STS 2 Slay the Spire 2: Regent Guide and Overview

This guide is written by JapaneseExport

In Slay the Spire 2, The Regent is the second brand-new character introduced, joining the Necrobinder as a fresh addition to the roster. Described as an arrogant, star-headed alien royal from a distant planet, the Regent brings a playstyle focused on cosmic resource management and weapon forging.

The Regent's new mechanics are Stars and Forge.

• Stars are a secondary resource that is primarily generated through other cards and is expended to cast more powerful cards. Cards are primarily split into 2 categories, star generation, and star payoff

Star Generation includes:

• • • Venerate
    • Glow
    • Hidden Cache
    • Royal Gamble

Star Payoffs Include:

• • • Reflect
    • Astral Pulse
    • Comet
    • Falling Star

• Forge creates a Sovereign Blade if one does not currently exist, and adds damage to your existingSovereign Blade if it does.

Unlike the returning cast, the Regent operates with a "commanding" presence, often seen being carried on a throne by small, tireless minions.

Their starting Relic is the Crown of Stars, which grants 3 Stars at the start of combat.

Regent is capable of dealing damage in a multitude of ways, he is a very versatile character with many possible options, I will detail some of the better ones down below.

Regent may scale in the strangest way out of all of the characters, and can solve fights through random card generation, for example, Spectrum Shift in the scaling damage section may sound strange, but it often will solve a long fight on its own.

Please keep in mind this won't cover every option, but should help provide a decent starting point.

Frontloaded Damage

• Astral Pulse - Even after nerfs, this card is still very strong (and now scales better with Strength). One of the strongest early game pickups.
• Collision Course - a very high output damage common that also generates a status. This can block with Pillar of Creation or be transformed away with something like BEGONE! You may not actually need to play the status if the fight is going to end, or you have alternate ways of dealing with it, meaning this card reads 11 damage for 0 energy.
• Wrought in War - solid early game damage common, can also be part of your scaling damage plan as well due to the Sovereign Blade
• CHARGE!! - potentially the strongest early game damage pickup, 1 energy for 26 damage is ludicrous, and allows you to get rid of dangerous statuses in long fights like Infection and Wound
• Bombardment - an excellent damage solve in early game, allows you to spend all of your Energy on block while this solves the fight for you. Difficult to play, but the payoff is worth it.
• Crash Landing - extremely efficient AoE damage, with a downside (sometimes upside) of adding statuses to the deck. You can play this after drawing cards to reduce the number of statuses, or even transform them away with a card such as GUARDS!!!. The downside is usually worth figuring out a way around to add this to your deck

Scaling Damage

• Bulwark - A respectable amount of Block with a sizeable amount of Forge.
• The Smith - The biggest Forge card of them all, rather difficult to play but can combo with ancient relics such as Electric Shrymp, or other cards to cheat it into play such as Decisions, Decisions. Will often solve a fight on its own and can be your entire scaling damage plan.
• Comet - A massive damage number attached to debuffs means that this card not only blocks, but can become a way to scale other damage or even block.
• Quasar - Colorless cards are very powerful in spire 2, even a single source of card generation allows you to outscale most fights, not the absolute peak of card generation on regent, but powerful in its own right.
• Spectrum Shift - The best of the best, gets significantly easier to put into play with the upgrade. Provides draw consistency alongside scaling damage and block.
• Kingly Punch and Kingly Kick are similar cards that help solve longer fights (while also not being terrible in short ones). They do get stronger with top deck manipulation like Photon Cut, but its often not worth playing around. These cards are better when your deck is smaller and you expect to shuffle often.
• Arsenal - not often an ultra premium way of solving scaling, but when it is strong, it is VERY strong. Not often worth picking up before you have any synergies, but can be a desperation pick and works with some potions like Attack Potion and Skill Potion
• Refine Blade - Simple but extremely powerful effect, essentially forge for 0 Energy.

Regent has a great mix of scaling block powers alongside good frontloaded block options and debuffs, meaning you have a lot of ways to solve the output checks the game gives you.

Please keep in mind this won't cover every option, but should help provide a decent starting point.

Frontloaded Block

• Gather Light - A good early Block card that also provides supplemental Stars.
• Glitterstream - Dense block cards are almost always decent in early game. Regent's starter deck contains 2 cards that don't read block, meaning you will have a fair number of hands that draw 0 block cards. Adding a dense card like this covers brick hands and it scales nicely with Dexterity or relics like Pael's Legion
• Bulwark - While this card contributes nicely to Regent's damage plan, 12 block for 2 energy is great in a similar way to the aforementioned Glitterstream. A dense block card shores up a lot of the early game issues you might face on this character.
• Know Thy Place - While not traditional block, keeping Weak on the enemy is a way to ensure that enemies never truly hit too hard. Know Thy Place is an amazing pickup at almost all stages of the game, and a few copies can be picked if you lack other debuffs.
• Reflect - The best of the best, an extremely high block number alongside damage makes this an invaluable pickup, often worth taking even before your star economy can support it
• GUARDS!!! - Extremely powerful, exhausting cards from hand can be good scaling, and you will full block while doing so. Can often leave Minion Sacrifice's unplayed to redraw into them when needed

Scaling Block

• Child of the Stars - One of the best block engines on the character, if you are generating and using stars, will singlehandedly carry your endgame block engine
• Pillar of Creation - Similarly to Child of the Stars, Pillar will solve your endgame block for you if you are dipping your toes into any card creation. Can block for 20+ a turn with Crash Landing, but more realistic cases are alongside CHARGE!! and Spectrum Shift

These are the two main ways to solve endgame block on Regent, however, it is very possible to block with cards like Glitterstream and some Dexterity. You may have to get creative if your run misses these two pickups.

• Particle Wall - Can be very strong in runs that generate a lot of excess stars with a card like The Sealed Throne, and is especially powerful with Retain and Runic Pyramid

Regent lacks good on demand draw, but makes up for it with card creation, while you can play small decks that aim to loop a single card like a Sovereign Blade, a lot of decks will end up playing a mash up of generated cards and cards native to the deck. Don't be afraid to pick card generation as a way to solve a draw consistency issue.

Draw/Generation

• Tyranny - A premium draw consistency power that also allows you to delete statuses and generated cards that may be undesired.
• Glow - One of regents best draw and star generating cards. An immediate upgrade is desirable here, as it will allow you to play Falling Star and maintain 3 stars, a very important breakpoint to play staples like Reflect and Gamma Blast'
• Big Bang - While its not truly draw positive, it provides every resource possible. In contention for strongest card in the game
• Convergence - Similarly to Silent's Well-Laid Plans, while not being "true" draw, Retain is a very powerful effect that improves consistency. One of Regent's strongest cards by a large margin. Essentially always picked unless generating a lot of cards.
• Bundle of Joy - One of the best card generation cards, allows you to roll into cards to solve fights you otherwise lack answers for
• Spectrum Shift - A build around card, almost always worth taking if you lack scaling and it will not kill you immediately. Obviously a brick in shorter fights, but is very frequently worth carrying for longer ones.

Energy/Stars

• Royal Gamble - The best star generation, if you are able to get to the prerequisite of 5 stars. The upgrade makes this card much more consistent. Notably blocks for an absurd amount with Child of the Stars and can be held as 0 energy block 15 with Retain
• Void Form - Allows you to cheat Energy and Star costs, one of regents main energy generators and best ways to play more cards per turn.
• Alignment - Subpar energy generation. It is unlikely that your deck will be able to generate excess stars while not having a lot of energy, but it is good in those situations. Often over-picked and overrated by many players.