Monster Train beginner guide: floors, capacity and upgrades_

Check floors and formation before ending the turn

You can deploy units on three combat floors, with the Pyre above them to protect. Ordinary enemies enter at the bottom and survivors climb after combat. Reaching the Pyre threatens your last defense. A leak on one floor is not necessarily an immediate defeat, but taking no damage yet does not mean that wave is solved.

Read each floor's combat preview and enemy abilities before committing cards. The front unit normally takes ordinary attacks first, allowing damage dealers behind it to work, but abilities such as Sweep change that protection. Do not automatically pile every high-health unit at the front: check whether essential attackers survive and whether a new placement uses space you still need.

An unplayable card can expose three different shortages

Ember, floor capacity and the cards drawn are separate resources. Ember pays for plays; capacity limits the space used by normal unit deployment; draw determines which tools reach your hand. For example, a floor with three spaces left cannot directly accept a size-four unit just because you can pay for it. This illustration is not a rule covering every movement effect.

Name the problem before choosing an upgrade. If useful cards sit unaffordable in hand, consider Ember support or cost reduction. If Ember is spare but useful cards are missing, examine draw and deck composition. If your formation lacks room, consider capacity. A strong card alone is not a reason to draft it, and Pyre health is not your per-turn spending budget.

Clearing waves and surviving Relentless are different tests

Ordinary waves move upward; when a boss enters Relentless, combat repeats on its current floor until one side is defeated. A boss that destroys your defense can continue upward. Check damage in one exchange separately from how many exchanges your units can survive. Reliable spell-based wave clearing does not by itself settle the boss fight.

As a learning exercise, build a cooperating core on one floor, then consider how other floors can catch leaks, instead of dividing upgrades equally just to fill all three. This is a starting point, not a universal optimal formation. Separate frontline survival, sustained damage and enemies escaping your core: each problem calls for a different repair, and another large unit may solve none of them.

Use routes and upgrades to address a demonstrated gap

The official description lists recruitment, card upgrades, champion improvements, passive bonuses and card duplication along your route. Inspect your current deck first. A unit-based defense lacking strength suggests looking at unit upgrades; an essential spell you cannot afford suggests an appropriate spell upgrade. Before duplicating, check whether a second copy fits, is affordable and actually fixes something.

Optional trials add danger in return for rewards. Read how a trial changes enemies and ask whether your current formation can handle it; accepting every trial is unnecessary. Apply the same reasoning to card rewards: take a card for a needed function. Remove cards that have become unnecessary, without prematurely cutting something still doing essential defending or finishing work just to shrink the deck.

Start by explaining one turn

Check floor threats, then formation, then resource shortages, then the different demands of waves and Relentless. Explaining why a card helps now is more useful for your next decision than memorizing its name. Mechanics come from the official description and the cross-checked introductory guides below; the exercises are our editorial suggestions, with no win-rate guarantee.