Slay the Spire 2: 10 Most Fun Decks to Play

As you're climbing the Ascension levels in Slay the Spire 2, you start getting a pretty firm grasp on which cards and combos are particularly powerful and which ones… aren’t.

The Sly mechanic, for example, has been pretty broken for the entirety of STS 2’s lifespan so far. It was the archetype I used to beat A10 with the Silent. However, is constantly choosing this deck type fun? Perhaps not.

But of course, that’s the joy of Slay the Spire. You don’t have to choose the insanely powerful cards, and sometimes they don't even come up. Instead, you simply have to make it with the tools the Spire provides. And in doing so, sometimes you craft the most fun and bizarre deck that ends up smashing through Act 3 and living on in your memory forever.

Here are some of the most fun decks if you’re looking to dive back into the Spire!

10 Hellraiser Striker

Me Use Strike. Me Hit Big Number.

This is probably one of the first decks newer players try to make on their first runs as Ironclad. And I mean, it makes sense. You have a lot of strike cards, and Perfected Strike, also being common, gets offered a lot. However, it's easy to bloat your deck with too much such, and then you end up bricking and dying.

The thing is, this deck is actually way better when you have a tiny deck, allowing you to pull off some crazy turns. The combination of Hellraiser with a bunch of Pommel Strikes allows you to perform huge deck cycles while inflicting huge amounts of damage. You can use cards like Second Wind to exhaust your unnecessary cards and then go infinite.

9 Toxic Witch

Poison Courses Through Their Veins

Anyone coming from Slay the Spire 1 is going to remember the Catalyst card. This, however, got removed, yet an interesting new tool took its place.

Accelerant is a powerful rare card that allows poison to proc 2 additional times when upgraded, allowing you to chip away at your opponent's health ridiculously quickly. The thing is, you don’t actually need this card for poison to still be decently strong.

The key is to focus on high defensive capabilities and include only a few poison cards, such as Noxious Fumes and Bubble Bubble. This allows you to outlast the opponent, whittling their health down over the course of a long match.

8 No Room for Strikes

High-Cost Cards Only!

I remember the first time I looked at Uproar. Took a quick glance, and thought… eh. Little did I know the power waiting for me.

From there, I picked up a couple more Uproars, removed every strike from my deck, slotted in a Meteor Strike, Ice Lance and some Refracts, and the deck just started going crazy. These cards are decent when you play them normally, but when you can play them for free, they’re all amazing.

Now, is this the most consistent deck in the world? No. Chances are it’s not going to play out every run, but when the stars align, these cards feel so good to play!

7 The Wall

No Man on Earth Can Make it Fall

There’s something so satisfying about stacking blocks and just becoming this absolutely unbeatable titan who shrugs off Elite attacks like they’re nothing.

The key to this, of course, revolves around cards like Barricade, Unmovable and then, Body Slam, for the kill. Anything that helps you become more defensive is key here too, whether that’s cards or relics like the Ship parts or something like Cloak Clasp or Sturdy Clamp.

Getting all of these pieces to line up over the course of a run isn’t exactly the simplest thing in the world; however, you can run weaker variations by incorporating Exhaust mechanics into the mix!

6 Colourless Chaos

Who Knows What Cards You’ll Get?

Let me preface this by saying that pretty much every time I lean into this archetype, I generally lose. However, power isn’t what this list is about.

The Regent has a number of strategies he can employ, and the Colourless Card affinity has a decent amount of support. You’ll want to look for cards like Heirloom Hammer and Quasar to start generating colourless cards. You can pair this with Pillar of Creation and Arsenal, which give you benefits when you create cards that didn’t originally start in your deck.

You’ll end up with a bunch of random fun cards to use against your opponents, making every turn like a sort of lottery where you come up with a strategy on the go. While it doesn’t work often, it’s so much fun to pull off.

5 Rabid Robot

Claw is the Law

When you see Claw, you must play Claw. That is the Law. All jokes aside, the 0-cost mechanic is a really fun one that unfortunately often doesn’t work out the way you might hope.

There is some excellent support for this archetype, with, of course, Claw, FTL, Scrape, Feral and Bulk Up being really strong contenders.

However, generally, to make this deck work, you need to find All For One, which allows you to replay all your 0-cost cards. If you don’t find this, or if you bloat your deck, this deck will often fail in the latter stages of your Run. That doesn’t mean it isn’t super fun to play though, and that’s all that matters, honestly!

4 Shiv Sprayer

Death By a Thousand Cuts

The Shiv mechanic is another that got a little buried by the inclusion of Sly. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be powerful under the right circumstances.

Shiv cards are very reliable and are pretty common, with good damage dealers, including cards like Leading Strike and Blade Dance. By themselves, these aren’t going to win you any runs. You’ll need to scale these with cards like Phantom Blades, Tracking and eventually Knife Trap, while folding in a good amount of weakness and blocking cards.

When you pair these cards with relics like Helical Dart, Shuriken and a good amount of energy generation and card draw, you have a deck that can shred your opponents ridiculously fast!

3 Lightning Master

Dark Clouds Gather

Playing a lightning deck didn’t really gel with me in Slay the Spire 1. However, that game didn’t have Voltaic. Now, every time I get a couple of good lightning generation cards, I know what outcome I’m trying to reach!

Voltaic channels lightning based on the amount of lightning generated in that combat. And while the base form of this card does exhaust, if you can upgrade it or even duplicate it, the amount of lightning orbs you can generate just goes crazy!

You’ve probably seen clips online of people killing bosses through intangibility, just because Voltaic has so many charges, right? It was actually a little bit too good, so it had to be nerfed, unfortunately. But I still love it.

2 Hanging Out With Necrobinder

Double? And Double Again?

Once you’ve had a good game with the Hang card, it’s hard to go back to playing normally. You see, the first time you play Hang, it just does 10 (13) damage to the enemy. However, every single time you play it after, the damage doubles. With just a couple of uses of this card, you can imagine how crazy those numbers can get!

But it’s not easy to get this deck running. Chances are, you’re going to need to obtain Hang fairly early on and then start building your strategy around it. You’ll need to have your deck as small as possible and then also find a way to play multiple copies of Hang, whether that’s from cloning it, getting a copy from Dolly’s Mirror or just by returning it to your hand with something like Graveblast.

When it works, it’s one of the strongest and most satisfying buildsin the whole game.

1 Heavenly Being

The Drill that Pierces the Heavens

I remember when I first started playing Slay the Spire 2. I didn’t really like the Regent. For some reason, his playstyle just didn’t click for me. Was I playing it wrong? Probably.

Then I found Heavenly Drill. This is one of the craziest X-cost cards in the game, simply because of how easy it is to use. If you manage to have at least 4 energy when using this card, it will double the X value. At its base, that’s 64 damage simply by playing it normally.

Luckily, the Regent has a lot of cards that can buff the Drill, like Terraforming and Patter, which give you vigour, further boosting the attack damage of Heavenly Drill. Add on top cards that give you more energy, like Big Bang, Convergence and Alignment, and the Drill can get huge really fast.

But for the ultimate spice, you have to enchant it with something like Sharp or Corruption, which buffs every instance of damage. Paired with a relic like Mystic Lighter, Miniature Cannon, or Chemical X, you can start taking out bosses with a single use of this card. In terms of satisfying gameplay, it’s hard to find something that beats this awesome build.