The Best Defect Build in Slay The Spire 2

As with every class in Slay The Spire 2, there are many easy ways to build a deck. Each deck has multiple archetypes that build and strengthen throughout the run. And honestly, they can all be as powerful as each other under the right circumstances.

But the real way to understand how to determine which build is the best is by looking at which of these decks is the most consistent. Yes, your 0-cost Claw deck may be powerful, but if you don’t get All For One, how does it fare against a powerful boss like The Queen?

Today, we’re going to look at one of the most consistent Defect builds that has gotten me to the high-Ascension levels in Slay The Spire 2. Oh, and did I mention, this deck is ridiculously fun and simple to play? Let’s get into it.

Important Deckbuilding Tips

Before we even get onto the deck, there are a few pointers I want to make that must be followed to the letter for the deck to work. These may sound tricky, but they’re actually incredibly easy to do if you keep them in mind:

• Focus on getting rid of every single strike in your deck. These will brick up your hands and ruin your most important tool as the run gets more difficult.
• Do not take weak/0-cost attacks. Focus on strong defensive skills.
• Make sure, by the time you get near the end of Act 2, that you have a good set of draw cards and some energy generation tools.

Just because you’re making a certain type of deck, that doesn’t mean you can’t craft a hybrid build. In fact, Slay The Spire 2 often punishes those who go all-in on a certain type of deck.

While we will be focusing on attacks, you can still have some Frost orb-generation and Focus building tools. These will help protect you on those turns where you haven’t drawn your game-defining cards.

Essential Cards

OK, I’ve waited long enough. The core card you need to look out for every single run is Uproar.

Uproar has the following card text: Deal 5 damage twice. Play a random attack from your Draw Pile.

Upon first inspection, this doesn’t seem that powerful, right? 2 energy for 10 damage? Of course, the real magic of this is that Uproar can play itself. If you play Uproar while you have another Uproar in the deck, you will play the 2nd for free, and that copy will play another attack from the deck.

You might be seeing how this all starts to fit together. Once you remove all of your strikes from the deck, you can simply pick the massively powerful attack cards. The Defect has an absurd number of these. Let’s take a look at a few of them:

• Meteor Strike: Amazing for energy regeneration
• Ice Lance: Perfect for stalling and defending
• Refract: Good damage and summons Glass orbs. Powerful against groups of enemies.
• Null: Brilliant for weakening foes and building up lots of darkness.
• Synthesis: If you have any strong power cards like Buffer or Echo Form, this can be great.
• Rocket Punch: Not the perfect card, but if you need a bit of extra card draw, this can be decent.

Deck Specifics

Uproar Tips

Naturally, if you see another Uproar, there’s literally no reason not to pick it up. The more Uproars you have in your deck, the higher chances you have of either drawing it or for it to play a free copy of itself and continue the attack chain. You can see the magic of Uproar against the Doormaker in the video shown above.

The brilliant thing about this deck, as I mentioned before, is its consistency. Uproar is a common card, which means you see it all the time after battles and in the shop. This means you’re far more likely to get this deck going early on in Act 1 in comparison to stuff that relies on rare cards like 0-cost decks or Defragment-based Orb decks.

In addition, Uproar is a brilliant card to enchant. You’re very likely to see an event early on, which can enchant an attack with Sharp. Enchanting Uproar will turn that 5x2 into 7x2. Furthermore, once you upgrade Uproar, it will now become 9x2, which is a serious amount of damage for a card that we’re only using for a combo.

High-Cost Focus

Realistically, we don’t want to be playing our high-cost cards by themselves, unless we have no other option. While they are good by themselves, they only become amazing when they’re played for free. Meteor Strike, particularly, is horrible if you play it for 5 energy.

However, when being played for free, it will give you a bunch of Plasma, which you can Dualcast for even more energy, and then use turn extenders like Coolheaded, Overclock and Modded to keep drawing. Playing more orbs will automatically use up the plasma, giving you gigantic turns that seem to go on forever, while providing you with plenty of Frost in case a big attack is coming.

Blessings from the Ancients

Some of the gifts that you get from the Ancients at the start of each Act can really make this deck shine.

Firstly, if you get an option from Neow to remove cards from the deck, it’s almost always a good option to do this. Sometimes you can remove a single card for free, or you may have the option to remove 2 cards for an HP cost. Remember, the fewer strikes in your deck, the better Uproar becomes, so this is a brilliant start for your run.

Next up: Act 2. Here are some choices to pick:

• Orobas: Radiant Pearl can be great for extending your turns while you search for Uproar. Sometimes you’ll need that extra energy in a pinch.
• Pael: This dragon has a lot of options that give you more energy, which is always good for this deck. However, Relax can also give you an extra turn to look for your important cards.
• Tezcatara: This Ancient is amazing for the deck. Very Hot Cocoa gives you brilliant energy for a strong first turn. Biiig Hug can remove any unwanted attack cards. Brightest Flame is just a ridiculously good turn extender. Just be careful not to lose too much Max HP.

In Act 3, we have even more incredible options to choose from:

• Nonupeipe: Apotheosis is amazing for obvious reasons. Upgraded cards just make this deck better. Getting Glitter and finding an Uproar with Glam are great buffs too!
• Tanx: Naturally, Whistle is brilliant here. If you can play Whistle for free off of Uproar, you’ll basically get another turn for free. In addition, Tri-Boomerang is great, so you can play Uproar for less energy.
• Vakuu: Vakuu is a weird one. He has lots of great rewards, but they can be risky. Jewelled Mask is obviously an easy choice if you have good Power cards. Echo Form is stellar here. In addition, Sere Talon gives you wishes, allowing you to search for the perfect cards. Just hope you don’t get bad curses like Normality. Whatever you do, don’t pick Lord’s Parasol. It will brick your deck.

These aren’t the only options you can pick. There are plenty of brilliant choices from the Ancients that might not specifically boost your deck, but might give you a bit more draw, or keep you alive for an extra turn. It really depends on how well your deck is doing at the time.

Closing Thoughts

The Defect can often turn people away because of how much thought it takes to figure out the orbs. However, the great thing about this deck is just how simple and effective it is. In a nutshell, grab a couple of Uproars and pick the big, heavy attack cards.

You’re basically just going to be using your orb slots for defence here. You’ll get plenty of frost from cards like Coolheaded, Chill and Ice Lance, meaning you won’t have many calculations to figure out. The orbs will work their magic in the background.

In addition, this build works very well against all the Act 3 bosses. Certain builds can struggle against stuff like Doormaker and Test Subject, especially if they’re trying to build up a lot of debuffs.

This build doesn’t care about how many enemies there are or how much health they have. If you’ve seen the video above, I killed the Doormaker on Ascension 7 before he could escape. Just keep playing big cards and enjoy your infinite turns! Easy as that!