Neow Relic Guide: How to Choose Your Opening Bonus in STS2

Every run in Slay the Spire 2 begins with a choice at Neow's altar. Before you've touched a single enemy, before you've seen the boss, before you've committed to any route, Neow hands you a starting bonus that will echo through the entire run. On lower Ascensions, almost any choice is fine. On higher Ascensions — and especially in Daily Climbs — the opening bonus can represent a full Act of advantage or disadvantage.

Patch v0.103.0, released April 10, 2026, expanded Neow's roster by three new relics: Neow's Bones, Phial Holster, and Winged Boots. These three entries dramatically change the calculus of the opening decision, especially on characters who were previously forced into suboptimal picks. Before breaking down each relic, it helps to understand the framework: Neow bonuses fall into three categories — resources (gold, HP, potions), relics (raw power), and agency (control over what happens next). Good players try to identify which category their current character and deck plan needs most.

A common mistake is treating all Neow choices as equivalent and defaulting to "whatever sounds strong in a vacuum." The correct approach is to evaluate your starting hand against the threat model of the next eight floors. If Act 1 of this specific run is likely to spike hard — say, you previewed a path with two mandatory elites and no campfire before the boss — then survivability bonuses gain significant value. If your starting deck already covers early defense, a relic that builds toward scaling is worth more.

Neow's Bones gives you two random Neow relics and one random Curse upon pickup. On paper, this sounds like you're paying a small tax (one Curse) to triple your Neow value. In practice, the outcome varies wildly. Two high-tier Neow relics and a manageable Curse like Doubt or Regret can rocket a run into a dominant position by floor three. Two weak relics and a Painful Curse can force you into a miserable Act 1 you can't recover from.

The correct mental model for Neow's Bones is not "do I get good relics?" but "how well can I hedge against the worst-case scenario?" Characters with strong self-contained early decks — specifically Ironclad and a well-drafted Silent — are the best candidates, because they don't rely on the Neow bonus to function. They treat the two random relics as upside and the Curse as an acceptable tax. By contrast, fragile openers like the Regent in Act 1 are genuinely harmed by early Curses in the draw pile, which dilute the few key cards you need to reach your Star engine.

At Ascension 15 and above, Neow's Bones becomes significantly stronger simply because the power ceiling of two top-tier Neow relics — combined with relics you earn from elites and bosses — can create run-defining leads. High Ascension also means you've practiced managing Curses, so the downside feels smaller relative to the upside. For lower Ascensions and new players, the unpredictability makes it hard to recommend over more consistent options.

Phial Holster gives you one extra potion slot and two random potions at the start of the run. At first glance this looks like a modest bonus compared to a direct relic or burst of gold. In practice, it is one of the more consistently powerful options in the roster, particularly because early potions are disproportionately valuable in Slay the Spire 2.

The core argument for Phial Holster is simple: two potions and an extra slot in Act 1 are effectively insurance. They let you take riskier elite fights you might otherwise have to skip, they bail you out of a turn where an enemy spikes unexpectedly, and they preserve your HP for the more important fight — the Act 1 boss. Characters who lean naturally on potions, such as the Silent (who has cards that synergize with potion usage) and the Defect (whose early combat can be volatile), extract the most raw value.

The extra slot also has a subtle long-term benefit: it means you go into Act 2 and Act 3 carrying more potions simultaneously. With three slots instead of two, you can afford to hold a healing potion as a "break glass in emergency" reserve while still running an offensive potion and a utility potion. This three-slot configuration is difficult to achieve without Phial Holster before the late game, and it meaningfully raises your ceiling against Act 3 elites and the final boss.

Winged Boots grants three charges that let you ignore the branching path constraint when choosing your next room. In other words, you can move to any adjacent node regardless of whether you are connected to it on the map. This is a familiar item to veterans of Slay the Spire 1, where it provided a similar pathing override.

On the surface, three charges of path flexibility sounds situational. In competitive play, it is frequently described as the "quietly best" new Neow relic precisely because route control in STS2 is so high-leverage. Consider the most common pain points in a run: being forced into a brutal elite right after another elite because there is no recovery node between them; being pushed away from the only campfire before the boss because the path locks you out; having a perfect elite-shop-campfire sequence available one column over but unreachable without crossing an undesired room. Winged Boots solves all three of these scenarios.

The practical application is to save all three charges for Act 1, where the stakes of bad pathing are highest and your deck is least equipped to absorb unexpected damage. Using one charge to access a campfire before the Act 1 boss when your HP is at 40% can easily be the difference between a clean boss kill and a run-ending loss. The remaining two charges carry into Acts 2 and 3 for elite routing, campfire access before a boss, or shop visits when you need a removal on a specific floor.

At high Ascensions and in Daily Climbs where modifiers can twist the map into awkward configurations, Winged Boots rises further. It is also the best Neow option for players learning a new character, because bad early pathing is one of the biggest killers on unfamiliar territory.

The three new relics join an existing pool that already contained strong options. The most common and most debated are: the boss relic swap (trade your Act 1 boss relic for a random one), the max HP gain, the gold bonus, and the remove-a-Curse option. Each occupies a distinct niche, and understanding when each is correct is as important as knowing the new relics.

The boss relic swap is the highest-variance classic option, similar in spirit to Neow's Bones but more powerful in its best cases and less punishing in its worst. If you know the Act 1 boss relic you would naturally receive and it is underwhelming for your character, swapping for a random boss relic is a free roll at something better. The catch is that boss relics vary enormously in impact, and some characters have specific starter boss relics that are foundational to their early engine. Know your character's default boss relic before committing to the swap.

The max HP increase and gold bonus are the two safest classic picks. Max HP is most valuable on low-health characters (Necrobinder) or runs where the map forces multiple elites. Gold is most valuable when you can identify a shop within the first four floors and already know you want to buy a specific card or relic. Neither will ever feel spectacular, but neither will ever blow up your run either.

Before locking in a Neow pick, run through three questions: What does my starting deck struggle with in Act 1? What does this specific map's first eight floors look like? And what is my target win condition for this run? The answers will usually point clearly to one or two relics.

If your starting deck is weak defensively and the map shows an early elite with no campfire nearby, Phial Holster or Winged Boots will save more runs than any raw-power option. If your starting deck is already functional and the map is relatively clean, boss relic swaps or Neow's Bones offer the highest ceiling for a dominant run. If you are experimenting with a new character or trying to climb Ascension levels, Winged Boots offers the best risk-adjusted return because it converts bad luck into recoverable situations.

One final note: the "correct" Neow pick changes patch to patch as card balance shifts. After v0.103.0, Ironclad's early survivability is stronger thanks to Not Yet. and Colossus at uncommon, which means Ironclad players may find themselves needing Phial Holster less and being able to reach for higher-risk options more confidently. Always recalibrate your defaults after major balance patches — what worked in v0.100 may not be optimal in v0.103.