Slay the Spire Relic Tier List

25% less HP on every Elite, for the whole run. On A20, where a Gremlin Nob can just end you, cutting a quarter off the fight is the single biggest Common in the game.

Two extra cards on turn one, every combat. Turn one is when you take the most unblocked damage, and this fixes it permanently.

10 Block on turn one without playing a card. It erases the opening hit of every fight, which across 50 combats saves more HP than any healing relic.

1 Strength from the start of every combat. Tiny on paper, enormous across a deck full of multi-hit Attacks.

8 extra damage on your first Attack each combat, and it applies per hit on multi-hit cards. Akabeko into Whirlwind is one of the oldest broken openings in the game.

1 Dexterity every combat, which is Vajra for anyone who blocks. Silent and Watcher want it more than Ironclad does.

1 Vulnerable on all enemies at the start of combat, so your opening turn hits 50% harder. It falls off in long Boss fights, and that is the only reason it is not S.

A third energy on turn one. Openings that did not work suddenly do, and it is the closest a Common gets to a Boss relic.

6 Block any turn you end with none. Chip damage is what actually kills A20 runs, and this plugs the worst of it for free.

Energy every 3 turns averages out to a third of an energy a turn, forever. Boring, consistent, much better than it reads in fights that go long.

15 HP every time you walk into a shop, and you will see four or five in a run. Healing you never spend a card or a Rest Site on.

Every 10th Attack deals double damage, and the counter carries between fights. Line it up with your biggest hit and it reads like a free Limit Break.

Watcher only. 1 Mantra a turn is a free Divinity about every ten turns, and it stacks with every other Mantra source you draft.

Defect only. 1 Focus from turn one buffs every Orb you will ever channel, in every Defect build there is. Close to S for that character.

Silent only. An extra 1 Poison on every application turns Noxious Fumes and Deadly Poison into a genuine win condition. Outside a poison deck it is blank.

Ironclad only. 3 Strength while at or below 50% HP, and on A20 you spend more time there than you would like. A relic that pays you for being in trouble is a strange thing to build toward, which keeps it out of A.

Card removal locked at 50 Gold instead of climbing every time. Thinning is the best thing gold buys, so this is worth more than its text suggests.

Two energy on the first turn after a Rest Site, which is maybe six combats a run. Rest before an Elite and it is superb. Everywhere else it does nothing.

12 Gold a floor sounds fine until you remember you will spend gold at the first shop you see, which turns it off permanently.

Every Attack you add gets upgraded for free, forever. Attacks are the biggest slice of most card rewards, so nothing else at this rarity compounds harder.

The same deal for Skills, and Skills are where upgrades matter most: Shrug It Off, Survivor, Footwork. Take it over Molten Egg in a block deck.

One more card in every future reward. More choices means less garbage in the deck, and deck quality is the whole game at A20.

Defect only. Your rightmost Orb fires its passive twice, roughly doubling a Frost wall or a Dark build's output. Defect's best Uncommon by a distance.

Watcher only. 1 temporary Dexterity per Attack stacks inside the turn, so a four-attack turn is +4 Dex on whatever you block with. It stops Watcher's defense being made of paper.

Ironclad only. Vulnerable jumps from 50% to 75% bonus damage, a bigger multiplier than nearly any card you could draft instead. Bash into anything and the numbers get silly.

Free upgrades on Powers, and upgraded Powers are the biggest single jumps in the game. It sits below the other two eggs only because most decks add three or four Powers, not ten.

Guarantees your best Attack in the opening hand every fight. Bottle a Limit Break or a Perfected Strike and the whole deck gets more consistent.

Usually the strongest of the three bottles. Opening with Footwork, Survivor or Leg Sweep sets the tempo of a fight before the enemy moves.

Powers are what you most want on turn one, so this has the highest ceiling of the bottles. It is also the easiest to regret, because the real Power shows up two floors later.

Silent only. Energy and a card on every enemy death turns a multi-kill turn into a chain. Alongside Shivs or Die Die Die it is absurd.

Silent only. Three Shivs in hand on turn one is 12 free damage before you play anything, and it feeds every 'whenever you play an Attack' trigger you own.

A potion in every combat reward. Potions are how you survive the A20 Elite you misjudged, and this roughly doubles how many you see.

Watcher only. Starting in Calm hands you the extra energy from exiting it on turn one. Small text, enormous tempo.

Silent only. Weak goes from 25% to 40% damage reduction, which turns a Weak deck into a real defensive engine. Worse than Phrog in a vacuum, better in a deck that sprays Weak on everything.

Two relics out of the next two non-Boss chests. Find it early in Act 1 and it is an A; find it on floor 40 with one chest left and it is nearly nothing.

25 HP at the start of Boss combats only, so three uses a run. It does nothing in the Elites that are actually draining you.

3 extra damage on every card with 'Strike' in the name. Blank in most decks, an easy A if you kept your Strikes or drafted Perfected Strike.

Playing a Curse for 1 HP to Exhaust it is a clean way to delete Ascender's Bane, and that is close to the whole use. Most runs it just sits there.

Trading a card reward for 2 Max HP feels like discipline. It is not: 2 HP is worth far less than the option to take a great card, and skipping was always free.

Energy carries between turns, so nothing you fail to spend is ever wasted. It makes every expensive card playable and rewards the turns you spend setting up.

A random card into your hand every time you Exhaust. With Corruption, or even two Exhaust cards, you generate a full hand of free cards every turn.

Prevents the first HP loss of every combat regardless of size. The first big unblocked hit is what ends A20 runs, and this deletes it 50 times.

1 Intangible every 6 turns is an entire turn where nothing touches you, the Heart's opening beat included. It removes the hardest turn of every long fight.

1 less HP lost every single time you lose HP. It reads like nothing and it is one of the best defensive relics in the game, because almost everything that hurts you hits more than once.

Any unblocked hit of 5 or less drops to 1. Every multi-hit enemy in the game stops mattering, and against the Heart's beat it is close to a cheat code.

Losing 15 Block instead of all of it turns every overblocked turn into stored defense. Superb in a deck that blocks 30 a turn, close to useless in one that scrapes 12.

2 HP per Power played, and a Power deck plays three or four a fight. Quiet run-long sustain that lets you spend Rest Sites on upgrades instead.

Ironclad only. 50% more healing in combat, and it applies to end-of-combat heals too, so Black Blood's 12 becomes 18. It turns Ironclad's sustain from a trickle into a tap.

Play 3 or fewer cards and draw 3 extra next turn. Expensive decks were already having those turns, so this is a free draw engine bolted onto them.

Mulligan your entire opening hand, every combat. Bad openers are how A20 fights are lost, and this deletes bad openers.

4 Plated Armor at the start of every combat, and it only comes off when something hits you. Four points shaved off every incoming attack for the first several turns.

Watcher only. 1 Block per card left in hand, and Watcher's Retain cards mean you are often holding five or six. Free scaling defense for a character who has none.

Ironclad only. Every Vulnerable application also lands Weak, so one Bash covers offense and defense at once. Anything that reapplies Vulnerable doubles up with it.

An extra card reward off every normal fight. More picks is good; the temptation to actually take those picks is how a 20-card deck becomes a 34-card deck.

Free draw whenever your hand empties, which in a thin deck is every turn. It can also burn you straight through Time Eater's counter, so know what is left in the pile.

One free death at 50% Max HP. Worth less than it looks, because the hit that kills you on A20 usually has three more hits lined up behind it.

Card removal at every Rest Site, paid for with the rest. Thinning is the strongest deckbuilding lever in the game, which puts this comfortably above the other two campfire relics.

3 Strength for 3 Rest Sites. Rests are HP and upgrades at A20, and this wants all three of them before it has done anything.

Dig for a relic instead of resting. The relic is random and half the pool is Commons, so you traded real HP for a coin flip.

1 Strength per Curse, in a deck where every Curse is a dead draw. It takes a Blue Candle build or a Pandora's Box disaster to make the math work.

Two extra cards a turn forever, with everything randomized between 0 and 3 cost. The randomizer averages cheaper than most decks' real costs, so the draw is close to free. Skip it only if your deck is a pile of 0-cost cards you need in a specific order.

You stop discarding your hand at end of turn. Hold a Limit Break, build a perfect turn, and never throw a card away again. The safest great Boss relic in the game.

Permanent extra energy, and the price is Rest Sites. At A20 you would rather upgrade than rest anyway, and one potion or a Bird-Faced Urn covers the healing. This is the default energy relic.

Watcher only. An extra energy every time you exit Calm, which on Watcher is every other turn. Roughly a second energy relic with no downside attached.

Silent only, replaces Ring of the Snake. One extra card every turn beats two on turn one by a mile over a fight that lasts eight. Straight upgrade for the character already built around card flow.

Extra energy, no more Gold. You keep what you are holding, so take it after a shopping trip and the loss is mostly the Act 2 and Act 3 shops. Harsh, still worth it.

Extra energy and 1 Strength for every enemy. Against multi-hit packs that Strength adds up fast, which is exactly why it sits below Coffee Dripper. Fine in a deck that closes fights quickly.

Extra energy, no more Smithing. Your upgrades stop dead, so this is a floor-33 pick rather than a floor-16 one. Take it once the deck is already built.

Ironclad only. Extra energy and 2 Wounds shuffled in each combat. With Exhaust, Corruption, Dead Branch or Medical Kit the Wounds are free, and then it is the best energy relic in the game.

Ironclad only, replaces Burning Blood. 12 HP after every combat instead of 6, which across 50 fights is another full health bar. Doubling your run-long sustain beats a taxed energy relic more often than people admit.

Silent only. Energy the first time you discard each turn, and Silent has more discard outlets than anyone. With Tools of the Trade it is an outright infinite.

Transforms every Strike and Defend into random cards of your class. It deletes the worst cards in the deck in one click and the average replacement is better than what it ate. High variance, high floor.

Remove 2 cards immediately, for free. Thinning is the best thing you can do to an A20 deck, and this is two Peace Pipe rests handed over at once.

Extra energy, capped at 6 cards a turn. Six is more than most decks play, but the turns where you want a seventh card are the turns you needed it most. Good early, a liability once the deck gets cheap.

Watcher only, replaces Pure Water. Three Miracles instead of one is 3 energy across the fight plus a free stance exit. Good, and Violet Lotus is still better.

Defect only. An Orb slot every 2 turns. Slow to arrive, and in long fights it is the difference between three Orbs and six.

Extra energy, plus a Curse from every non-Boss chest. You can stop opening chests, which is also how you stop finding relics. Playable, and still the worst way to buy energy that is not an outright trap.

A card every time you lose HP. It only pays out if you plan to get hit, and planning to get hit is how A20 runs end.

Defect only, replaces Cracked Core. Frost into empty slots is 2 Block a turn you did not pay for, which is real and very small next to what other Boss relics do.

Silent only. 4 extra damage on 0-cost Attacks, which in practice means Shivs. Excellent in a Shiv deck, blank in every other Silent deck.

Extra energy, and you can never take another potion. Potions are how A20 runs survive the Elite you misjudged and the Boss you drew badly against. This is the worst trade on the screen.

Extra energy, and you lose enemy intents. You can play around patterns if you know every enemy in the game cold, and almost nobody does. One misread Awakened One turn ends the run.

Extra energy, and card rewards drop by 2 choices, so most rewards show you a single card. Your deck stops improving exactly when it needs to, and a deck that stops improving does not beat the Heart. Only defensible on floor 33.

50% off everything, permanently. One removal plus a Rare relic pays for it, and every shop after that is profit. Buy it before anything else on the shelf.

A second copy of any card in your deck. Doubling your only scaling Power is usually worth more than the Rare relic sitting next to it.

Silent only. 4 Poison on all enemies at the start of every combat, for free. It wins normal fights on its own and gives every poison payoff a running start.

7 Max HP and a full heal on pickup. Buying HP is buying A20 runs, and a full heal on floor 40 is worth more than most relics you could spend the gold on.

Status cards become playable and Exhaust themselves. Slime Boss, Hexaghost and every Wound source stop mattering, and it quietly turns Mark of Pain into a downside-free energy relic.

Ironclad only. 2 Strength a turn for you against 1 for every enemy. Past turn four you win that race badly, and a multi-hit deck wins it on turn two.

Defect only. Three extra Orb slots from the opening turn. Every Defect build wants slots, and nothing else hands them over this cheaply.

One of 3 random Colorless cards into your hand every combat. A free extra card every fight with zero deck bloat, which is exactly what a 20-card deck wants.

Seeing the draw pile in order is the most skill-dependent relic in the game. If you plan two turns ahead it is close to A; if you do not, you bought a shop slot.

Clearing all your debuffs needs an Attack, a Skill and a Power in the same turn, and most decks run two Powers total. When it fires against Time Eater it wins the fight. It rarely fires.

Cost X cards get +2 effect, and the average deck contains zero cost X cards. Whirlwind and Malaise decks adore it. Everyone else is buying a rock.

Exhaust cards discard 50% of the time instead. That fights Dead Branch, Corruption and every Exhaust payoff in the game, and a coin flip is not a plan.

2 Vulnerable when you break an enemy's Block, and almost nothing in the game blocks. Shelled Parasite and the Champ, basically.

Silent's starter and the best of the four. Two extra cards on turn one makes a five-card hand a seven-card hand every single fight, which is why Silent's openings are the smoothest in the game.

Ironclad's starter. 6 HP after every combat is north of 300 HP across a run, and it is the entire reason Ironclad can afford to trade hits in Act 1.

Your first Attack costing 2 or more plays twice, every turn. It doubles Bludgeon, Reaper or Bouncing Flask for the rest of the run. The Necronomicurse that comes with it returns to your deck whenever you Exhaust it, and that is a price worth paying.

A free upgrade on a random card in hand at the start of every turn. Over a long fight it upgrades half your deck, and you never spent a Rest Site on any of it.

A free random Power card in hand at the start of every combat. Demon Form and Echo Form are in that pool, and the attached curse is small next to what it can hand you.

1 Weak on all enemies at the start of every combat. Free damage reduction on turn one, which is the turn you are most likely to eat something in full.

Your first 3 combats have enemies at 1 HP. Three free fights in Act 1 is a large chunk of the HP that A20 normally takes off you before floor 10.

25% more Gold from every enemy for the rest of the run, which adds up to a Rare relic or several removals. Take the Max HP option on the way out and the boulder never touches you.

Watcher's starter. A Miracle every combat is a free energy exactly when you need it, and it is often the difference between reaching Wrath on turn one or turn two.

Defect's starter and the weakest of the four. 1 Lightning at the start of combat is 3 damage to something random, and Defect's early game leans on cards instead.

You can no longer heal. Ever. On A20 that is a countdown, and no event reward is worth accepting it unless you were already planning a very short run.

The next non-Boss chest you open is empty. Pure cost, and the only play is to open a chest in a room you were passing anyway.

No mechanical effect whatsoever. It exists so the Face Trader has something to hand you.

Does nothing. You only ever see one after the relic pool has run dry, so it is a trophy for a very long run rather than a relic.

Also does nothing. The flavour text is the entire relic.