Slay the Spire 2
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Slay the Spire 2 1.0 release: Sep 2027Not announced: our best guess from Mega Crit's 1 to 2 year Early Access plan.
Best guessMega Crit's Early Access FAQ on Steam says it will stay in Early Access "Until the game feels great! Last time we thought it would be about a year and it took about 1.5 years. So perhaps in the same 1 - 2 year range." We count 18 months from the Mar 5, 2026 Early Access launch, as the first game took, to the first Thursday of Sep 2027 (Mega Crit ships on Thursdays) at 10 AM Pacific, the hour of the Early Access launch. Steam

10Months6Days

Cards

Slay the Spire 2's game data holds 577 cards on the main branch (v0.107.1): about 88 for each of the five characters, 64 Colorless, 18 curses, 16 statuses, 3 Quest cards, and Event, Ancient and Token cards. Cards are Attacks, Skills, Powers, Statuses, Curses or Quests; rarities run Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare and Ancient; card rewards offer 3 cards and you take 1.

Slay the Spire 2 has 577 cards in its game data on the live main branch, v0.107.1: 88 for each of the Silent, Regent, Necrobinder and Defect and 87 for the Ironclad, 64 Colorless cards, 18 curses, 16 statuses, 3 Quest cards and a set of Event, Ancient and Token cards, by the count of Spire Codex, the community database Mega Crit pointed players to in its May 2026 Neowsletter. Every fight is played with these cards: you draw 5 a turn, spend 3 Energy on them, and after each fight pick 1 card of 3 to add to your deck. This page explains the rules every card shares: the types, rarities, costs, upgrades and keywords as the game names them, how card rewards work, and how to remove and transform cards. The game is in Early Access, so numbers are the main branch's, with beta changes labeled.

Quick facts

Cards in the game data 577 (main branch v0.107.1)
Per character 88 each; the Ironclad 87 (its Grapple was removed in v0.103.0)
Colorless 64: 39 Uncommon, 25 Rare
Types Attack, Skill, Power, Status, Curse, Quest
Rarities Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare, Ancient; also Event, Token, Status, Curse and Quest (game data)
Card reward "A pack of 3 random cards. You may choose 1 to add to your Deck." (game data)
Draw and Energy 5 cards a turn (game data), 3 Energy for every character (game data)
Hand size 10, and "There's no way to increase it at this time" (Mega Crit)
Upgrades At a Rest Site (Smith), and from events, relics and cards
Removal At the Merchant, at events, and from some relics

Card lists

Each character has its own pool, and their pages list every card with its cost, effect and upgrade:

Enchantments and Afflictions covers the modifiers that change a card for the rest of a run or a combat, and Card Tier List compares the published rankings.

Card types

Slay the Spire 2 has six card types, and the game data counts 195 Attacks, 234 Skills and 111 Powers among them.

  • Attack: deals damage. Strength adds to it, Weak cuts it by 25%, and Vulnerable makes the target take 50% more (game data).
  • Skill: everything else you play once, usually Block, draw or Energy. Dexterity adds to the Block of cards; Frail cuts it by 25%.
  • Power: played once, then lasts for the rest of the combat.
  • Status: a card that enemies or your own cards add during a combat; most are Unplayable.
  • Curse: a harmful card that stays in your deck for the run until you remove it.
  • Quest: an Unplayable card from an event that pays out when you fulfill its task, new in Slay the Spire 2 (Mega Crit).

Rarities

Character cards come in five rarities: Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare and Ancient (game data). Basic cards are the starting deck (Strikes, Defends and two or three character cards); Commons, Uncommons and Rares come from card rewards and the Merchant; Ancient cards come only from the Ancients, such as the starter card an Archaic Tooth transforms. Each character has two Ancient cards, Break and Corruption for the Ironclad, for example (game data).

Mega Crit says rarity is about complexity more than power. In its v0.101.0 notes Anthony Giovannetti wrote that commons "are not necessarily weaker, but that they are often simple effects that could add value to most decks. As rarity increases we allow higher complexity and more impact on drafting/play decisions."

The other rarities mark cards from outside the pools. Event cards come from events (Byrd Swoop from the Byrdonis Egg, Peck and Toric Toughness from Wood Carvings), Token cards are made during combat (Shiv, Soul, Fuel, Sovereign Blade, Minion Strike), and Status, Curse and Quest cards have rarities of their own name (game data). Colorless cards are Uncommon or Rare.

Costs, X costs and Free to Play

Most cards cost 0 to 3 Energy, and every character has 3 Energy a turn (game data). A few cost more: the Defect's Meteor Strike costs 5. X-cost cards (Whirlwind, Skewer, Tempest, Multi-Cast, Volley and five others) spend all your Energy and scale with it (game data). The Regent's cards can also cost Stars, written "+ N Stars" (Regent Cards).

"Free to Play" is not the same as "costs 0". In v0.101.0 Mega Crit replaced "Costs 0 Energy" with "Free to Play" on several effects so that Star costs are waived too. Since v0.104.0, effects that make the next card free take precedence over effects that raise every card's cost.

Upgrades

An upgrade improves a card for the rest of the run, and cards are written base(upgraded), as Mega Crit writes them: Strike deals 6(9) for the Defect (game data). Upgrades raise numbers, cut costs or change a keyword (Hotfix loses Exhaust, Machine Learning gains Innate). The Rest Site's Smith upgrades one card, and Mobalytics notes "The opportunity cost of healing is missing out on a card upgrade" (Mobalytics). Events, relics and cards upgrade others: Neow's Pomander upgrades a card, Silver Crucible upgrades your first 3 card rewards, and Fishing Rod upgrades a random card every 3 normal combats (OP.GG, beta v0.111.0 data; Mega Crit). In a fight, the Ancient card Apotheosis upgrades ALL your cards (game data). Ascension 7, Scarcity, makes "Rare and upgraded cards appear less often" (PCGamesN).

Keywords

The game names its keywords on the card and explains them in a tooltip. Its own texts, from the game data:

Keyword Rule
Exhaust "Removed until the end of combat."
Ethereal "If this card is in your Hand at the end of this turn, it is Exhausted."
Retain "Retained cards are not discarded at the end of turn."
Innate "Start each combat with this card in your Hand."
Unplayable "Unplayable cards cannot be played."
Eternal "Cannot be removed or transformed from your Deck."
Sly "If this card is discarded from your Hand before the end of your turn, play it for free."
Replay "Plays this card an additional time."
Fatal "Triggers whenever this card kills a non-minion enemy."
Transform "Transformed cards become a random card of any rarity."
Stun "Prevent the enemy from acting on its next turn."

Source: Spire Codex: keywords and glossary (game data, v0.107.1), read Oct 26, 2026; Innate as quoted by Mobalytics.

Three of these are new to Slay the Spire 2. Sly is the Silent's: "Sly cards are automatically played for free when they are discarded," Anthony Giovannetti wrote in the May 2025 Neowsletter. Eternal protects a card from removal and transforms, which matters most on curses such as Ascender's Bane and Greed. Replay is how the Glam and Spiral enchantments and several cards repeat a card.

The characters add keywords of their own. The Defect Channels and Evokes Orbs and gains Focus; the Regent spends Stars and Forges the Sovereign Blade; the Necrobinder Summons Osty and applies Doom; the Silent makes Shivs and applies Poison; the Ironclad gains Strength and Exhausts. Each is explained on the character's page.

Card rewards

After most combats you get a card reward: "A pack of 3 random cards. You may choose 1 to add to your Deck." (game data). You may skip it, and guides advise doing so often: Mobalytics says not to take every card because a smaller, focused deck is stronger (Mobalytics). Rewards come from your character's pool; the reward screen shows "shiny VFX based on the rarity of card rewards" (Mega Crit).

Mega Crit has not published the odds of each rarity in a card reward. What is known to change them: the relic White Star adds a Rare card reward to Elites, Prayer Wheel adds a second reward to normal fights (OP.GG, beta v0.111.0 data), Ascension 7 makes Rares and upgraded cards rarer (PCGamesN), and beta v0.110.0 fixed a bug so that "Uncommon cards show up slightly more often (as intended)".

Some relics and blessings change what rewards hold. Neow's Kaleidoscope gives "2 card rewards with cards from other characters" (Mega Crit); Orobas' Prismatic Gem puts other colors in every reward, his Driftwood lets you reroll each reward once, and Dingy Rug adds Colorless cards (OP.GG, beta v0.111.0 data). Relics and Neow and the Ancients list them all.

Removing cards

Removing cards, mostly Strikes and Defends, is one of the strongest things you can buy. Mobalytics calls it "often the best way to spend your money" (Mobalytics). The Merchant removes one card per visit, Game Rant says (Game Rant), and the price rises by 25 Gold with each removal, "the standard 25" in PCGamesN's words (PCGamesN). Mega Crit has not published the price of the first removal. On Ascension 6, Inflation, removal starts at 100 Gold and rises by 50 (Mega Crit's v0.102.0 notes). Merchant and Rest Sites covers the shop.

Events, relics and blessings also remove cards, often at a price. Neow's Precise Scissors removes 1 card and Precarious Shears 2 for 16 HP; the Ancient relic Biiig Hug removes 4 but adds a Soot whenever you shuffle; the Meat Cleaver lets you Cook at a Rest Site, removing 2 cards for 9 Max HP (5 on the public beta since v0.109.0); the Wellspring event removes 1 and adds Guilty (OP.GG, Spire Codex). Cards with Eternal cannot be removed at all.

Transforming cards

A transform swaps a card for a random one: "Transformed cards become a random card of any rarity." (game data). Neow's New Leaf transforms 1 card, Darv's Pandora's Box transforms ALL Strikes and Defends, his Astrolabe transforms 3 and upgrades them, and events such as Aroma of Chaos, Whispering Hollow and Symbiote offer a transform (OP.GG, beta v0.111.0 data). Some transforms are fixed: Tanx's Claws turns up to 6 cards into Maul, and Wood Carvings turns a starter card into Peck or Toric Toughness (OP.GG). Eternal cards cannot be transformed.

Generated cards

Many cards make other cards during a fight, and those exist only until it ends. The Silent's Shivs, the Necrobinder's Souls and Sweeping Gaze, the Regent's Sovereign Blade and Minion cards, and the Defect's Fuel (from Compact) are Tokens; Colorless cards are made by Jack of All Trades and the Regent's creation cards; random cards come from Attack, Skill, Power and Colorless Potions (game data; OP.GG). Some cards cannot be made this way: Hidden Gem "cannot be generated in combat" since v0.100.0.

Cards removed by patches

A few cards have left the game during Early Access. The Ironclad's Grapple was removed in v0.103.0, the Silent's Prepare existed only in v0.100.0 (v0.101.0), and Follow Through became Scare in v0.106.0 and Sidestep on the beta in v0.110.0. If a patch removes a card from a saved run, it becomes "Deprecated Card", a Status that reads "Draw 1 card. Remove this from your Deck. Exhaust." (v0.100.0).

Frequently asked questions

How many cards are in Slay the Spire 2? Slay the Spire 2's game data holds 577 cards on the main branch (v0.107.1), counting 87 or 88 per character, 64 Colorless cards, curses, statuses and generated cards, per Spire Codex.

What are the card rarities in Slay the Spire 2? Character cards in Slay the Spire 2 are Basic, Common, Uncommon, Rare or Ancient, and the game also uses Event, Token, Status, Curse and Quest rarities for cards from outside the pools, per the game data.

What does Exhaust mean in Slay the Spire 2? An Exhausted card in Slay the Spire 2 is "Removed until the end of combat"; Ethereal cards are Exhausted if they are still in your Hand at the end of the turn, per the game data.

What does Retain do in Slay the Spire 2? In Slay the Spire 2, "Retained cards are not discarded at the end of turn," so they stay in your Hand for the next one, per the game data.

What does Eternal mean in Slay the Spire 2? An Eternal card in Slay the Spire 2 "Cannot be removed or transformed from your Deck," per the game data; Ascender's Bane and Greed are Eternal curses.

How do you upgrade cards in Slay the Spire 2? You upgrade a card in Slay the Spire 2 with the Smith option at a Rest Site, or through events, relics and cards that upgrade, per Mobalytics.

How do you remove cards in Slay the Spire 2? In Slay the Spire 2 the Merchant removes one card per visit for Gold, the price rising 25 each time (PCGamesN), and some events and Neow relics remove cards too.

How many cards does a card reward offer in Slay the Spire 2? A Slay the Spire 2 card reward is "A pack of 3 random cards. You may choose 1 to add to your Deck.", per the game data; you may also skip it.

Sources

Moments

Slay the Spire 2 - Official Gameplay Trailer

Mega Crit

  1. Slay the Spire 2 has 577 cards in its game data on the live main branch, v0.107.1: 88 for each of the Silent, Regent…

Slay the Spire 2 Beginner’s Guide | Important Tips You Need to Know

IGN

  1. Slay the Spire 2 has six card types, and the game data counts 195 Attacks, 234 Skills and 111 Powers among them.
  2. Most cards cost 0 to 3 Energy, and every character has 3 Energy a turn (game data). A few cost more: the Defect's…
  3. The characters add keywords of their own. The Defect Channels and Evokes Orbs and gains Focus; the Regent spends Stars…
  4. Removing cards, mostly Strikes and Defends, is one of the strongest things you can buy. Mobalytics calls it "often the…

10 Things That Instantly Improved My Runs | Slay the Spire 2 Tips & Guide

Nerdy Hickey

  1. An upgrade improves a card for the rest of the run, and cards are written base(upgraded), as Mega Crit writes them…
  2. After most combats you get a card reward: "A pack of 3 random cards. You may choose 1 to add to your Deck." (game…

Slay the Spire 2 - 15 Biggest Changes From Slay the Spire 1

IGN

  1. Three of these are new to Slay the Spire 2. Sly is the Silent's: "Sly cards are automatically played for free when…

Cards

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See also

Last updated Oct 26, 2026 by the Vi.ki team. Page text CC BY-SA 4.0.

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