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!

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 spritely nymphs & burly bugs that make up the Luna Coven!

Pyreborne Clan Strategy Guide
Banished Clan Strategy Guide
Underlegion Clan Strategy Guide

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

Overview: The flittering moths & skittering beetles of Luna Coven make up a clan designed around slinging magic spells infused with added firepower, and manipulating the cycles of the Moon to enhance their own stats & abilities. Sometimes they choose to solve problems by blasting enemies with powerful offensive spells, other times they seek to empower themselves under moonlight to take the fight directly to their foes. And if those strategies aren’t enough? Well, they’ve got plenty of healing left in the bank to help your teams go another round.

New players may be surprised at the first impression of the Luna Coven, particularly because they tend to have a slightly rougher start in the typical run compared to other clans. But if you can overcome their slow start and lean on the power of the Moon, they’ll Spells & Stats growth that will make their enemies begging for the warmth of the sun instead.

Offensive strategies: Luna Coven have two key ways that they seek to overwhelm opponents. One is through Conduit & potent Spell cards, allowing them to destroy enemies before the fight even begins, leaning on additional bonuses like Attuned cards or Moon-phase enhanced benefits in spells. Another way is through the cycle of the Moon itself, as multiple units gain powerful bonus effects & stat growth when performing under the ideal phase of the Moon. Finally, their unique Mageblade ability harnesses a combination of attacking & Conduit power to allow even previously-feeble magic-slinging bugs (or even other clans’ units!) to do monstrous levels of attack damage.

Defensive strategies: Luna Coven heavily utilize a tried-and-true staple of RPGs: healing. With several cards (and an ability!) that directly heal up your damaged units, and special ones that also create Armor for units, Luna Coven can powerfully patch up even the most direly wounded allies, particularly if their spells are bolstered by the Conduit buff. Though not a factor on many of the cards, they also occasionally utilize Stealth or Daze to avoid damage altogether.

Stat-influencing strategies: Multiple Luna Coven units & cards bolster the stats of units, usually focused on Luna Coven units themselves. This can come in the form of Mooncycling, where a unit gains Stats whenever a Phase is triggered, or units that can gain stats when a Resolve is triggered in the proper Moon Phase. Unusually, Luna even has a card that increases the Attack of all units on a floor, but note that it’s both Rare and a Consume card, so it’s not intended to be a key part of their function as a clan. Finally, Champion Ekka has her Lunar Steward path that buffs every unit on her floor with both Attack & Health boosts! Because stats gained carry over upon defeat, the Endless upgrade is often quite good with this Clan's units in several iterations & builds.

Support strategies: Luna’s main support comes with the addition of their Conduit buff, which can substantially increase the potency of other clans’ Spell cards. Mixed in with their spell-focused support is a lot of incidental effects like Stealth, Ascend/Descend, Daze, Spell Weakness, Titanskin, Ember gain, creating Ephemeral card copies… it’s a pretty substantial list, so often when playing Luna as a main or sub, you’re tweaking your deck to cater toward the effects that your run is looking to utilize.

Sweep/Backliner Strategies: Luna is loaded with ways to blast pesky backliners. Their (U) Selene Acolyte is a traditional sweeper during Full Moon, they have two strong spells that strike all enemies in (C) Celestial Storm and (R) Heavensfall, and if full AoEs aren’t good enough, they have multitudes of single-target spells for individually picking off problematic units. The worshippers of the moon have no fear of those who hide in the Shadows!

Conduit: A status effect that has a unique aspect to the game… while Conduit is applied to individual units, the entire Floor benefits from the collective total of all Conduit on a floor. Each total stack of Conduit increases the base-level Magic Power of spells on that floor, and influences the power of any units with Mageblade. As more Conduit is applied to your units, your spells grow substantially; fivefold if Attuned! This has significant application for your run, increasing the potency of attack spells, heals, and the offensive power of Luna Coven units & cards with Mageblade.

As a reminder, Conduit can be applied to any unit on the floor to gain the benefits. Unique to this status effect, a floor will see no tangible change if say, two units have 10 Conduit individually versus one unit with 20 Conduit. The only consideration here is if a unit's defeat or movement between floors and changes the Conduit totals. As a result, Conduit is best applied to your “safest” backline units when possible. If a tank in front has all of your Conduit stacks and dies in battle, their magic power dies with them!

Mageblade: An effect unique to Luna Coven particularly because of how directly it interacts with their preponderance of Conduit. Mageblade scales a unit’s Attack stat by the amount of Conduit/Magic Power present on their floor. Although Luna can support other clans & function without the use of Conduit, its presence is found on enough units & Champion paths that Mageblade can be anywhere from a small boost to a murderous escalation in damage.

Merchant of Steel: Conduit 5. I like this upgrade a lot! One thing that frequently happens for us in runs is we have small/support units that aren’t important hosts for Health/Attack boosts, so it’s nice to have a cheap upgrade like this that can have some tangible benefits even on support units. On a Dualism unit, this grows to Conduit 10, which is a nice boost as well.

Moon Phase: Any time playing with Luna as a main or sub-clan*, the top left of the train will add a visual & text indicator of whether the train is in Full Moon or New Moon. Although most effects are agnostic to this or can even ignore it, there are multiple cards of all types in the Luna Coven that have their effects influenced by the Phase of the Moon. By default, the Moon Phase is the same in every floor of the train, and it will cycle back and forth to the other phase when progressing to the next wave, or when a Relentless Boss finishes battle and moves to the next Floor.

Phase/Mooncycle: I’m combining these effects as they’re highly interrelated. A Mooncycle trigger happens whenever the Moon shifts between phases, typically at the start of a new wave. Without outside influence, a Mooncycle effect will only trigger this single time between enemy waves. However, many Luna Coven cards offer the ability to “Phase”, which instantly triggers a Mooncycle. This comes in a few different flavors:

• “Phase” – the regular effect, a single Phase that swaps the Moon Phase.
  
• “Phase to” – an effect that forces the Moon into either New Moon or Full Moon. This triggers either zero Mooncycles (i.e. the Train was already in that Moon Phase) or one Mooncycle (the Moon Phase changed).
  
• “Phase X” – an effect that Phases the Moon multiple times, triggering a Mooncycle for each. For instance, if the train is in New Moon and you Phase 3, the Train will immediately progress from New to Full>New>Full, triggering three Mooncycles.

Finally as an important clarification: Luna Coven has a few effects that allow Mooncycles to trigger multiple times. This means only the Mooncycle effect itself, i.e. two Mooncycles may not be the same thing as Phase 2.

Luna Coven Banner thoughts:
Luna Coven banners are an interesting proposition, as they cover a surprisingly wide variety of unit effects, from units that want to frequently Mooncycle, others that want the Moon perpetually in the same phase, and multiple units that exist primarily to support or bolster other units and eschew the typical Tank/Damage Dealer conventions. All Luna Coven units function very well within the confines of their own clan, mind you, but it’s very possible to be offered a Banner that offers two Silent units that crave New Moon while building your team around staying in Full Moon for the boost to Spell cards.

There are enough Luna Coven cards and strategies to help support any of their Banner units, and as a result, a Luna Coven banner is often heavily desired if playing them as your main clan. Conversely, particularly if you’re playing with Luna as a sub-clan, some of these units will just be inferior choices without the support of Luna’s effects (e.g. an Astrologer is weak without Mooncycling, just as the Banished’s Battle Dancer is weak without Shifting). The overall breakout is Two Tanks, Three Damage Dealers, and One Support unit among their Uncommon Banners, with Two Supports & One Damage Dealer in their Rare pool, leaving a pretty wide berth of potential pulls!

Keep these considerations in mind as we discuss Luna Coven units!

Astrologer: A very easy to understand Damage Dealing unit, Astrologer starts with offensive stats even below that of a humble Spear Steward, but will see his Attack grow by +5 every time a Mooncycle is triggered. The implications here are simple:
a) If left to his own devices, Astrologer will gain an unimpressive amount of attack each turn and will under-perform.
b) If the Moon is repeatedly phased, his Attack can instead grow to dangerous levels instead.
Though there are other potential factors, by default this means he’s a better pick with Arduhn & his Moon Ritual cards compared to Ekka, and a potential deadweight if not.

Upgrades/Pairings: Assuming you’ve done your due diligence and gotten him some Mooncycling effects, Multistrike is the easy winner here, since his ever-growing Attack won’t be used on a single strike. Speedstone & Strengthstone are options to help get his offense started, and he’d be an okay use of a Largestone or Heartstone if you’d prefer him to have a bit of staying power in battle as well. Alternately, you can even put Endless on him, because any Attack he gained prior to his demise will carry over. Dualism has no effect on his performance and should be avoided. More important than any of this are the other cards & units that would improve his performance. (U) Lunar Priestess is his best friend, being a deployable Banner unit that helps him trigger Mooncycling, alongside (C) Meddler who can continually force Phases, as well as (U) Mooncaller, who will duplicate his +5 Attack effects if on the same floor as him. The (R) Luna Cyclestaff is a natural pairing for this guy as well, since both are bolstered by Mooncycles. If your deck isn’t using Moon Ritual cards and you don’t have a Lunar Priestess pair, avoid this guy enitrely.

Lunar Priestess: Luna Coven’s support unit is an elegant moth whose mediocre 8/8 stats are far less important than her Resolve trigger, where she gives you a free Ephemeral copy of a Moon Ritual card straight to your hand. In doing this, she becomes a key ally for Mooncycling strategies, Incant strategies, and even Conduit strategies to a lesser extent. That’s all there really is to say about her, more important is the units & strategies she supports.

Upgrades/Pairings: The Merchant of Steel upgrades are less important here than the pairings with other units, since her tiny size & low cost make her easy to tuck away safely from harm. Strengthstone to have her attack grow a bit, Healthstone to survive a few hits, and Conduit to further support the floor she’s on are fine choices. Anyway, there are numerous advantageous pairings for Lunar Priestess: Ekka’s Lunar Steward path, (U) Astrologer, and (U) Aurora Weaver are key allies that love Mooncycling, while other allies like Mystic Hammer Arduhn, (U) Selene Acolyte, (U) Shadeguard, and (U) Nightingale are examples that enjoy being in specific Phases of the moon. The (R) Luna Cyclestaff can grow quite strong under her guidance, even if not equipped to her. Particularly if Mooncycling or Incanting is a strategy you’re building on, Lunar Priestess is a great unit to copy at an Empyreal Well or with Lifemother’s Pyre.

Nightingale: Greninja here has the highest variability between Moon Phases of any non-Champion unit, going from weaker than a Spear Steward in Full Moon to a violent Multistriker in New Moon. Starting with Stealth 2 is also pretty rare for a unit, but it gives him a little extra leeway if there are enemy sweepers about, or you’re doing a Mark of Invasion Trial. Luna Coven has multiple ways to manipulate the Moon Phase to keep it in New Moon, and if you take this guy, you’ll be looking for those! As long as he stays under the cover of night, Nightingale is a deadly damage-dealer with incredible offensive potential. Just not in Full Moon – he stinks there.

Upgrades/Pairings: Because he strikes three times in New Moon, Strengthstone is the simplest upgrade to give him, though he can certainly make use of Speedstone or Largestone for similar reasons. If you have a (U) Moonlit Glaive in your deck, even Conduit works as a solid upgrade for him. Beyond that, what you’re really looking for here is to support him in ways that help keep the Moon in the New Moon Phase, and potentially to pair him with other Silent units like Shadeguard that also enjoy New Moon, or Mystic Hammer / Heirophant Arduhn for their synergy. A (U) Lunar Priestess can gift Moon Ritual cards to ensure you stay in the right phase, you can use Phase spell cards to manipulate Phases, a (C) Meddler can keep it in place, or the holy grail of all cards is (U) Eclipse Chamber, which permanently keeps him in New Moon and grows his attack every turn. Finally, I should note that he has anti-synergy with (U) Selene Acolyte, who would lose her Sweep effect in New Moon – those two only work particularly well together if an (U) Eclipse Chamber is in play.

Silent Sentinel: An incredible tank with a heck of an ace up its sleeve, its Ability “Spell Slam” is Cooldown 3 to immediately heal the Sentinel back to full health, while giving Spell Weakness to all enemy units on the floor. It's extremely rare to find tanks in the game that don't need any outside help to sustain themselves long-term. With his very solid 40 Health, normal size/Ember cost and the ability to heal himself to full every 3 turns, Silent Sentinel’s an incredible tank even before factoring his ability to debuff the enemies. For pure, no-frills tanking, he’s among the very best in the game.

Upgrades/Pairings: The easiest answer here is anything that increases his Health, because Spell Slam heals him up to full regardless of how high his Health stat is. Thus Healthstone, Largestone, and Titanite are all great answers, as well as the Largestone+Smidgestone combo if you want an excellent tiny tank. With him being relatively cheap and having an Ability ready to go upon summoning, Endless is a decent option if you want him to be able to plunk him right back down after Corruption wears him down. Finally I’d note that you can also do Dualism to double the effectiveness of his Spell Weakness, in case you’d prefer his debuffing utility to take center stage instead. If you’re lucky enough to find a (R) Dusk Mantle, his tanking prowess improves further still!

Selene Acolyte: Luna Coven’s resident Sweeper is a bit of a mercurial one, gaining some huge potential Attack with her inherent Mageblade, and only Sweeping during the Full Moon phase. As a result, she tends to need some babysitting to function properly. Because there’s no equivalent of the (U) Eclipse Chamber for Selene units, the only way to stay in Full Moon consistently is with spell cards and/or unit support. Additionally, her 10 Attack is very underwhelming for a 2 Ember unit unless she’s suitably paired with Conduit units. Combine Conduit + Full Moon and she’s a murderous sweeper. Lacking them, she’s probably not worth the Ember investment.

Upgrades/Pairings: Speedstone is most helpful upgrade, helping her to quickly cleave through dangerous backliners (barring that, a Deployable (U) Swiftsteel Dagger can work). From there, there are a couple directions you can go. If you’re not building up much Conduit, things like Strengthstone & Largestone can give her a boost, as well as putting Moonstone’s Conduit 5 on her given her inherent Mageblade talent. However, if you’re building up lots of Conduit on her floor, then Multistrike is a lovely gift as her offense will scale quite a bit. From there, the most important thing is to keep the Moon phase in Full Moon, so she’s well paired with a (U) Lunar Priestess to gift Moon Ritual cards to ensure you stay in the right phase, Phase spell cards to manipulate Phases, or a (C) Meddler to manipulate the Phases. And as I mentioned with (U) Nightingale, Selene Acolyte has anti-synergy with units that are more effective in New Moon, so be careful taking her alongside (U) Nightingale, (U) Shadeguard, or Mystic Hammer Arduhn.

Shadeguard: Luna Coven’s only 3-Space unit is a mighty tank with a solid offensive presence as well. His 15/40 starting stats belie the fact that ending a turn in New Moon grants him another +10/+15 to carry with him in the fight. That would be considered a middling-to-good return on investment if you never manipulate the Moon Phase and he procs this every other turn. In comparison, gaining these stats every turn is quite powerful, especially with a clan that can easily heal up his growing Health pool. Luna Coven has multiple ways to manipulate the Moon Phase to keep it in New Moon, and if you take this guy, you’ll be looking for those! As long as your team isn’t based around Full Moon, Shadeguard is a heck of a hybrid-tank to keep around.

Upgrades/Pairings: In most cases he’ll be used as a tank, and 40 Health is a solid starting stat, so Smidgestone is a great potential investment so you can fit more on the floor with him, even moreso if combined with a Largestone. Multistrike is surprisingly valid if you’re in a (U) Eclipse Chamber or can keep the Phase in New Moon. Although he’s Large & a bit pricey to play, Endless is an option since his stats-gained during New Moon resolves carry over upon defeat. Pairing him with other Silent units like (U) Nightingale that also enjoy New Moon, or Mystic Hammer / Heirophant Arduhn are fantastic for their synergy. A (U) Lunar Priestess can gift Moon Ritual cards to ensure you stay in the right phase, you can use Phase spell cards to manipulate Phases, a (C) Meddler can keep it in place, or the holy grail of all cards is (U) Eclipse Chamber, which permanently keeps him in New Moon and grows his attack every turn. Finally, I should note that he has anti-synergy with (U) Selene Acolyte, who would lose her Sweep effect in New Moon – those two only work particularly well together if an (U) Eclipse Chamber is in play. If you’re lucky enough to find a (R) Dusk Mantle, his tanking prowess improves further still!

Ethereal Seelie: Many Rare units in this game are borderline mandatory to grab if they show up, while others are very powerful but only in specific situations. Ethereal Seelie belongs in the latter camp. Now, she has some advantages that make her “good” regardless… at 1 Size & 1 Ember, she’s easy to fit in, and she gives an immediate boost to anyone with Mageblade. However, that’s less effective than a Moon Pixie overall, so instead her power comes into play when paired with Conduit-gaining strategies. Paired with Champions like Celestial Spellweaver Ekka, Battleborne Arduhn, or supporting units like (U) Lunar Priestess and (U) Aurora Weaver. If you continually gain bonus Conduit, then your Mageblade units & Spell power will grow incredibly. Without these, she’s kind of like a deployable Moon Pixie, which is nice, but won’t knock your socks off.

Upgrades/Pairings: Honestly one of the best things you can do with Seelie, if you’re looking to build up Conduit is to simply copy her at an Empyreal Well/Lifemother’s Pyre and get multiple copies of her to amplify the effects. Adding more Conduit to her at the Merchant of Steel is perfectly good, and Dualism can increase these boosts to 10, which isn’t bad considering Dualism hasn’t been a common recommendation here. Then as mentioned above, you want to grab Spells, Rooms & Units that aid you in applying Conduit. In addition to the above mentioned, (U) Planetarium is a nice Room option, and the (U) Moonlit Glaive will be a nice combo for her or her allies due to the huge ceiling on Mageblade.

Moonguard: If your foes don’t speak in fear of the purple Mothman that spells their doom, they should, because Moonguard is a terrifying presence on the battlefield. His solid 30/30 starting stats and reasonable 2-Ember & 2-Space requirements are fine; its his Mageblade that’s the star of the show. With 3 Mageblade by default, and 6 in New Moon, his offensive potential reaches terrifying levels as Conduit grows on his floor. When you consider that the (U) Moonlit Glaive is itself 2 Ember to apply 3 Mageblade, the potential ceiling of someone who can have 6 Mageblade by default should become clear. Even with a bit of Conduit, this unit is a strong offensive threat, and with a lot? Let’s just say, the Titans are going to need new pairs of pants.

Upgrades/Pairings: Multistrike is the big one here so his mighty strikes can cleave more than one enemy at a time, and Dualism can put his attack values to comical over-the-top numbers. Since he’s only 2 Space and has 30 Health, a Largestone is a pretty reasonable upgrade, particularly if you’re lacking in tanks. The Conduit 5 upgrade is perfectly fine since it automatically buffs his own offensive stats more than a Strengthstone would anyway. Since we’re talking about Conduit, that’s really the only thing that matters for Moonguard… get Conduit any way you can, and his Attack ridiculously spirals out of control. Silver Empress Ekka is incredible, Battleborne Arduhn is solid, (U) Moon Pixies are a gift from the heavens, (U) Aurora Spellweaver is great too, and either of Luna Coven’s unique Rooms (U) Planetarium or (U) Eclipse Chamber are incredible with him.

Scrivener: She comes equipped with the Spellweave Ability, Cooldown 2 to draw a spell and reduce its Ember cost by 1. This alone makes Scrivener a heck of a support unit for any clan, but especially for the spell-slinging bugs of the Luna Coven! At only 1 space and with a surprisingly nice 15 Attack, she fits easily in anywhere to contribute a bit of damage, which is only partially offset by her 2 Ember cost. It’s hard to imagine any situation where Scrivener isn’t useful; her ability lets you cycle through your deck faster, it reduces the costs of cards, and it can’t “accidentally” pull any Scourges or Blights in the process.

Upgrades/Pairings: I’ll echo what I mentioned with (R) Ethereal Seelie in that copying your Scrivener at an Empyrean Well is one of the best things you can do, since she’s incredibly easy to fit in, and her 2 Ember cost will eventually be offset by the Ember reductions she puts on spells. Upgrades don’t matter too much here.. you can up her Attack a bit with a Strengthstone, add Conduit to increase spell power on her floor, maybe even Health if fighting Seraph the Dominant to keep her around longer. Most important is to pair her with lots of powerful spells in your deck, and consider Rooms like the Clanless (U) Echo Vault & (U) Spell Sanctum or Luna Coven’s (U) Planetarium to get the most out of the many spells you’re grabbing. Try putting Spellchain cards in your deck and pair her with Incanting buddies like Heirophant Arduhn or Celestial Spellweaver Ekka for yet more fun!

Every clan has some version of these non-Banner card units, and for the Luna Coven it’s a mishmash of 1-space Fae & Selenes that perform a variety of functions based on effects unique to the Luna Coven.

Meddler (C): If Mooncycling is any part of your strategy, these mischievious fae are your best friends, as they Phase the moon immediately upon summoning, and have the Cooldown 2 Ability to do so again on demand.













Moon Pixie (C): An extremely strong support unit, Moon Pixie enchants the entire friendly floor with 3 Conduit on top of her own Conduit, substantially increasing the power of Spells and Mageblade effects on that floor.













Aurora Weaver (U): Gains Conduit during Mooncycles, providing some nice passive Conduit gain, particularly with Mooncycling strategies.














Mooncaller (R): Doubles the effect of Mooncycle triggers on her floor (a crucial caveat, because Mooncycle triggers happen everywhere, but the effects are only doubled on floors with Mooncaller. Apparently her beautiful operatic voice can't defeat the amazing soundproofing on this train!). Note that if you do not have Mooncycle-trigger units or cards, this unit has no impact.











So this collection of support units is interesting because 3 of them enhance or aid in Mooncycling strategies, which is a crucial distinction because the reason you use each could significantly depend on their synergies with other units. For instance, if you’d like to Mooncycle as much as possible, getting multiple Meddlers and pairing them with a Mooncaller is a great strategy. If you simply want to keep the moon in a specific Phase, a single Meddler might do the trick.

To that end, I’d note that Endless is a very interesting proposition for (C) Meddlers – although they cost 1 Ember and aren’t free like a Moon Ritual card, you can get two Phase triggers by both playing it and using its Ability immediately… particularly neat if you’d like it to chump-block a hit in front and be ready to summon next turn.

Beyond that, the star of the show here for me is (C) Moon Pixie, which is insanely strong for a Common support unit, and is only more amazing if paired with Dualism to double the effects of her own Conduit & Enchanting effects. Moon Pixies massively escalate the damage of spells and Spellblade effects, and are a must-pick for me whenever I’m lucky enough to be offered these.

Because all of these units have potentially powerful effects as long as they stay alive, be very careful of fights against bosses like Qel the Corruptor who will melt their feeble HP in a single turn, erasing any built-up/Enchanted Conduit, or Seraph the Dominant who will similarly poison their feeble HP even if well-protected by a tank.

As a final note, because none of these are deployable and all have fairly useful/synergistic effects, these are great units to stuff in a Jack in the Box if you’re offered the Wondrous Boxes Alcove event. A Moon Pixie even Enchants the Jack in the Box itself!

Starting card:
Witchweave: An interesting card that doubles as both offense & healing, but is hampered by its abysmally weak 1 Damage/Heal potency. The obvious implication here however is Conduit, which can bolster these to become powerful Heals and powerful single-target nukes if enough Conduit is built up – a very likely outcome since two of Ekka’s paths are loaded with Conduit bonuses!



Celestial Spellweaver:

Strategies: Here Ekka starts with 6 Conduit, a relief for your deck of Witchweaves that now do a respectable 7 minimum damage/healing, and starts with a helpful 25 Attack stat to deal with some early enemies. Unlike her other two paths, Moon Phase does not factor in at all, so you needn’t specifically grab units & cards for their Phase or Mooncycling effects. The star of the show is her ability to gradually build her own Conduit stacks on Incant, as evident by her comparatively very small growth in stats between levels of this. There are two key ways to make use of this, both beginning with the same strategy: start by utilizing a combination of cheap, spellchained, holdover etc. spells to rapidly build up stacks of Conduit, whereupon you can either a) blast the enemies with powerful spells both regular & Attuned, and/or b) sit back and watch your Mageblade allies do incredible attack damage.


Silver Empress:

Ekka gains Ability: Lunar Echo – Cooldown 2 to pull an Ephemeral copy of a Spell card played in the prior turn into your hand.
Strategies: A hybrid of sorts between her other paths, Silver Empress is a potent spellcasting version of Ekka, but one that also desires the Moon Phase to be Full, as it gives her an immediate & highly-significant boost to Conduit. Her Ability Lunar Echo is quite nifty as it allows her to replay powerful spells between turns, and can be manipulated to guarantee specific pulls if you manage to only play a single spell. Luna Coven has numerous Spell cards that gain additional effects in Full Moon, so you’ll want to seek these out, and potentially pair her with units like (U) Selene Acolyte that are significantly stronger in Full Moon, cards that Phase the Moon Phase to full, or units like (C) Meddler and (U) Lunar Priestess that can help manipulate the Phase. Consider that at level III, Conduit 70 means an Attuned spell gains 350 power, and every stack of Mageblade grants a unit 70 more attack!


Lunar Steward:

Strategies: Ekka’s support path, starting with the lower stats and giving no boosts to Conduit in lieu of direct stat growth to all units on her floor during Mooncycle. Much like our discussion of Astrologer earlier, a single gain of +1/+1 > +2/+2 > +3/+3 each turn is not really a game-changer at all. Instead, the goal here is to spam the train with effects that continually Phase the Moon, allowing these stats to gain very rapidly instead. In this path you seek out every opportunity you can to reliably repeat Mooncycling effects, and find ways to load Ekka’s floor up with ally units to take advantage of her stat boosts. Because this helpfully comes on a clan with Healing magic, you can make very sustainable units by healing them up as their Health grows, or pair with the Endless upgrade from Merchant of Steel, such that any units Ekka’s been buffing will keep their substantial stat growths upon resummoning. Crucially, Witchweaves are extremely weak on this path, so you’ll need to either gain Conduit from other sources, or flex one of her other paths to make use of these.

Flex potential: Adding Silver Empress into any path is pretty nifty because not only do you gain the flat Conduit boost, it gives you her Lunar Echo ability that’s missing from other paths. Beyond this, Ekka is ridiculously flexible, particularly because the effects from I>II>III on both Lunar Steward & Celestial Spellweaver are incremental. If you start Lunar Steward and don’t get much Mooncycling, flex something else! If you start Spellweaver and are suddenly loaded with Phasing options, throw in some Lunar Steward for a combo of spellpower & buffs. The only one I think is absolutely best to take to III is Silver Empress, because flat 70 Conduit is just an incredibly powerful effect, particularly if paired with Deployable Mageblade allies or Equipment.

Starting card: Moon Ritual
A pretty simple card, Moon Ritual’s free cost and ability to Phase the Moon of the train regardless of who you play it on adds a nice bit of flexibility to your run. This has some benefits & downsides compared to Witchweave. On the bad side of things, this card doesn’t scale – Ekka’s Witchweaves can do massive heals & damage on floors with enough Conduit. On the good side of things, this card remains useful on all three paths for Arduhn, and gives him more utility with Luna Coven units.



Mystic Hammer:
Arduhn gains Ability: Shadowcast – Cooldown 2 to Phase the moon to New Moon.

Strategies: Arduhn’s simplest path is also pretty potent, where the big muscular beetle flexes his carapace & big sword to punish enemies in New Moon, keeping enough Health to hold the front line a bit, and gaining an Ability to keep the train in New Moon to boost him & other units with Phase effects. His Attack boost of +50>+100>+150 is pretty substantial for an effect that’s easy to maintain with his ability & effects, and it further combines with his own Mageblade if you establish Conduit on his floor. This path has the most Health by far, so you can tank a bit with him as well, but be sure to search out some Healing spells to keep him in the fight as those are not overwhelmingly high numbers. This path pairs particularly well with (U) Shadeguard & (U) Nightingale who perform significantly better in New Moon.


Battleborne:

Strategies: I’ll not mince words – I do not like this path much… much like I disliked Overlord Fenix and will dislike Little Icarus Little Fade, Slay paths are obnoxiously inconsistent to me. However, let’s talk about it… the idea here is simple enough, Arduhn has no Conduit, but gains +1 Stack permanently with Slay triggers, whereupon his growth to Mageblade 4 & 6 ensures that he gains a very sizeable attack boost from this Conduit. As we established with Moonguard, Mageblade 6 is insane, but the difference is you can customize a Moonguard with Multistrike/Dualism/Largestone etc. My problem with this is simple: Arduhn himself has very few ways to reliably get Slays on this path… he has no effects like Trample/Sweep/Spikes that allow for multiple Slays per turn, and those starting stats are too weak to even reliably kill mid-tier tanks early on. At best he’s paired with Dualism (U) Moon Pixies & (U) Planetarium so his single strike is strong enough to get Slays – Moon Pixies aren’t deployable though! Without effects like those, the only time I’d particularly recommend this path is if you’re paired with something like Lazarus League or Awoken to give him Spikes Slay triggers early on (before his terrible Health becomes a liability), or if you get lucky and pull a (U) Iron Tongue where you can get him some Sweep kills instead. Otherwise, I’d pass on this, his other paths are perfectly good and have no risk of the doom-spiral this path can get into. Conversely, keep in mind that this has the highest potential offensive ceiling of any of his paths if you can keep the Slay triggers rolling or put enough Conduit on his floor to make use of Mageblade 6.


Heirophant:

Strategies: Arduhn takes a step away from the glory days of the battlefield here and like Ekka, has one path dedicated to supporting other units. A pretty effective and enjoyable path, Arduhn’s Incants now bolster all units on the floor with Armor, giving some crucial survivability to the floor, particularly since his path lacks the Conduit Witchweaves to sustain allies. As a bonus, any Silent units get Attack boosts as well, a bonus loved by all Silents, but particularly frightening with a (U) Nightingale in New Moon. Both his Attack & Health stats are mediocre in this path, so you’ll want to take advantage of his Moon Ritual cards and making spammable/spellchain cards to keep the Incants going while other units take care of the offense.

Flex potential: Like Ekka, his burly beetle is a pretty flexible fella. Adding Mystic Hammer to any path grants the Shadowcast Ability, which is a pretty cool bonus to have on hand for any strategy that involves New Moon or Mooncycling. Battleborne’s Slay trigger doesn’t improve at all between iterations, so if you have a way to reliably get kills with another path, you can flex Battleborne in to gain permanent Conduit boosts to up his Mageblade power. Finally, if you’re not getting much offense out of him, flexing any level of Heirophant in to a path is useful since even Incanting Armor 2 to a floor is a useful enough ability. I think the most noteworthy path to take all the way to III is Mystic Hammer, only because of his significant growth to 90 Health, if you find yourself lacking in tanking power.

(U) Hexscalation can be readily used on your own Units if you’d like some between-floor movement in your build, particularly because no enemies use Spells that would harm you with stacks of Spell Weakness. Also a pretty solid option to force all three iterations of Seraph up a floor if you need to avoid their Enchant or Strike effects on a lower floor.

(C) Gravity can also be used to both Ascend and Descend friendly units, but it will cause some damage and this may be an unusable effect if you’ve stacked enough Conduit that the attack itself is too strong for your unit to handle. As above, manipulating Seraph's floor may occasionally be a lifesaver.

(C) Silver Strike in Full Moon can strike multiple enemies if the front enemy is destroyed by the attack… potentially very potent with Conduit boosts!

If you reduce the Ember costs of (C) Bloody Moon, it’s worthy of note that it can be used against your own units for Slay triggers to give you a net boost to Ember… particularly helpful if you’re playing alongside a clan with disposable units.

X-Ember costs are fairly uncommon in Monster Train 2 unless they’re Consume cards, so it’s noteworthy that (U) Lunacy is not a Consume card, which means it can even be given Holdover & Ember reductions to give you turn-over-turn Phase manipulation options, even at 0 Ember. This is quite the gift with units like (U) Astrologer or (U) Aurora Weaver, and with the (R) Luna Cyclestaff.

(R) Stardust Invocation is quite unique in that it creates the Ephemeral Copy of a card immediately, allowing you to potentially play a ‘Consume’ card without actually consuming it. Best used either to exploit that fact, or to double-up on the use of a powerful spell card in hand.

(R) Heavenfall can hit all Floors in Full Moon, which means in the Titans fight it includes three hits to Entropy, one to Savagery, and even one hit to Dominion! See if you can take of Dominion’s spell shields first before blasting him with this big hit.

The game gradually shifts toward Rare cards as the game progresses, so don’t pass up support units like (C) Moon Pixie or (C) Meddler early in the game if Conduit or Phasing/Mooncycling will be part of your strategy! You may never see them again and they’re very potent additions.

Luna Coven has lots of Healing, but Wyngh’s Spirit can still be useful given cards like (C) Fae’s Blessing and (R) Tidal Turning that convert excess healing to Armor, allowing your Tanks to get lots of Armor, particularly on Conduit builds.

Due to the Luna Coven’s frequent use of Spell cards to solve problems, Pyre of Savagery is a bit of a mixed bag here… great if you’re using Silent units or Magebladers to cleave through enemies, worthless if you’re blasting them into oblivion before combat. Maybe only choose this if your sub-clan is also likely to benefit.

Aquath’s Reservation’s +3 Ember can help pay for some painful early expenses like (C) Celestial Storm, or later ones like (R) Heavenfall.

Luna Coven loves replicating certain effects over and over, or getting multiple copies of units to continually trigger effects, and as a result, Lifemother’s Pyre is a very good option for this clan so you can make early copies of strong cards without having to choose sides with an Empyrean Well.

Though they don’t have the most expensive units around, their two unique Room cards of (U) Planetarium & (U) Eclipse Chamber are begging to be Deployed, and (R) Luna Cyclestaff wants to be out asap as well if using this strategy, making Herzal’s Hoard a pretty solid option for this clan.

Luna Coven doesn’t need a ton of money to be functional, but Fhyra’s Greed can still help give you an early leg up to get the more pricey upgrades going early on, particularly since several of their Common cards & units are very potent if properly boosted.

Particularly if you’re playing as Arduhn and need some help keeping the Moon Phase in check, Echoes of Time Father is an okay option to keep frozen Moon Ritual cards in hand for optimal timing.

Pyre of Dominion is an interesting proposition for Luna Coven, as (C) Witchweaves are very weak without Conduit, are completely unnecessary for Lunar Steward Ekka, and have the chance of being replaced by superior Common cards like (C) Fae’s Blessing and (C) Silver Strike instead. For Arduhn this is a bit riskier, as his (C) Moon Ritual cards have a lot use in Mooncycling, manipulating Phases, boosting his Mageblade, or for easy Incants on Heirophant, so I’m less likely to suggest it for him.

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 can help significantly with survivability given their preponderance of Valor and Damage Shield, particularly because Luna has plenty of heals to patch up reduced Health that’s lost while establishing Valor. Their ability to move units up & down floors can have powerful effects for overstacking floors, particularly for circumstances like (C) Moon Pixies or (U) Planetarium granting all of your units Conduit. They also have a decent supply of Health-based spells and equipment, which work quite well with Luna’s health-conscious tanks, particularly (U) Shadeguard who will just keep the Health stat growing.

Pyreborne:
Firestarter (+): A simple card that will be modestly useful throughout the run, either to clear backliners early, or to apply Pyregel. This is the superior choice for Luna Coven since its damage is boosted by Conduit.
Bloated Whelp: Though some Pyreborne artifacts can improve their performance, this has very little synergy with Luna Coven specifically.

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. Luna Coven comes with lots of offense, so combining this with Pyregel can produce some devastating damage. You won’t get much in the way of sustainability boosts from them, so you’ll need to mainly lean on Luna’s spells and units for that. Hopefully the added wealth and extra artifacts from this clan help sweeten the deal?

Underlegion:
Eager Conscript: An okay option to help trigger Rally on Underlegion units if you seek them out, and to give you 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 Arduhn, gives you a way to deal with backline units early on.

Propagate is a real gift to Luna Coven whenever it comes to Conduit strategies early on! Ditto if you want to go with a Spell Weakness strategy. Underlegion brings a lot of potential tricks for survivability between Regen & Sap, and the use of Troop stacks can be helpful with Floor-specific boosting strategies like (U) Moon Pixie or (U) Planetarium. Luna Coven has a lot of Consume cards if you come upon the Etching unit Morel Mistress. There isn’t otherwise a ton of overlap in their specific clan strengths here, so hopefully you can play a bit with both of their specific strengths.

Lazarus League:
Secret Ingredient(+): My preferred option as Mixes offer you a wide variety of effects and both Heirophant Arduhn & Celestial Spellweaver Ekka can get many Incants off the use of these.
Erratic Assistant: Their damage and utility are perfectly fine such that you needn’t avoid these necessarily, but Secret Ingredient offers more flexibility overall.

Lazarus’ sheer versatility is a gift to any clan, and Luna Coven are no exception. Effects like Reanimate & Damage Shields can help the survivability of some of the squishier bugs in your clan. Lazarus has multiple spells that can be quite powerful with Conduit, their Assistants with some neat Equipment effects that any clan would love (put a Twisted Back on (U) Nightingale or (U) Selene Acolyte and enjoy!), and their units span a wide variety of offense & defense to help patch up whatever aspect your run is lacking.

Hellhorned:
Torch (+): An intentionally weak starting spell normally meant to clear weak backliners, but particularly with Arduhn gives you an option for some damage once Conduit is built up.
Queen’s Impling: Does a lot more damage than Torch, but only to the front unit, and takes up 1 Space. Okay for some early burst damage but does little to help Luna Coven strategies.

Some of Luna’s units are a bit slow to build up, so Rage from your Demon buddies can help escalate that a bit faster. Many Armor effects exist to further bolster the survivability of your units, and Hellhorned have a large number of offensive spells that will be very happy to get use on a Conduit floor. Hellhorned even has some movement cards to help arrange your floors. As a result, these clans are surprisingly pretty well in sync with each other!

Awoken:
Restore: A solid option to help overcome early survivability concerns. 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. Awoken have numerous options for dealing with backline enemies, giving this clan combo a lot of ways to deal with those problems. This clan comes with many cheap, spammable card options that can help get you lots of Incants, and their relatively low-power offensive spells can get a nice boost from Conduit as well. Finally, Luna’s heals can give extra Healing trigger options for the Awoken units that have Rejuvenate triggers, making this another very synergistic combo.

Stygian Guard:
Frozen Lance: One of MT1’s worst starting clan cards is… still bad unfortunately. However, this is one of the least-bad clans to use it with since Conduit can up the damage enough for it to put a dent in enemies.
Forgone Power (+): My preferred choice. 0 cost is easier to play for triggering Incants, it can trigger Discard functionality with Stygian Offering cards, or crucially discard Scourge & Blight cards to avoid their Reserve effects.

If casting Spells is your passion in life, then these two clans are a dream team! Stygian’s oceanic friends come with numerous Incant-trigger units, cards that count as Incants even when discarded, multiple Attuned cards that will get massive boosts from Conduit, and a host of other valuable effects like Daze & Mute to help the run out. Stygian's contribution to survivability are a bit scattershot, so they'll instead do plenty more to bolster the spellcasting prowess of Luna.

Umbra:
Shadesplitter: An okay card that guarantees a Morsel, which tends to benefit Umbra units more than Luna Coven.
Plink (+): My preferred option as it does same damage & and will be bolstered with Conduit. Less reliable at giving Morsels if you intend to grab Umbra units though.

While theoretically this combo doesn’t seem like it’s a natural fit, there are some interesting tricks available. Morsels count just as well as any other unit for floors with (U) Planetarium or (U) Moon Pixie Conduit enchants, giving you the option to build up Conduit levels even with disposable units. Umbra has multiple options for granting extra Floor Space, which is helpful if you’d like to build up big floors with Conduit or things like Heirophant Arduhn’s Armor gains. Umbra also gives some helpful sustainability effects like Lifesteal & Damage Shield that can keep you in the fight longer, and eating Health-granting Morsels and healing the tanks back to full is a simple, useful strategy.

Melting Remnant:
Dreg: Cheap chaff units that can help do a bit of damage or be Harvest-fodder for some Melting Remnant units. Okay for a bit of damage, but doesn’t do much specifically to help Luna Coven.
Primitive Mold (+): My preference here as Reforming is a way to potentially Revive your units if they ultimately don’t make it, or because it plays into many Melting Remnant unit strategies.

Defeat isn’t the end of your units with your waxen buddies, which can be a relief if effects like Corruption overcome your Heals. Those returned units will by default return with only 1 Burnout stack, but many Luna Coven units grow in stats throughout the fight and would be happy to rejoin the battle with increased base stats. 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. Luna Coven doesn’t have any Harvest triggers so they don’t get much direct benefit from Melting’s dying & reform strategies. Thus the main benefit your waxer buddies give beyond the Reform backup option is 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. Fortunately, Luna Coven loves to simply blast units away with Spells before they have a chance to do major damage, and has the ability to eventually gain substantial Armor/Health reserves after the initial salvo. You’re going to also need some hefty offense to deal with the meatshields he brings out with Avowed Gladiators, so hopefully you’ve learned to harness the power of the Moon now! The start of the fight is a bit dangerous here for Luna Coven, but hopefully in a turn or two you can establish yourself enough to blast your problems away.

Mr. Entropy loves weakening your forces down to nothing with combinations of Sap & Silence, hoping to stop them from getting their offense going. Be careful if you’ve relying on a (U) Selene Acolyte to Sweep your way through problems, as a Deafening Herald will take away her Sweep effect. This fight brings a lot of offensive power with Purified Soul enemies that come with two Spell Shields that won’t allow you to simply play an AoE Luna Coven spell to fix things. Fortunately, if you can destroy the Silencers (Luna is a Trigger-heavy clan that you don’t want Silenced) and sustain yourself through the Souls damage, Entropic’s Sap trigger is not a big deal for Luna Coven, as they can grow their stats through it, or gain Conduit/Mageblade to largely ignore the impacts of this.

It might be helpful to think of Corruption as “Bug Poison” and Mr. Dominion as “The Exterminator”, because this is a rough fight for Luna Coven. For one, you may get to this fight without ever dealing with AoE Corruption previously, and as a result you may have been able to freely place various 3-10 Health units in the past without ever having to sustain them… Corruption will change that very quickly, as well as eventually whittle down your Tanks’ ability to simply Heal through damage taken, which may have worked perfectly well until this point. If you’re going to be facing the Dominant, consider putting Health/Endless upgrades on low-HP units so you don’t need to babysit them with Heals & Armor, or Endless on Tanks so you can put a “fresh” copy of them back out without Corruption built up. Hopefully you’ve found one of Luna’s ways to deal with backliners too to avoid their Sycophants cluttering your deck up with Scourges and their frequent barrage of Deformed Duos that are teeming with Corruption & Reanimation.

Personally, Luna Coven to me are pretty strong at tackling the titans, as their propensity for consistently gaining power throughout the fight gives you the option to push back enough against their escalating offense, while also giving you some mighty spellpower for attacking whichever Titan has the most Health (though Conduit can’t affect Dominion outside of (R) Heavenfall). Dominion’s Corruption effects only target your frontmost unit, so your more feeble backliners can stay safe as long as there’s enough hefty Tanking left in front to protect them. Luna Coven has no specific way to easily address Savagery’s ever-escalating offense so make sure you’re either using tricks from your sub-clan or finding ways to significantly Armor or stat-gain your way through his attacks!

This is guide #3 for me on Steam! X) 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 (hopefully?) stay tuned for future installments as I chip away at this.

Thank you for reading, and enjoy your runs with these moon-worshipping bugs! =)