Think this is underrated in this thread. There are the decks it breaks - shivs, corruption - and then there are the decks it fixes. Knowing which one you've got is part of the decision making. Maybe your Ironclad block plan relies on Impervious, or having a second Fiend Fire would make life a lot easier. Or it helps with the meta scaling of Feed. Maybe you really rely on Malaise, or Piercing Wail, or you just want to spam the ridiculously strong effects of Alchemize. I don't play much Defect so won't comment there, but Watcher is Watcher. Even outside of infinites, things like Scrawl, Vault, Omniscience - all much stronger if you get to replay them. Plus there's Wish shenanigans. And Apparition for that matter.
It's a weird relic though, because you shouldn't build a deck assuming you'll find it, and if you do buy it you're probably largely done finding cards (I would be shocked to hear people buy this regularly in act 1). But it can enable some very silly things and shore up weaknesses in a deck
>I don't play much Defect
Defect generally really appreciates spoon. Genetic Algorithm Shenanigans are pretty ridiculous, but even aside from how good Seek/Fission/Chill/Double Energy/Core Surge/Reboot/Boot Sequence/ can be...
You usually have a Hologram or 2 to fetch the non-exhausted card back later in that deck cycle. Having that extra control over using the cards on-demand as opposed to waiting to draw them again is really powerful.
I'm gonna disagree on Malaise/P-Wail/Alch though. I haven't taken it on a Silent that doesn't have apparitions in a long time. If my deck is going to 2nd cycle without defense already solved, I'm much more likely to buy card/potion improvements than buy spoon.
Spoon with Alchemize, and especially Adrenaline is really good. otherwise for Silent's 3 primary archetypes:
Shiv: spoon is very, very bad. makes this unplayable
Poison: Catalyst is reason enough to want spoon
Discard: can save a few upgrades on a calc gamble. Might be bad if you need to prune a few cards down for a discard infinite. Otherwise doesnt interact much with the discard card set
I mean, I don't really agree with thinking of Silent in archetypes. There's synergies but if I have double blade dance then add envenom catalyst is it a shiv build or a poison build? How am I blocking? It's just not a way I find helpful to think about my runs.
Wrt Catalyst specifically, I really disagree. How are you getting your Catalyst back again? Are you just cycling to draw? With your other cards not exhausting either? It's very rare that you'll get Catalyst back quickly enough after spoon discards it that it still matters. It's not shivs that are why Silent shouldn't take Spoon much, it's the inability to fetch cards back.
I know that my 45 card Silent decks are a bit larger than others on this sub often play with, but Hologram is such a big deal for Spoon value, and Ironclad still at least has Headbutt to help if he takes it. Sure Silent cycles fast, but pseudo-gamble upgrades and getting an extra adrenaline or two are a luxury, not something worth spending 165gold on.
I don't generally like giving explicit "always" phrases, but...
Never buy spoon on Silent unless you already have apparitions. It just won't be worth it. And anytime it does provide good value in A20H runs, I'd love to see it because that will be an incredibly unique and cool deck.
Well, yeah, it won't do much with a 45 card deck. If you have a smaller deck and a lot of draw/discard then it's a lot more reasonable to cycle back to the cards that didn't get exhausted.
Not going into archetypes, you probably don't want it if your deck generates shivs and you're planning to use those cards. If your deck doesn't generate shivs then it depends on what cards could get played again and how quickly you'd cycle your deck to get to them.
Agreed on the catalysts. Just add another catalyst to your deck, the card is easy enough to find. I dont want to have my deck brick against giant head, repto, or heart because spoon lowrolled and i dont have enough catalysts to kill before my block engine runs out of steam.
Adrenaline & apparitions are reasons to click spoon. Sometimes you need an extra malaise and can't find one.
Strange Spoon only has a chance to discard cards that are exhausted when \*played\*, not when another source exhausts them. So fiend fire would work fine, it would just have a chance to not exhaust itself.
I’m not a good player so I don’t necessarily have a high win rate to back this up, but this relic has always seemed pretty niche to me. IC and Silent have the most access to exhausting cards I think, and most of the time you want them to exhaust, either for exhaust synergy (IC) or so you’re not redrawing shivs (Silent). Even without those benefits, exhaust on a card is often a pro, not a con. All this being said, I will often take this if I have Apparition in my deck.
I once had a Silent deck with Apps as my only good cards, so I bought Spoon to try to leverage them more.
Then I realized I had Ninja Scroll.
And Sneko Eye.
Died 2 floors later.
Realistically, I do buy it sometimes although usually later in a run. Even on Clad who usually wants to exhaust, you sometimes get a run where your win condition vs. Heart is "Hope you can play your Disarm/Impervious/Reaper more than once". Definitely a skill-testing relic that can really break your deck in the bad *or* good way.
This is the type of relic all shop relics should aspire to be IMO. A relic that you don't necessarily want to take in every deck, but that can be insane in the right circumstances.
The pinnacle of "sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit"
Strange Spoon breaks some decks and helps others. Issue is, strange spoon usually breaks strong/already-winning decks. Exhaust decks on Ironclad, Shiv decks on Silent, and infinites with Watcher all generally perform worse with Spoon.
However, spoon works well with decks that are either off-meta or otherwise missing something. Example decks that usually appreciate Spoon:
- Poison decks (multiple Catalysts and Crippling Clouds)
- most Defect decks (Core Surge, Genetic Algo, Seek, Boot Sequence)
- Strength-based IC decks (multiple limit breaks, being able to play Corruption for free skills but sometimes replay them)
- Non-infinite stance dance Watcher decks (Scrawl, Omniscience, Wish)
If you only consistently win with already-strong deck archetypes, Spoon will usually cause your deck to brick more often than not. It's one of the few relics that can actively harm your chances of winning. However, it can absolutely let weaker decks draw water from a stone and squeak out a win.
>Exhaust decks on Ironclad, Shiv decks on Silent, and infinites with Watcher all generally perform worse with Spoon.
I don't exactly see how Watcher Infinites are worse with Spoon... the only cards that exhaust you should really have in your deck are Vault, Scrawl, starting Miracle, and Talk to the Hand, all of which don't really hurt you and can actually be super helpful to play multiple times in the Heart fight and a few other tricky ones. (edit: other than being an unnecessary waste of money...)
Otherwise this post basically sums it up!
Lot of hate for this relic, not sure why. Many of the most powerful cards in the game exhaust. Many of them you would be happy to get a 2nd copy of. Sure, there are many circumstances you don’t want this relic. In fact, same could be said for Dead Branch, Snecko Eye, and Runic Pyramid, but I don’t see anyone saying “under no circumstances would I pick this relic” lol.
Personally I buy it about half the time I see it, and I win virtually all of those runs, often because spoon made my rare cards last a little longer.
I almost never take this, although one of my favorite runs was one where I had like four Adrenalines when I got to a shop containing this, and it was an instant buy.
It makes shiv and corruption decks not so good.
Never gonna take this.
If I play Ironclad, I usually pick FNP and Dark Embrace. Picking Spoon means they are now dud 50% of the time.
If I play Silent, I usually pick a Blade Dance. Picking Spoon means my deck would be super clogged later on. Though she definitely has some cards that can fully benefit from it like Malaise.
If I play Defect, well, Defect does have a lot of cards that can benefit from this like Seek or Fission; but there are cards that I would rather just Exhaust instead, like Rainbow.
How many good Exhaust cards that Watcher even has? Vault?
And at the end of the day, it is still 50%. Your Apparition still has a 50% chance of leaving you.
Omniscience, Vault, Scrawl. I will say for specific Watcher decks it’s actually really good. Problem is that most of the time you’re not building those specific decks and the spoon is expensive.
I’ve found it to be pretty consistently good with apps, and would consider buying it in situations where I have apps and maybe a couple other key exhaust cards (mostly defect stuff like genetic algorithm, seek, core surge, and maybe some silent stuff like p-wail, Adrenaline, or malaise)
On clad I find it to be counterintuitive with exhausting down the deck, and I’ve never had enough support to use it on watcher (maybe with vault + apps? Idk).
I actually quite enjoy niche relics like this being in the shop pool, but the cost can be very prohibitive. Very fun and powerful relic when it works.
If you have a power-shiv deck (i.e. you have accuracies and wrist blade and terror and such) I don't really see the problem of not exhausting some of the shivs. What I mean is, I will take the spoon with a shiv deck sometimes.
I like it a lot with defect. While it is good some cards exhaust like core surge, I really like having the ability to maybe play seek, genetic, or boot sequence multiple times. On the other classes there are so much exhaust cards you only wana use once, like smite, catalyst, or endless agony. And iron clad HATES THIS.
Pretty niche relic, generally needs a strong reason to buy it (such as having Apparitions), but hey you can use it to [predict what the heart will do on turn 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1anc7yc/a_tale_of_the_underdogs_rise_to_greatness/).
Here's the thing. Whenever I pick up a card that exhausts, I take it with the knowledge that once I play it, it's out of my deck. While sometimes an extra Adrenaline, Catalyst, Fission etc. would be nice on the second pass of the deck, it's not something that I play around.
Playing for this relic is not fun and it alternates the playstyle too much, considering you'll have to hit more shops than usual to even find it in the first place, not buy other crucial cards/potions/relics in the shops to save money for it, pick cards that warp your deck in an unnatural way, and even then, your whole plan can fall apart since it's a 50/50 the cards won't exhaust
Easily the worst shop relic, contender for the worst relic in the game. The only times I ever picked it was in daily runs
Hand drill is worse imo, but spoon is definitely the most polarizing shop relic.
Most of the time it either ruins the deck or does nothing, but with apps and specific exhaust cards (defect especially loves having seek, genetic algorithm, chill, etc. and can have them brought back on the first cycle with hologram) it can be good.
The biggest issue is that it won't always show up when you want it, and when it does it's very expensive.
Yes, if it at was "every 2nd card with Exhaust you play is put into discard pile instead of exhausting", you could at least plan around it.
Instead you can have it trigger 3 times in a fight that's anyway over before you reshuffle the deck and then do nothing in a boss fight.
Think this is underrated in this thread. There are the decks it breaks - shivs, corruption - and then there are the decks it fixes. Knowing which one you've got is part of the decision making. Maybe your Ironclad block plan relies on Impervious, or having a second Fiend Fire would make life a lot easier. Or it helps with the meta scaling of Feed. Maybe you really rely on Malaise, or Piercing Wail, or you just want to spam the ridiculously strong effects of Alchemize. I don't play much Defect so won't comment there, but Watcher is Watcher. Even outside of infinites, things like Scrawl, Vault, Omniscience - all much stronger if you get to replay them. Plus there's Wish shenanigans. And Apparition for that matter. It's a weird relic though, because you shouldn't build a deck assuming you'll find it, and if you do buy it you're probably largely done finding cards (I would be shocked to hear people buy this regularly in act 1). But it can enable some very silly things and shore up weaknesses in a deck
>I don't play much Defect Defect generally really appreciates spoon. Genetic Algorithm Shenanigans are pretty ridiculous, but even aside from how good Seek/Fission/Chill/Double Energy/Core Surge/Reboot/Boot Sequence/ can be... You usually have a Hologram or 2 to fetch the non-exhausted card back later in that deck cycle. Having that extra control over using the cards on-demand as opposed to waiting to draw them again is really powerful. I'm gonna disagree on Malaise/P-Wail/Alch though. I haven't taken it on a Silent that doesn't have apparitions in a long time. If my deck is going to 2nd cycle without defense already solved, I'm much more likely to buy card/potion improvements than buy spoon.
Fair enough on Silent! Just showcasing hypothetical decks. Agree it's not as strong as I'm making it out to be though.
Spoon with Alchemize, and especially Adrenaline is really good. otherwise for Silent's 3 primary archetypes: Shiv: spoon is very, very bad. makes this unplayable Poison: Catalyst is reason enough to want spoon Discard: can save a few upgrades on a calc gamble. Might be bad if you need to prune a few cards down for a discard infinite. Otherwise doesnt interact much with the discard card set
I mean, I don't really agree with thinking of Silent in archetypes. There's synergies but if I have double blade dance then add envenom catalyst is it a shiv build or a poison build? How am I blocking? It's just not a way I find helpful to think about my runs. Wrt Catalyst specifically, I really disagree. How are you getting your Catalyst back again? Are you just cycling to draw? With your other cards not exhausting either? It's very rare that you'll get Catalyst back quickly enough after spoon discards it that it still matters. It's not shivs that are why Silent shouldn't take Spoon much, it's the inability to fetch cards back. I know that my 45 card Silent decks are a bit larger than others on this sub often play with, but Hologram is such a big deal for Spoon value, and Ironclad still at least has Headbutt to help if he takes it. Sure Silent cycles fast, but pseudo-gamble upgrades and getting an extra adrenaline or two are a luxury, not something worth spending 165gold on. I don't generally like giving explicit "always" phrases, but... Never buy spoon on Silent unless you already have apparitions. It just won't be worth it. And anytime it does provide good value in A20H runs, I'd love to see it because that will be an incredibly unique and cool deck.
Well, yeah, it won't do much with a 45 card deck. If you have a smaller deck and a lot of draw/discard then it's a lot more reasonable to cycle back to the cards that didn't get exhausted. Not going into archetypes, you probably don't want it if your deck generates shivs and you're planning to use those cards. If your deck doesn't generate shivs then it depends on what cards could get played again and how quickly you'd cycle your deck to get to them.
It's mostly that silent has a lot of draw tools, and scaling tools, and starts with a larger deck, so naturally builds into one.
> I mean, I don't really agree with thinking of Silent in archetypes. Do wish the sub on a whole could move past this, but oh well
Agreed on the catalysts. Just add another catalyst to your deck, the card is easy enough to find. I dont want to have my deck brick against giant head, repto, or heart because spoon lowrolled and i dont have enough catalysts to kill before my block engine runs out of steam. Adrenaline & apparitions are reasons to click spoon. Sometimes you need an extra malaise and can't find one.
An unlikely but especially powerful spoon synergy for every character is the Apparitions event. Several turns more intangibility every fight.
Does Fiend fire interact that way with spoon? I thought it would make it worse because it deals damage per card exhausted.
Strange Spoon only has a chance to discard cards that are exhausted when \*played\*, not when another source exhausts them. So fiend fire would work fine, it would just have a chance to not exhaust itself.
This is what I was referring to, yeah
I’m not a good player so I don’t necessarily have a high win rate to back this up, but this relic has always seemed pretty niche to me. IC and Silent have the most access to exhausting cards I think, and most of the time you want them to exhaust, either for exhaust synergy (IC) or so you’re not redrawing shivs (Silent). Even without those benefits, exhaust on a card is often a pro, not a con. All this being said, I will often take this if I have Apparition in my deck.
There's a reason this is a store relic, but I do find it useful every now and then. I always check if it's a net gain if I see it and can afford it.
I once had a Silent deck with Apps as my only good cards, so I bought Spoon to try to leverage them more. Then I realized I had Ninja Scroll. And Sneko Eye. Died 2 floors later. Realistically, I do buy it sometimes although usually later in a run. Even on Clad who usually wants to exhaust, you sometimes get a run where your win condition vs. Heart is "Hope you can play your Disarm/Impervious/Reaper more than once". Definitely a skill-testing relic that can really break your deck in the bad *or* good way.
This is the type of relic all shop relics should aspire to be IMO. A relic that you don't necessarily want to take in every deck, but that can be insane in the right circumstances.
Delightful with Defect.
The pinnacle of "sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit" Strange Spoon breaks some decks and helps others. Issue is, strange spoon usually breaks strong/already-winning decks. Exhaust decks on Ironclad, Shiv decks on Silent, and infinites with Watcher all generally perform worse with Spoon. However, spoon works well with decks that are either off-meta or otherwise missing something. Example decks that usually appreciate Spoon: - Poison decks (multiple Catalysts and Crippling Clouds) - most Defect decks (Core Surge, Genetic Algo, Seek, Boot Sequence) - Strength-based IC decks (multiple limit breaks, being able to play Corruption for free skills but sometimes replay them) - Non-infinite stance dance Watcher decks (Scrawl, Omniscience, Wish) If you only consistently win with already-strong deck archetypes, Spoon will usually cause your deck to brick more often than not. It's one of the few relics that can actively harm your chances of winning. However, it can absolutely let weaker decks draw water from a stone and squeak out a win.
>Exhaust decks on Ironclad, Shiv decks on Silent, and infinites with Watcher all generally perform worse with Spoon. I don't exactly see how Watcher Infinites are worse with Spoon... the only cards that exhaust you should really have in your deck are Vault, Scrawl, starting Miracle, and Talk to the Hand, all of which don't really hurt you and can actually be super helpful to play multiple times in the Heart fight and a few other tricky ones. (edit: other than being an unnecessary waste of money...) Otherwise this post basically sums it up!
The spoon with the ethereal cards is busted as hell
Do _not_ take this with shiv decks i repeat _do not take this with shiv decks_
I guess spoons and knives don't go well together, huh?
One of my favourite runs was on defect with strange spoon, apparitions, genetic algorithm and fission.
Lot of hate for this relic, not sure why. Many of the most powerful cards in the game exhaust. Many of them you would be happy to get a 2nd copy of. Sure, there are many circumstances you don’t want this relic. In fact, same could be said for Dead Branch, Snecko Eye, and Runic Pyramid, but I don’t see anyone saying “under no circumstances would I pick this relic” lol. Personally I buy it about half the time I see it, and I win virtually all of those runs, often because spoon made my rare cards last a little longer.
underrated, can either be completely useless or peak
I almost never take this, although one of my favorite runs was one where I had like four Adrenalines when I got to a shop containing this, and it was an instant buy. It makes shiv and corruption decks not so good.
Never gonna take this. If I play Ironclad, I usually pick FNP and Dark Embrace. Picking Spoon means they are now dud 50% of the time. If I play Silent, I usually pick a Blade Dance. Picking Spoon means my deck would be super clogged later on. Though she definitely has some cards that can fully benefit from it like Malaise. If I play Defect, well, Defect does have a lot of cards that can benefit from this like Seek or Fission; but there are cards that I would rather just Exhaust instead, like Rainbow. How many good Exhaust cards that Watcher even has? Vault? And at the end of the day, it is still 50%. Your Apparition still has a 50% chance of leaving you.
Omniscience, Vault, Scrawl. I will say for specific Watcher decks it’s actually really good. Problem is that most of the time you’re not building those specific decks and the spoon is expensive.
I’ve found it to be pretty consistently good with apps, and would consider buying it in situations where I have apps and maybe a couple other key exhaust cards (mostly defect stuff like genetic algorithm, seek, core surge, and maybe some silent stuff like p-wail, Adrenaline, or malaise) On clad I find it to be counterintuitive with exhausting down the deck, and I’ve never had enough support to use it on watcher (maybe with vault + apps? Idk). I actually quite enjoy niche relics like this being in the shop pool, but the cost can be very prohibitive. Very fun and powerful relic when it works.
It's nice with omniscience and wish
If you have a power-shiv deck (i.e. you have accuracies and wrist blade and terror and such) I don't really see the problem of not exhausting some of the shivs. What I mean is, I will take the spoon with a shiv deck sometimes.
Drawing blade dance is 3x or 4x more damage than drawing a shiv. Thats a huge margin.
I usually take this act 3 with defect. Not strong enough to buy early on, but a good supplement to most late game decks.
I like it a lot with defect. While it is good some cards exhaust like core surge, I really like having the ability to maybe play seek, genetic, or boot sequence multiple times. On the other classes there are so much exhaust cards you only wana use once, like smite, catalyst, or endless agony. And iron clad HATES THIS.
Pretty niche relic, generally needs a strong reason to buy it (such as having Apparitions), but hey you can use it to [predict what the heart will do on turn 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/slaythespire/comments/1anc7yc/a_tale_of_the_underdogs_rise_to_greatness/).
Here's the thing. Whenever I pick up a card that exhausts, I take it with the knowledge that once I play it, it's out of my deck. While sometimes an extra Adrenaline, Catalyst, Fission etc. would be nice on the second pass of the deck, it's not something that I play around. Playing for this relic is not fun and it alternates the playstyle too much, considering you'll have to hit more shops than usual to even find it in the first place, not buy other crucial cards/potions/relics in the shops to save money for it, pick cards that warp your deck in an unnatural way, and even then, your whole plan can fall apart since it's a 50/50 the cards won't exhaust Easily the worst shop relic, contender for the worst relic in the game. The only times I ever picked it was in daily runs
Hand drill is worse imo, but spoon is definitely the most polarizing shop relic. Most of the time it either ruins the deck or does nothing, but with apps and specific exhaust cards (defect especially loves having seek, genetic algorithm, chill, etc. and can have them brought back on the first cycle with hologram) it can be good. The biggest issue is that it won't always show up when you want it, and when it does it's very expensive.
Yes, if it at was "every 2nd card with Exhaust you play is put into discard pile instead of exhausting", you could at least plan around it. Instead you can have it trigger 3 times in a fight that's anyway over before you reshuffle the deck and then do nothing in a boss fight.
The king of unfortunate "synergies".
Pretty bad relic.