A Beginner’s Guide to Beating the Heart [Ironclad Edition]

Basic Strategy for the Heart

The core Heart strategy shared by all characters is:

• Be able to consistently generate at least 30 Block within the first 3 turns

• Prepare a high-damage attack as early as possible (timing depends on the deck)

The Corrupt Heart gains Strength every fixed number of turns.

The longer the fight goes on, the more absurd its damage becomes—small chip damage won’t win the fight.
Strength +50 is literal hell.

You need to deal massive damage in a short window.

On turn 2, the Heart will either perform a 12-hit multi-attack or a single massive hit.

For this second-turn attack, it’s usually correct to just take the hit—even if your HP drops heavily.

Use that window to set up a state where you can either block every turn or deal overwhelming damage.

Next, let’s look at Ironclad-specific tips.

Ironclad Heart Fight Tips

When fighting the Heart as Ironclad, keeping the following in mind will greatly increase your chances:

• Have a way to generate around 20 Block per turn
(Winning by pure attack spam alone is unreliable.)

→ Use a Block-focused Body Slam deck or leverage Feel No Pain.

• Maintain Weak on the Heart at all times

• Aim to finish the fight within 7 turns
(About 100 damage per turn on average)

Ironclad usually excels at “all-out damage, no defense” playstyles.

Up to the Act 3 boss, you can often clear without Block cards—but the Heart deals ~50 damage per turn even early on, making Block mandatory.

Concretely, the most reliable approaches are:

• Build a Block-focused deck using Body Slam

• Generate Block automatically using Feel No Pain and Exhaust cards

Surviving past turn 8 is unrealistic, so you should aim to defeat the Heart by turn 7 at the latest.

Maintaining Weak is effectively the biggest damage reduction in the fight.

If you see Paper Frog in a shop, strongly consider buying it.

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Next, let’s introduce three concrete deck examples:

• Beginner-friendly “Body Slam Deck”

• High win-rate “Exhaust Deck”

• Overpowered relic build: “Snecko Eye Deck”

Beginner-Friendly “Body Slam” Deck

The most beginner-friendly Heart deck archetype.

Stack 100+ Block and convert it directly into damage using Body Slam.

The game plan is simple:
“Stack Block → Attack with Body Slam.”

Since you mostly pick Block cards and Body Slam, decision-making during picks is straightforward.

However, the key cards Barricade (card) and Calipers (relic) are rare, making the deck harder to assemble.

Even without these, you can still play a Body Slam deck using Entrench to double your Block.

However, Entrench alone may not generate enough Block for the Heart, requiring additional damage scaling such as Strength.

Firepower scaling options include using Strength, etc.

Deck Example 1▼

Maintain Block created by Shrug It Off / Impervious / Flame Barrier, etc. using Barricade.
When Body Slam appears in hand, attack.

By doubling Block with Entrench, this deck can reach over 300 damage in a single hit by turn 6.

Damage scaling comes from Double Tap (play an Attack twice) and Weak-related cards (Shockwave / Uppercut).

To reduce incoming damage, pick up Lariat to apply Weak (and reduce enemy damage output).

Deck Example 2▼

A Body Slam deck with no Barricade—Entrench only.

Generate Block using Shrug It Off / Ghostly Armor / Impervious / Flame Barrier, then double it with Entrench and attack with Body Slam.

To keep Body Slam accessible, manipulate your hand using Headbutt / Battle Trance / Pommel Strike.

Demon Form for Strength scaling, Double Tap for double attacks, and Paper Frog to amplify Weak effects—these help compensate for insufficient damage.

To draw a lot of cards, look for openings in the enemy’s attack pattern and use Berserk to gain extra Energy.

“Exhaust” Deck for Players Comfortable with Ironclad

This archetype abuses cards that say “When Exhausted, do X,” and revolves around exhausting cards repeatedly.

The key card is Feel No Pain, which grants Block just by exhausting cards.

A powerful ally for Ironclad, who tends to struggle with blocking.

Also, if you can assemble the infamous Corruption + Dead Branch combo—so strong that even the developers called it overpowered (external link: Nintendo’s official “Hello! Indie”)—you can completely dominate.

Benefits of Corruption + Dead Branch▼

Play Skill cards while Corruption is active
→ Skills are Exhausted
→ Dead Branch adds a new card to your hand
→ If the new card is another Skill, you can keep chaining into more cards

“It’s always my turn!”

Of course, if Dead Branch gives you Attacks, your turn ends.

But if your deck is packed with Skills and Exhaust cards, you can keep playing for a very long time.

It’s somewhat RNG-dependent, but it creates a unique, adrenaline-fueled “brain-melting” run—highly recommended.
Beating the Heart also becomes much easier.

※Update※

A “weaker Dead Branch” alternative is Nilry’s Codex, obtainable from ?-node events. If you pick Corruption, it’s worth considering.