Some cards are still better than others when it comes to Slay the Spire 2, but those preferences vary depending on the characters you like to play. One card in particular has become the center of contention for the community. For some, it’s the most useless card in the game. For others, the card is simply misunderstood. And for nearly everyone, the card has achieved meme status.
If you play The Silent, then you probably have opinions on the card called Snakebite. As it currently functions, Snakebite applies 7 poison and costs 2 energy and is retained at the end of your turn. Given its lack of popularity, I’m guessing most people never see the upgraded version of Snakebite, which applies 10 poison for the same price.
So, why do people hate this card? While Snakebite does dole out a decent amount of poison, the cost is high compared to options like Deadly Poison (five poison for one energy) or Poisoned Stab (six damage and three poison for one energy.) The discrepancy in energy costs saw the community dissing Snakebite almost immediately after Slay the Spire 2 hit early access. And since Mega Crit did not touch the card in the new patch, the discussion burns on.
“Snakebite is one of the worst cards in the game right now, maybe even the worst,” reads one highly-voted Reddit thread posted two weeks ago where Slay the Spire 2 players attempted to rework the card. “It’s not just bad, but it isn’t interesting or fun in any way.”
But the uptick in haters has only really done one thing, and that’s evoke Snakebite defenders. As Twitch streamer Jorbs points out in a video about the card, Snakebite is actually the best, easily-obtainable poison card you can have … in a long fight, against an elite or a boss, during the initial acts. As a proof of concept, here’s one player deleting a third of a boss health bar in a single turn, all thanks to Snakebite. Since these tough fights have Debuff turns, an expensive card like Snakebite can be played without it feeling nearly as wasteful.
“Play it on a turn where you aren’t being attacked and have spare energy, and it’ll deal 20+ damage in those fights for 2 energy quite often,” Jorbs says in the Untappd page for the card. “Playing around with a Retain card is a good way to get a sense of how powerful getting to play your cards on the best turns to play them on can be.”
Players have found other unconventional uses for Snakebite, like fodder for the Flechettes card — which attacks based on the number of Skill cards you have in your hand. Another player argues that, since The Silent has many cards that revolve around Discards, Snakebite makes a good sacrifice while playing things like Tools of the Trade. You pair Snakebite with something like Hand Trick, and suddenly, that costly ‘bad’ card is stacking a ton of ‘free’ damage while you’re playing a Sly deck. The argument is sound, but also hilarious since it suggests that the best way to use Snakebite is to throw it away.
Some people aren’t buying it. “I struggle to think of a fight where I would ever think ‘hmm I wish I had a snakebite here,'” reads one post on 4chan, where hundreds of people once debated the merits of the notorious card. In that thread, some fans argue that the game isn’t always about optimization — it’s about making the best out of what you have. And sometimes, Snakebite might just be the lesser of two evils, especially when you’re first putting together a deck.
But no matter what camp you fall under, Snakebite discussion has become so pervasive some have grown sick of hearing about it. The people who are having the best time, though, aren’t the Snakebite defenders — it’s the jesters.
“The strongest part of Snakebite is the implication that the silent just carries around a snake that she occasionaly uses,” reads one comment on Jorbs’ Snakebite video.
“Snake bite has retain so we can look at the card art for longer, thats why its good,” another reads.