Silent: a character of no shivs

[Shajirr]

Time and time again, I try to build a Silent to use shivs instead of poison.
And it fails every time.
I never get enough shiv-supporting cards. Or I get several cards that support them, and never get a single card that lets you have shivs in the first place, so I die with dead cards which do nothing, while paying money to get rid of the cards I paid money to acquire or specifically chose as rewards...

At best I end up with mixed shiv-poison deck which does poorly, since, again, going through 3 whole floors doesn't get enough shiv cards, but even then poison massively outperforms the shiv part of the deck.

At worst I just go through entire floor, see no shiv cards, and go poison like pretty much all the other time.

Seems like poison cards can be very strong on their own, even if you have only a few, while with shivs you have lots of combinations that result in them not doing much of anything.

Can someone describe how you would build a successful Silent while not going the poison route?

[Smiles]

I admit I got some lucky relics that made a Silent Shiv deck pretty great. My cards were:

• After Image
  
• After Image+
  
• Alchemize
  
• Accuracy+ x3
  
• Finisher
  
• Terror+
  
• Blade Dance
  
• Blade Dance+ x2
  
• Neutralize+
  
• Misc cards, like defends, deflects, strikes, finesse, etc (27 cards total)

Accuracy helped me pump damage a lot obviously, but 3 important relics picked up: Shuriken Uncommon relic (gives +strength for ever 3 attacks, ramping up damage even more), Wrist Blade Boss relic (ramping up shiv damage even more), Dolly''s Mirror Shop relic (allowed me to copy a useful card like Accuracy or Blade Dance, etc). Finisher was situationally useful because sometimes it would do quite a bit of damage if I managed to draw multiple blade dances with it.

[Zu]

Try not to decline classically good damage sources in an attempt to force shivs (or anything for that matter, once again, unless you need like a desperate catalyst high roll for champ).

In the first place, the only shiv card that can stand on its own is cloak n dagger because you invariably pick up the first footwork you see. Infinite blades n blade dance meanwhile are underperformers and storm of steel is hot garbage unless you meme it up with dead branch.

Apropos conditionals, that's how you should think about investing in shivs. "Do I happen to have anything already that makes shivs better?" This is mostly about relics that care about attacks, but I wouldn't say no to an early afterimage or a preupgraded thousand cuts if I could use the aoe. Or perhaps your damage is lacking for hexaghost but you have a cultist potion, so perhaps it's time to take and upgrade that crappy blade dance over the all-rounder well-laid plans.

TL,DR:
Enablers first by chance, then shivs. Not the other way round.

[Shajirr]

Another run.

Got Pen Nib to double attack dmg every 10 turn, several cloak and daggers, 2 upgraded accuracies.

Nope, poison again - picked up WAY more poison cards, plus got 2 catalysts, which pretty much invalidate all prior selections.

[Timbermaw]

Don't force shivs, let them come to you

[Gentlest Giant]

My face when I say psspsspss to the shivs and they don't come

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Do you have Shuriken, Kunai, or Dead Branch?

• Yes - Cool, take Shivs.
  
• No - Do you have Wrist Blade, Pen Nib, Nunchaku, After Image, Thousand Cuts, or Envenom?
  
  • Multiple of those - Cool, take Shivs.
    
  • Just one - Take Infinite Blades and Cloak and Dagger, but probably skip other Shiv cards.
    
  • No - Take Cloak and Dagger, skip everything else.

[DJDiceZ]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

My face when I say psspsspss to the shivs and they don't come

Aren't you supposed to ksksksksks them?

[sandman25dcsss]

That's funny, but I had an opposite problem in my last game yesterday. I wanted a poison deck and ended with mostly shiv deck despite having snecko. I even had to remove catalyst in last shop because there was just a single poison card in my deck. Shiv deck is strong enough, I died to last boss on A20.

[DaBa]

Here's your problem. You're trying to build a Shiv deck. No wonder you are failing.

Don't try to build specific decks. Build a deck that will work with what you're given. If you end up with a shiv deck, because you were given things like Shuriken, Finisher, Accuracy, or After Image, that's cool. Forcing decks makes you lose.

Also, in general, dedicated shiv decks are harder to build than a poison deck. With shivs, you need mutliple cards to generate them, other cards to enchance them or benefit from their effects, relics to support it. On their own, shivs are meh. Posion on the other hand is hard to go wrong with. You can build a defensive deck, and pick up a few posion cards as your win condition, there you go you have a posion deck. No need for any relics either.

A good indication you should go for shivs (and low cost attacks) is when you get shuriken and/or kunai. Otherwise, just don't do it. Without those relics, shivs are pretty worthless.

[dholland]

Decks with too much shiv emphasis can be very bad against time-eater, unless you can block and play few cards, then set up a big turn where you play a lot of cards and Flnisher. It's better to have decks that have many options and can play different fights differently.

[Songbird]

Generally I'll take some shiv cards if I already have an Afterimage or a Kunai, and Afterimage is pretty much always a good card pick even without shivs. (Shuriken is honestly not that hot until the act 2 bosses.) I might take an Infinite Blades in act 1 too because it's alright against all of the elites and bosses except Guardian, though it's not a priority pick.

I tend to avoid Accuracy unless I'm really lacking in damage and don't have anything better to pick. Poison is generally a better way to scale damage. Not a big fan of Blade Dance either because it really just doesn't do much for a card; you need it to be upgraded to be okay and have a decent amount of support, and even then you'd usually rather play Cloak and Dagger+. Storm of Steel I literally never take without a huge amount of support (Tough Bandages + Dead Branch or Unceasing Top for example).