How do you play The Ironclad in Slay the Spire 2? The Ironclads were a fierce group of warriors who had been at war with rival clans for centuries. In hopes of swinging the odds in their favor, The Ironclad sought power from divine forces to help his clan succeed. After making a pact with a demon, The Ironclad became unstoppable, single-handedly destroying his enemies and allies in a blind fury. The Ironclads were no more, and only The Ironclad remained.
As one of the three returning Slay the Spire 2 characters, The Ironclad has several new tools to slaughter his foes. From the new Vulnerable cards that reward you for keeping the pressure on, to Exhaust builds that thin out your deck in exchange for powerful bonuses, the best Ironclad builds are designed to help you unlock all the Ascension levels.
The Ironclad strategy
There are three Ironclad builds to pick from: Vulnerable, Body Slam, and Exhaust. A dedicated Vulnerable build is new to the game, replacing what used to be the Strength-focused build. Body Slam and Exhaust will be familiar to anyone who played the original game, piloting largely the same as before.
All three of these archetypes can and should be blended together to create the ultimate deck, so it’s important to read all three sections to understand how these builds play. The Ironclad is perhaps the only character who doesn’t need to rely on big finisher cards to win runs, and a big factor in that is because of how well all of his deck archetypes work together.
The Ironclad is the closest STS2 gets to a core DPS class, capable of delivering crushing blows to his enemies with only a handful of cards. Equipped with the Burning Blood starting relic, you automatically heal six HP after every battle, giving you plenty of room to take some damage. The Ironclad has numerous cards that actually drain health, but we’ll dive into that in the builds section of the guide.
The Ironclad Vulnerable build
Every character in STS2 has the ability to apply the Vulnerable debuff to enemies, causing anyone afflicted with it to take 50% more damage. However, The Ironclad can take advantage of this in ways that the other characters cannot, granting additional card draw, block, and other useful effects that you’ll need to ascend the Spire.
Vulnerable builds are the easiest to pilot if you’re starting out with The Ironclad because it’s obvious how your card rewards naturally tie in with the effect. Once you’re able to apply Vulnerable, all you need to do is focus on adding strong attack cards to take advantage of the damage opportunity.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of becoming too aggressive due to the sheer number of powerful attack cards on offer. Always keep an eye on your deck and keep note of how many attack cards you’ve added – it’s not uncommon to find yourself stuck with an entire hand of attacks, wishing you picked up some additional block cards.
Here are some Vulnerable cards you should aim to acquire right away:
- Molten Fist
- Tremble
- Taunt
- Dismantle
- Uppercut
You already start with Bash, so it’s important to get this upgraded once you’ve committed to this build, especially if you’re not lucky enough to pick up more Vulnerable-stacking cards. A lot of the best Vulnerable cards are uncommon or rare, which lowers the odds of them appearing as rewards. Tremble isn’t the flashiest card, but it offers the chance to apply the effect across two turns without having to spend two Mana.
If you can add a copy of Uppercut to your deck, you shouldn’t have any problems applying Vulnerable to most enemies in Act 1, and with Molten Fist, you can keep doubling the effect. Acquiring a copy of Dismantle in the first act can really transform your deck; when upgraded and active, it can dish out 20 damage for just one Mana.
Add these Vulnerable cards once you’re able to apply the effect consistently:
- Dominate
- Cruelty
- Colossus
These cards aren’t essential to creating a successful Vulnerable deck, but they naturally tie into what you’re trying to do. Cruelty in particular can be extremely powerful as it lets you end fights quickly. Remember, you don’t need to stack tens of Vulnerable on your enemies because you’re likely going to kill anything you fight in under five turns.
For longer battles, Dominate is essential as it offers an alternate win condition if you’re fighting elites and bosses with massive health bars. By stacking up Strength in addition to Vulnerable, it becomes almost inevitable that you’ll crush whatever you’re facing in due time.
The Ironclad Body Slam build
Due to the aggressive nature of The Ironclad, you’re going to need copious amounts of block at a moment’s notice, and there’s nothing that pairs better with block than a copy of Body Slam. The Body Slam build is very simple to understand: build lots of block and come crashing down with a meaty Body Slam.
While you can rack up hundreds of block if you’re lucky with your card rewards, sometimes you won’t get the perfect cards. Fortunately, this build’s exceptional survivability makes it effortless to grind out victories, allowing you to stop any potential damage while only attacking when the opportunity arises.
Here are some of the best Block cards in the early game:
- Shrug It Off
- Body Slam
- Blood Wall
- Flame Barrier
Dealing damage comes naturally to The Ironclad, but actively blocking incoming damage takes effort to steer your deck in that direction. Shrug It Off is deceptively strong, giving you both vital block and card draw when you need it, and of course, Body Slam can take advantage of all that block you’ve accumulated.
Pick up these cards to transform your deck into a Body Slam build:
- Unmovable
- Crimson Mantle
- Impervious
There are times when you won’t know you’ve constructed a solid Body Slam build until deep into Act 2. Once you’re offered one of these cards, you should be able to pivot your deck towards a block-focused build. Unmovable turns even normal Defends into life-saving cards, and when combined with big defensive options like Blood Wall and Flame Barrier, it can help you stop practically any attack.
The Ironclad Exhaust build
The Ironclad Exhaust build may have one of the highest skill ceilings in the game, so be warned that this archetype does take some time to understand. To new players, knowing that you can only play a card once before having it disappear for the rest of combat is daunting, but it’s actually more of a positive than a negative.
Building a powerful deck in STS2 forces you to get the right balance of juggling lots of good and bad cards together in the same deck. Removing cards is a large aspect of the game that many new players tend to ignore, but this is crucial to helping you draw your combo pieces. In the case of an Exhaust deck, you’re purposely removing cards to thin out the garbage from your deck.
Here are some Exhaust cards you should aim to acquire right away:
- True Grit
- Burning Pact
- Evil Eye
- Forgotten Ritual
There are two types of Exhaust cards: those that let you choose which cards to Exhaust during combat, and those that immediately Exhaust themselves when played. For the early game, we’re looking at the former, with Burning Pact acting as a fantastic way to remove any superfluous Strikes and Defends to get to your good cards. True Grit can be awkward as you need to work around its random element, though you can address this by upgrading it.
Evil Eye and Forgotten Ritual are your rewards for playing Exhaust cards, giving you 16 block and three Mana, respectively. As uncommon cards, it’s difficult to guarantee you’ll pick them up right away, though there are enough upsides from playing True Grit and Burning Pact for them to be auto-includes in most decks.
Pick up these Exhaust cards to take your deck to another level:
- Ashen Strike
- Pact’s End
- Feel No Pain
- Dark Embrace
- Fiend Fire
- Second Wind
Ashen Strike is already on par with Strike, and it really comes into its own when you start building up your Exhaust pile, becoming a finisher card in long fights. Feel No Pain and Dark Embrace are obvious picks in an Exhaust deck, providing you with an instant advantage whenever you remove cards during combat.
Finally, there’s definitely a learning curve with Fiend Fire and Second Wind, but with time you’ll learn when to play these cards. Fiend Fire should be used as a finisher, though there will be opportunities where you’ll benefit heavily from playing it early, especially when you have Ashen Strike available. Second Wind, on the other hand, can get you out of a bind when your deck is filled with horrible status cards in the late game, and it can be used multiple times throughout a fight.
The Ironclad card tier list
As we mentioned earlier, The Ironclad’s deck archetypes are designed to work with one another, so keep that in mind when looking at our card tier list. There are certain cards that we’ve ranked highly based on how well they perform in their specific archetype. Likewise, there are cards like Demon Form and Thrash that we feel could suit almost any deck when played in the right situations.
Here’s our Ironclad card tier list, ranking cards from best to worst:
| Tier | Cards |
| S | Body Slam, Headbutt, Battle Trace, Second Wind, Feel No Pain, Thrash, Brand, Offering, Dark Embrace, Barricade, Demon Form, Break |
| A | Bloodletting, Armaments, Shrug It Off, True Grit, Whirlwind, Ashen Strike, Dismantle, Burning Pact, Taunt, Pact’s End, Feed, Fiend Fire, Impervious, Aggression, Unmovable |
| B | Breakthrough, Pommel Strike, Perfected Strike, Tremble, Blood Wall, Uppercut, Dominate, Evil Eye, Forgotten Ritual, Flame Barrier, Inflame, Juggling, Stone Armor, Colossus, Stoke, Crimson Mantle, Cruelty, Hellraiser, Pyre |
| C | Anger, Iron Wave, Molten Fist, Setup Strike, Twin Strike, Cinder, Havoc, Bully, Spite, Hemokinesis, Pillage, Unrelenting, Bludgeon, Howl from Beyond, Stomp, Rage, Infernal Blade, Expect a Fight, Drum of Battle, Inferno, Rupture, Vicious, Stampede, Conflagration, Cascade, Primal Force, One-Two Punch, Juggernaut |
| D | Sword Boomerang, Thunderclap, Grapple, Rampage, Fight Me!, Mangle |
And with that, you should have a better idea about how to play The Ironclad in Slay the Spire 2. Once you start to feel comfortable playing the other characters, be sure to check out our character guides on Regent and Necrobinder to learn how the new characters work.
