Both games run two economies side by side: gold, which shops print prices in, and everything else — HP, deck composition, card quality — which events trade in at rates no shop will show you.
Gold in, power out
Gold enters a run from combats (boss kills ~100±5 at A13−), treasure rooms, and event choices; it leaves through shops (cards 50/75/150, relics by tier, potions 50/75/100) and card removal (75 + ramp). Events quote the same purchases in different currency: StS1's event outcomes are dominated by deck effects (33), gold swings (27), and HP losses (22) — an HP-for-power exchange rate no shop will print.
Three ways a deck gets stronger, priced differently
| Way | StS1 | StS2 | Priced in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upgrades | campfires | same, typed vars | time + risk |
| Enchantments | — | runtime slot on a card | acquisition rarity |
| Afflictions/curse | events, A10's AscendersBane | affliction powers | combat mistakes |
StS1 has one axis; StS2 has three. The shop prices only touch the first.
The opening sets the price floor
Neow sells raw power for drawbacks; the Ancients sell pool breadth. Both are the cheapest power in the run — which is why StS2's A2 heal-weakening modifier and StS1's A10 curse attack this screen first.
Where randomness is allowed to matter
Which economy rolls are honest is decided by the RNG architecture: potion drops draw uniformly from the run pool, relic tiers roll per map node, and StS2's unknown-point odds keep most of the map undecided until you arrive. Everything listed above is a verbatim constant; the variance lives only where the designers spent it.