I've seen some discussions popping up about how difficult Skogdal is compared to other deckbuilders, and I believe this is due to the fact that people are playing it as they would play Slay the Spire. While they share many similarities, the way you manage your hand and your deck is quite different from one game to the other. The two main differences between Slay and Skogdal is that you only draw 1 card each turn in Skogdal versus 5 cards each turn in Slay, but you don't discard your hand at end of turn like you do in Slay the Spire. This means that it takes a lot more turns to see your entire deck in Skogdal versus Slay, but you get to retain your cards across turns and play them exactly when you need them.

Slay presents each TURN of battle as a new puzzle for the player to solve, optimizing damage and block with the energy at hand. Skogdal presents each BATTLE as a new puzzle for the player to solve: how will you utilize the cards in your deck to defeat the challenge at hand while taking as little damage as possible.

As cards only enter your discard pile at your own accord and there is no limit to the size of your hand, you gain a much larger degree of control over what you can do each turn. In addition, if you end up holding your entire deck in your hand, you can often get to do your deck's most powerful turn every turn for the rest of the battle.

Example: Your deck and discard pile is empty, then you play your best damage card and your best block card and pass the turn. Next turn when you should draw a card, those two cards will be shuffled into your deck, you draw one of them, spend one energy to draw the other, and then play them both. You can repeat this each turn until all enemies are dead. The smaller your deck is, the faster you will be able to achieve this, which takes me directly to the next section...

1. Whenever you get the choice of whether to trash a card or draft a card, ALWAYS choose to trash a card. In general you want to trash all the base cards from your deck. I like to alternate trashing punch and block cards first. Sometimes when you're deep in a run and you've trashed all your base cards you won't know what to trash. If you find yourself in this situation try to think of which cards that often sit in your hand without being played. Those cards are good candidates for trashing!

2. Be mindful of your deck composition when drafting. Most of the time your deck only needs a couple of cards that deal damage. Focus instead on defense first and when you feel like both defense and offense are covered, get utility effects that let you stun enemies, gain energy, discard cards or clear negative effects. Many encounters in the game put cards with adverse effects into your hand, and being able to discard these cards can be important. Concussion can be especially dangerous if you have no way of getting rid of it efficiently.

3. Skipping a card reward can be the right choice. You often don't need multiples of the same card, especially if your deck is small, which is what you're going for anyway.

4. Permanent effects are really good. Followers and cards that gain you block at the start of each turn are very good in general.

5. Remember that you only have 3 follower slots, so if you plan to play more than 3 follower cards, draft something that lets you sacrifice followers for an effect. (If that card is Wrestler, remember to not fill all your 3 slots before you play Wrestler.)

1. Try not to take damage. If you are in a position to either block damage or do damage to an enemy you generally want to block the damage. Your health is a scarce resource, and there are few scaling encounters where you want to trade taking damage for dealing it quickly.

2. Try to deploy permanent effects early. Especially followers and effects that give you block at the beginning of each turn.

3. Keep an eye on what the enemies are doing. Some enemies get stunned or give you beneficial cards when you deal them damage, while others increase their strength when you deal damage. Playing around the enemies' abilities becomes increasingly more important the further you progress.

Once you start being very conscious of what to put in your deck and what to remove, you will start seeing better results. I haven't beaten all of the game's challenges yet, but I'm having a blast on Hard Mode with different characters, and exploited at least one infinite combo that becomes available as you unlock more cards.

Good luck!