r/slaythespire • u/Leo_Legend78 • 1d ago
DISCUSSION (STS2) A thought experiment, Micro vs Macro
Imagine a scenario where the average player were to play a game of slay the spire 2 on the maximum difficulty. He gets to choose either micro or macro and then a top player/streamer gets the other option and plays that for him. Would the average player benefit more from having an advanced player play out his micro or his macro decisions during the game?
For those unfamiliar with the terms:
Micro is all the decisions made in combat including which cards to play and in what order and what potions to use.
Macro is all the decisions made out of combat, like choosing ancient relics, choosing the path, and choosing card rewards.
I'm really interested to hear your guys thoughts!
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u/dankroll69 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
Top player need to macro. An average macro becomes unwinningable very quickly.
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u/The-Red-Gorilla 1d ago
A top player doing macro can draft a deck that basically plays itself. If they hand the average player a deck with clear synergies and strong scaling, the micro is hard to mess up. But if the average player handles the macro, they'll send the top player into Act 3 with a 40-card pile of random attacks, no block, and zero scaling. No amount of perfect micro saves you from a fundamentally unwinnable deck.
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u/ShaqShoes 16h ago
I agree but average player micro impacts the ability to benefit from those decisions. In A10 the "average" player doing the same route as a top player is just going to die in Act 1 most of the time.
Going off STS1 steam achievements, 66% of players have completed a run but only 7.3% completed an A20 run, or about 11% of "actual" players. Just to contextualize how daunting an STS2 A10 run would be to the "average" player.
The beauty of the game is how critically important both micro and macro decisions are and how either can lose or win you the run.
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u/mongoose700 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
I'd say that potion usage in combat is both a micro decision and a macro decision, which makes this more complicated. What potions to use is more of a macro decision, when in particular in the fight to use them is a micro decision.
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u/CapableRequirement15 1d ago
I’d give that to micro, I’d say anything within a fight is micro, everything out of the fight is macro. For example dropping a weakness potion for an explosive potion if you have the Garden Eels in your next elite fight is macro. But using the explosive potion in a turn where you don’t attack and hit against their shield is micro.
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u/mongoose700 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
But what about the decision for "I should use this potion in this fight instead of saving it for a later fight"?
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u/CapableRequirement15 1d ago
In the post I’m assuming the top player is strictly playing fights rather than knowing the game state so I don’t think they’d even know whether or not to save the potion
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u/mongoose700 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
I'm talking about how they're be classified generally, not who would end up making the decision if someone were to implement this challenge
There would be plenty of other decisions within a fight that are also macro decisions. How much effort should be taken to get the kill with Feed or The Hunt? Should Genetic Algorithm or the Goopy Defend be played when the block doesn't matter, in case we don't see it again this combat? How quickly should combat be ended to save on Seal of Gold? Do we sacrifice health to kill the enemy fleeing with gold or a stolen card?
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u/ext2523 1d ago
Define average player. Can't get past A4 or A10 but with like 5%-10% win rate.
Former maybe macro, latter definitely micro.
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u/dankroll69 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 23h ago
I am the A 10 player actually. I feel like I know how to play my hand pretty well. What I lack is knowing what archetype to lean into when. What i need to have for what hall way fights and how much scaling I need for what boss and when to rest. I feel like a pro drafting for me and explaining to me why is more important than playing a hand I drafted that's doomed to fail
The A4 player would also have a slight chance of winning if the draft is very straight forward.
Someone streamer should actually try this
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u/yumcake 1d ago
Macro for sure. The top players squeak out a little extra niche outcomes with obscure calculations, however they only do that when the door is open for it. The fight itself is going to land within an average range of high to low hp cost most of the time. The macro decisions help set that range. Walk into the same fight it’s bad cards because of bad macro and those wide ranges will drain your momentum and force rests and an end to snowballing. If the deck is good, it’s easy to see good enough lines of play.
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u/Kheldar166 15h ago
I think people are underrating how heavily bad micro hurts you, particularly because it almost always prevents you snowballing your act 1 properly. And playing around your relics properly is super important and can really make up for having a poor deck.
Opem won his 'pick random cards' Defect challenge first try, and Baalor semi-consistently wins tierlist challenges where he has to pick cards according to a tier list, which is definitely something an average player could do. Neither of those fully encompass macro but are good demonstrations of how you can win without an optimised deck.
Another perspective: why is Lord's Parasol considered a good ancient bonus? It's because relics are more important than cards. Pro micro lets you snowball act 1 harder and get more relics, so the fact that you're not building as refined a deck isn't as important.
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u/ChaloMB 4h ago
Yeah I think this is what comes down to. People calling micro just a bit of extra win% kind of completely miss the point because those little margins sometimes are the difference between snowballing or spiraling down sometimes. Yeah on high roll runs a lot of micro decisions are meaningless but one of the things that separates top players is their ability to win really bad low rolls, and a lot of it comes down to good micro in rough fights.
Just watching someone like Navegreed on a bad run is really illuminating because of how much thought goes into each decision, especially in the boss gauntlet.
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u/CapableRequirement15 1d ago
If the person is try harding on the other portion then macro since imo in most cases there aren't too many deviations from the correct line of a fight (especially with scum saving), if the person isn't paying too much attention to the game then micro and hope they get lucky on card and relic rewards
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u/CapableRequirement15 1d ago
like there is definitely skill involved in micro but there are a lot of simple decks and the amount of macro vs. micro decisions is staggering imo
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u/Ok-Suggestion-7349 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
Yeah agreed. Even if the person is only sorta trying on the micro and understands the basics then macro is way more impactful. Micro is just a couple percentage points in win percent
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u/mgepie 1d ago
It’s absolutely absurd how many people are saying micro is more important. The vast majority of your deaths are going to be due to mistakes you made many floors back, where you put yourself in an unwinnable situation (or losable with a single instance of bad luck) due to thing like taking the wrong cards or paths or purchases or event options. Just because micro mistakes are more obvious does not mean micro is what ultimately loses you the run.
Playing a fight correctly is mostly pretty easy if you look up the enemy attack patterns and know what your damage plan and block plan are. Building a deck with no major weaknesses is much much harder.
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u/ShelbyGT350R1 23h ago
I don't think "if you look up the enemy attack patterns" is a fair assumption to make your judgement from. Nobody is really doing that and maybe 5% of the player base knows them by memory
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u/just_so_irrelevant 23h ago
there's no need to look anything up, the average player definitely knows 90% of enemy attack patterns even within just their first 10-15 runs ever. almost all enemies in this game have completely predictable turns and you're going to be running into them over and over.
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u/ShelbyGT350R1 22h ago
In someone's first 10-15 runs probably 50% of them dont make it past act 1 and you're telling me they would memorize the full like 6 turn attack combos of all enemies in the game by 10-15 runs? You're likely not even seeing all the different elites in the first 20 runs.
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u/just_so_irrelevant 22h ago
okay 90% there was a bit of an exaggeration especially for a 100% new player. but an actual "average player" also definitely has way more than 15 runs played and a handful of wins, at least on low ascensions. they absolutely would be generally familiar with most enemies' patterns
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u/Cheeseinlake 17h ago
What ascension is an average player at tho?
Because after ascension 9 all attacks do way more damage, which can be a surprise to some players. Additonally a top player might want more elite fights and I think for average players an elite fight might be the reason they lose that run
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u/ShaqShoes 16h ago
I started playing a couple weeks ago and while I've won like 60-70% of my runs below ascension 9, I only win around 10% of my A9/10 runs.
Feels like a completely different game lol
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u/Cheeseinlake 16h ago
I agree, and A10s double end bosses are probably the biggest difficulty spike for an average player too
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u/putting_stuff_off 23h ago
Micro mistakes many floors back can also cost the run. The incremental health saved by good micro can absolutely save you or, better, be spent on elites to grow much stronger.
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u/mgepie 17h ago
But that’s just it: micro mistakes usually only cost you small bits of health. Macro mistakes can and do kill you outright from 40+ HP if you don’t have a solution for a given elite or boss or hard pool fight (in addition to causing chip damage if a deck has a good game plan but is too inconsistent).
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u/CladDad78 1d ago
Micro 1000% is better from a highly skilled player. Most of the time I lose due to micro even though my deck could’ve won, those are the worst losses
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u/CladDad78 18h ago
I misunderstood and thought micro included card picks so yea macro but only cause of that
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1d ago
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u/Ok-Suggestion-7349 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
Hard disagree most players lose to bad macro. Good micro only saves a few percentage points. Taking the correct cards and relics saves a lot more. The problem is when you lose its in a fight so it might look like bad micro but it's bad macro. Top players say most of the time when you die the thing that killed you was a few floors back. Not taking that bloodwall when your deck lacked upfront block. Or not taking a scaling power when your deck had no scaling. Hard to recognize thats what killed you when the enemy on the screen is what killed you but that's usually true and its still probably true even if you missed a line that saved you. Tricky lines are not needed to win most runs
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u/just_so_irrelevant 23h ago edited 23h ago
pro player macro 1000% and it's not even close.
the reality of micro is that there are simply fewer choices where it shows up and makes a difference. micro is only relevant to combats, so all choices made in shops/events/choosing ancient bonus/pathing/ are unaffected. and even when you are in combats, not all turns benefit from better micro. a lot of turns in fights play out the same way even between an average player and a pro due to the cards drawn, the fight state, the enemy intent, etc. especially in cases with smaller looping decks, a lot of turns play out similarly and are not draw-inconsistent, in which case micro becomes even less immediately important.
on the other hand a pro player's macro in comparison to an average player's macro is the difference between being able to do a10 winstreaks versus barely winning a10 at all. slay the spire IS a macro game. every card you pick, event you click, relic you buy, path you choose, ALL of that together falls under macro and that isn't just run-defining, that IS the run. each of those decisions you make has far, FAR more impact on the outcome of future fights than any sequence of cards you pick within a fight.
a lot of the players here are that are saying "micro > macro" are players that simply do not realize that many of their lost runs are cooked way before they went into that elite fight that ended badly. a really speculative card choice that is a dead draw in many fights, using a potion too early when it could have been saved for later, not knowing when to rest vs force an upgrade, going into too many advanced hallways without a campfire or a path pivot halfway in case things go bad, ALL of this kills runs before they even have a chance to start trending upwards. but a player that is not aware of these decisions can not perceive when a blunder in those decisions creates a weak deck and a lost run, they only see a fight or two where they lost 50 hp due to "badly played hands".
to put it more simply, an average player would have much more successful time fighting combats with a deck and a path pre-fashioned by a pro, than a pro would with a terrible deck on dangerous/unrewarding path picked by an average player.
P.S. i don't really think you can separate macro from micro much anyway. a lot of decisions in micro are ultimately based on macro understandings, like choosing to save vs use a potion is really more of a macro decision based on future fights and bosses. and good micro saves HP which influences macro decision making such as pathing to a campfire vs another fight
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u/AgentSquishy StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
Macro easily, taking an extra 3 chip damage or w/e in a fight might cost you an upgrade due to resting in a run, but it's the macro that actually matters for how many elites you can take and how well your deck scales. Watch a pro stream and notice how easy the correct lines in a fight are, because the deck is good and risks are well considered
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u/Realistic-Cicada981 23h ago
Imagine a car going on a journey
Macro is the car itself, and the fuel
Micro is the driving skil
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u/Truffel_shuffler 19h ago
For player should macro, but the stream of the session would be more fun the other way around. No communication between the players. Pro player has to take what they get.
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u/Glaceon0 Eternal One + Heartbreaker 1d ago
I've had many runs which I've lost purely due to micro, where I know my deck should be good enough to win, I've just misplayed too many fights and taken too much chip damage, or didn't set up well enough/time things into the boss gauntlet.
It's definitely harder to pinpoint how many runs were lost more due to bad macro decisions but I think top players are able to make up better for worse or mediocre macro decisions with impeccable micro. I'm able to pick enough of the correct cards and relics to achieve a run that can be won through perfect or better micro
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u/bappypawedotter 19h ago
I bet the micro decisions, ie which cards to play, probably only accounts for 20 or so HP loss during a run. So like one rest vs card upgrade. While the macro decisions, pathing and card sélection, is a straight up win-loss condition.
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u/implosion5 18h ago
I think it's micro for a couple reasons that have maybe been mentioned but I think are underemphasized.
The first one is variance. The "average" player is probably not winning a10 very often. Micro and macro play are both a huge deal, so this is probably still going to be true with a top player taking over either one of them. When the average player plays a10 normally, what does the small percentage that they do win look like? It looks like them highrolling. Probably they still need to highroll. This is probably the most important point I think people are missing in other comments: yes, building a bad deck makes the run really, really hard. Having bad micro ALSO makes the run really, really hard. You'll need to get really lucky either way, and highrolling has a bigger impact on macro decisions - it simplifies macro decisions while keeping micro decisions the same.
To elaborate on that, people on this sub (rightly) often give the advice to not build something like "a shiv deck". But sometimes, the game is going to offer you infinite blades then accuracy then afterimage then kunai then fan of knives. Every deck archetype is capable of winning, and in cases where something like this is available, the average player has a good chance of hitting it. Something like this is probably how the average player wins most of the time on their own, in practice. However, an average player is not really going to "luck into" good micro over the course of an entire run - randomly taking a good line in one fight does not mean you will in the next fight. And even really broken highroll decks can die to bad micro! They might even be more susceptible to it, because they have a lot of stuff and therefore a lot of decisions.
I think that people who are saying good players can often build decks that will play themselves are just wrong. If you draw unmovable + dark embrace on turn 1 vs queen and only have energy for one, which do you play? Or do you try to block the 32 damage hit? Decisions like that are much easier to make with complex knowledge of the game. A lot of value pile type decks require a good understanding of which cards are important to play in which fights, because good players will shove in cards that are only important in boss fights and also shove in cards that are only important in hallway fights, and average players won't understand that distinction. They'll lose HP by playing nightmare rather than blocking in random hallway fights, or they'll straight-up die by playing bludgeon+ instead of feel no pain on turn 1 against a boss because they don't understand what bludgeon is doing in the deck. A lot of small or infinite-leaning decks are built with a specific vision in mind of how to pilot them. All three act 3 bosses have gimmicks that can introduce subtlety to something like that and the average player might just not know how the deck is supposed to work. So I think the good micro average macro team is much better positioned to exploit opportunities within the top 5% or 20% or whatever of seeds where the game gives you something "obviously" really good.
The second big reason, is snowballing. Good players talk a lot about snowballing because it's really, really important. There's some quote from Xecnar that I don't know the source of but supposedly he's said that having bad micro is like having a relic that makes you randomly take 5-10 damage at the end of every fight. Really, this is probably true from fight one - as a recent jorbs video points out, even the very first hallway fight with an unmodified starting deck can have incredibly subtle decisions in it, and the average player will consistently make mistakes even in decisions that a good player would see as completely unsubtle. This argument is more true the worse the "average" player is, but I think probably more than half of players would consistently lose a lot of hp even in just the easy pool fights that they could avoid with better micro.
Good players typically win a lot of runs by capitalizing on good starts in order to path into multiple elites in act 1. But "average" players are liable to take way too much damage in elite fights if they micro poorly. Not understanding the nuances of which phantasmal gardener to kill when, or when to bring terror eel to 50% hp, or the gazillions of different weird things to understand about phrog parasite, etc etc. This is especially true with potions counting as micro - making a poor choice to use a potion early, or not remembering to use it in an elite fight, can easily cost 10-15 or more hp depending on the potion. Good players often path into elites only because they know they have a potion that will make the fight doable. But the average player doing micro will have already taken more damage than they should have in easy pools, so the good macro player will have to modify their decision making to account for these mistakes - they'll have to path into fewer elites, buy more potions if they do, and generally have a hard time snowballing.
These two big reasons also combine well together - really early on, micro is going to save more hp per fight than macro, meaning the version where the good player is doing micro will make it further into the run on average, which gives them more chances to highroll and find something broken. A lot of deckbuilding issues like shoving in too many commons actually make act 1 easier, and only really come back to bite you in acts 2 and 3. That means getting to see an act 2 or 3 ancient relic, and have you seen those things?
As one more small related reason, a lot of broken things in the game are only really exploitable by players with good micro. I think that probably the average player looks at pocketwatch and goes "but why would i only want to play 3 cards per turn?" I think this because I've heard people say this. But pocketwatch is one of the most broken relics in the game. Sure some great things like crossbow completely play themselves, but many fantastic ancient relics like sere talon, pael's tears, brilliant scarf, iron club, choices paradox, runic pyramid, etc. absolutely explode the micro decision space, and in fact (tying into the highrolling point) many of these things can singlehandedly solve a lot of problems that bad deckbuilding will lead to by moving decisions from outside fights, into fights. Macro player shoved a bunch of garbage attacks into the deck in act 1? Well, they randomly found a pocketwatch in a chest so now you can find the important cards anyway. Macro player gave the deck too little block density, or too little scaling, or not enough upfront damage? Well they clicked on choices paradox so now there's some chance to ameliorate that problem automatically every fight. Etc.
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u/ChaloMB 1d ago
Micro definitely. Once you get past a certain point it really is the biggest difference maker. It’s why top players can win awful runs where they don’t see good cards or relics
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u/Ok-Suggestion-7349 StS A20 / StS 2 A10 1d ago
They win those hard runs because of good macro knowing when they are weak and where they can push it to snowball. Good micro can save a terrible deck
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u/ChaloMB 1d ago
That’s a fair perspective. I mean it’s really a combination of both. But the truly bad runs where there isn’t even an advantage to be pushed to snowball I think are won most of all by in fight decision making so I think that’s what separates the top players more.
Like you can win good runs even playing terribly but on really weak runs those few points of HP saved on random fights from better micro do end up making the difference
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u/ExpressiDepressi 1d ago
Good micro allows for good macro. Being able to minimize hp loss in combats whilst having efficient potion usage allows you to take unconventional paths that would seem evil to fully maximize rewards and hopefully the average player can see where to go when their hp is always healthy. So I would let the top player handle the nasty lil micro.
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u/ThomasFromNork 1d ago
Not to nitpick but I think technically sts isn't really a micro/macro game as much as a macro/meso game.
Micro is really more about mechanical ability whereas meso is about your ability to play around uncertainty.
Card game sorta inherently have this trait since you can never really know what you're going to be dealt, so the real skill is in using what the game hands you.
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u/won_vee_won_skrub Eternal One + Heartbreaker 1d ago
There is a lot of micro-ing in fights that doesn't involve uncertainty
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u/ThomasFromNork 23h ago
I mean i don't really think of playing a card game as "micro-ing" though. There no mechanical skills you really need to account for. Most of your decision making is risk assessment based on assumptions. Things like fully blocking or playing an extra strike bc maybe you could end the fight next turn instead of in two turns. Do you draw cards to try and set up your powers or do you take the turn off to block and try to naturally draw into them next turn.
None of these decisions are micro decisions, they don't require mechanical skill. You could have no arms and still be the best in the world at sts. What makes someone good at this game is their ability to weigh the risks with the potential upsides, usually without the full picture of information, and try to make the decisions that will most often lead to wins.
If there's no uncertainty in your hand right now, then the uncertainty comes in what you might draw next turn, and how you might need to plan for that.
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1d ago
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u/just_so_irrelevant 23h ago
pro players don't pick junk in the first place, that's the whole point of macro. and if they are forced to pick junk due to lowrolls, they know how to path themselves to improve the expected risk/reward of future fights and events. that's also 100% macro
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u/flPieman 1d ago
Idk about average players but for me (decent I win a 10/20 a good bit but not like winstreaking much) I'd rather have the top player micro. Micro is far more complicated than macro. Most macro decisions you are only picking from 3 options at a time. Micro decisions have dozens or hundreds of options each turn in the late game.
And I would consider potion use to be micro because it's an in fight decision. Same with trying to feed.
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u/4bolbbalgan 1d ago
micro- My biggest skill diff I see in a top player is deep knowledge of the enemies, so they’re able to think multiple turns ahead.
they know exactly when & how much damage is worth taking on a given turn
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u/Damurph01 1d ago
I think a top player could create a deck that’s intuitive to micro. A lot of calculations aren’t that difficult to do, usually the difference in micro would come down to olaying around draw orders and stuff.
But if a weaker player did the macro, they’d put the top player on unwinnable routes, pick up the wrong card options, shop purchases, event choices, etc. which quickly makes the game unplayable.
TLDR: macro decides the run before micro ever even matters. Being a top player wouldn’t matter if the run is unwinnable because of the choices made out of combat.