Slay the Spire — Steam Gift

Slay the Spire: the roguelike deckbuilder you can't play just once

Slay the Spire is the title that redefined a whole genre back in 2019. Studio MegaCrit took two seemingly different things — deckbuilding card games in the spirit of Dominion and procedurally generated roguelikes — and fused them into a single run you never want to leave. You pick a hero, climb the Spire floor by floor, build a deck from cards dropped after battles, grab relics that bend the rules in your favor, and try to reach the top before the next boss wipes you out. Sounds simple. It eats hundreds of hours.

Here you buy the full base game as a Steam gift: once delivered, it's permanently tied to your account. No subscription, no rental — it's your own copy of Slay the Spire.

Why on-the-fly deckbuilding hooks you

The core idea of Slay the Spire is that you don't bring a finished deck into battle — you build it during the run. Every card you take after a win reshapes your strategy. Take too many cards and your deck bloats, so the combos you need show up less often. Lean hard into one mechanic and you suddenly turn into a machine that one-shots bosses. This constant "take it or skip it" dilemma makes every decision matter, and every loss your fault rather than bad luck. That's exactly why it's so easy to tell yourself "just one more run" at 3 a.m.

Four heroes — four different games

Slay the Spire has four playable characters, and each is essentially a different way to play:

• Ironclad — a sturdy warrior who heals from kills and builds powerful strength combos. The perfect starting point for newcomers.
• Silent — an agile poisoner and knife expert who buries enemies in toxins and a lean deck of cheap cards.
• Defect — a robot channeling orbs of lightning, frost and dark. The most "mechanical", combo-driven hero.
• Watcher — a monk who switches between combat stances: incredible damage at the cost of risk. Added in a free update and included in the game.

Because each hero has their own card pool, runs feel dramatically different — mastering all four is like finishing four games.

Relics, events and endless replayability

On top of your deck sit relics — passive items that change the rules: some grant armor every turn, some double the effect of your first card, some turn weakness into strength. The Spire is regenerated each time: branching paths, random events, merchants, campfires to rest or upgrade. No run repeats the last. And once you beat the game, the Ascension system unlocks — 20 levels of rising difficulty that challenge even veterans. Plus daily climbs and custom seeds for those who want to compete.

What exactly you get

You get the full version of the original Slay the Spire with all four characters, all cards, relics, Ascension mode, daily runs and custom mode. It's the 2019 game, polished by countless updates. If you were after the sequel instead, note: Slay the Spire 2 launched in early access in 2026 and is sold as a separate product. This is the first, complete and finished game.

How gift delivery works

Slay the Spire is delivered as a Steam gift via our bot. You provide your Steam friend invite link (grab it from your profile under "Add Friend") and your account region. After payment the bot adds itself as a friend, sends the gift, and automatically leaves your friend list once delivered — you don't need to accept the request manually. The whole process usually takes a couple of minutes. Steam Guard is not required.

There are two important conditions, without which Steam won't accept the gift: your account region must match the gift region, and you must not already own Slay the Spire on that account (a gift can't be activated for a game you already have). If something goes wrong — for example, your friend requests are restricted — just check your profile privacy settings and refresh the invite link.

Does it run on Steam Deck, Mac and Linux?

Yes. Slay the Spire runs great on Windows, macOS and Linux, and on Steam Deck it's a reference title — turn-based play and card handling fit the handheld perfectly. The gift isn't tied to a specific OS: you get the game in your Steam library and launch it on any supported platform on your account.

If you love the genre

Slay the Spire is the game that, for many, kicked off the entire modern roguelike-deckbuilder boom. If that "build a deck — take a risk — start over" loop clicks for you, check out our other titles in the same spirit: Monster Train and Inscryption. But the original is where to start — it's still one of the best of its kind.