Slay the Spire 2 uses exactly 7 keywords on its cards: Eternal, Ethereal, Exhaust, Innate, Retain, Sly and Unplayable. They are attached to 178 keyword tags across the 577-card file, and the distribution is extremely lopsided — Exhaust alone accounts for 99 of those tags, while Eternal appears on just 7 cards.
Knowing the counts matters because it tells you which keywords you can build around and which are just noise on a curse. A deck that wants Exhaust has 99 cards to choose from. A deck that wants Sly has 8.
All 7 definitions
| Keyword | Definition | Cards using it | Share of 577 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exhaust | Removed until the end of combat. | 99 | 17.2% |
| Unplayable | Unplayable cards cannot be played. | 26 | 4.5% |
| Ethereal | If this card is in your Hand at the end of this turn, it is Exhausted. | 18 | 3.1% |
| Retain | Retained cards are not discarded at the end of turn. | 11 | 1.9% |
| Innate | Start each combat with this card in your Hand. | 9 | 1.6% |
| Sly | If this card is discarded from your Hand before the end of your turn, play it for free. | 8 | 1.4% |
| Eternal | Cannot be removed or transformed from your Deck. | 7 | 1.2% |
The shares are per keyword, and the column sums past 100% because a card can carry more than one.
Exhaust is the backbone
99 cards carry Exhaust, and they split into two very different groups: cards that exhaust themselves and cards that exhaust your other cards.
| Card | Cost | Effect | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adrenaline | 0 | Gain 1 Energy, draw 2 | Free resource |
| Afterlife | 1 | Summon 6 (9 upgraded) | Necrobinder body |
| Purity | 0 | Exhaust up to 3 cards in your Hand | Hand cleaner |
| Apotheosis | 2 | Upgrade ALL your cards | One-shot scaling |
| Apparition | 1 | Gain 1 Intangible | One-turn defence |
The distinction matters. A self-exhausting 0-cost Adrenaline is a free card that never clogs the deck, while Purity’s job is to convert dead cards into an empty hand. Neither is “a card you lose” in the way the keyword sounds.
At 17.2% of the file, Exhaust is common enough that most decks will hold several without trying, which is why cards that reward exhausting scale so easily.
Unplayable is a tax, not a dead card
26 cards are Unplayable, and the ones that hurt are the ones that punish you for holding them.
| Card | Type | End-of-turn penalty |
|---|---|---|
| Burn | Status | Take 2 damage |
| Debt | Curse | Lose 10 Gold |
| Bad Luck | Curse | Lose 13 HP |
That 13 HP from Bad Luck is the largest end-of-turn penalty in the group — 13 HP every turn it sits in hand, which is more than most Act 1 enemies deal in a single attack.
Because Unplayable cards cannot be played, the only answers are exhausting them, discarding them, or removing them from the deck before the fight. Sly is the keyword that pairs with the discard answer.
Innate and the opening hand
9 cards start in your hand, and they are almost all 0-cost.
| Card | Cost | Effect | Upgraded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backstab | 0 | Deal 11 damage | 15 |
| Assassinate | 0 | Deal 10 damage, apply 1 Vulnerable | 13 damage, 2 Vulnerable |
| Boot Sequence | 0 | Gain 10 Block | 13 |
| Suppress | 0 | Deal 11 damage, apply 3 Weak | 17 damage, 5 Weak |
| Dramatic Entrance | 0 | Deal 11 damage to ALL enemies | — |
Five of the nine cost 0, so an Innate card is usually a free first turn rather than a tempo tax. That is also why Innate is a weak keyword to build around: 9 cards is not a strategy, it is a small set of openers. The remaining four are Apotheosis (2 energy), Mind Blast (1), and the unplayable curses Folly and Writhe, which simply start in hand and do nothing.
Sly wants to be discarded
8 cards carry Sly, and all 8 are Silent cards. The keyword turns a discard outlet into card advantage.
| Card | Cost | Effect | Sly payoff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flick-Flack | 1 | Deal 6 to ALL enemies (8 upgraded) | Free 6–8 AoE |
| Reflex | 3 | Draw 2 cards (3 upgraded) | Free draw |
| Tactician | 3 | Gain 1 Energy (2 upgraded) | Free Energy |
| Untouchable | 2 | Gain 6 Block (9 upgraded) | Free Block |
| Ricochet | 2 | Deal 3 to a random enemy 4 times | 12 random damage |
The pattern is that every Sly card is priced as if it will be played for energy, then becomes free when discarded. Reflex at 3 energy for 2 cards is a bad deal; Reflex discarded is 2 cards for 0.
Ethereal and Retain are timing keywords
18 cards are Ethereal and 11 are Retain, and they pull in opposite directions.
| Keyword | Cards | What it does to your turn |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereal | 18 | Forces the card out of hand at end of turn — play it or lose it |
| Retain | 11 | Keeps the card through the discard — hold it for the right turn |
Ethereal examples with numbers: Defile (1 energy, 13 damage), Defy (1 energy, 6 Block plus 1 Weak), Dying Star (1 energy, 9 to all and −9 Strength this turn), Demesne (3 energy, +1 Energy and +1 draw each turn while it lasts).
Retain examples: Eradicate (0 energy, 11 damage X times), Reap (3 energy, 27 damage), Purity (0 energy, exhaust up to 3), Snakebite (2 energy, 7 Poison), Sacrifice (1 energy, Block equal to double Osty’s Max HP).
The practical read is that Ethereal cards are usually priced below rate because you might not get to play them, and Retain cards are priced at rate because you always can.
Eternal locks a card in
7 cards are Eternal: Ascender’s Bane, Bad Luck, Curse of the Bell, Enthralled, Folly, Forbidden Grimoire and Greed. Six of the seven are curses, so Eternal is mostly a rule about cards you did not choose.
The one playable exception is Forbidden Grimoire (2 energy, Necrobinder Power), which lets you remove a card from your deck at the end of combat. Tezcatara’s Ember, one of the 22 enchantments rather than a keyword entry, also grants Eternal — which means enchanting a card with it makes that card permanently unremovable.
“Exhaust — Removed until the end of combat.” — STS2 keyword data, slaythespire.wiki.gg
Where to go next
The cards database lists every card with its keyword tags, cost and upgraded numbers. If you want to add a keyword to a card you already own, the enchantments page covers the 22 modifiers — several of them, including Steady and Royally Approved, hand out Retain or Innate directly. To decide what to cut instead, see card take or remove, and for how rarity interacts with all of this, the rarity system.