Last month the amazing deckbuilding masterpiece that is Slay the Spire 2 got unfairly review bombed (and I think you know what I feel about that tactic) after rumors of a change to the game’s experimental branch did not go down well.
You can catch up on that particular strand of nonsense drama right here from when Craig covered it, but now, with that just a memory, we actually have the first major update for the game pushed to the main branch on Steam.
The patch goes into great detail about what’s changing on a Steam post, but we have distilled some of its highlights below so you don’t need to go down the rabbit hole.
Slay the Spire 2 patch highlights
After a month of beta tweaks, Slay the Spire 2 has rolled a hefty bundle of changes onto the main branch. The Major Update’s headline shift is a broad rethink of how runs feel moment-to-moment: map generation is now more consistent, shop relics are cheaper across the board, and Ascension 6 swaps out its old “fewer rest sites” pain point for a nastier economic squeeze that makes deck-thinning at merchants more expensive.
On the character side, the patch is big into identity. Ironclad gets new survivability tools and Exhaust synergies, while Silent’s dominance has been gently trimmed to keep Shiv builds satisfying without feeling like the only game in town. The Regent has quietly had the biggest glow-up, with buffs across his card pool and reworks that make “created card” strategies far more viable, while Necrobinder’s Borrowed Time overhaul opens up riskier, high-energy turns that could define new archetypes.
Throw in five new Neow relics, enemy reworks (the Doormaker sounds particularly nasty), and a raft of visual upgrades, and this feels like a soft reshaping of the game’s meta heading into its next phase.
Slay the Spire 2 Major Update 1 Patch notes
And here are the patch notes in full to save you clicking elsewhere.
CONTENT & BALANCE
Be sure to pay close attention when embarking on your next few runs: many things that you’ve grown used to have been re-balanced, reworked, or even removed (in a couple rare cases). However, quite a few new pieces of content have also been added for you to dig into. While we don’t get into the nitty gritty of every change, we’ve listed the biggest relevant highlights.
In terms of general changes, here are a few big things to note:
Ascension 6 has been reworked from Gloom - "Less rest sites." -> Inflation - "Removing cards from your deck at the Merchant is more expensive."
All shop relics now cost 25 gold less and gold-generating relics can no longer appear in the shop
Map generation has been improved and made to be more consistent
If you return to a run after updating with a newly deprecated card in your deck, it is now replaced with a placeholder Status card - "Draw 1 card. Remove this from your Deck. Exhaust."The Ironclad has received a new card, Not Yet: “Rare – Skill – Cost 2 | Heal 10(13) HP. Exhaust.” Some other cards of his–Dominate, Expect a Fight, Spite, and Stoke–have received reworks, while Grapple has been deprecated. Numerous cards have seen buffs, nerfs, and rarity changes. Many of these changes have come with the aim of giving him better survivability and Exhaust synergies.
The Silent’s Blade of Ink card has been reworked to generate Shivs enchanted with Inky – “This card deals 2 additional damage and applies 1 Weak.” Her classic Acrobatics card has been changed from Common to Uncommon, bringing it more in line with the other cards in its family: Skim, Parse, Glimmer, and Burning Pact. She’s also seen a few other buffs and nerfs. Our goal is to make Sly builds less overly dominant while making sure they still feel satisfying.
The Regent’s Arsenal card has been reworked from giving Strength based on Colorless cards played to any cards created. In a similar vein, his Regalite relic now grants Block for any card created, not just Colorless cards. Notably, his card pool has seen more buffs than any other character with just a couple of nerfs, which should address concerns about him feeling weaker than the other characters.
The Necrobinder has received a rework for Borrowed Time: “Uncommon – Cost 0 – Skill | Apply 3 Doom to yourself. Gain 1(2) Energy.” -> “Uncommon – Cost 1 – Skill | Gain 4(6) energy. Cards cost an additional energy this turn.” This new version should go particularly well with high cost cards like Reap and Bury and help to flesh out other ways to play Necrobinder. Aside from that, she’s received a handful of buffs and nerfs.
The Defect has seen the least amount of changes of any of the characters, receiving just a couple of buffs and nerfs.
Some Colorless cards, relics, and potions have seen buffs, nerfs, changes, and pool/rarity shifts, with the Hidden Gem card and Pendulum relic receiving reworks. Various events have had their options or spawn conditions tweaked.
There have been a few balance changes to some Ancient offerings, but most notably Neow will now offer 5 new relics:
Hefty Tablet: "Choose 1 of 3 Rare cards to add to your Deck. Add 1 Injury to your Deck."
Neow's Talisman: "Upgrade 1 of your Strikes and 1 of your Defends."
Neow's Bones: "Upon pickup, gain 2 random Neow Relics. Add 1 random Curse to your Deck."
Phial Holster: "Upon pickup, gain 1 potion slot and procure 2 random potions."
Winged Boots: "You may ignore paths when choosing the next rooms to travel to 3 times."Last but certainly not least, it’s time to talk about enemies. While certain enemies have seen some buffs and nerfs, like the Skulking Colony, the Doormaker has seen the most drastic reworks.
ART
Our artists have been hard at work updating the game’s placeholder assets (as charming as they are). Many cards, relics, enemies, and even Nonupeipe the Ancient have received some official visuals!
There have also been some really cool additions to enemy animations as well as VFX for certain character moves. Speaking of VFX, card afflictions have also received some fancy new visuals. There are even character-based VFX for energy counters now!
USER INTERFACE & EXPERIENCE
There have been a ton of additions (and even overhauls) when it comes to UI and UX.
First of all, a brand new system for things called Badges has been implemented. Badges may appear at the end of a run, noting various things that happened during a run like defeating a boss without losing HP, beating the game quickly, specific easter eggs, or pointing out that you forgot to spend your gold. They’re meant as little reminders to let you know what was unique about each adventure.
Building off of that, leaderboards have been totally revamped. The leaderboards will now only show your friends’ scores. We’ll add a way to view global scores later. In general, we don’t really want to incorporate invasive anti-cheat protection into the game so it’s sort of impossible for us to prevent people putting in the maximum score.
Secondly, no more magic numbers. While there are still points accrued for unlocking new cards and such, the score that’s sent to the leaderboards and how it’s sorted is based on whether you won, how many badges you accrued, and how quickly you finished the run (in that order). This should clarify why you did better on a Daily run compared to your friends.
Because the schema has changed, leaderboards between main branch and beta branch will be separate going forward. We’ll eventually add more features like sorting and whatnot, but in the meantime, do let us know what you think of these changes!
Other major changes include the addition of a Phobia Mode setting, the in-game feedback tool’s maximum character count increasing from 500 to 8000, the removal of the ability to unlock achievements and epochs in Daily or Custom runs, and various improvements to controller support.
WRITING
Most of the writing-related changes have come in the form of slight rewording to make it clearer what certain cards, relics, potions, and powers actually do. For instance, those who have been confused as to why their Fairy in a Bottle potions haven’t saved them from The Insatiable can now understand that the potion only triggers if your HP reaches 0, not if you die by any other means.
BUG FIXES
Many, many various bug fixes have been released, including a fix for the common “Fatal Error” Steam cloud sync issue and multiple crashes, softlocks, and black-screen startup issues. You’ll also notice that a myriad of gameplay bugs have been addressed, such as ones related to the logic of Vakuu’s Whispering Earring relic.
If you prefer to play on controller, you should find that various navigation problems have now been fixed. In the multiplayer realm, we’ve fixed some bugged gameplay interactions, state divergence problems, and have resolved many “Error 5008” disconnection issues.
Last Updated On: Apr 17, 2026 2:31 pm CEST