Yo this is the best thing I've read all year. I'd basically read anything you have to say about strats for this game -- you're probably the best in the world right now ^_^;. I spent a lot of time coming up with cards & playstyles that I thought would be fun -- it was super exciting to hear that some of them work actually, and even more exciting to hear you describe some that I had never found.
I'm for sure going to find some time to work on this, at least to fix the bugs, this weekend. (and add saving / loading so you don't have to keep the tab open!)
With regards to larger changes, we're tossing a few ideas around over here, but nothing's leapt out as the right way to go just yet. Some thoughts:
* First, it's not out of the question to remove the deckbuilding and replace it with modular skill progression, where you'd pick up a set of 3-5 skills, which would be available at every turn (maybe with cooldown??). I think that still gets at some of the fun roguelike aspects, where early decisions matter for later play. Doubling down on the upgrades could help to make wonkier builds viable or preferred in some runs -- for example, a card/skill that gets good only after it's been upgraded a few times.
This idea is not my favorite, just because I kinda like cards.
* Next, ideas of equipable cards are very interesting. I think this is something we could introduce, for example as an artifact, even if it doesn't become a core component of the game.
* Finally, one balancing lever to pull could be the size of the levels. I don't want to force the player to make a decision at every pack, but it sounds like making the levels smaller could push you to pick up cards before you had enough information to build a perfect setup. I'm really curious to hear what you think about this. Would it work? Would it be too cramping?
Another way to make the levels effectively smaller would be to ramp up the difficulty of the baddies more quickly as the player gets farther from the starting point on each level. This'll be much harder to implement well, but I think it's better overall: you'll be rewarded for careful play in the early game by access to more cards.
lmk what you think!