Silent is the strongest character in Major Update 2, and the fight that settles it is entity:aeonglass.
The Act 3 boss that replaced entity:doormaker feeds entity:wither cards into your deck while the fight runs, and holding them hurts more the longer you take. The cost does not climb in a straight line. It accelerates. So a deck that plans to block its way through and grind the boss down is doing the one thing the fight was built to punish. Characters that close with scaling damage, or that delete Wither outright through Exhaust and discard, sit at the top of this list. Characters built to stall sit at the bottom.
The cast is tightly balanced this patch. This is a ranking by win rate and matchup fit, not a split between good and bad characters. Every class clears high Ascension. The order tells you which one asks the least of your draft.
The ranking
| Tier | Character | Win rate | The read |
|---|---|---|---|
| S | entity:silent | 35.6% | Shiv and Sly-discard tempo race the boss, and discard clears Wither for free |
| A | entity:necrobinder | 32.1% | The Doom execute scales past the Wither pile no matter how long the fight runs |
| A | entity:ironclad | 31.7% | Strength plus Exhaust answers the boss mechanic by default |
| B | entity:regent | 30.4% | The Parry and Sword Sage loop is strong, but block nerfs cap the stall lines |
| B | entity:defect | 29.8% | The Frost-stall plan is exactly what Aeonglass punishes |
Those percentages are character win rates and they match our full tier list. They describe the class across every run, not any one deck.
Silent: Sly Discard Cascade
Silent throws cards away on purpose and gets paid for it. Sly payoffs chain off each discard, entity:shivs turn that tempo into damage that lands this turn instead of three turns from now, and the discard pile is where the boss mechanic goes to die. Against Aeonglass you are not spending a card slot on an answer. The deck's ordinary turn already clears Wither, so the fight comes down to whether your damage curve beats a clock that is barely ticking for you.
Our saved Silent list runs a nine-card core and three relics, tuned at Ascension 5, and the full Sly discard guide walks the draft priorities pick by pick.
Build: a8c8e15e42c2Take Silent if you want the character that asks the least of your run. The draft is forgiving, the Act 3 boss is a favorable matchup rather than a wall, and the skill expression is in piloting rather than in finding one specific rare. If you are coming back to the game after Major Update 2 and want to see the patch from the winning side, start here.
Necrobinder: Soul Engine with Doom Execute
Necrobinder plays the long fight and still wins it. The soul engine grows across turns, and Doom converts everything you have banked into an execute that does not care how many turns the boss bought itself. That is the whole answer to Aeonglass: the Wither pile scales, and the Doom finish scales past it. Where other decks are trying to end the fight before the mechanic matters, this one lets the mechanic run and then removes the boss anyway.
The saved build lists an eight-card core with three relics at Ascension 4, and the soul engine guide covers the sequencing, which is where most losses come from.
Build: ec604309e13dTake Necrobinder if you enjoy setup and you trust yourself to hold a plan together for a long fight. It has the highest ceiling of anything below Silent, and it is the most punishing to misplay, because an execute you fire one turn early is an execute you do not get to fire at all.
Ironclad: Strength Demon Form Turbo
Ironclad answers this patch without trying to. entity:demon-form stacks Strength every turn, so damage compounds while the boss is still setting up, and the Exhaust effects the archetype already wants are the same effects that eat Wither out of your deck. Two mechanics, one draft, no tech slot. It is the least clever build on this page and that is exactly why it works.
Our saved list is a nine-card core plus three relics at Ascension 5, and the Strength build guide sorts which Exhaust cards are worth the pick and which ones thin your deck into nothing.
Build: b5fe26a061fbTake Ironclad if you want the shortest path from draft to functioning deck. The plan is legible from Act 1, the pieces show up in most runs, and you will rarely lose a run because you could not find the deck. What you give up is the top end. Silent and Necrobinder both have more ceiling than this, but neither is as reliable.
Regent: Star Battery with Sovereign Blade
Regent is the character the block nerfs hit hardest, and the version of Regent that still wins is the aggressive one. The entity:parry and entity:sword-sage loop is genuinely strong, and it will carry you through most of a run. The problem is where the stall lines end: they cap out, and Aeonglass is where the cap becomes a loss. Star Battery and entity:sovereign-blade give the class a damage plan that keeps climbing, which is what the Act 3 fight actually asks for.
The saved build pins down a five-card core with three relics at Ascension 4 and leaves the rest to you. The Star Battery guide explains what to prioritize with all that room.
Build: 37383cf4f84cTake Regent if you like decks that reward reading the fight rather than executing a script. Just commit to the damage side early. The trap with this class is drafting a defensive shell that feels unbeatable through Act 2 and then discovering it has no way to end the last fight.
Defect: Frost Tank Focus Stack
Defect has the cleanest engine in the game and the worst matchup against the thing that decides runs. Focus scales every Frost orb you generate, so block compounds turn over turn until nothing on the board can meaningfully hit you. That plan is close to unkillable right up until it meets a boss whose damage comes from your own deck rather than from its attacks, and blocking does nothing about the Wither pile.
Our saved Defect list is an eight-card core with three relics at Ascension 5, and the Frost tank guide covers how to build the engine without letting it become the entire deck.
Build: 304433a90186Take Defect if you want the run to be about the engine, and go in knowing you owe the deck one thing: a damage line that scales. The Frost shell keeps you alive with room to spare long before Act 3, so spend your picks on the close rather than on more survivability you will not need. Played that way it clears high Ascension without much drama. Played as a pure block deck it stalls out at the exact moment the run is on the line.
Picking your next run
If you are new to this patch, run Silent. It has the best matchup against the fight that ends most runs, the draft is the most forgiving, and you will learn what the Wither mechanic actually does from a position where you can survive the lesson.
If you already know the patch and want to push Ascension, the choice is between Necrobinder and Ironclad, and the split is temperament. Necrobinder rewards patience and punishes a rushed execute. Ironclad hands you a working deck faster than anything else here and asks less of your judgment in the boss fight. Regent and Defect are both live picks with the aggressive line committed to early; they lose runs to the same mistake, which is building the defensive shell and never building the close.
Whichever you take, read that character's card tier list before you draft: Silent, Necrobinder, Ironclad, Regent, Defect. The archetypes on this page describe where you want to end up. The card rankings tell you which of the three picks in front of you actually gets you there.