Want to defeat the last boss in Deck of Ashes without using a single card? This guide can help you defeat the Martyr difficulty with very high consistency. We will go over how to construct the strongest Pyromancer deck and help you with card evaluations. Deck of Ashes has a large amount of randomness in it, between what cards are available for sale, in chests, and when the Ash Winds blow so the game isn't as simple as playing the same cards every time. This guide will help you prioritize which cards you pick and provide a walk through of how to build out your town, spend your resources, and defeat Lady Death herself! As this game is still in Early Access, expect changes and updates and if you see something has changed, let me know!

-Selanius

(This guide will contain Spoilers)

Deck of Ashes is a rogue-like deck builder where you explore a dark world trying to gain enough power to defeat Lady Death. It will take you through 3 worlds each of which has a potential of 2 different bosses, different maps, with different cards and monsters to gather and fight. With all these random elements how can someone consistently beat the game flawlessly on the hardest difficulty?

The answer is all about reducing the random elements you can control and having a strategy that helps with this. This walk through concerns the only class playable at the time of writing, the Pyromancer. There are several different strategies that are available to this class including ones that focus on burning their enemies slowly over time, using their own life as a resource, and cards that never go to your ash pile. I've found these other decks not as strong as the one we are going to breakdown in the guide: Discard-Scrolls. Discard-Scrolls tries to limit the random chance in DoA by caring less about what is drawn, and instead caring about what is in your deck of ashes or as some might call it "discard pile". Commonly available scrolls produce effects each time a card is discarded to the ash deck that can kill creatures outright. It is possible to kill monsters without even playing any cards once the deck gets rolling just by discarding a Sacrificial Chalice, but more on that later. Let's start at the beginning.

In each game of Deck of Ashes, when you start as the Pyromancer, you will begin with the same deck.

Fireball x5














Burning Torch x1














Healing Balm x1














Liquid Fire x1














These cards are pretty bad in the deck later, so you will end up not spending your hard earned renews on them if they cost you. Healing Balm and Burning Torch count as Neutral cards so when you pick up the ability to renew them for free they will often be included in your deck simply as fodder to discard. At the start though your deck will play roughly the same. You will want to focus on spending all of your mana each turn. Usually this consists of casting a Fireball and either a Burning Torch or Healing Balm+Liquid Fire. You will want to discard extra Fireballs because you will only be able to cast one in any turn. Discarding the extra Fireballs increases your chances or drawing a combination of cards that adds up to exactly 5.

You will wander the world fighting battles and learning how to play. One of the most important things about our strategy is to not buy or craft any cards that don't fit our strategy. The cards that are generated by Ash Winds, Treasure Chests, and the Merchant are more likely to be cards that you have previously purchased and crafted so if you buy cards that don't fit the strategy not only are you wasting valuable gold or ash, but you are reducing your chances of the game generating a card we actually want for the deck.

Now that you understand the basics lets move on to goals for the first realm.

In the early game you will want to roam around the map trying to avoid backtracking as much as possible. The game give you a very tight timer to explore the whole thing before the boss comes for you. You will want to look for resources whenever you can without doubling back, there are two exceptions: Ash Wind and Returning to Camp for new stock.

Ash Wind
When the Ash Wind blows you will have the option to walk onto a place on the map where there can be as many as 5 different options (1 Ash and 4 cards) if you are in a central location or as few as 1 possibility if you are in a corner. Ash Wind is incredibly important for our deck as you will have great choices between common cards to pick up for your deck. If a highly rated (see below) card appears you will want to stop what you are doing and go straight for it without stopping to harvest resources. If none of the cards are good for the deck then taking the ash is usually the correct choice.

Returning to Camp
Every 24 hours the Merchant and Herbalist will replenish their stock. This is very important to maximize your choices and get the best cards for your deck. You will want to keep track of what hour it is and when it gets to hour 22 you will want to return to camp if you haven't browsed the merchant's wares. The only exception is if you don't have any gold, but you should have plenty.

Building the Camp: Spending Resources

Blacksmith: Trait- Sacrificial Chalice
For Discard-Scrolls to function there are two abilities you need to purchase in camp as soon as possible. The most important is the ability to buy traits from the Blacksmith. This takes 12 ore so it is possible you will find him wandering around as a random event before you have the chance to purchase it from him. If this happens you can spend your ore on cheaper/better chests instead but getting the Sacrificial Chalice trait for 150 gold is the single most important thing for this deck. It simply won't be good without the trait so prioritize it. I try to always have 150 gold on me unspent in the early game just in case I run into the blacksmith while exploring the map.

Ash Master: Renew Neutral for Free
The second ability that is critical for this deck is the 5 Relic purchase from the Ash Master to reduce the cost to renew neutral cards at camp to 0. This deck burns through a LOT of cards in combat so having literal "cards to burn" while killing monsters is important. Cards like Unholy Tome, Occultists Pauldrons, Champions Pauldrons but also the starting cards of Healing Balm and Blazing Torch all make great cards to discard to Cindering Ring and Unholy Tome that can be refreshed for free with this ability. It makes it where the actual cards spent in a combat might only be 3-4 giving you the ability to heal or even create new random plans (the next ability in this line from the Ash Master). Getting this ability ASAP will make your life much easier.

These two are mandatory for the deck, I usually rush stat increasing items from the herbalist and increase recipes to 12 from the merchant because these lead to the most powerful character and deck, but you have some flexibility in these.

Now that you know what you should be doing with the map, town, and how to acquire cards lets talk about the actual deck!

Building the Actual Deck














































Now we get to the meat of the guide! These cards are going to be what allows you to crush your foes and laugh at death herself while you sit back and drink lemonade without the need to bother actually playing anything as your deck kills her by itself.

Early Game Card Selection
In the early game you will need to include a few cards that won't be amazing in the late game in your deck. Specifically:















Pure Fire
Pure Fire is just amazing in the early game. It has very high damage output doing more than Fireball for the same cost as long as the target isn't already Burning. This card is pretty much mandatory to get through the early game so even though it doesn't really fit our overall strategy don't worry about including it.
GRADE: Early A, Late C

Primordial Fire
Primordial Fire is not as much of a no brainer. It might seem like it fits our strategy really well, but the random element of the discard can be a bit of a pain. Even worse it renews a card from the Ash Deck which can have some very negative synergies with the scrolls we want to keep in there in the later game. In the early game, it can be pretty strong to get more use out of your most powerful cards (Pure Fire) so I don't hate including it but I wouldn't go out of my way to add it to my deck.
GRADE: Early B-, Late D

In addition to cards that we play to stay alive through the start of the game, there are two parts of the deck: the cards that allow you to Discard from your hand and the cards that produce an effect when they are in the Ash Deck. This chapter will cover the "discards".

Discards
Cards that allow you to discard from your hand are critical for two reasons, firstly cards like Scroll of Incineration and Scroll of Energy only cause an effect to happen when something is discarded. Secondly, it is the best way to get your scrolls into the Ash Deck.

Book of Ashes (Rare, Bonus Card)















Book of Ashes is going to be a bit more rare than some of the options presented here, not only is it harder to get because it will only appear in "2 key gold" chests, and won't appear with Ash Wind or with the Merchant excepting certain upgrades that you don't get until very late, but it also requires you to have unlocked it. I'm mostly including it on the off chance you see it on other play throughs you know it can work in the deck.

Book of Ashes is excellent when your advancing to a new level and all your scrolls have been put back into your deck. By drawing a bunch of cards when your hand size is only 10 you are very likely going to put a few scrolls into your ash deck. Any critical cards that get binned can be renewed after the fight. This card also allows you to dig for Lesser Sacrifice which will allow you to dump your entire hand to get the scrolls out ASAP. In the early game, Book isn't as good because it is very expensive in terms of renew actions to use and will often result in your deck being borderline unplayable because it is so small. Its a good card recipe to pick up, but I'd hold off on actually crafting it until the start of level 2 or 3.
GRADE: Early C-, Late B-

Cindering Ring















Cindering Ring is your bread and butter discard in the early game. It does more damage than Fireball for less mana while also fixing your deck to put scrolls into the Ash Deck. In the late game discard fodder cards, especially Neutral cards, Ash Wind, or Sacrificial Skulls into the Ash Deck, the effect you will get from triggering your scrolls is often incredible and you can refresh the Neutral cards for free in between fights so its no loss. You don't want too many of these before you get Sacrificial Chalice or the ability to refresh Neutral Cards for free from the Ash Master, but its still a cornerstone of the deck in the early game. This card falls off hard in the late game, but is still outstanding early.
GRADE: Early A-, Late C

Greater Sacrifice(Legendary, Bonus Card)















Greater Sacrifice is hard to get being both a Legendary and a Bonus Card. Despite how difficult it is to acquire, I've found it to be pretty below average in this deck. Unless you are just starting a level and want to bin your entire deck you usually want the cards in your main deck to remain in your main deck and the cards in the Ash Deck to stay there. This card messes with that balance. The one saving grace of this card is that it is pretty amazing on boss fights. Casting this card will almost always result in a dead boss due to the insane damage that it does and you don't need to deal with the consequences of getting your deck back together. Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend this unless you're having boss trouble.
GRADE: Early D-, Late C+

Lesser Sacrifice















Lesser Sacrifice is simply unfair in the late game once the deck gets rolling. Remember each card that is discarded from it triggers all of your scrolls. So if you have 4 Scrolls of Incineration that do 5 damage each in your Ash deck and you discard your hand of 6 cards with Lesser Sacrifice you will do 120 damage from the scrolls and 30 damage from Lesser Sacrifice resulting in 150 damage. Even better this damage is dealt in 5 damage bursts so it can take out 3 or 4 different monsters. You can one-shot bosses in level 2 and level 3 with this card depending on what sort of scrolls are in the Ash Deck. Even when your deck isn't totally set up for broken combos, this card is good at putting cards in the Ash Deck and dealing a lot of damage. The only warning I'd give on this card is to not have too many early as it can run into problems similar to Book of Ashes.
GRADE: Early B+, Late A+

Unholy Tome
















Unholy Tome is a deceptively good card in this card. It allows you to dig through your deck to find whatever you need be it a damage effect like Reduce to Ashes, a pesky scroll that is just hanging around in the deck, or the powerful "one shot machine" Lesser Sacrifice. Remember each card that is discarded from Unholy Tome triggers all of your scrolls. Just like with Cindering Ring, in the late game don't be afraid to put "real" cards, especially Neutral cards, Ash Wind, or Sacrificial Skulls into the Ash Deck, the effect you will get from triggering your scrolls is often incredible and you can refresh the Neutral cards for free in between fights so its no loss. Unholy Tome is better in the late game than Cindering Ring because it can be renewed for free as a Neutral Card and card selection is more important than 12 damage. Both cards are very good though.
GRADE: Early A-, Late A

Now that you know what cards to use to get Scrolls into the Ash Deck we need actual scrolls to put there. When building the deck try to have a good balance between Discards and Scrolls. If you have all Scrolls but no Discards your deck will be very bad, and if you have all Discards but no scrolls your deck will be very expensive in terms of actions at camp to maintain. Balance is key.

Scroll of Energy















Scroll of Energy is an incredibly powerful effect that will make you an immortal god. If you get enough of these with Sacrificial Chalice, it can often be correct to sit around in a fight just passing the turn because you are gaining more health than the monsters can deal to you. They will also make it where you will very rarely need to regain health in camp, which is good because this deck requires you to renew a lot of cards. This is a cornerstone of the deck, so prioritize this quite high. Unlike the Scroll of Supremacy it scales well into the late game.
GRADE: Early A, Late A

Scroll of Incineration















If Scroll of Energy makes you immortal, Scroll of Incineration gives you the ability to smite your foes with a flick of your wrist. Don't let its rarity fool you. This is the most powerful scroll in the game. It is better in the late game than Scroll of Supremacy, because it triggers off each card that is discarded rather than "just" once per turn. You can often engineer hands that contain 10 cards so discarding them all to Lesser Sacrifice will result in 45 damage PER Scroll of Energy in your Ash Deck. Needless to say if you have 3 or 4 of these that kills almost anything. Using these with Unholy Tome while you look for a good card can often result in killing your foes before you even get to what you were looking for in the first place.
GRADE: Early A, Late A+

Scroll of Supremacy
















This scroll is excellent in the early game before your deck really gets up and running. It doesn't require constant discards to be effective like the above two scrolls so before you have Chalice of Sacrifice and a discard engine together this card gets a lot of work done. In the late game it falls off quite a bit, but you will need it as a stepping stone to greatness.
GRADE: Early A+, Late B

Black Grimoire Page (Rare)















I only include this card because it is a trap. As the game doesn't allow you to see what the Black Grimoire does before you go through all the effort to create it. Sadly, the amount of work it takes to get FIVE of these is not nearly worth the payoff of the Grimoire itself. It lets you swap your Ash Deck with your Main Deck, which might sound good until you realize this functionally puts all your scrolls into the part that you draw and all your business cards into your Ash Deck where they can't do anything. I'm sure there is some sort of sick combo I'm missing with this, but you get it so late in the game its better to avoid these all together.
GRADE: Early F, Late F

Inferno (Legendary)















Look, if you can actually get the 666 Ash to craft this it is AMAZING. The problem is, saving that much ash makes the rest of your deck trash. If you have the Megamodifier Ash Lord that lets you craft cards for 0 ash then these should be picked up, other than that its a trap like Black Grimoire Pages.
Grade: Early F, Late F (If Ash Lord: A++)

Scroll of Combustion (Legendary)















Unlike some of the other legendary options, this scroll is actually great. It requires a bit of thought to your playstyle, but ultimately it plays well with the style of the deck. It can often make the best move on your turn to be "nothing" while you wait for your Sacrificial Chalice to clock the bad guys for hundreds of damage or to build up for a HUGE lesser sacrifice where your Scrolls of Incineration will get a huge boost. It increases the damage that Scroll of Supremacy does at the end of the turn so it combos especially well with either that or Scroll of Incineration. Ultimately, this card adds a huge amount of utility to your other scrolls and should go in any deck where you can get it.
GRADE: Early B, Late A-

Scroll of Fiery Soul (Legendary)















This scroll becomes much better if your deck has a lot of Pure Fire from your early game exploits. It also scales exponentially with Scroll of Ignition and a lot of Critical Strike chance item purchases from the Herbalist. If your deck has these cards this scroll may be a good option. Generally, you are better off with more Scrolls of Incineration/Energy though.
GRADE: Early C-, Late B-

Scroll of Ignition (Legendary)















This scroll has a few awkward interactions with Pure Fire in that a random crit can reduce your effectiveness, but as long as you cast your cards in the right order it isn't too bad. It also scales exponentially with Scroll of Fiery Soul and a lot of Critical Strike chance item purchases from the Herbalist. If your deck has these cards this scroll may be a good option. Generally, you are better off with more Scrolls of Incineration/Energy though.
GRADE: Early C, Late B-

Scroll of Purification (Rare)















Unless you have a lot of the two above scrolls plus a lot of Pure Fire, this scroll has a pretty weak effect. That isn't to say you shouldn't include it if you are rolling in extra ash and happen to have the ability to pick one up, but it is going to be the worst of the playable scrolls in most cases. It only triggers on application of the initial burn NOT each time the burn triggers (otherwise it would be sweet).
GRADE: Early D-, Late D+

Scroll of Reincarnation (Legendary)















Unlike the above scrolls that are good to add to your deck if there wasn't an opportunity cost, this scroll makes your deck worse most of the time. Taking scrolls out of your Ash Deck and putting them into the Main Deck where they don't do anything is not what we want. This card being Legendary means you won't have access to it until the late game when your deck has lots of scrolls in the Ash Deck so your %s to hit something you want returned are generally pretty bad. There might be a deck that wants this card, but it isn't ours.
GRADE: Early D-, Late F

Next up we'll talk about the final section of the deck Fodder and Damage Spells for the deck.

Fodder cards aren't needed for the deck to function, you can see that reflected in their grades compared to the rest of the guide. They do make the deck run a little more smoothly, and if you have a choice between a fodder card and something you are just going to sell to the merchant they can sometimes be worth picking up just to make the deck run a little better.

Ash Wind (Common Unlockable)

I don't own this card yet, but I'd imagine it serves the same function as Sacrificial Skull just not quite as well. It does do damage to everything which is pretty nice and on certain annoying boss fights that mess with your Ash Deck it will do damage as it bounces back and forth. Ultimately, I expect this card will make the deck.
GRADE: Early C-, Late C+

Champion Paulderons















This card can search for a Scroll to discard if you search for 0 as nothing else besides Pauldrons will cost 0 or a "business" card @2. It can also be discarded to your discards and renewed for free at camp because it is a neutral card. These sort of card drawing neutral cards provide a lot of fodder for your deck to help balance bosses like the Crossroads Keeper who will mess with your Deck of Ashes. Be careful about taking this too early as it can clog up important spots that other more important cards could take.
GRADE: Early C+, Late B-

Occultist Pauldrons















Same deal as Champions Pauldrons in functionality, except this card is actually reasonable in the late game because you will have removed your fireballs from the main deck and this can search for Lesser Sacrifice which is basically an "I Win" button in the late game. It can also be discarded to your discards and renewed for free at camp because it is a neutral card. These sort of card drawing neutral cards provide a lot of fodder for your deck to help balance bosses like the Crossroads Keeper who will mess with your Deck of Ashes. Be careful about taking this too early as it can clog up important spots that other more important cards could take.
GRADE: Early C+, Late B

Sacrificial Skull (Common Unlockable)















Awesome fodder does damage on way to Ash Deck, castable for 1 in a pinch, the more you have the better obviously, only problem is it isn't "neutral" so it costs actions to refresh at camp. This is actually a pretty big downside in the late game so be careful on loading up on these. Hitting your foes for 5+ damage off only 1 mana is pretty good for a regular deck, this isn't a regular deck though so it can often be outclassed by other things. It does its job though.
GRADE: Early C+, Late B- (High multiples B+)

Flat damage is needed to get you through the middle game before you are a lean mean killing machine, the better your deck is the less of these cards you will need, but don't be afraid to take them if you need to. They are still "fine" in the end game.

Sloth Potion

This potion restores a bit of health in the early game and gives you the ability to have a very stacked Deck of Ashes. Because you won't ever be doing a full refresh with the deck for the most part when cards go to your Deck of Ashes they will stay there. Sloth Potion generates "free" cards for you that power your Reduce to Ashes. It has a pretty big downside on the Crossroads Keeper, but you can often avoid consequences by just one shotting him with your huge Deck of Ashes and either Refuce to Ashes or a Lesser Sacrifice.
GRADE: Early C+, Late B

Wide Holster
Potion of Dexterity

These cards both function much in the same way as the Pauldrons from above. Their primary function will be to keep your hand stocked with options and to power a huge Lesser Sacrifice or as discard fodder.
GRADE: Early C+, Late B- (Potion of Dexterity is currently bugged to not require you to put cards back while it is in this state it gets an A rating)

Ash Sphere (Rare)















Not quite as good as it looks, the problem is your deck often wants to cycle through cards quickly and this can clog your hand not really being worth the cast @ 3, but if it sits in your hand awhile I've had it do over 100 damage so I guess its fine. It mostly feels like a "win more" card.
GRADE: Early C-, Late C+

Reduce to Ashes















Great card for the "midgame" when your deck doesn't have enough Scrolls to pass turn its way to victory, but still will often have 10+ cards in the Ash Deck at all times. Even in the late game it will often do a solid ~30 damage for 2 mana which is nothing to sneeze at. Its not the best in the very early game, but if it is doing 5 damage it is at least comparable to Blazing Torch.
GRADE: Early C, Middle A, Late B+ (Late game goes up to A if you are using Potion of Sloth)

Coming Soon!

(Hopefully with Video Support)

Until then, thanks for reading I hope you found the guide helpful to beating Martyr!

-Selanius

Coming Soon

Thanks to Incendius for guide review and some suggestions for addition.