Hey guys, Lucrezio here. It looks this game is getting more popular as a speedgame so I figured I'd give a few tips to new runners on how to go fast.

TIP 1: Routing is Key Try to plan your route ahead based on the following. ?s, Campsites, Treasure and Shops = Good. Fighting = Bad.

TIP 2: Skip as many screens as possible. You are capable of pressing 'M' (Opening your map) to skip several screens. You are able to press M and click on the next location as opposed to pressing "Skip", "Proceed", etcetera in the following areas. Picking Cards, Certain ? floors, Campsites, and Shops.

At Campsites, when smithing you must wait a few frames after clicking the card you're upgrading to be able to jump to the next floor. The visual que I use is the card fading. When the card starts to fade away, I press M and jump. When resting, you can instantly jump to the next floor, even if you're cool enough to press the next floor through the fog.

Be careful, many ? floors require you to press the "Leave" button before jumping to the next floor, maybe if this post picks up we can create a list.

If this is too confusing I'll make a video guide TIP 3: Pick your deck wisely. Many decks are simply not viable for Ironclad Speedrunning if you want a viable time. Defense cards are bad, generally. More cards = worse as opposed to less cards, generally. Every time you shop, try to remove a card from your deck, a block or a strike normally, unless you're using a Strike deck, then keep them in. Generally I remove blocks until I know I don't have a strike deck.

Cards I ALWAYS pick up: Whirlwind (Run creator, best card hands down for going fast) Clash (Big Damage No Mana) Offering (Lose 4 HP, deal big damage)

Deck Type I use: Clash (No skill cards or very little skill cards) Searing Blow (Get 1 searing blow, Double Tap, Dual Wield) Strike (Perfected Strike, Dual Wields, Double Taps) Strength -Arguably the worst of the 4- (Expose Weakness, enflame, Heave Blade

Cards that can fit into any deck: Whirlwind (Thunderclap only with Whirlwind) Offering Battle Trance Enflame/Flex/Expose Weakness (Explained below) Double Tap

Strength? The issue I find with strength is that it is slow. Strength is undoubtfully useful, however (We're going to ignore demon form because it's garbage) I find Enflame to be too slow/costly to be useful as opposed to Expose Weakness which is the same price, reusable, and gives more strength. Flex is okay because it costs 0.

Overall, I find strength to be a very slow build, but it pays off in boss fights when you whirlwind is hitting for 20 each hit.

WILL BE CONTINUED

Thank you for writing this up. One thing I've noticed in my own attempts is that full Strength builds also have the weakness of low draw to make full use of the Flexes. If you try to solve for this using Pommel Strikes it takes another mana-per-turn relic to make up for the deficit in being able to play attacks. There's also Limit Break, which is nice when upgraded but garbage otherwise.

In your opinion, what does a good clash deck look like? Apart from picking Clash whenever offered and trimming skills from the deck whenever possible, what other cards are high priority for this archetype? What's your typical upgrade priority? Whirlwind>Bash>Clash>Strike>???

I've been trying to figure out other archetypes, but I keep circling back to strength and choking myself on Enflames and Demon Form. :P

@3d12 So about the Strength builds firstly, My normal strength build looks like (As little Strikes/Blocks as possible is a given) 1-2 Heavy Blades, As many Inflames as I can get, 1 Spot Weakness, and 1 Limit break. Ignore Demon Form, it's not a viable card please.

A typical Clash Deck will be 0 skills, pretty much, As many upgraded clashes as you can get, afterwards you can pretty much refer to the "Cards that can fit in any deck" You want (Im gonna try to put this in a priority list), Whirlwind, Offering/Card draw, Inflames/Spot weakness. If I do pick up a double tap in a clash deck, i pretty much only use it on whirlwind since clash doesn't really hit too hard by itself.

About my typical upgrade priority.. Searing Blow (if using this deck, also, the only other cards you need are double tap and whirlwind) > Whirlwind > Heavy Blade or Perfected Strike (only if using the respected deck) > Clash = Spot Weakness/Inflame > Card Draw (Offering/Battle Trance) > Bash > Block > Strike

I may have missed a few cards, but this is generally my pecking order. I don't really use much other cards. Misc cards that you don't see on this list you can pretty much use a general formula Big Damage > Buff > Draw > Block > Tiny Damage

I also find myself picking up less-than-optimal cards early on if I don't find anything good to help speed up my early game, such as Wild Strike or Pummel Strike. If this is the case, put these cards above strike/block.

This I pretty outdated. Here is something I sometimes try: Sword boomerang, thunderclap double tap and some flexes