Best Roguelike Deckbuilders, Ranked by How Each Run Feels
Updated October 2, 2026
The best roguelike deckbuilder is still Slay the Spire. Below it on this list come Monster Train 2, Inscryption, Balatro, StarVaders, Cobalt Core, Griftlands, Loop Hero, Wildfrost and Roguebook: ten released, high-craft takes on the same loop of drawing cards, shaping a deck mid-run, and dying a lot.
Updated October 2026. Every price, review count and platform below was read off the US Steam store this month.
The order is my call on how a single run feels from the first card to the last, not a sort by review score. We make games, and one game on this page is ours. Hellmate, our chess deckbuilder, sits beside the ranked list rather than on it, because it is not out yet.
Quick list:
- Slay the Spire: the template, and the best first pick.
- Monster Train 2: three floors to defend and the loudest combos here.
- Inscryption: a card game that keeps turning into something else.
- Balatro: poker hands and Jokers, no enemies at all.
- StarVaders: grid tactics with a rewind button.
- Cobalt Core: a ship that dodges along one axis.
- Griftlands: you can talk your way out of a fight.
- Loop Hero: you build the road, the hero walks it.
- Wildfrost: counters that tick down instead of energy.
- Roguebook: two heroes, one deck, and a front row that matters.
The same ten, side by side:
| Rank | Game | Released | How a run feels | Regular price (as of October 2026) | Steam reviews (as of October 2026) | PC platforms on Steam |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Slay the Spire | Jan 23, 2019 | A readable climb where every card pick is a real decision | $24.99 | 97.5% positive across 218,997 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 2 | Monster Train 2 | May 21, 2025 | Fast, loud, and built to end in one oversized combo | $24.99 | 95.3% positive across 10,214 | Windows, macOS |
| 3 | Inscryption | Oct 19, 2021 | Tense card duels inside a story that keeps changing shape | $19.99 | 96.8% positive across 148,869 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 4 | Balatro | Feb 20, 2024 | A score that snowballs as your Jokers stack | $14.99 | 97.8% positive across 199,282 | Windows, macOS |
| 5 | StarVaders | Apr 30, 2025 | A positioning puzzle where a misread turn can be undone | $24.99 | 97.0% positive across 4,408 | Windows, macOS |
| 6 | Cobalt Core | Nov 8, 2023 | Dodging left and right while three crew decks mix | $19.99 | 96.0% positive across 4,402 | Windows, macOS |
| 7 | Griftlands | Jun 1, 2021 | A story run where an argument is a second deck | $19.99 | 93.6% positive across 14,492 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 8 | Loop Hero | Mar 4, 2021 | Hands off the fight, hands on the world | $14.99 | 92.7% positive across 36,574 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 9 | Wildfrost | Apr 12, 2023 | Planning around timers, and a home town that grows between runs | $19.99 | 82.9% positive across 8,860 | Windows |
| 10 | Roguebook | Jun 17, 2021 | Two heroes trading places to protect each other | $24.99 | 83.8% positive across 4,595 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
Prices are the regular US price, not a sale price. Review figures are Steam’s total across all languages, with the positive share beside it. The platform column lists the PC operating systems each Steam page supports, not console availability.
What makes a roguelike deckbuilder worth your time?
A roguelike deckbuilder is a run-based game where your deck is your character: you start with a weak set of cards, add and remove cards between fights, and one loss wipes the deck and restarts the run.
The good ones make every card pickup a real decision, keep runs short enough to restart without pain, and change what each run offers so no two runs feel the same. All ten games in the table clear that bar, two of them (Balatro and Loop Hero) by throwing out the usual fight entirely, as the template test below shows. If you want the case for why the loop is so hard to put down, our piece on why deckbuilders are so addictive covers it, and what makes a good roguelike covers the run structure underneath.
Should you start with Slay the Spire?
Slay the Spire: the one that set the template.
Yes. Slay the Spire, released in full in January 2019 by Mega Crit, is the game most others in the genre are measured against. You climb a spire as one of four characters, and the store page lists more than 350 cards and more than 200 items to find, with a layout that differs on every attempt. Each run reshuffles the map, the shops and the elite fights, so the deck you finish with is never the deck you planned. It is the best roguelike deckbuilder to play first and the best one to come back to.
What is Monster Train 2 like?
Monster Train 2: vertical battles and oversized combos.
Shiny Shoe’s Monster Train 2, released May 21, 2025 and published by Big Fan Games, stacks its battlefield vertically: you defend a pyre across three levels while enemies climb toward it. It ships with five new clans, plus Room and Equipment cards that bolt extra effects onto your train and your units. Pick this when you want deckbuilding that ends in a satisfying, oversized payoff rather than careful chip damage. It is the best second game after Slay the Spire.
What makes Inscryption different from other deckbuilders?
Inscryption: the deckbuilder that breaks its own frame.
Daniel Mullins Games released Inscryption in October 2021 through Devolver Digital, and its store page describes it as a blend of deckbuilding roguelike, escape room puzzles and psychological horror. It starts as a card game played in Leshy’s cabin, where you sacrifice creatures to pay for stronger ones, then keeps pulling the frame back to reveal something stranger. The deckbuilding is sharp on its own, but here it is the vehicle for the story. Inscryption is the best pick on this list for anyone who wants a deckbuilder with an ending worth reaching.
Where does Balatro fit on a deckbuilder list?
Balatro: the furthest step away that still counts.
Balatro, made by LocalThunk and published by Playstack, has no enemies. You play poker hands against a score target called a blind, and you buy Jokers, 150 of them on the store page, that rewrite what a hand is worth. You still draft, thin and tune a deck across a run, and one failed blind ends it, so it belongs here even though it shares almost nothing else with Slay the Spire. Balatro is the best pick for anyone who finds card combat intimidating, because a pair and a flush are the only rules you need on day one. If you want more games built on that snowballing combo feeling, games like Luck be a Landlord goes further down that road.
What is StarVaders?
StarVaders: tactical roguelike deckbuilding on a grid.
StarVaders, from independent studio Pengonauts and published by Joystick Ventures, launched on Steam on April 30, 2025. It moves the genre onto a grid: you pilot one of three mechs (the Gunner, the Stinger or the Keeper) against an alien invasion, and where a card puts you matters as much as what it does. A Chrono Token lets you rewind a turn you misread, which softens the usual roguelike sting. If you have already played Slay the Spire and want the biggest change that still plays like a deckbuilder, StarVaders is the one to buy.
Ranks 6 to 10: five more worth a run
Cobalt Core
Cobalt Core, from Rocket Rat Games and published by Brace Yourself Games, puts you on a spaceship whose combat runs along a single axis: you dodge missiles, line up cannons and decide each turn whether to shield, move or shoot first. You bring three crew members, and their decks mix into one. Cobalt Core is the best pick here for players who liked StarVaders’ positioning but want it simpler and faster.
Griftlands
Klei Entertainment’s Griftlands gives each of its three characters, Sal, Rook and Smith, a combat deck and a separate negotiation deck, so many fights can be argued away instead of fought. The jobs you take and the enemies you spare shape who helps or hunts you later, and the store page promises that everyone remembers what you did. Griftlands is the best story-driven run on this list after Inscryption.
Loop Hero
You never play a card at an enemy in Loop Hero, from Four Quarters and Devolver Digital. You place enemies, buildings and terrain along a looping road, and the hero walks it and fights without you. Loop Hero is the right buy for anyone who finds turn-by-turn card combat tiring, and the difficulty curve becomes something you author by accident.
Wildfrost
Wildfrost, from Deadpan Games and Gaziter and published by Chucklefish, replaces energy with counters: each card counts down a number of turns, then acts on its own, so the puzzle is timing rather than budget. Between runs you rebuild the town of Snowdwell, which unlocks new cards and tribes. It is the most demanding game in the bottom half, and its 82.9% positive share (as of October 2026) is the lowest of the ten, so start it after one of the easier entries. If the town-between-runs half appeals, roguelites with base building between runs collects more games built that way.
Roguebook
Roguebook, from Abrakam and developed in partnership with Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, sends two heroes into each run. The hero in front protects the one behind, and swapping their places is part of the turn. The store page lists 80 relics, and the world map is revealed as you explore. Roguebook is the gentlest step into run-based deckbuilding when Slay the Spire feels like too much to track at once.
What about Slay the Spire 2?
Slay the Spire 2 has been on sale in Early Access since March 5, 2026, at $24.99 regular price (as of October 2026). Mega Crit lists five characters, two of them new, and a co-op mode for up to four players, and says more cards, events, enemies and environments will arrive during Early Access. It sits outside the ranking for two reasons: it is not finished, and its Steam reviews stood at 61.3% positive across 203,279 reviews (as of October 2026), a Mixed rating. Buy it now if you want to follow the sequel as it grows; otherwise the original is the better run today. For the deckbuilders that already carry a 2027 date on Steam, see roguelike deckbuilders coming in 2027.
Which roguelike deckbuilders break the Slay the Spire template?
Four things travel together in the games people call Slay the Spire clones, and they are worth naming separately, because a game can copy the art style and break all four, or borrow none of the art and keep all four.
- The node map. You climb a branching route, one node at a time, and the route regenerates every run.
- No positioning. Enemies stand in a row facing you, with no space between you and them, no flanking and no terrain.
- The resetting turn. Energy refills, you draw a fresh hand, and the turn you just took is final.
- Relics. Passive items you collect mid-run and never spend.
Break one pillar and you get a variant. Break two and your Spire reflexes start handing you bad advice: you hold a card you should have played, or you buy defence in a game that has no such thing. Positioning is the heaviest of the four, so a game that breaks only that one still plays nothing like the template.
| Game on this page | Pillars it breaks | How |
|---|---|---|
| Balatro | Three: map, turn, relics | No map, a budget of hands and discards per blind, and Jokers you buy and sell |
| Loop Hero | Three: map, turn, relics | You build the road, the hero fights alone, and gear swaps in and out |
| StarVaders | Two: positioning, turn | A grid you move across, and Chrono Tokens that rewind a turn |
| Cobalt Core | One: positioning | Your ship moves along a single axis to dodge |
By that test, Balatro breaks more of the template than StarVaders does, three pillars against two, but it throws out the fight along with everything else. StarVaders is the furthest departure that still plays like a deckbuilder: it keeps the fight and moves it onto a grid. That is why it is the one to buy after Slay the Spire if you want the biggest change that still plays like a deckbuilder, and Balatro is the one to buy if you never liked card combat to begin with.
You can run the same test on any store page:
- If every combat screenshot shows one row of enemies at the same distance, the positioning pillar is intact, whatever the theme is.
- Search the description for “position”, “grid”, “tile”, “axis” or “board”. StarVaders says grid-based tactics and Cobalt Core says single-axis combat in their own copy, and those words are load-bearing.
- Look for a win condition other than reducing health to zero. A score target or a checkmate breaks more than a reskinned map does.
- Read the review count as well as the percentage. A high share across a few hundred reviews is a far weaker signal than the same share across a few thousand.
If the grid is the part you came for, deckbuilders where the grid matters goes further, with Fights in Tight Spaces and HELLCARD. If you want the fight on a chessboard, best chess roguelikes carries that list.
Which roguelike deckbuilder should you play first?
Start with Slay the Spire if you are new, because it teaches the grammar every other game here riffs on. Pick the Ironclad, the first character: he is sturdy enough to survive early mistakes, and his cards say plainly what they do. Losing runs is normal, and each loss is where the learning happens.
If card combat sounds intimidating, start with Balatro instead, because poker hands are rules most people already know. If you want the run structure with less to track, Roguebook’s two heroes ask you to place them well before they ask you to memorise synergies. Monster Train 2 is the natural second game, since its three floors add one new idea at a time. Save Inscryption until the loop already makes sense, because its genre shifts land harder when you know what it is subverting.
The one habit that makes any deckbuilder click: cut cards. New players take every card they are offered, which bloats the deck so their best cards show up less often. A tight deck of ten strong cards beats a bloated deck of thirty average ones. Most of the ranked games let you skip a card reward or remove a card from your deck, and using that option is the fastest way to go from losing runs to winning them.
Hellmate: our chess-based roguelike deckbuilder, coming soon
Hellmate is our own game, and it sits beside this list rather than on it. It is roguelike deckbuilding chess across the seven floors of Hell: each floor belongs to a deadly sin, every sin crowns its own king, and you summon pieces and cast spells with mana, brand your army with sigils, and melt the king’s HP before your turns run out. Between runs, Soul Coins buy permanent upgrades. Against the four pillars above it breaks one, positioning, because the fight happens on a chessboard. It leans on chess intuition the way Balatro leans on poker, which could make it approachable, though that is for players to decide once it is out.
It is unreleased, dated January 19, 2027 on Steam (as of October 2026), for Windows and macOS, so the full game has no reviews or sales to point at yet. Overbaked is a small independent studio founded in Istanbul in 2026, working across genres rather than in one. If a roguelike deckbuilder built on chess sounds like your kind of trouble, the Hellmate Steam page is where to follow it, and what a chess deckbuilder is explains the shape of the genre it belongs to.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best roguelike deckbuilder?
Slay the Spire, if you only play one. Its runs stay readable while you are still learning what a good card looks like, and every later game in the genre borrows its vocabulary, which makes all of them easier to read afterwards.
What should I play after Slay the Spire?
Monster Train 2, if you want the same combat loop with louder payoffs. Take StarVaders if you want positioning, Inscryption if you want a story that keeps moving the walls, and Griftlands if you want to argue your way through some fights.
Is Balatro a roguelike deckbuilder?
Yes, though the loosest one on this list. You draft and thin a deck across a run that ends on one loss, but there are no enemies, no map and no energy, so almost nothing transfers from Slay the Spire except the habit of cutting cards.
Which of these run on a Mac?
Nine of the ten. Wildfrost is the only one whose Steam page lists Windows alone (as of October 2026), and Slay the Spire, Inscryption, Griftlands, Loop Hero and Roguebook also list Linux.
