Slay the Spire 2 Ironclad Card Tier List — All Cards Ranked

The Ironclad is Slay the Spire 2's brawler: 80 HP, Burning Blood healing on kill, and a card pool built around Strength, Vulnerable and self-damage payoffs. This tier list ranks the cards worth drafting (and the traps worth skipping), based on the 0.105+ meta and the Ironclad builds that actually clear Ascension 10. For the class itself, start with the Ironclad character guide; for deck math, see the deck building guide.

S-tier — draft on sight

Card	Cost	Type	Why it's S-tier
Dominate	1	Skill	Applies 1 Vulnerable (2 upgraded) with scaling that makes every Vulnerable-synergy card better; the backbone of the Vulnerable engine
Molten Fist	1	Attack	10 damage (14 upg) and doubles the enemy's Vulnerable — the payoff that makes Vulnerable stacking a win condition
Vicious	1	Power	Whenever you apply Vulnerable, gain scaling — turns every Dominate/Molten Fist into permanent Strength
Pommel Strike	1	Attack	9 damage and draws a card (2 upgraded) — the best common card in the class, powers the Pommel Strike rush
Offering	0	Skill	Lose 6 HP for 2 energy and draw — the strongest tempo card Ironclad has; self-damage is a feature thanks to Rupture synergies
Perfected Strike	2	Attack	6 damage plus 2 (3 upg) per card with "Strike" in your deck — snowballs absurdly in Strike-heavy decks
Hellraiser	2	Power	Every drawn card containing "Strike" auto-plays at a random enemy — the engine of the Hellraiser flow build

A-tier — strong picks, build-around or not

Card	Cost	Type	Role
Cruelty	1	Power	Bonus scaling against Vulnerable enemies; pairs with the whole S-tier
Pillage	1	Attack	6 damage, then draw until you hit a non-Attack — filters your deck while hitting
Aggression	1	Power	Recycles random Attacks from discard into your hand, upgraded — full guide here
Inflame	1	Power	Clean 2 Strength (3 upg) — boring, effective, never a bad pick
Bludgeon	3	Attack	32 damage (42 upg) — elite and boss delete button
Shrug It Off	1	Skill	8 Block and draws a card — the defensive glue of every Ironclad deck
Feed	1	Attack	10 damage, permanent +max HP on Fatal kills — slow value that wins long runs
Uppercut	2	Attack	13 damage plus Weak and Vulnerable in one card
Hemokinesis	1	Attack	Lose 2 HP, deal 15 (20 upg) — efficient damage that feeds Rupture
Battle Trance	0	Skill	Draw 3 (4 upg) — thin-deck fuel

B-tier — situational, fine in the right deck

• Barricade (3, Power) — Block no longer expires; needs a block engine to matter
• Juggernaut (2, Power) — deals damage whenever you gain Block; pairs with Shrug/offense-block hybrids
• Rupture (1, Power) — Strength whenever you lose HP on your turn; great with Offering/Hemokinesis
• Whirlwind (X, Attack) — 5 damage to ALL enemies X times; multi-enemy cleaner
• Rage (0, Skill) — Block per Attack played this turn; good frontloaded defense
• Second Wind / Feel No Pain — Exhaust-pool defenders; worth it only when your deck actually exhausts
• Thunderclap (1, Attack) — 4 damage and 1 Vulnerable to ALL; serviceable apply-and-chip
• Iron Wave / Twin Strike / Body Slam — solid commons that never ruin a deck

C-tier — take only when desperate

Burn payoffs without the burn deck (Pyre, Cinder), multiplayer-only support (Blaze grants a teammate Strength — great in co-op, dead weight solo), and one-off utility cards (True Grit, Tremble, Grapple, Havoc) that don't advance a plan. None of these lose runs on their own; they just don't win them.

D-tier — usually skip

• Midnight (12 cost) — meme-tier cost gimmick
• Tank (1, Power) — you take 50% MORE damage to shield allies; solo this is a self-nerf (it's a co-op tool, and even then a pricey one)
• Outrage — 9 damage but shoves a copy into everyone's discard pile, including yours
• Unmovable / Not Yet / Brand — narrow payoffs that rarely pay off

What the tier list means in practice

1. First three floors: take damage — Pommel Strike, Twin Strike, Iron Wave. A20 elites check raw DPS early.
2. Floors 4–10: pick an engine (Vulnerable stack, Perfected Strike, or Hellraiser) and stop drafting off-plan.
3. After Act 1: every card either advances the engine or removes a weakness. Neither? Skip — deck thinning is also a strategy.

Keep reading:

• Ironclad Builds — All 7 Archetypes
• Defect Card Tier List
• Necrobinder Cards — Guide & Tier List
• Best Class Tier List (0.105)