Key takeaways
- Slay The Spire 2's v0.110.0 patch reworks underperforming relics and adjusts the Silent character, though intended nerfs may have inadvertently made her even more powerful.
- Tezcatara's Toasty Mittens transforms from worst-in-slot relic to a strategic asset by allowing players to deliberately exhaust cards for Strength rather than doing so randomly.
- The reworked Outbreak card applies poison damage that triggers both immediately and at turn's end, effectively doubling poison output for Silent's most aggressive strategies.
- Other characters like the Defect receive less attention than the Silent, creating an imbalance in character power levels that may require future corrections.
Slay The Spire 2 continues its march through early access with regular balance updates, and patch v0.110.0 has just arrived to shake up the competitive meta once again. Unlike the previous patch v0.109.0, which introduced some controversial changes that the community quickly exploited, this update attempts to restore some equilibrium while introducing fresh visual polish and reworking several underperforming relics. However, beneath the surface of these “balance adjustments” lies a more complex story about developer Mega Crit’s approach to one particular character—the Silent—whose dominance has become increasingly difficult to ignore.
Visual Enhancements Come to Form Cards
Mega Crit has added a layer of visual feedback to one of the game’s most powerful card types. When players now activate Form cards such as the Ironclad’s Demon Form or the Silent’s Serpent Form, permanent visual effects trigger on the character, providing immediate feedback about the transformation taking place. While the community has previously designed their own versions of these effects that many players found more aesthetically appealing, the studio’s official implementation represents a meaningful step toward polishing the early access experience. These visual changes don’t alter gameplay mechanics but do enhance the satisfaction of executing powerful card plays.
Relic Reworks Push Toward Viability
The bulk of patch v0.110.0 focuses on adjusting underperforming relics. Most changes are incremental improvements designed to make neglected options slightly more appealing without drastically shifting the power curve. The philosophy appears to focus on bringing weak options up rather than aggressively nerfing dominant strategies.
Minor Adjustments Across the Board
Several relics received small numerical buffs. Nonupeipe’s Fur Coat now reduces 8 enemy combats to 1HP instead of the previous 7, while Tezcatara’s Seal of Gold decreases your gold loss from 5 per turn down to 3 per turn. These modest changes attempt to improve viability without creating overwhelming synergies or dominating future deck builds. The incremental approach suggests Mega Crit is carefully testing each adjustment’s impact before committing to more dramatic changes.
Toasty Mittens Gets a Complete Reimagining
The most significant relic change addresses what the community has long considered one of the worst Ancient relics available. Tezcatara’s Toasty Mittens previously granted 1 Strength per turn in exchange for exhausting the top card of your draw pile at the start of each turn—a mechanic that introduced too much randomness to justify the benefit. The relic became infamous among players for its inability to compete with nearly any alternative choice during reward screens.
The reworked version transforms the relic into something far more controllable and strategically interesting. Players can now choose which card in their hand to exhaust every turn, retaining the Strength gain while sacrificing one card per turn. This fundamental shift from randomness to player agency opens powerful interactions. The ability to deliberately target specific cards makes Toasty Mittens particularly effective against Aeonglass, a relic that adds Withers to your deck—cards that could otherwise clog your hand. Players can now instantly remove these penalties. Additionally, the intentional exhaustion mechanic synergizes with the Ironclad’s existing cards that trigger when they exhaust, transforming a memed worst-in-slot relic into a potentially powerful strategic asset that rewards deckbuilding knowledge.
Squashing Bugs and Addressing Exploits
Patch v0.110.0 includes critical fixes that address both technical issues and unintended gameplay mechanics discovered during early access testing.
Uncommon Cards Appear With Intended Frequency
One bug that flew under the radar for many players involved card rarity distribution. A patch note states that “uncommon cards show up slightly more often (as intended),” confirming that prior versions were spawning uncommon cards less frequently than the developers designed. Many players had attributed their consistently poor luck with card generation to simple variance, not realizing a technical issue was deliberately suppressing uncommon card appearances. This fix addresses a core probability issue that affected deck building options across all character archetypes.
Eidolon Exploit Gets Patched
The previous patch v0.109.0 introduced Eidolon in a way that immediately caught players’ attention for all the wrong reasons. Speedrunners and theorycrafters quickly discovered that having multiple copies of the card in a single deck created exponential damage scaling that bordered on trivial. The community rapidly developed strategies centered on duplicating the card, removing much of the risk or decision-making involved in deckbuilding. Mega Crit has responded by restricting the card so it “can no longer be generated mid-combat,” eliminating the primary exploit path that allowed duplicate copies to cascade into overwhelming advantage. This type of restriction prevents players from abusing card generation mechanics while still allowing the card to function in constructed decks.
Silent Takes Center Stage—Again
The most controversial aspect of patch v0.110.0 centers on changes to the Silent character. After a previous patch prompted negative reviews from players upset about perceived nerfs, Mega Crit appears to be attempting rebalancing work that walks a delicate tightrope. However, the execution raises fundamental questions about whether these changes actually accomplish what they purport to do or whether they inadvertently create new problems.
Haze Gets Completely Reworked
The card formerly known as Haze—which applied 4 poison to all enemies as a Sly card—has been completely redesigned. The new version costs 2 energy, removes the Sly designation, and applies 4 poison along with 1 weak to all enemies. The functional comparison to the classic card Crippling Cloud is apt: the weakness application adds crowd control utility while maintaining poison application, ostensibly giving players more consistent defensive options rather than pure offense. This change theoretically encourages more diverse deckbuilding approaches.
Outbreak Transforms Into a Skill Card
Perhaps the most drastic change involves Outbreak. Previously a Power card costing 1 energy that dealt 4 damage every time poison was applied to an enemy, Outbreak now functions as a Skill card costing 3 energy. Instead of scaling with poison application, the new Outbreak applies 9 poison to all enemies and includes a critical mechanic: poison damage “triggers immediately.” This seemingly technical change carries enormous practical implications. Poison damage now triggers both immediately when applied and again when the turn ends, fundamentally doubling the damage output of poison-focused strategies. Testing the card reveals it functions far more powerfully than the description suggests. The doubled trigger creates scenarios where poison-heavy decks can eliminate threats in single turns, a significant power spike that borders on overwhelming.
The Paradox of Nerfing the Overpowered
Despite being framed as adjustments to rein in the Silent’s dominance, these changes appear to have the opposite effect. Rather than reducing Silent’s power, Mega Crit has bifurcated her strength. Previously, only the Sly poison archetype felt overpowered; now both the poison archetype and the raw poison damage archetype operate at absurdly high power levels. The character went from having one extremely broken strategy to possessing multiple viable strategies that all excel to the point of trivialization.
This outcome mirrors familiar patterns in game balance discussions. Developers sometimes adjust overpowered strategies by reworking the cards involved, only to discover that the new versions create different—or equally strong—problems. The difficulty lies in recognizing whether a strategy is genuinely broken or simply unfamiliar, and whether adjustments actually solve problems or merely shuffle them around the power curve.
The broader question facing Mega Crit involves the Defect character, who has received substantially less attention in recent patches. While Silent continues accumulating powerful options and reworks, other characters languish with less compelling strategic depth, creating mounting divergence in character power levels as early access progresses. The balance work appears asymmetrical, with some characters receiving multiple quality-of-life improvements while others stagnate. Future patches will need to address whether this disparity is intentional or an oversight requiring correction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main change to Tezcatara's Toasty Mittens in patch v0.110.0?
The relic now allows players to choose which card in their hand to exhaust every turn while granting 1 Strength, replacing the previous mechanic of randomly exhausting the top card of the draw pile.
How does the reworked Outbreak card function compared to its previous version?
Outbreak changed from a Power card costing 1 energy that dealt 4 damage when poison was applied to a Skill card costing 3 energy that applies 9 poison to all enemies, with poison damage triggering both immediately and again at turn's end.
Why did the Eidolon card receive restrictions in this patch?
The previous patch introduced Eidolon in a way that allowed players to exploit exponential damage scaling by having multiple copies in their deck, so Mega Crit restricted it so it can no longer be generated mid-combat.
