Melinoe's Arcana cards grant her small but meaningful boosts to her overall power in Hades 2. These upgrades range from speed boosts to extra lives, and with the right combination of Arcana cards, players will be able to do some truly amazing things if they play correctly.

In this guide, we'll be going over a couple of builds for Arcana cards for Hades 2 that cater to two different playstyles. We'll also be going over a few important Arcana cards to help newer players make builds of their own.

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Hades 2: Overpowered Builds You Should Try

These powerful builds in Hades 2 will ensure you always come out on top in battle.

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Best Arcana Deck in Hades 2

Hades 2 Best General Arcana Build

This build is more of a generalist setup that focuses on upfront upgrades. It's useful for every weapon, and with minor tweaks, it can also be good for the various playstyles enabled by the different weapon aspects in Hades 2.

Best Hades 2 Arcana Build

Card Name

Cost

Effect

The Sorceress

1

Omega Moves are faster.

The Wayward Son

1

Restore 3 Life after exiting a location.

The Huntress

2

Your Attacks and Specials deal more damage when you have less than 100% Magick.

Eternity

3

Everything moves slower while you are channeling your Omega Moves.

The Moon

Your Hex charges automatically.

The Furies

2

Deal more damage to enemies in your Casts.

Persistence

2

Start with more Max Life and Max Magick.

The Messenger

1

Your Casts make your Impervious for a short duration, and you move faster.

Night

2

You gain bonus Critical Chance with each move in an Omega Combo.

The Swift Runner

1

Sprint faster and you can pass through most enemies in your way.

Death

4

Gain Death Defiance.

The Centaur

Gain Max Magick and Max Life after 5 Locations.

Origination

5

Deal more damage to enemies affected by Curses from at least two Olympians.

Excellence

5

Boons have a chance to include Legendary or at least Rare blessings.

Divinity

Boons you find have an additional chance to include Epic blessings.

You'll get a little bit of everything with this build except for the rerolls and bonus Obols provided by the cards in the bottom-left of the Arcana menu. Still, as far as luck is concerned, you should be good to go thanks to the Excellence and Divinity cards.

You can deactivate some cards in the second row if you'd much rather have the rerolls and starting money. However, do keep The Furies active, since the bonus damage it provides is too good to pass up.

Best Glass Cannon Arcana Build in Hades 2

Hades 2 Best Glass Cannon Arcana Build

Unlike the build above, this one focuses on stacking as many damage-related effects as possible. It's great for no-hit challenge runs, and it's got some space for modification as well for players who want to be a bit more safe.

Hades 2 Glass Cannon Arcana Build

Card Name

Cost

Effect

The Wayward Son

1

Restore 3 Life after exiting a location.

The Huntress

2

Your Attacks and Specials deal more damage when you have less than 100% Magick.

Eternity

3

Everything moves slower while you are channeling your Omega Moves.

The Moon

Your Hex charges automatically.

The Furies

2

Deal more damage to enemies in your Casts.

The Messenger

1

Your Casts make your Impervious for a short duration, and you move faster.

The Unseen

5

Passively recover Magick every second.

Night

2

You gain bonus Critical Chance with each move in an Omega Combo.

Origination

5

Deal more damage to enemies affected by Curses from at least two Olympians.

Excellence

5

Boons have a chance to include Legendary or at least Rare blessings.

Strength

4

While you have no Death Defiance, take reduced damage and deal more damage.

To truly make this glass cannon build shine, you'll want to use a couple of Keepsakes. Artemis' White Antlers Keepsake will give you 20% bonus crit chance for an entire Region, but it will limit your Life to only 30. Meanwhile, Athena's Gorgon Amulet Keepsake will give a chance for Athena to appear during your run, provided that you have no Death Defiance charges.

The Strength Arcana is great for these types of builds. You can absolutely use it with the the Death card, but doing so might not be worth it since Strength's effect only activates when you have no Death Defiance charges left.

Best Arcana Cards in Hades 2

Hades 2 Surface Combat

If you want to make a build of your own, always have the following active:

  • Origination and The Furies are excellent for scaling up your damage output, provided you can meet their trigger conditions. Always have both of these active, and try to incorporate their trigger conditions into your usual playstyle.
  • Death is highly recommended for players who are new to the game or those who are having trouble winning their runs. Extra lives are always going to be useful.
  • Excellence gives you a higher chance to get Legendary blessings. Getting the right one can easily set you up for success.
  • The Messenger is a one-point wonder that makes you immune to damage for a split second upon using your Cast. This can save your life if used correctly, and the bonus movement speed is nice to have as well.

Strong but Situational Cards

  • Night is great if you want to stack up crit chance for your Omega Moves. However, to activate it, you need to alternate your Omega Moves, and not every weapon or playstyle benefits from doing that.
  • The Enchantress and The Champions give you Change of Fate reroll dices; the former lets you reroll Location rewards, while the latter lets you reroll Boons. Pick one, or use both plus The Boatman card to activate The Fates, which will give you even more rerolls.
  • If you want some extra variety in your runs, The Queen will give you a higher chance of getting Duo Boons. Some of these Boons are very powerful, and they could result in some very fun runs.
  • The Huntress is another amazing damage-boosting skill, but it requires you to have less than 100% Magick for it to activate. This is best used with caster-type playstyles that rely on spamming Omega Moves.
  • The Unseen and its passive Magick regeneration are also great for Omega spam builds, and while it pales in comparison to Boons that restore Magick, it lets players skip those and pick other Boons instead. Just be mindful not to spend all your Magick at once.
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Hades 2 Tag Page Cover Art
Hades 2
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Released
September 25, 2025
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
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ESRB
Teen / Alcohol Reference, Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
Developer(s)
Supergiant Games
Publisher(s)
Supergiant Games
Prequel(s)
Hades
Franchise
Hades
Number of Players
Single-player
Steam Deck Compatibility
Verified
Early Access Release
May 6, 2024
PC Release Date
September 25, 2025
Nintendo Switch Release Date
September 25, 2025
Nintendo Switch 2 Release Date
September 25, 2025
Genre(s)
Action, Roguelite, Hack and Slash, RPG
OpenCritic Rating
Mighty
How Long To Beat
19 hours