Slay the Spire 2 has received a bunch of potent new cards specifically for co-operative multiplayer. They span all five of the game's classes, from the aloof and stargazing Regent to the venomous and underhand Silent (Silent! My beloved, etc). The update in question is out now via the roguelite deckbuilder's Steam beta branch, and comprises of a new colourless card, two new Regent cards, and three cards apiece for the other four classes. A few other cards have been reworked. All told, it's a great time to have friends who enjoy killing steeples.

The new Ironclad cards include Midnight, a rare attack card that deals 99 (or 120 with upgrades) damage, the catch being that it costs 12 points to play. It'll cost one point less, however, for every card Exhausted during the present battle by any player. There's also Blaze, which gives another player 5 (or 7) strength, and Outrage, which deals 9 (or 13) damage for a grand total of zero energy points, while also adding a copy of itself to everyone else's discard pile. Tank, meanwhile, has been reworked so that the caster only takes 50% additional damage, not double, in return for allies taking 50% less damage.

Silent is getting Blade Symphony, which adds 2 (or 3) shivs to everybody else's hands. Free throwing knives for all my chums! We will fill the air with steel. There's also Concoct, which lets another player's attacks inflict poison, and Fade, a retainable card that gives another player 6 (or 9) Dexterity - both only apply in the current turn. Lastly, the rarity of Silent's Flanking card has been increased from Uncommon to Rare.

As for Regent (Regent! That ridiculous toff, etc) your two new cards are Plot, which lets all players draw 2 (or 3) extra cards next turn, and Constellation, which lets gives another player energy, a new card, and 9 (or 12) Block.

Necrobinder's haul includes some nasty auxiliary or support gambits. The Exhaustible card Underworld applies Doom in proportion to the amount of attack damage other players inflict in a turn. Soulbound adds a Soul to an ally's draw pile whenever you create a Soul card, while Cacophany deals 66 (or 99) damage to a random enemy for every 33 cards drawn by all players. In terms of tweakage, Legion of Bone is no longer an Exhaustible card.

Which brings us to Defect, finally. They're getting Hibernate, which channels frost and turns it into Block for allied players, One For All, which adds three (or four) damage to everybody's zero-energy attack cards, and Imitation Learning, an exhaustible card that plays copies of a target player's next two (or with upgrades, three) power cards. Some tweakage, to wash that down: Ignition's rarity has also been decreased to Uncommon.

And then there's that new Colourless card, The Ball. Every time you play it, it'll bounce to a random ally's pile and increase its own damage by 15 (or 25), for the duration of combat. I've played several team sports, and I can assure you, this is not how balls generally behave. This ball is a menace.

All these wonders, on top of the nerfing of enemy Block scaling for two-player multiplayer. This update is certainly a shot in the bicep for people who enjoy Spire-Slaying in company, to the point that it sounds like it's going to break everything - but then, I pretty much always get that impression from Spire 2 patchnotes.

The patch also makes various balancing changes for solo players, while fixing bugs, tweaking the UI, and adding support for copying unmodded saves over to modded saves, the first time you install a mod. These saves are still stored separately, however, so any subsequent progress you make when playing with mods enabled won't carry back across to your unmodded save.

Read more in the full patch notes – the beta update is coming to the main Steam branch "soon". I'm sure a player will be along presently with with another eight hour breakdown of something the developers have gotten wrong.