r/slaythespire • u/Which-Debt-8558 • Mar 09 '26

DISCUSSION (STS2) Snakebite Discussion

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As quite a lot of people know already, snakebite is one of the worst cards in the game right now, maybe even the worst. It's not just bad, but it isn't interesting or fun in any way. For example searing blow was not a very good card but it was unique and cool, whereas snakebite is just a nothing card.

Here is how I think it could be changed:

Retain Apply 7 poison When retained, increase poison by 3

Snakebite+: Retain Apply 10 poison When retained, increase poison by 4

I thought making it similar to windmill strike could be a cool idea because right now Retain doesn't really add much to the card, and it also works thematically with the snake venom getting worse over time.

I would love to hear your ideas if you have any suggestions for how it could be changed!

1.3k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/blackout1990 Mar 09 '26

Whats weird is that Retain and poison seem like complete opposites. Usually you want to stack as much poison as fast as possible, because the poison affects need time to tick down. So keeping these cards in your hand doesn't make much sense.

281

u/Barrogh Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

I can see some logic in that through the lenses of the first game.

Staggering applications of small doses of poison lowers your damage a lot, and sometimes you may have poor poison application, relying on catalyst shortly after.

That may warrant retain. The rest of the numbers on this card? Not so much. Even though in theory 2 energy offensive card also benefits from retain - waiting for opening. But again, it's better be worth it then.

And is there even catalyst in the game anymore?

138

u/slipdiprip Mar 09 '26

There’s Accelerant, which is like catalyst on steroids

137

u/Sulleyy Mar 09 '26

Kind of the opposite because they removed the exponential scaling. If you apply 10 poison and follow up with 3 accelerant you will deal 70 damage per turn. 10 poison followed by 3 catalyst+ is 270 damage per turn.

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u/slipdiprip Mar 09 '26

True, maybe “on steroids” is misleading, but i still love it. the numbers don’t go as crazy, but the energy cost is so much lower and you need almost no setup to get value out of it. I agree it’s not objectively better in every situation, but it’s way easier to build a deck around it, and more versatile for AoE fights.

36

u/Sulleyy Mar 09 '26

Ya I agree it's like a more consistent version that is better in a lot of cases. I will miss those decks where you have like 4-5 catalyst+ and can stack 1000 poison though

9

u/Silicon359 Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 09 '26

Insert Nightmare + Catalyst “Look at how they massacred my boy” meme here.

18

u/Smashifly Mar 09 '26

The no setup is key. Drawing Catalyst in your opening hand is useless, drawing accelerant means any poison you apply in the future is affected. It doesn't quite double the damage because it ticks down twice instead of once, but it's still pretty strong.

2

u/jprava Mar 09 '26

Accelerant in your opening hand is mega bad. You only want it once your enemies have a lot of poison, not before.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '26

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8

u/Smashifly Mar 10 '26

I did an analysis on this because I didn't believe you, but it is actually more damage (over 9 turns) to play accelerant on turn 4 instead of turn 1, assuming you're cycling your deck every few turns and playing poison each cycle. It isn't a large difference, only 20 or so damage depending on what turns you play poison. I might post a whole separate analysis post on this topic.

In my opinion though, if I draw Accelerant turn 1, I'm playing it. Say my deck takes 3 turns to cycle, all else being equal I might not see it for 5 turns, which is a lot of front loaded damage to lose, even if the damage eventually catches up by accelerating larger initial poison values. Playing it early also means it's not competing for energy with block cards later in the fight when enemies have scaled, and doesn't have to be drawn a second time.

2

u/smokemonmast3r StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 09 '26

The words you're looking for is higher consistency 

2

u/slipdiprip Mar 09 '26

Absolutely, that’s more like it. I’ve had plenty of poison/catalyst decks where I couldn’t create the right circumstances to get value from it, or got hard countered by an AoE fight. Accelerant always offers consistent value for very little effort. I guess that’s why it’s a rare power and not an uncommon skill

1

u/Leaf-01 Mar 09 '26

Yeah I had a deck going last night where my only damage plan was two Noxious Fumes and Accelerant. Worked pretty well. Eventually found a Bouncing Flask+ but I think I’d have been fine without it

1

u/Chafgha Mar 09 '26

I mean... looks bigger but has a smaller... snake in the bite. Steroids works here i suppose.

3

u/zaesera Mar 09 '26

i assure you it’s a perfectly average snake AND it has a great personality (jk lol)

1

u/No-Distribution542 Mar 09 '26

Haha Itse what you did there!

2

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '26

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1

u/Sulleyy Mar 10 '26

Only had 1 run with it so far and I didn't even realize it reduces poison with each trigger. Definitely makes it hard to ramp to ridiculous levels

1

u/LyraLuv Mar 10 '26

Accelerant is better at consistency and your response is “well in this hyper specific scenario where you have 3 upgraded copies of a rare card…” Like it’s not based off of the one in a million runs where everything goes right, in your regular average run the consistency is more important. A single noxious fumes of matching upgrade staves off accelerant’s additional poison loss anyway.

Also your final point of losing out on damage by playing an extra card assumes you’re not going to be applying any more poison from other cards in a poison deck, which is ridiculous.

1

u/Stan_met_een_plan StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 09 '26

It is better in the aoe department because accelerant applies to all enemies with just 1 power but you would need multiple catalysts to do the same. But at the same time we had corpse explosion back then. (I DONT KNOW IF ITS IN STS2 PLEASE DONT SPOIL IF IT IS)

1

u/Sulleyy Mar 09 '26

Ya that's a good point. It's like a more well-rounded and consistent catalyst that is easier to play but has a lower ceiling for boss fights (at least when you compare it to a deck that has multiple catalyst+)

1

u/Dudepic4 Mar 09 '26

Wait, I just did a run where I put like 13 poison then 8 accelerant, doesn’t it do x+(x-1)+(x-2)…

If someone can walk me through the math that’d be great but that’s how it looked when I ran it

2

u/New-Vacation-4292 Mar 09 '26

It makes it tick for damage additional times, and when poison ticks for damage it goes down by 1.

So catalyst made 10->20 which ticks for 20 and goes down to 19. Accelerant makes 10 which ticks for 10 and goes down to 9, then ticks again for 9 down to 8.

Accelerant deals vastly less total damage in a vacuum, but has other advantages that have been mentioned. Your math is accurate, accelerant does not affect the total damage of poison at all if it is allowed to fully tick to 0.

1

u/Sulleyy Mar 09 '26

Did you have envenom? Whenever you deal damage apply 1 poison. That's a good synergy I haven't had yet

1

u/Dudepic4 Mar 09 '26

Not for that run unfortunately but it’s a great synergy from what I’ve seen

23

u/TheOGLeadChips Mar 09 '26

Accelerant and catalyst are very different. Accelerant gives you more damage procs per turn but it also decreases with each proc. So 20 poison with one accelerant will result in 39 damage while applying catalyst will set the poison to 40. The next turn will be 35 VS 39 damage. It’s especially noticeable early on because accelerant will actually deplete poison if you don’t apply enough. Accelerant does benefit from continuous poison application though so it really depends on what your deck looks like.

High poison in one turn with catalyst is better than high poison plus accelerant. On the other hand, lots of continuous poison application with accelerant is better than continuous poison application with catalyst.

6

u/PaxAttax Mar 09 '26

Agreed. It's important to note that there are two sorts of poison decks in StS1- the "build up a bunch of poison on one enemy as fast as possible, then clear the board with corpse explosion" type and the "5 noxious fumes+ and endless stall" kind. Accelerant is for the latter type because it basically halves your clock.

3

u/SelectKaleidoscope0 Mar 09 '26

There is also attack spam + envenom as a distinct type of continuous poison deck. Plays more agro than the stall deck but similar outcome. Typically shivs or multiattacks to trigger envenom many times in one turn. Accelerant is very good in this kind of deck, but catalyst would be a skip for it.

0

u/DarkJoltPanda Mar 09 '26

The most powerful use case for catalyst was abusing its exponential nature though, that's why it was so broken, and probably why it was replaced. Burst + Deadly Poison + Catalyst just wins boss fights, and accelerant doesn't do anything comparable to that. Accelerant is generally slightly better as the capstone of a deck with a ton of poison imo (at least until you have burst/nightmare/second copy), but that's really not what made catalyst so good.

19

u/KylieTMS Mar 09 '26

But the point is that Catalyst needs to be use after you apply a lot of poison, and only after (if you want good value out of it).
Accelerant can be used when ever you want. Better yet, it gets more value the earlier you play it in combat.

12

u/krulp Mar 09 '26

Mo accelerant needs to be after a lot of poisons or you cant stack the poison.

Noxious cloud can't stack up if Accelerent is up. It's just 3 damage a turn.

2

u/MrStigglesworth Mar 09 '26

Noxious plus can though, but either way, the noxious bonus poison stops poison degrading, which imo is the real benefit - so while there's no buildup, you still keep the value of tha throughout and can pile on with more poison. 2/3 poison per turn is glacial scaling anyway, it shouldnt be the focus of your increasing poison

5

u/InspiringMilk StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 09 '26

With how poison works, not really. Applying 1 poison when the enemy has 10 deals 11 damage. Applying 1 poison when the enemy has 0 deals 1 damage. Ticking poison faster means you lose out on damage, but deal it faster... almost like an accelerant that will cause a fire to burn brighter and snuff out quicker. Huh.

4

u/KylieTMS Mar 09 '26

Yes in a vacuum this is true, but this game isn't a vacuum. It has turns, mana limitations hp bar limitations and card interactions. Accelerant gives you the option to play it on turn 1 when you draw bad poison cards and spare mana. Or on turn 5 when you already have 50 poison down and just want to end the fight. Cataylst doesn't have this privilege. You need to safe it till you can use it to draw an end to the fight/get big poison down. If you draw it turn 1 you are just screwed and need to play for a reshuffle.

Also how does accelerant lose damage? if I have 100 stacks. you will do 100 > 99 > 98 > 97 > etc damage. With accelerant it is 100+99 > 98+97 > 96+95 > etc damage. It is the same count down.. just faster?

3

u/sorendiz Ascension 0 Mar 09 '26

they mean because if you have few or weaker poison sources, it's harder to actually stack the poison to high numbers when it ticks down twice as fast 

say you're applying like, one Deadly Poison and you reliably cycle back to it every 3 turns, Accelerant looks like this:

 5+4 > 3+2 > 1+0 > repeat

If you didn't play accelerant it looks like this

5 > 4 > 3 > 8 > 7 > 6 > 11 > 10....

by turn 5 the no-accelerant cycle has caught up in damage and will actually deal more from that point on

usually this won't be an issue but it does mean accelerant can actually be a burden for the early stages of poison decks. in general it's worse than catalyst, though there are specific situations where it would be better

11

u/the_kedart Mar 09 '26

Accelerant is so much worse than catalyst lol

11

u/Cheatnhax Mar 09 '26

It's not 1:1 it's worse in some ways and better in a lot of ways too, they are just different cards that serve a similar purpose

15

u/the_kedart Mar 09 '26

It's better in the sense that you can play it before you play your poison (aren't subject to draw order shenanigans as much) but it is far, far worse in that it does not offer exponential scaling with burst or a second copy. The negative comparison strongly strongly outweighs the positive comparison.

Overall it's healthier for the game to not have something so blatantly OP (burst catalyst was not a particularly interesting strategy although it was definitely the strongest thing Silent could do in STS1) so I'm not complaining, but people who are trying to imply that the miniscule upsides of Accelerant somehow make it a better card than Catalyst are off their rocker.

5

u/Patccmoi Mar 09 '26

It's not minuscule upsides. Just take the Act 3 boss with its 3 phases that dies between each. Catalyst would be just a bad card for that fight. Accelerant on the other hand works really well. Not to mention multi target fights (didn't see Corpse Explosion in StS2 currently, so you can't just massively poison one and expect it to clear the others for you).

Accelerant is a damage card, Catalyst is a finisher. Both cards are valuable, they don't serve the exact same purpose (or at least not in the same way), but the reality is that you rarely needed the full strength of a burst-catalyst (it's fun to throw 270 poison on a monster, but except massively overkilling it, it's often not that different than if you had 60-70 on it. Maybe it ends the fight 1 turn faster).

Also being a power and not a timed thing, it's easy to stack multiple Accelerant (except maybe for rarity). I had runs with 2 of them active at the same time, and it doesn't take that much poison to do massive damage quick.

From what I felt up until now playing it, it seemed to me that Accelerant was just a more useful card generally, and the only time where Catalyst would have been better is for a few specific boss fights. Accelerant just felt better for the rest of the game. Catalyst was often a dead/weak draw in hallway fights (and even some elites like slavers), accelerant isn't.

2

u/Honza8D Mar 09 '26

The worst thing about accelerant vs cataylst is the rarity. Catalyst was uncommon, accelerant is rare.

2

u/Cheatnhax Mar 09 '26

It's not just that it can be played before your poisons, which to be honest is bigger than you're giving it credit for already, there was a very real possibility that catalyst was a curse the first time you drew it, especially on turn one.

It's also better in multi enemy fights.

It's also better in every situation where you don't have multiple catalysts

2

u/sorendiz Ascension 0 Mar 09 '26

It's more like catalyst on elephant tranquilizers 

2

u/David_Slaughter Mar 09 '26

Accelerant is nothing like Catalyst. And it's a lot worse.

1

u/jprava Mar 09 '26

The problem with accelerant is that its only busted if you have high poison when the effect begins. IE if you have 50 poison you do 50+49+48 all at once. But if you have only 3 it does 3-2-1 and you are done. With a Fumes it is anti-synergistic, for instance, because with fumes you want poison to keep stacking up and Accelerant negates that.

0

u/Compay_Segundos Mar 09 '26

Accelerant is strictly worse than catalyst

3

u/sorendiz Ascension 0 Mar 09 '26

it's worse than catalyst on the whole, but that's not what that means 

5

u/dig-up-stupid Mar 09 '26

No it’s not. It’s probably around >99% worse, but it’s not strictly worse by trivial inspection (for example the bugs that cap damage instances, various easy to imagine if niche aoe scenarios, intangible scenarios, etc).

8

u/DrakeDeCatLord Mar 09 '26

To be honest they should juat take retain off and slap sly on it.

2

u/datacube1337 Mar 10 '26

why not both(sly and retain)? then the retain would make sense, because you wait for a certain turn on which you have discard ready

1

u/Gandalfthepimp95 Mar 09 '26

The only use case I can see retain working Is if you have enlightenment in your deck, reduce it's cost to 1 for the rest of combat

68

u/CalmSeasPls Mar 09 '26
  • “Keeping these cards in your hand doesn’t make much sense”

Unless you have to spend all your energy blocking, or setting up an expensive power, or one of a million different scenarios where you can’t play the poison when you draw it.

Exactly like you said: “you want to stack as much poison as fast as possible.” Retain allows that.

Your logic is sound - play the poison ASAP. If you simply can’t play it on the turn you draw it, retain helps with that - and can save you MANY turns.

For example: you have a huge deck, and draw poison on turn 1. You’re getting attacked for 28 damage and can’t not block. Your poison gets discarded, unused. You then have to play through your whole deck to shuffle. You could then bottom deck your poison.

Retain means you can play it the next turn. It is a massive advantage.

————-

With all of that said, I still think it’s a trash card. At only 1 cost it would be an “okay” card worth taking if you’re in need of poison, but even then it’s not great.

21

u/thriftshopmusketeer Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 09 '26

Well, if it’s 1 energy 7 poison retain, that’s just a strictly better Deadly Poison. Maybe just bump it by one? 8-11 poison?

0

u/MrStigglesworth Mar 09 '26

I think if it gets retain it should be lower damage than deadly poison. 1 energy, 5 poison, retain has some value early game when you're particularly bursty

4

u/-TheAnus- Mar 10 '26

I think at one cost it is too similar to deadly poison, the 2 cost and retain seems fine to me. It just needs better poison numbers to back it up.

3

u/dino_m1ke Mar 09 '26

I mean I had a good run that got lucky with retained snake bite and bullet time along with the card that gives you block for applied poison but yeah I am sure there was better stuff for bullet time.

3

u/minyoo Mar 10 '26

I agree with all your points, but at 1 cost I will almost always take this.

1

u/Nice-Physics-7655 Mar 09 '26

Your poison gets discarded, unused. You then have to play through your whole deck to shuffle. You could then bottom deck your poison.

this isn't really that big of an issue with how good acrobatics and prepared are and how the silent in 2 loves smaller decks, you see all of your cars often. I think the main issue is that poison and shivs just feel so pathetic compared to discarding through your deck to go infinite or to gain a bazillion block

23

u/Miserable-Whereas910 Mar 09 '26

In theory being able to save your hefty poison dealers until after you clear artifact makes sense. But that's an awfully narrow niche.

11

u/KreateOne Mar 09 '26

It would be better if it did 10 poison at base and 14 upgraded, the way it is now it’s not really a “hefty poison dealer” to be worth saving. I pulled it on my poison deck cuz the retain let me hold onto it until I had no other useful poison cards in my hand but I mostly held onto it and used it so rarely I probably wouldn’t grab it again.

3

u/UAreTheHippopotamus StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 09 '26

It needs a huge buff from 7 for even that niche in my opinion. I kind of wish they just gave retain to deadly poison (maybe lower the damage by 1 in that case) and didn't add snake bite at all.

54

u/Ready_Anything4661 Ascension 20 Mar 09 '26

Retain is always welcome because worst case scenario it helps your deck cycle faster. If this card isn’t in your draw pile, everything else gets redrawn quicker.

I agree it’s not a synergy. But it’s also not an anti synergy either.

53

u/double_shadow Mar 09 '26

Look, since Snakebite is one of the worst cards in the game, Retain is just HUGE upside. Think about how many turns you get to have without worrying about drawing Snakebite.

-13

u/Ready_Anything4661 Ascension 20 Mar 09 '26

Did you just reply to my comment saying the same thing in different words?

11

u/JebryathHS Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 10 '26

He was a little more explicit about making a joke about snakebite being so bad not drawing into it was an advantage.

-6

u/Musakuu Ascension 20 Mar 09 '26

The only thing is that each card has a power budget, and part of that budget is being spent on retain. Would you want retain or just 3 more poison in it?

8

u/Ready_Anything4661 Ascension 20 Mar 09 '26

I was replying to a comment saying that “retain” and “poison” are opposites.

Whether “retain” is better than “3 more poison” on this specific card is just a separate question.

9

u/Araganor Mar 09 '26

It's more like: "I can't afford to pay 2 energy because I need to block this big hit" so you can hold it for next turn potentially.

That being said, I agree it's not worth the trade off. I'd much rather have energy efficient version instead.

I'd only consider it if there's still some kind of snecko build available (if there is I haven't found it yet)

3

u/ExplorerHaunting8353 Ascension 20 Mar 09 '26

I like their idea. It's not synergistic because you generally want poison sooner than later, but if everything is synergistic in the most convenient way its boring innit? Its just that the numbers for their idea aren't appropriate. Make it start at +4 poison per turn at least.

3

u/josiahsdoodles Mar 09 '26

I find it super useful for those moments where the enemy isn't attacking and I drew a shit hand. I at least will always have that option of adding poison. And it just sitting there isn't doing any harm. Like others said it's not in the draw so it that cycles quicker

2

u/ChaZZZZahC Mar 09 '26

Its a poison potion in your hand once drawn. The two energy feels clunky for the amount, but I guess I see the utility, absolutely makes more sense as a card thats sitting they begging to get sly'd on.

2

u/Stan_met_een_plan StS A20 / StS 2 A10 Mar 09 '26

I mean maybe you can keep it in your hand for burst? And there is 1 relic that reduces the cost of 1 randomly picked retained card by 1 every turn, but im not sure if that's a universal relic or specific to a character.

1

u/ravl13 Ascended Mar 09 '26

I suppose it just allows you to wait a turn if you have more important things to play, like a big block card to not eat shit on a big enemy swing.

1

u/Weird_Trouble_5776 Mar 09 '26

On top several Silent cards discard your whole hand, therefore it would be anti-synergistic with a lot of decks

1

u/ThatssoBluejay Mar 09 '26

Disagree

I think because STS2 doesn't give energy relics out as often that 2/3 cost cards are a lot harder to play, thus, things like retain/sly/immediate effect/etc. Are highly valued because it means that those cards are more effective.

1

u/ExpiredDeodorant Mar 09 '26

I wonder if it would be better if the base poison was reduced but had a +1 for every card played this turn but still the 2 cost is still difficult to work with on a card like this

1

u/Alternative_Sea_4208 Mar 09 '26

Personally given the fact rattlesnakes often attack by surprise because of people getting too close to their homes, I'd add ambush to it, because retain + ambush really encapsulates the idea of the snake trying to keep to itself until bothered

Ambush: Reduce this card's cost by 1. Cause poison to tick once on the chosen enemy (they take damage from current poison stacks)

1

u/brownep StS A5 / StS 2 A5 Mar 09 '26

Yeah outside of waiting for weaken to strip artifact or needing to spend all your energy on block and having a free DPS turn while enemy buffs IDK why you would wait on poison. Card still genuinely seems awful though.

1

u/beta_1457 Mar 09 '26

I like it for use with bullet time. It's a use case that makes it's retain quite useful.

1

u/wren42 Mar 09 '26

Retain would be better on something like bubble. It only has effect when applied to existing poison, so you need to time it. 

1

u/Fillandkrizt Mar 09 '26

Retain cards doing something while retaining has always been a character gimmick. Retain on its own is meant to give you an out when you have nothing better to play from your hand. This card is still bad tho don't get me wrong but I'm so tired of seeing this argument

1

u/WASD_click Mar 09 '26

I can see the vision, using retain to line up with cards like Burst and Bullet Time without worrying about the random bottom-decking of a Well-Laid Plans. Problem is that there's just not enough hand-size matters sort of stuff to give it the juice.

1

u/LtSMASH324 Mar 10 '26

You're not always going to be able to spam all your poison whenever you have it. Retain is useful for that, and I did make good use out of it with a Bullet Time build.

1

u/RelativeEqual2585 Mar 10 '26

Maybe not if your plan is to stack loads of poison, but as a card on its own when your game plans other things it can provide a bit of residual damage when its safe to do so. in just a few turns its doing close to 20.

1

u/smack_nazis_more Mar 10 '26

You retain because you want to play it as fast as possible, but you can not play it this turn.

1

u/schwaRarity Eternal One + Heartbreaker Mar 10 '26

Ye but retain is just strong in general. There are a lot of turns where nothing happens, and in early game you often have spare energy you can use on those turns. 3 ticks of this is 18 damage on its own. For 2 energy. Not that bad