'Slay The Spire': High-Damage Demon Ironclad Build

The Ironclad has access to some powerful cards that can result in some crazy combos when pulled off correctly in “Slay the Spire.” One such combo involves the Demon Form card and a number of defensive options that can help stretch the player’s damage output to incredible heights.

There are plenty of ways to play the Ironclad, but this deck build is arguably one of the easiest ones to use. Here’s a complete card list as well as some general tips and pointers on how to use the Ironclad with Demon Form correctly in “Slay the Spire.”

Deck strengths and weaknesses

Before jumping into the cards list, it’s important to note that Demon Form takes a lot of time to ramp up. As such, it’s best used against Elites or Bosses, as normal corridor fights are best resolved using other cards instead.

The deck also relies on numerous rare and uncommon cards with high energy costs.

With that in mind, the majority of this deck will focus around surviving to give Demon Form enough time to stack its Strength buff. This deck is slow and fairly risky, but the payoff is well worth the trouble.

Demon Form Ironclad Deck

• Offensive cards
  • 1x Demon Form
  • 1x Anger
  • 1x Whirlwind
  • 1x Heavy Blade
  • 1x Inflame
  • 1x Infernal Blade
  • 2x Cleave
  • 1x Battle Trance
• Defensive cards
  • 2x Ghostly Armor
  • 2x Metallicize
  • 2x Flame Barrier
  • 1x Barricade
  • 1x Impervious
  • 2x Shrug It Off

The card list is fairly flexible. Just one copy of each card is enough. Just make sure to remove as many Strike cards as possible since they’re meant to be replaced by Anger for this build.

In corridor fights, prioritize using AoE attacks. Demon Form itself won’t be necessary as long as players can juggle between attacking and defending.

During boss fights, try to get Demon Form, Barricade and Metallicize up as soon as possible. Search for these cards using Battle Trance and Shrug It Off. While Demon Form is building up its strength, keep spamming Ghostly Armor and Defend to negate as much of the boss’ damage as possible. Use Heavy Blade whenever it’s available.