Slay the Spire 2’s New Patch Will Punish Your Skill-Heavy Deck Hard

Mega Crit has released beta patch v0.106.0 for Slay the Spire 2, and the headline changes are firmly focused on enemy balance. Infested Prism and the newly introduced Act 3 boss Aeonglass have both received significant reworks, and neither encounter will feel familiar to players who had figured them out. The patch also delivers a wide spread of card and relic adjustments across all five characters, and has already triggered a fresh wave of negative Steam reviews within hours of going live.

The Enemy Overhauls

Enemy changes are the centerpiece of v0.106.0. Three encounters received meaningful redesigns, and two of them are now substantially more dangerous. The full official patch notes on Steam are available for players who want the complete picture.

Infested Prism Is Now a Damage Race

Infested Prism, an Act 2 Elite that most players had stopped treating as a real threat, now punishes skill-heavy decks in a direct and escalating way. Whenever a player uses a skill card during the fight, they accumulate a debuff called Tainted. Each skill played initially adds 3 Tainted, and Infested Prism raises that amount by 3 every few turns.

Tainted acts as a temporary strength buff for the Elite. Each individual hit in a multi-hit attack deals additional damage equal to the current Tainted total. Consequently, a player sitting at 6 Tainted against a three-hit attack takes 18 extra damage across those hits alone.

PCGamesN compared the reworked Infested Prism to Gremlin Nob from the original game, a notoriously skill-punishing enemy that forced entire deck archetypes to reconsider their approach. In practical terms, this Elite is now a four-turn problem. Players should plan to kill it before the Tainted scaling becomes impossible to absorb.

Aeonglass Is No Longer Forgiving

Aeonglass, the Act 3 boss that recently replaced Doormaker, received its first meaningful difficulty adjustment. On the surface, the primary change sounds like a buff to the player: the boss now adds a Wither status card to the deck every 6 cards played, rather than every 3. In practice, however, the conditions around those Withers make the fight considerably harder.

Wither cards now have two new restrictions. They no longer have Retain, so players cannot hold them intentionally to manage hand space. Additionally, they are completely unplayable, which removes the option of using them as fodder.

The real pressure comes from the upgrade mechanic. Aeonglass upgrades the Withers in the player’s deck every three turns. They begin dealing 3 damage if held in hand at end of turn (up from 2), then escalate to 6, then 9, and continue climbing. Players who cannot end the fight quickly enough will see their hands fill with unplayable cards. Each of those cards drains 9 health per turn just by sitting there.

Skulking Colony, Haunted Ship, and Punch Construct

Skulking Colony received the clearest adjustment of the group. Its maximum health rises by 5, but players can now deal a minimum of 20 damage per turn (up from 15). It also no longer gains block on any turn and has lost the Smash move entirely. Overall this is a net nerf, as the damage threshold reduction shortens the fight meaningfully.

Haunted Ship lost its Ramming Speed attack entirely. It now alternates only between Swipe and Stomp, always opening with Swipe after its Haunt ability. Similarly, Punch Construct had its attack order changed so that the first hit now applies Frail rather than Weak.

Card Changes Across All Five Characters

Card adjustments touch every class in v0.106.0. The changes below cover the most impactful modifications. For the complete list of every card change, refer to the official Steam patch notes.

Ironclad: Multiple Buffs

Ironclad received the most consistent round of improvements this patch:

Howl From Beyond: Now triggers at the end of the turn it was exhausted, rather than at the start of the following turn. This makes it significantly more responsive to play around.
Drum of Battle: Energy gain now correctly accounts for Replay and card duplication effects.
Entrench: Can now gain extra block from enchantments such as Nimble.
Unrelenting: Damage increased.

Silent: Follow Through Is Gone

Follow Through has been removed from the game entirely. In its place, Mega Crit has added Scare: a 0-cost uncommon skill that applies 1 Weak to all enemies and then exhausts. To make room for the rarity adjustment, Predator has moved down to common. Pounce received a minor damage increase. Fasten was nerfed, however, dropping the extra block it grants to standard Block cards from 5 to 4.

Necrobinder: One Buff, One Nerf

Death March now deals more damage for every card drawn during a turn, making card-draw synergies more valuable. Debilitate was nerfed in the same patch, however. It now doubles the effects of Weakness and Vulnerability for only two turns instead of three. That single turn reduction meaningfully shortens the debuff window in longer fights.

Regent: Furnace and Sealed Throne Reworks

The Regent received a mix of adjustments:

Furnace: Now generates 1 additional Forge per turn. Straightforward buff.
The Sealed Throne: Now costs 0 energy (down from 1) and requires 3 stars to activate, but loses its Innate keyword. Players can no longer rely on it appearing automatically on turn one.
Minion Sacrifice: Grants 1 less block than before. Minor nerf.
Astral Pulse: Total damage slightly reduced, but now spread over two hits, increasing the value of any strength or buff effects applied to it.

Defect: Fusion Gets a Major Cost Cut

Defect players received two notable buffs. Fusion now costs 1 energy at all times, down from 2, though it exhausts until upgraded. Additionally, Synthesis gains 2 extra damage. Shatter was nerfed in the same patch, losing 4 damage from its output.

Relic Changes

Two relics received notable adjustments this patch. Mummified Hand, which makes a random card in hand free when a power is played, now prioritizes cards costing 2 or more energy. Furthermore, cards that have been made more expensive by other temporary effects take second priority. The result is a relic that feels smarter and more reliable in high-cost decks.

The Silken Tress and Scroll Boxes relics swapped their respective benefit pools. Silken Tress now carries the less favorable trade: selecting it causes the player to lose all gold and receive a weaker card selection (one uncommon and two random commons). Scroll Boxes receives the stronger pool by default. Players who previously defaulted to Silken Tress at run start should reconsider that habit.

The Steam Review Situation

The patch went live approximately 12 hours before Kotaku published its coverage, and negative reviews were already accumulating. Kotaku reported around 549 new negative reviews versus 195 positive ones in that window. The writer noted it was too early to confirm whether it would reach the threshold of a full review bomb, though the trajectory was familiar.

In contrast, reactions across the game’s subreddit and Discord have been largely positive. Most community members appear to welcome the enemy reworks as improvements to tension and variety. The gap between Steam review sentiment and community forum sentiment has become a recurring feature of the game’s beta updates.

Notably, this is not Slay the Spire 2’s first experience with review pressure. Previous waves have followed a regional pricing update and an earlier incident involving the game’s credits. In each case, the broader review rating has remained stable over time as initial reactions settled.

Hotfix v0.106.1 Is Already Live

Mega Crit pushed a follow-up hotfix shortly after v0.106.0. The fix targeted several bugs introduced with the Aeonglass changes. Most notably, Wither cards will no longer remain in hand when the Runic Pyramid relic is active, and players can no longer accidentally upgrade Wither status cards. The hotfix also corrected an issue where Aeonglass displayed an incorrect buff icon on its first-move intent, which caused confusion about what the boss was planning to do. Localization updates are included as well.

Conclusión

Patch v0.106.0 accomplishes something specific: it takes two encounters players had mentally filed away and makes them genuinely dangerous again. The Infested Prism rework in particular looks like a real deckbuilding challenge, not just a number adjustment. The Steam review reaction is, at this point, a predictable side effect of any patch that makes the game harder. The real test is whether the Infested Prism and Aeonglass changes hold up as the community builds around them over the coming weeks.