Merchant

Merchant

Use this as the shop decision workflow for STS2 runs.

View Mode Rule

Shops are hard.

• Prefer --hard for merchant reads by default.
• Do not rely on --easy for shop decisions unless you are only confirming a single already-settled follow-through.
• Use --full only if the shop surface looks inconsistent or a state/export bug is suspected.

Interpret the modes like this:

• --easy is the execution surface for an already-settled shop line.
• --hard is the planning surface for actually deciding what to buy, skip, remove, or leave behind.

Reason: merchant choices are dense and expensive. They combine gold, path pressure, deck shape, relic text, potion slots, and opportunity cost, so the compact view is usually too lossy for real shop decisions.

Required Reading

Read these before acting:

• /home/igorw/Work/STS2/.agents/skills/merchant/references/heuristics.md
• /home/igorw/Work/STS2/.agents/skills/act-start/references/planning.md
• /home/igorw/Work/STS2/.agents/skills/act-start/references/rewards-and-deck-shape.md
• the current run log under /home/igorw/Work/STS2/vault/runs

If the next node is an elite or boss, also read:

• /home/igorw/Work/STS2/.agents/skills/boss-and-elite-fights/SKILL.md

Workflow

1. Read the full merchant state:
   • gold
   • HP
   • deck snapshot
   • owned relics
   • potion slots, including empties
   • all merchant entries with real descriptions
2. Classify the shop before choosing anything:
   • damage-control shop
   • survival shop
   • forced-elite prep shop
   • boss-prep shop
   • value shop
3. Identify the run's current bottleneck:
   • weak opening hand
   • no block smoothing
   • no scaling
   • no AoE
   • bloated deck
   • empty potion slots before hard fights
4. Spend to solve the real bottleneck, not to maximize raw quantity.
5. After every buy, re-read the merchant state before the next buy if prices, inventory, or route pressure matter.
   • default to re-reading with --hard
6. Before leaving, confirm:
   • gold spent matches the intended line
   • potion slots are used correctly
   • no better remove or potion line was skipped accidentally

Priorities

• Forced hard fight next:
  • value relics that improve setup or consistency immediately
  • removes that sharpen the next shuffle
  • potions if slots are open
  • only buy cards that clearly improve the next fight
• Damage-control shop:
  • assume the route already made a mistake or imposed a tax
  • spend to survive the next few floors, not to preserve gold efficiency
  • fill potion slots aggressively
  • prefer consistency and bailout tools over greedy scaling
• Low-HP shop:
  • prioritize survival and consistency over speculative scaling
• Comfortable shop:
  • prefer one excellent purchase over multiple medium ones

Guardrails

• Do not leave a shop with empty potion slots if the next hard fight can justify filling them.
• Do not buy filler just because gold is available.
• Do not assume a familiar STS1 card or relic is equally strong in STS2; read the live text.
• Respect skip-equivalents in shops too: holding gold can be correct.
• Treat the merchant as a hard-decision surface unless you are only executing an already-settled line.
• If merchant state or post-buy settlement looks inconsistent, stop and fix the exporter or command flow before continuing.

Maintenance

Keep this skill short and practical. Move durable shopping heuristics into the owned references, then tighten this workflow when better shop patterns are discovered.