Slay the Spire 2 Regent Card Tier List (Patch v0.103.2)
Stars, Forge, and Sovereign Blade: ranking the cosmic card pool
The Regent's card pool is the least-documented of the five characters in v0.102.0. The community wiki has solid coverage of his starter cards and signature mechanics, but the broader card list (Star-cost payoffs, Forge enablers, Royal Skills uncommons) is still being catalogued. This tier list ranks only the cards the wiki can back up and describes the three archetypes at a structural level for the rest. Rankings that rely on incomplete data are worse than no rankings at all.
This page will expand as research matures. If you've played Regent at high Ascension and can verify card names and costs, the community wiki is the right place to submit corrections.
Cards We Can Rank
Sovereign Blade
Sovereign Blade is a token, not a deck card. The first Forge effect played each combat adds it to your hand at base 10 damage on a 2 energy Retain attack. Every Forge effect after the first adds its full Forge value to every copy of Sovereign Blade in play, including any copies already exhausted that combat. By the back half of an Act 3 boss fight, a Forge-fed Sovereign Blade lands for 40 or more damage on a Retained card you keep across multiple turns.
The compounding is per-combat, not run-long. Each new fight starts with a fresh blade at base damage and rebuilds. If the blade is exhausted by an enemy effect or transformed by a card-removal mechanic, the next Forge spawns a new blade at base. Forge investment matters within a single combat; it does not bank across the run.
Tier: S (Forge Blade archetype), B (any other archetype)
Falling Star
Falling Star is a Star spender, not a generator. The starter card costs 0 energy and 2 Stars, deals 8 damage, and applies 1 Weak plus 1 Vulnerable. Upgraded, it deals 12. The 0 energy cost combined with two of the strongest debuffs in the game makes upgraded Falling Star one of the highest-value campfire targets in any Regent run.
Bank Stars on turn one with Venerate or any common Star generator, then dump them on Falling Star on turn two for free damage. Divine Destiny's 6 opening Stars enables a turn-one Falling Star with no setup at all.
Tier: S (every archetype)
Venerate
Venerate is the only Basic-rarity Star generator in the starting deck. It costs 1 energy and grants 2 Stars (3 upgraded). Falling Star is an Attack that spends Stars; Venerate is the Skill that produces them. The two starters work as a pair, not as parallel options.
Most Regent builds want Venerate upgraded early because every additional Star generated on turn one is one more turn of pressure on the boss. Pick your starting relic (Divine Right or Divine Destiny) before deciding how hard to lean on Venerate; with Divine Destiny's 6 opening Stars, the bank fills faster and Venerate matters less per play.
Tier: A (every archetype, S in builds without Divine Destiny)
Archetypes Where the Card Pool Is Thin
For the Regent archetypes below, individual card names beyond the starters are not yet documented in the wiki. The archetype descriptions stand on community-confirmed build patterns. Card-level rankings will follow once the full pool is catalogued.
Star Battery
The Star Battery build stockpiles Stars across the first two turns of a fight, then spends them on a high-cost payoff card on turn three or later. Stars persist between turns inside a single combat. No other resource in the game does that. Combat-start grants on Divine Right and Divine Destiny strongly imply Stars reset per fight, so treat the bank as resetting at the start of every encounter until in-game testing proves otherwise. The full guide is at the Star Battery walkthrough.
Pivot indicator: an early non-starter Star generator that costs 1 energy or less, or Touch of Orobas in Act 2 (converts Divine Right into Divine Destiny for 6 opening Stars per fight).
Win condition: 6+ Stars by turn two or three, spent on Falling Star+ for 12 damage with Vulnerable applied or banked higher for the X-Star payoff cards (Comet, Gamma Blast, Reflect) that the wiki has not yet quoted exact costs for.
Counter: burst rooms in Act 1 that kill you before turn three, and the A10 Double Boss where Stars almost certainly reset between the two fights and the engine has to start over.
Forge Blade
The Forge Blade build treats Sovereign Blade as a per-combat scaling track that rebuilds in every fight. Every Forge effect played raises the damage on every copy of Sovereign Blade in play that combat. The identity is in-fight escalation, not run-long accumulation; a fresh blade spawns at base 10 damage at the start of each combat the moment the first Forge resolves.
Pivot indicator: a Forge-tagged Skill in Act 1 rewards (Refine Blade, Spoils of Battle, Bulwark, Wrought in War). Two Forge enablers in the deck means Sovereign Blade reliably appears on turn one of any combat that lasts longer than a couple of turns.
Win condition: Sovereign Blade dealing 30 to 50 damage on a 2 energy Retain attack by Act 3 boss fights, sustained across multiple turns because Retain holds the card in hand.
Counter: short fights where the blade does not get a chance to ramp, multi-enemy rooms (the blade is single-target), and the A10 Double Boss (Forge investment from the first boss does not carry into the second; the blade is a token, not a deck card).
Royal Skills
Royal Skills builds rely on Skills triggering Royally Approved enchantments or equivalent Skill-activated effects. Venerate is the only confirmed Skill in the starter deck, so the build requires multiple Skill picks from card rewards to reach critical density.
Pivot indicator: Royally Approved enchantment on a card, or a non-starter Skill with a clear Skill-trigger synergy.
Win condition: a hand full of cheap Skills that each trigger a passive reward (extra Stars, extra block, extra damage), chaining into a turn that generates more value than 3 energy's worth of generic attack cards could.
FAQ
How do Stars differ from Energy?
Energy resets at the start of every turn (back to your base amount, typically 3). Stars do not reset between turns inside a single combat. Any Stars you generate on turn one are still there on turn three of the same fight. This makes Stars a savings mechanic: you can generate them on low-activity turns and spend the entire stockpile on one high-value turn. Energy can't do that. An unspent energy on turn one is simply gone.
The wiki does not explicitly state whether Stars carry between combats. The combat-start grants from Divine Right and Divine Destiny strongly imply per-combat reset, but no source spells it out. Treat the bank as resetting at the start of every encounter until in-game testing proves otherwise.
What is Forge and how does it affect Sovereign Blade?
Forge is a per-combat scaling mechanic. The first Forge effect played each combat adds Sovereign Blade to your hand at base 10 damage on a 2 energy Retain attack. Every Forge effect played after the first adds its full Forge value to every copy of Sovereign Blade in play, including any copies already exhausted that combat. Forge investment compounds within a single fight; it does not bank across combats. Each new combat starts with a fresh blade at base damage and rebuilds.
Is Regent viable at high Ascension?
Community data on Regent at Ascension 10 and above is limited. The current snapshot (v0.102.0) places him in the mid tier below Defect, Silent, and Ironclad. High-Ascension play requires faster access to payoff turns, and the Star ramp is vulnerable to burst encounters early in Act 1 before the engine stabilizes. He's not unviable, but the consensus is that his card pool feels less tuned than the three returning characters at high difficulty.
Which starter relic is better, Divine Right or Divine Destiny?
Divine Destiny is strictly stronger. Divine Right grants 3 Stars at the start of each combat. Divine Destiny grants 6. Divine Destiny replaces Divine Right when you accept the Touch of Orobas event at the start of Act 2; this is the single largest power spike a Regent run can hit, because 6 opening Stars enables a turn-one Falling Star with no setup at all and an extra Star left in the bank for turn two.
Take Touch of Orobas every time it appears.
Why are Regent tier lists incomplete compared to Ironclad or Silent tier lists?
Two reasons. First, Regent is new to the series. The returning characters (Ironclad, Silent, Defect) carried years of STS1 community knowledge into Early Access. Players knew roughly what those cards did before STS2 launched. Regent's entire pool is new, and community research takes time. Second, Regent's card pool is the least documented of the five characters in v0.102.0. As of late April 2026, the source wiki has individual card pages for the three starters plus six confirmed commons (Glow, Gather Light, Refine Blade, Spoils of Battle, Wrought in War) and one confirmed uncommon (Bulwark). Several payoff cards (Comet, Gamma Blast, Reflect, Genesis, The Smith) are referenced by name in community guides but their exact Star costs and damage values are not yet published anywhere we can verify. Tier lists require data. Rankings on unnamed cards would be invented, and invented rankings cost credibility that no site recovers easily.