If you’ve just started Slay the Spire 2 you probably noticed your card pool feels tiny and every run ends the same way. That’s because the old level-up system is gone. Now everything new stuff like cards, relics, potions, Ancients, and even extra characters sits behind the Timeline full of Epochs.
One wrong move early on and you waste hours spinning your wheels. But once you get how the Timeline actually works you start unlocking chunks of content every few runs instead of feeling stuck. So here’s the deal. We’re breaking it down clean and giving you the exact strategies I used to fill out my whole Timeline without burning out.
Getting Started with the Timeline
The Timeline lives in the main menu and it’s basically one giant checklist. Every node is an Epoch. Mouse over the locked ones and it straight-up tells you what to do. Most start hidden but pop up as you play.
Unlocking one adds permanent stuff to every future run: new cards for your decks, fresh relics, potions, whole new events, alternate acts, or even new characters. The pop-up “Epoch Discovered” is your best friend. It means you just earned something real.
Building on that first run you did, the game now tracks everything globally instead of per character. That’s huge. One solid run can knock out multiple Epochs at once if you know what to chase.
Score-Based Epochs
Most early Epochs unlock just from racking up score at the end of every run. Score comes from floors climbed, elites killed, bosses downed, gold grabbed, and new relics discovered. Perfect elite or boss kills give bonus points too.
Focus here first because these open up the biggest pools:
See how easy the first bunch is? Just stop avoiding elites and push for longer runs. This is exactly why the last tip matters. Once these drop your deck options explode and later character grinds get way easier.
Character-Specific Milestones: Play the Whole Roster
Slay the Spire 2 has five characters now: Ironclad, Silent, Regent, Necrobinder, and Defect. A ton of Epochs are locked behind “do X with Y character” tasks.
Start by unlocking everyone first (super quick). Then rotate who you play so you knock out their Act clears, 15-elite kills, 15-boss kills, and Ascension 1 wins.
Quick examples that chain together nicely:
- Play Ironclad once → unlocks Silent
- Play Silent once → unlocks Regent
- Play Regent once → unlocks Necrobinder
- Play Necrobinder once → unlocks Defect
After that grind their Act 3 clears and elite/boss counts. It feels slow at first but each one feeds the global score pool too.
This is exactly why the score grinding we just covered matters. A single high-score run with your main still pushes the shared Epochs forward while you tick character boxes.
Elite and Boss Kills: The Fast Track to Late Epochs
If you want new relics and cards without 50 runs, path aggressively toward elites. They give fat score and count toward every character’s “15 elites” Epochs.
Same for bosses. Don’t reroll maps that look scary. Take them. The game rewards you twice: once for the kill and again when the Epoch pops.
Pro move: once you have basic relics from score Epochs, your survival jumps and you can safely chase elites even on higher Ascension.
Ascension and Special Unlocks: The Final Push
Some of the last Epochs (like My Face, Soup, Little King, etc.) need Ascension 1 clears with each character. Don’t rush these until you have the early card and relic unlocks.
Other goodies hide behind meeting all Ancients or beating Act 3 multiple times. Those ones feel satisfying because they also unlock Daily and Custom modes.
Timeline Optimization Strategies
Here’s what actually speeds everything up without rage-quitting:
- Always take elite paths once you have decent block or damage scaling.
- End every run even if you die. The score screen still counts.
- Rotate characters every 2-3 runs so you don’t get bored and accidentally finish one character’s list faster than others.
- Check the Timeline after every run. Mouse over locked nodes so you know exactly what the next easy one is.
- Save big relic-discovery runs for when you’re close to a score Epoch.
Let gravity solve your problem: the more you just play normally while hitting these targets the faster the whole Timeline lights up. No need to force anything.
Wrapping It Up
There you go. Follow the score grind first, rotate your full roster, chase elites like they owe you money, and the entire Timeline fills out in way fewer runs than you think. Suddenly every new run feels fresh because you actually have the cards and relics you’ve been missing.
You’ve got this. The Spire is waiting and now you know exactly how to crack it open. Go unlock everything and come back to tell me which Epoch felt the best. Happy climbing.