Slay the Spire 2 Doormaker Guide: How to Beat the Most Hated Boss

Everyone Hates Doormaker

Let’s get this out of the way: Doormaker is the most complained-about boss in Slay the Spire 2 right now, and the frustration is understandable. This boss doesn’t just hit you hard — it takes away your ability to play the game. Cards get exhausted from your hand. Draw gets restricted. Costs go up. Your perfectly assembled deck becomes a shadow of itself over the course of the fight.

I’ve seen players on Reddit and Discord call Doormaker unfair, badly designed, or a run-killer that punishes good deckbuilding. And after getting blown up by it a dozen times myself, I think the real problem is that most decks are built to play Slay the Spire — and Doormaker plays a different game. Once you understand its rules, you can build around them. It’s still hard. But it stops feeling random.

What Doormaker Actually Does

Doormaker’s core mechanics attack your deck’s functionality rather than your HP directly (though it does that too). Here’s what you’re dealing with:

Card Exhaustion: Doormaker removes cards from your hand during the fight. These cards are gone — not discarded, not shuffled back. Gone. If it exhausts your win condition, you need a backup plan.

Draw Prevention: In certain phases, your card draw is reduced or stopped entirely. Turns where you draw 1-2 cards instead of 5 are common. Your per-card quality needs to be high enough that 1-2 cards can still produce a meaningful turn.

Cost Increases: Card costs go up during some phases. Your 1-Energy bread-and-butter cards now cost 2. Your 2-Energy finishers cost 3. Energy management becomes tight even with 4+ Energy available.

These effects layer on top of each other as the fight progresses through phases. Early turns are almost normal. Late turns can feel like playing with half a deck at double cost while drawing almost nothing.

The Key Insight: Front-Load Everything

Doormaker’s restrictions get worse over time. This means your strongest plays need to happen early. Turn 1-3 is your window to set up lasting effects that will carry you through the restricted phases.

Powers are king. Once a Power card is played, it’s in effect for the entire fight. Doormaker can exhaust a Power from your hand before you play it, but it can’t remove an active Power. Get your Powers down immediately.

Relics are immune. Relic effects can’t be exhausted, cost-increased, or draw-restricted. A run with strong relics has a structural advantage against Doormaker that no amount of card quality can match.

Passive damage wins. Any damage that happens without playing a card — poison ticks, orb triggers, Doom thresholds, relic procs — bypasses Doormaker’s restrictions entirely. Build toward passive damage sources whenever possible.

Character Strategies

Ironclad

Best cards: Barricade, Demon Form, Metallicize, Inflame.

Barricade is the Ironclad’s best card against Doormaker by a wide margin. Once it’s active, every Block you generate persists forever. Even on turns where you draw one card and it costs too much to play, you still have the Block you built up on previous turns. Pair Barricade with Body Slam for a damage source that scales with your accumulated Block.

Demon Form gives permanent Strength scaling that doesn’t require further card plays. Play it turn 1 and every attack card you draw — even if you only draw one — hits harder each turn.

Avoid: Exhaust synergies. Feel No Pain and Dark Embrace sound appealing because Doormaker exhausts your cards, but you’re losing cards you need. The synergy works against you because those exhausted cards are cards you wanted to play. You’re rewarding the boss for crippling your deck.

The game plan: Turn 1, play Barricade or Demon Form. Turn 2, play the other Power or start attacking. Turns 3+, let passive Strength and persistent Block carry you through restrictions. Use potions on the first 2 turns to compensate for Energy spent on Powers.

Silent

Best cards: Wraith Form, Noxious Fumes, After Image, Well-Laid Plans.

Wraith Form is the single strongest card against Doormaker across all characters. Intangible reduces every hit to 1 damage, buying you turns where hand quality is irrelevant — you survive no matter what. Multiple turns of Intangible means multiple turns where Doormaker’s restrictions don’t matter because you can’t die anyway.

Noxious Fumes is a Power that applies poison to all enemies every turn. Play it once on turn 1 and it works for the entire fight, regardless of what happens to your hand. The poison ticks accumulate even during turns where you draw nothing.

Avoid: Shiv-heavy strategies. Shivs require playing many low-cost cards per turn. Doormaker’s draw restrictions and cost increases directly counter this. If you’re in a Shiv build entering Act 3 and you see Doormaker, you’re in trouble.

The game plan: Play Wraith Form and Noxious Fumes as early as possible. After Image provides Block on every card play. Well-Laid Plans lets you hold one critical card between turns, ensuring Doormaker’s random exhaust doesn’t take your best card. Survive on Intangible and passive poison.

Defect

Best cards: Defragment, Capacitor, Electrodynamics, Glacier, Loop.

Orbs are the answer. Once orbs are in slots and Focus is scaled, your damage and defense happen every turn regardless of hand state. Doormaker can empty your hand and it doesn’t matter — Frost orbs still generate Block, Lightning orbs still deal damage. The orb engine runs independently of your draw and card costs.

Defragment increases Focus permanently. Capacitor gives more orb slots. These are turn 1-2 plays that define the rest of the fight.

Avoid: Slow setup builds that need 5+ turns to come online. Claw-based builds that rely on playing many cheap cards. Anything that needs consistent draw to function.

The game plan: Turn 1-2, play Focus and orb slot Powers. Fill slots with Frost and Lightning. Let passive orb triggers handle the fight. Every card you do manage to draw and play is gravy on top of the orb engine.

Regent

Best cards: Star-generating Powers, defensive Star spenders, anything that provides value without needing to be drawn repeatedly.

Stars persist between turns. Even when Doormaker restricts your draw, your Star pool remains intact. Key Power plays in the first 2 turns establish a Star economy that sustains itself. Spend Stars on defense during restricted turns, then spend on offense when you draw a good hand.

Avoid: Builds that require playing 4+ cards per turn to function. Strategies that spend Stars every turn without generating them — you’ll run dry when draw restrictions hit.

The game plan: Play Star-generating Powers immediately. Maintain a Star buffer so you always have options, even on turns where you draw 1 card. Time your burst turns for moments when restrictions temporarily ease.

Necrobinder

Best cards: High-value Doom appliers, Osty-enhancing Powers, anything played once for lasting effect.

Osty attacks every turn regardless of your hand state. This gives Necrobinder a damage floor against Doormaker that other characters don’t have. Even on turns where you draw nothing useful, Osty is still swinging.

Doom stacking is riskier because Doormaker might exhaust your Doom cards before you apply enough. Play Doom appliers aggressively in turns 1-3.

Avoid: Builds that require specific card combos in hand simultaneously. Doormaker’s exhaust and draw restriction make multi-card combos unreliable.

The game plan: Play Doom and Osty Powers early. Let passive damage accumulate. Use direct attacks when available to push HP into Doom’s kill range. Rely on Osty for guaranteed damage every turn.

General Tips for Every Character

Don’t play slowly. I know this sounds contradictory — Doormaker gets worse over time, so you should rush, but its restrictions also make rushing hard. The answer is to make your early turns count. Every Power played in the first 3 turns is a permanent advantage.

Mulligan for Powers at the start of Act 3. If you have deck manipulation events or relics that let you arrange your draw, put Powers on top.

Consider Doormaker during Act 2 drafting. If your deck is leaning toward a high-card-volume strategy midway through Act 2, think about whether you can pivot. One in three Act 3 runs hits Doormaker. Having a backup plan matters.

Potions on turn 1-2. Your strongest turns are your earliest ones. An Energy Potion on turn 1 lets you play two Powers. A Block Potion covers your defense while you invest in setup. Don’t save potions for a better moment — the best moment is right now.

Accept that some runs lose to Doormaker. A Shiv-only Silent deck with no Powers and no passive damage is going to struggle no matter what you do. Not every run can beat every boss. Recognizing Doormaker as a bad matchup and building around it on future runs is part of the learning curve.