The release of Monster Train 2 marks an exciting moment for fans of the roguelike deckbuilding genre. Just like its predecessor, the game challenges you to balance offense and defense while protecting your precious Pyre Heart against relentless waves of enemies throughout three floors of the train.
Managing your resources is the key to victory here. While your units' health resets between battles, any damage dealt to your Pyre Heart is permanent and can only be healed at specific nodes. To keep up with the rising challenge of each encounter, you'll want to upgrade your units as soon as possible. For those unsure, here's a look at how unit upgrades work in Monster Train 2.
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How to Upgrade Units in Monster Train 2
Monster Train 2 provides a couple of different ways for players to upgrade their units. Some artifacts can boost your unit's stats, such as offering it more health and attack. Some support units can also passively boost your unit, giving it Valor or Health under specific conditions.
But for permanent stat upgrades, you'll want to visit Merchant of Steel nodes along your route. Completing the first battle will always spawn a Merchant of Steel node in the next room. However, the rest are randomized. On average, you'll find 4-5 Merchant of Steel nodes as you progress.
To check the available nodes along your route, you can click the map icon in the top right corner of your screen after starting a run.
Once you reach a node, you can interact with it to open up the shop. The shop will contain any four from the following upgrades, each costing you a different amount of Coins:
|
Upgrade Name |
Effects |
|---|---|
|
Heartstone |
Upgrade a unit with +20 Health |
|
Strengthstone |
Upgrade a unit with +14 Attack |
|
Titanstone |
Upgrade a unit with Titanite |
|
Immortalstone |
Upgrade a unit with Endless |
|
Bravestone |
Upgrade a unit with Valor 8 |
|
Greedstone |
Upgrade a unit with Avarice 3 |
|
Smidgestone |
Reduces a unit's Room Cost to 1 |
|
Dualstone |
Upgrade a unit to gain Dualism |
|
Frenzystone |
Upgrade a unit with Multistrike 1 |
|
Speedstone |
Upgrade a unit with Quick and +10 Attack |
|
Largestone |
Upgrade a unit with +1 Room Cost, +15 Attack, and +50 Health |
You can also buy a Purge Card from the shop to remove a card from your deck. Alternatively, you can spend 50 coins to re-roll the shop options.
Once you buy an upgrade, you'll have to apply it to any of the non-champion units in your deck. Each unit can be equipped with up to two upgrades, and they are non-refundable. As such, you'll want to think carefully before investing in an upgrade for your unit.
You can check the upgrades on a unit by hovering over the icons below their Ember Cost.
The Pyrestone Housing Artifact additionally grants all units in your deck an extra upgrade slot for the run. So, if you're building a deck that's fully focused on leveraging the damage of your units, this is a great Monster Train 2 Artifact to go with.
- Released
- May 21, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Shiny Shoe
- Publisher(s)
- Big Fan Games
- Franchise
- Monster Train
- PC Release Date
- May 21, 2025





- Genre(s)
- Strategy, Roguelike, Digital Card Game