Slay the Spire 2 Epochs Guide: Every Unlock and the Fastest Path Through the Timeline
Complete Epochs guide for Slay the Spire 2 covering the timeline progression system, every Epoch reward, unlock order, and the fastest way to progress.
What Are Epochs?
Epochs are Slay the Spire 2’s meta-progression system. They replaced the original game’s per-character unlock track with a single, shared Timeline that gates new cards, relics, potions, characters, alternate acts, and Ancients behind milestone nodes. Every time you hit a threshold — accumulated score, boss kills, act clears — a new Epoch pops on the Timeline, rewards drop into your permanent pool, and future runs get harder and more interesting at the same time.
The system keeps your first 20-30 hours from drowning you in options. Instead of handing you 200+ cards on day one, the game drip-feeds content as you prove you can handle what you already have. I think it’s a smart call. The original front-loaded everything and let new players drown in bad choices. This version teaches you the pool before it expands it.
How Many Epochs Exist?
The current Early Access build contains around 57 Epochs, with more coming in future patches. Completing them all will take dozens of runs — roughly 40-60 hours depending on skill level and how aggressively you chase milestones.
How Progression Works
Epochs unlock through three types of milestones. Understanding the split matters because it changes how you should spend your runs.
Score-Based Epochs
Your total accumulated score across all runs (wins and losses) triggers these. Score comes from floors climbed, elites killed, bosses downed, gold collected, and relics discovered. Even a bad run that ends on floor 12 still adds to your lifetime total. Key thresholds include 200, 700, 2,450, 3,700, 6,800, 25,700, and 30,800 total score.
These are the most important Epochs to hit early. They dump the largest batches of new cards and relics into the general loot pool, which directly makes your character-specific grinds easier. You don’t need to do anything special — just play and the score accumulates.
Character Unlock Epochs
Character unlocks chain in a fixed order. You start with the Ironclad. Start a run with him (no win required) and the Silent unlocks. Start a run with the Silent and the Regent unlocks. Then Necrobinder. Then Defect. Five characters, four quick runs. You can blow through this chain in under an hour if you just start-and-abandon, though I’d recommend actually playing each run out for the score.
Character Milestone Epochs
Every character shares the same milestone structure:
- Play once — Unlocks the next character
- Beat Act 1 — Unlocks 3 new character-specific cards
- Beat Act 2 — Unlocks 3 new character-specific relics
- Beat Act 3 — Unlocks 3 new character-specific potions
- Kill 15 Elites — Unlocks additional content
- Kill 15 Bosses — Unlocks additional content
- Beat Ascension 1 — Final character Epoch, unlocks remaining items
Multiply that across five characters and you’re looking at 35 character-specific Epochs on top of the score-based ones. This is where the bulk of your time goes.
What Epochs Unlock
Cards
Each character gets new cards gated behind their Act 1 clear. For example, Ironclad unlocks Molten Fist, Dominate, and Cruelty. Silent gets Snakebite, Bubble Bubble, and Accelerant. These aren’t throwaway additions — some of the strongest build-defining cards in the game sit behind early Epochs. Score-based Epochs also unlock colorless cards like Automation, Catastrophe, and Entropy at 700 total score — these go into the shared pool available to every character.
Relics
Act 2 clears unlock character-specific relics. Ironclad gets Red Skull, Paper Phrog, and Ruined Helmet. Silent gets Tingsha, Tough Bandages, and Paper Krane. If you played the first game, you’ll recognize some of these — they’ve been rebalanced but fill similar roles.
Potions
Act 3 clears gate potions. Blood Potion, Ashwater, and Soldier’s Stew for Ironclad. Poison Potion, Cunning Potion, and Ghost in a Jar for Silent. Potions in Slay the Spire 2 are stronger than in the original, so unlocking these matters more than you’d expect.
Ancients
Ancients are the biggest single unlock. They offer you a choice of three boons at the start of each act, replacing Boss Relics from the first game. Neow always appears in Act 1, but Act 2 and Act 3 Ancients — Orobas, Pael, Tezcatara, Nonupeipe, Tanx, Vakuu, and Darv — need to be unlocked through score-based Epochs. Some Ancients warp your entire strategy. Darv alone can turn a mediocre deck into something ridiculous.
Alternate Acts
The Underdocks is the alternate Act 1 biome. It unlocks through an early Epoch after completing your first Act 1. Once available, the game randomly picks between Underdocks and Overgrowth each run. Different enemies, elites, events, bosses. It keeps those early floors from going stale.
The Fastest Path Through the Timeline
I’ve experimented with different approaches, and this order gets you through the Timeline the fastest.
Step 1: Unlock All Five Characters (30-60 Minutes)
Run each character once. You don’t need to win — just starting a run triggers the next unlock. But I’d recommend playing each run to at least floor 10 for the score contribution. Getting all five characters available opens up the full spread of character-specific Epochs, so you can work on multiple tracks simultaneously.
Step 2: Chase Score-Based Epochs First (First 5-10 Hours)
Don’t worry about specific characters yet. Play whoever feels good and focus on pushing deep into each run. Score-based Epochs unlock the largest content batches and directly improve the card and relic pools for every character. The 700-score threshold alone drops Automation, Catastrophe, and Entropy into the shared colorless pool.
A few tips for maximizing score per run:
- Fight every elite you can. Elite kills contribute significant score and count toward the 15-elite milestone.
- Don’t skip bosses or run safe paths. Bosses give large score bonuses and progress your kill count simultaneously.
- Pick up relics. New relic discoveries add to your run score.
- Aim for Perfect kills. Taking zero damage against elites and bosses applies a score multiplier.
Step 3: Rotate Characters (Hours 10-30)
Once you’ve hit the major score thresholds, start rotating characters. Don’t grind Ironclad for 15 boss kills, then switch to Silent for 15 boss kills. Instead, play 2-3 runs with each character before rotating. This way you chip away at Act clears, elite kills, boss kills, and Ascension 1 across the entire roster at roughly the same pace.
Rotation also keeps things fresh. Grinding one character for 30 runs burns you out, and burned-out play produces worse scores.
Step 4: Tackle Ascension 1 Last
Ascension 1 is the final Epoch for each character and it requires a win on the first Ascension difficulty. Save this for when your card and relic pools are fully expanded. Having access to the complete item pool makes Ascension 1 significantly more manageable. Trying to grind Ascension 1 with a half-unlocked pool is pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
Which Epochs Change the Game the Most?
Not all Epochs matter equally. Here are the ones that hit hardest.
The first Ancient unlocks. Going from only Neow to having Act 2 and Act 3 Ancients transforms runs. Boss Relics in the first game were good. Ancients are run-defining. The moment Orobas or Tezcatara shows up in Act 2, your decision-making shifts completely.
The Underdocks unlock. Two Act 1 biomes doubles the variety in the floors you repeat the most. Underdocks enemies demand different strategies than Overgrowth, which forces more adaptable deckbuilding.
The 700 and 2,450 score Epochs. These dump enough cards and relics into the pool that your runs start feeling meaningfully different from each other. Before these thresholds, you’ll see the same cards and relics too often.
Character Act 2 clears (the relic Epochs). Relics define runs more than cards do. Unlocking Tingsha for Silent or Paper Phrog for Ironclad opens up entire archetypes that weren’t viable before.
Common Questions
Do failed runs count toward Epochs? Yes. Every run contributes score, and elite/boss kills count regardless of whether you win. Always play to the death screen.
Can I see my Epoch progress? The Timeline screen between runs shows every Epoch, its condition, and your current progress.
Will more Epochs come in future updates? Almost certainly. The Early Access roadmap suggests new content will arrive with its own Epoch chains.
Should I care about Epochs or just play? Both. You’ll naturally unlock most Epochs just by playing. But knowing the system lets you prioritize the unlocks that matter. If you want everything unlocked fast, the rotation strategy above will save you hours.
For a broader introduction to the game’s mechanics, check out our Beginners Guide. If you want to know what each Ancient offers before you unlock them, see the Ancients Guide.