Ironclad

*"The remaining soldier of the Ironclads. Sold his soul to harness demonic energies."*

The **Ironclad** is one of four playable characters in Slay the Spire. He wields an arsenal of powerful strikes, boasts formidable defensive options, and draws fiendish strength from his demonic benefactors to empower himself in various ways. He starts off with 80 hp, highest of the playable characters, and can manipulate Exhaust.

The Ironclad's starting Relic is , which heals 6 HP after combat.

## Cards

### Starting Deck

* 5
* 4
* 1

## Relics

Uncommon Relics: ,

Rare Relics: , ,

Boss Relics:  (replaces ), ,

Shop Relic:

## Strategies

### General Build Archetypes

These are the standard types of decks that may give you an idea of direction for your deck, or what you want to go for. Keep in mind that none of these builds are mutually exclusive. Many of them are more of a general strategy, which can be adapted or combined into multiple builds in a single deck.

* Essential cards include , , and .
	+ may be substituted by , provided that you have a consistent  per turn.
	+ Keep in mind that + costs 2 energy and won't instantly boost your damage/block, so playing it may weaken you on the turn played.
* and  are excellent sources of damage, which is still important to win.
* Though not an intuitive choice,  can be used to thin out extraneous  cards once enough  is built up, letting the player more reliably draw attacks and rely on  to maintain their .
* reduction from  and  from , , and  can help reduce enemies' attack damage, allowing you to maintain your .

	+ A helpful tip with , in particular, is that if you have an  before you use , or trigger the effect of  after using , you won't lose the  gained from it on the next turn. This gives  good synergy with sources of , such as  or .
	+ also allows you to benefit permanently from temporary strength effects such as .
* /, , , etc. are all cards that synergize well with .
* This build focuses on increasing  and multiplying its power through the choice of attacks. Attacks that hit multiple creatures, or hit multiple times scale more effectively with .
* becomes a very powerful healing tool with high , especially when paired with a .
* cards such as , , and  work very well with the high damaging attacks offered to you with high .
* If  is upgraded, you can cast it multiple times for exponential strength gain.  and a small deck size help you cast it more often. Relics and potions that grant some initial strength are very helpful in case you draw  within the first few turns.

* is extremely good in a  deck, as when upgraded a lot the extra damage can easily reach 40-50+
* The deck should be kept small to cycle back to  as often as possible.
* If you decide to go for a  deck, you should always take the path that gives you the most campfires
* Most must-upgrade cards become less valuable, as their upgrade is taking away from  power.
* You generally only want to aim for a  deck if you meet the following criteria:
	+ You get it early in Act I (preferably before your first campfire)
	+ You have a path that can take you through at least 3+ campfires in Act I
* Card synergies:
	+ let you play it an extra time each deck cycle
	+ gives you additional copies if you manage to get it in the same hand as .
		- If you get  in a Searing Blow deck, you should prioritize cards that help you find the combo:
		- + is probably the best one in bringing  to your hand.
		- is also good if your deck is small and you don't have many Attacks remaining.
		- will ensure that you get the combo at some point.
	+ All exhaust cards can be very good at thinning your deck during combat.
	+ let your  deal double damage
	+ - can continually ramp up your  damage during combat
* Relic synergies:
	+ will continually upgrade your  over time during combat.
	+ allows you to take additional campfires that you normally won't be able to get to.
	+ doubles the damage of  every time you play it.
	+ - double damage of  but requires some planning to execute.
	+ has a minor synergy but at higher  levels the increase of damage from this relic is significant.
	+ - if you get this after you have upgraded your Searing Blow a few times, it will effectively double the strength of the deck.

	+ Most of Ironclad Skills grant high , allow you to easily tank damage once you use multiple of them. If possible, use  beforehand to allow  you've gained not to be wasted between turns.
	+ Some of Ironclad Skills grant . Special notes goes to  which normally cost 1 un-upgraded. With , it becomes a free 2  generation. Spend  gained on other crucial cards on your hand, such as Power card or Attacks.
	+ can generate a lot of random cards with , which gives more chance to generate random 0-cost Skills cards

* The essential cards are , , , and , plus cards like ,, and  to build defense before you double it with . Provided you keep your deck overwhelmingly tilted towards skills and fill it with lots of card draw, you should only need to draw  and  before you start comboing off; the rest of the combo will be found as you draw your deck. Multiple copies of  or  (or things that duplicate them) are still extremely valuable; you also want to upgrade , , and  to reduce the cost of the combo so you can deploy it faster.
* It's also important to have cards that let you dig for your combo, such as , , and . Beyond just letting you dig for your combo, these let you draw past attack cards when comboing off.
* Hitting your hand maximum is a serious problem, especially if you obtain multiple copies of  or large numbers of card-drawing skill cards. can help you play other cards to get them out of your hand and can provide the energy you need to play  and  as soon as possible.  allows you to get unwanted cards out of your hands while drawing a large amount. Once the combo is deployed,  will both provide additional  and a large amount of free energy to play out the rest of your hand.  can be used to avoid cards getting clogged in your hand, but it's extremely important to upgrade it to avoid the risk of having it hit your combo pieces.  both draws you cards and gives you energy to play your non-skills.
* and  can amplify the final blow by doubling your , while  can dig for your . Do not upgrade your , since you want it to be  so  will let you draw a card off it.
* Powers that provide persistent benefits to your defense or  intended to help you over multiple turns or which give you minor benefits for  and  are somewhat less useful to you, since your goal is to combo off in a single turn for overwhelming damage rather than slowly accumulating benefits; but they're still worth collecting, since they give you a backup strategy in case you can't get all your combo pieces or something else goes wrong. is particularly useful because it allows you to, if necessary, split your combo over multiple turns, or to accumulate  slowly before you finally get everything you need to go off.
* An alternative but similar strategy is to use , , and . Each defensive skill played is worth an additional 10-14 damage. are good fallbacks.
* Removals should focus on getting rid of your  rather than your ; while your  aren't as good as your other  cards, they can still be cycled through for free once you have  and  out.

* Your deck will become very heavy, lots of draw like  will be important, as will in-battle upgrade effects like , +, and .
* Powerful defensive cards will be a must when offered, since you will be taking large quantities of offensive cards.
* You will also need to be on the lookout for strong defensive Relics, such as: , , , , or .
* synergizes very well with +.
* works very well with this deck as it gives you twice as many occasions to add Strike cards.
* increases the power of the deck a lot more than usual, increasing the damage of each Perfected Strike by up to 6, and increasing the amount to be drawn.
* A 4th energy is particularly important to be able to play multiple copies if desired.

* cards like , , , and  can keep you from becoming overwhelmed in long term fights.  can give  even with Dazed from .
	+ and  are your high-priority targets for upgrades, as True Grit+ lets you decide which card to Exhaust, and Evolve+ increases your draws instead of replacing them, greatly speeding up your deck.
* effectively loses its downside.
* With an upgraded , a 9 card  happens easily.
* Top it off with  for a nice passive AoE damage. A normal draw full of  can easily turns into 30-50 damage to ALL enemies. With multiple copies this can easily be your main source of damage.
	+ Only run multiple copies of  if you're quickly and consistently getting out , or you'll only slow your deck down.
* This build mitigates the power of most  inflicting enemies, and synergizes well with many other deck types.
* greatly improves your ability to manage your  cards, improving your performance in long-term fights. It also negates the self-damage from .
* Card draw like  and + is important for digging through your deck and getting  set up as soon as possible.

	+ Each use of  increases  gained per trigger. You may stack it 2 or 3 times to quicken your  growth.
	+ After applying , use  or . Their health cost per turn means you would gain 1  every turn.
		- Unless you want additional card draw or AoE damage, you would not need more than 1 copy of these two, as stacking them increases health loss but not   gain.
	+ gain from  is consistent if built for, but it can be slow. + can help multiplying your  to finish fights before you lose too much health.
* , , and  are the other cards that self harm.
* The allows you to hurt yourself by exhausting curse cards.
* benefits from the  gain and provides some much needed healing.
* is a chance encounter, but grants you both health loss to trigger  while also grants you  on its own.
* Any cards that benefit from gain are good here.
* Draw to get your combo together is very helpful. Make sure to get some  to keep outside damage taken low.
* does significant damage and will quickly become cheap or free with  or . Having a solid 0-cost attack lets you take advantage of the extra cards drawn from , and can tide you over if you don't find  early on (or draw it early in the fight).

* With a lot of cards in your hand use  to deal high damage to target.
* scales very well with .
* can help you gather a large number of cards.

* This is an easy to assemble but strong build. It can be done with restarting short games to get  early.

* is what makes this build shine: getting two zero cost  is usually enough to finish a fight.
* Defensively it's possible to focus exclusively on .
* Going for  build is a sound strategy prior to getting , since Boss rewards are rather random.

* A balance between draw power like , , etc. and defense is good as  can scale up quickly as main damage source with appropriate support cards,  is a great card as it provide both.
* Best support card for  is , which ram up the power twice, and  can allow you to search for  to be used more frequently.
* If possible,  relics and cards can be devastating for enemies if combined with a well scaled .
* Avoid cards that give  like , , or . It can make  become inaccessible or less likely to be drawn later in fight, which defeat the purpose of the card. Only take them if you have +, and even then just reckless charge unless you have  or  to prevent situations where your hand is full of status cards.
* Do not use  unless you have .
* Unlike in a  deck, only 1  should be taken.

## Gallery

The Ironclad in-gameThe Ironclad as he appears in the Steam BackgroundThe Ironclad appearing prominently in the card art for Jack Of All TradesThe Ironclad and Silent appearing in some of the game's official artworkThe Character Select Screen for the IroncladMore game art featuring the Ironclad and SilentThe Ironclad seen in the Launch Trailer, alongside the Silent and the Defect