Although they could be frustrating at times, I found the challenges to be quite a fun experience. They really do make you think about the game differently than just playing normal runs.

I finally wrapped up the last three challenge over the past week so I thought I'd share my builds and thoughts on those three.

Golden Needle:

This was the most difficult challenge for me BY FAR. I started this one over two months ago I think. It was the only challenge that made me put the game aside for a while. I just got tired of losing over and over so I had to take a break, only playing an occasional game or two here or there.

Last week I started playing again more often and finally lucked into the run I needed.

• Banner - A solid chips joker for Golden Needle because of the extra discards you get on this run
• Abstract Joker - I grabbed this early on for some +Mult and it ended up lasting me the entire run
• The Duo (Negative) - I got this from a Negative Tag right after I had pivoted away from flushes and was very helpful for scoring in the early mid game
• Throwback - I normally don't skip a whole lot but I had taken the Negative Tag skip earlier so it already had some scaling and it made me more comfortable taking other skips later on
• Acrobat - Oh hell yeah! You only have one hand on Golden Needle so that x3 kicks in every time!
• Trousers (Holographic) - IIRC I picked this up in the small blind of ante 7 so I didn't end up scaling it too much but I had just had a banana go extinct so I picked it up just for being holographic to replace some of that +Mult
• Campfire - Grabbed this at the last shop of Ante 7. Then I spent ante 8 just buying whatever so that I could scale it up before the boss

If you count those up, obviously there was another negative one but I didn't remember which. I'm pretty sure it was a natural one that showed up in the shop but not sure which one.

Four x-Mult jokers seems very lucky to me but, hey, I finally managed to beat this challenge! I got the Amber Acorn as the final boss but I did the trick where I just grabbed the Abstract Joker before the jokers shuffled so that I could ensure it was the leftmost joker. The Trousers ended up as the rightmost joker but I had scaled up the Campfire enough that it didn't matter.

Phew! Finally, after countless runs, Golden Needle was done!

Cruelty:

I got INSANELY LUCKY on this one. Third try. I would wager that the number of people who beat this within three tries is extremely tiny, and I certainly don't mean to imply that it's because I'm incredible at this game or anything. This was pure luck but after the pain of Golden Needle I was ecstatic to pull this one off so quickly.

I don't really even know what to say about this challenge. I got a Red Card in ante 2 which gave me +Mult I could scale for the rest of the run. Then a Wee Joker in ante 4 gave me chips scaling.

After that, it was pretty much over. In the end my third joker was Throwback but I don't think I even needed it. Verdant Leaf as the final boss was no problem at all since all my scoring came from my jokers, not my cards.

Jokerless:

This one took a lot of attempts but not nearly as many as Golden Needle. I tried a bunch of different builds trying to make this work. Flush builds usually failed to score enough in later antes, straight builds I couldn't draw consistently enough, a promising flush five run (from a spectral followed by some World tarots) fell apart as soon as I failed to draw the flush five.

My winning run had an Immolate on ante 2 which gave a very helpful early influx of cash and eliminated several hearts and spades so I started building toward diamonds and clubs. After a little while of building them out equally, I ended up getting so many Star tarots that I pivoted entirely to diamonds.

Somewhere around ante 4 I got a red seal nine of diamonds when I had a Chariot on hand that I immediately used on it, so that gave a good amount of scoring every time I managed to draw it.

In the mid game I was worried that I didn't have consistent flush scaling. No blue seals and no Telescope. I did eventually get a blue seal steel club which came in handy although I couldn't draw it as consistently as I would have liked. But a little while later I got a major prize of a glass blue seal diamond. Glass diamonds carried me through a bunch of antes and the blue seal gave me a lot of scaling along the way. Fortunately I was able to Death that card a couple times too.

I did manage to get the Telescope eventually (ante 6?), so with the blue seals I got eventually and some other fortunate Jupiter appearances my flush level was up to 23 for the final boss.

I was also lucky enough to have found several Justices along the way, which not only got me out of some risky mid game blinds but left me with enough glass cards to beat the Violet Vessel in ante 8.

Ultimately, a lot of things went my way on that run but I suppose that's how it goes for everyone who beats this challenge. But I was quite surprised that I managed to beat this one in just a few days after how long it took me to defeat the Golden Needle challenge.

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Like I mentioned at the beginning I did enjoy doing all these challenges but I am also excited about going back to trying to beat more decks on gold stake. What a fun game this is!

What a wacky run I just had.

On floor 7 I got offered Rainbow, Doom and Gloom, or Equilibrium. My deck needed more offense so I went with the Rainbow although I definitely considered the Doom and Gloom. I even upgraded the Rainbow on the next floor although I didn't know if that was the best choice.

Then on floor 14 I get offered another Rainbow. Do I need it? Probably not, but the other options weren't great and I had just gotten a Defragment so a double Rainbow sounded fun.

When I got offered a third Rainbow after defeating Hexaghost at the end of Act 1, I laughed. But I didn't want the Hyperbeam because my deck was entirely built around orbs, and whether or not the Machine Learning was the better choice the Rainbow seemed more fun.

After three Rainbows in Act 1, the RNG finally stopped offering me them...for the first half of Act 2. On floor 27 I get offered my fourth Rainbow. At this point I don't even care what the other options are. If RNGesus wants me to have another Rainbow I'll take another Rainbow.

So here I am, with a quadruple Rainbow deck. And...it's actually pretty good. I need a little more card draw and energy generation but I get a Compile Driver, another TURBO, and a Fission so those problems are solved.

This was such a fun run. I had a ton of good luck—great maps and a bunch of card removal and card upgrade opportunities but damn, it was fun.

No ascension level but I've been struggling with this boss for a while so it was pretty satisfying to finally get a victory.

I had a few bad runs in a row including a really terrible one right before this. So I wasn't expecting much when I started a new run and picked the max HP boost out of the two options.

But then this seed just handed me a great shiv deck right from the start. Blade Dance from my first fight on floor 1, Accuracy from my second fight on floor 4, plus another Blade Dance I bought from the shop on floor 5. By floor 12 I was up to 3 Blade Dances with 2 of them upgraded, a Storm of Steel, and a Ninja Scroll relic. Shivs out the wazoo, not to mention the Bronze Thorns on floor 2 when I got the relic in the first try in that event that lets you sacrifice health for a chance to get a relic.

Despite the solid start, I was starting to get a little worried in the back half of Act 3. Between the Ninja Scroll and the high likelihood of 1 or more Blade Dance+ in my hand, the difference between drawing Accuracy+ in my starting hand or not was huge. I was so worried about it I even bought Lee's Waffle at a shop before Donu and Deca because I forgot that the Pantograph was already going to heal me before the boss.

Fortunately I drew the Accuracy+ turn 1 against the Sword and Shield. And just proceeded to wreck them. This deck felt really strong if the Accuracy+ came out early but a bad draw against the Heart would ruin me.

That's where the Bottled Lightning and Bottled Tornado earned from the S&S fight saved the day. Guaranteed a turn 1 Accuracy+ and Blade Dance+ which was a big improvement. But was this deck really strong enough for the Heart? I managed to do some solid damage from the get go but I was concerned about my survivability. The shields let me survive the first few rounds but I eventually needed to use the Wraith Form+. Time to do or die, kill the Heart before the Intangible wears out or lose.

But, alas, the Wraith Form+ wore off before I could deliver the final blow. Not even very close. 48 incoming damage and I only had 44 HP. It was a good run but once again the Heart had defea—hold up, I have Bronze Thorns and an active Caltrops+ and the boss is doing a 4x12 attack! Is this enough to kill the Heart before it kills me?

Well, yes, you already know from the post title. The retaliatory damage managed to take out the Heart before it killed me. I was very excited to have finally accomplished this. After so many attempts that I thought had a chance but eventually failed, it's very satisfying to be able to pull out this win.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Off to higher ascension levels for me now!

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