Slay the Spire is a roguelike deck-building game that challenges players to build powerful decks while climbing a dangerous tower filled with enemies, treasures, and strategy decisions. One of the more nuanced mechanics in the game is the concept of retain, a card keyword that allows certain cards to stay in your hand between turns rather than being discarded. Understanding how retain works, when to use it, and how to build around it can be the key to surviving longer runs and dealing massive damage at the right moment. This mechanic plays a crucial role in certain strategies, especially when dealing with high-stakes battles or synergizing with particular characters and relics.
What Does Retain Mean in Slay the Spire?
In Slay the Spire, most cards are discarded from your hand at the end of each turn. However, a card with theretainkeyword will remain in your hand instead of going to the discard pile. This allows the player to hold onto the card and use it in a future turn when it’s most advantageous. This mechanic adds a layer of planning and strategy, letting you prepare for specific turns, wait for optimal energy levels, or save powerful finishing moves for the right moment.
Types of Retain
- Innate Retain: Some cards come with the retain property by default and always stay in your hand unless played or discarded through other means.
- Temporary Retain: Some cards retain for a single turn or until a certain condition is met, often granted by other cards or relics.
- Manual Retain: Cards can also be retained through the use of relics or powers that grant retain to otherwise normal cards.
Understanding which type of retain is in play helps guide your decision-making, especially in complex builds involving multiple status effects and high-damage turns.
Characters and Retain Synergy
Each character in Slay the Spire interacts with retain in different ways. While all characters can use cards with retain, some classes benefit from this mechanic more directly due to card synergies or relics available to them.
The Watcher and Retain Power
The Watcher, added in a later update, is the character most associated with retain mechanics. Several of her cards, like Deva Form, Establishment, and Prostrate, either benefit from or enhance retain effects. The Watcher’s gameplay often involves holding onto powerful cards and using them at the exact right moment, often while in a specific stance like Wrath or Calm.
- Establishment: Reduces the cost of retained cards, allowing for cost-efficient burst turns later.
- Lesson Learned: Can benefit from retain when waiting for the right timing to kill a weak enemy and upgrade a random card.
- Vault: Though not a retain card itself, it benefits from keeping cards in hand across turns and combos well with retained cards.
Other Characters and Retain Use
While the Watcher thrives with retain, other characters can still use this mechanic through specific cards and relics:
- Silent: Can use cards like Backflip and Caltrops to set up for future turns, and if retain is granted via Well-Laid Plans, she can hold onto key cards like Corpse Explosion or Burst.
- Ironclad: Typically focuses on strength builds, but cards like Juggernaut or Impervious can be retained with external help to deliver massive impact.
- Defect: May benefit from retaining powerful powers or damage-dealing cards, especially when using relics that allow card retention.
Relics That Grant Retain
Retain can be granted by relics that apply the effect universally or conditionally. These relics are useful for nearly all builds, especially those relying on multi-turn strategies or waiting for the right energy setup.
Important Retain-Related Relics
- Runic Pyramid: Your hand is no longer discarded at the end of your turn. This relic gives permanent retain to all cards and enables highly strategic hand management.
- Well-Laid Plans (Power Card): Technically not a relic, but as a power card for the Silent, it allows the player to retain a number of cards per turn, building strong synergy over time.
- Equilibrium (Skill Card): Lets you keep your current hand for one turn, which can act like a temporary retain mechanic.
These relics or powers fundamentally change your approach to battles, especially elite fights and bosses where timing and resource management are everything.
Strategic Benefits of Retain
Knowing how and when to retain cards provides significant advantages in battle. The ability to hold a powerful card until the perfect moment can turn the tide of combat. Whether you’re waiting for an enemy to be vulnerable or for your energy to refill, retain allows for smarter plays over brute force.
Common Retain Strategies
- Save key cards: Retain lets you keep high-impact cards like Blasphemy or Corpse Explosion until it’s safe and optimal to play them.
- Plan for burst turns: Retaining high-cost or combo cards lets you explode with massive damage when all elements align.
- Energy conservation: In turns where you don’t have enough energy to play everything, retain keeps useful cards for future turns.
- Risk mitigation: Holding defensive cards like Impervious or Wallop until they’re truly needed helps with survival.
These strategies are especially effective in boss fights where pacing and resource efficiency matter more than speed.
Challenges of Retain
Despite its power, retain is not without its challenges. It requires careful hand management, and without the right support cards or relics, a large retained hand can clutter your options or lead to suboptimal turns.
Risks and Drawbacks
- Hand bloat: Retaining too many cards without using them can leave you with no space for drawing new ones.
- Energy mismatch: Saving high-cost cards without energy gain support may result in them sitting idle for too long.
- Card paralysis: Holding onto too many just in case cards can make decision-making harder and less flexible.
Good retain strategies are proactive, not reactive. Players must evaluate whether holding a card is actually advantageous or if it’s clogging up space and reducing draw potential.
Best Practices for Retain Builds
For players aiming to use retain effectively in Slay the Spire, a few guiding principles can help maximize its potential. Whether you’re running a dedicated retain deck or simply using one or two cards with the keyword, these practices ensure smoother gameplay and stronger outcomes.
Tips for Mastering Retain
- Balance your hand: Only retain cards with a clear plan for future use. Don’t hold too many maybes.
- Use draw synergy: Cards like Third Eye or Evaluate help cycle through your deck while still building a strong retained hand.
- Combine with cost reduction: Effects like Establishment or Snecko Eye help make expensive retained cards more playable later.
- Track enemy intents: Retain lets you match your plays to what the enemy is about to do, enabling smarter defense and burst turns.
Retain is most effective when part of a larger plan. Whether setting up for a kill or staying alive during a long fight, it’s a mechanic that rewards foresight and discipline.
The Power of Patience
In Slay the Spire, the retain mechanic adds depth and strategy to an already rich game system. It empowers players to think beyond the immediate turn and plan for future rounds with greater control. From the Watcher’s synergy-focused gameplay to relics like Runic Pyramid, retain can be the foundation of some of the most creative and powerful builds in the game. Mastering this mechanic requires more than luckit demands foresight, adaptability, and a keen sense of timing. When used correctly, retain doesn’t just win battlesit defines entire runs.
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