Slay the Spire 2 Silent Card Tier List (Major Update 2)
Every Silent card ranked after the 0.107 reworks
TL;DR
The Silent tops the roster on main after Major Update #2 (v0.107.1), with the highest reported win rate of the five characters in community run aggregates. The pick order has not changed: build around the first S-tier engine card you see, and commit. item:accuracy, item:catalyst, and item:infinite-blades are the three cards that decide your run. Everything below them supports one of those three engines.
This list is current for v0.107.1, the Major Update #2 build that folded the v0.104.0 through v0.107.0 beta onto the main branch.
How to read this list
The Silent runs three archetypes: Shiv, Poison, and Sly Discard. Your Act 1 path is set by which S-tier card shows up first. The cards below are sorted by how much they raise that ceiling, not by raw stat lines. A card that does nothing without your engine sits low even if its numbers look fine in a vacuum.
One thing changed the math at the top of Act 3. The new boss, Aeonglass, replaced Doormaker and adds Wither cards to your deck as the fight runs, ramping hard past the ten-to-twelve turn mark. Pure block-and-stall lines lose to it. Every Silent build now needs scaling damage that can close before the Wither pile drowns you. That pressure sharpens the case for burst over attrition throughout this list.
S Tier
These three define the Silent's ceiling. See any of them in Act 1 and your build direction is locked.
Accuracy (Power, Uncommon)
Every item:shiv deals 4 base damage. Accuracy doubles it. Two copies and a single Shiv hits for 16. Three copies and you hit for 32 per Shiv.
Pair it with Infinite Blades generating one Shiv per turn, then add Cloak and Dagger or Blade Dance dropping three or four more, and one turn can produce 100-plus damage with no Attack card involved. Accuracy turns a pile of zero-cost tokens into a win condition. Take it on sight, no matter what your deck looks like when it appears.
Catalyst (Skill, Rare)
Doubles current Poison stacks on a target. Catalyst+ doubles twice.
Stack 20 Poison with Deadly Poison, Poisoned Stab, or Bouncing Flask, then play Catalyst. The target now carries 40 Poison, ticking 40 plus 39 plus 38 and down for roughly 820 total. Catalyst+ pushes the stack to 80 before the first tick. Nothing in the game survives that.
The Poison archetype exists because Catalyst exists. Without it, Poison chips slowly and burns turns. Against Aeonglass that slow line is a trap, because the Wither ramp punishes every extra turn you spend setting up. With Catalyst you skip the attrition entirely and end the fight in one action.
Infinite Blades (Power, Rare)
One Shiv at the start of every turn. Upgraded, it gains Innate, so it opens in your starting hand each fight.
The value is in the word "every." Blade Dance and Cloak and Dagger cost a card play and energy. Infinite Blades hands you a free Shiv on upkeep, forever. With two or three Accuracy stacks, that passive Shiv alone deals 16 to 32 per turn before you touch your hand. Over a long boss fight that free damage stacks into a real chunk of the enemy's bar.
A Tier
Build-enabling cards, or strong enough to slot into any Silent deck without a dedicated payoff.
Blade Dance (Skill, Common)
Generates 3 Shivs at low cost. Feeds item:accuracy directly for burst turns and stays discard-eligible in some Sly configurations. It is one of the earliest signs a Shiv build is live, since you can find it in Act 1 and know it earns its slot all run.
Cloak and Dagger (Skill, Common)
Block plus a Shiv. Two needs in one slot, which matters a great deal in a deck trying to stay lean. Late in a run with Accuracy stacks, the Shiv half scales to match dedicated attacks. The Block half keeps you alive in the Act 3 rooms where a missing defensive card costs 30 HP.
Bouncing Flask (Skill, Uncommon)
Applies Poison three times to random targets, 3 stacks each (9 total, spread by the dice). On a single enemy that is 9 stacks landing where you want them. In multi-enemy rooms it scatters and clears trash fast. The random targeting is a real drawback in boss fights when you have one item:catalyst and need every stack on one target. Pair it with item:deadly-poison for deterministic single-target setup and let Bouncing Flask mop up room fights.
Noxious Fumes (Power, Uncommon)
Applies 2 Poison per turn to all enemies. The ramp is slow but free. By turn four in a boss fight that is 8 Poison sitting on the target before you play a Poison card from hand. By turn six it is 12. Every point raises the baseline your Catalyst will double, so the doubler hits proportionally harder the longer Noxious Fumes has been ticking.
Deadly Poison (Skill, Common)
Cheap, reliable, single-target Poison. Sets up Catalyst turns without the item:bouncing-flask randomness. Core infrastructure in a Poison deck, and even outside one the chip damage holds up in elite fights where every stalled turn costs HP.
Blade of Ink (Attack)
Generates item:inky-shiv, a modified Shiv variant that applies 1 Weak on hit and carries a small bonus over a standard Shiv. Major Update #2 trimmed that bonus to plus 1, so the card no longer stands out as a Shiv-scaler the way it briefly did. The Weak is the reason to take it. Weak cuts enemy attack damage by 25 percent, and one Blade of Ink throwing two or three Inky Shivs can erase several hits worth of incoming damage. A solid pick in the Acts before Accuracy or Catalyst is locked, valued now for defensive utility rather than scaling.
B Tier
Solid cards that earn a slot in most Silent decks, especially in the early Acts before your archetype is set.
Neutralize (Attack, Basic)
Starter card. Small damage plus 1 Weak. Always in your deck, always able to soften the nastiest single attack in a fight. Upgrade it early; the extra Weak stack saves meaningful HP on a multi-attack enemy turn.
Survivor (Skill, Basic)
Block plus discard. Defensive filler in a base deck, an engine trigger in a Sly build. Discard a Sly card and it auto-plays for free. Survivor and Acrobatics are the two free discard enablers in the starting deck, which is why the Sly archetype is reachable without specific Uncommon picks. For the full discard loop, see our Silent Sly Discard build guide.
Build: a8c8e15e42c2Poisoned Stab (Attack, Uncommon)
Damage plus Poison in one card. Useful in hybrid runs or in early Acts before you find Deadly Poison or Bouncing Flask. It falls off in single-archetype decks once Noxious Fumes or Catalyst is online and you stop needing more applicators.
Predator (Attack, Common)
Major Update #2 dropped Predator from Uncommon to Common while keeping its effect, so it is easier to draft early now. Same role, lower rarity, which makes it a more dependable early-Act damage option than its old rarity suggested.
Scare (Skill, Uncommon)
A 0-cost Skill that applies Weak across enemies. Worth knowing by name, since v0.107.1 reworked and renamed it; the old card name is gone from main. As a free Weak applicator it slots into the same defensive role as Neutralize, with the cost low enough to fire on any turn you have spare draws.
C Tier
These do work early, then turn obsolete or actively wasteful once Accuracy or Catalyst lands.
Strike and Defend variants are starter filler. You want fewer of them as the run goes on. The Inflation modifier at Ascension 6 and up makes card removal start expensive and climb with each cut, so high-Ascension runs stay stuck with the filler longer. Below Ascension 6, cut them at the first shop.
Setup cards without a payoff fall here too: anything applying a little Poison or making a single Shiv with no Accuracy or Catalyst behind it. The rule is simple. If a card only matters before your archetype comes online, it is a placeholder. Once your S-tier engine is in the deck, revisit every card that does not interact with Accuracy or Catalyst and cut what you can afford to.
Tier Summary
| Tier | Cards |
|---|---|
| S | Accuracy, Catalyst, Infinite Blades |
| A | Blade Dance, Cloak and Dagger, Bouncing Flask, Noxious Fumes, Deadly Poison, Blade of Ink |
| B | Neutralize, Survivor, Poisoned Stab, Predator, Scare |
| C | Strike variants, Defend variants, single-application cards without archetype context |
FAQ
What is the best Silent archetype in v0.107.1?
Poison sits slightly ahead of Shiv at high Ascension, because Catalyst turns are more consistent against boss HP totals than Shiv burst, and the Aeonglass Wither ramp rewards ending fights fast. Sly Discard carries a higher skill ceiling and remains the spiciest of the three. Shiv is strongest in the early-to-mid Ascension range where game sense is still forming, since Accuracy is visual and easy to read mid-run. New to the character, take the first Accuracy you see.
How does the Sly keyword work?
A Sly card, when discarded, auto-plays for free instead of going to the discard pile. That flips discard from a cost into a payoff. A "discard 2" effect normally costs you two cards; in a Sly deck it becomes two free plays. Survivor and Acrobatics, both starting-deck discard triggers, turn into engine pieces rather than defensive filler.
Should I build Shiv or Poison?
Build whichever S-tier card lands first. Accuracy in Act 1 means Shiv. Catalyst means Poison. Do not keep both options open past Act 1. Splitting picks leaves you at Act 3 with a weak Shiv stack and too little Poison for Catalyst to matter, and Aeonglass will close that window before you do. The two archetypes do not blend mid-run.
Is Noxious Fumes worth picking without Catalyst?
Yes, with a clear read on timing. Noxious Fumes stacks Poison every turn and wears down elites and bosses on its own. The cost is time, and time is the thing Aeonglass takes from you. Without a doubler you are betting on fights ending in 8 to 12 turns through attrition rather than 2 to 4 through a Catalyst burst. In Act 2 elite fights that trade is fine. In an Act 3 boss room, find Catalyst before you walk in, or the Wither ramp turns the slow line negative. Reach Aeonglass with Noxious Fumes and no doubler and you are racing a clock you set against yourself.