Total Recall: I have had some good success with this card when leaning heavily into Marshlord; Total Recall is really good for hatching eggs on the turn it shows up if you have sufficient ember or an efficient enough deck. It represents a total of 12 possible shell removals for Marshlord - enough to hatch Bog Wurmling from zero. But yeah, in every other case the single word 'random' makes this card nigh-unplayable. Enflame: When I look at this card, I see the design foundations of a particular type of card I've seen in many TCGs: "choose one." That's essentially what I do when I'm in such a bad position that I have to take this card - I'm just using it for either the rage or the armor, because like you said you want these effects on different types of units. If Monster Train had the capability for "choose one" cards, I would imagine Enflame as a 1-cost card which I would probably take often - it would represent two 0-cost effects of which you get to pick the one you need when you need it. But with current mechanics as they are, yeah, you're never happy to see a card that costs 2 for a pair of 0-cost effects.
Eh you sometimes want both armor and rage on the same unit. Notably runs where you are building around primordium buffing a single unit and especially with super food making primordium give constant armor and rage can be fairly useful especially if planning to play on the midline and had to settle for stalwart snack at the start so your damage shield is taken by the last divinity on your main unit every turn. That’s pretty niche though as that’s one clan pair that it matters. The bigger problem is its numbers suck so even in the use case it’s best in. There’s also just void binding being a better way to apply sustain and damage scaling via primordium buff transfers.
I'm a little amazed Glugslider is designed so weakly, since it's clearly supposed to be used with Sketches. Unfortunately zero damage makes it strictly terrible because you can't use it to deal with heavies and having four of them is pointless (except possibly in Relentless maybe?). The infusion I could see maybe putting in a tank if you can't deal with backlines if it didn't add the size. It's like the devs saw how Shadowsiege and Consumer were meme units and decided to double down on making an unplayable unit.
Total Recall's randomness is less of a problem if you don't have any high impact spells in the first place and only care about etching as much as you can. Obviously not a desirable state, but it does have this specific use case. I did recently have a run like that: no spells that I really want to cast for their effect and a Bog Slime, so I just got as many consumes as possible for more inspire triggers, including total recall. Enflame (and sharpen tpp) have one thing going for them: they provide a decent amount of stats for ONE CARD. If ember is of no concern then they are pretty ok (ritual is still better for offense, but the extra armor is useful against the divinity and some others). The last run of my current winstreak was saved in part due to Enflame: more draw and ember than I could make use of and the extra armor kept Wyldenten alive JUST long enough to make it to relentless for which I had an adaptive mutation. Glugsider is interesting because yeah, he's just a significantly worse Abyssal Guard that requires more setup to do less in the fights that matter. Funnily in my run to get divine mastery on it I needed to use him to win the run. Retried Divinity multiple times to no avail, but in the end this cutie somehow let me live through the fight somehow... Part of me wonders now if you can get a setup going with Infector Spinechief and cards like Embertap or Onehorn's Tome to outheal Relentless bosses. Not really usefull but still a fun idea. Wildwood Custodian could potentially be useful in the early rings if you really want the extra draw. With a 2 space champion and a 2 space unit there is some room left, it's just that as the run comes together this extra space disappears. Cuttlehex though is kinda on the opposite end of that time scale: He could be usefull later on if your deck is thin enough but not thin enough that you can just wait on a redraw for a key card you couldn't play right this turn, but at that point space is probably at a premium and just whittling down the deck more by removing Cuttlehex is probably better... On principle I don't really like to think of Cards as "unplayable" or somesuch, just very niche to the point of not being the correct choice most of the time. I do agree that all those card are not good most of the time, but I find they all can be of importance to a run under the right circumstances... but you'd play in a way to avoid those circumstances in the first place.
Yeah, perhaps 'unplayable' is a bit melodramatic, but the way I see it, it's more about "does this ever get played if I have other cards in my hand". If it ends up just getting repeatedly discarded because literally anything else is a better use of my ember then that's what I mean by 'unplayable'.
Nice one! Here are my chew-outs: -I think Glugslider deserves #1. At least if have Sapwood, I can play it and it's 15/30. I even maybe have room to put something behind it! Meanwhile Glugslider is literally a scourge unless I have the ideal deck, and even then it's bad for the reasons you said. And I actually think Sapwood's infusion is really bad, but could be worse... I have used it on Shadowsiege so I can play it for example. -I think Consumer deserves to be on here. At least I can survive with having mages/totems in my deck; just don't play them or yeet them. But Consumer is usually unplayable (even with implings) and takes a banner unit slot. -The other banner I might put here, or maybe in an honerable mention, is Morselmaster. Bad unit, bad infusion, and a waste of a banner unit slot. -I think Enflame shouldn't be here. Yeah it's bad, but it does something and is playable. Like you, I will often take it when I need some source of scaling and it's meh, but at least I take it. -Surprised no Battering Ram and Bramble Lash in the honerable mentions. I usually find harder to use than Memento Mori (though it's still bad). With melting, you almost always have things dying, so it will do something at least on the second draw through. Fun list though. Thanks!
100% agree on Morselmaster. I'm of the opinion that Morselmaster is singlehandedly making Umbra banners the worst event you can encounter on a ring. Its ability is of the same type as Wildwood Custodian and Edge Prior - combine that with its low stats and this thing should NOT be a banner unit. It should be replaced with a second carry unit, and then Umbra banners would be brought up to the same level as non-Stygian banners.
I'll fight tooth-and-nail for Sapwood being the worst card in-game. At least Glugsider does literally anything when you finally do play it, whereas Sapwood barely pays for its own ember cost against most waves in-game, and heaven forbid you give it endless and have to both redraw it and play it again. I'm actually surprised that Enflame has gotten the most defense in the comments from folks!
This video makes me very happy. I’m a home grown monster train player for a few years and have never watched strategy guides. I like to grind different factions and heroes until I win cov25. I’ve been stuck on Tethys/Awoken for a while 😂. Time to move on. Love your videos!
I shit you not, I just recently had a run fueled by Glugsider infused in endless wilting sagwood. I mean, I just took glugsider because I need to get it an divinity win, but then I pulled sagwood and the combination killed units and gave me amber. Oh yeah I had the artefact that gave +7 amber at the begining. I also had 2 keeper of echoes so it probably could have worked out without it tough.
I've actually found glugslider is a weirdly nice card to have on the bottom floor if you're favoring a top-floor for your main forces. He softens a lot of things up quite nicely, for only one ember.
Watching from way in the future and ive actually come around on wildwood custodian. I think its infusion is very strong on keeper of echos. Lines where you put 3 keepers on a floor really want space and ember relics so mainaining 8 draw while doing that is strategy enabling levels of good. Also not bad to just have on your floor for a bit as a 1 space guy that soaks up buffs. Other lines that use it as a tank for a stat lover im happy to take +25s for defence and the self infuse is pretty whatever. Ive also put it in lady of the reformed since she likes space relic to fit a third guy and tanks just dont need infusions that badly when youre the healing clan.
I know at covenant 1 the game gives you a lot more leeway on suboptimal cards than at 25, but today I had a really useful Cuttlehex, with the artifact that reduces frozen cost to 0 after a turn, in a deck that used a LOT of Emberdrain, Cuttlehex (or rather its infusion) let me play more than just the 0 cost cards while also going wild with Emberdrain
Oh hell yes, been looking forward to this video!! Hard to disagree w/ any of this list really, unfortunately there are just so many to choose from it's hard to pick just 10 XD I have no real disagreements w/ any of your top 10, I probably just have one disagreement in your honorable mentions, I actually think wickless recruitment is a somewhat decent card that can be justified in enough decks that it isn't terrible. I think mine would look pretty similar: 10. Sharpen 9. Frozen Lance 8. Glugsider 7. Cave-In 6. Demon Fiend 5. Tethys 4. Hoarfrost Effigy 3. Consumer of Crowns 2. Edge Prior 1. Ember Forge (It's the only card I have never in over 2k hours of playing featured in a winning deck. Even Edge Prior I can't say that for) Honorable Mentions: Harness the Titan Spreading Spores Power of Knowledge Ambient Charge Total Recall Pyre Shards Bramble Lash Energy Siphon Kinhost Carapace Crucible Warden Crucible Collector Dreg
It's hard for me to look at a 0-cost spell and say it's "bad". Wickless Recruitment is probably better than I give it credit for, but it is so antithetical to the way you play Melting that its use-case largely only comes up when you're using it without burnout in the first place.
I feel that Glugsider was probably heavily nerfed in testing and they didn't re-test with the changes. I mean, the idea is interesting! It is similar to spikes or Titan Sentry. Spikes are typically underwhelming without a super focused build. Titan Sentry is almost always good and is an easy pick. Maybe Glug was 3-5 reap to the whole floor on hit? This would make him a guaranteed pick, so they probably introduced the extract costs... but was still overpowered, so they changed it to apply only to the attacking unit? They probably kept nerfing until it stopped being 100% win rate with the unit.
He was actually basically the same all through the early stages of the testing phases. They strongly felt that his HP and longevity offset any other damage, but they also struggled to distinguish him from Titan Sentry and so didn't really know how to fix any of the issues we were bringing up. It ended up just never changing at all as a result.
@@RisingDusk My third game ever, having just unlocked Wurmkin, I got Glugsider. He sat in my hand every time, only coming out when i'd basically already won. I'd worked out he was garbage, but since he was rare, I wanted to see if I could make him work. I managed to get him in front of Infector spine chief on bottom floor, in relentless, Divinity did less than 15 damage each round, while he healed for 15 from the spine chief, while also putting out some ungodly number of stacks of Reap and actually increasing in health. I'll never ever pick him again, and it was only at covenant 2. But I did get to 'do the thing' with him the first time a saw him, and it was pretty glorious.
Cave in can be a miss in many cases but as long as I can descend more than one of my unit with one card and answer mid floor is fine in my book. It is great with wyldenten in particular. For example, a thorned hollow self infused mid floor and strangler + unit top. It works particularly well with quick + sweep units and is easy to setup. How come bone dog's favor didn't make the list no clue, that event and card are awful. Colony infusion gives endless, very solid with half of the clans.
Stepping into the ring for my boy Enflame. Essay incoming, bear with me. TLDR Flexible card and you pay for that, can be run winning, needs help. "Getting there" is not bottom 10 imo. I agree it is not "great" or "exciting" but I have won plenty of runs with Enflame as my only scaling option. Great synergy with Apex Imp. It is entirely possible to frontline your carry on Hellhorned if you see other armor cards/any other survivability options from other clan (stealth, sap, etc.), so in that case it is at worst inefficient but still playable. It is flexible and can go into either rage stacking or armor stacking lines. You can play it on your carry for oomph or play it on the frontline to keep them alive _on a specific turn_ and that can not be overstated. Sometimes a carry needs a little health help. There is the case of Nameless Siren or Animus of Speed, as well as Hellhorned fragile multistrikers via Hellhorned Tome or Horned Warrior infusion, where you like the scaling but need SOME way for the carry to not die to thorns/sweep. The armor is the most important part and the scaling is a cherry on top. Even comparing to razorsharp edge, it is an approximate level of offensive scaling. Yes rage decays but rage stacking strats don't really care. If it's your only option, you take it, and that doesn't speak bottom 10 to me. Certainly better than Sharpen which hasn't appeared on this list yet as I am typing this but better if you are putting Enflame. Also energy is often abundant in Monstertrain, especially on hellhorned, so card density is more important than card efficiency. This card is on the density end of the spectrum. It is absolutely outclassed by other hellhorned scaling cards. Comparing it to ritual of battle is... painful. Your energy evaluations I completely take umbrage with. You might(????) take this card at 0 cost? You pointed out fortify as a reason this card sucks... but this would be strictly and significantly better at 0 cost. 1 cost you are basically playing 0.4 ritual of battle+fortify, which sounds pretty ok. The card needs help but it *can* be run defining. In summary certainly not a strong card, and one that definitely relies on upgrades, but any card that can scale you to win against Covenant 25 Divinity is never a bottom tier card imo. @RisingDusk In a recent video you said something to the effect of: as a beginner you take a lot of units, get better and take less, and finally get actually good and take more to be flexible and hedge bets. This is that shitty unit you take ring 2 because you don't know what's coming and you feel weak. It's a cursed run card, and it might make make you win. Not trying to be a mad person on the internet. Big fan. I love the content, hearing your thoughts, and I usually agree with you but I felt like I had something to say. I enjoy the discourse and I feel like you would too. I love the cursed seeds/regular runs series and I'm stoked that you are getting into 200 shard runs.
Genuinely surprised by all the love for Enflame in the comments, haha! No hard feelings of course, but my biggest problem with Enflame is the divergence in how the card wants to be used coupled with low numbers and high cost. I've actually won a few cursed seeds with it out of sheer desperation. At 0-cost I think it'd be fine, but compare it to Dark Pact which is more flexible, more focused, and more powerful. My comment there in the video was probably unfair to Enflame, hah. That said, there's actually been a metric boatload of discussion about it on the Discord server today, so I won't go into too much detail here, but I think the card is made to feel even worse than it is because of the existence of competition like Ritual of Battle, Dark Pact, and Fledgling Imp.
@@RisingDusk Guess I need to join the discord :) It's interesting that you bring up Dark Pact because I think there's a Venn diagram there. I have thoughts but I won't clog up youtube. Hands up for Enflame tho C YA
Same as JC Locke, I've had a couple runs where I was trying to hatch marshlord eggs and total recall bailed me out when I didn't see any other good consume cards. Of course I would prefer some kind of targeting, it isn't fun to consume indiscriminately, but in a pinch it can at least get the job done. My choice for a worst wormkin card would be power of knowledge. Think about the amount you have to consume before that card does anything useful, and then imagine how often you end up with a deck that consumes that many things without doing something really powerful. That's my issue with power of knowledge - in the cases where it's good I already have something that's better.
Power of knowledge is great imo. You don’t need to to be doing crazy high damage for it to be useful. As long as you have 2 consume spells in your deck it will kill any backliner, give it a -1 and maybe holdover and it’s kinda like hornbreak. At the end of the day it’s a targeted card that can kill back line enemies without upgrades. That’s pretty strong. And there are definitely high rolls where it kills tanks, and with spell weakness even bosses. It’s got some cool synergies like with excavated ember that get it to crazy high damage. Good solid card, not the best but certainly not bad
Circle of Life should be on this list, +10hp and 3 spikes is insane for a 3 cost card. Especially considering the fact that spikes aren’t as good after the DLC with some backliners having 25hp
Tethys is so bad! If you have multiple banner units then tethys can just die to the divinity turn 1 if you don't draw your tank or be forced to shuffle back into the deck. Also the sweep path feels like it wants to play bottom floor as well which emphasizes the "tethys immediately dies" problem. Maybe adding frozen to the frostbite path and if they added spell damage to the sweep path as well like a champion molluscmage? Combine 2 terrible cards into 1 slightly less terrible card! Also can't help but notice that stygian have quite a few cards on this list. I'm also surprised glacial seal is not even lower, I think a few of the cards below it I have at least made work in some sort of high roll capacity. Can't think of a time I have ever made glacial seal work. Pretty good list overall though!
i agree on total recall 100% but enflame ive dropped its cost via shrine gave it double stack and had just a dumb queen build w her decimating bottom floor and the rest of my setup overstacked on floor 2 w steel worker apexs etc and just dropping 2 of these constantly cuz duped yeah nah that card was just apart of the rage/ armor printing machine my deck became ontop of just imp sacrifice spam i agree its expensive feels a bit lacking but you can absolutely make it do work in a couple different setups and if you have the right units and relics it pops off pretty hard
Total Recall is _fine_ with Frozen rune, as long as you are not discarding it. You just play it on last turn as draw 3 :) And Frozen Rune is cheaper than last card remove. Still, don't see adding it to any deck. The only reason I have experience with this card is that it is sometimes given at the start.
'Short blast': 50 minutes Wilting Sapwood worse than Glugsider? Wilting Sapwood can at least take endless well enough in a clan that normally doesn't want it, and can be used for X cost stuff. I guess you could argue that it isn't worth the gold you would be spending on that endless, and the draw priority makes it worse than if it had none, but there is still some kind of use case... usually one that requires X cost cards you won't see until after you draft it, but still... It's not good. It really is bad. But worse than Glugsider? At least it is possible to have it tank for something without a size upgrade, and you can have it on a second floor without having to support it. Sorry Glugsider, you look cool, and I love you, but you well always be the worst in my heart.
Glugsider, assuming everything goes perfectly (hard ask), at least does something when you finally do play it. Wilting Sapwood takes more than half the space on your floor and in most combats barely pays for its own ember cost if you give it Endless (and then you even have to redraw it). Wilting Sapwood is deceptive in how bad it is, but I genuinely believe it is the worst card in-game.
@@RisingDusk I guess, but there is always the high roll for Sapwood of getting the -2 energy on your units relic. And if you can take draw instead of energy, that pays for Sapwoods draw. No relic makes Glugsider effective... to my knowledge. And remember that we are talking about in the DLC. Even with 200 HP, he just dies too quickly in the DLC, where a single floor might easily do 100 damage, and you can't endless him because of his extract cost. An off floor unit, like Hot Shark, need endless, unless it is just meant to buy you time to set up your main floor, because you aren't using your resources to keep it alive. Glugsider just can't take endless, and being 4 space, he can't ever be a tank for your main floor. And if you are using spells to kill the backline to stop him from dying, then what is he even there for? It is his inability to take an endless that pushes him over the edge for me. That is why I would say that he is the worst, because while Wilting Sapwood is horrible and contributes almost nothing in all but the most ideal of situations, it can at least be played. And if you really wanted to have him as your main floor tank without endless, Awoken has enough healing cards that it could be done with 2 +25s. It would be worst than almost anything else, but if force, if you see no other options for a frontline, you could do it. If forced to play Glugsider, because you are leaving Talos and you have no frontline options, you are fucked.
@@RisingDusk Consumer of crowns is a deadweight on the first iteration of the deck that takes priority unit space and also has a train steward infusion. Nonetheless you put sapwood as worst card in the game. Even with queen there are many times where consumer is still not playable post shuffle since you imperialist/endless/chump block with them and they take space. Sapwood is not a good priority unit but is playable and got a really big hit on the dlc since elite units hit like a truck. It does not take space since is usually thrown bottom with endless for the cost of 1 card draw. How relevant that draw is varies. I mean you play awoken, you may be playing with rootseeds, stings, engrafts, focused growths so your extra draws may not be as relevant. But it does generate net ember gain if you check the rings. Is it something I would pick for my end game? Not remotely but I would not pick any priority unit that would not make the cut unless I need to survive. Is not as bad as some of the other cards mentioned. Also cards like battering ram, reinforce, energy siphon should make the list imo. Energy siphon with tethys opener and no high damage spell can send you with 10 pyre health ring 2.
You know what’s interesting- memento Mori shows up fairly frequently in your cursed seeds (probably not a coincidence), and I pay attention when it comes up for you because I find it an interesting card. Here’s what I’ve found when you get this in a cursed seeds: You usually draw it twice, the first time you draw it early game you say, “hey thanks, wow memento mori turn one, great card.” Which, fair enough. But then you draw it again. You think about your move, do the thing where you drag your mouse then cancel and think. Then you look at memento mori, and say something like, “you know what-- 100 damage? this kills….yeah, this for sure kills.” Usually by then you’ve put a -1 or two into it. I don’t know, just something I’ve noticed. Idiosyncratic, but the complaint about getting it or having it is just as idiosyncratically frequent as the reflection that it does a big chunk.
This happens with other terrible cards too, like Total Recall. If you start with them, you probably play them because you have them in-hand and might as well play it if it helps. That said, it requires investment, which is an opportunity cost that prevent you from putting those -1's elsewhere, and unless your deck heads in a harvest direction it doesn't do anything late-game either!
at 1 cost enflame would be really solid when doublestacked tbh, but yeah at 2 cost it's uh... it's also pretty redundant in the clan since they have other ways to get the same effect. I think maybe they should have made it so it buffs your entire floor to make it unique, it would be much better and more interesting.
The opportunity cost of doublestacking something as weak as Enflame is pretty tough. Like, sure, the numbers are fine, but you've just spent one of your few -1's on it and also 90-120gp on the Doublestack that's certainly better-spent elsewhere.
@@RisingDusk yeah that's why I'm saying, if it was 1cost, since you said in the video that even at 1 cost it'd be bad. I think it'd be fine (I realize this is a 2year old video so you might not have context haha)
Just got my first win on Stygian Awoken CR 4 and the only reason I won was because I had Heph, Wingfeather, a Heartstone Incant Thorned Hollow, and a largestone frenzystone Animus of Will. Took conduit Tethys because I was offered Volatile Gauge and she just sat in the backline dealing some spell weakness. Being completely useless.
Congrats! It can be interesting to tease out victories when you're learning the game. Eventually, you'll see ways to clean up things even more and make your wins more secure!
I'm here to speak on enflames behalf, I believe enflame is a good card. maybe not the best but it can definitely find its value in almost any run I would wager. Especially ever sense the divinity DLC was released, simply putting a minus two and holdover into makes it highly valuable because its free to play and it provides, all be it meager, amount of scaling. the value of that is doubled if you include an incant line and tripled if you can put double stack on it as well. Because lets be honest, paying one ember for a spell like that is a vary fair price in my opinion especially because hellhornd has some means of getting around ember (I.e pyerchomper, the horn relic, transcend imp, etc), or through other means such as rolling an excavation card from a cave or something like that. this is my argument for why Enflame is a decent card, let me know you thoughts and please don't come at me just because i gave my opinion fairly.
It's really about opportunity cost. Enflame is so rarely the best card you could invest any of that money or upgrades that it is so genuinely dead whenever you start with it and a mistake to grab it. Even in its optimal use-case with Apex Imp it is still worse than Ritual of Battle.
@@RisingDusk all of course vary true but I've had a number of games where I've rarely seen the better alternatives. plus a common rule of thumb I have for myself is don't throw away tools unless they have either become completely useless or they can be replaced with another tool that is outright better.
also I feel as though I should mention that in its optimal use on apex imp with double stack it provides eighteen rage versus ritual which only adds ten. (it seems vary costly to add a double stack to a ritual.) but even without an apex imp if you have a deranged brute that is still a lot of damage added to a creature.
man has clearly never shrunk glugsider with minor refraction and then copied it 6 times with fissure + hellvent then taken two size increase boss relics and stuck em all in there and it shows
I don't disagree with your overall pick of Wilting Sapwood. But your evaluation of the "best case" scenario isn't optimistic enough. Best case is you have Unbroken Horn and just chuck this guy on the bottom floor for however much energy and damage he feels like providing. I've had this happen exactly once. And he was definitely okay. Let me take double draw in a run that I couldn't have otherwise.
How can wilting sapwood be the worst card in the game but ember forge isn't even in top ten and just honorable mention? *Insert "they're the same picture" meme*
Ember Forge doesn't take up a banner unit draw, which is actually a lot better in this case both from a "drawing your deck in combat" and "what cards you see in a run" perspective. Furthermore, Ember Forge can be played floors above and generates ember without having to die and come back with endless constantly. So basically, Ember Forge is not good, but it's leagues better than Wilting Sapwood.
The biggest issue with this logic is if you can generate enough frostbite already, you are probably already winning without this card, and it costs 3 ember
Except 1) you probably want the frostbite on all of the enemies, not just one of them, and 2) most of the decent sources of frostbite in stygian apply the frostbite as part of combat, so you're left holding the card and spending 2/3 of your ember (as well as the opportunity cost of putting -1 cost and holdover on that as opposed to something else) just to kill ONE of the units that made it past the floor you applied frostbite
I think Hoarfrost Effigy can perform fine in a run that doesn't face the Divinity, but you just can't build a line around this card right now in its current form. It's basically undraftably bad in the DLC, and there are so many other ways that solve major bosses better without falling flat on the Divinity.
@@RisingDusk Didn't they nerf Hoarfrost Effigy from 2 to 3 ember at some point? Pretty sure I remember not understanding why it got nerfed at all, because it was ok, but not game-breaking before getting nerfed (and before the DLC). Sadly with the DLC, I would never ever take it any more. :/ I had to take it on an OP-run just to divine-master it and never used it. :/
How is Plink not mentioned at all? That's the sole reason I cannot stick to Primordium. 1 cost 1 damage to a RANDOM enemy twice!? Plink is my number 1. I'll take Hoarfrost Effigy in every draw over Plink.
Plink is the best starter for +20/Consume, and statistically will help far more than it hurts. You just remember the times it screws you over more, so naturally you think it's worse. Psychology!
