STS 2 Slay the Spire 2: Silent Guide and Overview

This guide is written by JapaneseExport

In Slay the Spire 2, the Silent remains the agile, tactically complex "Rogue" of the Spire. A master of a thousand cuts and silent toxins, she relies on superior card draw and debilitating debuffs to control the pace of combat.

As a high-finesse character, the Silent emphasizes efficiency and mitigation.

New to Slay the Spire 2, the Silent has the unique Sly keyword, which instantly plays a card once it's discarded from your hand.

Her starting Relic is the Ring of the Snake which draws her 2 additional cards on turn 1 of combat.

The Silent's mechanics focus on overwhelming the enemy through volume, whether that be a volume of cards, a volume of status effects, or a volume of small, lethal strikes.

She has a handful of unique mechanics-

Shiv's are generated through a multitude of cards, some examples include:

• • Leading Strike
  • Cloak and Dagger
  • Blade Dance

They can be scaled in multiple ways, such as making them hit all enemies with Fan of Knives, making them do more damage with Accuracy, or even giving them access to Retain with Phantom Blades

Poison is simple damage over time, however, it is important to note that it deals damage at the start of the enemies turn, meaning that statuses such as Beckon or Infection will still do damage to you when you end turn, even if the enemy will die. It is also a status, meaning that it's application is blocked through Artifact. It can be added through multiple cards such as

• • Noxious Fumes
  • Deadly Poison
  • Bouncing Flask

Poison damage is scalable with Accelerant, causing it not to deal more total damage, but rather deal the latent damage more quickly.

Sly is the last unique mechanic, which is centered around discarding cards. This usually requires you to use a second card to discard a Sly card from your hand. Silent starts with Survivor in the base deck, which enables you to activate these synergies without any additional help, although they do become more consistent if you do add additional discard activations. These enablers include cards such as Prepared and Calculated Gamble. Some examples of sly cards are as follows

• • Abrasive
  • Ricochet
  • Untouchable

In general, Silent has premium defensive tools and finds it more difficult to solve damage compared to the other characters. This doesn't mean that she is bad at it, but she often needs more time in the fight and tends to not deal explosive amounts of damage in a single turn (with a few exceptions). Because of her starter deck containing 2 defensive cards in Neutralize and Survivor, she will generally need to take more early damage cards in order to meet DPS checks, especially in an overgrowth act. I will not list every option for dealing damage here, but as a general rule, try not to specialize in one archetype. You will likely be dealing damage in multiple ways, not just one.

Frontloaded damage options

• Leading Strike - At its worst this reads 1 energy deal 11 damage, which is a very good rate, while also being an easy way to bridge you into additional shiv synergies. A damage common than can scale into end game is always appreciated.
• Dagger Spray - One of silents very few AoE options, it's not a card you want to add to your deck (it is not strong in late game), but often needs to be added early in order to survive in a difficult act.
• Expose - A very strong option that scales well into end game, a 1.5x multiplier on all damage that also strips Artifact in order to apply Poison or Weak is extremely powerful.
• Backstab - Due to Ring of the Snake, you will often not be able to play all cards on turn 1. Backstab converts your extra draw into damage, which allows you to spend Energy on setting up scaling powers and potentially more draw. A very strong option in early game.
• Assassinate - is a rare card, but strong to justify it, essentially just better Backstab
• Echoing Slash - Very powerful premium AoE option, the rarity means you will not see this frequently, but if you do, it is almost always positive inside of early game.

Scaling Damage options

• Accuracy - Sometimes picked speculatively to beat a boss! Generally, picking cards that open shiv scaling powers (such as the aforementioned Leading Strike) can enable you to scale a pile of Shiv cards into an engine.
• Infinite Blades - great damage over time, and plays well with all of the shiv powers, especially the likes of Phantom Blades
• Noxious Fumes - the premium card, by far the easiest Poison application to add to your deck. enables the other numerically efficient poison option in Bubble Bubble. You may need to pick other poison options such as Deadly Poison or Snakebite sometimes, but in general, avoiding poison unless absolutely necessary will prevent your deck from bloating and being unable to block
• Tracking - one of, if not the best physical damage multiplier in the game. If you deal damage with attack cards at all, this is probably one of the best things you can possibly see.

Silent has extremely common access to Weak, which makes her one of the best characters at blocking, however, it is important to note that blocking often requires Energy. Most fights will outscale you if you attempt to block forever, so the most prevalent problem to solve is being able to block while dealing damage at the same time. Silent has quite limited energy economy, but many of her block scaling will reduce the amount of energy you need to spend in order to block enough. Many of the damage options above enable this (Noxious Fumes, Infinite Blades etc.) by dealing damage over time, allowing you to put all of your energy into block, while continuing to make progress in the fight.

Frontloaded Block Options

• Piercing Wail - one of the best cards in the entire game, blocks for upwards of 30 in multiple fights for 1 energy. Extremely strong at almost all stages of the game
• Dodge and Roll - essentially just 1 energy block 8 that scales well with Dexterity (double value from each point of dex)
• Leg Sweep - probably the best frontloaded block option that silent has access to. Large block number with a lot of Weak, as close to a never skipped card as you can get.
• Blade of Ink - while technically a damage card that scales well with Shiv powers, applying weakness to enemies and getting through artifact stacks allows you to block for large amounts.

Scaling Block Options

• Footwork - one of the best ways to improve energy to block conversion, while it can often cost you HP on the turn you play it, it will quickly make it up during longer fights.
• Abrasive - footwork mixed with Thorns, fits into the very important category of dealing damage while blocking at the same time
• Afterimage - one of the strongest cards in the game. Do not underestimate how valuable the upgrade can be. Will often block for 5+ a turn, with a potential ceiling to be much more.

Silent has access to some of the best acceleration in the game, allowing her to draw through her deck quickly and reach important powers. Many cards in this category double as enablers for other synergy packages as well. However, due to lack of energy generation, Silent usually needs to solve energy in other ways via 0 cost cards, or powers to increase output per energy.

Draw

• Backflip - a solid card, blocks while also drawing towards your setup. Can be difficult to find energy economy but is very strong when seen upgraded, or if you have Footwork in the deck
• Calculated Gamble - draw for free, can potentially draw you 9 cards into your deck for 0 Energy an extremely potent effect that combines well with other draw effects. A premium discard enabler, but only works once due to Exhaust
• Prepared - needs the upgrade before truly being acceleration. The best sly enabler at common rarity, 0 Energy to play and draw positive once upgraded.
• Tools of the Trade - a power that draws for 0 energy and enables sly synergies. Extremely powerful even without any payoffs. Seeing 6 cards per turn enables you to sculpt your hand and play powerful combos
• Acrobatics - while acro used to be a common card, it is still powerful at uncommon rarity.
• Reflex - when combined with Tools of the Trade, becomes very consistent draw for free. Very pickable with 1 or 2 discard enablers in the deck (for example: Prepared and Dagger Throw)
• Well-Laid Plans - While not actually being "draw", WLP is the best card consistency option in the game. Retain is probably the best keyword in the game and this is a one of a kind power, almost always picked on sight.

Energy options

• Tactician - Silents only true energy option, requires access to discard in order to work consistently.
• Adrenaline - The best of the best, free draw and energy generation. Notably exhausts so does not solve longer fights, but helps you put powers into play that do. If your deck lacks output, you may consider adding other cards over this, but it should almost always be picked over skip.