Beginner’s Guide to Demon Invasions
/pep
By : [GoW] Lightja Serenity Special Thanks to all those who helped me get started! Oasis & Legends clan , Langley, Radient, Tosh0, Blade, Kizer GoW Clan , Shadowjack, Death, Emetz, Wonder, Mighty, Sari, Draciel, and more. ek.arcannis.com forum contributers DLCatlord, Therai, and more! Simulator creators Crystark, Peppa, Mitzi, Teny. EK staff and developers
(Last Updated: 9/8/15)
Bahamut Azathoth
Pazuzu
Table of Contents INTRO TO DEMON INVASIONS (Click a topic to jump to it!) Basics : 1) Demon Invasion Times 2) Experience / Gold Calculations 3) Notable Mechanics & Terminology (Hero HP, Deck CD, MPM, MPF, Demon Curse) 4) Craze Glitch 5) Silence Glitch 6) Demon Invasion Rewards Types of Decks : 1) Headless Horseman / Wood Elf Archer , Demonic Imp , & Goblin Cupid Decks 2) Static Stacks 3) Dynamic Stacks Types of Cards : 1) Tanks 2) Recyclers 3) Card & Hero Healers 4) Guards 5) Clay Pigeons 6) Snipers 7) Leechers Types of Runes : 1) Heals / Absorbs 2) Stabilizers 3) Damage Increases Getting Started : 1) Building your first DI decks 2) Building your first stacks 3) Ideal Evolutions 4) Evolution Strategies Resources : 1) Community Forums 2) Card List (Stats, cards by skills, stars, kingdoms, etc) & Spreadsheet 3) Evolve Skill List (colors and ranks) 4) Evolve Skills by Kingdom 5) Line Page 1
SIMULATORS 1) Peppa's / EK Fanatics rystark's / EKBattlesim 3) Azh’s Online Simulato 2) C r (Uses Peppa’s through a browser, works for mobile) 4) Mitzi's/Teny’s
DEMONS Demon Types: 1) Card Killer 2) Hero Killer Dark Titan : 1) Headless Horseman / Wood Elf Archer 2) Simple DT 2x TC 3) Simple DT TC Lep 4) Simple DT 2x Lep 5) Thoughts / Homework Sea King : 1) Similarities to Plague Ogryn 2) Headless Horseman / Wood Elf Archer 3) Simple SK 2x TC 4) Simple SK TC Lep 5) Simple SK 2x Lep 6) RW Deck 7) Thoughts / Homework Plague Ogryn : 1) Headless Horseman / Wood Elf Archer 2) Simple PO 2x Lep 3) Simple PO WWP & 2x TC 4) Thoughts / Homework Mars : 1) Demonic Imps 2) Griffon Dancer + 2x Arctic Lich 3) Simple Mars 4) Thoughts / Homework (Click a topic to jump to it!)
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Deaucalion : 1) Similarities to Pandarus 2) Headless Horseman / Wood Elf Archer 3) 2xWhitewing Pope / Fire Kirin 4) 2xWhitewing Pope / 2xFire Kirin / Thunder Dragon 5) 2xWhitewing Pope / 2xFire Kirin / 2xThunder Dragon / 2xGoddess of order 6) Static Tanking Deucalion 7) Thoughts / Homework Pandarus : 1) Headless Horseman / Wood Elf Archer 2) Moving Forward 3) Thoughts / Homework Bahamut: 1) Demonic Imps 2) Molluscs/Dragon Knight Decks 3) Thoughts / Homework (Click a topic to jump to it!)
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Intro to Demon Invasions
Basics
1) Demon Invasion Times
5:00am PST, 1:00pm PST, 9:00pm PST (every 8 hours) 2) Experience / Gold Calculations As you develop your DI decks, Demon Invasions will quickly become your best source for experience, and even more quickly become your best source for gold. In addition to merit rewards, you are rewarded for each hit based on how much damage you deal Experience: 10% of Damage Done/Merit Gold: 15% of Damage Done/Merit ex : a hit that does 200k damage gives 20k experience and 30k gold. 3) Notable Mechanics & Terminology Deck Cooldown Cooldown between each attack is 1 minute + 2 seconds for each deck cost. So a deck with cost 60 would have a 1 minute + 60*2 seconds = 3:00 cooldown. Additional cost gained after evolving cards does NOT count towards your cooldown! so there’s no downside to evolving for DI.
Hero HP every level ending in 1, you get a large bonus in hp. Because of this, more decks become feasible, and you should consider reevaluating your DI decks at 51, 61, 71, etc. Exhaustion Damage Starting at round 51 your hero starts to get targeted by a curse that increases in damage every round. You can’t use guard to defend against this damage, but you can use prayer to heal it. This is why Prayer evolutions are so valuable, as at high rounds, where your tanks have grown to very high atk, each round equates to more damage than the last. If this mechanic wasn’t in place, many decks could 1 shot most demons. Does 80 damage at round 51, increasing by 60 each time the demon goes, so it does 140 at round 53, 200 on round 55, 800 damage at round 75, etc. Merit Per Fight (MPF) How much damage you do per attack on a demon on average. Merit Per Minute (MPM) How much damage you do per minute, or how much merit you earn per minute. This is derived from your average Merit per Fight divided by your deck cooldown Page 4
4) Craze Glitch These next two sections may be a bit controversial because typically these are considered “secrets” of EK, but nowadays pretty much everyone knows about them, so all they do is make it harder for new players who don’t know them to play to their full potential. If you’ve seen someone use Goblin Chemist in a PO deck, or Goblin Warrior with Swamp Force in a DT deck, then you’ve seen how the craze glitch is used. Normally, when a card with a force buff dies, it subtracts the buff amount from all the affected cards. However, when one of those affected cards has gained attack via Craze, part of the buff given by the dying force card will stay behind. The max amount of force buff that stays behind is equal to the craze amount gained by that card. So if a swamp card has gained 100 atk via Craze, and then a card with Swamp Force 6 (+150atk) dies, 100 of that 150 will stay behind, so only 50 will be subtracted instead of the usual 150. To utilize the craze glitch, you need a card with force buffs that dies regularly. Dark Titan decks can utilize the craze glitch via guards (e.g. Goblin WarriorSF6). SK/PO decks can utilize the craze glitch via clay pigeons (e.g. Goblin Chemist). Mars decks can utilize the craze glitch via guards (e.g. GWsf6) and nonresistance cards. Deuc/Panda decks can utilize the craze glitch via nondexterity cards (e.g. Rose Nymph) Pazuzu decks can utilize the craze glitch via nonreflect/immune cards (e.g. Rose Nymph) and guards (e.g. Omniscient Dragonff6) It’s important to note that the max benefit is equal to the craze amount, so using 2xGoblin Warrior with Swamp Force will not give you twice the benefit, and having a higher force value than the craze amount also wont help much. Having higher force, or double force, will help the craze glitch bonus “catch up”, but eventually it’ll end up giving the same atk growth per round. So for example if a swamp card gains 200atk via craze and 50atk per round after that, and then a Swamp Force 4 (+100atk) card starts to die, the full 100 atk from the buff will stay behind for 4 rounds, and then it’ll go back to only 50 atk per round. If that same swamp card that gained 200atk via craze at 50atk per round after then has a Swamp Force 3 (+75atk) card that starts dying regularly, 75atk would stay behind for 8 rounds, and then it would go back to only 50 atk per round. The end result after 8 rounds is the same, but with the Swamp Force 4 card, it would reach that result sooner. BLOODTHIRSTY WILL NOT ACTIVATE THE CRAZE GLITCH , so for example, a craze 7 Butcher can only gain a maximum of 70atk/round from the craze glitch, because Bloodthirsty 9 doesn’t make the craze glitch work. Hence why it’s called the CRAZE glitch. Page 5
Now, for those who are mathematically/programmatically minded (such as myself), let’s explain it in another way. Let’s say you keep track of base atk, current atk, and buffs. What’s happening is that Craze increases current atk by the craze value, but increases base atk by twice that value. That way when you set current atk after removing a force buff, it considers base atk + buffs as the minimum atk that it can lower it to. Bloodthirsty however, increases base atk and current atk by the same amount, which is why it doesn’t work. So let’s look at an example: Start with Card A, a 200 atk swamp card, with no buffs on the field (BaseAtk: 200, CurrentAtk: 200, Buffs:0) Card A gains 50 atk via craze, so current atk increases by 50, but base atk increases by 50*2=100 (BaseAtk: 300, CurrentAtk: 250, Buffs:0) Card B, a card with Swamp Force 8, enters the field, increasing current and buffs by 200. (BaseAtk: 300, CurrentAtk: 450, Buffs:200) Card B dies, removing 200 atk from current, or lowering atk to base, but no further Current Atk = Minimum(BaseAtk + Buffs, CurrentAtk) Current Atk = Minimum(300 + 0, 450) = 300 (BaseAtk: 300, CurrentAtk: 300, Buffs:0) so in this scenario, the card gains 50 atk from craze, and 50 atk from the craze glitch, increasing atk from 200 to 300 with only a craze value of 50. 5) Silence Glitch If you know about the mollusc deck, or know about using CIGs/RNs for Bahamut or EW silence bosses, it’s because of the silence glitch. This only occurs on Bahamut (because he’s the only demon to silence), and allows force buffs to stack even after cards die and leave the field. This glitch occurs when a card giving a force/guard buff dies while silenced. So think of any card with resistance that also gives a force or guard buff. Because it wont die to Bahamut’s Destroy, the only way for it to die is to a melee attack, which comes after it is silenced, so resistance/immunity cards will always die while silenced. When a card giving a force/guard buff dies while silenced, that card is removed from the field, but its buff remains. so Say it was giving Mountain Force 6, it dies while silenced, the field is empty, then another mountain card is played. This new mountain card will gain the Mountain Force from the card that died while silenced even though that card is not on the field. Page 6
So let’s think of it another way. Let’s split all force/guard buffs into 2 skills, QuickStrike:AddBuff, and Desperation:RemoveBuff. When the card enters, it casts QuickStrike:AddBuff, and when it dies, it casts Desperation:RemoveBuff. However if it dies while silenced, it wont cast Desperation:RemoveBuff since that ability was removed by silence. Let’s take for example, a Mountain Force 6 (MF6) card. When this card is first played, it’s never silenced, so Quick Strike:Add Buff will always be cast, adding MF6 to the field. So now all mountain cards (besides the one giving the buff) will gain +150 atk. Normally, when a card dies while not silenced, Desperation:RemoveBuff will remove that buff from the field. However, if the MF6 card dies while silenced, that buff will not be removed from the field. So mountain cards that enter the field after that card is dead and removed from the field will still gain that buff. The only exception is when the card giving that buff is recycled and played again, it won’t receive its own buff, but it’ll receive all the buffs from any other mountain force/guard cards that died while silenced. Page 7
6) Demon Invasion Rewards Everyone gets a gold reward, and people above rank 100 get an additional reward.
Rank Rewards Last Hit: Ancient Artifact (700k gold) Rank 1: 4* or 5* card: Aranyani, Arbiter of War, Arctic Cephalid, Ancient Oni, Azula, Behemoth, Cerato, Dire Snapping Turtle, Fire Demon, Fire Kirin, Giant Mud Larva, Goddess of Order, Marsh Devourer, Moor Ripper, Night Elf Ranger, Taiga Cleric, Taiga General, Treant Healer, NEW: Griffon Dancer, NEW: Serpent Shamanka, NEW: Goblin Engineer, NEW: Flame Empress
Rank 23: Magic Banquet (27k exp, worth 125 gold packs of experience, ~1.25mil gold) Rank 45: Ancient Artifact (700k gold) Rank 610: Savory Feast (16,000 exp, worth 75 gold packs of experience, ~750k gold) Rank 1129: Rare Relics (300k gold) Rank 3050: Feast (7,000 exp, worth 33 gold packs of experience, ~330k gold) Rank 5175: Treasure (100k gold) Rank 76 100: Delicious Food (1,800 exp, worth 8 gold packs of experience, ~80k gold) Merit Rewards In addition to rank rewards, each player is rewarded gold based on how much merit they get. Amounts can be found in the pictures below:
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Types of Decks:
Headless Horsemen / Wood Elf Archer Decks
Headless Horseman (HH) This is your primary damage dealer. Because HH/WEA decks are built around each card having 1 attack each, abilities like Backstab are very useful because it essentially increases the card’s attack for it’s one and only hit. It also stacks with Concentration, causing each HH to hit for 575 half the time, and 1380 for half the time, for an average attack of 978. Dodge actually ends up being bad for these decks because the next attack won't have backstab, and when the next card makes it into position, it won't have backstab either. HH (and all 3* cards) cost 1325k gold to level to level 10 if using gold packs. 194k if using feasts. Each HH adds 18 seconds to your attack cooldown. Your HH/WEA deck should be about twothirds Headless Horsemen. Wood Elf Archer (WEA) This is your secondary damage dealer. It’s only useful abilities are Snipe, and it’s regular attack. In case you’re a beginner and do not know, Wood Elf Archer, and all cards with 2 of the same attack, will use both versions of the attack every turn, so Wood Elf Archer will do 210 snipe damage. Advantages to WEA are that are it is consistent (always does 555 total damage), it doesn’t dodge, if it gets played after a HH dodges it can snipe, and most importantly, it activates the Revival rune (more on that below). Costs 508k gold to level to level 10 if using gold packs. 58k if using feasts. Because of the low costs, I recommend leveling 23 WEA before you start on your HH.
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Headless Horsemen / Wood Elf Archer Runes
Revival When 2 Wood Elf Archers are dead, increases attack for the next 4 cards by 120. This bonus increases to 288 on a HH when Concentration works, 300 when Lore is working, and 588 when both are working. Total Additional Merit is 480 1764. The upper range on the possible bonus is why it’s so important, and why it’s worth using a few WEA in your deck in place of a few HHs. Leaf Only activates once you have enough HP to make it past round 14, but will eventually add a total of 960 damage/merit per attack. This rune will be used in almost all of your DI decks. Lore This rune is a 5* rune and can be found in the temple exchange for 20 gold shards. It will take quite a bit of gold to reach this, so it’ll be a goal for higher level players, but it will dramatically increase the effectiveness of HH/WEA decks at higher levels. With all 3 runes, many players aren’t able to build a better deck for Deucalion until a very high level, and even fewer are able to beat HH/WEA for Pandarus. The bonus doesn’t multiply with Concentration, but it does add to it. Total max attack on a Headless Horseman with Revival, Lore, Backstab, and Concentration is 3405. Fire Forge Only works for HH/WEA decks against Dark Titan because other demons use abilities and not attacks to kill your cards, but more on that below.
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Demonic Imps
Demonic Imp This will be an early introduction to Mars, since that’s the only demon where HH/WEA decks don’t work well. The reason is because in addition to his 1000 damage curse that directly damages your hero, he casts Destroy on a random card. If you use HH/WEA, that leaves you open to taking direct damage from his attack and his curse. If you use cards with resistance, you can last much longer, taking 1000 damage only per turn instead of 2200. Demonic Imp is a particularly useful resistance card for Mars because it has Concentration, as well as Resurrection. Concentration works just like Headless Horseman’s Concentration, a 50% chance to boost damage (but by 100% instead of 140%). The important part of Resurrection is it allows you to use fewer cards in your deck, which both makes the deck easier to build, and decreases your cooldown between attacks. Demonic Imps cost 1987k gold to level to level 10 if using gold packs, and 407k if using feasts. Lurker Assassin, a 3* card with Resistance and Backstab (no resurrection) can sometimes be used as a weaker resistance card for Mars.
Demonic Imp Runes Fire Forge Because Mars uses Destroy, and it
will fail, Mars is one of two demons (Dark Titan and Mars) where your cards are killed by the demon’s attack, and not an ability, so counterattack runes become useful here. This will eventually add 840 damage/merit per fight, but Demonic Imp decks usually won’t have enough imps to take full advantage of it, but it’s better than using an empty rune slot. Leaf like before, adds a total of 960 damage/merit per fight. Lore Like before, you need to be a higher level to last long enough and have enough imps to take advantage of it (needs 3 imps in the cemetery), but it can drastically increase their damage towards the end of the fight. Page 11
Goblin Cupids Goblin Cupid (GC) These guys deserve a brief mention in relation to Demonic Imps. They are also used to make starter Mars decks, but are actually better than Demonic Imps. Unfortunately you need more of them, and they’ve only been released as hydra merit cards so far, but if you still have them, their 2 wait allows you to get more hits in, since you can block the first hit with a goblin cupid instead of taking a direct hit before you get an imp out. Also, they’re more reliable because they don’t rely on resurrection, their concentration is stronger, and their low cost reduces the cooldown, and therefore increases MPM of your deck. Can be used with the Flying Stone rune to add 1080 damage per attack.
Static Stacks
Static Stacks are what you strive to eventually build for every demon. In these decks, you have a tank (or tanks) that can survive many rounds with the help of other cards to them. A good tank grows in atk each round, but we’ll go into this in greater detail in the Card Types section. Deucalion and Pandarus require a tank with Dexterity (which dodges counterattacks/retaliations), and since there are no cards with both Dexterity and Ice Shield, static tanking these is much more difficult. Pandarus can be statically stacked, but dynamic stacks are going to be better until new cards make it possible to beat the mpm of a good dynamic stack.
Dynamic Stacks
Dynamic stacks are an alternative to Static stacks where building a Static Stack is difficult. They are Particularly useful for Deucalion and Pandarus. The reason for this is that these demons counterattack, which is not reduced by Ice Shield, so even ice shield cards take the full 1500 damage every time they attack, and this damage cannot be reduced by means such as Wicked Leech cards (more on this later). Because no tank stays in place for a significant amount of time, they aren’t able to grow to a high atk value like static stacks do, and because of this, snipers are used to add supplemental damage, and recyclers and resurrection cards keep the cycle going. For Pandarus you should use a Dynamic Stack (until the cards to build a better static stack are released) once you find a deck better than HH/WEA, which will take you awhile. Page 12
Types of Cards: 1) Tanks Tanks are the cards that take the direct melee attack from the demon. Ice Shield (limits each attack to 100160 damage per attack) is on most viable DI tanks, but there are a few exceptions. Most notably are Forest Rider, as a Deucalion tank, and Reindeer Warrior, as a Sea King tank, who have Dexterity to dodge Deucalion’s counterattack, and Bloodsucker to heal, respectively. In addition to abilities to increase their survivability, good tanks will have abilities that increase their attack damage over the course of an attack. Examples of this are Bloodthirsty, Craze, and Wicked Leech. For Mars, your tank must have Resistance, or else he will be destroyed when Mars casts Destroy. Here are some examples of tanks: Cerato This is the starter tank. You get a few from completing the map, and you get them from fragments. In addition, Spiderdemon is in the KW store, and you can use 3x Spiderdemon to evolve your Cerato. Puncture doesn’t do anything for DI, but Ice Shield lets him survive melee attacks (with minimal healing from cards). Craze also increases his attack by 50 every round. Since you can spend 100+ rounds in position when your deck is set up right, that can convert to a bonus of 5000 atk by the end. Also, because Cerato is swamp, he’s eligible to evolve with Bloodthirsty and Craze, which increases the bonus per round up from 50 to 120. This also makes lasting more rounds more important. The Butcher Cerato’s Big Brother. The big bad butcher is used for all the same decks and more. Any deck where he can be used as a tank (except Mars), he should be. Like Cerato, he can have a very high growth rate, and Concentration 9 effectively gives that growth a 1.9x multiplier. So far he’s only been released once as a hydra merit card, but as it is a very important card they will hopefully release it somewhat regularly. Decks using The Butcher
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can hit around 2x higher than decks using any other tank (except Mars) Reindeer Warrior (RW) Doesn’t have Ice Shield, and is the only nonice shield tank that is used regularly for SK. Craze gives him the growth he needs to be a good tank, and Warpath makes all his hits 75% stronger against demons. Because of Warpath, Craze actually equates to a 105 atk increase each turn. Bloodsucker is what keeps him alive, as he can use that large attack pool to fully heal himself every round. However, to be a stable tank who can get set up properly, he needs to be level 15 with either Parry or Rejuvenation, otherwise he will get killed before he can get setup. He makes the best Sea King tank. He can be used to tank other demons as well, but that’s a more advanced deck. Once you’ve mastered everything in this guide, you can start trying to build RW decks for other demons. Malevolent Dryad (Dryad) Reindeer Warrior’s Big Sister. The combination of Craze and Wicked leech gives her fantastic growth, both in the short term (Wicked Leech) and long term (Craze). Bloodsucker is the survivability skill that replaces Ice Shield, making her an effective tank. Like RW, she can be used for SK, but also has the potential to work for PO/DT due to her much higher HP. Though she can be used for SK/DT/PO, The Butcher is better for those if you have it because of his growth + concentration. Unlike Reindeer Warrior, she CAN be evolved with Concentration 5, which adds some significance to her growth and also adds some stability via bloodsucker. Also unlike Reindeer Warrior, she can be used plain because of her higher base stats. She is best used for Pazuzu, and also has some potential on Deucalion and Pandarus. Anywhere you use RW, you can also use Malevolent Dryad, as well as a few other locations. It’s important to note that she CANNOT be used for tanking Mars. More on this in the Mars section (This is because craze will increase Mars’ attack pool until he eventually one shots her. Not to mention it’s very difficult to set up against Mars, who’s attack grows because of Wicked Leech, with a nonice shield tank) Page 14
Light Paladin (LP) very similar to Cerato, with a
few key differences. First, because his wait time is 4, he gets out faster. Getting your tank out faster improves the stability of your deck, which can greatly improve the stability and effectiveness of decks at a lower level. However, Wicked Leech is limited in growth by the atk of the opposing demon, so if you’re facing Sea King, the max bonus atk is 1200, and you will never actually reach that full 1200 bonus. This means for a lower level player who has a hard time setting up his stack and will last fewer rounds, this can be a better tank than Cerato. As you level up, Cerato will be more effective. However, where LP stands out is for Mars. To tank Mars he needs resistance, but once he does he makes the best tank. This is because Mars has Wicked Leech, and Cerato’s attack would eventually be drained to almost nothing, with a meager 50 bonus atk per round. LP will eventually stabilize his atk to be the average of his and Mars’, so his atk would be around 1000, and could be increased further by Northern Force cards. This is usually a card that requires gems though, so getting a Resistance LP as a F2P player would be a feat, and nearly impossible unfortunately. Also, since LP is Tundra, he cannot be evolved with Craze or Bloodthirsty. Griffon Dancer (GD) Good starter Mars tank. Chain attack doesn’t help against demons, but as she has Ice Shield and Resistance, she’s the only card who can effectively tank Mars without any evolutions. She lacks any attack growth, so a resistance Cerato will be slightly better, however since Cerato gets that bonus leeched through Mars’ Wicked Leech anyways, that bonus doesn’t help much. Can be evolved with Snipe or Retaliation to add some extra damage that can’t be leeched, but Griffon Dancer is a very Page 15
expensive card to evolve (another GD or 2x Sea Piercer) FrostreeFolk (FTF) Not a particularly useful tank for its abilities, but deserves a mention for it’s availability. FTF is available in the FoH store. Once he has resistance, Mars is entirely incapable of killing him due to Rejuvenation which heals almost all damage done (only takes 10 dmg/round, so it’d take more than 80 rounds to kill him), so he’s very useful in building an early Mars stack. How easy it is to tank Mars with a resistance FTF also illustrates how Mars is a hero killer type demon. He sucks at killing resistance ice shield cards, but without guard/prayer , you’ll still die. Forest Rider (FR) For awhile, Forest Rider was the only tank with Dexterity 5 that also had attack growth (via Bloodthirsty). This makes FR a valid Deucalion tank with the right . Since Deucalion’s 1500 damage Retaliation (Devil’s Armor) is dodged, the only damage FR takes is the 900 atk damage, which can be easily dealt with with the assistance of healing and/or leech cards. FR can also be used in starter dynamic stacks to add some stability. Also, because Devil’s Armor two cards, often times it’s wise to use two FRs to protect your other cards. If you use only one FR, it’s still somewhat of a dynamic stack because the 2nd card dies regularly to Devil’s Armor. FR’s hp is far too low to tank Pandarus, However. Blackfire Assassin (BFA) Forest Rider’s big brother. Dodge is much more useful than backstab for stability purposes, and has much higher base stats and atk growth than FR. Because it’s mountain, it can be evolved with bloodsucker. Concentration is still the ideal evolution for Deucalion decks (much like FR), but Bloodsucker is necessary to tank Pandarus. With Bloodsucker, BFA can tank panda with very little Page 16
. Dryad and BFA are the two main options for Deuc and Panda tanks. Much like FR, it’s probably best to use 2 of these in your deck to dodge both Devil’s Armor hits. 2) Recyclers These cards have Reincarnation 1, Reincarnation 2, or Reanimation. They Keep cards coming back as they die. This can be used early on to revive your tank if it comes out too early and dies, to revive your snipers, or card healers, but is most notably used to revive your Guards for demons that use Curse / Damnation (Dark Titan and Mars) and clay pigeons for demons that use Snipe (Sea King and Plague Ogryn), as they will die regularly, usually every turn. Here are some examples: Treant Healer (TH) Probably the most common, and certainly one of the most useful, Reincarnators. Forest Guard is useful for increasing Reindeer Warrior’s HP (and other cards), and Reincarnation 2 allows him to reincarnate 2 cards, as opposed to 1, for the cards that use Reincarnation 1, such as Whitewing Pope and Dragon Knight. Celestial Touchstone (CT) Probably the best Reincarnation card. In addition to having a very large health pool that can survive more than 1 attack, it has dodge. This allows it to sit in tank position for an extra round or 2, in addition to the extra round or 2 due to its hp. This gives you time to set up the rest of your stack and draw the cards you need. It also has Reincarnation 2, which recycles 2 cards instead of 1.
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Whitewing Pope (WWP) A very unique Reincarnation card. Only Reincarnates 1 card at a time, but it has Ice Shield and a high hp pool. Because of Ice Shield, he can end up being your tank, which is worse than Cerato for most demons because his atk doesn’t get any larger. For that reason many people will say to never use him. On the other hand, the 4 wait makes him stabilize a lot of early decks, allowing you to make stacks that work against demons much earlier than people typically think. You can design stacks before level 40 that use WWP. The High HP and Ice Shield also makes him a great recycler for Deucalion, allowing him to survive an extra counterattack. Dragon Knight (DrK) Most of the time other reincarnators are going to be better, but Dodge can help to add stability against hardhitting demons (such as PO), Resistance makes him a good early recycler for Mars, and the fact that he only reincarnates 1 card can sometimes be useful. On demons where reanimation is important, reincarnating only 1 card can leave something for your lep/TC to reanimate. It being mountain also helps activate Blood Stone, a very useful stabilizing rune. When more are released, he could become more useful with mountain only evos (like Mountain Force). Useful as a substitute for GM (below) in Bahamut decks. Giant Mollusc (GM) Not a particularly useful reincarnator, but because of it’s availability in the KW store, it can be useful for new players. When evolved with Resistance it can be used for an early resistance recycler for Mars or even Bahamut. However this recycler shines in one place: Bahamut. This is because he has Mountain Force, which allows you to take advantage of the Silence Force Glitch, as well as reincarnation, which allows a continous cycle. Page 18
Necroflayer (NF) The only swamp reincarnator. Can be decent with Resistance for Mars, or as a reincarnator for new players. However because it’s HP is higher than cerato, it makes it difficult to guarantee his position. Unlike Treant Healer, it can’t be evolved with healing evos, such as regeneration, or healing. However because it is swamp, it can be useful if you need swamp only evos. Leprechaun (Lep) One of 3 Reanimation cards available. It’s 4 wait makes it fast to get out onto the field, and it’s dodge works similar to how it does on CT (with a higher chance of working) to help stabilize decks. Reanimation is often preferable to Reincarnation because it puts the target card on the field that turn. Sometimes you need both Reincarnation and Reanimation, and sometimes it’s better to have just one or the other. His healing also provides most of the healing you need for most demons, putting less requirements on your card healers Taiga Cleric (TC) The most available Reanimator. TC can drop from mazes, and you get one as a reward for reaching level 60. Additionally, his evolution fodder (Arctic Sea Dragon) is in the KW store, so this makes him a good candidate for your first resistant recycler, to be used in a Mars deck (where you need as much resistance as possible). Additionally, because he is Tundra, you can evolve him with Prayer, making him the ideal reanimation card as you get to a higher level. However, his 6 wait makes using him at lower levels difficult, as that 6 wait hurts the stability of many decks. If you don’t have Leprechaun, you Page 19
probably won’t be able to build a stack until level 51 or 61. Chaos Demon (CD) Primarily an arena card that is seldom used for DI, but can be a last resort for new players if they have one. It’s actually not a bad early recycler for Mars and Bahamut, but Sacrifice hurts the stability of other decks too much usually. However, the one place CD is useful in DI is Pazuzu. This is because he has Immunity, so he’ll never die to frost shock. This guarantees that your reanimator (CD) will be positioned to the left of your reincarnator, which is always ideal since cards are pulled directly onto the field before they’re reincarnated into your deck. Death Knight (DK) by far the best plain reanimator. The combination of Reanimation, Resurrection, and high HP makes it a perfect reanimator for adding stability. High HP means it wont be sniped, and if it does come out too early, it can resurrect. Also because he’s swamp he can help activate Dirt, a great stability rune. Can often take the place of 2 reanimators like TC for stability purposes, allowing you to add more prayer cards, like Phantom Guardian (below) or damage dealer/sniper cards. If you want to make a deck more stable, Death Knight is almost always a great option. The only downside to DK is that there isn’t much incentive to evolve Death Knight other than higher hp. His evos wont do anything to add stability, the only useful DK evos just add a little bit of damage (e.g. Snipe) Page 20
3) Hero & Card Healers These cards come in 2 types: Card Healers (Regeneration and Healing), and Hero Healing (Prayer). It just so happens that most of the cards that you’ll use for one also have the other. The main exceptions are cards like Leprechaun, where it’s primarily a recycler, but also does some healing too. Statue of Light (SoL) The most basic and available Healing card. Has a powerful prayer and regeneration. Arctic Guard can be useful for increasing HP of tundra guard cards, but Prayer and Regeneration are its primary use. Also, because SoL is tundra, it can be evolved with Prayer, making it one of the best healing cards, as well as the most available. Goddess of Order (GoO) The gold standard of healing cards. Really the gold standard of all cards. Difficult to obtain, but with time, are accessible even to F2P players. Stronger Prayer and regeneration than SoL, but most importantly has Desperation: Reanimation. This doesn’t make it a recycler, but definitely adds stability to a deck, though if you have enough of them, this can be enough reanimation to reliably reanimate your reincarnation card so that you only need 1 other recycler. This stabilizing healing is necessary for longtostabilize static stacks, as well as dynamic stacks. However, since GoO isn’t tundra, a Prayer 5 SoL will outpace a GoO eventually in decks where increasing max rounds is more important than improving stability Page 21
Phantom Guardian (PG) Though PG
does have Guard, it’s more effective as a healer/prayer card. Because it’s tundra, it can be evolved with Prayer, or a total of 960 Prayer on one card. By far the most on any one card. Guard means that you can’t use it to its full potential in hero killer demon decks like DT, but it still can be used effectively in those decks. Because it doesn’t offer any stability abilities (e.g. regeneration/arctic guard), decks must already be very stable with the help of other cards before you can use PG. But if your deck is stable enough, and you don’t need the healing and arctic guard from SoL, it can be a suitable replacement for a prayer SoL. In some cases even a plain PG is better than a SoL. Page 22
4) Guards These cards are needed for static stacks on Dark Titan and Mars. This is because every turn these demons do 1000 damage directly to your hero, and Dark Titan also casts Damnation, dealing 200 damage per card you have on the battlefield. A simple 2* Arctic Defender or 3* Ice Blademaster will work in most cases, but you can add some utility to 4* and 5* guard cards through evolutions. Guard cards are the subject of many “secrets” to DI decks that hit for incredible numbers. I won’t divulge those here, but with enough asking around you can find out. Here are some examples: Ice Blademaster (IB) simple 3* Guard card. SoL’s Arctic Guard increases her HP. This will be your standard goto guard card for starter decks. Since it gets guard at level 0, it can be useful for leveling it to the level so that it has closest to the exact HP that you need to guard against. Arctic Defender (AD) simple 2* Guard card. SoL’s Arctic Guard increases his HP. This will be an alternate to IB, and can be useful when starting early because of how cheap it is to level. There are a few cases where Arctic Defender will give higher Merit Per Minute due to its cost. This is when the HP of your Guard doesn’t matter. Omniscient Dragon (OD) Obtainable through FoH and KW. Better than IB/AD in most cases, and also is the ideal Guard for Mars due to Resistance. Because it is 5* and forest, it can be useful if you need to evo it with forestonly abilities (such as Forest Force to take advantage of the craze glitch for forest tanks). Its high cost can be a downside though. Page 23
Goblin Warrior (GW) Simple Swamp guard card, useful for swamp only evos (Such as Swamp Force, to take advantage of the craze glitch for swamp tanks). Can also be useful in general for having a guard card that can be evolved with less health than Omniscient Dragon. Obtained through events. Santa’s Helper (SH) Simple Tundra guard card, useful for tundra only evos (e.g. Prayer/Northern Force). Also has Arctic Guard by default. Can also be useful in general for having a guard card that can be evolved with less health than Omniscient Dragon. Obtained through events. Lava Destroyer (LD) One of the best guard cards. Is obtainable easily by f2p through the FoH store, but will take some time to buy all the required fragments, as it’s somewhat rare in the FoH store. Desperation:Reanimation, Resurrection, and it’s 1wait make it a very stable card, helping add a lot of stability to decks, and in a lot of cases it can be a substitute for GoO. It is feasibly evolvable, but I wouldn’t plan on it anytime soon. Phantom Guardian (PG) in Healers section . Page 24
5) Clay Pigeons These cards are used for Sea King and Plague Ogryn to be the target of their Snipe ability, which does 2000 damage to the card with the lowest HP. A good clay pidgeon ideally has resurrection to add stability while you get them in place before a recycler can get them back up, and have lower hp than all your other cards. Low wait (e.g. 2) is also ideal so that if they are reincarnated or resurrected instead of reanimated, they can get out fast enough to take the next snipe before one of your important cards are sniped. Like guard cards, there are many “secrets” to DI decks surrounding these, and I’ll leave it up to you to find these out on your own. Because there are no required abilities for a clay pigeon, it is a loose definition that any card with low hp can fill (including cards under level 10), but here are some common ones: Fire Mage (FM) Most common clay pigeon. Readily available in gold packs, and has a high chance of resurrection (65%), this will be the most common clay pigeon, and the clay pigeon used for almost all starter decks. Blood Lotus Nymph (BLN) One of the best clay pigeons. Can be evolved. She works well with Fire Mage because it has slightly higher HP so it is last to go among your clay pigeons, and although the wait is a bit lower, she deals 360 damage per turn that she is alive via mana corruption, and if she happens to come out in front of a demon first, she gets a little extra bonus with Backstab. It’s important to note that her 60% chance to res compared to FM’s 65% can hurt a deck’s stability a surprising amount. Also can be used as a sniper! Page 25
Goblin Chemist (GC) A great low cost card to take
advantage of the craze glitch. It wont cover the full craze amount for a craze cerato, but it will for a craze Butcher or a plain/bloodthirsty Cerato. If all you need is for your clay pigeon to cover the craze amount, GC can be the best because of the low cost. However it doesn’t add any other utility. It’s very low HP makes it very easy to use as a clay pigeon as all DI cards have more HP than it. Taurus Guard (TG) I thought it’d be important to show an example of an evolved clay pigeon. TG needs to be evolved to be used because it doesn’t have swamp force by default, but once you give it swamp force, it is the lowest hp card that can have Swamp Force 5 or 6 as well as Swamp Guard. Swamp Guard is important because it acts as a heal for your tank. This makes TG an effective clay pigeon for demons like Plague Ogryn because every time he is reanimated (which should be every turn), he heals your deck, so you only need 400 regeneration for your cards instead of 400 regeneration and an additional 110150 healing for your tank. Swamp Rider (SR) Can be used at level 0 to cover 125 per turn for the craze glitch. This is enough to cover craze cerato and craze butcher. It has the lowest hp and cost of any card with Swamp Force 5. If your deck permits, you can level it to level 10 (assuming all other cards are higher hp than SR at L10) and evolve it with another ability. Desperation/Quick Strike abilities can work well on clay pigeons since they’re meant to die every turn. If you need Swamp Guard and Swamp Force, it’s usually better to use Taurus Guard because it has less HP than Swamp Rider at level 5. Page 26
There are lots of other options for clay pigeons. Anything with Force buff can active the craze glitch, and sometimes snipers or recyclers can also be the best clay pigeons. This is where you have a chance to get creative with your deck building. 6) Snipers/Damage Dealers These are cards that do damage to the demon beside your tank. All cards can be snipers as they can be evo’d with Snipe, however the most effective snipers will have Mana Corruption, and Resurrection doesn’t hurt either. These are most necessary for dynamic stacks and for Mars stacks. Mars mostly because your primary tank will have all of its attack leeched, unless you’re lucky enough to have a resistance Light Paladin. Here are some common examples: Thunder Dragon (TD) One of the most common, and most effective snipers. The combination of a high chance of Resurrection and a high level of mana corruption makes him very useful in dynamic stacks. Resurrection can also be useful in Mars stacks in place of a resistance sniper (such as AL, below) where he can be targeted by Destroy Arctic Lich (AL) Perfect for Mars because he has Resistance and can’t be taken out by Destroy. Having resistance on your snipers allow you to have a stable deck with nonresistance cards where you may not have them, such as recyclers. Can be evolved with prayer. Skeleton King (SK) Doesn’t use mana corruption, but it’s high level Snipe makes it a Page 27
good contender among sniper cards. Has all the same abilities as Blood Lotus Nymph in the previous section, but with higher values (aside from trading MC for Snipe), as well as higher Atk and Hp. Backstab and Resurrection makes it an excellent candidate for Dynamic Stacks. Pharaoh Very similar to TD. The only difference in their abilities (in of DI) is a 60% chance to resurrect vs TD’s 65%, which as stated in BLN’s description , can make a fairly significant difference in deck stability. The only other noteworthy difference is that he can be evolved with mountainonly skills, and can activate mountain runes. Voodoo Scarecrow (VS) Again, very similar to TD, though instead of sacrificing 5% chance to resurrect , you sacrifice 60 mana corruption damage, which is usually a better sacrifice. Similar to Pharaoh with mountain, he can be used for swamp only evos and swamp runes. This can actually make him better than TD because he can activate Dirt , one of the best stabilizing runes. Voodoo Scarecrow’s High ATK and HP are another advantage over other snipers. Dragon Summoner (DS) one of the strongest, if not THE strongest, damage dealers. Mana corruption by both the summoner and his dragon coupled by base prayer makes him one of the most effective damage dealer cards. Also, even though he and his dragon don’t have resurrection, the fact that it is 2 cards still helps stability because it allows other cards to build up behind this card. So while his TD is being killed that gives you an extra round to get another card out before you take damage. An excellent card for dynamic stacks, and occasionally useful for static stacks as well. Page 28
Beetlelisk (Beetle) has two strong damage dealing abilities, as well as reflection. This makes him a potential candidate to do damage in Pazuzu decks, however in practice I don’t find much use for him in Pazuzu. Additionally, because he has no stability adding abilities, beetlelisk is usually best left out of your deck unless you already have an incredibly stable deck. Though if you do have a very stable deck already (like a dynamic stack with 2xDeath Knight), he can still be useful. The Don like DS, he’s one of the
best damage dealers. In addition to building a stack with his THREE summoned cards, he has snipe on his own as well as 2xSwamp Force and 2xSwamp Guard from his 2 Swamp Riders. The Don’s usefulness comes mostly from his ability to create a small stack with just a single card. After you play the don you usually have 23 rounds before you must get another card out to prevent your hero from taking damage. This adds a LOT of stability to dynamic stacks, Page 29
especially those that can benefit from his swamp riders’ Swamp Guard. 7) Leechers These aren’t a regular component of most stacks, however they deserve a mention. Since Wicked Leech (e.g. Light Paladin, Queen of the Dead/QotD) works on cards with Immunity, these cards can reduce the attack damage of demons, improving deck stability, and making it possible to tank demons in ways you wouldn’t have previously thought possible. Queen of the Dead is one of the most useful leechers, but this category is one that is experimental, and can be rewarding, so if you can think of a spot where a leecher may be useful, I urge you to test it (via simulator) and see how it works out. I personally have designed very effective decks this way, and this is another subject that a lot of DI “secrets” revolve around. Page 30
Types of Runes for Stacks:
1A) Heals/Absorbs
These runes heal your cards, and more importantly, give them absorbs (spring breeze). Absorbs allow your cards to get more than their max HP. Adding healing runes to a deck will help you add stability so that your cards can be healed while they get in place, and while your card healers are still getting into place. They usually won’t increase your max merit, but they will increase your MPM by increasing your average MPF. Spring Breeze (SB) This is one of the best healing runes because it allows you to have more than your max HP. So cards that couldn’t survive a hit with their normal HP can potentially survive a hit with Spring Breeze active. Requires at least 2 forest cards, ideally 3 or 4. Clear Spring (CS) Simple healing rune. It’s the weakest of the healing runes, but it can still be vital towards stabilizing certain stacks. One situation where it is particularly important is building early stacks that use Taiga Cleric instead of Leprechaun (tundra vs forest) Blood Stone (BS) Stronger healing rune. Higher healing than Clear Spring, but since it requires mountain cards, it can only be used in SK/PO decks where you use Fire Mage or BLN as clay pigeons. One advantage to Blood Stone is that it occurs after a card’s turn, instead of at the beginning of a round, so it activates after a card is damaged by poison (such as on PO), allowing it to heal the damage it is dealt by poison. Red Valley (RV) Can be useful if using multiple swamp cards. Swamp cards tend to be somewhat of a rarity in DI decks, but can be one of the better healing runes if you can use it, so if you’re using 2 or more swamp cards, it’s definitely worth considering. Page 31
2) Stabilizers These runes basically serve the same purpose as the healing runes, and so have a similar level of priority, depending on your deck. They add stability to your deck by adding survivability to your cards. There are 3 key runes for this, one that adds dodge, one that adds resurrection, and one that adds ice shield. There’s almost no downside to these runes, other than that sometimes other runes are more useful, or you may not have the cards to activate them. These are activated when you have cards in the cemetery already, so are useful in saving your stack if it’s about to fail. Like healing runes, they probably won't add to your max merit, but will add to your MPM due to improved stack stability. These are particularly useful for Dynamic Stacks, but can be used in both Static and Dynamic. Dirt a 5* Swamp rune. Adds Resurrection to your cards when you have 2+ swamp cards in the cemetery. Resurrection adds a lot of stability to a deck, especially if it saves your last recycler from dying. Swamp isn’t a very common kingdom of card for DI (aside from cerato), so this isn’t commonly used in DI decks, but when it can be, it is very useful. Only requires 2 cards in the cemetery, so it is pretty reliable. Nimble Soul (NS) a 5* Forest rune. Adds dodge to your cards when you have 3+ forest cards in the cemetery. Nimble Soul is particularly useful in dodging demons with a very high attack, such as Plague Ogryn due to Hot Chase (+140 dmg per card in your cemetery) Arctic Freeze (AF) Gives a high level of Ice Shield when 3+ cards are in the cemetery. It is more reliable than dodge, and aside from damaging abilities, basically guarantees your card’s surval from attacks. Tends to be Page 32
useful in Mars decks where you make use of a lot of Arctic Liches and other tundra cards. 3) Damage Increases These runes don’t change anything about the stability of your deck, but only add damage. Sometimes these add more average merit per fight than stability runes, but typically are only used when you’ve added all the stability and healing runes that you can activate. Tsunami The most important damage rune for static stacks. Gives Craze to your cards for 4 turns. Activates at 50% hp, so is very useful in that it doesn’t require any kind of specific types of cards to work. Unfortunately it can activate when you can’t make use of it (before your tank is in place), but if it activates at the right time, and all 4 turns are used while your tank is in place, it adds 320 attack per turn. So if your tank survives for 50 turns after it is fully activated and used, that’s a total of 16000 extra damage, and it can definitely do more than that. Because of this, it has the highest potential of any damage rune, and can dramatically increase your maximum merit. However, it’s important to note that though the max potential is very high, it is relatively common for it to have no effect. Thunder Shield (TS) adds 4 turns of retaliation when you have 2+ Forest cards on the field. Adds a total of 800 damage. Leaf adds 4 turns of snipe 8, or 240 damage per turn, for a total of 960 damage. ( More in HH/WEA deck section ) Revival adds 4 turns of +120 damage for a total of 480 damage. This bonus is further increased by multiplicative abilities like Warpath and Concentration. ( More in HH/WEA decks section ) Frost Bite Gives Concentration 7 (50% to increase damage by 140%) when you have 4+ tundra cards in the cemetery. Due to large tundra requirements it’s rare that this will be very useful, but it’s worth considering at least if you have it, and you have lots of tundra cards. Lore Not a lot of static or dynamic stacks have enough mountain runes to activate this (3 in cemetery), but if you do, it can be one of the best damage increasing runes. ( More in HH/WEA decks section ) Page 33
Flying Stone Can add a total of 1080 damage per attack if you have enough swamp cards, making it one of the best static damage runes. It’s rare to use 3+ swamp, but worth ing.
Getting Started:
1) Building your first DI decks
When you first start, you definitely want to focus on HH/WEA decks first. If you’re short on gold, you want to level WEAs before HH. The ratio is roughly twothirds HH and onethird WEA. This will likely be used until and even after level 70 or so for Pandarus, so even if you have better decks for most demons, there’s still a good reason to build a HH/WEA deck. After you get Lore, you want to use 67 HH before adding WEA, to ensure Lore is used fully. After you have your HH/WEA deck, and while you’re building it, you want to make sure you hold onto all your 4* and 5* cards, and make sure to lock them so you don’t accidentally sell them or use them for enchanting fodder. Look at the types of cards that you want to save in the Card Types section. Most Notably, you’ll run into Cerato and Statue of Light in the Map, and you’ll get a Taiga Cleric at level 60, though you can usually get all the cards for a successful stack before then. My one piece of advice is don’t use any 4* for enchanting fodder, even if you have a bunch already, and it’s not evo fodder for any cards currently. The reason being you may have made a mistake and later realize that you did need that card, or it may become the evo fodder for a new card that could be very useful for DIs. 2) Building your first stacks Before you worry about evolutions, you need to make sure you have at least a couple cards from each category, and at minimum enough to build one complete stack. You can see basic stack examples later in the guide, but most notably keep all Reincarnation/Reanimation cards, all Statue of Lights, all Ceratos, and any of the cards in the Card Types section. If it’s not in the card types section, it may still be useful for DIs, so just think about it and decide if it would be useful for any of the same reasons that those cards are useful. This guide is meant to be an intro, not do the work for you, so ideally you’ll be able to know a good tank when you see it, and not just have to look at the list above. And if you’re unsure, I recommend you simulate it, otherwise you’ll be limited by the decks that other people share with you, and you’ll want to build the best deck that you can build with your cards, not that other people can build with their cards. 3) Ideal Evolutions Tanks Growth skills like Craze and Bloodthirsty if your tank is swamp. Resistance if you want to tank mars. For nonswamp tanks that don’t need resistance, you can add Parry/Rejuvenation/Regeneration/Resurrection (for stability), or Retaliation/Snipe (for damage) Recyclers Usually Resistance to make Mars stacks viable. Once you have resistant recyclers, Prayer is usually best to increase the number of rounds that your stacks last. However, because of its rarity, if you see Prayer before you get Resistance, you should stick Page 34
with Prayer. Besides Prayer, you can add force buffs (e.g. Forest Force) if your recycler is the same kingdom as your tank, or snipe, for damage, or you can add healing (Healing or Regeneration) or Guard buffs (e.g. Forest Guard) for stability. Card & Hero healers Since Statue of Light is the most common healer, Prayer is usually the ideal evolution, but can be hard to come across. If you come across Snipe or Northern Force, those can add damage. Colossal Ice Golem is also tundra, with the same ideal evos. Goddess of Order can’t get prayer, but can add stability to many dynamic stacks (where GoO is most useful) with Forest Guard, and add damage with Forest Force and Snipe. Regeneration or Healing can add stability by increasing healing effectiveness. Guards and Clay Pigeons Most aren’t evolvable, but if you can, you can add Quick Strike or Desperation prayer to any card (useful for guard cards), or Force buffs/Snipe to add damage. Snipers Since it’s role is a sniper, Snipe usually suits these cards well, but depending on your sniper’s kingdom and the type of stack, you can add stability/damage with force/kingdom buffs. 4) Evolution Strategies A lot of people are curious about what skills to choose, and when to stop evolving if aiming for certain skills. First, decide what you’re going for. Use the Evolution Skill List to determine what skill you’re after, and what color it is (purple/gold), and double check the Evolution Skills by Kingdom List to make sure that skill is available in the Kingdom you’re evolving. You cannot evolve two attack multipliers on one card! This means a card with warpath (e.g. Reindeer Warrior) CANNOT be evolved with concentration! MORE ON THIS ON NEXT PAGE Going for Gold : Evolve until you get it. Continue past +5 if you need to. Going for Purple : Evolve until +5. If you don’t see it, start over if you have a card to start over with. The exception to this is if you won’t be able to get enough cards to start over and see purple skills again. Beyond that, I know of one, very minor strategy that works. Because you’ll never see the skill that you currently have as another evo option, you should choose a skill that is the same color as the one you’re aiming for (unless it’s a downgrade for what you already have). This is because it keeps a skill of that color from appearing in possible options. For example, if there are 25 purple skills, and you’re looking for 1 on your 5th evo, you have a 3 in 61 chance of finding it. If you choose one of those purple skills already, you have a 3 in 60 chance of finding it. Nothing major, but it’s a slight improvement.
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All other evolution strategies, such as evolution paths (new choices dependent upon previous choices) seem to be based on superstition. You can choose to believe them if you want, but they have no factual basis as far as I’m aware. (7th evo: 6 gold & 2 purple)
Evo
Conflicts Thanks to Mario, a member of the EK team for translating this evolution conflict chart from the Chinese version for me. This chart tells you which skills are impossible to get through evolution if the base card has the skill on the left:
Cards with Teleportation, Quick Strike: Teleportation, and Quick Strike:Exile also have the same conflicts. There are a few problems with this list, so don’t take it for 100% fact. There are a few known and suspected conflicts that aren’t covered by this list: Known: ● ●
Ice Dragon (which has Dodge) can get Parry (Confirmed) Red Banded Dragon & Fire Dragon Turtle (which have Resurrection) can get Resurrection (Confirmed) Suspected: ● Reindeer Warrior (which has Warpath) CANNOT get Concentration (Confirmed) ● Ancient One (Which has Clean Sweep) CANNOT get Concentration. ● Griffon Dancer (Which has Ice Shield) MIGHT be able to get Reflection (1 instance)
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Resources
1) Community Forums EK.Arcannis.com
This is where I got my start. Though Arca doesn’t keep the website updated anymore, the forums are still active and you can get good advice there. I started after Arca stopped updating the website, so I can confirm that the information on the forums is relevant. This post on the forums I found particularly useful and it’s where I first learned a lot of information included in this guide. 2) Card List Ekfaq.com/cardlist Use this website to search for cards. Many images in this guide come from there. In addition to searching by name, you can search by ability (e.g. Reincarnation if you wan’t to see all cards with reincarnation), not all cards are available on every server, but they likely will become available at some point if they aren’t already, and it never hurts to plan ahead. You can also sort by stars and kingdoms. It’s also useful for finding out what a card’s alternate evolution card is, and it often has the correct card for that before the card is released on any server. An alternative to ekfaq with all the same information (and more) is this excel spreadsheet that I use. It has all the same info, with a little extra, including decks on each map space, map rewards, runes, and skills. It isn’t as pretty (no images), but you can sort columns A>Z or Z>A. The most useful use for it that I know of is using it to find what cards are in the KW store, FoH store, drop from mazes, drop from thieves, drop from warlord packs, drop from warrior packs, and drop from fire tokens. 3) Evolve Skill List Ekfaq.com/evolveskills Has a list of all possible evolution skills. They are color coded so you can see at which evolution level (+1/+2/+3/+4/+5) the skill is potentially available. 4) Evolve Skills by Kingdom gammiesden.com Page 37
Has a list of possible evolution skills by kingdom. So you can see that Craze/Bloodthirsty/Counterattack are swamp only, and Resurrection are mountain only for instance. It’s wise to check if the skill you’re after is available here before wasting resources trying to get an impossible evolution skill. 5) Line Line.me The most popular chatting app. Available on all platforms. Any and all serious players will use it to communicate with their clan, as well as groups devoted to DI, FoH, Simulators, and any topics people decide to make groups for. It is superior to ingame chat because you can read conversations that were had when you weren’t online, so you don’t miss anything, and is great for linking images, such as deck/card images, and keeps you up to date on the most important EK news. If you need help finding chatrooms to start out on Line, feel free to add me. (Line ID: Lightja)
SIMULATORS
Peppa's / EKFanatics (Very Friendly) Link
Peppa’s ‘EKFanatics’ simulator is one of the most commonly used simulators. The reason I’m listing it first is because it is very friendly. It has an understandable GUI that is pretty self explanatory. It doesn’t require command line input or editing of any ‘.txt’ files, it’s just a simple process of open, pick cards/runes, and run. Because of how friendly it is (compared to the other simulators at least), I recommend this to anyone who’s learning their first simulator, but I encourage everyone to also branch out at some point and try the others. So here comes the pictureguided tour of how to get started with Peppa’s EKFanatics simulator: 1. Go to http:/pa84.com/ and the latest version (highlighted in image below with a red box)
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(continued on next page) 2. Extract the folder to wherever you want to use it from. Your desktop should be just fine, that’s where I put it personally. 3. Open the ‘EK Fanatic’ folder from wherever you extracted it (for me, my desktop) 4. Run the ‘Elemental Kingdoms Fanatic’ application. Page 39
5. This is what the simulator should look like. Image below. For this example, we’re going to test against Dark Titan, so in the top left click ‘Opponent’, then ‘Demon >’, then ‘Dark Titan’. This will select Dark Titan as the demon we’re testing against.
6. With Dark Titan Selected, click the ‘Edit Attacker’ button (highlighted with red box below). This will show a Headless Horseman and Wood Elf Archer deck. Feel free to go ahead and click the ‘Simulate multiple’ if you want to just see how the test runs and the results will show up underneath the simulate button. But for this example, we’re going to test a better deck. Right click the topleft square (highlighted with blue box below) 10 times, and this will clear the deck so that we can choose the cards we want to test with. Then left click the same blue box to choose our first card.
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7. This will launch the ‘CardSearcher’ window. Inside this window, you can start typing the name of a card in the ‘Name’ text box (highlighted with red underline below). Start typing ‘Cerato’ and this will narrow the cards that you see in the below box until Cerato is the only one you see. Once you have Cerato selected click ‘OK’. (highlighted with red box below)
8. Just like we did with Cerato, add 2 Leprechauns, 2 Statue of Lights, and 2 Omniscient Dragons.
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9. Just like we did with the cards, right click the top left rune slot (highlighted with red box to the right) 4 times to empty runes. Then left click the red box to open the ‘RuneSearcher’ window.
10. Just like we did with the cards, add ‘Leaf’, ‘Tsunami’, ‘Clear Spring’, and ‘Spring Breeze’
11. Once you have all your runes selected, run the test by clicking the “Simulate multiple” button (highlighted with red box below). This will make the results appear below the simulate button (highlighted with green box below). If you selected the correct cards and runes you should get the same results as you see below. Your results might be off a little bit, but mpm should be within a few hundred at least. merit: 5620 108200 mpm: 14400 mpf: 64920 cooldown:4:30
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Crystark's / EKBattlesim (My Favorite) Link
Crystark’s ‘EKBattlesim’ is my personal favorite simulator. Everyone’s preferences and experiences are different, but in my personal experience, Crystark’s simulator tends to provide the most reliable and accurate results. It’s also very powerful. It has pretty much any mode you could think of (each demon, thief, hydra, KW, arena, FoH) and has the most options. Most notably, is its ability to test multiple decks at a time, namely with the vs option (which is used for arena and FoH). This allows you to test one deck against a long list of other decks. I use this to test against a database of saved decks, and it shows the win rate against each deck, as well as a global average. So if I want to improve my arena deck, I run my test deck against all of the decks in my arena database. If I want to improve my 2*, 3* or 4* FoH decks, I run my test deck against all of the decks in my 2*, 3*, and 4* databases respectively. If you want help building a database to use for testing or just help in general with Crystark’s simulator, feel free to me via Line. (id: Lightja) Crystark’s simulator can be a little daunting compared to Peppa’s because it requires you to input decks as text files, and requires you to use a console with command line inputs to run it. This really isn’t hard to learn, but it’s not as easy to figure out as simply clicking on buttons. If you get into simulating regularly, I highly recommend that you learn how to use it. Crystark does a fantastic job documenting how it is used on his wiki (where you can also the simulator) on bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/Crystark/ekbattlesim/wiki/Home To supplement Crystark’s documentation on bitbucket, I’ll provide my own stepbystep guide with visual aids to help those visual learners out there. Setup and start up tutorial begins on the next page. Page 43
1. Go to Crystark’s bitbucket page and the .zip file with his simulator. Highlighted with an underline in the image below. 2. Extract the ‘ekbattlesim’ folder anywhere you want. This is how you access the simulator, so I suggest putting it somewhere you can access easily, such as your desktop. That’s where I put mine. Page 44
3. Create a new .txt file in the ‘ekbattlesim’ folder. Call it whatever you want. For now, i’ll just call it ‘deck.txt’. For now, instead of creating a new .txt file, open deck.sample.txt and save it as deck.txt. I’m not sure why, but I was having issues getting the simulator to recognize a freshly created file for some reason. I will resolve this with Crystark later. Clear out the newly saved ‘deck.txt’ to create a fresh .txt file. 4. In this new .txt file, ‘deck.txt’ replace whatever might be inside with what you see in the image below. For ease of copying, you can go to this link , which has the text for you to copy and paste. The important lines are ‘Player Level: xx’, which determines hero hp, and the lines starting with a card or rune name. Lines starting with ‘#’ are ignored and can be used to put comments/notes for yourself. They won't affect the simulator. If you just put the name of the card on a line and nothing else, the simulator reads that as a plain level 10 card with no evolved skills. If you put just the name of a rune and nothing else, the simulator reads it as a level 4 rune. Currently only level 4 runes are ed. If you want to input an evolved card, follow the format in the text file used for Leprechaun. The evo skill is the 4th skill. In this case, resistance. Not all skills require a number after them (such as Reanimation or Immunity), but for those that do, put a colon, “ : “ next to the name of the skill with the associated value (NOT THE RANK!), so to use Snipe 7 as the evo skill, you’d type “Snipe:210”. You can go to www.ekfaq.com/cardlist to get cost/wait/hp/atk/skill information, or you can copy the base level 10 version from cards.ed.txt in the ‘ekbattlesim’ folder.
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5. Once you’ve input your deck into ‘deck.txt’, save and close it, then run ‘openwindow.bat’ inside the ‘ekbattlesim folder. This will launch a console with a command line. 6. The console that pops up is where you input commands to run your simulations. I recommend checking out Crystark’s wiki to learn more about all the different commands and options, but for now we’ll run the command for testing against Dark Titan: ekbattlesim dk deck.txt dm “Dark Titan”
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7. When you run that command (and press enter), the simulator will run, and you’ll see input similar to what you see below. Crystark’s output has a bit more information than most simulators (such as % chance to hit round 50/100/150, and min, max, and average number of rounds), which is just another reason Crystark’s simulator is very useful. Now that you’ve run this test for Dark Titan, you should have a decent grip on how to test against all demons, and how to build the decks. If you still have questions, or want to learn about the other modes, you can either me on Line (id: Lightja), or consult Crystark’s wiki
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Azh’s Online Simulator (Works for mobile) Link Mobile Version Azh has recently updated his online simulator to use Peppa’s EK Fanatics Simulator instead of JSDemonsim. This means it is up to date with all the latest cards and abilities. Also, it makes it much more and beginner friendly because you can build decks using drop down menus to select cards, levels, and evo skills. The only thing not selected from drop down is runes, which are just typed out. So major props to Azh for making a mobile friendly platform for simulation, and also for updating it from using JS’ outdated sim to using a much more current simulator. The following tutorial will explain how to use the mobile version that Azh hosts for us: **CURRENTLY THIS GUIDE IS FOR THE OLD VERSION AZH HOSTED, BUT THE NEWER ONE IS VERY EASY TO FIGURE OUT. BUT I’LL STILL WRITE A GUIDE FOR THE NEW VERSION EVENTUALLY*** 1. Go to: http://teamfrag.net:35515/decks and click ‘ SIGN UP ’
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2. with your email. You dont have to confirm your email so it’s just used as a login and so you can use anything. Pick a and your level, then click the ‘ Sign up ’ button. You can edit your level later if needed. 3. This will bring you to http://teamfrag.net:35515/deck . Now you need to input the cards that it tests with, so click ‘Show cardslist’ Page 49
4. This will bring you to a big empty text box where you define the cards that you’ll test with. You want to include all cards that you might use. Below i’ll show you where you can copy+paste almost all of the cards. For any cards that aren’t in the document I’m about to show you, you can create manually. Aside from some skill names , it uses the same format as Crystark’s sim (should be easy to follow the same format as the cards in the document below). Azh updated this so that the cards are already listed here by default. If the cards aren’t in the text box by default, you can copy+paste them from here: http://pastebin.com/P1sWBYJU 5. After you confirm that the cards are here, click the ‘ save ’ button. If you want to use evolved cards, you’ll have to add a new card with a new name, with the evolved stats and the evolved skill. The evo skill needs to be one of the implemented skills (shown at the top of the card list). If it’s an ability like Blizzard or something that wont work on a demon anyways, there’s no reason to include it. The only major ability that I know of that isn’t implemented is Dexterity (such as on Forest Rider). versions Page 50
may have all cards/abilities implemented 6. This will update your with those cards so that you can use them freely in your decks. Now you should be on a page that says “Listing Decks”. Since we haven’t made a deck yet, it shouldn’t show anything but your level, an ‘edit info’ link, a link back to the cardslist we just added, and a button for creating a ‘New Deck’. Click the ‘ New Deck ’ link. 7. On the ‘New Deck’ page we’ll input the information for our new deck. In the ‘Name’ field, put whatever you want. I just named this deck ‘Example’. In the ‘ Cards ’ text field, name all your cards, separated with a comma. Just like all the other guides, we’re going to use Cerato, Leprechaun, Page 51
Leprechaun, Statue of Light, Statue of Light, Omniscient Dragon, Omniscient Dragon 8. Similarly, In the ‘ Runes ’ field, name your runes, with each separated by a comma. Just like the other guides, we’re going to use “Leaf, Tsunami, Clear Spring, Spring Breeze” in our example deck. 9. In the ‘ Demon Name ’ field, put the name of the demon. There are no spaces in demon names, so your options are: SeaKing, PlagueOgryn, DarkTitan, Mars, Deucalion, and Pandarus. 10. Press the ‘ Create Deck ’ button. 11. This will bring you to the newly created page for your deck. It’ll show you the Name, Cards, and Runes. If you see anything wrong with the deck, click the ‘edit’ link and fix it. Our example deck should show you the same thing you see below. Once you’ve confirmed that it is correct, click the ‘ Back ’ link. Page 52
12. This will bring you back to the ‘Listing Decks’ page, where you’ll see the newly created example deck. 13. Once everything looks good, press the ‘ Sim ’ button. Page 53
14. Now it should show the results of the deck. They should be very similar to what you see below. You may notice that the results look very similar to Crystark’s output as well, and that’s because Crystark’s simulator is loosely based on JSDemonsim.
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Mitzi's/Teny’s https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwAutaRhEs_9c0xaY2hiSkFBZFE&usp=sharing
Looking for a volunteer to write the guide for this simulator. I personally don’t use it very much at all.
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DEMONS
About This Section : I’ll be redoing the decks used in this section. Currently they are all based on F2P cards obtainable at level 71, and are close to the ideal decks given those cards. Instead of giving those decks away, I’m going to sim at level 91, and use less than ideal cards (such as a tank without growth instead of Cerato), so that people will have an idea of what to aim for, but can use the Card Types and Rune Types sections to find alternatives to improve the deck, and it will force you to use the simulator to decide which cards are best, and in what amounts. Simulation is a skill that any serious EK/MR player should have. I’ll show the results (MPM, Cooldown, MPF) of the decks I currently have, but without the cards, so that people know what is possible.
I’ll Also be adding a lowlevel deck for each demon, to show at what level it is possible to do these demons with the right cards. Page 57
Demon Types
Depending on their skills, demons are typically considered to be one of two types: Card Killer These Demons specialize in killing cards, and they will usually kill all your cards before they take out your hero’s HP. Skills: Counterattack, Retaliation, Snipe, Toxic Clouds, etc. Hero Killer These Demons specialize in killing your hero. So they may kill your cards, but typically you’ll lose your hero HP before all your cards. With these demons you may almost build your full card stack, but if your guard cards come out too late, you can still die early. When you draw cards from your deck in a desirable order, we typically call this a hit. In these instances, you’ll hit close to your max hit. (alternatively, when you get an undesirable card order, and only earn a small fraction of your max possible merit, we call this a miss) It’s important to note that regardless of demon, if you get a good hit/desirable draw, your hero hp will deplete before your cards. This is because of the unavoidable growing curse damage that starts at round 50. Guard cards will not protect against this damage
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Dark Titan
Dark Titan is a very straightforward demon. He’s the strongest Hero Killer demon, and only kills cards with his regular attack. Because that attack is 1800, he one shots the majority of non iceshield cards. Most people say you can start stacking Dark Titan at about level 61, but it’s possible to do it a bit sooner, especially with Leprechauns and/or Light Paladin. The most important skills to pay attention to are Devil’s Curse and Damnation. With the two combined you will take up to 3000 hero damage per turn once you have 10 cards on the field. This means you’ll need 2 guard cards to cover the damage every turn. Also, because Dark Titan only kills cards with his regular attack, you shouldn’t use reincarnation cards, because putting your card cards back in your deck will leave you vulnerable to curse and damnation for at least 1 or 2 rounds. So you only want to use reanimation. The one exception to this is Light of Hydra, which has Quick Strike and Desperation: Reincarnation 4. This means he’ll refresh your stack if you get a bad card draw, but wont reincarnate every round. Necessary Cards for a DT stack: Tank: You’ll need a tank to take his melee hits and retaliation. Ideally, you’ll use a tank with Ice Shield, such as Cerato or Light Paladin . Because of Cerato’s Craze and ability to evolve an extra Craze or Bloodthirsty, he’s usually the best tank. Light Paladin is useful for low level players who wont last a lot of rounds because Wicked Leech grows fast, but has less overall growth in decks that last a long time. One of the main problems with Dark Titan is that since you can’t use Reincarnation cards, and Reanimation cards can’t reanimate each other, if your reanimators both come out before your tank, you wont get a good hit. For this reason, if you Page 59
don’t have Light of Hydra, you might want to consider using two tanks. UPDATE: The Butcher is the new ideal tank. He’s basically a one for one replacement for Cerato, except that you don’t need to cover as much craze with force buffs for the craze glitch. This gives you more flexibility with your guards. Recyclers: Because Dark Titan kills a guard or two card every single turn with Curse and Damnation, you’ll definitely need some Recyclers to keep your stack stable. Recyclers with Reincarnation are going to be a poor choice here because they’ll put your guard cards in your deck instead of on the field, leaving you vulnerable to Curse and Damnation. So you probably want only reanimation. Valid reanimators are Leprechaun and Taiga Cleric . Chaos Demon might be usable, but I’ve never really tried it. Leprechaun tends to be the preferred reanimator at the earlier levels because his dodge and im regeneration adds stability, however at later levels, Taiga Cleric is preferred because it can be evolved with Prayer. Card & Hero Healers: You need some cards to heal your tank, and to heal your hero to combat the growing curse that starts at round 50. The standard is Statue of Light . SoL is easy to acquire, and can be evolved with Prayer, making it the best card in a lot of cases. Alternatively Goddess of Order , if you have it, can be better than a plain SoL in most cases, and occasionally even better than an SoL evolved with Prayer. This is because it has a higher rank of Prayer and Regeneration, and it’s Desperation:Reanimation skill adds a lot of stability to decks. Though if you have your pick of both, SoL with Prayer will usually be better. This is a difference that will vary between decks that you’ll need to sim to determine with certainty. Leprechaun is also worth mentioning here because he can take care of the card healing that you need. Guards : To deal with Dark Titan’s Curse & Damnation, you need cards with the ‘Guard’ ability that will take the damage for your hero. The standard for starters are Ice Blademaster and Arctic Defender . These are easily accessible, low cost, and get the job done. Omniscient Dragon is another relatively easily accessible guard card that is very effective. Because it has 2800 hp, it alone can cover the damage taken with 9 cards on the field, though it’s still good to have more than 1 guard card usually. Lava Destroyer is a big nono here because it can’t be reanimated. The other guard cards, Goblin Warrior and Santa’s Helper are used for kingdom specific evos. Goblin Warrior specifically is a very important card for Dark Titan, but that’s one of the secrets to building a good DT deck, so just ask around if you want to learn more about that. UPDATE: Phantom Guardian is a new guard that is ideal in a lot of ways. Though he can’t be used to his full potential, if evolved with prayer, the triple prayer of PG can still be very powerful for PG decks as a for your guard that caters to the craze glitch. Snipers / Clay Pigeons / Leechers : None of these cards are typically used in DT decks.
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Headless Horseman/Wood Elf Archer
It’s a bit difficult to come up with the exact formula for DT. Because he actually attacks cards with his attack, he’ll probably miss one or two times to Headless Horseman’s 35% Dodge. Dark Titan does 1200 damage per turn, 1400 if you have 2 cards on the field, so the maximum cards that you’ll want to have in your deck is the same formula as Sea King, who always does 1200 damage per turn. It’s usually best to use a few cards less than that and assume he’s going to miss once or twice because of Headless Horseman’s Dodge. You want roughly 66% HH and 34% WEA in your deck. Dark Titan is one of the first demons where you’ll be able to replace your HH/WEA deck. Rune Forge can be used in addition to the usual 3 runes, Lore, Leaf, and Revival because your cards will actually take a hit.
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Simple Dark Titan 2x Taiga Cleric
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Simple Dark Titan Taiga Cleric/Leprechaun
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Simple Dark Titan 2x Leprechaun
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Dark Titan Thoughts/Homework 1. Ask around and figure out how Goblin Warrior helps Dark Titan decks. (Spoiler: it’s the Craze Glitch ) 2. Think about what the best Guard to Goblin Warrior is? Since Goblin Warrior has only a maximum of 1400 hp, you need to cover at least another 1400 hp (or more) to ensure you don’t take too much direct damage. This leaves lots of options to try. 3. What’s the difference between your needs for Guards in a deck with Cerato vs a deck with The Butcher? 4. Why can’t you use reincarnators for DT? There’s one reincarnator that will work, figure out what that is. 5. Since you can’t use reincarnators, what are a few ways you can stabilize DT decks? Most of the time DT is straight up luck of the draw, but with the right cards you can improve your chances of getting a good draw.
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Sea King
Sea Ki ng (SK) is probably the first demon you’ll successfully build a static stack for that will be better than HH/WEA decks. Most people say that you can start stacking against SK at level 51, but it is possible to stack it before that with the right cards. His lower than average ATK of 1200 makes it so that a lot of cards can survive a hit, allowing you more time to set up your stack. The most important mechanic you should be building your deck around is Devil’s Blade, which is a Card Killer ability. This is essentially the same as Snipe, but it does 2000 damage, which means it will
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1shot the card on the field with the lowest HP every turn. This means you’ll need to employ Clay Pigeons so that he doesn’t kill your important cards. Necessary Cards for a SK stack: Tank: Aside from that, you’ll need a tank to take his melee hits and counterattack. Ideally, you’ll use a tank with Ice Shield, such as Cerato or Light Paladin . However, Sea King is one of the few demons where you can employ Reindeer Warrior , a nonice shield tank, as your tank. Because of Warpath, Reindeer Warrior can actually be one of the best tanks for Sea King. UPDATE: The Butcher is the new ideal tank. Even though Malevolent Dryad is also capable of tanking SK, The Butcher’s growth is higher, and that makes him a better tank. Also the fact that he has Ice Shield makes him a lot more stable than RW or Dryad. Recyclers: Because Sea King kills a card every single turn, you’ll definitely need some Recyclers to keep your stack stable. Because clay pigeons typically have a wait of 2 turns (as opposed to guard cards, which have longer waits), and you typically have more than 1 or 2 clay pigeons, recyclers with Reincarnation are a viable choice, but you probably want both reincarnation and reanimation. Treant Healer is one of the most common and most effective reincarnators for SK. This is because he increases the HP of your other forest cards, such as Leprechaun or Reindeer Warrior . Increasing the HP of RW is obviously useful for stability, but for other cards, it’s useful because it makes Treant Healer the card with the lowest HP. This makes TH the target of snipe. This is useful because it will force TH to eventually end up at the end of your stack once you stabilize. This way when taking your clay pigeons out of the cemetery you’ll reanimate them straight onto the field versus reincarnating them into your hand. Whitewing Pope is usually considered to be a bad recycler because he can end up as the tank, and since he doesn’t have Craze, Bloodthirsty, or Wicked Leech, his atk will not grow, so he won't do as much damage as other tanks. However, I personally used WWP at very early levels to add stability to my deck, though at higher levels, WWP should be scrapped from your SK deck. It’s also a good idea to have at least 1 reanimator, often times 2, such as Leprechaun or Taiga Cleric . It’s better to have a reanimator pull your clay pigeon out of the cemetery than a reincarnator so that it comes directly onto the field. Leprechaun tends to be the preferred reanimator at the earlier levels because his dodge and regeneration adds stability, however at later levels, Taiga Cleric is preferred because it can be evolved with Prayer. Card & Hero Healers: You need some cards to heal your tank, and to heal your hero to combat the growing curse that starts at round 50. The standard is Statue of Light . SoL is easy to acquire, and can be evolved with Prayer, making it the best card in a lot of cases. Alternatively Goddess of Order , if you have it, can be better than a plain SoL in most cases, and occasionally even better than an SoL evolved with Prayer. This is because it has a higher rank of Prayer and Regeneration, and it’s Desperation:Reanimation skill adds a lot of stability to decks. Though if you have your pick of both, SoL with Prayer will usually be better. This is a difference that will vary between decks that you’ll need to sim to determine with certainty. Leprechaun is also worth mentioning here because he can take care of the card healing that you need. UPDATE: Phantom Guardian is now one of the best healers for SK. However you still need a certain amount of healing, so make sure that you can cover that before you change Page 67
something (such as a SoL) to a PG. This is easier for SK than PO because of the lesser amount of healing that is required for SK. Because you don’t take hero damage from SK, he allows you to use triple prayer to its full potential. Clay Pigeons: To deal with Sea King’s Devil’s Blade (aka 2000 damage snipe), you need low hp cards that will take the hit so your important cards can avoid it. Fire Mage is the standard here. It’s 2 wait, very low hp, and 65% resurrection chance make it an excellent candidate to be an effective clay pigeon. Blood Lotus Nymph is also a very good clay pigeon, for the same reasons. If you use both FM and BLN, FM will get targeted first because of its HP, allowing your BLN to hit SK with Mana Corruption. It is worth mentioning however, that because BLN only has 60% chance to resurrect, you are actually sacrificing some stability by using her, and it’s more than you’d think, but with that being said, BLN still usually ends up being better than FM. It’s also worth mentioning Treant Healer here. Because it gives Forest Guard to your other cards, it will be targeted before all your other forest cards as long as its level 10. This is a good thing, and thats why you should not level your Treant Healer past level 10 for SK (most of the time). Having TH be targeted will force him to end up at the end of your stack, so your reanimators get to your clay pigeon first, allowing it to be brought directly back onto the field instead of into your deck. Snipers / Guards / Leechers : None of these cards are typically used in SK decks.
Similarities to Plague Ogryn
Sea King is very similar to Plague Ogryn. The only difference is that Plague Ogryn has Toxic Clouds + Hot Chase and Sea King has Chain Attack + Counterattack. You can mostly ignore SK’s chain attack, So the extra damage that Sea King does with those abilities is with counterattack, so you really only need healing for your tank. Also, Sea King has 1200 base attack versus Plague Ogryn’s 1500, and that added with Hot Chase means that Plague Ogryn will 1 shot most cards, while SK will not. Toxic Clouds does about the same damage to the tank as Sea King’s counterattack, but also does that same damage to all your cards, so you need quite a bit more card healing for Plague Ogryn decks. For this reason, all Plague Ogryn decks should work on Sea King (though they might not be ideal), but Sea King decks will not necessarily work for Plague Ogryn.
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Headless Horseman/Wood Elf Archer
For HH/WEA decks on Sea King, he kills all your cards with snipe, so Fire Forge will not be useful, so the only 3 runes that work are Lore, Revival, and Leaf. To determine how many cards you should use, divide your HP by 1200, round up, then add one. So if you had 8400 hp, you’d get 8400/1200 = 7, round up to 7, and add 1 is 8. If you had 8410 hp, you’d get 8410/1200 = 7.1, round up to 8, then add 1 to get 9. You want roughly onethird of your deck to be Wood Elf Archers and the other twothirds to be Headless Horsemen. Page 70
Sea King is one of the first demons where you’ll be able to replace your HH/WEA deck with a stacking deck.
Simple SK 2x Taiga Cleric
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Simple Sea King Taiga Cleric/Leprechaun
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Simple Sea King 2x Leprechaun
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Reindeer Warrior Deck
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Reindeer Warrior must be level 15 with Parry 7, Parry 6, or Rejuvenation 6. Other ranks of Rejuvenation might work.
Sea King Thoughts/Homework
1. What are some possible clay pigeons for Cerato 2. What are some possible clay pigeons for The Butcher, and how are the requirements for Butcher clay pigeons different from Cerato clay pigeons? 3. What are some possible clay pigeons for Reindeer Warrior and Malevolent Dryad? The requirements for these clay pigeons should be about the same, why are they roughly the same while the Butcher and Cerato’s are different? 4. What are some good evos for 4/5star clay pigeons that already have force? 5. How much healing is needed for your tank? 6. How much healing is needed for all of your cards? 7. How can you change a deck around, or what cards can you include, to ensure that you’ll be able to use Phantom Guardian (PG) without sacrificing too much stability?
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PLAGUE OGRYN
Plague Ogryn is the easiest demon that I would consider an “Advanced Demon”. Sea King and Dark Titan are beginner’s demons, and Plague Ogryn is the transition into harder demons. Plague Ogryn is a harder Card Killer demon than Sea King. She still has Devil’s Blade, the 2000 damage snipe, and in addition has a higher base attack of 1500, Hot Chase, to buff her attack damage even more, and Toxic Clouds, which does a lot of damage to all cards. Because of Hot Chase and the higher base ATK, she will likely one shot all of your cards that dont have ice shield, but dodge is useful here too, since you can dodge her attack. Because Toxic Clouds hits all your cards, you need a lot more card healing for Plague Ogryn than you need for other Page 76
demons. You wont be able to build decks that are as strong for Plague Ogryn as they are for Sea King or Dark Titan, but you can come relatively close if you know what you’re doing.
Necessary Cards for a PO stack: Tank: You’ll need a tank to take her melee hits and counterattack. Because of her higher attack, you’ll need a tank with Ice Shield, such as Cerato or Light Paladin . Light Paladin is more useful here than on DT and SK because of the 4 wait and fast attack growth through Leech. Because Wicked Leech’s growth will eventually slow down, so once your deck starts to last close to 100 rounds or more, you’ll definitely want to use Cerato. UPDATE: Since The Butcher was added, he is now the ideal tank. He has very high atk growth, and his strong ice shield and high hp make him last a good number of rounds while you get your healers out to heal the toxic clouds damage. Even still PO does a good job of killing your tank if you don’t get your cards out fast enough. However for lower level players, Light Paladin might still be the best. Recyclers: Because Plague Ogryn kills a card every single turn, you’ll definitely need some Recyclers to keep your stack stable. Because clay pigeons typically have a wait of 2 turns (as opposed to guard cards, which have longer waits), and you typically have more than 1 or 2 clay pigeons, recyclers with Reincarnation are a viable choice, but you probably want both reincarnation and reanimation. Treant Healer is one of the most common and most effective reincarnators for PO, just like SK. This is because he increases the HP of your other forest cards, such as Leprechaun . Increasing the HP of your other forest cards is useful because it makes Treant Healer the card with the lowest HP. This makes TH the target of snipe. This is useful because it will force TH to eventually end up at the end of your stack once you stabilize. This way when taking your clay pigeons out of the cemetery you’ll reanimate them straight onto the field versus reincarnating them into your hand. Whitewing Pope is usually considered to be a bad recycler because he can end up as the tank, and since he doesn’t have Craze, Bloodthirsty, or Wicked Leech, his atk will not grow, so he won't do as much damage as other tanks. However, I personally used WWP at very early levels to add stability to my deck, though at higher levels, WWP should be scrapped from your PO deck. It’s also a good idea to have at least 1 reanimator, often times 2, such as Leprechaun or Taiga Cleric . It’s better to have a reanimator pull your clay pigeon out of the cemetery than a reincarnator so that it comes directly onto the field. Leprechaun tends to be the preferred reanimator at the earlier levels because his dodge and regeneration adds stability, however at later levels, Taiga Cleric is preferred because it can be evolved with Prayer, but the healing Leprechaun provides is important enough that you’ll probably want at least one Leprechaun if you have one. Card & Hero Healers: You need some cards to heal your tank’s damage from melee hits, all your cards damage from Toxic Clouds, and to heal your hero to combat the growing curse that starts at round 50. The damage from Toxic Clouds is significant enough that evolving cards with Regeneration is something you should consider for PO. The standard is Statue of Light . SoL is easy to acquire, and can be evolved with Prayer, making it the best card in a lot of cases. Alternatively Goddess of Order , if you have it, can be better than a plain SoL in most Page 77
cases, and occasionally even better than an SoL evolved with Prayer. This is because it has a higher rank of Prayer and Regeneration, and it’s Desperation:Reanimation skill adds a lot of stability to decks. That stability is especially important for PO. Leprechaun is also worth mentioning here because he can help take care of the card healing that you need. Clay Pigeons: To deal with Plague Ogryns Devil’s Blade (aka 2000 damage snipe), you need low hp cards that will take the hit so your important cards can avoid it. Fire Mage is the standard here. It’s 2 wait, very low hp, and 65% resurrection chance make it an excellent candidate to be an effective clay pigeon. Blood Lotus Nymph is also a very good clay pigeon, for the same reasons. If you use both FM and BLN, FM will get targeted first because of its HP, allowing your BLN to hit PO with Mana Corruption. It is worth mentioning however, that because BLN only has 60% chance to resurrect, you are actually sacrificing some stability by using her, and it’s more than you’d think, but with that being said, BLN still usually ends up being better than FM. It’s also worth mentioning Treant Healer here. Because it gives Forest Guard to your other cards, it will be targeted before all your other forest cards as long as its level 10. This is a good thing, and thats why you should not level your Treant Healer past level 10 for PO (most of the time). Having TH be targeted will force him to end up at the end of your stack, so your reanimators get to your clay pigeon first, allowing it to be brought directly back onto the field instead of into your deck. Snipers / Guards / Leechers : None of these cards are typically used in PO decks. Page 78
Headless Horseman/Wood Elf Archer
Plague Ogryn is unique for HH/WEA decks because of Hot Chase. Because she always directly hits your hero, Fire Forge will not be useful here (so ignore it in the picture). Also, because of her higher base attack + Hot Chase, she will kill you very fast. This means you can’t use 8 cards until level 91. 8 card decks are where, for SK and PO, HH+WEA beats pure HH. Since you’ll Page 79
almost certainly have a deck that beats HH by level 91, you should only use HH for PO. PO does 1640 damage on her first hit, increasing by 140 per hit. You a number of cards equal to the number of hits you can survive. PO will probably be the third demon where you replace your HH deck.
Simple Plague Ogryn 2x Leprechaun
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Simple PO Whitewing Pope & 2x Taiga Cleric
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Plague Ogryn Thoughts/Homework
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MARS
Mars is one of the last demons you’ll finish building a deck for. This is because almost every card needs to be evolved for a Mars stack to be effective. Because of his Destroy ability, you need the majority of your cards to have resistance, and this is why HH/WEA decks aren’t as good as Demonic Imp decks for Mars. His Devil’s Curse makes him a hero killer, and any time he destroys a nonresistance card in front of him he’ll also attack your hero directly, so he can be a very fast hero killer if you use nonresistance cards. However, his curse if fairly manageable if you have mostly resistance cards. Because of Wicked Leech, traditional tanks wont work very well because their usual ATK growth will be leeched. The Holy Grail of Mars tanks is Light Paladin evolved with resistance because he can combats Wicked Leech by Leeching his attack back from Mars. However, because that is not an easily acquired card, most will have to make due with less effective tanks. Page 83
Necessary Cards for a Mars stack: Tank: You’ll need a tank to take his melee hits and retaliation. Because of Wicked Leech, you’ll definitely need a tank with Ice Shield, such as Cerato or Light Paladin . Because of his Destroy ability, your tank also needs to have resistance, or else he could easily be targeted by destroy. Light Paladin with resistance is the holy grail of Mars tanks, but is a very difficult card to acquire. Because of this, you’ll probably have to settle for something a little less effective such as Cerato , Griffon Dancer , or FrostreeFolk . Cerato’s Craze ability will make him slightly better than the other two easily accessible options, however his extra atk from Craze will eventually be leeched away anyways, so it wont make a significant difference. FrostreeFolk is very easy to get to evolve because you can get him for 3500 honor from Kingdom Wars, or through fragments from the Fields of Honor store. Griffon Dancer is a DI reward, so you can get one from that, but it will likely cost you a good amount of gems if you don’t have any exceptional DI decks. Griffon Dancer is nice to have because you won’t have to evolve it since it has Ice Shield and Resistance by default, but it’s not the easiest card to obtain. You may have it from an event, but if not, I’d recommend going for FrostreeFolk until you end up with a resistance Cerato when you’re trying to get Craze or Bloodthirsty. If you can get your hands on enough Griffon Dancers to evolve, a GD with snipe would be a decent tank since that snipe damage can never be leeched. Recyclers: Because Mars regularly kills guard cards and destroys nonresistance cards, you’ll definitely need some Recyclers to keep your stack stable. I recommend one card with Reanimation and one with Reincarnation. Similar to Dark Titan, you want your reanimator to be the one to pull your guard card directly back onto the field instead of onto the field directly. For this reason you need to get your reanimator evolved with resistance, but evolving your reincarnation card with resistance isn’t as important, and can even hurt your deck. If you have resistance on your reincarnation card, it could end up in front of your reanimator, putting your guard card into your deck rather than on the field. By not evolving your reincarnator with resistance, you ensure that eventually it’ll be destroyed and reanimated behind your reanimator. Taiga Cleric is certainly the easiest reanimator to get with resistance. You get one at level 60 as a level reward, and his alternate evolution card, Arctic Sea Dragon, appears in the Kingdom Wars store from time to time. Once you have a resistance reanimator and tank, you’ll be well on your way to making a working Mars stack. Card & Hero Healers: You need one card to heal your tank, and to heal your hero to combat the growing curse that starts at round 50 and any extra damage you take from Devil’s Curse while not Guarded by your guards. The standard is Statue of Light . SoL is easy to acquire, and can be evolved with Prayer, making it the best card in a lot of cases. Because it’s available in the Kingdom War store, you can easily evolve it with Prayer. You might think resistance is a better evo, and it is useful, but with the release of Prayer 7, Prayer usually ends up being the better evo choice once you have your resistance reanimator sorted out. Always sim to check first though. If you have too many nonresistance cards your stack will be unstable. Leprechaun is also worth mentioning here because he can take care of all the card healing that you need if you can get one with resistance. Though because Leprechaun is an event card, he’s a much more difficult card to get with resistance. Page 84
Snipers : Because your tank’s attack will be leeched, you probably will need snipers to deal
your damage. Especially if you’re not using a resistance Light Paladin. Snipers with resistance are greatly preferred here because they’ll keep your non resistance cards, such as your guard cards from being destroyed. Arctic Lich is the only sniper card that by default has resistance. Lich is also nice because it’s tundra, and therefore can be evolved with Prayer. Any sniper that you can eventually evolve with resistance are viable options here, but you may have to deal with resurrection snipers such as Blood Lotus Nymph , Thunder Dragon , and Skeleton King . Guards : To deal with Mars’ Curse, you need cards with the ‘Guard’ ability that will take the damage for your hero. The standard for starters are Ice Blademaster and Arctic Defender . These are easily accessible, low cost, and get the job done. Omniscient Dragon is another relatively easily accessible (KW store + Thief drops) guard card that is very effective. It deserves an extra mention here because it has resistance by default, so Mars can’t destroy OD, leaving your hero open to curse. Lava Destroyer is a lot more useful here than on DT because most Mars decks use reincarnation cards. Other guard cards, Goblin Warrior and Santa’s Helper can be used, but don’t do anything special here other than having a different HP pool. Santa’s Helper’s HP will be increased by SoL, which can increase a deck’s stability. Guard cards don’t need resistance, but having it by default on OD doesn’t hurt. Clay Pigeons / Leechers : None of these cards are typically used in Mars decks.
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Demonic Imps
If you use a Headless Horseman and Wood Elf Archer deck on Mars, he’ll hit your hero with Curse, and then attack you for 1200 damage (plus what he leeches from your HH) every turn, killing your hero very quickly. If instead you use resistance cards, like Demonic Imp , you’ll only take 1000 damage per round, and so therefore you can do a lot more damage on Mars with Page 86
Demonic Imp decks. Because Demonic Imps have resurrection, you can get away with using a lot fewer cards as well. Also, since they have resistance, Mars will attack them directly, making Fire Forge a valid rune choice. If you still have them from a very early Hydra, Goblin Cupids are an even better card for making entry level Mars decks, but if you’ve been playing that long you can probably make a better deck than that anyways.
Griffon Dancer + 2x Arctic Lich
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Simple Mars
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Mars Thoughts/Homework
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DEUCALION
Similarities to Pandarus Page 90
2xWhitewing Pope/Fire Kirin
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2xWhitewing Pope/2xFire Kirin/Thunder Dragon
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2xWWP/2xFFK/2xTD/2xGoddess of Order
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Static Tanking Deucalion Will come back to this section.
Deucalion Thoughts/Homework Page 94
PANDARUS
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Headless Horseman/Wood Elf Archer
Beating HH/WEA for Pandarus will be very difficult. Page 96
Moving Forward Pandarus Thoughts/Homework What level are you guys? At level 71, I found this: 7 HH = 2672 MPM 4 FK = 2441 MPM 5 FK = 2458 MPM Beating all of these at level 71 are these:
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3 Fire Kirin 3 Fire Drake 2762 MPM 4 Fire Kirin 3 Fire Drake 2929 MPM If you are a crazy bunny collector and get tons of Skeleton Kings: 6 SK, 0 HH = 3414 MPM 5 SK, 1 HH = 3252 MPM 4 SK, 2 HH = 3083 MPM 3 SK, 3 HH = 2882 MPM 2 SK, 4 HH = 2682 MPM 1 SK, 5 HH = 2495 MPM (Worse than 7HH) 1 SK, 6 HH = 2616 MPM (Worse than 7HH) Lore, Leaf, Fire Forge, and Revival assumed for all decks.
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