When you come across the Byrdonis Egg in Slay the Spire 2 for the first time, it’s a little confusing. It might not look like much at first glance, but this little egg can end up being one of the most helpful additions to your deck.
It does come with a small downside in the short term, though. For one, you have to pass up an opportunity to increase your max HP. But more importantly, taking the egg means adding a completely useless card to your deck until you can hatch it. Here’s how the Byrdonis Egg works and when it’s worth taking.
Picking up or eating the Byrdonis Egg
The Byrdonis Egg appears during a random event room, marked by a “?” on the map. When you encounter the Byrdonis nest, you’ve got two choices:
- You can eat the egg for +7 Max HP.
- Take the egg, which adds the unplayable Byrdonis Egg card to your deck.
Without knowing what the Byrdonis Egg does, it seems like the extra max HP is the obvious choice. After all, you’ll really appreciate that extra HP once you’re pitted against elite fights and bosses. But taking the egg actually offers a stronger long-term reward, so it’s worth doing if you can deal with the temporary drawback of a dud card in your deck.
The decision largely depends on how comfortable you feel with your current health and upcoming path. If you’re heading into several tough fights without a campfire nearby, the safer HP option might make more sense.
Hatching the Byrdonis Egg
Thankfully, the Byrdonis Egg doesn’t stay useless forever. The next time you reach a rest site after picking it up, you’ll get an option to hatch the egg. Choosing this action removes the Byrdonis Egg from your deck and replaces it with an attack card called Byrd Swoop.
The Byrdonis Egg tradeoff is totally worth it if you hatch the egg soon after adding it to your deck. The sooner you transform it, the less time it spends cluttering up your hands during combat. Remember that hatching the egg uses your campfire action, meaning you won’t be able to rest for HP healing or Smith to upgrade a card.
Using the Byrd Swoop card
Byrd Swoop costs 0 energy and deals 14 damage, making it an incredibly cost-effective offensive play, especially compared to basic attacks like Strike that deal less damage. This free damage can help you finish enemies faster and conserve energy for blocking or other abilities like Powers or Skills.
Byrd Swoop fits easily into almost any deck, because a free 14 points of damage rarely feels out of place. What’s more, you can upgrade it to deal 18 damage.
In most situations, taking the egg is the stronger long-term choice. A free high-damage attack can make early-game elites significantly easier to contend with once it’s hatched.
There are a select few instances where eating the egg is the better choice. For example, when you’re very low on health and concerned about your immediate survivability, you might not last long enough to even reach a campfire, let alone hatch your egg. In that case, it’s best to take the short-term boost.
All in all, though, the Byrdonis Egg usually pays off. Turning a temporary dead draw into a strong zero-cost attack is a small investment for a card that can help you up your damage output through the rest of the game.
