Slay the Spire 2’s data holds 936 collectible items across three pools: 577 cards, 296 relics and 63 potions. Their rarity tiers are not distributed the way the names suggest — the “rarest” relic tier, Ancient, is the largest bucket at 100 of 296, while the card file is dominated by Uncommon at 219 of 577 (38.0%).
That inversion is the most useful thing on this page. Rarity in this game is a tag on an item, not a promise about how often it shows up or how strong it is.
Rarity across all three pools
| Tier | Cards | Relics | Potions | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | — | 10 | — | 10 |
| Basic | 19 | — | — | 19 |
| Common | 100 | 30 | 20 | 150 |
| Uncommon | 219 | 40 | 20 | 279 |
| Rare | 155 | 50 | 20 | 225 |
| Ancient | 18 | 100 | — | 118 |
| Shop | — | 30 | — | 30 |
| Event | 19 | 35 | 2 | 56 |
| Curse | 18 | — | — | 18 |
| Status | 16 | — | — | 16 |
| Quest | 3 | — | — | 3 |
| Token | 10 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
The ”—” cells are real: cards have no Shop tier, relics have no Curse or Status tier, and potions have no Ancient tier. Each pool uses its own vocabulary.
Cards: Uncommon is the default
| Rarity | Cards | Share of 577 |
|---|---|---|
| Uncommon | 219 | 38.0% |
| Rare | 155 | 26.9% |
| Common | 100 | 17.3% |
| Basic | 19 | 3.3% |
| Event | 19 | 3.3% |
| Ancient | 18 | 3.1% |
| Curse | 18 | 3.1% |
| Status | 16 | 2.8% |
| Token | 10 | 1.7% |
| Quest | 3 | 0.5% |
Uncommon outnumbers Common by more than two to one. That is not a mistake in the data — it reflects a card file where the middle tier carries the bulk of the design space, including most of the archetype glue.
The practical consequence is that “it’s only Uncommon” is a bad reason to skip a card. Six of the eighteen S-tier cards are Uncommon, including Bury (52 damage for 4 energy), Hemokinesis (15 damage for 1, lose 2 HP) and Fight Through (13 Block for 1).
Relics: Ancient is the biggest bucket
| Rarity | Relics | Share of 296 |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient | 100 | 33.8% |
| Rare | 50 | 16.9% |
| Uncommon | 40 | 13.5% |
| Event | 35 | 11.8% |
| Common | 30 | 10.1% |
| Shop | 30 | 10.1% |
| Starter | 10 | 3.4% |
| None | 1 | 0.3% |
100 Ancient relics against 30 Common is the opposite of an escalating rarity ladder. It also breaks the intuition that Ancient equals vanishingly rare: the tier is large because it covers the whole late-game relic set, not because each one is a lottery ticket.
The ten Starter relics are one per character plus their upgrades — Black Blood (heal 12 at end of combat) sits in the same file as Burning Blood (heal 6), and both are tagged Starter.
Potions: a flat split
| Rarity | Potions |
|---|---|
| Common | 20 |
| Uncommon | 20 |
| Rare | 20 |
| Event | 2 |
| Token | 1 |
Exactly 20 in each of the three main tiers. Potions are the one pool where rarity is a clean three-way split, so the tag carries no information about relative strength within a tier: Fire Potion (20 damage) and Potion of Doom (33 Doom) are both Common.
Rarity inside a character pool
Every character pool is built to the same recipe.
| Pool | Cards | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Ancient |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Silent | 88 | 20 | 36 | 26 | 2 |
| Defect | 88 | 20 | 36 | 26 | 2 |
| Necrobinder | 88 | 20 | 36 | 26 | 2 |
| Regent | 88 | 20 | 36 | 26 | 2 |
| Ironclad | 87 | 20 | 36 | 26 | 2 |
| Colorless | 64 | 0 | 39 | 25 | 0 |
Five identical 20/36/26/2 splits is the clearest evidence that rarity is a budget rather than a curve. Each character gets exactly 26 Rare cards and 2 Ancient, so a Rare reward from a Silent run is drawn from a pool you can learn in full.
Colorless is the outlier: 64 cards with no Common tier at all, and 39 of them Uncommon (60.9%). That is why a Colorless reward feels different — there is no low end to the pool.
Rarity does not predict tier
The card tier data grades 199 cards S to D. Cross-referencing rarity with grade produces the useful result:
| Grade | Cards | Common | Uncommon | Rare | Ancient | Event | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | 18 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| A | 50 | 23 | 12 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| B | 45 | 17 | 21 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| C | 64 | 15 | 28 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| D | 22 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
The A tier is 46% Common (23 of 50), which makes it the strongest argument against rarity-based picking. The D tier is 36.4% Rare (8 of 22) — more than a third of the worst-graded cards are Rare. B is the only grade that stays inside the three main tiers, and even there Uncommon (21) outnumbers Common (17).
“Impervious — Rare, 2 energy, gain 30 Block (40 upgraded).” — STS2 card data, slaythespire.wiki.gg
Rarity does correlate loosely with ceiling: the S tier holds 5 Rares, 1 Ancient and 3 Event cards, and no Basic cards. But the correlation is weak enough that a Rare reward can be worse than the Common sitting next to it.
Reading a rarity tag in practice
- Cards — treat Uncommon as the default quality band, not a downgrade. 219 cards means most of your deck will be Uncommon.
- Relics — do not treat Ancient as “the rare one”. At 100 of 296 it is the largest group, and the tier includes both run-defining and filler effects.
- Potions — ignore rarity when comparing two options. The 20/20/20 split means the tag is cosmetic at the tier level.
- Shops — the 30 Shop relics are a separate pool from drops, which is why shop stock can include relics you would never see as a reward.
Where to go next
The relics database lists all 296 relics by tier and pool, the potions database covers the 63 potions, and the cards database has every card with its cost and upgrade. For the grading behind the S-to-D table, see card take or remove, and for the modifiers that change a card after you own it, see enchantments.