Forge Build

**A10 Warning: Unplayable at High Ascension.** An experienced Regent player with 65 hours at A10 (4-31 W/L ratio) describes Forge Regent as "unplayable at A10." The Blade's permanent scaling sounds impressive in theory, but at A10 enemy HP and damage output scale faster than Forge applications can keep pace. The 2-energy cost of Sovereign Blade compounds the problem — spending 2 of your 3 energy on a single attack leaves almost nothing for defense. If you are playing at A10, pivot to the Stars Build with Reflect + Particle Wall as the primary win condition. Forge Build is rated B-tier because it is only viable at lower Ascension levels where enemy HP pools are manageable and the Blade's accumulated damage is sufficient. The Forge Build centers on a simple and satisfying idea: Sovereign Blade gains damage permanently through Forging, and permanent means for the rest of the run. A Blade that has been Forged ten times is not a situationally powerful card — it is a 30+ damage attack that costs 2 energy and fires every turn (it has Retain, so it stays in hand). The earlier you begin Forging, the more fights it scales through, and the more overwhelming it becomes. Unlike most STS2 scaling that must rebuild from scratch each combat, Sovereign Blade carries its accumulated power across every single fight. The most important early-game decision is to Forge in every fight, even trivial ones. Players new to Regent sometimes save Refine Blade for difficult encounters, treating it like a combat power-up. This misunderstands the mechanic — Refine Blade played in a fight against a basic enemy still permanently increases the Blade's damage for every fight thereafter (and grants extra energy next turn as a bonus). There is no scenario where Forging the Blade is a wasted action. The habit of playing Refine Blade and Summon Forth in every fight, regardless of difficulty, separates pilots who reach 30-damage Blades from those stuck at 15. Seeking Edge is the build's transformative piece: a Rare Power that Forges 7 and makes Sovereign Blade deal damage to ALL enemies. Once Seeking Edge is played, the Blade becomes an AoE threat for the rest of the fight. With Glow generating Stars cheaply for Star-cost spenders and Refine Blade providing consistent Forge applications, the deck advances the Blade's permanent scaling while building toward explosive Star spender turns. By Act 2, a turn that plays Glow (Stars + draw), then Refine Blade (Forge 6 + energy next turn) has accomplished more per energy than almost any sequence available to other characters. The build's consistency advantage over Stars Build is that Forge scales regardless of whether you have the right spenders. A 25-damage Sovereign Blade deals 25 damage every time you play it — you do not need to bank Stars first, you do not need to assemble a combo, you simply play the Blade and deal the damage. The downside is the 2-energy cost: playing Sovereign Blade consumes most of a turn's energy, leaving little room for defense or Star generation. This energy pressure is manageable at low Ascension but becomes crippling at A10 where enemies deal enough damage to punish greedy offensive turns. If Act 1 gives you Refine Blade and the Blade but no Glow, you still have a coherent plan — but recognize that this plan has a lower ceiling than Stars Build at high Ascension.