Monster Train: How to Play Awoken

This is the second part of a series where I introduce you to how I play each clan and think about the cards. In the following sections I will rate and give a brief overview of each card in the clan. 10/10 is one of the best at this phase of the game. 0/10 doesn’t handle it at all. I feel in this game there are 3 puzzles to solve; Small Units (tend to be the back line), Big Units (the beefy front line that you need to clear to get to the back), and Boss (the last guy.

I tend to rate Boss killing to be the most important because that is what it takes to win the game, and if you can’t kill him the pyre is probably not going to help. Small units tend to deal the damage or some kind of annoy effect and Big units tend to be low damage but if not cleared the small ones will do to much damage.

Quick general tips that can help out:

• Pretty much value first unit upgrade over spells upgrade
• Always look at free information before picking units (that means look at upgrades before picking unit)
• Keep your deck low on cards (I like 22-25 range) toward the mid game – late game.
• Find what you want to do with the deck and stay with it.
• Killing the collectors is very important. If not playing a deck with a lot of direct damage, I like to start with units in the 2nd and 3rd card to make sure I get a chance.
• You only really get units after the first 4 fights
• If you have damage dealers, make sure they have a tank and give the tanks health.

Meet The Sentient: the leader card of the Awoken. He comes in three forms:

• Explosive: Rejuvenate: 15/30/60 (Rejuvenate triggers on heal even at full health)
• Cultivating: Revenge: Draw 1 (Revenge triggers when damage is dealt) Health:40/100/200
• Bristling: Spikes 10/20/40 (When attacked deal damage equal to the number of spikes)

Explosive is something I have experimented with and it does a pretty good job as a front line killer. It needs Regen to fully function. The 2 big downsides to this unit are that Bristling exists and it’s not the best boss fighter unless you have a lot of regen.

Small Units: 3/10
Big Units: 7/10
Boss: 5/10

Cultivating is the worst of the bunch. It starts with the most health but it doesn’t deal damage in any way. The early game is going to be really rough and even though you are drawing extra cards it doesn’t mean you can play them all. If you get sharpen or pyre shards in your starting 5 extra cards maybe it’s worth trying. There is one possible idea I can see with this card: repeatedly damaging and healing it to try to draw for a specific combo card you want. However, this is something I haven’t experimented with personally.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 0/10
Boss: 0/10

Bristling is the best in almost every scenario. Spikes is great at killing bosses and small units. The decks are also pretty easy to build because you just want as much healing and spikes as you can get and you will have a pretty decent deck no matter what. Its only downside is it needs help with big units which I feel the Awoken has a little trouble dealing with.

Small Units: 10/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 7/10

Each Clan starts with a Clan basic card, which is Restore for the Awoken

Rank: #2

This card is the glue for the early game for this clan, It helps trigger the Explosive Sentient and keeps Bristling alive. It’s also a card I feel that is fine in the end game compared to the other starter cards.

Sting: This is a build-around card that stings more and more once you start getting some of the many Awoken artifacts. With the artifacts you can make some really fun builds, without them it’s an ok card that replaces itself on the next turn.

Small Units: 8/10
Big Units: 1/10
Boss: 1/10

Vine Grasp: A great card once you grasp the ability of moving around units (including your own). One use is killing the weak enemy back line.

Small Units: 9/10
Big Units: 1/10
Boss: 1/10

Glimmer: Useful for triggering Rejuvenate and clearing waves of weak units. Adding magic power to this card makes it great even in the end game.

Small Units: 10/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 1/10

Razorsharp Edge: Enhance (Modify a card or unit for the duration of battle). Great with multi-strike and can turn some tanks into effective killers. Can target enemy units and it does kill though armor.

Small Units: 5/10
Big Units: 5/10
Boss: 5/10

Restoration Detonation: Healing and front line smashing all in one card. Works really well with the Hollowed units. Adding magic power doubles or triples the damage to pack a big punch. This is a card that I like to holdover if I am having trouble with big units.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 7/10
Boss: 5/10

Steel Enhancer: A card to steal victory from the enemies by enhancing your unit’s life. Helps glass cannons with a much needed boost in health to save it from sweeps or thorns.

Small Units: 5/10
Big Units: 3/10
Boss: 3/10

Wildwood Sap: Regen (Restores life equal to amount of stacks at the end of the turn). This allows you to trigger Rejuvenate effects twice per turn. The biggest source of regen on a card. Great with doublestack and removing the consume effect.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 0/10
Boss: 8/10

Sharpen: It’s expensive which is its downside, but if you can reduce the cost it will sharpen up your tanks and allow them to crush the back line.

Small Units: 8/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 5/10

Animus of Speed: Quick (Attacks first but still follows right to left attacks meaning if you have 2 units with quick it will be right to left order). I really like this unit on the higher level carts. It’s not really strong enough to take out front lines by itself but can save you damage by killing off the front units before they get to attack. She gets a lot better with multi-strike.

Small Units: 3/10
Big Units: 3/10
Boss: 3/10

Animus of Will: The carry of the Animus: just stack attack and put her behind a tank and she is really strong.

Small Units: 6/10
Big Units: 9/10
Boss: 7/10

Awoken Hollow: Lots of max health which helps with a the damage heal cards like Restoration Detonation and a great unit if you have Unleash the Wildwood. Besides the hp though he can be a bit hollow: the rejuvenate effect isn’t amazing and he is a 3 pip unit.

Small Units: 2/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 7/10

Edge Prior: Prior to having a lot of heal spells and card draw this unit doesn’t offer anything. Also seems to be a bit of a “win more” card- if you are already winning it might increase your winning margin, otherwise it’s probably not helping much.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 0/10
Boss: 0/10

Husk Hermit: One of my more favorite tanks, already a decent early game tank and small unit killer right out of the gate and only scales up with more and more help.

Small Units: 8/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 7/10

Shattered Shell: The only thing that gets shattered are the poor, weak backline units. It’s not the greatest scaler but a great early game unit.

Small Units: 9/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 2/10

Thorned Hollow: While less Hp than his Awoken brother, I think he is just better than him in most ways. Spike scaling makes up for the lower Hp than the other Hollowed.

Small Units: 9/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 8/10

Wildwood Custodian: I like to leave this unit on the top floor or hide him behind tanks and dps if there is a free space. I will sometimes put hp buff on him just to save him from small damage that might get though, but don’t put attack on him because then he will die to spikes.

No units ranking here because it doesn’t do damage, but this is a decent support card I would take situationally.

Many of these spells do not deal damage to enemy units, so they don’t have a unit ranking. Just use the description to see what kind of situations the card is good for.

Ensnare: Rooted (Prevents the next time a unit would move between floors, Bosses are immune). This helps ensure the enemy stays on its floor for one turn. It’s a fun way of keeping the tank on the floor while the weak back liners move on without protection.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 5/10
Boss: 0/10

Invigorating Solution: Need cards? This is a great solution to that problem. You are basically giving up 1 card this turn for 3 more cards next turn. For the most part I think it’s pretty good; if you get rid of the consume and -1 mana you have a zero cost +3 cards.

Preserved Thorns: I really hate this name, as the card has nothing to do with the thorns mechanic. As for the card it’s really good for the Sting decks, and a decent card on its own.

Small Units: 2/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 2/10

Engraft: This is an interesting card, but I don’t like it very much without the -1 mana cost. With it it’s a pretty decent card to give you more mana and a card next turn.

Pyre Shards: Great for a tank! But, it feels pretty “win more” unless you need help with back units.

Small Units: 8/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 8/10

Bramble Lash: Lashing out at the front unit has never been easier. This is really strong and really fast compared to other spells. If you get to 5+ spikes it’s a good bang for your buck.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 8/10
Boss: 0/10

Focused Growth: Might be my favorite heal spell, I normally do -2 mana because 25 life is pretty high.

Pyre-Gro: I haven’t played around with it that much- 2 cost is very high for the effect considering you can’t control it that much. I need to test when holdover triggers, but if it triggers right away and not at the end of the turn you could grow a pretty nice combo with it.

Restoring Retreat: It’s pretty expensive for the effect, but it’s still fine for the powerful unit stacking play-style.

Awake: Again pretty expensive, which kind of forces a -2 mana cost, but when you’ve done that it’s fine.

Shard Channeler: As with the other Channelers, just stick it on top and enjoy the bonus. I think this unit is really just for boss fights. Dealing double damage on weaker units doesn’t really matter and vs tanks I’m not sure how much it matters.

Small Units: 0/10
Big Units: 2/10
Boss: 8/10

Vinemother: Great with Sting deck; otherwise I’m not sure how high she is in the rare draft. Also 20 life isn’t that bad for most of the early-mid game

Wilting Sapwood:I don’t like it. It’s 2 cost and 3 pips is a huge payment; maybe it’s decent if you are playing a really expensive deck or a deck with a lot of x spells.

Awoken’s Rail Spike: Very good card, there isn’t much instant card draw and this provides it.

Unleash the Wildwood: The best heal spell…. Period. IT HEALS ALL UNITS TO FULL HEALTH!!!!

Channelsong: I’m not sure how I feel about this card, the more units the better this is.

Wildwood Tome: My favorite tome, quick on your main damage dealer helps a lot as well as quick on your swipe creatures. Just a great effect.

Adaptive Mutation: Blah, not a card I would take over the other rares, expensive and a very narrow effect.

Spreading Spores: Very fun card to double stack and make a deck out of it.

Cycle of Life: Expensive but that’s the cost of life. I think it’s great to put on tanks and protect dps.

I’m just going though these quickly because it should be pretty obvious.

Clan Artifacts:
Channelheart:+20 Magic power to Sting Spells. If I get this early I will try and play spikes
Cursed Vines: 50% chance to swap front and back enemy. If you have good back clear I would take the gold.
Gnarled Root: Grant +1 stack of Spikes each time it’s applied. Always pretty good considering the chance of you not having any kind of spikes is pretty low.
Petrified Crucible: Spikes deal +1 damage per stack. Spikes good.
Priory’s Cloak: When a friendly unit is healed, deal damage to the front enemy unit equal to the amount healed. If I get this early I tend to target hallowed creatures to give them extra damage.
Rootsplit Mask: Apply Rooted to enemy units when they enter the floor below the Pyre Room. Keeps them at bay for one turn longer. Decent
Sap Tap: The first time each turn a friendly unit is healed, draw 1. Card draw is always good.
The Bloating Fungus: Regen restores +1 health per stack. Decent.
Thorn Casing: Sting spells get +10 Magic Power and Piercing (Damage dealt by this card ignores armor and shield). Another card I will play the sting build for.
Thornfruit: At start of turn, add a sting spell to your hand. Not really a build-around for stings, but an extra 5 damage per turn and a card is great. Only downside is the longer the game goes on you could get some hands with a lot of stings.

Combos with other clans:

Hellhorned: The builds function about the same as you would normally expect outside of the main leader. The good thing about these leaders is they are very build-around-me cards that you always get on the first turn. Just focus on the leaders and it will be a good deck.

Stygain Guard: You need to rely on Stygain Guards high damage spells to deal with front liners because both of their units aren’t great at it. Though, they are very good at killing bosses (with frostbite units) and offer a lot of sweep. The other downside is killing the collector can be tough the first 1-3 fights.

Umbra: Even worse at killing tanks then Stygain. The problem with these two classes is they both want to be in the front line, so what I do normally is make one cart an Umbra cart and the other 2 Awoken. It’s one of the few class combos I feel that you need all 3 carts with good units to make up for the lack of damage.

Melting: Decent combo. Works well with with stealth to protect the carries, though finding a carry that isn’t your leader can be hard.

Last thoughts: While I think Bristling leader is always the way to go, you could make a case for the Explosive in the class combos that are really lacking front line. Their clan artifacts are always pretty fun and pretty much always good, the only problem I see is if you get the sting artifacts without the stings- I kind of wish that if you took one of them that you would get a free sting with it. This class is always a blast to play because all their cards seem to be pretty decent and aren’t wedded to any particular archetype.

Remember: this is a card game that has a lot of variables, so the card ratings are fluid. Sometimes you just need a card to shore up a weakness even if it is weaker than the other choices. I will try to do at least 1 guide a week: if you have questions or something you would like to see in the guide just let me know in the comments.