Monster Slayers - a Deck Building Roguelike

Better than shield breaker! I lost a great cleric run to a very RNG-blessed barbarian.

After some very obsessive play sessions, I’ve beaten the game on Normal mode with all 12 classes. But now there’s an expansion and there are two more, so I’ll have to do that as well.

I also got my first win on Legendary mode using a Wizard, but I consider Wizards and Necromancers the easiest to play. Something about my preferred approach to deckbuilders seem to mesh with the magic cards available to both. In both cases I build up huge hands and mana totals via Mana Charge + Time Stasis or Bury+Raise Dead. Then I just unload on the opponent. No finesse required!

Wow okay, the damage boost to the Necromancer’s Summoning cards.

Undead Horde is now basically:

15 Mana
Deal 54 damage.
Draw a card.

Plus the obvious Summoning card synergies. Playing the necro “straight” is fairly absurd now.

Summoning necromancers are great, the real problem is that they alone amongst the casty types are reliant on “attack” type physical-damage cards. A wizard or apothecary will probably have multiple elements represented in their spell portfolio so resistances/immunities aren’t that big a deal. A necromancer can get in a bind when they run into someone dodgy, physically resistant, or with retaliate cards.

If you didn’t level the dark spear or whatever like a fool, sure.

I typically level at least one dark spear all the way, while ditching the rest. Dark spear is not a good damaging spell due to the nasty variability of the damage based on discard pile. Yeah, it’s manageable with judicious use of bury but a maxed out dark spear III hit is really hard to land. Plus a summoning necromancer is quickly going to clutter the deck with minions meaning that dark spear becomes a rare draw. Hence summoning necromancers run into trouble with physical resistance and dodge.

A necromancer that wants to just burn people with spell damage, on the other hand, is quite viable as well. But it’s not about dark spears in that case. A blasty necromancer is much better served by just buying some meteors or ice blasts or similar at a merchant. The combo of bury + raise dead can raise mana and build a big hand of spell cards arguably faster than the traditional wizard/apothecary route of having a “+1 card draw on mana charge” item. And it doesn’t require a special item.

I really want to try a gambler necromancer some time, where the core idea is to slim the deck down to just the buries and the raise deads and then toss in a resurrection or two to just steal the opponents deck and play it against them. Not quite as easy as the gambler rogue, but might be a giggle if I can get it to work.

It’s the Daily Star Deal on Bundlestars (https://www.bundlestars.com/en/bundle/monster-slayers-complete-edition), complete edition for 4.99€.

Thanks very much; a bargain at twice the price!

I grabbed this from the Steam sale and I’ve put quite a few hours in already. It’s perfect for me. Easy to learn, plays fast, but difficult to beat. Can you even beat this game? I got to level 15 with a character and I was capped, but I died before I beat the dungeon. Couldn’t get my hero healed up between battles. I’m guessing this is what does in most people.

You used to be able to. I have two or three wins under my belt. With recent tuning I have yet to make it to the final boss.

I won with all of the original classes, but that was months ago. Not sure if it was made harder.

I started up a game I hadn’t played before called Reverse Crawl and I heard some very familiar music. The screen was black due to some Windows 10 incompatibility (which is solved by setting the .exe compatibility mode) so I couldn’t see any logo or anything else. It took me a second to realize it was the music that plays when starting Monster Slayers. I fixed the compatibility issue and sure enough there was Nerdook’s logo. I was so happy to stumble on another game by him since I liked Monster Slayers so much.

It’s a light hearted fantasy game with tactical battles. You gain XP and select upgrades to your troops. Some missions also can give upgrades. The battles play quickly and the entire campaign lasted around 4 hours. It wasn’t overly challenging, but it was just challenging enough to keep me playing and considering my moves instead of clicking willy nilly. There is an endless mode and new game + if you need some more playtime from the game.

I’ve now won with two classes so far. It’s not easy beating the harbinger. That guy has a lot of hit points and hits hard. I have no problem getting to him with the other classes, but I usually lose. It’s all about the deck, I suppose.

… and getting the upgrades too. That definitely helps.

Yeah, I try to upgrade and delete cards as much as possible. I either need cards that hit really hard or cards that mitigate a lot of damage to have a chance against the Harbinger. Fun game. I’ve gotten my $6 out of it and then some.

I wish I could get to the Harbinger sooner. I feel like most of the battles along the way are routine now. I wish I could skip a lot of them but I need every battle to get XP and gold.

I love this game! But I cannot cannot cannot beat the Harbinger (or even get to him) using the Cleric. I have beat him with all other basic classes and want to complete the set.

I usually prioritize Repent and try to balance getting AP and deleting useless cards. Any pointers?

And I just had a great run, getting to the Harbinger with full health at level 15 and a nice deck with the cleric. And I whittled him down to 6 hp before he killed me. So close!

Playing this again, and I have still only beaten it once, with a Mage. Anyone got any general principles or tips with the other classes they can share? I really wanna unlock more stuff…

Slim your deck and get rid of cards that do low damage, though thief is an exception since it has cards that can chain attacks. Then save gold and buy the best versions of cards in the final round that fit the class you are playing.

You are going to win by either out-thumping the big baddie or by using some form of damage mitigation to outlast him. It depends on the class you are playing.

I typically like a card or two that adds gold. Gold lets you pay to dump some cards and lets you buy the big cards you need in the final round.

What Mark said. They key mistakes I made when new was buying too much stuff in the first two dungeons and not slimming enough. Slimming is really key. Every healer should be deleting cards and the merchant delete option should be used 3-4 times until the cost becomes infeasible. If card deletion is offered at level up its almost always the best option. Slim down, and spend only a little gold buying cards in the first two dungeons. The good stuff isn’t available until the third dungeon.

Beyond that advice is class specific. I’m happy to comment in any class because I lost several months of my life to this game and have beaten it with every class more than once.