Monster Train

Monster Train

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Achievement: How 2 Deckbuilder (Sting Strategy)
By iCarus
One strategy I came up with for the strategy "How to Deckbuilder" which relies on the Thornfruit starting relic
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Abstract
This guide is about one approach you can take when tackling the achievement, "How to Deckbuilder," one of the rarest achievements found in game.

Prerequisites:
Level 5 in Awoken and Hellhorned.
The relic, "Thornfruit," unlocked. (You can check in Logbook to see if you have it available)
Avoid the final boss which purges the first spell you play each turn. (Addition thanks to Grant)

If successful, your final boss-fight should look like this:
Opening Setup
Right off the start, pick the following mutators:
Fallen Champion, since the Champion is an unpurgeable card and you autofail the challenge without this.
Yeetpocalypse, to help thin your deck.
#Blessed, to get as many Sting-related artifacts as possible.

Pick the Awoken/Hellhorned combination with their exiled heroes. (The achievement should be doable with the basic Hellhorned champion, but the Queen's Impling does more damage and can combo with stuff like Implosion to help with early game)
Use Covenant Rank 0 to go easy on yourself.

At the start of the game, keep rerolling until you get the core artifact to this strategy: Thornfruit
Early to Midgame (Floors 1-6)
Start off by yeeting all your Rootseed starter cards with Yeetpocalypse.

Always pick routes with Artifacts (Herzel's Hoard). Your second best bet is Unstable Vortices to get rid of even more cards.
Skip on all cards, with a few exceptions:


Vinemother, an insane early-game card that gives extra Sting spells.


Imp-olate, which gives you a whooping 75 damage right off the bat to help smooth out your game before you can super-boost your Stings.

Pick up all Artifacts (even ones that seem useless, since this would remove them from the drop pool), with the Volatile Gauge as the obvious exception.

Avoid challenges which give your opponent Armor or Health Restoration, as those are particularly difficult to get through with just Stings and weak units. (Obviously, if you got Thorn Casting early, it makes the Armor ones a cakewalk)

If you did not get Advanced Prototype some point before the first Boss, start yeeting your Stewards too. With Advanced Prototype, prioritize yeeting the Imps instead.
Feel free to improve your Imps or Stewards with particularly-strong enchantments like the Largestone, which makes them a valuable asset at beating some of the stronger enemies.

The Boss Artifacts don't usually matter but I went for +1 Ember and then +1 Slot for my runs, since the early Ember helps when your deck actually costs something to play, and +1 Slot allows you to play more Imps on the same turn.
Late Game (Floors 6-8)
Right before the boss on Floor 6, the Crystal Caverns *might* yield a random event which gives you the artifact, Frozen Nostalgia: .
This happens with a fairly small chance, as mentioned by Grant, but you should try for it nonetheless.
Before Floor 7, you should have a mostly-empty deck with the exception of some of your Imps and either Imp-olate or Vinemother.
At Floor 7, you have a chance to earn 400 coins if you enable the Seal. Make sure to do so as Floor 8 will have a Trinket shop, your last chance to get your missing Sting relics.
If you have Imp-olate, also make sure you have the requisite cash (375 coins to get rid of 5 cards with the Guild Marker, 500 without) to remove the rest of your deck.

If all goes well, you will go into the final fight with the following relics:
Thornfruit, giving you 1 Sting per turn;
Channelheart, giving you +20 Sting damage;
Thorn Casing, giving you +10 Sting damage and piercing;
Frozen Nostalgia, giving you +15 Sting damage.
These 4 are the only required relics to beat the final boss fight, but the following relics will be a nice icing on top:
Imp-cicle, which gives free Imps each turn. Make sure you actually play them so they don't hog up the deck and prevent you from getting Stings.
Tempered Talisman, giving you another +3 Sting damage.
Winged Steel, which basically gives you +1 Sting once you get your 3rd Sting (or as early as Turn 2 with Imp-cicle).
Queen's Tail, giving you more draws with your free Imps.


Before you go in, double-check that your Deck is completely empty. You won't get another opportunity to yeet your last card even with Yeetpocalypse.

At the actual boss fight, start by Stinging enemies at the highest floor. You can skip low-attack targets and let the Pyre handle them, if it has enough HP.
Closing Thoughts
This is only one of the viable strategies to approach the challenge, with another one being Pyre-centric (with Heaven's Gold and Vapor Funnel). However, I find this strategy to be fairly RNG-consistent with getting the key Artifacts somewhere along the way and having a far smoother early-game.

Best of luck to those who want to attempt this! For the record, I cleared the challenge in around 5 runs with one of them failing because I thought I can get away with 1 real card on Floor 8.
13 Comments
BCS 19 Apr @ 7:49am 
There's no Blessed Mutator??
infra-dan-accelerator unit 84725 18 Oct, 2024 @ 12:15pm 
heres another way:
choose mutators:
Permadeath (every unit is in Hardcore mode,when you die,YOU DIE.)
Yeetplypse (must pruge something after every ring)
Fallen Champion (mandotory)


Clans:
Hellhorned
Awoken

Strat:
put all unwanted cards in front of big idiots. let them DIE. leave imps for last,there cute. then,combined with the thornfruit relic,you can just spam sting on everything till it dies. purge at all vortexes and merchants if you can afford it. if you got a path with gold and a merchant,as well as a vortex,go for it! get relics that buff stings if you can. by ring 7,you might have only imps left. alas,they must go too :( so sell them to the merchants,and ask them to not mistreat them. then,relentlessly sting the final boss till she dies cuz of a sting in her little angel heart.
Sardge 27 Apr, 2024 @ 6:24am 
monstertrain://challenge/IrishOccurPraise
works, ez to do with first attempt
rosteri3 17 Sep, 2023 @ 1:10pm 
tip in my succesful 0 card run:
my last card was inferno (deal 100 piercing dmg)
still very RNG-based.

and yeah the first artefact is mandatory
soldyne 12 Sep, 2023 @ 6:27am 
Another seed that is really good for this is
monstertrain://challenge/IrishOccurPraise
raycapanay 29 Oct, 2022 @ 9:59am 
this is very helpful, thank you :)
important note on my run, i can save 1 card going into last boss then purge after winning. in this case i saved Imp-olate, which is super useful when i have Imp-cicle.
i only got:
Channelheart, giving you +20 Sting damage
Thorn Casing, giving you +10 Sting damage and piercing
from the mentioned relics.
Stonerberg 20 Oct, 2022 @ 6:04pm 
TL;DR this guide works perfectly but RNG is frustrating

Commenting so other people don't lose hope. Thornfruit MUST be starting artifact, it is necessary for this to work. Restarting until I got it and got the achievemnt almost drove me insane. RNG is RNG but 250+ restarts until I got the achievement for me:

1. All other starting artifacts:Thornfruit was ~20:1. Random is random so I may have been unlucky but I was livid trying to get Thornfruit. Oher Awoken sting artifacts were ~1:1 for Thornfruit but all other artifacts were over represented. I was furious when I would see the SAME artifacts 3-5 times before Thornfruit. I got Volatile gauge 3 restarts in a row, Grrg's Goad 3 times in a row. Keep the faith, you'll get it eventually

2. Take a unit draft either as the first challenge or in the 2nd ring. I needed a unit aside from Stewards to tank/DPS up to Seraph
X_kot 29 Apr, 2021 @ 12:41pm 
@Mortisroger Worked like a charm, thanks for sharing! :squirtyay:
Mortisroger 22 Apr, 2021 @ 12:46pm 
for anyone interrested, got a seed with all Sting Artefacts collectable and very easy to get through.
monstertrain://challenge/AntiquesStrengthRelay

Thepo Larbear 9 Apr, 2021 @ 8:30pm 
Finally managed to do it.

Tip: The artifact that gives you a vine grasp (with purge) every turn is also very good for early game to shuffle around big foes. And because you take it after thornfruit its impossible for it to replace the sting you get every turn.

And save as much money as possible to buy out as much of the trinket shop as you can. You can buy 3-4 artifacts at once and reduce the pool a ton.