Hi! I'm a Monster Train vet and fanatic who's looking to share knowledge accumulated over hundreds of hours of runs both triumphant and nail-biting. The guide is targeted at new & established players of the game looking to expand on their knowledge and understanding of how to utilize the various MT2 clans. If you're already an expert, this won't have much for you!

Pyreborne Clan Strategy Guide
Banished Clan Strategy Guide
Luna Coven Clan Strategy Guide
Underlegion Clan Strategy Guide

These clans guide will not inherently make assumptions of Covenant levels when describing strategies, but because we play at Covenant 10 and fight the Titans regularly, some biases will work its way into this guide, as certain strategies that are "fine" at low levels may not work as well later on, and some Card/Strategies overcome steeper challenges at higher difficulties than others. Anywho, enjoy as we discuss the curious scientists & unwitting experiments that make up the Lazarus League!

Key reminder for card rarities: (C) = Common, (U) = Uncommon, (R) = Rare

Overview: The dangerous creations and even-more-dangerous creators that make up the Lazarus League seek to overwhelm enemies with a huge variety of Equipment cards, status effects of every make & model, and fall back on their ability to cheat death when the going gets tough. New players may find themselves overwhelmed at the sheer variety of effects in play (beyond already using the most effects of any clan, they introduce multiple unique ones too!), but learning the ins & outs of their strategies will reward players with a clan that may be the most powerful clan available right now.

At worst, Lazarus League sometimes requires your units to live dangerously on the edges of defeat, and will frequently require you to sacrifice potentially-vital units for the greater good. Most of their strongest effects take multiple turns to build up, so this isn’t necessarily a “one turn boss-kill” clan. At best, their swiss-army-knife selection of tools allows them to uniquely overcome just about any problem the game throws your way.

Offensive strategies: Lazarus League has multiple ways to bring the hurt on their enemies. Their unique status effect of Unstable allows them to not just defeat enemies, but to also turn any defeated units into living bombs to damage enemies. Lazarus is the most Equipment-focused clan in the game, all of which can in some way contribute to more damage to enemies. They have access to damage-dealing buffs like Rage & Spikes to build up damage, and the majority of their Champion paths focus on creating more opportunities for death & destruction.

Defensive strategies: Despite their threatening offensive presence, Lazarus League is packing a huge array of defensive options as well. They have multiple ways to sustain their own units with effects like Lifesteal & Reanimate, on top of access to other status effects like Damage Shields, Sap, Reanimate, and Daze to keep your units healthy. All of that would be plenty as is, but they’ve got a nice selection of meaty tanks to keep others alive as well. Apparently, the servants of Heaven can’t do anything worse to them than they’ve already experienced!

Stat-influencing strategies: Attack-boosting cards are plentiful in this clan, whether from a Room card, Spells that directly increase Attack, and multiple paths of the Exile Champion Baron Grael that revolve around increasing Attack. Even Health-boost effects are on the table with the Room (U) Reanimation Chamber! While many of the Stat-boosting effects we’ve talked about on other clans have been exclusive to their own clan, Lazarus’ many Stat-increasing effects apply to any clan. Again, this is a flexible bunch of cards~ Lazarus also has two units that gain permanent stat bonuses throughout the run if invested in.

Support strategies: If Lazarus has anything close to a “weakness” I guess it would be this, as none of their Cards or Artifacts give any effects like Ember, Card Draw, Space, Ascend/Descend etc. That’s far from an issue though, as their access to so many buffs & debuffs from Mix effects is enough to make up for this, particularly since all of these effects can be applied to all units. Further, they have some extremely rare additional effects like the ability to Replicate a unit in battle, to make your units Attack outside of combat, and to transfer all Buffs & Attacks from one unit to another. So I guess what I’m saying is that the Lazarus League has no major weaknesses, and that’s why the developers have been gently nerfing them =)

Sweep/Backliner Strategies: Of course, Lazarus has you covered here as well! There’s a traditional Sweeper in (U) Test Subject Alpha, two of Champion Orechi’s paths & (C) Overworked Assistant do Unstable/Damage to enemies, you can get Trample effects through (C) Twisted Assistant, there are multiple ways to gain Spikes to defeat backliners, Mix cards can directly apply Unstable to units, and there are multiple Spell cards that do direct damage to enemies as well. They're among the absolute best clans for this.

So uh, if you haven’t figured it out yet… Lazarus League can do just about everything!

Mix/Infusion: A Mix effect first creates an Infusion/Elixir card, typically from a choice of two options, or increases the potency of an existing Infusion if you have one in hand. These Infusions can then be injected into units (friend & foe alike), providing a wide variety of potential effects. These Infusions have four Color options that dictate the type of effects available if continue to Mix an existing Infusion. The underlined effect listed first is the mandatory “starting” effect of that color infusion, while the other options may be offered with additional Mix effects. The Colors & their effects are:

• Goliath Infusion (Red): Rage 4 ; Damage Shield 1 ; Lifesteal 1
  
• Madman Infusion (Green): Regen 4 ; Spikes 3 ; Reanimate 1
  
• Enfeebling Infusion (Purple): Sap 1 ; Rooted 1 ; Melee Weakness 1
  
• Blast Infusion (BLUE): Unstable 5 ; 4 Damage ; Frostbite 6

The idea here is to choose a color offered to you when Mixing, and then decide if you wish to inject that Infusion immediately, or keep it in hand to Mix additional effects into your Infusion, creating a more powerful effect. Fortunately, Infusions cannot be discarded, and any effect that would discard them will do nothing. This allows you the flexibility to keep your Infusion and increase its effect over multiple turns, waiting for the right time to utilize it. Finally, keep in mind that the Infusion card has no Ember cost by default and triggers Incant when injected. Because there’s a lot of potential uses of these, we’ll discuss Mix/Infusion strategies in the next section.

Reanimate/Reanimated: Even before you unlock Lazarus League, you’ve probably seen this effect on enemies! Reanimate is a lifesaver in the most literal sense, stopping a unit from being defeated, and instead keeping them alive at 1 Health. Multiple stacks of Reanimate gives a unit the option to repeatedly be defeated without leaving the battlefield, though they will not inherently have anything more than 1 Health without additional effects. Expending a Reanimate stack can also trigger Reanimated, which is unique to some Lazarus League units & cards.

Because Reanimate can save a unit’s life regardless of how much damage they took, yet leaves a unit on death’s door with 1 Health, the effect is more valuable for units that either a) should rarely die and can be saved from a kill-shot due to Sweep/Spikes etc. or b) gain specific benefits from being Reanimated (e.g. a (U) Makeshift Golem or a unit in a (U) Reanimation Lab). Further, the effect is “stronger” against big single hits rather than smaller, repeated strikes. A low-Health unit with multiple Reanimate stacks can easily be gone in a turn if hit repeatedly by things like Ravenous Zealots and ticks of Corruption damage. In situations like that, you may find that Lifesteal & Damage Shield effects are more valuable for restoring Health and negating damage entirely rather than simply surviving at 1 Health.

Unstable: Turns units into living bombs! Unstable defeats a unit and causes an explosion of damage that strikes only enemies for the amount of stacks of Unstable the unit has, i.e. a unit with 10 Unstable explodes, all remaining enemies take 10 damage. However, Unstable explosions only happen when one of the two conditions is met:

• The unit is defeated by having their Health reduced to zero, either during combat or while playing cards/triggering effects & abilities in a turn.
  
• At the end of the turn (Resolve), the Unstable value on a unit is greater than or equal to their current Health value; e.g. a unit with 10 Health remaining and 12 Unstable will explode, but the same unit will not if it has 9 Unstable. This effect ignores any Armor on a unit.

This inherently means that Unstable has no effect until it reaches the unit’s Health threshold, or until they are defeated by other means. That means it’s important to apply Unstable liberally to units that are more likely to explode, as it can set off chain reactions where the explosions from one unit lower the Health of other unit, potentially triggering additional explosions. You don’t want to apply 400 Unstable to a vicious Attacking unit with 450 Health just for them to march to the Pyre despite those stacks! Additionally, this effect can be given to your own units (units like Mad Scientist Orechi & (C) Overworked Assistant are designed around this effect), because the resulting explosion only affects enemy units.


Graft: This effect can be found as an option in the “Plague Doctor” event in the Celestial Alcove, but is otherwise unique to Lazarus League. A unit with Graft has Equipment directly attached to them, augmenting their stats. Upon defeat, the Grafted Equipment will be returned to your hand, free to play on other units. These typically come from Assistant units, which will be discussed in detail in the Support Units section of the guide.

Importantly, the Graft, once severed from the unit in defeat, will not be re-established until the next battle. Making one of these Assistant units Endless does not offer you multiple copies of the Equipment they had Grafted onto them… it will simply bring back a sad, metaphorically-naked Assistant with no Equipment and terrible stats! Thus the typical purpose of these Assistants is to deliberately be disposable, allowing their Grafted Equipment to go onto other deserving units. However, the Grafted Equipment effects apply to the units themselves as well, meaning you can sometimes get decent potential use out of Graft units themselves, particularly in the case of (R) Double-Edged Bearer, or when using the Learning Limb path for Baron Grael.

Merchant of Steel: Frankenstone: Reanimate 1. Generally this is a weak effect for the vast majority of units in the game – compare this to something like Umbra’s Damage Shield 3 effect that negates three hits of any value. However, multiple Lazarus League units have either bonus effects when Reanimated, or can proc their Existinguish/Unstable effects multiple times if given Reanimate. Because you’re guaranteed to be offered this once at a Merchant of Steel if a Reroll is used, this can be very helpful to add to units like (C) Overworked Assistant, (U) Hulking Mass, and (U) Makeshift Golem. Outside of this, this upgrade should rarely be used on other units unless Reanimation is a specific strategy in use (say, with (U) Reanimation Lab). The effect is slightly more helpful if Dualism increases this to Reanimate 2, though.

Mix effects & Infusions are an interesting addition to the game that add a lot of fun and chaos as you can develop gradually stronger Infusions to choose from. There is however, an interesting dichotomy here, because the base level effects of a single Mix (for the sake of argument, we’re considering this the use of a 1 Ember (C) Secret Ingredient spell card here) are actually weak by default. If you don’t believe me, consider what you can get from other Common clan cards that offer similar effects:

Goliath (Red) Infusion gives 4 Rage. Hellhorned’s (C) Rage Serum gives 5 Rage for 0 Ember.

Madman (Green) Infusion gives 4 Regen. Awoken’s (C) Wildwood Sap applies 4 Regen & +4 Health.

Enfeebling (Purple) Infusion gives 1 Sap. Underlegion’s (C) Gooey Flask does 2 Sap to all enemies.

Blast (Blue) Infusion gives 5 Unstable. Lazarus’ (C) Explosive Reaction gives 25 Unstable for 2 Ember.

The point here is, from a “use an Ember to get an effect” standpoint, a standalone Mix is deliberately underpowered. However, those example cards are limited to those single effects, whereas a Mix can be any of these! Instead, it becomes about the flexibility these offer you, and the unique ability to hold these turn-over-turn, waiting for the right victim or ally to use them on. The only counter-argument I’ll make to this is Incant strategies… because Infusion counts as an Incant for 0 Ember, there can be some notable value in Injection weaker Infusions just for the free Incants.

Some strategic musings for each Infusion type:
Goliath (Red): Obvious use here is to simply add lots of Rage to your Attackers. However, in tandem with Lifesteal, this can be a great way to sustain your Tank units, particularly if you’re using traditional tanks (typically from other clans) that have big Health pools that will gradually dwindle. Damage Shields are quite powerful in this game, and can also be used here on your more vulnerable units either to stop them from being destroyed by Sweepers like Ragewing Assassins, or to eat the damage from Corruption ticks if fighting Seraph the Dominant or Qel the Corruptor.

Madman (Green): Regen’s effects are fairly obvious here, but in my opinion, they pale in comparison to Reanimate, and even Spikes in the right situation. Spikes 3 isn’t much, but for a good chunk of the game, that alone is enough to defeat a wide variety of enemy backliners, and because this counts as Slay triggers, this can be used in tandem with Slay-trigger Champions, the Pyre of Savagery, or the (U) Organ Harvester Equipment. Reanimate is the big winner here though, as Reanimate effects aren’t guaranteed even when drafting Lazarus League’s cards, and the Reanimate 1 upgrade in Merchant of Steel is only useful on a couple units. However, increasing Reanimate stacks can be amazing for units like (U) Makeshift Golem who have Extinguish triggers, or for allowing friendly units with Unstable to continue blowing up, particularly (C) Overworked Assistant and Reanimator Orechi.

Enfeebling (Purple): If you read the Underlegion guide, I repeatedly raved about how strong Sap is, and now I’m going to argue with myself because Sap 1 is not strong at all. Even Sap 2 is still pretty weak, so for the most part, we’re looking for those other abilities. Rooted is an extremely rare effect that will keep non-boss enemies in place, giving you another turn before they reach the Pyre. This can also stop a Collector from fleeing, and is a pretty helpful option for Mad Scientist Orechi, as it can give you more turns to Incant up the Unstable necessary to destroy a row of enemies. Melee Weakness is a very strong effect, allowing you to get some big hits on high Health bosses & enemies, or to allow your Pyre to make a quicker kill. Oddly, my favorite use of Enfeebling Infusion comes against the Titans fight, where the combo of Sap + Melee Weakness will make Dominion too weak to hit your Pyre, still give you a Pyre Light card (unlike Daze & Mute), and each stack of Melee Weakness increases your Pyre damage multiplier, allowing faster kills than usual.

Blast (Blue): Theoretically, this is the weakest Infusion from the standpoint of rarity & potency of its effects, but in practice, this one gets a lot of use from us simply for how useful 5 Unstable can be. Early in the game, this result is a godsend, as a Blast Infusion destroys almost every single backliner in the game, even Cowering Sycophants because their Armor doesn’t count. Though 5 Unstable isn’t much, it’s still enough to defeat all levels of Collectors, works for mid-game enemies like Disciples of Ruin & Profane Supplicants, or even late-game ones like Ragewing Assassins & Purified Souls… particularly great because it’s not just defeating them, it’s also damaging the other enemies in the process.

However, you needn’t only target enemies here, as you can put Unstable on your own units, either to gift some explosive potential to Reanimating units that don’t have it ((R) Nine-Lived Nightmare would love to explode for you!), to help destroy your own disposable support units like Assistants, Whelps, Imps etc., or to increase the potency of deliberately-Unstable allies like (C) Overworked Assistant & Reanimator Orechi. The 4 Damage effect is very weak and typically only used to defeat a weak unit with Unstable in order to immediately set off their Unstable explosion. Frostbite 6 is okay, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense with this clan, but is another way to either reduce their Health so the Unstable effect goes off, or to remove Reanimate stacks of obnoxious enemies like Undying Wretches & Deformed Duos.

As a final note, for effects that Mix multiple times like Brewmaster Orechi, (U) Mixology, or (R) Mix-a-Lot, these effects Mix repeatedly without allowing you to play/Inject your Infusion in between. Thus these are typically much better if you have an Infusion of your desired Color in hand to strengthen that color repeatedly. Burning 3 Ember on Mix-a-Lot just to get an Infusion of a Color you don’t need is lame, but burning 3 Ember to add five more bonuses to the Infusion you want is great!

Lazarus League Banner thoughts:

Of the five MT2 Clans, I’d argue that a Lazarus League Banner is among the “safest” of the clans. This isn’t necessarily because they’re overpowered, but more because there’s only one Uncommon unit & one Rare unit that function significantly better with a specific Lazarus card. (U) Pincushion & (R) Hydra Armed Horror function significantly better with Baron Grael’s (C) Erratic Assistant cards, but are still usable without. Every other Banner unit functions just fine within the confines of the Lazarus League clan, isn’t dependent on another Lazarus unit, and works regardless of which Champion’s cards you’re using.

As a result, it’s generally quite safe to grab a Lazarus League banner; there are fewer considerations and dead-pull potentials as the other four MT2 clans. The worst I can say is that they’re a bit Ember-hungry: half of the Uncommon units cost 2-3 Ember, and 2 of the Rares do as well. Keep these considerations in mind as we discuss Lazarus League units!

Makeshift Golem: A fun tank unit that covers an archetype we’ve not explored yet. Makeshift Golem is actually more useful in defeat than it is alive, as its Extinguish trigger shares Armor with all units on the floor with it. On its own, this would be okay, just slightly better than a Shield Steward, and inferior to something like Hellhorned’s (U) Steelworker that Armors all units every turn. The difference here is that Lazarus’ preponderance of Reanimation effects (including a guarantee of seeing it in the Merchant of Steel) allows the Golem to repeatedly trigger this Extinguish effect. Additionally, because it also Armors itself on Extinguish, it might survive a few more hits than the usual Reanimated unit that’s left with 1 Health. A great option for both tanking and protecting weaker units on the way out!

Upgrades/Pairings: There are three Merchant of Steel upgrades I like in particular for Makeshift Golem: 1) Reanimate 1, which gives it a guaranteed second Extinguish trigger. 2) Endless, which allows you to put out a fresh copy of it after defeat. And 3) Dualism, which ups both its original Armor & Extinguish trigger to an impressive 24, and additionally ups the Reanimate upgrade to 2 if used in combination. Certainly it can take traditional Tank upgrades like Heartstone, Largestone, Smidgestone etc., but the upgrades listed above are more tailored to its playstyle. Finally, seek out Reanimate effects to keep its Extinguish triggers coming! You can try to pair it with the Equipment (U) Organ Harvester and Spikes effects to help get Slay triggers since he’s not terribly offensive on its own.

Pincushion: This is the one unit in Lazarus’ collection that heavily favors one Champion (Baron Grael). Every time Pincushion is given a piece of Equipment, it gains +3/+3 permanent stat boosts, gradually growing both its offensive & defensive presence throughout a run. Because Equipment can come more frequently in Lazarus League with its Graft units, it has the unique ability to potentially gain even dozens of permanent stat increases each battle. Those boosts can give you the flexibility to use it as a Tank or Damage Dealer, depending on what your run needs. However, it’s very worthy of note that pairing him with Baron Grael’s (C) Erratic Assistants gives a potential +15/+15 increase each battle over Orechi, so there’s a pretty clear winner between these two.

Upgrades/Pairings: Since both Health & Attack gain equally, you can really go either way on this… Add upgrades like Largestone, Titanite, and Endless to make it a robust meatshield of a tank. Or, add upgrades like Speedstone and Multistrike to take advantage of its offense. Most important however is to simply invest in it whenever you can. Put as many Scissor Hands as you can manage on it (this path works better with Baron Grael’s Learning Limb & It Hungers paths, and has some anti-synergy with Living Armory), and if you have it without Erratic Assistants, seek out other Graft units and Equipment cards to repeatedly load him up with. Finally, avoid drafting a Pincushion if offered late in the run, as you likely will not have the ability to grow its stats in enough time to be worth the investment.

Meathook: A nice hybrid of Damage & Support, Meathook rolls into town with some solid Attack stats, and the unique Ability Hookhand, Cooldown 2 to choose an enemy unit to Advance and cause Daze 1. There are multiple helpful use-cases for this Ability, like yanking a Collector, Profane Supplicant, Ragewing Assassin, or other obnoxious enemies to the front of the line (including in front of a Prayerstone!). Meathook is also great for Dazing flying bosses, as they move every turn and thus it can continually Daze them to avoid their effects & strikes. Finally, sometimes the enemies bring obnoxious Tank units in front to soak up damage, and Meathook can simply bring something else out in front to skip past the Tank. A solid option for just about any build!

Upgrades/Pairings: With 25 base Attack, Meathook is a reasonable candidate for offensive upgrades like Strengthstone, Speedstone, and Multistrike. Interestingly though, Dualism is an option as it increases the Daze of its Ability to Daze 2, enough to perpetually keep Flying bosses Dazed if you set up on only two floors! That’s really all there is to say… a Meathook doesn’t require any specific partners or setups to be helpful, so it’s more about fitting one within your build, whether it’s for the Attack, the Ability, or a combination of both.

Hulking Mass: A truly gargantuan Tank of a unit, a Hulking Mass laughs at your puny Shield Stewards, and for 1 more Ember, comes with a total of 60 Health/Armor, more Attack, and a Reanimate trigger that re-ups its Armor. As a reminder, a Reanimate 1 upgrade is guaranteed in a Merchant of Steel shop after a Reroll, and that super-cheap investment gives you a unit with 100 total Health/Armor. You need a Tank? This is the Tank that Tanks want Tanking for them.

Upgrades/Pairings: Theoretically you’d want to treat a Hulking Mass’ upgrades similar to what I described with (U) Makeshift Golem above, but there are some fundamental differences. Unlike Makeshift Golem, you don’t really want a Hulking Mass to be Extinguished, and its extra size & Ember cost make it less friendly as an Endless option. But like the Golem, Reanimate 1 & Dualism are great options for it – the combo of these two upgrades would give Hulking Mass a completely absurd 260 total Health/Armor before it’s finally defeated, and any additional Reanimation is +80 more Armor. Other good options are a Smidgestone to shrink him down, and the typical Tank-friendly upgrades like Titanite, Heartstone, and potentially Largestone if you can fit it or combo it with a Smidgestone.

Plague Doctor: The only human character among all of Lazarus’ Banner units, Plague Doctor comes with a fun trick in which any damage she deals also adds that amount of Unstable to her poor victims. That might not be an exciting proposition at her base 9 Attack, but it becomes a lot moreso as you boost that upward, whether it be through Rage, Equipment cards, the Clanless room (U) Fight Club, direct Merchant of Steel upgrades to her, or pairing her with allies that raise Attack values. Though she’s 2 Ember, her One-size helps her easily squeeze into the back line of your floors. Similar to the way it was described in the Unstable section, take note that her applying Unstable is often more powerful on lower-Health units that can be defeated and set off explosions, rather than hitting the big-Health meatshields. We adore this lovely lady – her flasks can set off mighty chain reactions with a bit of support!

Upgrades/Pairings: Attack is the easy answer to start, whether it’s from a Strengthstone, Speedstone, or even a Largestone. Multistrike is also quite solid to get multiple Unstable-laden strikes going each turn. If you make her Quick through Speedstone or (U) Swiftsteel Dagger, there’s a fun pseudo-sweep trick if you can hit a low-Health enemy in front… say, a Meathook or the Breath of Heaven artifact advances a weak Healer in front of the line. Because she’s quick, if your Plague Doctor has 33 Attack, she’ll immediately hit that weak Healer, which will both defeat it and trigger its Unstable explosion for 33 Damage to all enemy units as well! Seek out any opportunity through Equipment, Rooms, Rage, and Attack boosts you can get to set off powerful reactions with her.

Test Subject Alpha: 3 Ember, what am I, made of Ember?! Oh sorry, it’s both Quick and Sweep? Carry on, then! Test Subject Alpha (hereby known as TSA) is a wonderfully simple unit to use, solving a tremendous amount of problems in-game even with its terrible stats. Dangerous Sweeping enemies, glass-cannon threats like Purified Souls, obnoxious Silencers like Deafening Heralds? All can easily fall before its mighty & speedy… wings?! TSA is a very easy choice for simplifying problems in your run, expensive Ember cost notwithstanding.

Upgrades/Pairings: Like most Sweepers, his starting Attack is a pitiful 5 that begs to be boosted by Strengthstones and Largestones. Because Lazarus League comes with tons of Equipment cards to boost TSA’s offense, and Reanimating enemies can withstand a hit, Multistrike is a very worthwhile upgrade to it. My favorite pairing is with a (C) Twisted Assistant, whose Twisted Back equipment gives both Rage and Trample on strike. Sweep attacks count as “strikes” against all enemies, which allows TSA to quickly gain lots of Rage, and spill over excess damage with Trample. Equipment cards in general are a nice idea to increase his offense or survivability… with his proclivity to gain Slay triggers, (U) Bloodthirsty Blade and (U) Organ Harvesters can work well, for instance.

Reforming Ooze: Well, this is just silly. The Mad Scientists’ answer to Melting Remnant’s (R) Bounty Stalker, Reforming Ooze is eventually a potent offensive threat, but only if it’s allowed to be defeated & Reanimated repeatedly. It comes with 1 Reanimate by default so it’s quite easy to get at least Trigger per fight... In reality, the fun comes with stacking as much Reanimate as you can on it, and letting it repeatedly die in battle to invest in it. Due to the necessity to invest in Oozy to get decent results from it, this isn’t quite a mandatory pick if it shows up, and is certainly improved with Orechi & Mix cards to use Madman (Green) Infusions to add Reanimate early.

Upgrades/Pairings: Multistrike will be the most helpful upgrade here to take advantage of the Attack investments you’re putting into it. Giving it another Reanimate 1 from Merchant of Steel is an okay option, but I prefer Endless if offered, because it allows you the opportunity to get its trigger effect multiple times throughout a fight, and be a chump-blocker as needed. The (U) Organ Harvester Equipment is fantastic for it, as it will eventually be strong enough to gain its own Reanimate stacks to parlay into yet-more Attack boosts. The Room card (U) Reanimation Lab is quite nice here as well, particularly if it’s given Endless to repeatedly Summon & Reanimate with stat boosts. If you see the word “Reanimate”, you seek it out!

Hydra Armed Horror: "Cuddles" here has an adorable fixation, where it loves new toys, but loses interest in them immediately. This dichotomy angers Cuddles; the result is violence. Anyway, a weird, potentially quite-powerful unit, Hydra Armed Horror tosses away any Equipment you give it, but earns another Multistrike each time. This arrangement blatantly favors Baron Grael and his (C) Erratic Assistants, who give you the option to repeatedly toss (C) Scissor Hands onto him and ignore their 9 Attack in favor of more Striking. If you can escalate its Attack through upgrades, Attack boosts and Rage, you’ll have a powerful beast on hand! But note, because it removes Equipment each time, you cannot actually maintain Equipment effects on it unless it's Silenced.

Upgrades/Pairings: Attack boosts are crucial here, so Hydra’s repeated Strikes are hitting harder each time. Strengthstone, Speedstone, and Largestone are all solid options for this. The best possible scenario otherwise is to be playing with Baron Grael’s (C) Erratic Assistants to take advantage of their Scissor Hand equipment, and doubly so if you have the Hair of the Hybrid artifact to Enrage it each time. Baron Grael’s Learning Limb & It Hungers paths are fantastic for use with this unit, though the Living Armory path has a bit of anti-synergy… Baron can boost Hydra’s Attack, but only by taking Equipment that would have given the Hydra Multistrike! If you have Orechi instead, grab Graft units early and consider duplicating them. Finally, a fun/weird note… if you attach Merged Equipment to it, Hydra will treat it as Two pieces of Equipment and gain 2 Multistrike. Neat! Though whether that’s worth losing the effects of your Merged Equipment… fun vs. practicality, I suppose?

Nine-Lived Nightmare: Chump-blockers are often quite helpful in this game, so it’s time for you to meet the ultimate blocker! With an absurd 8 Reanimate, Nine-Lived Nightmare can take a whopping 9 hits of any type before it ultimately goes down, a feat not easily replicated by any creature in game. If brought out later in a fight as your other tanks are worn down, this sweet kitty with its mere 1 Space requirement can jump right in front and save your team from multiple attacks. Apply Unstable to your kitty and it will Explode each time it’s destroyed, causing additional carnage on the battlefield! Or, enjoy pairing it with a (U) Reanimation Lab to get repeated boosts to its laughable starting stats.

Upgrades/Pairings: Dualism is insane here, turning this to a whopping 16 Reanimate, enough to take 17 strikes… very noteworthy this there aren’t a lot of Multi-striking bosses in the game. Endless is a funny option as well, because despite the 2 Ember, it should be easy to place it right back down to tank for you over and over again! Pairing it with either of the two Lazarus League Room cards (U) Reanimation Lab or (R) Electricity Chamber are awesome for getting more benefit than just chump-blocking. Unstable-generating cards and Blast Infusions are awesome here, allowing the kitty to explode each time it goes down. Two cards in particular are fantastic for it, (R) Tome of Horrors to add more Reanimation & Unstable explosions, and (U) Fragile Body to retaliate with huge Spike damage.

Every clan has some version of these non-Banner card units, and for the Lazarus League it’s some 1-space Assistants that are mostly Graft units, with a single exception I’ll cover differently than the others.

Erratic Assistant/Scissor Hands (C): Exclusive to Baron Grael, these ladies aren’t much, but they have a distinct advantage of being free, and offering you many opportunities for cheap (also free) Scissor Hand Equipment cards. These are extremely useful to units like (U) Pincushion to invest in his stats, (R) Hydra Armed Horror to give him Multistrike, and although all of Baron Grael’s paths use Assistants, the Living Armory path in particular loves these. Worthy of note that they can do some modest damage early on for free, enough to maybe consider Strengthstones on them if you have nothing better to put it on.


Sanguine Assistant/Vampire’s Tooth (C): If you ever need proof that Grafted Equipment is meant for other units, Sanguine Assistant here should make the point clear, as the Lifesteal she gains from her Vampire’s Tooth doesn’t matter much with her 1 Health. This is great Equipment for healing up your Meatshield-style tanks, and things like healing up from the Corruption damage on Seraph the Dominant. Oddly, because she has the Tooth by default, you can make her an okay tank with a single Largestone… she’ll have 51 Health and Lifesteal 30 Health on strike, and only take up 2 Space.


Twisted Assistant/Twisted Back (C): This beautiful fella’s Twisted Back is a huge gift to so many units in the game… Trample is a tough effect to come by, and 15 Attack + Rage on Strike is a wonderful cherry on top. Multistrikers and Sweepers get the most out of this in normal circumstances, but there are many other Champions and units in the game that can get enormous Attack stats, but lack Trample. Baron Grael’s It Hungers path is a perfect companion with his ever-growing Attack pool, and TSA adores this one as well. You could theoretically give the Twisted Assistant Multistrike himself to use the Rage effects, but I promise there are better options in every clan.

Pufferflesh/Spiky Skin (U): Interestingly this is the only Graft unit in the game currently with a defensive aspect, and one that requires your unit to be hit to trigger Revenge. So, file this one under “okay” as it can be nice to get a bit of Spikes going, but from the standpoint of improving a run, this is the weakest Assistant effect overall. It has its best showing against Seraph the Entropic, as even 1 Spikes alone is enough to defeat the obnoxious Purified Soul enemies. Because he’s tiny, cheap, and has the Spiky Skin by default, you can plausibly use him as a tank with an upgrade like a Largestone.


Double-Edged Bearer/Double-Edged Arms (R): Rare for a reason, the potential to gift Multistrike to another unit (and 10 Attack to boost) can be an incredible boost to so many units & Champions in the game. This is generally a must-grab card if offered. Even if somehow you lack units to take advantage of it, then consider that this is a 1 Ember 1 Space unit with 10x2 Attack by default, meaning you can get some reasonable offense by putting Attack upgrades on and playing him to Attack rather than be destroyed for the Graft.




As a reminder, Endless is a bad upgrade for these units above unless you are absolutely desperate for a chump-blocker, as these are pretty terrible without their Grafted Equipment. I’ve mentioned some potential alternate upgrades for some of them, because more often than not, your goal is to: put them down, chump-block a hit, and donate their Graft Equipment to another unit in need!

Your floors may not always have room to get these defeated in time, so keep in mind that you can use Spell cards like (U) Surgical Strike to defeat multiples of them each turn, or put Blast Infusion/Unstable effects to defeat them instead. Pufferflesh is the exception as his Grafted Health is 11 by default.

Overworked Assistant (C): Two heads are more unstable than one! These gentlemen get their own section because they’re very unlike the other Assistants, and might be a bit more confusing in application for newer players. The general idea here is to turn Overworked Assistant into a bomb, as they’ll gradually Incant up their Unstable to the point where it surpasses their 9 Health, and blow up on Resolve/Defeat to damage all enemies. They come with 1 Reanimate by default, but no Unstable without Incants, so you may not actually want to chump-block with these guys in front… tucking them in back and letting them get lots of Unstable to safely blow up twice (or more if you can increase their Reanimate stacks) can be quite effective.

Dualism is a particularly potent upgrade here, as they’ll get an extra Reanimate and Incant their Unstable stats even faster for bigger explosions. You don’t really need Health or Attack for them to function and they’re already tiny & cheap to play, so the only other upgrades typically worth your time are either giving them more Reanimate, or Endless to allow them to keep doing this trick. These simple units can get mortifyingly powerful if combined with Lazarus League’s (R) Tome or Horrors for more Reanimation & huge Unstable blasts, but they can do pretty darn good work with Incant strategies or sticking cards like Blast Infusions or (C) Explosive Reaction on them. This makes them a bit better with Orechi, who’s starting card of (C) Secret Ingredient is great for Incants and can give both Reanimate & Unstable effects.

Starting card:
Secret Ingredient: The.. good? Doctor here embraces chaos a bit, allowing him the flexibility to brew a variety of Infusions, as long as you’re not terribly concerned about consistency. Mixes got their own strategy section above due to the variety of effects on offer here, and this card is a nice way to build them up. It gives you some flexibility to solve problems as they arise, increase the potency of your team’s effects, or simply be rapid-fire Incant options by both Mixing & injecting the Infusion for two Incants. I often recommend this as a sub-clan card for its flexibility, even though Baron Grael’s Erratic Assistants have some good uses as well.



Brewmaster:

Orechi gains the Ability:
Small Concoction: Cooldown 3 to Mix
Medium Concoction: Cooldown 3 to Mix Two Times
Huge Concoction: Cooldown 3 to Mix Three Times

Strategies: Orechi trades the visceral potency of his other paths for flexibility here, gaining some moderate Attack stats and fairly weak Health in favor of gaining the Ability to Mix multiple times throughout the battle. This is the kind of path that’s both easy for newcomers to use & understand, but due to the hefty Cooldown, is kind of weak without the knowledge to exploit it. You can’t Undo a turn to get a different result on Mix effects, but you can wait another turn to use his Concoction skills to try for a different result if you’re desperately trying for a specific Color and not getting it. Otherwise as mentioned in the Mix strategy section, repeated Mixes are better when you already have the Color Infusion you want in hand, so utilize his Secret Ingredient cards, but also consider seeking out (C) Potion Kits to attach to other units as well. Then whatever your strategy is, use his Concoctions to solve problems or make stronger Infusions to support your goals.


Reanimator:

Strategies: Re! An! Im-A-Tor! (Reanimation’s comin!). Hopefully if you were newer to the game, you didn’t pick this path the first time you played Orechi, because this is a weird one to understand as you get to know this clan. Here, Orechi becomes the experiment himself, gradually growing more Unstable each turn, giving himself a Reanimate stack, and blowing himself up to do gradually-higher AoE damage to enemies… while you know, also dying in the process. Paired with a tank to protect him, this makes him awesome against early waves of enemies (he’ll simply blow up for enough damage to clear backliners), and terrible against bosses (he’ll blow up immediately for middling damage instead of staying around to attack). The only way to keep him around longer during Relentless is to re-up his Reanimate stacks with Spell cards & Madman Infusions… but the reality is this is not a boss-killer path, this is a backline-killer path!

Levels II and III help him out by starting with some Reanimate stacks (it’s very bad if he just gets Swept or Corrupted and dies for good), and helpfully escalating the speed at which he gains Unstable. You’ll have to work a bit to support this path by protecting and/or Reanimating him, but particularly if you can keep the Unstable effect growing, Orechi can do huge damage to the enemies each turn just for existing. If protected well-enough by a tank, his own Reanimation stack will keep him alive while he mows down the backliners for you. You should also be extremely excited if (R) Tome of Horrors is offered to you with this path, as it’s just made for Reanimator Orechi!


Mad Scientist:

Strategies: A fun path that’s probably the simplest to understand. Orechi’s stats go the other direction of Brewmaster and instead lean toward tanking with some modest Health, with the goal of him holding the line while you Incant repeatedly to explode your foes with Unstable. In the section on Mixing, we established that it’s often better to create bigger Infusions, but in this path, there can be some real benefit to doing the opposite. Simply play his Secret Ingredient cards and immediately play the Infusion to get two Incants out of a single Ember, even if the effect might be weaker. Spellchain effects are very welcomed in this path to repeatedly get Incants. 70 Health isn’t quite enough to tank the biggest endgame threats, so you’ll need to protect him a bit more at late/endgame (an Endless (C) Overworked Assistant can have awesome synergy here). Conversely, 16 Unstable per Incant is a very strong effect, enough to set off some powerful explosions and potentially get Unstable kills on big Health enemies like Avowed Gladiators & Terrifying Amalgams who are weakened by the explosions of their allies.

Flex potential: Brewmaster is the only path I’d consider flexing out of, because those Concoction effects may not be doing the trick for you, and adding Mad Scientist for him to Incant-Unstable can be a decent proposition. Personally, that’s the only one I’d consider under normal circumstances. Mad Scientist III’s 16 Unstable per Incant is huge, doubling II’s effect in a way I wouldn’t want to pass up. Reanimator’s stats are deliberately terrible and would cause him to eventually die off if flexed into other paths… though he’d gain Reanimate on Resolve, his Health would diminish significantly. If you have Orechi 100% covered in all situations on Reanimator, then it’s possible you wouldn’t need the extra security of II & III, and you could Mad Scientist Incants into the mix. I’m not wild about that, though… for me, Reanimator is a ride-and-die strategy worth investing in all the way.

Starting card: Erratic Assistant/Scissor Hand A real gift to both Baron Grael, and you the player if the game gave you a (U) Pincushion as your starting seed! At 0 Ember cost for both them and their Scissor Hands, these are nice little disposable units who do a bit of damage/blocking for you, or importantly be fed to various other units and Grael himself. These cards are extremely vital to the Baron’s champion paths, so much so that I would strongly recommend against using Pyre of Dominion if you’re playing as him.



Living Armory:

Strategies: Baron likes to sit in the back with this path, as his Health is fairly low here. What he gains though, is a neat support effect where he gives an Attack boost to all friendly units on the floor whenever he’s given a piece of Equipment. The obvious implication here is the Scissor Hands from his Erratic Assistants, but other Graft Support units are quite welcome on this path as well. Baron’s best friend here is Attackers with effects like Sweep & Multistrike to gain multiplicative effects from the Attack boosts he’s giving. I often find myself placing him up at least one Floor here so you have a meat-grinder floor to defeat your Erratic Assistants as quick as possible (consider the Spell card (U) Surgical Strike as well!), as there’s virtually no benefit to keeping them around here. Space-increasing effects and Ascend/Descend cards are great to cram as many units on Baron’s floor as possible to benefit from the Attack boosts. This is the only path that doesn't prefer Assistants to be on the floor with him, crucially.


Learning Limb:

Strategies: A very interesting path both for the unusual effects of it (permanently increasing the stats of Equipment is otherwise only found on the clanless (U) Bloodthirsty Blade and Luna Coven’s (R) Luna Cyclestaff), and how it changes the value of Assistants over time. To illustrate the point, if you put a Strengthstone on an Erratic Assistant, she might have 23 Attack now instead of 9, but if she’s defeated, her Grafted Scissor Hands are still 9 Attack. The Learning Limb path changes that, and because it can grow the power of the Scissor Hands itself, both she and her Scissor Hands will increase over time. Here you’ll want to pair the Baron with Graft units on his floor and potent Equipment cards & Merged Equipment with the goal of both giving it to his allies and strengthening it as time goes on. Later in the run, you’ll have some new options… you can either intentionally defeat your Assistants and gain Equipment that now may be stronger than a (U) Glass Cannon, or you can actually use them in battle, enjoying 0-Ember costing 1-space units that hit very hard instead. Once again Baron loves Multistriking allies to take advantage of these heightened-Attack Equipment pieces, and Space to play multiple allies & Assistants, preferably on his Floor to keep triggering Artificer.


It Hungers:
Baron Grael gains the Ability:
Devour: Cooldown 1 to Sacrifice Assistant, gain their Attack.
Devour II: Cooldown 1 to Sacrifice Assistant, gain 2x their Attack.
Devour III: Cooldown 1 to Sacrifice Assistant, gain 3x their Attack.

Strategies: The Baron no longer waits for his Assistants to fall in battle, and instead Eats them with an Ability, immediately freeing up space, gaining attack, and getting their Grafted Equipment in hand. Baron’s decent Health will be gradually paired with huge Attack stats, turning him into a mighty Attacker who can more quickly distribute your Grafted Equipment on Assistants. As we discussed in (U) Plague Doctor’s section, the Attack stat doesn’t mean base Attack on the card, it means whatever their Attack is at the time. So for instance, putting Baron & Assistants in the clanless room (U) Fight Club would mean +15 Attack granted when you Devour them. Further, any effects that Rage them increase their Attack, and putting Strengthstones for +14 Attack on Assistants means Baron will absorb that extra Attack as well! This path is massively improved if you can pick up a (C) Twisted Assistant early on, as Baron’s Attack can become huge here, so the Trample effect is very powerful. Ditto a (R) Double-Edged Bearer, but they’re typically only offered much later in a run. Once again, Space helps a lot here, particularly if you need to place multiple Assistants in a turn since Baron can only Devour one per turn.

Flex potential: Living Armory & Learning Limb aren’t the best match as Armory requires you to repeatedly spam Baron with Equipment, and Learning Limb increases Equipment Attack values even when not paired with him. Flexing It Hungers into these paths can be pretty solid though! On Living Armory, flexing It Hungers can give you a quick way to grab those Scissor Hands, and gives you more benefit if your Assistants have Attack boosts through Rage/Fight Club etc. On Learning Limb, flexing It Hungers can more quickly get you the Artificer effect, as well as improve Baron’s Attack more quickly. If you didn’t get something like Trample or Multistrike effects, switching from It Hungers to Living Armory might make sense to buff other allies on the floor as well, but beware this will reduce his Health stat a lot. Overall Baron is a bit more flexible than Orechi, but all three paths have pretty good level III benefits if you stay the course.

Lazarus League has three Common Assistants in (C) Overworked Assistant, (C) Sanguine Assistant, and (C) Twisted Assistant that can have run-defining power in the right situations. Common cards stop being offered as the run progresses, so don't pass them up in early Drafts if they might fit your strategies.

(C) Unstable Reaction Does not need to be played against enemy units! You can use it on your Assistants for a big Unstable explosion to enemies, and for substantially growing the explosions from an (C) Overworked Assistant or Reanimator Orechi. 50 Unstable is a pretty huge effect with Doublestack as well!

Randomness be damned, all three potential effects of (C) Pseudoscience are viable for Doublestack upgrades, and all of these are pretty potent for a Common card.

Though a (C) Potion Kit seems best to put on the allies of Brewmaster Orechi, Baron Grael can get excellent use out of this as well! Living Armory means he can buff his allies, Mix once, and replace it soon after. Learning Limb means the reasonable 8 Attack stat of Potion Kit will grow considerably over time.

(C) It’s Alive is the only Advance card in all of Lazarus League’s kit, so if Shifting or Movement might be desired, don’t pass this up early on, even if you somehow can’t make use of the Lifesteal & Attack-increasing effect.

Though Lazarus League has tons of ways to deal with backliners, (U) Acid Shower is the only Spell card they have that directly strikes all enemies, so consider grabbing this if you’re leaning on Spells to address enemy waves.

Quick units have nothing to fear if (U) Risky Operation is used on them! Cards like this are another way to strengthen Assistants before It Hungers Baron Grael has a chance to Devour them.

(U) Reanimation Lab is a good Room to give Deployable to, since it’s an immediate +7/+7 stat boost on summon. It’s a great Room to give Deployable to if combined with Endless & Reanimating units to continually proc those effects! And once again, It Hunger Baron Grael loves when his Assistants are stronger to Devour!

A Freezestone is a potentially quite-useful upgrade for (U) Weaponized Prosthetic, both reducing the cost to 0 and giving you the flexibility to either remove Equipment before something bad happens (say, a (U) Glass Cannon Fragile unit is about to die), give yourself an Attack boost now that something like (C) Potion Kit is on cooldown, or for increasing an Assistant’s attack before It Hungers Baron Grael devours it.

Ditto for a Freezestone on (U) Replicator Ray… between all the champions of the game and your units that may be upgraded a hundred different ways with events, this card has tons of potential uses, so the best thing you can do is to make sure it’s ready to use once your unit is out, Equipped, and the Floor is as full as it needs to be!

(U) Organ Harvester of course is good for Sweep units that get lots of kills, but a big highlight here is Spikes, which count as Slay triggers! This means it can be a particularly potent piece of equipment for any Tanks given Spikes, particularly both of Lazarus’ banner tanks, (U) Makeshift Golem & (U) Hulking Mass who have Extinguish & Reanimate triggers. This is especially easy to do if paired with the (R) Electricity Chamber!

The Strike effect of (R) Combustion Suit gives all enemies Unstable 5 even if they weren’t the target of the Attack! That said, it’s still the most useful on Sweep & Multistrike enemies who get multiple Strike procs per Attack.

If you manipulate your deck carefully, an Intrinsic (R) Scrap for Parts can be used to draw any remaining unit in your deck at 0 Ember cost on turn 1, even if it was a very expensive Ember-cost unit. This is much easier to do with Orechi since his deck isn’t full of Erratic Assistants. The +40 Attack bonus can be a very serious boost as well for any Sweep or Multistriking units.

I would rarely ever suggest a Holdover effect on a 3 Ember card, but (R) Minds of their Own can absolutely warrant that effect if you’ve got powerful Attacking units like (U) Plague Doctor & (U) Test Subject Alpha equipped. This is particularly nice if anyone has the Twisted Back from (C) Twisted Assistant, as it allows them additional Rage from the Strike triggers.

A Doublestacked (R) Tome of Horrors is an unbelievably strong effect to put on units like Reanimator Orechi, (C) Overworked Assistant, (R) Nine-Lived Nightmare, (U) Makeshift Golem etc. Heck, 100 AoE damage for multiple turns is strong enough to even put it on just about any friendly unit, particularly if you can increase their Reanimate stacks to keep the effect going!

(R) Mix-a-Lot is likely not worth 3 Ember if you’re going to blindly Mix a new Infusion. However, if you already have the right Infusion in hand, this is a very strong boost to its effects, even if it doesn’t pick exactly what you want! This makes it another great use of a Freezestone upgrade.

Lazarus League has plenty of ways to heal up with Lifesteal, and sometimes they want units on Death’s Door anyway, so Wyngh’s Spirit is not very useful to this clan.

Pyre of Savagery is a risky choice for this clan. Orechi should probably avoid it entirely, as Unstable kills don’t register as Slay triggers. Baron Grael has more cause to use it since all of his paths involve directly attacking units. Test Subject Alpha & Hydra Armed Horror would love this, but less so Plague Doctor. Kind of a gamble, so maybe only use it if your sub-clan also has a pretty good chance of making use of it.

Lazarus League doesn’t start with expensive Common cards like some other clans, so Aquath’s Reservation’s +3 Ember isn’t really useful at the start. However, there’s a bunch of 2-3 Ember cards in their Uncommon & Rare pool, so this might gain more use as time goes on.

Lifemother’s Pyre is one of those options that works on just about any clan or any build. Baron Grael in particular can get a lot of use out of this since both Learning Limb and (U) Pincushion can be extremely strong once invested in. Orechi can be very happy to get copies of good Spellchained cards for Mad Scientist, or multiple Reanimate cards for Reanimator.

With a rare 3-Ember cost Uncommon Banner unit in (U) Test Subject Alpha, multiple 2-Ember Banner Units, great Rooms & Equipment to deploy, Herzal’s Hoard is a very good choice for this clan.

Fhyra’s Greed is a pretty helpful pyre for generating some extra cash, particularly at higher Covenants where you can simply choose not to play a Vengeful Shard to get 10 Gold.

There’s no guarantee that Freezestones show up in the Merchant of Magic, and given the timely application of numerous spell cards & Mix effects, Echoes of Time Father is an okay option to freeze your powerful cards if they come up at the wrong time.

Malicka’s Shifting Pyre is a little better than average here. The Assistant units can sometimes gain additional helpful bonuses with free upgrades, and many of Lazarus League’s spell cards are limited to specific upgrades and thus may get some great options offered for free. Still, it’s a risky one (particularly for Banner unit drafts), so consider your sub-clan’s deck and if you’d be okay getting some ill-fitting upgrades on their cards.

Pyre of Dominion is an absolutely atrocious choice for Baron Grael, as all three of his paths heavily rely on Erratic Assistants! This would be a devastatingly bad choice for him, particularly since there’s no guarantee you’d even be offered other Assistants in the draft. It’s honestly not great for Orechi either, as both Brewmaster and Mad Scientist love his Secret Ingredient cards, and they’re pretty good for Reanimator too. Avoid this one!

Generally I dislike Heart of the Pact, but admittedly both Champions make this one easy to trigger the effect. Simply hold onto Infusions for Orechi, or let both the Erratic Assistants and their Scissor Hands count as Lazarus cards for each use of this effect.

Banished:
Just Cause (++): Always pick this over Inspire. It has a lot of utility and certain Banished units are very weak without access to this.
Inspire (--): Never choose this. It’s the worst clan starting card and locks away certain strategies.

Your angel buddies have a lot of ways to move units up & down floors, which is great for the Baron in particular, who loves extra room to boost allies or play more assistants. Banished also has a significant number of Health-based spells & Equipment, and though Lazarus League isn’t the healthiest clan by default, Pincushion can reach some huge Health numbers to take advantage of this. The combination of Valor & Damage Shields alongside Lazarus effects like Lifesteal & Reanimate make this a very defensive pairing. Backline-clearing was a big weak spot for Banished, and Lazarus has numerous ways to solve that problem for them, particularly if using Orechi. Finally, the (U) Swordmaiden is a better unit when paired with Baron Grael’s Erratic Assistants than she was in her own clan!

Pyreborne:
Firestarter(+): A simple card for doing a bit of damage and applying Pyregel. A bit better for Baron Grael who solves problems through directly attacking.
Bloated Whelp: Their ability to destroy themselves and do a bit of damage is good early in the run, but will drop off considerably later on. Still potentially good if you loot Dragon Hoard repeatedly, but without Rally/Harvest triggers, I prefer Firestarter.

Pyreborne tend to offer the same benefits two benefits to any clan, that being a) Pyregel, a simple debuff for increasing your damage output, and b) Money & Artifact gain. Pyregel doesn’t directly improve Unstable stacking, but it does indirectly by both increasing the damage of the Unstable explosions, and by making enemy Health decrease faster. The (U) Gildmonger unit has an Extinguish trigger, which makes him fantastic if paired with Reanimate to help you quickly gain Money & Loot from Dragon’s Hoard. Pyreborne are loaded with ways to destroy backline enemies as well, so this combo should have no problem melting through the various enemies hiding in the back.

Luna Coven:
Witchweave: Not particularly good without Conduit to strengthen the Heals, but at least it costs 0 and is a good +20 Consume option.
Moon Ritual(+): A slightly better option, since it’s important to several Luna Coven units if you intend to grab some. Conduit doesn’t do a ton for Lazarus League though so neither option is amazing.

Mad Scientist Orechi & (C) Overworked Assistant are particularly happy with Luna Coven’s variety of spammable spells and units like (U) Lunar Priestess that allow them to continually trigger yet-more Incants. Though Lazarus League isn’t loaded with offensive spells, the few they use can get a nice boost with the Conduit buff. Vicious Sweepers & Multistrikers like (U) Selene Acolyte & (U) Nightingale can get some fantastic benefits out of Lazarus League Equipment cards. Luna Coven also has some nifty cards that can both Heal & grant Armor, adding further survivability to this clan combo. Finally, Luna Coven’s Mageblade allies can hit some very powerful Attack numbers, which can be fun to exploit with both Equipment, Baron Grael’s Attack boosts, and the Enfeebling Infusion providing Melee Weakness.

Underlegion:
Eager Conscript: An okay option to help trigger Rally on Underlegion units if you seek them out, to give some early survivability. I’d argue there are better ways to get Troops going than through this card, though.
Sporetouch(+): My preferred option as Decay is a powerful effect and particularly with Baron Grael, this gives you a way to deal with backline units early on.

Propagate is insanely good for Lazarus League, as they have access to more Buffs than any other clan. Underlegion brings a lot of survivability to the table, so the combo of these two clans is highly defensive. Lazarus League can help patch up some of the offensive deficiencies of that clan with Equipment & Rage effects. Overstacking some Troop units for Living Armory Baron Grael can be nice to get yet-more Attack boosts for the floor, and having lots of disposable assistants is a great way to trigger Rally effects of Underlegion units! Finally, the potency of Decay effects can make it very easy to destroy even scary amounts of enemy Health when combined with Unstable.

Hellhorned:
Torch(+): An intentionally weak starting spell normally meant to clear weak backliners, which is more helpful for Baron Grael. It can be used to defeat your own Assistants as well.
Queen’s Impling: Does a lot more damage than Torch, but only to the front unit, and takes up 1 Space. Good enough for some early burst damage.

Lazarus League & Hellhorned both have a variety of Rage effects, so there’s plenty of offensive power to be found in this clan combo! Though Lazarus League has some Armor effects, they’re limited to the two Tank units, so having Hellhorned’s targeted Armor spells can help protect your backline units as well. Imps can have some fun effects for the team, including effects Lazarus League lacks like restoring Consume cards & Ember gain. Hellhorned’s Demon units have many effects and stats that are begging to be used with Lazarus League’s Graft equipment! The (U) Railbeater unit that gives Melee Weakness can help It Hungers Baron Grael do some frightening damage given how high his Attack can go. Finally, many Hellhorned units only use Armor to stay alive, so Lazarus’ gift of Lifesteal in combination can result in very healthy units.

Awoken:
Restore: A solid option to help overcome early survivability concerns, and can be used to keep Regen from degrading with Orechi’s Mixes. If you think you may grab Awoken banner units, three of them interact with Heals/Regen from cards like this.
Rootseeds: One of MT1’s best starting clan cards is now more just ‘fine’ as +2 Atk doesn’t mean as much and Draws are easier to come by. Still, it’s generally useful.

Your plantborne buddies tend to offer the same benefit to all clans, that being Card Draws, Healing, and Regen. Lazarus lacks card draws of any type, so that’s a nice way to speed through your deck. Spammable, cheap spells are plentiful in Awoken’s deck, which is again fantastic for Mad Scientist Orechi & (C) Overworked Assistant. Both clans have multiple Spikes effects, and are both very good at clearing backliners by other means as well. Unassuming Awoken units like (U) Animus of Will have an amazing ceiling with Lazarus’ Equipment and Baron Grael’s champion paths. Units with Healing triggers also benefit from Lifesteals, giving lots of ways to proc these effects between these two clans.

Stygian Guard:
Frozen Lance : One of MT1’s worst starting clan cards is… still bad unfortunately. However, it’s okay for some early offense and to put +20 Consume onto.
Forgone Power (+): My preferred choice. 0 cost is easier to play, it can trigger Discard functionality with Stygian Offering cards, or crucially discard Scourge & Blight cards to avoid their Reserve effects. Mad Scientist Orechi appreciates this one for cheap Incants.

Stygian has many Incant effects in its ranks, which is great news for Orechi, both for his Mad Scientist path, or for quick Incants from Infusion cards. Stygian has very strong spells that can help clean up enemies who don’t fall to your first lines of defense. Their cards come with some very useful abilities like Freezing & Discarding cards that Lazarus lacks, alongside debuffs that Lazarus largely lacks like Spell Weakness, Daze, and even Mute. Stygian’s squid & mermaid units function quite well with access to Lazarus’ Grafted equipment as well. There isn’t a ton of direct synergy between these clans, but they have a huge variety of effects that complement each other as you progress in a run.

Umbra:
Shadesplitter: An okay card that guarantees a Morsel, which is helpful for Umbra units in particular.
Plink(+): I prefer Plink as it does a bit of damage and gives a starting offensive spell that Lazarus lacks. This is particularly good for Baron Grael at the start to clear backline enemies.

Given that there’s multiple units & Baron Grael champion paths that like big floors, Umbra’s capacity-increasing effects are very welcome here. Though Lazarus isn’t very Ember-hungry early on, their later cards are very expensive, and Umbra has multiple ways to aid in Ember generation. Goliath (Red) Infusions have the same effects used by both (U) Crucible Warden & (U) Crucible Collector, further increasing their tanking prowess. Umbra has multiple units that would get huge benefit from Grafted Equipment cards. Finally, Morsels can provide some much-appreciated stat boosts to Lazarus League units, many of whom start with mediocre base stats.

Melting Remnant:
Dreg: Cheap chaff units that can help do a bit of damage, but these are more important for Melting Remnant for Harvest triggers.
Primitive Mold(+): Adding Reforms is a cool trick that Lazarus League lacks, and this makes multiple Melting Remnant units perform better, so this is my preferred option.

Reforms are a pretty nifty trick for units with Extinguish & Reanimate triggers that would like to proc those effects repeatedly. This goes both directions though, as Melting Remnant has Tomb units meant to trigger Extinguish; these are awesome to add Reanimation effects to repeatedly trigger these effects. Doubly so as this allows both (U) Wickless Baron & (U) Wickless Tycoon to keep triggering Harvest. Melting Remnant was MT1’s clan focused on Gold gain, so like Pyreborne, they can help a bit to increase your coffers for the expensive upgrades you want. Your waxer buddies give can give a variety of other options beyond Reform with rare effects like Endless, Daze, Stealth, and Debuff-clearing effects that are incredible for removing pesky Sap/Corruption/Melee Weakness.

Mr. Savagery loves melting through even modestly-beefy units by Enraging floors of attacks and sweepers, and any tank on Floors 2 or 3 at the outset will have to contend with 60 or 90 damage (Titan trial) first turn if you don’t have a way to block that hit. None of our champions are capable of surviving that 90 damage hit, so you may need to lean on effects like Reanimate & Damage Shields to survive at the outset. The next problem is Ragewing Assassins, who can sweep your backline units away. Reanimator & Mad Scientist Orechi can go down very fast here and may need to come with extra stacks of Reanimate to make his strategies work. Finally, the huge Health pools of Avowed Gladiators & Terrifying Amalgams can be a big surprise if you’re used to getting Unstable kills at lower thresholds. This is a tough fight for most clans so it’s a good idea to prepare early.

Mr. Entropy loves weakening your forces down to nothing with combinations of Sap & Silence, hoping to stop them from getting their offense going. This can be fairly obnoxious as the majority of Champion paths have Triggers & Abilities that you don’t want Silenced, and it’s particularly bad if something like (U) Makeshift Golem is defeated without triggering Extinguish... Honestly, just about every Lazarus League banner unit has a Triggered effect or Ability, so getting these Muted by Deafening Heralds is awful, and you should come prepared with a way to destroy these. Sap is also very obnoxious for units like (U) Plague Doctor, (U) Test Subject Alpha, and (R) Hydra Armed Horror, so you’ll need Rage or added Attack boosts to help them through this debuff. If you can’t reliably destroy Deafening Heralds, this might become Lazarus League’s hardest fight.

Mr. Dominion’s got a few tricks that make him particularly obnoxious for other clans: Tank-melting double-Corruption, backline-melting Corruption, and waves of Reanimating backliners protecting Supplicants that will bury you in Scourge cards. Fortunately, Lazarus is very capable of handling each of these problems. Unstable effects can easily nuke these backliners repeatedly, even destroying each others’ Reanimate stacks in the process. Lifesteal, Damage Shield, and Reanimate effects can all be used to address the rising tide of Corruption. Making any of Lazarus League’s tank banner units Endless is fantastic for stopping the worst of Dominant’s run-ending offense, particularly since most Lazarus League units have enough Health to survive multiple turns of Corruption in the back. Probably Lazarus League’s easiest fight overall!

Lazarus League is up there with Pyreborne for me at being very strong against the Titans. The Titans bring several problems, and Lazarus League is a problem-solving clan. All of their tanks can hold the line quite well against Savagery’s escalating offense; you can also just Daze him with a Meathook or load your front-liners up with Damage Shields & Lifesteal. The Enfeebling Solution from Mix is extremely helpful against Dominion, both Sapping him to stop hitting your Pyre while Melee Weakness defeats him faster. Triggering Unstable explosions is a great way to whittle down Entropy’s Health while nuking enemy lines. Because the fight can last a while, Champions like Reanimator Orechi can become insanely strong here. Really the only caveat is what I mentioned in the section on Unstable: you cannot beat the Titans with Unstable unless two of them are at 1 Health, and that means you can never have a Titan trigger Unstable explosions to damage others. Finally, be careful of Savagery’s Trample effect, meaning you can’t use 1 Health + Reanimate to protect your backliners from him.

This is guide #5 for me on Steam! X) All the MT2 clans are now covered, and fortunately I did these before starting on the MT1 clans given all the reworks they’ve had. I’ll still update these occasionally as we find more strategies we haven’t come across, any card changes happen etc. I think I spent a lot of time covering various important aspects about playing a clan in detail... I don't personally think it would help to go over every single card or sub-boss. But if I'm wrong, this guide is useful to you, and you'd like to see some other point of discussion, please let me know!

We've got enough practice and wins under our belts that I'm ready to write up guides for each clan, but this takes more than a bit of time to do, so stay tuned for future installments as I chip away at this.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy your runs with these living experiments and the friendly fellows that created them! =)