Montabi

Montabi has one specific claim to fame among city-dwelling monster games: it swaps free-roaming exploration for a tight 3×3 tactical grid, and that single design decision changes almost everything about how a run of Montabi actually plays.

Genre	Creature-collector roguelike deckbuilder
Platforms	PC, Xbox, Switch
Core Loop	Battle with a team of Montabi on a tactical grid, building card synergies across a run
Setting	A city where stolen Montabi need to be rescued

Building a Team From 22 Starters in Montabi

Every run begins with a choice among 22 starting creatures, and that number alone tells you Montabi isn’t interested in a slow drip-feed of content. You’re a Trainer trying to get your stolen Montabi back, and the starter you pick shapes the opening third of a run more than almost any other decision you’ll make.

Some starters lean into aggressive early pressure, while others are built to stabilize a board and win through attrition, and figuring out which philosophy suits your playstyle is usually the first real skill check Montabi throws at you.

Newer players tend to gravitate toward whichever starter looks strongest on paper, without accounting for how much a creature’s true value in Montabi depends on positioning rather than raw stats.

The 3×3 Grid: Positioning as the Core Skill

Combat plays out across a 3×3 grid, and this is where Montabi separates itself from other deckbuilders that treat unit placement as an afterthought. Front, middle, and back rows all interact with different card effects, so a card that looks mediocre in isolation can become a run-defining pick once you understand which row it’s meant to occupy.

Movement cards matter just as much as attack cards, since repositioning a Montabi out of danger or into range of a synergy partner often decides a close fight before damage numbers even come into play.

This is the single biggest thing beginners underestimate. Treating the grid as decoration instead of a second resource to manage is the fastest way to lose fights that should have been winnable.

Trainers, Charms, and How Runs Actually Start

Beyond the starting Montabi itself, every run also assigns you a Trainer and a Charm, two systems that quietly shape your available strategies from turn one. A recent update reworked how this selection happens: instead of being handed three random starters to pick from, you now choose freely from every Montabi you’ve already unlocked, with a Random Starter option available for players who want the old-style challenge back.

That change also surfaced your selected Trainer and Charm earlier in the run-start screen, which sounds like a small interface tweak but actually lets you plan a strategy around all three choices together rather than reacting to them separately.

Community reaction to this overhaul has been largely positive, since it removes a layer of early randomness that many players felt was working against build variety rather than encouraging it.

Reading Synergies Across a 570-Card Pool

With more than 570 hand-drawn cards in the pool, no two runs of Montabi look identical, and the deckbuilding here rewards players who commit to a direction early rather than picking cards purely for individual power. Synergy tags cluster around specific Montabi types, and recognizing which tags are showing up in your offered rewards is often more valuable than grabbing the single strongest card available.

It’s easy to hoard flexible, generically useful cards in the opening runs, but Montabi eventually punishes that caution once boss fights demand a coherent plan instead of a pile of decent options.

Early Runs: What New Trainers Consistently Get Wrong

The most common mistake new Trainers make is undervaluing evolution timing. Montabi can be evolved mid-run under the right conditions, and holding off on an evolution because a creature still feels useful in its base form often costs more than the temporary flexibility is worth.

A second frequent stumble is ignoring event choices scattered across the city map, treating them as flavor text rather than genuine resource decisions that can make or break a run’s card pool.

By the time a Trainer reaches the mid-game bosses, these small early misjudgments tend to compound into runs that feel unwinnable, which is usually a positioning and planning problem rather than a difficulty spike.

Cabpod, Hydo, and the Early-Game Workhorses

A handful of specific Montabi have developed reputations as reliable early picks. Cabpod is frequently cited as a forgiving starter for new Trainers because its kit tolerates positioning mistakes better than most, while Hydo rewards players willing to commit to a front-row tanking strategy from the first few fights.

Further into a typical roster, Montabi like Kaibug, Pylo, and Tonkey tend to define whichever synergy lane a run ends up leaning into, and recognizing that early is part of what separates a smooth run from a scramble.

None of these picks are objectively correct in every situation, and that flexibility is a big part of why the deckbuilding community keeps arguing over tier lists.

Facing the X Gang and the City’s Randomized Events

Montabi’s overarching threat is the local X Gang, whose boss sits at the end of the city’s main gauntlet and tests whether your synergies actually hold up under pressure rather than just looking good on paper. Getting there involves navigating more than 30 randomized events, each one nudging your run’s resources, card pool, or team composition in a slightly different direction.

Once you’ve faced the X Gang boss a few times, you start recognizing the specific patterns it punishes, which turns what initially feels like a wall into a checkpoint you can actually plan around.

The Balance Debate Around Best-Case Creatures

It’s worth being upfront about a criticism that comes up often in Montabi discussions: several creatures are balanced around their best-case use rather than their average one, which makes them feel weak in the hands of players who haven’t unlocked enough of the roster to build around them properly. Early on, before you’ve unlocked everything, it’s genuinely difficult to judge a Montabi’s real strength from a single run.

This isn’t necessarily a flaw so much as a growing-pains issue tied to how much content Montabi front-loads into its starter roster, but it’s a fair point of frustration for newer Trainers still building out their collection.

Montabi Questions New Trainers Search For

How many starting Montabi are there to choose from?

There are 22 starters available, and thanks to a recent update you can now pick freely from any you’ve unlocked instead of being limited to three random options each run.

Is Montabi turn-based or real-time?

Montabi is fully turn-based, with combat resolved through tactical positioning across the 3×3 grid rather than any reflex-based input.

Can you change your starting team setup before a run begins?

Yes, the current version lets you choose your Starter, Trainer, and Charm together on the same selection screen, including a Random Starter Montabi option for players who want the added challenge.

Montabi succeeds because it never lets a 3×3 grid feel small, turning every fight against the X Gang and every card pulled from that 570-strong pool into a positioning puzzle that a starter like Cabpod alone can’t solve for you.