Slay the Spire 2 is a 2026 sequel to Slay the Spire, a deck-building roguelike where you fight through waves of monsters as you ascend the spire seeking for freedom. You start with a simple starter deck, usually focused on basic attacks and blocks. As you progress, you improve your deck with better cards and more synergy to be better equipped to defeat more difficult monsters.
In addition to the trio of Ironclad, Silent and Defect from the original game, this sequel introduces two new characters: Regent and Necrobinder but because I love the Silent, I have not even tried them out yet.
Based on my early experiences of the release weekend, this game feels more difficult than the first one. I was not great at the first one either but regularly getting quite high in the Act 3 around Ascension levels 12-14. In this game, I still haven’t beat the Act 3 boss once. In my opinion, the enemies have more devious debuffs, they scale their aggression faster (even in the early stages) and the characters and their cards haven’t been buffed quite to the same level.
Next up is s a bit of a spoiler section about Silent’s new cards & changes to the old cards. If you want to skip spoilers, come back after you’ve played a few rounds.
There are a couple of new cards for the Silent that I’m such a massive fan of. My favourite way of playing the Silent is the Shiv build rather than discard or poison build (of the main build types) and while they debuffed Blade Dance (Add 3 Shivs to your hand) by adding an Exhaust (Removed until the end of combat) to it, some of the new cards more than make up for it.
The first time I saw Up My Sleeve, I was so excited. It starts off as a +1 energy cost Blade Dance (compared to Blade Dance from the first game) but on the second use, it’s the same and after that it becomes free. Holy moley, I love it. Especially since there’s a quite a few synergies to make it never cost 2 to begin with.
And then, I got my first Knife Trap.
Before I talk about that card, let me tell you something about my emotional journey up and until the release of the game. I absolutely loved Slay the Spire. So much so that I was genuinely worried that the sequel would not live up to my expecations because that so rarely happens. I was worried that they’d take away some of the stuff I really liked and it would feel meh to me. Especially with the Silent Shiv builds because it’s my favourite way to play the game.
And then, I got my first Knife Trap.
That was the moment when I knew I’ll love this game too. It’s a wonderful card. So freaking cool. It brings a new level of synergy to the Shiv build and one that can become extremely powerful in the late game. One major downside of Shiv builds in the original game was that when you faced Time Eater as the Act 3 boss, it would be really hard to beat.
Time Eater has the ability Time Warp that reads:
Whenever you play a certain number of cards, ends your turn and gains X Strength.
Most of the Ascension levels I believe that number to be 10. Maybe it changes at some point, I’m not sure. But a Shiv build is usually built around playing a ton of small damage Shivs and cards that give you Shivs. I’m not sure if I have ever managed to beat it with a Shiv build for that reason.
The first thought I had when I saw Knife Trap was: “Damn, I would have loved to have this against Time Eater.”
And when your favourite build gets a card that is great for the most annoying combination in your earlier playthroughs, you just gotta love it.
The third new card that made me go YAY is Fan of Knives. Making every Shiv hit every opponent? Yes f’n please.
These two cards made me go ecstatic about this game and lose all my worries about whether it’ll match my expectations or not. I played one run with Ironclad, unlocked Silent and have been just learning new Shiv strategies ever since. Eventually, I’ll get bored and try the other characters but so far I’m loving this game.
10/10.
And it’s not even its final form! It’s only in Early Access and has been for a couple of days at the time of writing.
Other people’s opinions of the game
- Steve at Frostilyte Writes wrote about how he wishes the game would have borrowed better and more varied starts to runs from games like StarVaders, Monster Train 2 and Wildfrost
Spire Log
These are the adventures of brave adventurers attempting to climb the spire.
March 9th, 2026: We got so close
Right before this actual run, I had what I believed to be so close to winning. I got two upgraded Accuracy (Shivs deal 6 additional damage.) and a good bunch of Shiv cards. But the Bureaucracy Owl beat me right before I got to the Act 3 boss.
And then I had a run that didn’t start particularly hot. I got zero Accuracy during the entire run. And yet, I managed to get to Act 3 boss rather comfortably. My boss was Test SubjectC8, a dog with one, two and three heads.
I was so freaking close. So close to my first Ascension that it hurts.
I got it down to 92 health. I had a Gold Axe (Deal damage equal to the number of cards played this combat) worth of 88 damage and a relic that dealt 20 damage to all enemies at the end of the turn if I finish with zero cards in hand.
I could taste the victory.
I played the card. It took 1 point of damage. It had Intangible (Reduce ALL damage and HP loss you take to 1.). It hit me with 47 damage and took me out. I was so close.
Time to return to Neow and try again.
March 11th, 2026: Silent has made it to the top?
Victory! I finally reached my first win with The Silent with a massive Shiv spam deck. 16(!!) Blade Dances (Add three Shivs into your hand), two Knife Traps (Play every Shiv in your discard pile on the enemy), two Accuracys (Shivs deal 4 extra damage) and Helical Dart (Whenever you play a Shiv, gain 1 Dexterity this turn.).
I faced Door and Doormaker as the Act 3 boss for the first time and it’s terrifying trying to strategise against something you don’t know what it, what it does and how it evolves. But my deck was way too good for it, didn’t even break a sweat.
I got so many first-time relics in this run. Helical Dart that gives 1 Dexterity (Each point of Dexterity gives +1 Block per card.) for each Shiv played for that turn combined with easily playing 8-16 Shivs per turn was great. But in the end, I barely even needed the Dexterity bonus. With Ornamental Fan (Every time you play 3 Attacks in a single turn, gain 4 Block.), I was able to get good amount of free block just from attacking.
And Knife Trap became such a menace in this deck as towards the end, I was regularly hitting 100+ damage with it in turn 3 and onwards. I’m still getting used to the card because it’s so powerful I instinctually think that it has Exhaust so I keep not playing it until it does fatal damage while it could be played every turn.
March 14th, 2026: Silent A1 success
I so often play with Shiv strategies that I decided to play a few runs tonite focusing on poison. My second run of the session started with Kusarigama relic (Every time you play 3 Attacks in a single turn, deal 6 damage to a random enemy.) which is one of the “play 3 attacks to gain effect” relics that have perfect synergy with Shivs so I decided to go back to Shivs.
Quite early on, I then got Ornamental Fan (Every time you play 3 Attacks in a single turn, gain 4 Block.) and got my main engine running. Every 3 Shivs played in a turn meant 6 damage and 4 block. I also got a bunch of free, Innate (always start in your opening hand) attacks like Backstab (0 energy, 11 damage) and Assassinate (0 energy, 11 damage, 1 Vulnerable) which accelerated my block and attack even futher.
I got an relatively early Shovel (You can dig relics at Rest sites) which accelerated my Relic collection really fast and since I was able to do big damage and get a ton of free block, I rarely ever had to heal.
In the end, I had a really easy boss fight in both Act 2 and Act 3 to reach Ascension 2.
During this run, I had a “fun” turn against Entomancer where my hand was 8 Dazed cards and nothing else and it was attacking me for 35 damage with me having 39 health. Somehow, I managed to come back from this and finish the run.
I met the Queen
Queen is a tough Act 3 boss that I have not yet been able to beat. I had a really good run but especially its Chains of Binding (The first 3 cards drawn each turn are Afflicted with Bound. Only 1 Bound card can be played each turn. Cards are un-Bound at end of turn.) so I was very limited with what I could play.
I can’t remember a previous time when I’ve had so many buffs, powers and debuffs on me at the same time. On this run — a specifically Power oriented run —, I had:
- Panache (If you play 5 more cards this turn, deal 10 damage to ALL enemies)
- Infinite Blades (At the start of your turn, add a Shiv into your Hand)
- Orbit (Every 4 energy you spend, gain 1 energy)
- Thorns (When hit by an attack, deal 3 damage back)
- Chains of Binding (The first 3 cards drawn each turn are Afflicted with Bound. Only 1 Bound card can be played each turn. Cards are un-Bound at end of turn.)
- Strength 2 (Attacks do 2 more damage)
- Prep Time (At the start of your turn, gain 4 Vigor)
- Frail 99 (Gain 25% less Block from cards for 99 turns)
- Weak 99 (Attacks deal 25% less damage for 99 turns)
- Vulnerable 99 (Receive 50% more damage from Attacks for 99 turns)
It was a fun build though. I got a Mummified Hand (Whenever you play a Power, a random card in your Hand is free to play that turn), Jeweled Mask (At the start of combat put a random Power card from your Draw Pile into your Hand., it’s free to play.) and upgraded White Noise (0 energy Skill, Add a random Power into your Hand. It’s free to play this turn. Exhaust.).
And I had 105 hit points after picking up Max HP boosts from various events and from Strawberry relic (Upon pickup, raise your Max HP by 7.)