without Evolve always feels bad. I do give it props for beating Time Eater, but I can't get excited about putting it in a deck unless said deck already had both Art of War and Ice Cream
demon form is one i really like, having just gotten my first ironclad heart kill with a strength build using demon form and 3 heavy blades, they synergise so well together but it has to fit into the deck to really shine
Thanks for this video. I just beat the heart using some information from this video, for example I would never take Bludgeon, especially in block build, but it was amazing, I two-turn-killed the Reptomancer. I never got Barricade, but I still barely took damage. The most important part was choosing random Boss relic, I got black star and ended with so many relics, I couldnt see them all at once. Thanks again.
I decided to play a run while watching the last 20 mins of the video. I got double rupture+, double hemo+, offering+, and limit break+. perfected several elites but no bosses. I didn't have any good draw outside of offering but I did get blue candle and 2 or 3 curses. hemo is definitely powerful with the right synergy and even on it's own.
The first time I ever played this game I got barricade, entrench, and a couple body slams. Felt like I could have gone to the moon but obviously discovered what the heart was later
Sentinel turbocharging a runic pyramid deck into an infinite engine is so satisfying. It isnt the piece that goes the infinite, but it gives you that juicy, free mana to get there.
Multiple feeds bad?? Idk about that. The potential to scale extra in multi enemy fights can make the scaling even better and it makes it much easier to land in one enemy fight. Also worst case scenario, second feed is 1 cost 10 damage that exhausts
I've almost never taken havoc. 90% of the time I'd rather draw the card havoc would play by not having havoc in my deck. Takes enough setup that by the time a deck is strong and consistent enough to make it work you don't need it. Consistency is how you win high ascension and this ain't usually it.
that's the beauty of this game cause I agree that whirlwind is kind of a noob bait but i once dealt 240 damage to the time eater with it and i absolutely love it
The more I play Ironclad the less I feel like WW is a noob trap in the first place, honestly. Like yes, it's less energy-efficient than cleave, but its draw efficiency is very high which is also important. Put another way, you can technically spend 5 energy to play cleaves and deal as much damage as you would spending 8 energy on a whirlwind. In terms of energy use that sounds like an argument for cleave, but the latter situation is _way_ more realistic to line up in the late game because you can do it with one whirlwind rather than 5 copies of cleave. And this is just at base strength and without any relic interactions, which pretty much all favor whirlwind when they matter at all (e.g. Akabeko, Necronomicon, Mutagens, ChemX).
The actual ranking of the cards is purely subjective and you rightfully made a joke out of it. It was entertaining enough to keep my attention through a long vidéo. The discussion on the pros and cons of each cards and pointing out the noob traps was invaluable for me. I struggle to win consistently and now i have an idea why.
I did an insane build with Barricade, 2 entrench+ and a few body slams with plenty of card draw. Got the achievement for finishing the last boss with 999 block and full health.
Flex is an D-tier card but an S-tier noob trap. I had it as an auto pick when I first started the game and remember filling my deck with probably one of the worst cards in ironclad. I don’t know when I realized it was bad, but I’m glad I did. Edit: Except with pellets ofc
to me, flex is must pick IF you have limit break, as it will basically turn a +4 temporary str, into a fixed for the rest of the fight. i remember one fight i got 4 of them, and 2 limit breaks, had pyramid, waited until i got 3 of them and a LB, it was glorious. my first full run was kinda like that as well, i think i ended that fight with 16 str. and it was a heavy blade kill as well.
Infernal blade upgrades is amazing and I’ll die on this hill. Why wouldn’t I take a FREE attack card that is more likely than not going to be something decent
I have to disagree with many cards... but, it would be minor changes with only single tiers. For example i would move thunderclap from c to b tier. Damage it deals isn't great, but the +50% dmg it gives is nice on your main target and it removes any ptential artifacts the enemy has.
31:41 it’s actually 4.7% chance So yeah, EVEN WORSE than you thought (1 choose 1 * 1 choose 1 * 19 choose 3)/(21 choose 5) (Amount of hands that include 1 copy of both cards)/(all combinations of hands) [Left 1 = number of immolate] [Second left 1 = number of double taps] [19= total cards -2] [21= total cards]
@@scottdorsch5149 that's now how probability works chief you have to take the total amount of hands with Double Tap and Immolate (which is 1 choose 1 * 1 choose 1 * 19 choose 3) then divide by the total amount of hand combinations you could actually have (21 choose 5)
also 20% is assuming double tap is guaranteed in your hand already yes its 20% IF you can guarantee double tap is your first card, but you can only do that if you got it bottled
@@NyanDiamond You should watch the video again around where you put the time stamp in your first comment. He isn’t asking “odds of drawing both in opening hand” he’s asking “on the first cycle of deck what’s the odds he draws them together”
@@NyanDiamond Also tell me again “how probability works” when you’ve graduated middle school. And I don’t need you to respond with some résumé of how you are good at math, you failed at the most basic first step which is to understand the question you are trying to answer. You fucking calculated odds of drawing both in the first hand which no one was asking.
Something I'd like to see a video on that I've not seen at all is the importance of REMOVING CARDS (Specifically strikes). I'm getting back into the game and never understood the importance of removing cards
While I'm not in so much of a disagreement that Thunderclap is a C tier card (I would probably rank it a B-), he misses the point when he explains it. It's not about the 4 or 7 damage that it does, it's a set up for your other cards by applying a vulnerable and it does the damage to all the enemies to boot and it applies a vulnerable to all the enemies to boot, which is nice with Whirlwind, Cleave and Immolate. This card maintains it's value even later in the game.
