Claw Build — Slay the Spire 2 Build Guide

Every Claw makes the next Claw stronger — the zero-cost spam route that snowballs absurdly.

Claw — Zero-Cost Spam

Play pattern: the returning fan favorite — a spammy deck of 0-cost attacks that cycle and buff each other, led by Claw, which permanently strengthens every Claw in your deck each time one is played. Mobalytics calls it devastating; the video is blunter: Claw alone is rated D-tier in StS2 — you'd need 16–17 plays for ~300 cumulative damage against late bosses — so treat this as the fun pick and point All for One at good zero-cost cards to win with the same shell.

Core cards:

Card	Cost	Effect	Why it earns a slot
Claw	0	Attack; every Claw in your deck gets stronger	The bread and butter — a few early and it's time to full-send
Scrape	—	Cycles your cheap attacks (including itself)	The primary cycling engine of the deck
FTL	0	Damage plus a bit of draw	Free card that thins the gap to your Claws
Flash of Steel	0	Attack that cycles	A good shop pickup to keep the loop going
Beam Cell	—	Easy Vulnerable applicator	Cheap attack that amplifies everything else
Go for the Eyes	—	Easy Weak applicator	Fine — but the video guide wouldn't run more than one
Momentum Strike	—	Damage that can be reduced to 0 Energy	Great in longer fights and free in the spam turns
Skim	—	Draws cards	With everything this cheap, draw is your real bottleneck
Hologram	—	Returns a chosen card (Claw, later Scrape/All for One) from discard to hand; upgrade removes the Exhaust	Keeps the loop alive
All for One	—	Retrieves your 0-cost cards from the discard pile	"Incredible" — and better spent on Turbo/Hotfix/FTL than on Claw alone
Feral	—	"Echo Form but for 0 Energy cards", cheaper to set up	Mobalytics' high-synergy payoff for the archetype
Panache	—	Rewards spamming many cards per turn	The natural payoff for a dozen 0-cost plays
Secret Weapon	—	Pulls All for One or Scrape out of your deck	Smooths the combo turns
Machine Learning	—	Draw engine	Helpful, though redundant once All for One is online
Relics: Iron Club (great draw tool), Power Cell (gets you started), and the attack-spam family — Nunchaku, Shuriken, Kunai, Ornamental Fan, Kusarigama all "work wonders when spamming cards".

How to pilot it: two warnings from the material: don't take every 0-cost card you see (deck bloat makes finding Claw harder), and since the deck ignores Orbs, stack some Frost as passive Block anyway.

Strengths and weaknesses: iconic, fast and fun, but with a far lower damage ceiling than the Orb plans — lean on the All for One + good-zero-cost-cards version.

Related

• Defect build hub — all archetypes overview
• Builds Overview
• Defect card table
• Card Tier List