Clone is a powerful card Enchantment that you can get from Pael in Act 2: Hive in Slay the Spire 2. It allows you to duplicate a card at Rest Sites. What makes this even more special is that because the duplicated cards also keep the Enchantment effect, it creates a snowball effect. This means you can multiply your strongest cards into the hundreds or even thousands.
Let’s see how the Clone Enchantment in Slay the Spire 2 works and how you can win big time with this strategy in the game.
What you will read
How to Get Clone in Slay the Spire 2
In Slay the Spire 2 Clone acts as an Enchantment. Enchantments are permanent, positive effects applied to your cards through different Events and some Ancients. Remember that a card can’t have multiple Enchantments.
To unlock Clone, you must get an ancient relic called Pael’s Growth from Pael at the start of Act 2: Hive. When you pick up Pael’s Growth, you can Enchant a card with Clone. This allows you to duplicate your desired card at Rest Sites.
Because the newly duplicated cards also retain the Clone Enchantment, your total copies will double at every campfire. If you possess Bing Bong, which is an Event Relic from the Doll Room event, you can even triple the cards.
The standard drop rate for this Clone encounter is 1/24 (about 4%), although you can increase your chances of seeing it to 6% if you just have fewer than 3 Defend cards in your deck.
The Clone Enchantment Drawback
Because the duplication scales exponentially (growing to 2, 4, 8, 16, and eventually thousands of copies), it can quickly define your entire run. However, there’s one major drawback here.
If you intend to make tons of copies, make sure the card you choose is powerful enough to carry you through the entire run. This is because it’ll inevitably block you from drawing other cards when you need them most.
Always try to enchant an already-upgraded card. If not, you’re basically wasting a valuable campfire duplication opportunity. On the other hand, if you upgrade it before using the Clone strategy, it guarantees that every single clone you make is the upgraded version.
Additionally, because Cloning replaces your ability to heal, you also need to have the means to make sure you survive the run.
Best Cards to Clone in Slay the Spire 2
Zero-cost cards that replace themselves, like Adrenaline or Flash of Steel, are risk-free since they don’t block your hand.
Scaling Damage: Cards that buff their own copies, like Claw, or scale based on having similar cards in your deck, like Perfected Strike, Crescent Spear, or Squeeze, are your choice when you want to inflict massive damage.
Defensive: If you’re an Ironclad player, you can benefit massively from cloning defensive cards like Stone Armor combined with Body Slam.
Relic Combos: The Miniature Tent relic is incredible here. It lets you heal while you can upgrade and duplicate simultaneously. This way, you can bypass the usual drawbacks of Cloning. You can also manage massive deck sizes by combining Clone with relics like the Game Piece for card draw or Mummified Hand to manipulate energy costs.
Warning
At the end of the day, while this Slay the Spire 2 Clone mechanic is good and all, you should be extremely cautious during enemy encounters that actively punish you for playing too many cards, such as the elite enemy encounters Entomancer or Hunter Killer.
