Phew, took 3 hours and tinkering over 10 games but I finally finished this last challenge I had missing by re-rolling for at least this basic start:

MY STRATEGY

(1) Team: Blue/Red with Little Fade and Torches

(2) Reroll starting team until you get at something with armor imp

(3) Start with “Spikes” hero variant

(4) First battle has “enemies appear on each floor” as the challenge

— restart the game until you get at least this combo above—

(5) On round one, put little fade down and hopefully armor it, torch it and rez it, or both. Hopefully you make it through this as killing at least 10 enemies is enough of a cushion to snowball you into the rest of the game

(6) Pick up holdover and cost 0 on at least one rez card, I went to all spell upgrade stores the entire run as well as trinket shops, no unit upgrade shops.

(7) When possible, save all kills on little fade to keep stacking the spikes by starting or retreating to the top floor and turtling

(8) Choose “draw” crystals

OPTIONAL

(1) Pick up “sacrificial resurrection” to consume all cards in your hard to clear out the deadweights but don’t play the draff so you don’t add it to the rez pool

(2) Start or pick up “resin removal” and permafrost it to clear stealth off the minor bosses. It’s also good for when Fel buffs the statues, or if you run into the now doubly deadly stealth bird boss.

(3) look like for spikes relic or armor per stack relic or 2x summon relic or any draw relics

(4) WARNING: Don’t fall into the trap of buffing “endless” either through relic or unit upgrade shop on an armor imp as it won’t go into your hand until next turn. Rather, upgrade your torches, get imp-ortant work, subsuming blade, crushing demise, or other target friendly unit damage spells to kill and rez them

CONCLUSION

I ended the game with Little Fade at 350 spikes and 200 armor and 26 cards.