The best Champions for the Pyre.
Our tier list for the best Primary Clans to choose, and why their Champions can give you the upper hand.
We’ve been absolutely loving testing all the Clan combinations in Monster Train so far. The unique Champions for your Primary Clan play a huge part in your chances for success.
Of course, these picks are just from our early experiences in Monster Train, and all of them are viable if you manage to build the right deck. Our tier list takes most into account the reliability with which each Champion can succeed, so keep this in mind and don’t worry about picking a lower tier one. You might just hit the jackpot!
Also, this tier list is all about the Champions and the power level each has as a Primary Clan. Even though some clans are more powerful than others with their general cards, the Champion is the focus here. You’ll often do better with the backup cards of Hellhorned, for example, and a Champion from elsewhere.
Monster Train – Best Clan Champions Tier List
Since there’s only 5 Champions, we’ve listed them here in the order of best to worst. Hopefully this can make your decision a bit easier!
Rector Flicker – Melting Remnant (best Primary Class)
Rector Flicker’s upgrade paths both give him the potential to grow absolutely enormous, or constantly regenerate fallen friendlies. The Burn Bright path is so ridiculously easy to play, and going all in on that upgrade will leave you with a 150/150 Rector Flicker with Burnout 3. Burnout can be extended, but you can also just let him die and use a Reform card to bring him back even buffer.
He’s also able to exponentially grow in Health with Accumulator, using a Harvest ability to constantly increase his stats. At level 3 of Accumulator, he’ll gain +20 Health per fallen unit, which can spiral ridiculously to the extent that he’s an unassailable wall. This leads to bosses being unable to do a thing to stop you.
The third path – Dark Calling – is another powerful one, as at the end of each turn, Rector Flicker Reforms a unit. This brings a random defeated friendly back you your hand and gives it Burnout 1, +5 attack and health, and costs 0 ember. Upgrading this path gives you even more Reforms per turn. As long as you keep getting Burnout units killed off, this guy can create huge piles of friendlies.
Melting Remnant is a great Primary Clan to pick, because of the versatility of Rector Flicker. You’ll have Burnout synergy if needed, but the ever-increasing health total with Accumulator can be fantastic alongside Stygian Guard and Hellhorned.
The Sentient – Awoken
The Awoken clan is all about having the best defence. The Sentient is the embodiment of this, being able to reliably absorb a great deal of damage easily.
With Explosive, you can keep using healing to take out enemies foolish enough to stand in your way thanks to the damaging Rejuvenate ability, and combined with Cultivating you can have a huge scary threat on board despite its 0 attack. Cultivating draws you cards when you’re damaged, which can keep you cycling cards and drawing the healing you need to take out your enemies.
Honestly though, it’s Bristling that’s our favourite. Getting up to 40 stacks of Spikes on The Sentient, with 120 starting health, is absolutely wild and has led us to victory on multiple occasions. Of course, each upgrade path is strong and viable for The Sentient, so make sure you combine your upgrades accordingly and build your deck based on this Champion’s strengths.
Tethys Titansbane – Stygian Guard
Tethys is a bit of a mage/shaman type, with abilities that apply Frostbite and Spell Weakness to enemies, as well as an option to reduce the cost of friendly units. We’ve found Tethys Titansbane’s abilities extremely powerful, particularly when you combine Frostbite with Sweep (or go all-in on Frostbite). Honestly, ability-wise they’re probably the strongest Champion in the game.
Why’s he not at the top of the list then? Simple: this thing is squishy. If you go full Chillwind and give Tethys 60 attack and 40 Frostbite, he’ll only have 3 health points to play with. Other routes give him slightly more, but you’re still at great risk of enemy Sweep and Spikes abilities.
If you can adequately protect Tethys, they’ll carry you to victory with ease, but it only takes one stray shot to kill this frail thing off.
Hornbreaker Prince – Hellhorned
Hellhorned are one of the strongest Clans in the entire game. Getting a bunch of Demon Fiends before stacking Quick and Multistrike on them has led to victory multiple times. However, the Clan’s Champion isn’t the MVP here. In fact, we’ve often found him underwhelming compared to the rest of the units available.
Sure, his Multistrike ability combined with extra attack from Slay thanks to the Brawler and Reaper upgrades do combine fantastically, but he’s still in desperate need of protection. Sure, his Wrathful ability gives him Armor when he Slays, but that’s not nearly fast enough for our liking.
Don’t get us wrong – Hornbreaker Prince is great when you can buff him up and protect him well, he’s just painfully average compared to the rest of his Clan. We wish there could be a way to give him Quick.
Penumbra – Umbra
Penumbra is a challenge to use well. The fact that it takes up 3 floor spaces whilst every other Champion takes up 2 is one thing. The fact that the Monstrous upgrade path makes this monster take up 6 Capacity is absolutely nuts. Sure, the Trample ability is super-strong with the unit’s enormous 150/90 stats, and you can boost carts’ capacity easily, but there’s so little versatility with Penumbra that it’s hard to win out.
That’s not to say this Champion is useless. Far from it. Architect gives you huge amounts of extra Capacity to use, and combined with Trample you can solo whole fights, but the rest of the Umbra cards struggle to match it.
Umbra as a class will often leave you with a load of Morsel units, encouraging you to go for the Glutton path, but be careful – this playstyle requires a whole load of planning and preparation. We’ve also found other Umbra units like Crucible Warden and Crucible Collector more useful thanks to their powerful Gorge abilities, and it’s not always necessary to force a Penumbra carry.
That’s all for our Monster Train tier list – let us know what you think and who your favourite Champion is!
Once you’ve chosen that, now might be the time to dip into a game with the help of our beginner tips for the game, as well as a handy cheat sheet of all the Monster Train keywords and effects!
