If you have played any Slay the Spire (StS) type game, you are similarly faced with a map in SpellRogue that you move through and encounter battles, treasures, and events. Here are the main things you will see on the maps (you have three maps to beat to get to the final boss):

1. Normal battles (Red Skulls) Rewards are gold, spells, sometimes a potion.

2. Shards (Glowing Blue and Black Rocks) You only will see this event on the first map. You will get 1 shard just by arriving on the icon. Shards are important because they upgrade spells and give you more usable spell slots. By grabbing a shard in your inventory and moving it towards your spells you will see a bar highlighted above the spells that will show the benefits of inserting the shard. Notice also that your two grayed out spell slots have a shard upgrade slot that will let you use more spells which is always a good thing.

3. Elite Battles (Purple Skulls) Rewards are gold, spells, artifacts, and potions, and always reward a Shard. Now one would think, especially one that had played StS, that elites would be much harder fights than a normal red skull fight.
I would say the difficulty depends on your current build strength and if the normal or elite is countering your build in some way. As a general rule of thumb, if you are not at half health or more, then you should avoid elite battles when possible (of course if you want a nice shiny Shard you will have to show them whose boss - decisions, decisions).

4. Events (Signposts). While some of the choices in the events aren’t great, you can usually always choose to leave the event without penalty. Sometimes something really good can happen, so I usually will steer towards these.

5. Shops (Round tents) They sell for gold – spells (price varies for each), potions (20-50 gold), rituals (around 100 gold), artifacts (80+ gold). ** Important** you can leave the shop and see your inventory by clicking on the blue bottles at the top right of the screen. Click them again to get back to the shop. If you select Leave while in the shop, I’m not sure that you can get back in the shop.

6.Temples (Looks like Stone Henge with candles on top) These are very important because this is the easiest and most straightforward way for your character to get health back. The selections are always the same: 20+ health, or +5-7 max health, or pick a new spell.

7. Map Boss - Always at the top of the map. Try to hit shops and events to load up on spells, artifacts, and potions, and do hit a Temple and get your health topped off before facing the boss.

Based on the route you select to the boss, you will either set your character up for success, or you will die and have to start a new game. Take some time before clicking anything on the map and plot a course to take the most beneficial route you can.

You probably are thinking there is nothing to understand about dice – and you would be very wrong. Dice are the engine that run the whole game.

1. More dice! In general, the more dice you can get through rituals, artifacts, spells, the more things your character can do, and the higher likelihood that you can be successful at SpellRogue. Dice should be viewed as spell points. The more spell points the better!

2. Higher Dice! –Higher dice are better because they give more total spell points. Aha you mightthink! Sometimes I need low dice for certain spells! Don’t worry, we will talk about this next in spells.

In SpellRogue, there are different dice requirements to cast spells as explained below:

1. Specific Die Spells - If a spell shows pips of a die at the top of it (for example 3 pips) then only dice that are 3s can be used to cast that spell.

2. Countdown Socket Spells – If a spell has numbers enclosed by stars, for example *3*, this is a countdown socket. You can put any dice into it. If the value of the inserted dice meets, or exceeds 3, then the spell will cast. If you put three 1 die in the countdown socket, it will cast. If you put a six die in the socket it will cast (sorry no change returned). If you want to put a 2 die in there and store it until next turn it is not deleted and will survive until your next turn.

3. Range Sockets – Some spell sockets want only a certain range of dice. For example, you will see spells with 1-3 at the top. This means that the dice with values 1-3 can put in the spell and something will happen. You can’t put 4-6 dice in there because they exceed the range of the socket.

4. Odd or Even Sockets – These aren’t bad to use but usually work best if you have another spell to dump the dice that can’t be used.

5. Double Sockets - Look long and hard at spells that have 2 die sockets side-by-side. These spells require 2 die to do anything, and some require equal die of the same value. In my 25 hours of playing this game, I have yet to consistently use any of these two socket long-shot spells. Yes, I will use them early game when I have excess spell slots, but I always replace these spells as better options become available.

In general Countdown sockets are the easiest to use and let you store unused dice until next turn, range and odd/even sockets are the next easiest to use, and specific die and double die spells can drive you crazy when you can't meet their die requirements to cast their spell.

There are certain “fancy dice” in the game that have many different colors. Their descriptions will sometimes say “persevere until next turn”. Using these dice blew my mind because they would never last another turn. Come to find out that they only last until the next turn if you don’t use them and let them sit there (supposedly a big improvement over normal die that will be deleted if not used).

In general, you always want to use all the dice you get. If you find yourself stuck with nowhere to put leftover dice, it’s time for you to obtain more countdown socket spells.

Personal Note: The only fancy dice that I have found useful so far are manifold dice. They are gold colored dice and will double their value if placed in countdown sockets, but they will be deleted at the end of your turn if not used. I have yet to see all the different fancy dice in the game, so hopefully a few more turn out to be useful.

Shards are a powerful item that unlock additional spell slots and can add additional powerful features to certain spells.

You get your first shard early in the first map, and it’s probably a good idea not to use it right away, This is because you will only have 3 or 4 low level spells which will not gain much from a shard, but you have 2 locked spell slots that will need a shard to open them.

I find 95% of the time I’ll use the first 2 shards to unlock the grayed out spell slots. Even by the time you get your sixth spell, the spells are not high enough to get much advantage from the shard. So first opening all the spell slots is usually the better choice. The more spells you have available, the more choices you have each turn, and that is a good thing.

If you just have to put a shard in a low level spell, you can later Disenchant the spell, destroying the spell, but recovering some gold and the shard. When you get better spell cards and put shards in them, it becomes a bigger risk to destroy one of your better spells to get the shard out. Then again, you can always go pound on an elite and get a new shard if your character is strong enough to do so.

Artifacts (little circular badges that collect at the top of your game screen) are nice because they continuously apply their effects to your character. When choosing to add new artifacts, be aware that some only cast at the start of a battle, some cast every turn, and some come with both good and bad impacts on the same artifact e.g. Good - roll 1 die every turn: Bad - 3 weak applied to your character every turn.

Study the bad impacts of an artifact very closely, as there is no getting rid of them once you own them. It is much better to not choose any artifact than to eat a bad effect that you can’t easily deal with.

Rituals are available in shops for 100 gold and on the board at the gold monolith. They are very powerful spells that don’t use dice and can be cast after they are powered up during a varying number of combat turns.

You are only allowed to have 2 active rituals, and you have no way of storing any more. However, you can always Disenchant a ritual to delete it and get some gold out of it and then replace it with a new ritual. Having 2 active rituals is always a good idea.

Blocking typically only lasts for the turn you are in and 1 block point will block 1 damage point and then disappear. However a debuff that is better than block is applying weak to your enemies. While weak only lasts the turn you are in like block, it is really strong when it can be applied to multiple enemies at once.

For example - If 3 enemies were going to hit you for 5 damage each and do 15 damage, the damage could be negated by a spell that does 5 weak to all enemies. To give you the same amount of protection you would need 15 block (which could require up to 3 block spells to be cast.

Another advantage of the weak debuff is that it acts on base damage. When enemies have multipliers to their base damage 10 base x 2 = 20 damage, casting 5 weak on the enemy would reduce the base damage to 5. So then total damage is 5 x 2 = 10 damage. So you can see how weak can be very powerful.

Weak can be defeated by the enemy buff Ward, but thankfully I have not seen any baddies continually casting Ward on themselves.
I have always used at least one block spell in my group, but you can’t go wrong having an additional group weak spell or an attack spell that can also cast weak.

The only sure ways to get healed are to go to Temples or to defeat level bosses. On rare occasions you can run into healing in events, artifacts, spells, or potions.

The best healing potions I have seen are regeneration potions; you can also find life leech potions that are a one turn use item that gives you half-life back based on the first cast spell damage. As healing items of all kinds are unreliable to obtain, it can be very important to pick a path through a level so that your character has access to temples.

Before you get flinging spells in a fight, hover your mouse over the end turn button and it will show how much damage you character will receive and how much damage will be done to the enemies. This will help you plan how much block and damage mitigation you will need. Also, try to debuff and/or kill the enemy that is going to hit you with the most damage.

Every run you make will be different so it is impossible to give specific spells you should get starting out, but in general you should try to get a die re-rolling spell or die creation spell, 3 or so good offensive spells one of which should be a heavy hitting countdown socket spell, and then some block and other damage mitigating utility spells.

Spells and utility spells that hit more than one enemy are very good as long as they have decent damage, as there are usually multiple enemies in fights. That being said, the quicker you can kill any of the enemies the better off you will be as your character will sustain less damage.

Always try to use all the dice you are given, unless there is some fancy die you just want to use next turn. If any of your dice are getting deleted, it’s time to rethink things.

Rituals become very important as the game goes on, so try to get two rituals going as soon as you can. Artifacts can be powerful but also beware of ones that have negative impacts, as you can’t delete an artifact once you obtain them.

I hope this guide helps you get off to a good start. Best of luck.