Slay the Spire 2 Regent character guide – strategy, builds, and tier list

How do you play The Regent in Slay the Spire 2? The supposed heir to the Sun and a descendant of the Starrian race, the Regent travels to Preon to let the galaxy know of his superiority. Upon learning about the Spire, the Regent takes it upon himself to become the hero Preon needs, defeating the evil that lies within.

As one of the new Slay the Spire 2 characters, The Regent feels like the most difficult to play out of the five heroes, but he has several deck archetypes that are among the best in the card game. Once you know what cards to pick to help construct the best Regent builds, you should have no problem ascending the Spire.

The Regent strategy

The Regent has two primary deck archetypes to build towards: Stars and Forge. He also has access to cards that generate colorless, vigor, and minion cards, though these are designed to supplement your deck, as there’s no real win condition surrounding them.

Like with every STS2 character, you will likely end up building a deck that contains elements from both archetypes, so don’t feel constrained to simply pick one card type. We should note that our strategies for winning as The Regent aren’t based on winning consistently on Ascension 10, so you may find that you need to change your strategy as the game continues to get more difficult.

The Regent Stars build

Stars are a separate resource unique to The Regent, giving you access to powerful cards that require relatively low Mana. You only start with three Stars when you first enter a fight, so you must build more Stars if you want to use any of these powerful cards.

There are many ways to win using a Stars build, including our personal favorite which sees you sit back as Stars rain down on your enemies. When building a Stars deck, you need to prioritize acquiring cards that give you access to more Stars before you start adding high-cost Stars cards.

Here are some Stars cards you should aim to acquire right away:

• Gather Light
• Glow
• Hidden Cache
• Solar Strike
• Knockout Blow

Most of these Stars cards serve an additional purpose rather than just focusing on building the resource, ensuring you can survive until the next act. Even if you don’t have the opportunity to add any attack-based Stars cards, at worst these cards will allow you to play Falling Star multiple times.

Now that you’re able to consistently build Stars each turn, you should aim to bolster your deck with some high-cost Stars cards. Unlike the Forge archetype which has limited options for dealing with multiple enemies, the Stars archetype has access to plenty of AoE attacks that are vital to clearing some of the tougher elites.

Once you have Stars available, try to add these cards to your deck:

• Astral Pulse
• Comet
• Genesis
• Particle Wall
• Crescent Spear
• Reflect
• Gamma Blast

By the end of Act 2, you should have no problems building up to six or more Stars, allowing you to play the best Stars cards on offer. To finalize your Stars deck, you need to acquire round-ending cards, cards that will most likely close out the majority of your fights.

Look to add these Stars cards to your deck by the time you reach Act 3:

• Decisions, Decisions
• Royal Gamble
• Seven Stars
• The Smith
• Stardust

In an ideal world, Decisions, Decisions is what you’d spend all your Stars on, and it can be chained into itself to amplify any of your high-cost skills, effectively turning The Regent into an indestructible force. You don’t need this card to make a Stars deck work, but it definitely makes things easier if you can pick up a copy or two.

When used alongside cards like Royale Gamble and The Smith, you can give yourself more Stars than you’ll know what to do with, and you can create a deadly Sovereign Blade that can strike down anyone in your way. Stardust is also a fantastic finisher card, but only if you’re able to generate tens of Stars using the Decisions, Decisions and Royal Gamble combo.

The Regent Forge build

Playing a Forge card gives The Regent access to the Sovereign Blade, a two-Mana weapon with Retain that continuously gets stronger as you play more Forge cards.

The Sovereign Blade cycles through your deck after you use it, giving you a chance to play it multiple times throughout a fight. The goal of The Regent Forge build is to create a massive Sovereign Blade that you can use repeatedly, capable of killing multiple enemies in a single swing.

Here are some Forge cards you should aim to acquire right away:

• Wrought in War
• Spoils of Battle
• Furnace
• Summon Forth
• Seeking Edge
• Bulwark

The difficulty with Forge decks is it’s difficult to base your entire deck on this mechanic due to a lack of support cards for it. There are simply more ways to win using a dedicated Stars build, so we recommend adding Forge cards to your deck once you’ve set yourself up with a solid base deck. Some of the best Forge cards require you to have some Stars available, which is part of the reason why you can’t just focus on adding Forge cards to your deck.

The Regent card tier list

If you’re unsure as to which cards you should pick, take a look at our Regent card tier list to see at a glance what’s worth grabbing. Of course, top-tier cards are only going to be effective when used with the correct build – if your deck doesn’t suit the card, there’s no point picking what would otherwise be a strong card.

Here’s our Regent card tier list, ranking cards from best to worst:

And that’s everything you need to know to play The Regent in Slay the Spire 2. While you’re here, make sure you check out our Byrdonis Egg and Lantern Key guides to find out what rewards await you if you encounter these events.