Slay the Spire 2 Relic Tier List: The Good, The Bad, and The Run Killers

You finally drafted a functional deck, you survived the Act 1 boss by the skin of your teeth, and now you are staring at a chest wondering if grabbing that shiny bell is a good idea.

Let me save you the heartbreak right now. Slay the Spire 2 is a brutal, unforgiving machine that punishes greed with surgical precision. The items you strap to your belt dictate your survival far more than the basic strikes and defends you start with. A phenomenal relic can carry a mediocre deck, but a terrible relic will absolutely brick a god tier draft. If you are still struggling to consistently clear the early acts, you might want to read my Slay the Spire 2 beginners guide before you start worrying about advanced synergy.

Evaluating items in this sequel is tricky because the rules of engagement have changed. You cannot just blindly click on whatever carried you in the first game. The introduction of Durability means some relics only trigger a few times per combat before going completely dormant. A shield generator that shuts off after three turns is basically useless against a boss with a massive health pool. Furthermore, the new Wax Relics from Tezcatara's Toy Box melt away after a few fights. Building your entire strategy around an item that is actively degrading is a fantastic way to end up dead.

The Elephant in the Room: Where is the Rest?

Before I get to the rankings, let me address the obvious. There are well over 250 relics currently floating around in this Early Access build. If you are looking for an exhaustive, mind numbing spreadsheet covering every single one of them, you are in the wrong place.

If a relic is not on this list, it means one of two things. Either I simply have not stumbled across it yet in my own agonizing climbs, or it is so painfully average that it is not worth the server space to write about it. I do not care about a mediocre trinket that gives you a tiny stat bump and does nothing else. I am not going to waste your time explaining why a plain old Boot is just "okay." I am here to highlight the monumental game changers that will absolutely carry a dead draft to victory, and the deceptive traps that will actively sabotage you. The boring filler can stay in the dirt.

The Universal Gods (S-Tier)

These are the items that improve your situation regardless of your character, your deck, or your current health pool. If you see these drop, your odds of winning just went up exponentially.

Universal S-Tier Relics

The run winners. I will happily sacrifice my health, my gold, and my dignity to get my hands on these.

Relic Name	My Take
Ice Cream	Unspent energy carries over. It completely forgives bad draws and allows you to hoard resources for a single, devastating turn. Arguably the strongest item in the entire game.
Gambling Chip	A free mulligan at the start of every combat. A bricked opening hand is the number one cause of death in high difficulty runs. This fixes that problem permanently.
Membership Card	Cuts shop prices in half. Buying this early means you can afford extra card removals, potions, and even more relics down the line. It pays for itself instantly.
Bag of Preparation	Draw two extra cards on turn one. Action economy is everything. Seeing more of your deck before the enemy starts scaling is a massive tactical advantage.
Anchor	Start combat with 10 Block. It is deceptively simple but incredibly potent. It allows you to spend your entire first turn attacking without taking lethal chip damage.

Character Specific Powerhouses

A generic stat boost is nice, but the real magic happens when an item perfectly aligns with a character's core mechanic. If you want a broader look at how these items fit into larger strategies, I recommend reading my Slay the Spire 2 tier list for unlocks.

The Ironclad: Demon Tongue

The Ironclad loves to hurt himself. The Demon Tongue turns that masochism into a brilliant survival tool. The first time you lose HP on your turn, you heal HP equal to the amount lost. This completely negates the downside of powerful self damage cards like Hemokinesis, turning your biggest weakness into a free healing engine.

The Silent: Tingsha

Holy shit, Tingsha is an absolute masterclass in offensive synergy. Dealing damage to random enemies every single time you discard a card turns the Silent from a calculated poison specialist into a chaotic machine gun. If you manage to pair this with Tough Bandages for the block generation, you are effectively immortal.

The Necrobinder: Undying Sigil

The Necrobinder is fragile. Walking around with only 66 base HP means you are constantly one bad turn away from the grave. The Undying Sigil cuts incoming damage in half from enemies afflicted with high Doom. It is practically mandatory if you plan on surviving the punishing gauntlet of Act 3.

The Defect: Runic Capacitor

You can never have enough Orb slots. Never. Starting every combat with three extra slots dramatically widens the Defect's action economy. More slots mean more passive block from Frost and more passive damage from Lightning.

The Regent: Lunar Pastry

The Regent lives and dies by the Star economy. Generating a free Star at the end of every turn without spending any energy is exactly the kind of passive scaling this character desperately needs. Pair this with the Mini Regent for free strength scaling, and you will steamroll elite encounters. If you are confused by the Regent's lore or timeline placement within the Spire, my Slay the Spire 2 epochs timeline guide has you covered.

The Strong Contenders (A-Tier)

These items are incredibly powerful but might require a tiny bit of setup or a specific deck archetype to truly shine.

Mummified Hand: Whenever you play a Power card, a random card in your hand costs zero. If your deck is heavy on Powers, this is easily an S-Tier pick. It creates explosive, high momentum turns.

Paper Phrog: Enemies with Vulnerable take 75 percent more damage instead of the usual 50 percent. If you are playing Ironclad and applying Vulnerable consistently with Uppercut, this is a colossal damage multiplier.

Lantern: A free energy on turn one. It lacks the sustained power of Ice Cream, but getting your expensive setup cards in play before the enemy acts is often all you need to win.

Ornamental Fan: Every three attacks played gives you block. If you are running a Shiv deck on the Silent, you are basically generating free armor while dealing damage.

The Traps (Avoid These)

This is where runs go to die. Do not let the shiny borders fool you. These items look helpful on paper but introduce fatal flaws into your game plan, especially when you start climbing the difficulty ladder outlined in my Slay the Spire 2 Ascension guide.

Velvet Choker: You gain an extra energy per turn, but you can only play six cards. Taking this on a combo heavy character like the Silent or the Defect is literal suicide. You will constantly find yourself staring at a hand full of zero cost cards that you are physically forbidden from playing. Skip it.

Brimstone: You gain two Strength per turn, but every enemy also gains one Strength. Unless your deck is built to end fights by turn three, this will get you killed. Giving a multi attacking Act 3 boss free scaling damage is a hilarious way to throw an hour of progress into the garbage.

Calling Bell: You get three random relics, but you are forced to add a unique, unremovable curse to your deck. A bad relic is worse than no relic at all. Cluttering your deck with a curse just to get three potentially useless items is a terrible gamble.

Evaluate your deck, respect your health pool, and for the love of god, stop buying random trash at the merchant just because you have the gold. Be smart, be ruthless, and you might actually conquer the Spire.