GoW Team Build Compendium

I made a low level account to test some things. I ended up using this team, and it ended up being really effective at super low level in both PvP and quests:

Dragon Eggs*
Dragotaur*
Draconian Rogue (can be subbed for dragonette)
Wight*** (one trait works, but three is relatively easy for this current week and even more effective)
Any banner with at least +1 on Dragotaur mana, and +1 on rogue or wight mana. Broken (Brown/Blue) works well, as does Kraken banner and Goblin Banner (Green/Brown).

Has a double 3x team bonus (dragons, and dragon’s claw), soul farm, and good synergy, at an extremely low cost. Both my friend and I (who started two weeks ago) were able to build this due to getting lucky D. Rogue drops on our first weeks. Most low level teams that are actually threatening at this level build around a leveled hero class, which the eggs can stall against as the rogue buffs attack to 1-2 shot range, or true damage one-shots (usually the wight or rogue are targeted early on) which can then be replaced by the eggs’ summon. It ended up being way faster than most “looping” teams at this level, while being every bit as effective for less trait cost.

High level farming teams for explore, though? I have variants of already suggested teams, which I’ll save for now. Here are some teams that are different from what has been stated so far:

(Assume all link/speed traits, clockwork, etc - no traits used on Rowanne ever)

Pre Blackhawk, for explore, I used
Deep Borer***
Bombot
Hero (mechanist***, imperial jewel)
Blast Cannon**
Broken Banner.

Idea here is that any blue match fills borer, and any brown match fills bombot, and bombot cast usually team wipes or brings them in range for Jewel to clean up.

Since the Kraken banner, I’ve switched to the more-commonly used:

Deep Borer***
Flame Cannon
Bombot
Hero*** (Mechanist, imperial jewel)
Kraken Banner

Since stone link is not needed anymore to guarantee a non-surge fill on both borer and bombot, you can squeeze another 2 armor out of team bonuses without sacrificing the potential for bad board and non-surge blue match RNG to cost you several seconds. This is probably the overall fastest explore farm in the game for traitstones, even with the life drain glitch. It should start working once you have a bombot that does around 31-32 damage per cast, as most teams should still fall to bombot + hero or bombot + flame cannon. Mythics might need both the flame cannon and the hero to clean them up, though.

If you want great speed and maybe souls, this one is good:

Ragnagord**
Banshee***
Rowanne
Acolyte***
Abyssal Banner.

One surge of either of his colors still fills Ragnagord, or any two purple matches for Banshee. Has multiple spell chains available that will team wipe for those that have good kingdom bonuses (Gord > Banshee > Gord > Rowanne, Banshee > gord > banshee > gord > rowanne, Gord > rowanne)

There are a ton of valk configurations that work, but here is one I don’t see often:

Valk***
Rowanne
Bombot
Hero (Mechanist***, Imperial Jewel)
Dragon Banner.

Bombot still fills in a single brown surge, so you can take browns if there are no yellow/reds available and get a quick win on a surge or at least reconfigure the board rather than meander on empty matches or retreating. Probably wont be effective for those with < 50% surge chances. In a red and yellow heavy kingdom, Sirens can be more effective then Hero/Bombot at shaving off a few seconds at the minimum clear time, but I prefer this configuration over having a siren cast miss and waiting 30 seconds as the AI clears out all the extra mana.

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You should probably include classic teams too. Off the top of my head that includes: (1) Goblins, (2) Rock Worms, (3) Coronet / Valk / Rowanne / Prismatic, (4) Talia’s beloved “Original Blue”, (5) Sooth / Mab / Valk / Mab, and (6) Maw / IK / Mercy / Sheggra.

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If we’re talking “classic teams,” how about some love for [anything] / Alchemist / Valkyrie / Banshee? :slight_smile:

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was’t it treant/alchemist/valkyrie/banshee

now we can put either acolyte, warlock in the team, or if lucky death itself. Not sure about death though.

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Fine. Modern Classics! :stuck_out_tongue:

But, yes, any of the 2-3 traditional teams that folks use throughout the various stages of play should be included. Particularly since most of those teams tend to be very efficient (i.e., easier to acquire and fewer traits/traitstones needed).

For soul / traitstone farming I’ve been using:

Dragon Soul
Ragnagord ** (for Fast)
Acolyte *** x2 (for Necromancy and bonus Brown)
Plus the Brown +2 banner.

Ragnagord only needs 7 mana to fill, so with the +2 from the banner and +2 from the Acolytes one single brown match charges him up. Next turn he explodes, which usually fills Dragon Soul. Then just use TDS if charged, or Gord if not, until you’ve hit the 80 Soul cap (3 casts).

It’s not quite as speedy as other teams in Explore but it’s pretty close, and I’m clearing 150+ Souls per match (with the +100% soul armor I get 153 if everyone dies with 2 TDS casts, 180 if 3).

I tend to retreat if the first 2 or so matches don’t give me any brown or mostly charge Dragon Soul. If there’s no brown and very little red/purple you’re much better off bailing out and starting over than trying to slowly build up your spells.

Treant is the most common but not the only thing. Before I came to the forums I was using aborrarth.

My current PvP team is Behemoth, Valkyrie, Queen Mab, Mercy. All fully traited. Lighting fast in PvP and still gets souls to. Often times can loop kill opposing team before they get a turn. I have even steamrolled mmdbbd with it.

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I put Gorgotha / Mab / Valk / Mab ahead of the Soothsayer version. With a caution that you never use either version of that team against lineups with impervious or mana shield (though Gorgotha gives you a little insurance if you don’t scout or don’t realize what traits your opponent has).

In terms of play, I focus on filling up either Gorgotha or Valkyrie first (whichever has a better opening board), then using Valk to fill Mab and generate blue. The ideal situation you are aiming for is to have both Mabs charged and have 13 blue on the board (either lucky drops from a Gorgotha cast or by carefully using Valk to generate the additional blue that you need). From there, you can cast Mab, get a free turn, cast Mab again and, in a perfect world, cast Valk to refill one or both Mabs and collect another free turn to cast Mab another time or two. Whenever things grind to a halt, cast Gorgotha to reset the board and refill the other troops.

Each time you cast any of your spells, both Mabs are gaining +1 magic due to her Arcane trait and each time you make a match 4 or 5, both Mabs are randomly freezing an enemy troop. With Valk and Gorgotha generating a lot of Match 4’s and 5’s, and Mab and Valk cycling extra turns, you get a lot of bonus magic and freezing.

As long as your opponent has no mana shield or impervious troops, this team is unstoppable once you can power up Gorgotha.

My current PvP team is EK, Valk, Mercy, Mab. Have not lost with that team yet, although I’ve avoided some defense teams with mythics.

I’ve read that Gorgotha, Plague, Famine, Moloch is a great team but I don’t have any mythics so can’t try it out :frowning:

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Replacing Plague with Death helps more since deathmark lends the AI a bigger hand.

Firelink also helps out getting Death up faster. Death and Famine are on ALL of my defence teams.

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I’m on console, and currently deathmark still has the 2 turn limit so it’s way worse. Maybe after the patch though…

Also, I was talking about offensive teams, not defend teams.

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this works flawless for me
venbarak, sylva and DS each do 17 aoe damage,
bansee 22
have 2 purple link making it in total +4 purple +1 red bonus
synergy is really strong and i can always soul cap with no delay
quite fast as well, even if i loose a troop, every unit deals damage so it still wins in the end

tactic: fill ds mostly with purples and spam it, otherwise use banshee to or sylva to fill it up, venba only when u cast nothing else and the enemy has still a lot of life to drop

i gave the damage stats coz i think for low magic players this might not work and it certainly require those links as well as tanky sylva

the other is my defense team that has been doing pretty well for several weeks by now with average win ratio 1:2, from 1:1 to 1:4 at a times

althought my account is kind of special as ive maxed magic kingdoms and practically nothing more so the team score is lower then expected :stuck_out_tongue:

edit:

for the ppl who need slightly more damage it is possible to replace banshee with shadow dragon (also traited magic link)

edit2:
since krystenax have been added, the new “best” DS team is:

krystenax **
Sylvanimora ***
TDS
Shadow dragon *
+abysmal
(tactic the same as above, fill DS with purples then red, if not cast krysta then whatever is castable, remove brown as priority otherwise yellow)

Sadly, I doubt I will ever obtain this weapon. I find Mech-a-Death very interesting. :slight_smile:

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Ok, time for some new composition that is more in line with the recent disgus… cough cough… MantiBoreBone team.

Here is a quite good PVP team for starters: Dark Servants.

The team operates with low rarity cards but with a good efficiency that mimics the potential for skull damage that you can find in the higher level recent meta with Manticore/Manticore/Deep Borer/Bone Dragon. (Of course it lacks the Mana Drain, Attack Increase and Impervious from Manticore, but if you have Manticore and can trait it you are fine using it instead of the Stone Golem.)

Card’s gameplay, mechanics and traits required/suggested:

  • Golem is an old favorite of all beginners. Good effect for low mana cost and traits that helps him in his role as a tanker. While in the current meta we see Bone Dragon removing armor of one target and generating a lot of skulls we aren’t too far from it by simple using Golem’s spell to reduce all enemy’s armor while exploding a gem that helps to get some little mana for the team and maybe setup some cascade. He can’t get extra attack like Manticore, but he is already making all enemies squishy for incoming smashing.
    Traits: With two traits your Golen is good to go, but getting the last trait while not essential is good to provide extra mana for him in this team.

  • Skeletons are here bringing a lot of bone rattling. With their spell they will provide the skulls you need for your Golem’s hammer time while also gaining some armor and not losing your turn, wich is very important because having some random skulls in the board could be dangerous. But don’t worry too much about it if your Golem have Stoneskin. Golem is here to tank damage and leaving skulls on purpose is a know tactic to mislead the A.I that could cast a spell much more troublesome than a single skull match.
    Traits: Having only the first would be ok for the extra life they get, the rest of the traits are not very important, but if possible Reinforced would be something fairly good in a situation where you lost your Golem and your Skeletons are supposed to tank the damage. Well, have in mind they are in this position exactly for that since they gain armor while providing skulls they can keep up a good fight for a while.

  • Dark Maiden: I’m really loving this lady in some of my low-level/prototype compositions. But damn, how wouldn’t someone love her with such nice direct and indirect effects? As long as there are yellow gems she will work as an all colors (except yellow) converter. There is a lot of possible board manipulation using her, and all of that paired with a healing effect for the first troop, in our case Golem, wich increases his survival a lot. But again, assuming the worst case where you lost your golem you can still count with your Skeletons that are gaining armor and generating skulls without losing your turn and now they can also gain life from Dark Maiden.
    One of the downsides of using converters is that sometimes you will ran out of the gem color you need to convert, but as long as Golem is exploding gems, and the Skeletons are generating skulls, that will be used from one side or the other, then you have a cood renewing cycle for the board with new yellow gems dropping by eventually. Also worth to mention is that you can loop Dark Maiden at least twice if you have yellow gems surrounded by green or red gems, generating a lot of health for the first troop.
    Traits: You basically need her first trait to get some extra green mana to help her, but Cursed is a good trait too, so get it if possible.

Banner: I choosed the Zul’Kari Banner (Purple/Green) because i want to provide extra green for Dark Maiden in order to cast her spell faster and to get mana for the others. Extra purple to help the Skeletons too because they don’t get any extra mana from traits and their spell demands ten manas, so it balances out the team to my taste. Also it fits my “theme” with the Dark Maiden leading her minions into battle for Zul’Kari’s glory. (That’s why the team was named as Dark Servants, also skeletons, golem and a dark elf/spider girl so… duh… they are all usually servants of darkness.)

Some considerations: As said before the team just mimics some mechanics of MantiBoreBone’s team, but no Mana Drain, and not so resilient to status effects. But you are free to use this concept and come up with your own version. If you have Manticore fully traited you can just use it instead of Golem, you won’t remove armor anymore but it’s very well compensated for the attack gain, Stun (disabling traits that reduce skull damage) and Mana Drain from it’s spell. (And two Skeletons should work fairly well if you still didn’t got your Bone Dragon.)

Also, you must note that Manticore and Dark Maiden share some problems regarding mana, because both are green and Dark Maiden will convert the yellow manas that Manticore could use. So changing to a “Double Green” banner, and taking advantage of the fact that Dark Maiden has Nature link to generate extra green mana, while aiming to convert yellow into green would help you with this version.

But if you still don’t have Manticore you could use Spider Queen instead of Golem, she has Leader as her first trait and it makes her start the battle with +3 in all status while in first position. Her spell drains mana and webs the enemy while also removing armor. The problem are her mana colors being Green and Purple because she would cut mana for the Skeletons and the Dark Maiden, if you plan on using her i would suggest using the “Double Purple” Banner, but the “Double Green” probably works too, in order to get much more purple for the Queen and the Skeletons when using Dark Maiden’s spell. For this tactic collect red mana as soon as possible for Dark Maiden.

I guess that’s all. Long post but i hope it helps someone. :slight_smile:

Video with the team being used on PVP: Gameplay video
No voice and the sound changes a little during the video.
In the overall i’ve made a few mistakes, (on one move i did at 10:28 that allowed Crinsom Bat to make an “L” with blue gems and cast his spell, he was really close anyway, so i was trying to get new gems on the board by allowing him to get an extra turn to fasten the process) but i’m still adapting and getting better at using this composition.

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Kudos to you for the effort put into that sharing…

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I ran into a team like this yesterday and I have to say it was pesky.

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Thanks, it’s a team with low-rarity cards but i get easily carried away with all the explanations towards the centric mechanics and gameplay. If anything i hope this help people with the concepts behind the cards evaluation and creative process. For competitive MTG events i had decks prepared weeks before and dozens of cards to cover all versions and we are talking about a 75 cards deck (60 main and 15 as sideboard reserve). :sweat_smile:

Exactly like this? Or some elements were diferent?

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I don’t remember exactly what was in the 4th slot but the first three were Golem and 2 skeletons. It was surprisingly resilient for being vastly overpowered by my team

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I’m uploading a small video of one of the battles i did in PVP against Khorvash, Valkyrie, Soothsayer and Crimson Bat.
Edit: Video added.

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Thanks for all the replies! This is a holiday week for me so I may not update the OP until next week. But it will get done!

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! :turkey:

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