I looked into the time required for a single run, broken down by character

Recommended for readers like this ▼

・People who want to know the rough playtime of Slay the Spire

Hello.

My name is Tegaki no Hito, the administrator of “Slay the Spire Research Lab.”

Today, I’ll be talking about how I looked into Slay the Spire playtime by character.

First, here’s an overview of the data I examined.

Details of playtime data per run ▼

・A total of 20 winning decks for each character (Ascension levels varied)

・Up to Floor 50

・No identical seeds

（・Data that appeared to be from falling asleep mid-run was excluded. Definition of “falling asleep”: a run history with repeated nonsensical picks with no synergy, and a run time exceeding 2 hours.)

※Note: I have memorized the effects of cards, relics, and enemies. These playtimes reflect a run by a somewhat experienced player.

Let’s jump straight to the conclusion.

・Slay the Spire playtime is “at most one hour per run.”

※If you play through the true ending, it takes about an hour and a half.

・The character with the shortest playtime is “Ironclad.”

・Ironclad’s average playtime is about 30 minutes.

（・The other three characters average around 40 minutes per run）

・Playtime likely depends more on the deck archetype you play than on the character.

That’s the conclusion.

Since we’re here, let me share a bit of background on how I reached it.

(If you dislike numerical data, feel free to skip.)

First, take a look at the average playtime.

▼Average playtime per run by character▼

Ironclad	30 minutes 45 seconds
Silent	39 minutes 58 seconds
Defect	42 minutes 49 seconds
Watcher	42 minutes 38 seconds

Looking at the averages, you can see that Ironclad is about 10 minutes faster.

When comparing the longest and shortest runs by character, Ironclad was still the fastest.

When I compared the medians, Ironclad dropped below 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, the medians for the other three characters exceeded 40 minutes.

Clearly, Ironclad has the shortest playtime.

However, when I checked the longest playtimes, something interesting came up.

▼Longest playtime by character▼

Ironclad	55 minutes 06 seconds
Silent	56 minutes 27 seconds
Defect	65 minutes 03 seconds
Watcher	58 minutes 12 seconds

Ironclad’s longest runs are actually quite similar to those of Silent and Watcher.

Of course, Ironclad is still the shortest overall, but it doesn’t seem accurate to say “Ironclad is always the fastest!”

So I took a closer look at Ironclad runs that clearly had long playtimes.

It turned out that all of them were defense-focused decks (Body Slam archetypes).

Likewise, when playing Defect with a Meteor Strike–focused deck, it always took about an hour.

Compared to other archetypes, these clearly take more time.

On the other hand, for Watcher and Silent, there was no clear tendency for playtime to change based on deck archetype.

This may sound obvious, but rather than the character itself, playtime likely changes depending on the deck archetype you choose—that’s what this data analysis made me feel once again.

The end.

◆Beginner-friendly articles (spoiler warning)◆

Is Slay the Spire hard? A beginner’s guide for those who can’t clear it

List of unlockable cards and relics [spoiler warning]

How many acts are there in Slay the Spire? How to unlock each act

◆Tips by character◆

Ironclad tips for getting your first win

Ironclad | Strategy tips & standard deck archetypes

Silent | Strategy tips & standard deck archetypes

Defect | Strategy tips & standard deck archetypes

Watcher | Strategy tips & standard deck archetypes

◆Card power rankings◆