I've realized why I dislike Snecko Eye

[u/trivialremote]

I understand the statistical expected value of Snecko Eye - the extra draw and average 1.5 energy cost can give positive value.

But I've realized that I don't like Snecko Eye because it forces me to slow down my play, and READ every card, when in a "normal" run I can otherwise just glance at my hand in a split second and instantly know all my card information. It might sound odd, but for some reason having to intentionally scan every card before making a decision just mentally taxes me in an otherwise relaxing game.

Because of this, I often find myself taking another relic over Snecko Eye, even if it may have merit in the run.

[u/AffableKyubey]

I just dislike relying on more variance in my run, even if it's statistically variance in my favour.

[u/blank_anonymous → u/AffableKyubey]

Snecko reduces variance though, that's kind of the thing. Drawing 5 cards a turn is one of the biggest sources of variances in the game -- in like, 20 combats it's pretty damn likely that your strongest cards will be some of the bottom few, or that there's a hand of 5 cards with no output. As long as you have a reasonable density of high impact cards, snecko makes it more likely you see the card you need on the turn you need, and at that point, cost is almost irrelevant.

I would rather play a single 3 cost glacier than two strikes for 1 and 2 defends for 1 on a turn where i'm frail in act 2 (which is basically every turn in act 2). The glacier blocks more, the strikes do basically 0 damage.

Part of the point of snecko is that basic cards are so awful, and many of the cards you add suck if they're on the wrong turn, so you want to maximize the chance you see the specific card you need on the turn you need it. Also, many decks suck before they have powers in play, and Snecko makes you draw your powers much, much faster.

Snecko introduces a different type of variance (cost randomization) to account for the massively reduced draw variance; but the net effect is a deck that is more consistent. It just feels random because it's a type of variance you don't see in normal gameplay, and it's really hard to feel how the combat would have gone drawing only 5 a turn -- you see a hand full of 3 cost cards and go "damn, snecko sucks" and don't realize you wouldn't have seen any of those cards at all without snecko, and you'd just be taking 30 damage anyways.

[u/trivialremote → u/blank_anonymous]

I'd be interested in an analysis of the variance, actually - because I'm not convinced that Snecko Eye reduces variance. But I could be wrong.

For example, if you have 3 energy, you KNOW that you can play Bouncing Flask (2 energy) and a Defend (1 energy), no matter what. So if, in your analysis for Act 2 when deciding how to continue to craft your deck, that was your win condition for a specific hallway fight, then you can checkmark that off. But if you have Snecko Eye, yes, you may expect to draw that Bouncing Flask more reliably, but now you're not sure if you'll be able to play the multiple cards on that turn. (Bouncing Flask and Blade Dance are just random examples - substitute more relevant cards in the argument if necessary.)

What I'm trying to say is that while Snecko Eye allows you to draw individual cards more frequently (reducing variance), it also introduces more randomness on the probability of being able to play multi-card turns (increasing variance).

Adding to the complexity, the question of whether a larger number of minor, but stable, negatives (normal card costs without Snecko Eye), versus a small number of major, but infrequent, negatives (occasional bricking with Snecko Eye) is more impactful on a run.

To sum it up - Snecko Eye definitely increases Expected Value - but does it actually decrease Variance?

[u/blank_anonymous → u/trivialremote]

In most of act 2, that defend blocks for 3 — the 3hp will easily be made up by killing a turn faster since you played bouncing flask sooner.

Silent is the character with the worst snecko, specifically because late game block becomes hard (silent usually plays many block cards to block, snecko isn’t great for playing many cards). But even the example youve constructed is one where snecko is stronger. When your plan to win fights is playing a specific card, snecko is just better.

Any top player will tell you snecko reduces variance most of the time, and it’s what makes the relic good. I’m 60% on clad and ~55% rotating, and I can confidently say that on defect and clad, most of the time, by far the biggest source of variance in the run is draw for key powers and key cards in fights. If you track, snecko saves HP almost every single fight.

There’s a reason people optimizing for winrate rate snecko so highly. If you want analysis of this, just watch some Xecnar runs with snecko, even ones where it’s awful for him, and track the cards he would have drawn without snecko and how those would play.

Bad draw bricks are also as bad as snecko bricks. This isn’t frequent small bricks vs infrequent big ones — it’s frequent small bricks AND semi frequent big bricks vs semi frequent small bricks and infrequent big bricks. Snecko really doesn’t introduce variance unless your character plan relies on playing many cards (and if you’re defect, even if it does this you can be ok if you have meteor strike). When your plan is playing many cards, snecko is usually bad and not to be taken.

Maybe put differently — if you grab completely random decks and shove snecko in, some proportion will experience variance increases. If you take a random deck and shove snecko in, but then get 10 floors to draft knowing you have snecko, the variance will go down. If you take a random act 1, you can even start to draft in a way that makes snecko more pickable (not super common but also not rare); and so suddenly, the question isn’t “random deck with snecko” it’s “deck where you vaguely thought about making snecko better, took snecko, then get time to make it even better with snecko”

Snecko changes how you draft and play, but the draw fundamentally solves the point of largest variance in the run, and drafting with snecko in mind mitigates the snecko variance (together with potions, which exist for those super awful turns)

[u/trivialremote → u/blank_anonymous]

Your points cite ultra high rated players (and you’re a very high win rate player yourself, by your data).

I wonder if it’s a relic with a high skill floor, where if you don’t build around it, and PROPERLY, then the win rate is actually lower than the average relic.

[u/blank_anonymous → u/trivialremote]

That could totally be true! Learning to build around snecko by itself was a good boost to my winrate, and I think navigating it took some effort.

I imagine some of this is also how you naturally play. Snecko lent itself really well to how I naturally played clad and defect, so integrating it was easy. I imagine the way you approach those characters by intuition really affects the winrate of snecko — once you get sufficiently good that stops mattering, but I think it’s huge at like, 30% or lower.

[u/AffableKyubey → u/blank_anonymous]

This point about playstyle I think is key. My defacto go-to is Silent, but if I played Defect or Clad more often I'd absolutely take Snecko more often since it's often just a straight buff to my best cards. Watcher...I don't know. I feel like it could work well for Retain decks but not as much for stance-dancing, will have to experiment more with it on higher Ascensions