Slay the Spire 2 Card Tier List: Best and Worst Cards by Character

How This Tier List Works

Not every card is created equal. Some cards win runs by themselves. Others actively make your deck worse by diluting your draws. This tier list ranks cards into four tiers:

• S Tier — Take on sight. These cards are strong in almost every deck regardless of archetype.
• A Tier — Excellent picks that fit into most builds or are the backbone of a specific archetype.
• B Tier — Solid but situational. Good when your build wants them, skippable otherwise.
• C/D Tier — Rarely worth taking. These either do too little for their cost or actively hurt your deck.

Tier placements are based on high-Ascension community data from patch 0.98.1 (April 2026). Early Access balance changes may shift these, but the fundamentals won’t change much.

Ironclad Cards

S Tier

• Stoke — The single best Ironclad card right now. Gives Strength and draws cards in one package. Every build wants it.
• Offering — Lose 6 HP, gain 2 Energy, draw 3 cards. Ironclad heals after every fight, so the HP cost is negligible. This accelerates every build.
• Corruption — Makes all Skills cost 0 but exhaust on play. The centerpiece of the Exhaust archetype and one of the most powerful cards in the game when supported.
• Demon Form — 3 Strength every turn forever. Slow to play (3 Energy) but impossible to outscale once it’s running.
• Feel No Pain — Gain Block whenever you exhaust. Even outside the Exhaust build, this card pulls weight because so many Ironclad cards naturally exhaust.

A Tier

• Limit Break — Doubles your Strength. Absurd in Strength builds, mediocre without Strength sources. Upgrade it so it doesn’t exhaust.
• Dark Embrace — Draw on exhaust. The glue that holds the Exhaust engine together.
• Immolate — 21 AoE damage for 2 Energy. Solves multi-enemy fights in Act 1 and stays relevant through Act 2.
• Reaper — Deal damage to all enemies, heal for damage dealt. Better the more Strength you have.
• Barricade — Block persists between turns. Enables an entire archetype. Worthless without Block synergy cards.
• Body Slam — Damage equal to Block. With Barricade, this is your primary damage source.

B Tier

• Inflame — +2 Strength, cheap and effective. It’s fine. Not exciting, but it does the job.
• Blood Wall — Lose 2 HP, gain 16 Block. Good value, especially on Ironclad who can afford the HP.
• Armaments — Block plus upgrade a card in hand. The upgrade effect is quietly strong in long fights.
• Burning Pact — Exhaust 1, draw 2. Decent filtering that feeds exhaust triggers.
• Impervious — 30 Block in one card. The best emergency defense card in the pool.

Cards to Skip

• Clash — Only playable if your hand has zero non-Attack cards. Too restrictive.
• Basic Strike and Defend — Remove these as fast as possible. They drag your deck down from the very first turn.

Silent Cards

S Tier

• Wraith Form — Gain Intangible for 2 turns (3 upgraded). You take only 1 damage per hit while Intangible is active. Against bosses, this buys you 2-3 free turns to set up or finish them off. Best defensive card in the game.
• Catalyst — Double (triple upgraded) an enemy’s poison. The card that turns a slow poison trickle into an instant kill.
• Noxious Fumes — 2 poison to all enemies every turn, forever. In long fights, this outscales almost everything.
• Accuracy — +4 damage to all Shivs. Turns a swarm of 4-damage pokes into 8-damage strikes across 5+ cards per turn.

A Tier

• Footwork — +2 Dexterity permanently. Makes every Block card in your deck better for the entire fight.
• Blade Dance — 3 Shivs (4 upgraded) for 1 Energy. The most efficient shiv generator.
• Corpse Explosion — Enemies explode on death, dealing their max HP as damage to everything else. Clears multi-enemy rooms instantly.
• After Image — 1 Block per card played. With shivs, you’re gaining 5-8 free Block per turn.
• Burst — Play your next Skill twice. Burst + Catalyst is often game-ending.
• Well-Laid Plans — Retain 1 card at end of turn. Smooths out your draws every single fight.

B Tier

• Deadly Poison — 5 poison for 1 Energy. Workhorse poison card. Not flashy, always useful.
• Acrobatics — Draw 3, discard 1. Good filtering, and triggers Sly cards.
• Cloak and Dagger — Block plus Shivs. Two things you always want.
• Infinite Blades — 1 free Shiv per turn. Slow but reliable.

Cards to Skip

• Snakebite — Widely considered the worst card in the entire game. 2 Energy for a Deadly Poison that retains. The cost is too high and the effect is too slow. Never take this.
• Grand Finale — Deals massive damage but only works when draw pile is exactly 0 cards. Too inconsistent to build around in most runs.

Defect Cards

S Tier

• Chill — One of Defect’s best cards in the current patch. Strong defensive scaling.
• Glacier — 7 Block and channels 2 Frost orbs. Immediate defense plus future defense. Always good.
• Defragment — +1 Focus permanently. Focus increases all orb output. The more Focus, the better everything gets.
• Electrodynamics — Lightning orbs hit ALL enemies. Turns every Lightning orb into AoE.

A Tier

• Ball Lightning — Deals damage and channels a Lightning orb. Efficient early-game card.
• Coolheaded — Channels Frost orb, draws a card. Zero downside.
• Biased Cognition — +4 Focus immediately, lose 1 Focus per turn after. The burst is worth the decay in most fights because fights shouldn’t last that long.
• Echo Form — First card each turn is played twice. Doubles your best play every turn.

Regent Cards

S Tier

• Arsenal — Strong card creation tool that got buffed in recent patches. Now triggers off any created card.
• Cards that generate or multiply Stars are the backbone of Regent. Any card that gives 2+ Stars for 1 Energy or less is worth taking.

A Tier

• Star generators and Forge cards that upgrade Sovereign Blade. The Regent’s scaling depends on keeping Star income high and using it efficiently.

Necrobinder Cards

S Tier

• End of Days — One of the best Necrobinder cards. Premium pick whenever it shows up.
• Reap — High-cost but devastating with Borrowed Time’s Energy generation.
• Cards that stack Doom are the Necrobinder’s primary scaling mechanic. Doom instant-kills when HP drops below the threshold.

General Rules for Every Character

1. Card draw is almost always worth taking. Drawing more cards means seeing your best cards more often.
2. Zero-cost cards are stronger than they look. They let you squeeze extra value from every turn.
3. Expensive cards (3+ Energy) need to be game-changing to justify their cost. If a 3-cost card doesn’t swing the fight, skip it.
4. Powers are front-loaded investments. They cost Energy now but pay off every turn for the rest of the fight. Take them when you can afford the setup turn.
5. Remove starter cards before adding mediocre ones. A smaller deck with your good cards is better than a bigger deck with filler.