Slay the Spire 2’s first big patch just killed your favorite infinites – and that’s the point

Slay the Spire 2’s first “major update” isn’t just number tuning – it’s Mega Crit quietly telling everyone what kind of game this sequel is going to be. Patch 0.103.2 makes early runs smoother, late-game greed riskier, and a whole lot of degenerate infinites either harder or outright dead, while wrapping it all in new relics, badges, and friend-focused leaderboards.

Key takeaways

• Ascension 6 has been completely reworked into “Inflation,” making card removals at merchants more expensive over time and choking off extreme early optimization.
• Shops and relics get a full economic pass: relics are cheaper overall, but gold-generating relics are pulled from pools to blunt snowballing and infinites.
• Major character balance across the cast – with the struggling Regent getting the biggest buffs and Ironclad picking up a powerful new card – reshapes the early meta.
• New systems (Badges, revamped leaderboards, better map generation, phobia mode) push the game toward a more curated, score-chasing experience, not a broken-combo sandbox.

Mega Crit just drew a line under degenerate builds

The headline change isn’t a new card or shiny relic – it’s the way the game treats optimization itself. Ascension 6’s old “Gloom” modifier is gone, replaced by “Inflation.” Instead of a flat debuff, you now face a merchant tax: every time you pay to remove a card from your deck, future removals cost more.

If you played Slay the Spire 1 at a high level, you know how central early card removal is. Thin the deck, find your core engine faster, then start looping some nonsense. Inflation takes direct aim at that pattern. You can still sculpt strong decks, but chain-removing Strikes on floor three until your deck is a surgical instrument is now priced like a luxury habit, not standard practice.

The shop overhaul backs that up. All relics are 25 gold cheaper across the board, which sounds generous until you see the other half: relics that simply produce chunks of gold are removed from the main pools. That’s a surgical strike against runs that stumble into an early economy relic, snowball out of control, and then feed infinites and relic spam for the rest of the act.

On top of that, the patch folds weeks of beta nerfs to infinite combos into the main game. A bunch of the most abusable interactions – the ones that let you chain turns or lock out enemies entirely – have been either slowed down, made less consistent, or hard-capped. PCGamesN summed it up neatly: an easier early game, but harder infinites. That’s the meta tradeoff in one line.

Even the map is in on this philosophy shift. Early floors are more forgiving: elites tend to appear later, pathing is cleaner, and some of the more miserable early layouts are less common. You get a fairer shot at stabilizing before the game really leans on you – but when it does, you’re doing it without quite as many outs that hinge on abusing card removals or infinite loops.

The uncomfortable truth: if your favorite part of Slay the Spire is finding a busted infinite and riding it to the credits, this patch is a warning label. Mega Crit is clearly prioritizing “strong but interactive” over “oops, I broke the game.”

Regent, Ironclad, and the cost of fixing a meta on the fly

Most players don’t live in infinite-combo land, though. They live in “why does this character feel awful compared to the others?” And that’s where 0.103.2 hits the hardest.

The Regent – the new vampire royal that’s been dragging at the bottom of tier lists since Early Access launch – gets the loudest buff pass. Across multiple skills and relic synergies, the patch makes her less fragile, more consistent at managing her unique mechanics, and generally more capable of turning her high-risk toolkit into actual wins instead of stylish deaths. Several outlets call out “sizable” Regent buffs, and that lines up with the chatter from beta-branch players.

Ironclad, meanwhile, picks up a new card that’s being described as outright powerful rather than just “interesting.” Combine that with broader tweaks to his card pool and relic interactions, and you’re looking at a class being steered away from a few overcentralizing lines and toward a healthier spread of viable builds. Silent, Necrobinder and the rest of the crew also get number shifts and reworks, but the Regent and Ironclad headlines are the clearest example of Mega Crit course-correcting fast in response to Early Access data.

Enemies didn’t escape the scalpel. Certain oppressive encounters – like the infamous Living Fog – get tuned down, while some bosses and elites see adjustments aimed at making their difficulty spikes feel earned rather than cheap. That pairs with card generation and reward tweaks intended to make runs less feast-or-famine and more reliably pilotable.

The quiet but important part: deprecated or reworked cards are now auto-replaced in existing decks and saves. That’s early proof Mega Crit is willing to invalidate old builds to keep the game healthy, rather than leaving broken or outdated stuff lying around out of nostalgia. If you’re playing in Early Access, your build is never truly safe – and the studio is being up-front about that through its actions, not just its Steam page disclaimer.

Badges, leaderboards, and the shift toward score-chasing

On the surface, the new Badge system sounds like fluff – a pseudo-achievement layer that tracks specific feats and run conditions. But coupled with revamped leaderboards, it hints at where Mega Crit wants the long tail of Slay the Spire 2 to live: not in hunting for the most broken interaction on Reddit, but in optimizing clean, high-skill runs you can show off.

Leaderboards now have a stronger “play with friends” tilt, making it easier to compare scores within your own circle rather than chasing nameless cheaters on global boards. That’s partly a practical anti-cheat gesture, but it’s also a design nudge: the bragging rights that matter are the ones your actual group can see and understand. In a game that’s trimming back its most ludicrous exploits, that makes sense.

Five new Neow relics join the mix as well, shaking up the menu of starting bonuses. With Inflation and the shop changes slowing down pure economy spikes, Neow’s opening offers become even more important – and more interesting to balance. It’ll take a while to see which of these new relics become auto-picks and which are bait, but their timing in this patch isn’t an accident. When you redefine how runs snowball, you want tighter control over the first decision the player makes.

Wrapping it all together are a bunch of art and UI updates: more finalised visuals replacing placeholder assets, smoother controller support, clearer map presentation, and a new phobia mode that filters out certain enemy visuals for players who can’t handle spiders and similar triggers. None of that changes the meta, but it does underline that this “major update” is as much about signaling maturity as it is about raw balance.

Early Access with teeth

Every Early Access game promises change. Slay the Spire 2’s 0.103.2 patch is what that actually looks like when a dev is willing to upset both casual comfort and hardcore tech in one swing. Ascension 6 is rebuilt. Shop economy is rewritten. Characters move tiers overnight. Visuals are swapped. Your infinite? Maybe gone. Your favorite starter route? Probably different.

If I had Mega Crit’s PR in front of me, the question would be simple: how far are you willing to go in this direction? Are infinites basically persona non grata now, or are we in a “strong but monitored” era where a few survive if they demand real work to set up? The answer to that will define whether Slay the Spire 2 feels like a spiritual successor to the original’s wild west meta, or a more curated ladder you climb under stricter house rules.

What to watch next

• Community meta reports over the next 2–3 weeks – especially around Regent win rates and whether Ironclad’s new toy becomes the next must-pick engine.
• High-Ascension and speedrun reactions – if the top players feel Inflation and the infinite nerfs go too far, expect detailed feedback and maybe a quick follow-up hotfix.
• Badge and leaderboard engagement – if these systems actually catch on, you’ll see Mega Crit double down with more challenges and score incentives in the next major update.
• Major Update 2’s patch notes – specifically, whether the studio keeps tightening economy and infinites, or relaxes a bit after seeing how 0.103.2 lands.

TL;DR

Slay the Spire 2’s first big Early Access patch, 0.103.2, rolls a month of beta changes into the main game, overhauling Ascension 6, shop economy, character balance, and map flow while adding new Neow relics, a Badge system, and UI improvements. Underneath the patch notes, Mega Crit is clearly pushing the game away from fragile infinites and early-shop snowballs toward more consistent, skill-driven runs and friend-focused score chasing. The next few weeks of high-Ascension play – and how aggressively the devs continue to nerf degenerate combos – will tell us exactly how strict this new philosophy really is.