Monster Train – The Last Divinity – DLC – Review

What is Monster Train about?

Monster Train is a turn-based deckbuilding game made by Good Shepherd Entertainment. After heaven invaded the hell and only ice and cold was left. But a last spark of hell is still burning strong. We are the last hope to reignite hell. With our train the Boneshaker we are transporting and defending the last spark of hell called the Pyre. We collect units, spells and artifacts in order to get stronger, because our enemies are getting stronger too. Will we be able to reignite hell?

Our card deck will be always different. The base game covers:

• over 220 different cards
• 5 different clans with different mechanics
• each clan has 10 levels which want to be unlocked
• each clan has 2 champions with each one having 3 combinable specialization
• 88 artifacts
• each card can be upgraded up to 2 times with many different effects
• more than 21 unique random events
• 25 unlockable degree of difficulty called “Covenant”

What is new for the DLC The Last Divinity?

The Last Divinity is the first DLC released for the popular game Monster Train. Its giving us a huge addition to the already great base game. A short summary:

• a new clan called the Wurmkin which are bringing some eggs and echoes with them
• new mechanic to add additional optional difficulties called pact shards. You can take them to get great boni, but for each of them the difficulty will increase
• new optional last boss
• fuse one unit into another unit and grant that effect
• new rare cards for existing clans
• new events
• 5 new clanless cards
• 10 new Mutators
• 5 new expert challenges
• 3 new card frames

I’m not going much into the changes for the existing clans, so let’s have a look at the mechanics for now!

Whats different in the DLC The Last Divinity?

• 

• 

• 

With the new Wurmkin Clan we’ll also get 2 new Champions. The first one is the Spine Chief. The Spine Chief’s main mechanics are to use Charged Echoes to buff or deal damage.

But what are Charged Echoes? Lets start with Echoes. Echoes can be seen right above the capacity screen. Each floor will get an Echo Capacity. You’ll gain one Charged Echo, if you play an infused card. If you have 4 you’re at maximum capacity. You can go above, but at the end of the turn, every echo above 4 will be deleted. The Spine Chief could an effect which grants “Friendly units have +5 attack per Charged Echo”. With that he can buff each unit on that floor.

The other effect is Reap. Reap will deal 2 damage per Charged Echo on that floor at the end of turn. You heard correct, unlike frostbite, this will deal damage not at the end of combat, but at the end of turn. So it can help clearing floors, but its no boss killer. But it is way easier to stack. If you have 4 charged echoes and reap 20, that means 80 damage. That’s quite useful.

The next new Champion is Echowright. Echowright contains mechanics for the new Etch Keyword and it helps with playing eggs. Lets start with explaining Etch. Etch is triggered if a spell with Consumed is played. The Wurmkin do have some cards to return those consumed spell or add consume to other spells. Now for the eggs. An egg is a unit which has to break through a shell first. If it has Shell 8 that means, that in order to hatch, we need to have 8 charged echoes. The egg will consume those charged echoes at the end of turn. We do not have to have them all at ones. After hatching a new unit is summoned.

The last new Keyword will be Inspire. Just like Incant, but this will trigger if a spell with Infused is played. Pretty useful. You can play Stygian/Wurmkin and have both effects at the same time 😀

Shards and added Difficulty

• 

• 

• 

So after talking about the units, lets talk about the new Shards mechanics. Shards are a way to get immensely useful new upgrades or more artifacts. Lets start with the negative effects. As you gather shards each battle will increase in difficulty. That added difficulty can be seen with a new indicator called “Threat Level”. For each ring there are certain thresholds for each ring. If you have a higher Threat Level the enemy and boss are growing stronger. As example fighting that Last Knight boss:

• base -> 8/210
• with 10 shards -> 8/220 + Rage 1
• with 50 shards -> 10/260 + Rage 5

The minions do get a bonus too. They can even be granted Multistrike, Armor, Spikes, Shields, Stealth and Trample. Pretty bad, so we have to be careful, while choosing if we can take those shards. Lets head over to the positive aspects 😉

New Overworld Events

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

So pact shards are not always bad, we just have to be careful to get too many too fast. On the Overworld there are 3 new events which we can trigger.

• Divine Boons -> This one grants us 100 gold for 10 shards
• Divine Hoard -> Get 1 out of 3 artifacts or 25 gold for 15 shards
• Divine TempleThe Divine Temple is the best. You can buy an spell upgrade for 10/15 shards, but more interesting we can fuse units! In this example we’ll fuse on Bog Chrysalis into another one. By base a Bog Chrysalis with hatch with 2 Bog Fly units. Its essence is “Summon: Summon 2 Bog Fly units”. So if we put those 2 together, we get 2 Bog Fly units by summoning and 2 additional one on hatch. Pretty nice. There are way better combinations like getting Quick, or Inspire/Incant Triggers or even getting Multistrike!The buyable upgrades are the following:
  • Left Side for 10 shards:
    • Intrinsic -> Get that card on your first turn
    • +10 Magic Power and Piercing
    • Purge and -1 ember
  • Right Side for 15 shards:
    • Spellchain -> After using that spell, get a copy with +1 cost and Purge
    • -2 ember
    • +30 Magic Power

In addition the Hellvent has been changed. If you want to duplicate a fused unit or a spell with the new upgrades, then you have to get additional shards in order to copy.

New Final Boss

• 

• 

• 

If we can get over 100 shards on our run and beat Seraph, then we can fight The Last Divinity. A mega huge boss spanning all 3 floors. The health is not divided, so we only have to defeat The Last Divinity once. On each floor The Last Divinity does have different effects. On the lower floor it is Trample, middle floor does have Multistrike and top floor does have Sweep. So its important to plan ahead.

The next bad thing is, that The Last Divinity will not only spawn minions from all the rings, bosses can be spawned too. In order to win, you have to be able to kill bosses in one turn, or they will get to you pyre and beat you. Its a hard fight, but very rewarding.

My Conclusion

The Last Divinity is a big upgrade for Monster Train. The new mechanics do add a lot to the base game and its replay-ability. Its so good, that i do not want to play without it anymore! 😀

Where to buy?

• Monster Train (Affiliate Link)
• The Last Divinity DLC
• Soundtrack: Amazon (Affiliate-Link)

Keywords and Explanations

These are just the new Keywords. If you are looking for a list of the base ones, take a look here.

• Consume
  • After using the spell, the spell won’t be discarded but instead be added to the consume pile. So the card cannot be played again this battle.
• Echoes
  • Echoes are a new Ressource like Capacity. There is a limit which will be taken over to the next turn. If you go over limit, its still great, but all over capacity will be removed at the end of the turn. A charged echo will be granted each time a spell with infused is used.
• Etch
  • Etch is triggered when a spell with consumed is used.
• Incant
  • Incant effects will trigger when a spell is played on this floor.
• Infused
  • A card with infused will add an charged echo.
• Inspire
  • Inspire will trigger as soon as an charged echo is added to that floor.
• Shell
  • Shell is needed to hatch Wurmkin eggs. Shell can be removed by special spells or by consuming charged echoes at the end of turn. The unit will hatch when shell reaches 0.

If you like this you might like

Well, if you have already played Monster Train, and you are now looking for another game similar to it for you to play, I am here to help you with that! I will now share with you some games that might fill the void that Monster Train might have left you with:

• Loop Hero
• Slay the Spire (Affiliate Link)
• Tainted Grail: Conquest

YouTube

If you want to relax in your own timely manner then come watch me on YouTube:

Related Articles

If you want to read more about Monster Train here is list of interesting articles:

YouTube Releases

If you want to read more about Monster Train here is list of interesting articles: