Monster Train Beginner Tips - Floors, Pyre, Deck Size, and Upgrades

Monster Train is a roguelike deckbuilder about defending a vertical train, not just playing the strongest card in your hand. Enemies climb through three defendable floors toward your Pyre, while your deck, units, spells, champion, artifacts, and route choices all compete for attention.

This guide focuses on the original Monster Train’s core systems. It is useful for later official ports and editions, but it avoids Monster Train 2 advice, The Last Divinity-specific mechanics, exact builds, clan rankings, card stats, relic rankings, covenant unlock routes, and boss scripts.

Essential Tips

1. Think in Floors, Not in One Giant Fight

The train layout is the whole game.

Monster Train gives you three lower floors for units and a Pyre room above them. Enemies usually enter at the bottom and climb if they survive. One floor might carry your main damage, another can catch survivors, and a third can support setup. You do not need every floor to be equally strong, but you do need to know where your run actually kills enemies.

2. Treat Pyre Health as a Resource, Not a Cushion

The Pyre can fight, but it is not your main defense.

The Pyre attacks enemies that reach its room, and sometimes letting a weak enemy through is acceptable if the reward or setup is worth it. The danger is relying on that habit. Pyre damage carries between battles, so spend it deliberately and skip risky rewards when your setup is slow or your Pyre is already low.

3. Draft Around a Plan, Not Around Excitement

A smaller, focused deck usually plays cleaner than a pile of good cards.

Monster Train constantly offers cards, upgrades, artifacts, and events. New players often take every interesting option and then wonder why the important cards show up late. Before taking a card, ask what job it performs: killing backline enemies, protecting a key unit, scaling damage, restoring Pyre health, solving Ember pressure, or keeping a floor alive. If the answer is vague, skipping can be stronger.

4. Place Units Before You Spend the Whole Turn on Spells

Units are long-term board presence.

Spells can solve immediate problems, but units keep fighting as long as they survive. Since units also consume floor Capacity, placement is one of the most important decisions in a battle. Place the units that define your defense first, then use spells to protect them, clear threats, or fix leaks.

5. Let Your Champion Set the Early Direction

Your champion is reliable because it starts in hand.

Your primary clan determines your champion, and the champion appears at the start of battle. That makes it your most dependable early piece. Do not treat it as a generic strong body. If it wants support, protection, scaling, or a particular floor shape, draft with that in mind while staying ready to pivot when artifacts and card drafts point somewhere else.

6. Use Routes to Fix Weaknesses

The map is not just a reward track.

After battles, route choices can lead toward drafts, merchants, artifacts, events, duplication, removal, or champion upgrades. Choose the side that solves the problem your deck currently has. If starter cards are clogging draws, removal can matter more than another draft. If your best plays are expensive, resource choices and cost upgrades may matter more than raw power.

7. Upgrade Cards That Actually Matter

Upgrades are strongest when they concentrate power.

Monster Train lets you improve units and spells, and upgraded cards stay improved for the run. That does not mean every card deserves investment. Put upgrades on cards that your plan repeatedly depends on: a unit that anchors a floor, a spell that answers common threats, or a support card you want to see often.

8. Read Artifacts as Commitments

Passive bonuses are strongest when your deck can use them often.

Artifacts can shape the run, but they are not all equally useful for every deck. A passive bonus that triggers constantly in your current plan is usually better than a flashy bonus that asks you to become a different deck halfway through.

When offered an artifact, ask whether it strengthens what you already do, covers a weakness, or opens a realistic pivot. If it only works after several missing pieces, be careful about letting it drag the run away from a working plan.

Floor Defense and Pyre Management

A clean floor plan usually needs three jobs: something that survives, something that deals meaningful damage, and something that handles awkward enemies before they reach the Pyre. Those jobs can live on one floor or be split across the train.

Avoid placing units only because there is empty space. Capacity is a limit, and filling a floor with weak bodies can block the units that matter. If a floor is a backup, make sure it can actually finish survivors instead of just delaying them.

Bosses make floor planning especially important because they can force repeated combat as they move. You do not need a detailed script to prepare well. You need a plan that survives long enough to apply damage more than once. Trials are similar: if the drawback punishes the only thing your deck does well, skip it; if your deck already counters it, take the reward.

Deck Size, Draw, and Card Roles

Monster Train draws a hand each turn, discards unused cards, and reshuffles when the draw pile runs out. That simple loop makes deck size matter. Too many filler cards delay your important units and spells; removing weak starters and skipping unnecessary drafts makes the deck more predictable.

Think of cards by role:

Role	What It Solves
Frontline unit	Survives attacks and protects the floor
Damage unit	Kills waves or bosses over repeated combat
Backline answer	Removes fragile but dangerous enemies
Scaling card	Makes a unit or floor stronger over time
Protection card	Keeps key units alive long enough to matter
Resource card	Helps with Ember, draw, Capacity, or setup
Cleanup spell	Fixes leaks before they become Pyre damage

You do not need every role in equal amounts. You need enough of the right roles for the threats your run is seeing. If units survive but do not kill, draft damage or scaling. If bosses die but small enemies leak, look for wave control. If your best cards are too expensive, solve Ember or upgrade costs before adding more expensive options.

Clans, Champions, Upgrades, and Artifacts

Base Monster Train starts from five major clan identities: Hellhorned, Awoken, Stygian Guard, Umbra, and Melting Remnant. Each run combines a primary and secondary clan, so your deck is about how two toolkits overlap.

Use the primary clan’s champion as your early anchor, then let drafts and artifacts decide how narrow or flexible your plan should become. A strong run needs decisions that point in the same direction: placement, upgrades, route rewards, removals, and resource choices all supporting the way you intend to win fights.

When choosing between Ember, draw, and Capacity-style improvements, avoid defaulting to the same answer every run. Expensive hands want Ember or cost reduction. Decks that empty their hands may want more draw. Floor plans with large or multiple important units may need more Capacity.

Artifacts and upgrades should be evaluated the same way. Do not chase exact tier lists. Ask how often the bonus matters, whether it helps your main floor, and whether it reduces turns where your hand does nothing useful.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

1. Do not build every floor randomly - decide which floor kills waves, which floor catches survivors, and which floor supports setup.
2. Do not rely on the Pyre to clean up everything - Pyre damage persists, so repeated small leaks can ruin later fights.
3. Do not draft every interesting card - extra cards weaken your draw if they do not solve a real problem.
4. Do not fill Capacity with weak units - floor space is valuable, and bad bodies can block better ones.
5. Do not ignore your champion upgrade direction - the champion is your reliable early card, so support what it is trying to do.
6. Do not upgrade cards you plan to remove - spend gold on pieces that remain central to the run.
7. Do not take every Trial automatically - judge the drawback against your current floor plan and Pyre health.
8. Do not force a saved build from memory - adapt to the cards, artifacts, routes, and upgrades this run actually gives you.

Summary

Category	Top Tip
Scope	Treat later editions and DLC as wrappers unless you are deliberately playing that content
Floors	Give each defendable floor a job instead of scattering units without a plan
Pyre	Spend Pyre health only when the reward or setup justifies the risk
Deck Size	Remove or skip low-impact cards so important cards appear more often
Champions	Let your primary clan’s champion guide the early draft direction
Upgrades	Invest in cards that repeatedly carry your plan
Routes	Pick map rewards that fix current weaknesses, not generic value
Artifacts	Favor passive bonuses that matter often in your actual deck