For those who loved the original, Slay The Spire 2 offers more of the same card-collecting, monster-slaying action. Some of the gameplay hits a similar note, but with a new tower to scale, which also means there are a whole host of new bosses to overcome on each floor, each with their own tactics that will stretch even the most robust builds.

During the first phase of early access, there are two first acts, one second act, and one third act available to play. This means that there are 12 bosses in total for you to fight, of which you’ll fight three at a time. However, given that this is a Roguelike game with random perks, classes, and cards in every run, you’ll probably want to know ahead of time what the best ways to deal with them are. A big part of this is the cards, classes, and perks you’ll earn by unlocking the Slay The Spire 2 Epochs, with some of the stuff hidden behind these goals being essential to making even the toughest boss battle far easier.

Vantom (Act 1 Overgrowth)

• Found in: Act 1 Overgrowth
• Enemies: Vantom (173 HP)

The Vantom has nine charges of Slippery at the start of the fight. For each hit, one charge is spent, but you only deal one point of damage. Its tail will also slowly rise up and over your character, doing one or two attacks each turn. When it dangles above you like the Sword of Damocles, it has a huge boost to the amount of damage it deals. It also adds three Wounded status cards to your deck, which are unplayable and only serve to clog up your hand. It then buffs its strength before starting the cycle again.

The Kin

• Found in: Act 1 Overgrowth
• Enemies: Kin Priest (190 HP), Kin Follower x2 (58/59 HP)

The Kin Followers will buff their strength and attack, while the Kin Priest simultaneously attacks and debuffs you with Frail or Weak, or buffs its own strength. It’s best to try to kill the followers first, as they have lower HP, but still deal a similar amount of damage with their melee attacks. That said, if you manage to kill the Kin Priest first, the Kin Followers will flee as they are minions, so it depends on whether you think you can withstand the Followers’ attacks.

Ceremonial Beast

• Found in: Act 1 Overgrowth
• Enemies: Ceremonial Beast (252 HP)

At the start of the fight, the Ceremonial Beast will use Plow. This increases its attack by two every turn, but will leave it vulnerable to being stunned when its health reaches 150 or below. Once it reaches this threshold, it also loses its health. After its turn being stunned, it will alternate between attacking and trying to debuff with the Ringing effect, which means you can only play one card per turn. Its attacks in this phase are weaker, but so is the potential for you to defend against them, so hit it as hard as you can while you’re able to.

Waterfall Giant

• Found in: Act 1 Underdock
• Enemies: Waterfall Giant (250 HP)

At the beginning of the fight, the Waterfall Giant will buff itself with Steam Eruption, which adds damage it will deal to you when you kill it. The next turn, it deals damage, casts a Weak debuff on you, and a strength buff on itself, increasing the Steam Eruption damage. It can also heal. When you reduce it to 0 HP, you have one turn to surpass the defensive requirements before it blows up.

Soul Fysh

• Found in: Act 1 Underdock
• Enemies: Soul Fysh (211 HP)

The Soul Fysh begins by adding a copy of Beckon to your deck and discard piles, respectively. If they are in your hand at the end of your turn, you lose six health. Thankfully, you can pay one of any resource to play it, but it stays in your deck until the end of the fight. As the fight progresses, it’ll buff itself with the Intangible stat buff, which reduces all damage taken and HP loss to one. It also attacks, casts the Vulnerable debuff, and adds more Beckons to the draw and discard piles.

Lagavulin Matriarch

• Found in: Act 1 Underdock
• Enemies: Lagavulin Matriarch (222 HP)

Lagavulin Matriarch starts the fight asleep with 12 armor. If you eliminate her armor while asleep, she will be stunned for the turn. After that, she will attack regularly. Occasionally, she’ll shore up her defences, then apply debuffs to decrease your strength and dexterity, while also buffing her own strength. If you know you’re up against this boss, your best bet is to focus on poison, doom, and other status ailments that aren’t affected by strength or dexterity.

The Insatiable

• Found in: Act 2 Hive
• Enemies: The Insatiable (321 HP)

During the first turn, it casts Sandpit. This will start a countdown, and in 4 turns, you die. That said, it will still attack you every turn, but you can extend this countdown timer with the Frantic Escape cards it adds to your deck. However, each copy of Frantic Escape increases the cost to play it by one whenever you use it. You’re essentially racing to dish out enough damage before it eats you, while also micromanaging remaining turns and so forth. Thankfully, The Insatiable doesn’t really do anything else in the fight, but its high health pool is problematic.

As for what the best strategies are: cards and perks that increase the number of base resources you generate or going into cost-reducing builds will make you have an easier time of it. High blocking also helps a lot with the giant worm’s damage output, prolonging the time it takes for it to kill you. Effects like poison and Doom are also very helpful in whittling down its health.

Knowledge Demon

• Found in: Act 2 Hive
• Enemies: Knowledge Demon (379 HP)

Whenever the Knowledge Demon casts a debuff on you during the fight, including the very first turn, it will give you a choice between two negative effects.

• Disintegration: At the end of your turn, take damage (this is always an option and increases by 1 damage each time it appears)
• Mind Rot: Draw 1 fewer card each turn.
• Sloth: You cannot play more than 3 cards each turn.
• Waste Away: Gain 1 less primary resource per turn.

In addition to this effect, the Knowledge Demon can buff its attacks, hit relatively hard, and even heal itself in a pinch. You want to have either a heavily defensive or a brutally offensive strategy with plenty of focus. Combos that do one thing incredibly well are the key to overcoming this fight, whether it’s the Sinner with poison strats or a Necrobinder Doom deck. The Defect can set up multiple orbs, finishing the job quickly, while the Regent and Ironclad need to have a bit of luck on their side when drawing cards that end the fight quickly, as they’re unlikely to win a war of attrition.

Kaiser Crab

• Found in: Act 2 Hive
• Enemies: Crusher (199 HP), Rocket (189 HP)

This hulking monstrosity has two pincers, with the Rocket (right) one being able to dish out major damage. Both claws can deal extra damage with back attacks, and they gain five additional strength and 99 block if the other claw dies. It sounds scary, but as it only lasts that turn, all it really means is that it’s unlikely you’ll kill both claws in the same turn.

When Rocket uses its launching attack, it will not attack the following turn, giving you time to breathe. The Crusher (left) is more tanky, as it’s able to buff its defense, so focus on Rocket first. Moves that target both claws are ideal, as the fight will go quicker, but the Rocket has the more powerful attacks, so it should be dealt with first. Once both claws are dead, the Kaiser Crab in the background will flee, giving you the victory.

The Queen

• Found in: Act 3 Glory
• Enemies: Queen (400 HP), Torch Head Amalgam (199 HP)

The Queen can add Afflictions to your cards, which are debuffs in addition to your card’s standard effect. In this case, she inflicts Chains of Binding, which gives the Bound status ailment to the first three cards you draw, restricting you to only being able to use one of the three that turn. This is not permanent, as the effect disappears at the end of the turn. She also inflicts 99 Frail, 99 Vulnerable, and 99 Weak as a debuff, and bolsters her own strength and defense.

The Torch Head Amalgam is a minion and will flee once the Queen dies, but it’s the primary damage dealer, able to inflict up to three hits at a time. It’s not worth focusing on the Queen as the Amalgam is likely smacking you around, so try to mitigate its attack power where possible and take it down first, before focusing on the Queen.

Aeonglass

• Found in: Act 3 Glory
• Enemies: Aeonglass (512 HP)

While the third boss was originally the Doormaker, this multi-layered boss was proving far too tricky compared to the rest of the Act 3 bosses. In its place now is the Aeonglass, and it has a similar amount of health to its peers. However, it also exploits its rather dangerous gimmick, which it has called Withering Presence. Every time you play six cards, the Aeonglass will give you a Wither status card. This effect carries over across turns, so you can’t really mitigate this by limiting the number of cards played each turn.

So what is Wither? Well, it’s an unplayable status card that deals three damage if it’s still in your hand at the end of your turn. However, Wither is upgradeable, shown as “+X” in the card name based on how many times the Aeonglass has buffed it, which adds another three damage to the total dealt. Wither+2, for example, would hit for nine damage. This will upgrade all copies in your deck, as well as any newly created Withers, making the fight harder the further it goes on. On top of this, the Aeonglass hits hard, dealing at least 20 damage per turn if unblocked, but often more. It can also permanently buff its strength.

Speed is, therefore, of the essence with this fight, but some Slay The Spire 2 classes and builds will have a far easier time than others. The Necrobinder and the Silent might have an easier time with both Doom and Poison builds, respectively, as both quicken the fight in their own way and have cards that can accelerate their status effects for very few cards. The Defect’s orbs can also do damage over time, but it might be tough to reach the amount needed to kill the boss. As for the Regent and Ironclad, defensive plays might be the best strategy, as you will likely need to block lots of oncoming damage per turn.

Test Subject #C8

• Found in: Act 3 Glory
• Enemies: Test Subject #C8 (100 HP, 200 HP, 300 HP)

The low HP you see at first is, rather predictably, deceptive. Test Subject #C8 has the Adaptable ability, an annoying perk that enables it to revive itself, coming back even stronger each time. In the first phase, it also has Enrage, which makes it gain two strength every time you play a Skill-type card, while also attacking and inflicting the Vulnerable debuff.

During the second phase, it replaces Enraged with the Painful Stabs ability, which adds Wound cards every time you get hit by unblocked damage. It will also hit harder, potentially multiple times in a turn, but aside from an increased health pool, the strategy is the same.

In the third phase, you see Adaptable and Painful Stabs phase out, but in its place, it gets Nemesis, a disgustingly powerful ability that grants it Intangible every other turn. This reduces all damage done to it by an attack to 1 HP while it’s active. This slows you down considerably and also hinders the potency of effects such as poison. In addition to the usual buffing strength and attacking, it also adds Burn cards to your discard pile, which are unplayable cards that each deal two damage if in your hand at the end of your turn.