Regent
The Regent is one of two brand new characters in Slay the Spire 2. He’s an arrogant alien heir carried around on a throne by his minions and his kit is built around two core archetypes: generating and spending his exclusive energy resource and using a special sword to deal lots of damage.
Exclusive Regent Mechanics
- Stars - A secondary resource that sits alongside your Energy. Generated by various cards, Stars don’t reset at the end of your turn and have no cap.
- Forge (and Sovereign Blade) - The Regent’s personal weapon, created the first time you play a card with the Forge keyword each combat. It grows stronger with each Forge.
Regent Builds
Slay the Spire 2 is still fresh and the meta is still being figured out. We're working with experienced players to put together in-depth guides for each of the Regent's main build archetypes. In the meantime, here’s an idea of what looks popular.
Stars Builds
Stars are the Regent’s most fundamental resource and as such are one of the most obvious builds. Once generated through cards like Venerate, Glow, and Shining Strike you can spend them on Devastate for offense or Reflect for defense.
Sovereign Blade Builds
Sovereign Blade stacks Forge triggers to build the weapon up into a devastating finisher. Seeking Edge and Conqueror are the dream combination dealing massive damage. While the blade does have Retain, just keep in mind that when you play it you’ll need to fetch it with Summon Forth or wait to draw it again.
Hand/Draw Control Builds
Hand and draw control rewards you for cycling the same cards repeatedly. Kingly Punch gets stronger and Kingly Kick gets cheaper each time you draw them. You can use cards like Cosmic Indifference and Glimmer to directly control which cards you want have in your hand on the next turn.
Exclusive Regent Relics
The Regent’s exclusive relics mostly focus on Star generation and spending, but it also contains some Colorless synergy and automatic Forging at the start of combat.
Exclusive Regent Potions
There are three exclusive Regent potions: free Stars, free Forging, and Colorless card generation.
The Regent's Early Game
The early game of this character is typically centered around finding the powerful cards that use Stars as a resource and securing the Star generation needed to play them more than once in combat.
Astral Pulse is a very powerful Common Attack. The Regent's starter deck has 3 base Stars from his Relic but only generates 2 more per cycle through your deck via Venerate. This means that you may not be able to play Astral Pulse again on your second cycle, unless you draw Venerate first. This is an important constraint, and it means you have to be mindful of how many Star cards you add to your deck.
Strong Commons to pick with the Regent
Attacks:
Astral Pulse and Solar Strike are the key additions. However, you can not be too picky in your first few floors.
A key exception to your Common choices here is Guiding Star. It is a good card on the surface: dealing 12 Damage and drawing two cards for just 1 Energy is amazing. However, it does cost 2 Stars to play. There are a lot of more premium Star cards to take, so it can be a strain on your Star generation over time to support this and another premium card alongside it in the early game.
Skills:
From your Common Skills in the early game, you're looking for either Star generation to spend on your strong cards or Block. It's important to still take a Block card even when your focused on Stars, or else you'll continually take damage in each fight.
Key Uncommons to pick with the Regent
Uncommon Attacks:
Gamma Blast: A good source of Vulnerable and Weak on a 0 Energy Attack.
Radiate: Once you get some Star generation going, this can be a strong source of damage.
Shining Strike: It can become detrimental later as you lose 1 draw, but it's great when you need the Stars.
Kingly Kick: Not your first choice as an Attack at 4 Energy, but it can be enabled by draw and deck manipulation since it reduces in cost by 1 Energy each time it's drawn. Photon Cut and Cosmic Indifference can put Kingly Kick on top of your draw pile to speed up the cost reduction.
Uncommon Skills:
Particle Wall: Just okay until you get Star generation going, but it's a premium Block source later, so it's worth taking.
CHARGE!!: It both makes your deck more consistent later and provides a powerful effect early.
Manifest Authority: Good jack-of-all-trades tool.
Reflect: It does cost 3 Stars, but blocking for 17 on 1 Energy is very premium.
Bulwark: Provides solid Block and helps with damage scaling. One of the best Forge cards.
Uncommon Powers:
Child of the Stars: One of the main things you focus on with this character is Stars, so this is a great Block source.
Furnace: This can be a good way to deal with the Act 1 boss if you need scaling. Consistently increasing your Sovereign Blade damage could be exactly what you need to clear a boss even without other Forge cards.
Orbit: If you can upgrade this card, it's one of the few ways the Regent can generate Energy, so it's worth taking.
How to use the Stars mechanic
Stars are the resource that separates the Regent from every other character in Slay the Spire 2. Unlike Energy, which resets every turn, Stars must be actively generated and managed across your deck. You start each combat with 3 Stars from 
Divine Right, but adding too many Star-costing cards without the generation to support them will leave you with powerful cards you cannot reliably play.
Best Star Cards to pick:
Comet — Functionally, a bigger Gamma Blast, which is already a good choice.
Dying Star — Powerful card. It does have Ethereal, however, which is somewhat awkward with Star cards: it can be correct to hold off on playing Star cards to make sure you have enough available for more important turns.
Decisions, Decisions — This can be very powerful if you have the Stars to play it, and can even leave you ahead on Stars if you use it on something like Hidden Cache.
Key Star Generation tools to consider:
For the most part, these cards don't do much beyond generating Stars and costing Energy to play. This is one of the main reasons why it's so important to primarily take premium Star cards and generation, and to not take too much of either. Both Energy and Stars are limited resources you have to manage well to succeed with the Regent.
Niche cards with narrow use cases:
Crescent Spear — This card gets stronger the more Star cards you have, but if you have multiple Star cards, your deck should already be strong, so its uses are limited.
Devastate and Seven Stars— While these cards do deal a lot of damage for their Energy cost, but you will need a lot of Star generation to support it, which is a challenge.
How to use the Forge mechanic
Forge is the Regent's other scaling mechanic and works alongside your Star cards rather than competing with them. Unlike Stars, which require constant generation and management, Forge is more of a passive scaling tool that rewards you for taking certain cards without demanding you build around it exclusively.
Sovereign Blade starts at 10 damage, but with a few Forge cards picked up naturally over a run, it can become a reliable finisher that opponents have to respect. The key cards to know are the ones that provide Forge efficiently enough to be worth the deck slot on their own merit, rather than requiring full commitment to see results.
Key Forge Cards to Consider:
Bulwark — The glue that lets you really consider playing around Sovereign Blade. Since it's a fine Block card on its own merits, the Forge value is a great bonus. Even without committing more than 3 slots toward Sovereign Blade, with 2 Bulwark and a Furnace, Sovereign Blade has done very respectable damage for me.
Furnace — As mentioned above, this is something I'd primarily take to have enough damage for an early boss. That's still the primary situation I'd take it in unless I have other clear signals to lean into Forge.
Seeking Edge — 1 Energy, Forge 7. Sovereign Blade now deals damage to ALL enemies. This is something you may transform into and see early, which makes it a bit more tempting to lean into Sovereign Blade. However, the Regent has Astral Pulse, which does 14 AOE for 3 Stars as a single Common card — versus 17 damage for 3 Energy on a Rare card, so Seeking Edge by itself isn't enough compared to other options the Regent has.
The Smith — 1 Energy, 4 Stars, Forge 30. This is a big amount of Forge and worth considering building around. It's comparable to Devastate, which does its damage right away and doesn't require 2 more Energy spent. However, Sovereign Blade does have Retain, so it can better line up with damage-amplifying effects like Vulnerable.
Conqueror — Powerful effect for Sovereign Blade builds, allowing you to double its damage. However, some enemies counter this playstyle: Skulking Colony, the Cockroaches, or Slippery enemies all limit how much damage you can do in a single Attack.
Summon Forth — Forge 8. Puts Sovereign Blade into your hand from anywhere. A great card to get Sovereign Blade back for a second Attack, but as a 2-cost Attack with Retain, it'll typically want to be used as a finishing blow.
Forge is worth paying attention to when the cards justify themselves independently. Bulwark is the clearest example of a card you take for its Block value and get Forge as a bonus. Beyond that, the degree to which you invest in Sovereign Blade depends on what the run offers you. A few naturally acquired Forge cards can turn Sovereign Blade into a meaningful finisher without demanding full commitment, but chasing Forge at the expense of Star cards and generation is rarely the right call.