Slay the Spire 2 character ranking. Who is the strongest?

Game Slay the Spire 2 has now launched Early Access on Steam on March 5, 2026, marking the return of one of the most famous roguelike deckbuilder games. The sequel developed by Mega Crit brings many major changes to the gameplay mechanics, card system, relics as well as the addition of new characters.

There are currently 5 playable characters, including three familiar characters from the first game including The Ironclad, The Silent, The Defect and two completely new characters, The Regent and The Necrobinder. Each character has a unique set of mechanics, unique decks, and different strategy builds, making assessing their strength quite complicated.

Note: This character power ranking is based on current Early Access data, but is subject to change as developer Mega Crit updates and balances the game.

Tier List of Slay the Spire 2 characters (Early Access version)

Note: These ranks reflect the character’s stability and strength ceiling, and do not mean that low tier characters cannot complete the game.

S Tier – Strongest character

A Tier – Very strong character

• The Necrobinder
• The Ironclad

B Tier – Deck dependent character

Details of the characters’ strengths

The Regent – The character with the highest power ceiling

The Regent is considered the strongest character in the current Early Access meta. The special feature of this character lies in the Stars resource system, a second form of energy that works in parallel with regular energy.

Stars are accumulated over turns and do not reset between matches, allowing players to store up power to unleash extremely explosive attacks. When building a deck around consuming Stars, Regent can create damaging combos that are difficult for other characters to achieve.

Regent’s starting Relic, Divine Right, helps the character receive 3 Stars right at the start of the match, ensuring players always have initial resources to deploy strategies.

One of Regent’s outstanding cards is Bombardment (upgraded version), considered by the community to be one of the strongest cards in the current Early Access version.

Overall, Regent can be a bit difficult to use in Act 1 because it takes time to build a deck, but once the deck is complete, this character has a very powerful snowball ability and can end the match quickly.

The Silent – Master of combos and tactics

The Silent continues to be one of the series’ most beloved characters. In Slay the Spire 2, she is given a new mechanism called Sly.

This mechanism allows a card to automatically play for free when discarded, opening up many powerful combos that involve drawing and discarding cards.

Silent currently has three popular build directions:

• Shiv build – creates many Shivs and increases their damage
• Poison build – accumulates Poison to kill enemies over time
• Discard combo build – utilize Sly to create long combo chains

Thanks to the ability to quickly draw cards and create combos continuously, Silent can rotate the entire deck in one turn, creating huge amounts of damage in the late game.

Silent’s biggest weakness is low health (70 HP) and no natural recovery ability, making this character require players to control the match well.

The Ironclad – Best choice for newbies

The Ironclad is the first character the player uses and is also the most beginner-friendly.

Burning Blood’s starting Relic allows Ironclad to restore 6 HP after each battle, helping to minimize the risk of making mistakes.

Two popular build directions for Ironclad include:

• Strength scaling – increases Strength to deal great damage
• Exhaust build – removes cards from the deck to activate powerful effects

Although the power ceiling is not as high as Regent or Silent, Ironclad has the highest stability, helping players complete the run safely.

The Necrobinder – Complex but extremely powerful character

The Necrobinder is a new character with unique gameplay revolving around companion Osty, a companion creature.

Osty starts the battle with 1 HP and increases HP each turn, and can absorb damage on the character’s behalf. If properly buffed, Osty can become the main source of damage for the entire deck.

Necrobinder also uses the Doom effect, allowing it to destroy enemies as soon as their HP is lower than Doom stacks.

However, this character has the lowest health in the game (66 HP), making control quite difficult. If a mistake is made in Osty management or defense, the player can lose the match very quickly.

The Defect – Strong when built correctly

The Defect returns to the Orb system, including types such as Lightning, Frost and Dark.

Orb provides passive effects such as: dealing damage, creating blocks, and accumulating large damage.

Defect’s problem in the current meta is its low stability. If players get good cards to support Orb and Focus, this character can be extremely strong. On the contrary, if the deck is not suitable, Defect will have many difficulties passing the following Acts.