Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer - Tips & Strategies

In Ascension there is no limit to the number of cards you can play, acquire or defeat and actions/effects you can use (unlike Dominion). As a game of Ascension can be quite quick, mixing “thinning the deck” cards with “draw more cards” cards can be a powerful strategy as it enables you to reliably get to the few more powerful cards you own.

In any DBG, you want as thin a deck as possible. Thin decks are reliable. If ANY deck-thinning cards come up in the first several turns, buy them. Black Watch cards, Arbiter cards, buy these in preference to buying any card draw or any point-heavy Mechana construct in the opening turns.

Ruthlessly purge your deck of Apprentices and Militia, because these cards are junk compared to the other cards you could be drawing. And nothing feels better than looking at your deck in the midgame and realizing that the Mystics are now your junk cards. When you get there, don’t add any more to your deck, and look to get rid of them, too.

When your deck thinners have served their purpose, thin them out. Tossing away an honor or two is nothing compared to the benefit of getting rid of a junk card from your deck. And it feels truly great to have such a thin deck that you can reliably draw cards that you just bought that turn.

If you are linked to Gamecenter and trying to make the achievements there, it is possible to win the game without ever defeating a cultist. Focus more on getting cards from the middle, especially the high victory point cards. You may want to focus more on items that allow you to buy rather than fight as well, since there will be times when you will allow those points to go unused.

If you really want to make it easier, pick up one of the expansions that add the fanatic. They can be killed without counting towards your goal of never killing a cultist.

The iOS application was my first exposure to Ascension. During my offline games against a single A.I., I found very helpful at first to crank up Honor Pool points from 60 up to the max 120. A 60 point game can whiz by to completion in no time. By expanding the total Honor pool points you subsequently extend the games’ length. This will allow much more time to collect a wider variety of heroes and constructs (while simultaneously exposing you to their cool combinations). Once you start to get the hang of how certain cards chain together, you can then scale back your Honor Point pool back down to the intended 60 total, forcing you to focus solely on your new found combos. This should be a great learning exercise for beginners yet still prove useful to veterans looking to seek out new combos.

I feel one of the better strategies is to mold your deck by banishing cards from it, simultaneously building your deck with a few cards that produce more than 1 rune and lots of mechana constructs and cards that draw you additional cards. This will allow you to consistently will keep the number of cards that stay in your deck and don’t draw you cards to a minimum allowing you to draw out most of your deck in one turn and maximize its purchasing potential!

Fighting monsters in this first set is almost always a waste of time!