Slay the Spire 2 just got its biggest patch yet, with so many new relics, buffed cards, and massive nerfs that players barely know where to start

There's a new Slay the Spire 2 patch, and it brings some big changes to the deckbuilding roguelike. Several cards have been either nerfed or buffed, reframing certain strategies and keeping players on their toes, and adding two fresh Neow relics, just to tie all together.

Those Neow relics are a good place to start, per the patch notes. The first, Dowsing Rod, puts one Dowsing into your deck after you pick it up, and the second, Neow's Sacrifice, gives you one Ambergris and puts one Guilty into your deck. They each come with other circumstantial effects too.

Then we're into the maelstrom of card tweaks. Necrobinder's Eidolon has been reworked to play every Ethereal in the Exhaust pile, while Regent's Pillar of Creation's got downtuned to giving you 5(7) Block the first time you create a card on each turn.

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Well-Laid Plans is now rare, costs 1(0), and makes it so you don't discard your hand at the end of a turn. That's not the only card to have its rarity shifted either, as Dominate is now rare as well, though with no effects changes.

The Dominate shift is spurring discussion among hardcore players. "Dominate going to rare is a HUGE nerf," says a top commenter on Reddit. "Completely deserved though, card was just way too good to be uncommon," another says in response. It's pointed out that Taunt becoming common balances out the changes, at least on paper.

People are a little stunned at what Mega Crit's done to Eidolon. "What the heck. Eidolon sounding crazy in long fights," a commenter says. Some are lamenting Eidolon's old effect, since it exhausted your hand, thus removing status effects, but they admit the new effect is "powerful."

Generally speaking, the alterations appear to have thrown the community for a loop, which was likely the intention. Now that Slay the Spire 2's been out over three months, there'll be a contingent who already know many of the combinations inside-out, whereas this kind of patch challenges their knowledge.

"INSANE card changes wow," says another popular comment. If you haven't played in a little while, this is a good excuse to jump back in.

Slay the Spire 2 lead says the garbage placeholder art is "important" and gen AI would ruin it: "People would judge the game as if it's a 1.0, fully developed video game."