The Watcher is the fourth character in Slay the Spire, a blind ascetic, a monk of sorts, who has come to evaluate the Spire.
What makes her so different from the other classes is her ability to move in and out of powerful stances using cards.
This page explains how to unlock The Watcher and provides our top Watcher build tips and some cards to consider.
Be sure to also check out our essential tips for getting better at Slay the Spire.
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How to play as The Watcher in Slay the Spire
The Watcher has three stances: Calm, Anger, and Divinity.
Calm doesn’t inherently do anything, but when you snap out of it, you get two extra energy to spend. Meanwhile, Rage grants you double damage, but also causes you to take double damage. The general rule is to go from calm to anger, gaining additional energy to use in your attack. Try to calm down the round before you want to unleash.
Divinity is a skill for a special occasion. It is activated by accumulating 10 Mantra from various cards and grants you three additional energy and triple damage for one round. It is very powerful but you will use Calm and Wrath more often.
The Watcher, then, is about planning ahead to unleash a deadly assault. But plan well. He tries not to accidentally get caught in Wrath at the end of a round and leave yourself open to taking double damage, unless it’s all part of the plan. He has a cancellation or change of position card on hand.
The key effects for the Watcher are Miracles, Hold, and Divination. Miracles are free Energy and Retainable so you can use them whenever you want. Hold does what it sounds like: it allows you to hold cards between rounds, and some of the cards you hold get stronger the longer you hold them. Meanwhile, Scry lets you review and manipulate your draw pile, and knowing which cards you’ll draw next is very helpful.
How to unlock The Watcher in Slay the Spire
The Watcher is not unlocked by default. To unlock it, you must have a successful run with one of the other characters and defeat the Act 3 boss. You must also have the Silence and Flaw classes unlocked. Doing this is simple. Play as Ironclad once to unlock the Silent One and play as the Silent One once to unlock the Flaw.
Best Vigilantes Deck Building Recommendations in Slay the Spire
You never know what cards you’ll get while playing, so always be flexible with your builds. Relics can also alter your approach, depending on what you get, but there are some deck themes to keep in mind as you build.
Remember, keep your deck small. You don’t have to accept every card offered to you; You can skip card rewards. It’s better to build around an idea and keep it lean and focused than to bloat your platform. Larger decks mean a lower percentage chance of drawing the cards you want, when you want them. Think about what fits your deck and ignore the rest, and remember that card rewards will improve as you progress.
I make a lot of mistakes here and there is a lot of waste in the deck; It doesn’t have to be that big. But the combination of using Omniscience to cast Omega twice and dealing 120 damage to all enemies at the end of each round is devastating. This is well supported by Collect for additional Miracles and Master Reality for upgrading the cards I create. But since I’m not really using the Rage stance, it would make sense to get rid of the skills surrounding it so I can build the Omega combo faster and defend myself better.
A good deck size is 15, which, since you’re starting with 10 cards, means you’ll want to replace some of the cards you started with, namely your default Attack and Defense cards. There are simply better single-cost cards out there. Your Defense cards can go first because your Attack cards can still be useful when you are in Rage mode and deal double damage.
You can replace cards using the merchant’s Card Removal Service or at some special events indicated by question marks on your map.
Also remember to update your cards. The difference between an average card and a great card can be a simple upgrade. An invaluable card to help with this is Lesson Learned, which deals damage and, if fatal, permanently buffs another random card in your deck.
Retain
A Hold deck is built around constantly building up the cards you need for a devastating round of attack. Keep an eye out for these attack cards: Windmill Strike, Battle Hymn, Sands of Time, and Reach Heaven.
Windmill Strike gains damage each round it is held; Sands of Time is a heavy hitter that gets cheaper with each round it is held; Battle Hymn gives you a retainable Smite card each turn; and Reach Heaven deals damage and gives you a powerful Through Violence card that you can hold.
You’ll need some defense while you build. There are several options: Protect and Perseverance can be held, with the latter gaining more block the longer it is held, but a better option is Spirit Shield, which provides a small amount of block for each card in your hand, and will most likely you can endure a lot.
Make sure you have a reliable way to go from calm to anger. Crescendo is a retainable anger creator and Tranquility is a retainable calm creator. You could even retain Blasphemy for Divinity if you’re feeling lucky, but remember that he’ll kill you next turn, so you better do your math right.
Finally, consider Establishment, a card that makes any Holdable card cost one less Energy each round it is held. And if you combine Meditate, it will help you draw cards again and add Hold to cards that otherwise wouldn’t have them. But be careful: using Meditate ends your current turn.
pressure points
Pressure Points is a curious card. It does two things when you play it: it applies a Mark debuff and deals equal damage. The Mark debuff remains, so if you play Pressure Points on the same enemy again, they will have a double stack of Mark and take damage equal to the total. This can add up to incredible amounts of damage.
Additionally, Mark can be applied to multiple enemies. You can alternate who you play Pressure Points with, and each time you play it, anyone with Mark will take equivalent damage, making it a nifty form of crowd control.
But for a Pressure Point deck to work, you really have to lean into it, adding multiple copies (at least three) to your deck and keeping your deck very small.
Remember, Wrath won’t affect pressure points, so don’t bother using it and get rid of those Strike cards. Instead, look for calm-related abilities, like Like Water, which gives you free blocking every round and can stack. Combines well with Wave of the Hand to weaken enemies as well.
Postural dance
Moving in and out of a stance feels like pure Vigilante, and there are numerous cards that combine to great effect.
To start, make sure you have enough cards to get in and out of Calm and Wrath. Empty Body is always useful as it cancels out your stance while also giving you a decent amount of blocking. Empty Fist is very similar only it deals damage and then cancels your stance, so use it on Wrath.
Cards that pair well include Flurry of Blows, a zero-cost damage card that respawns every time you change stance; Rushdown, a card that grants two additional cards every time you enter Wrath, and Mental Fortress, which grants block every time you change stance. Parry is also good here, but use it on Wrath to get maximum blocking before switching stances. The same could be said for Wallop, which gives you both block and unblocked damage.
Mantra
Other themes of the deck include building around Mantra to activate Divinity and keeping a powerful attack like Signature Move or Conjure Blade to use when you get there. Conjure Blade is a powerful sword that swings as many times as you spend energy on it. If you keep your upgraded Miracle cards from Collect and they are retainable so you can do so, you could conjure a multi-hit sword. And remember that you will receive triple damage.
The best The Watcher cards to look out for in Slay the Spire
This list is by no means exhaustive and must-have cards may have already been mentioned, particularly Lesson Learned, but here are some other cards to keep an eye out for.
- Cut Through Fate – A common card with excellent utility. It deals good damage and allows you to draw one of two cards, or a random one, from your draw pile.
- Doodle: This card completely fills your hand. Go crazy in Divinity and then burn all your Miracles and press Scrawl to try again.
- Vault: A card that gives you another turn. When upgraded, it only costs two Energy, meaning you get a whole new hand, three Energy, and any Turn Start and Hold buffs you have, all for two Energy.
- Joint Crush: A card that deals decent damage and applies the Vulnerable debuff, as long as the last card you played was an ability. With the Vulnerable debuff active and the Rage stance active, enemies will effectively take triple damage from you. The only tricky part is getting Crush Joints to land on enemies with the Artifact buff, which negates the debuffs. Try to clear the artifact upgrade with Wave of the Hand.
- Third eye: don’t overlook it. It provides you with a good block and allows you to guess three cards and thus organize your draw pile. Combine Scry cards with Weave and Nirvana for a free attack and an additional free block.
- Master Reality: Every time a card is created in this fight, it will be updated, which works well with so many Vigilante cards: Battle Hymn, Reach Heaven, Conjure Blade, Deceive Reality.
- Cheat Reality: A weaker blocking card that creates a stronger blocking card that you can hold. Very useful.
- Holiness: A single-cost card that allows you to block and draw two cards, as long as you last used an ability. Remember, miracles are skills, so they are good preparations for this.
- Alpha: The beginning of a chain that will eventually unleash a devastating attack that damages all enemies, but requires playing Alpha, Beta, and then the damage card itself, Omega.
Want some extra tips for the rest of the game? Check out our essential tips to improve at Slay the Spire.
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