[SPOILERS] Let's talk about permascaling in MT2

Something I've noticed, and I'm sure most other players have noticed too, is the MT2 champions have a lot of paths that say "permanently" on them.

There are ten champions introduced in MT2. Of those champions, a total of seven of them have at least one path that provides a scaling method that carries across combats:

- Fel is probably the one that immediately comes to mind. Her Unchained path is almost universally agreed to be her strongest option, often crosspathed with the Savior path since you don't get a real bump to Unchained's effectiveness until the third level.

- Talos has her Celebrate path, providing permanent stat boosts to all units that are on the field at the end of combat.

- Fenix has his Slay path; combined with Fenix Fire gaining Explosive, a way to reduce his cooldown can let him more or less solo the game.

- Gilda doesn't quite have a "permascaling" path, but she does have a metascaling path, that being Lady Avarice. Her damage is still being increased through a resource that is external to combat, so in my opinion she counts here. (Both Pyreborne champions also have a path that provides Dragon's Hoard, which can be considered a form of permascaling, but that muddies the waters a bit so let's ignore it for now.)

- Arduhn also has a Slay path, but differs from Fenix in that while he's only single-target (and thus will generally pick up fewer triggers), each stack of Conduit he gains has a greater effect on him due to Mageblade and also buffs other units and spells.

- Bolete is the other most notorious; there's plenty of posts on here with people showing off their 800/800 Boletes thanks to his Rally path, and you can crosspath into Headsman for Trample.

- Grael doesn't permascale himself, but his Artificer path gives permanent boosts to equipment, and Graft units will double-dip on the scaling if they're placed on his floor.

That leaves only Ekka, Lionsmane, and Orechi as the champions who have no way of scaling themselves across combats. That's a shockingly low amount, especially when you consider them in comparison to the MT1 champions. The original clans, across their ten champions, had exactly one who had a permascaling path: Icarus Little Fade. And, somewhat ironically, a lot of people have had trouble running her now; the environment is overall a lot more hostile, one of the Ring 1 combats has no kills at all for her to get, and she's bugged in that mutual kills don't trigger Slay. The latter will hopefully be fixed, and she's not completely unworkable, but she needs quite a bit more effort to bring her to the heights that you could achieve in MT1, and her other two paths are typically more consistent.

The same thing applies generally across the old and new clans as a whole. There was almost nothing that provided permanent buffs in MT1 - it was almost a signature mechanic of Melting Remnant, which had Subsuming Blade, Bounty Stalker, and the aforementioned Little Icarus, as well as ways of gaining money. Outside of that? You had Overgorger, Steelsinger (who was huge, expensive, and scaled pretty slowly), and... arguably Blazing Bolts? There's Dante, but even Dante has gotten more permascale-y in MT2 because he keeps gaining more Multistrike every time you play him, and no other clanless cards really qualify. Even beyond cards, there were no artifacts that provided permanent scaling effects, nor any events that provided such.

Compare to MT2: There's Fanning the Flame, Mitosis Cap (arguably), Pincushion, Reforming Ooze, Bone Dog, Bloodthirsty Blade, Blood of the Apex, Martyr's Signet, Twin Minds (again, arguably), Advanced Growth... and a whole Pyre that gives everything Slay: +1 damage. Not to mention that Pyreborne as a whole took MR's gold-gaining mechanics and ran with them. And three discrete events can provide permanent scaling: the Savagery / Entropy events (Savage Heart and Entropic Growth, respectively, giving Rage or Magic Power) and the Penitence event with Celebrate: +10 damage.

So who cares? Why does this matter?

Well, I don't think it's controversial to say the MT1 clans are generally weaker than the MT2 clans. The lack of permascaling may not be why, exactly, but there's certainly a tangible difference in its prominence. And while it's true that every champion in the game gets stronger over the course of a run, just from being upgraded, there's something satisfying about pushing units to their limit, having a snowball effect that ends in total domination. Permanent scaling is fun! People enjoy it! I think the devs know this, and that's why these effects have become so much more common. They feel good when you make them work. You often win in Monster Train by figuring out what your deck does, and then doing it so hard that there are no survivors. Permascaling is sort of the epitome of that.

And, notably, these effects aren't necessarily automatic wins. Most of the artifacts I mentioned up there are pretty small boosts that you won't often centre your run around. Permascaling effects put the responsibility in your hands as the player to create wins, because the raw effects themselves aren't all that strong, so it's on you to make your units hold up into the endgame. If you can't make a big enough snowball fast, you'll end up death spiralling instead. Just ask anyone who's tried to run Unchained Fel with Pyre of Dominion.

Champions are the easiest units to give permanent scaling effects to, because you're guaranteed to have them from the very start, which means you have the most time possible to scale them up, and because permanent scaling often becomes a centrepiece of your run. Who better to build around than your champion?

I don't think that all or even most of the MT1 champions need to have permanent scaling effects, not least because a lot of them would need to be totally overhauled for it to make any sense. But if the devs are willing to get experimental in their efforts to bring the old clans up to par with the new ones, it could be a really fun avenue to explore. Maybe someday we'll see a world where Dark Calling Flicker reforms units with permanent damage increases? Architect Penumbra adding permanent pips on Celebrate? Brawler Prince with +1 Multistrike on Summon?????

... yeah, okay, definitely not that last one. Still. What are your thoughts?