Slay the Spire 2 patch hits the nuclear option, deletes Doormaker boss countless players hated: "He was over the complexity threshold of what we want"

For weeks, many Slay the Spire 2 players have complained to developer Mega Crit about the Act 3 boss Doormaker. The game's Steam review score plummeted, largely due to reviews from Chinese users, as Doormaker hate crept into feedback. How can Mega Crit make the boss fun and balanced, even though it was apparently already "slightly weaker" than the other Act 3 bosses by many metrics? It was already reworked once, after all.

Mega Crit had another idea, per today's Slay the Spire 2 patch notes: get rid of it.

Yes, the Doormaker is gone. Dead. Deleted. Poof! In his place stands a new Act 3 boss, Aeonglass. This all-new boss has different mechanics and a stack of three status-preventing Artifact. Why?

Latest Videos From

"While Doormaker had interesting micro decisions in the fight, he was over the complexity threshold of what we want and had lingering issues," Mega Crit says in the patch notes. "We decided that starting over fresh will let us hit what we actually want for an Act 3 boss."

Aeonglass seems to have two gimmicks. Firstly, Withering Presence. For every four non-status cards you play, Aeonglass will add a one-mana junk status card called Wither to your hand, slowly polluting your deck unless you find a way to exhaust these statuses, or have the mana to exhaust them by playing them. Wither status cards have retain and deal two damage to you at the end of your turn if kept in your hand.

Additionally, not unlike the giant stack of debuffs you get from the Queen, Aeonglass will reduce your strength and dexterity by three on every other turn – not cumulatively, just for that turn. So, you'll have a harder time dealing and blocking damage on half of your turns.

The new boss is substantially simpler, and seemingly a bit weaker, than Doormaker. I haven't fought Aeonglass yet (tragically, I am at work), but I did finish clearing Ascension 10 with all five classes just hours before this patch hit, so I have plenty of experience with Doormaker. Doormaker's ability to completely shut down certain archetypes and force you to delay playing specific cards to avoid exhausting them has vanished, making Act 3 a lot less threatening.

Aeonglass does demand different strengths from your deck, however, so perhaps I'm underestimating it. I suspect Ironclad, who can readily exhaust cards in his hand and has good access to extra mana, will have the easiest time with it. Then again, Ironclad arguably has the easiest time with just about everything.

Steam stats for Slay the Spire 2's engine Godot show "strong signs of exponential growth."