I spent the past two days traiting my Kraken so I could create a team that lets me crush even the toughest opponents, there is in fact no way to loose if I suceed with the first 3 moves, barring terrible luck.
The setup is as follows:
Dragon talon flag: +2 red +1 yellow -1 brown
Valkyrie 3 traits
Kraken 3 traits
Justice 0 traits
The last place is open, the ones I have tried succesfully are:
Giant Spider 2 traits
Deck hand 0 traits
Celestasia 0 traits
War sphinx 0 traits
The trick is simple:
Activate Valkyrie, that takes up to 3 matches or 2 if lucky
Use Valkyrie to convert any other color than purple so that you get a 4 or 5 chain (first 3 dmg from Tentacle)
Usually that means Justice is triggered, then use her power with the purples and hope for at least one 4 or 5 chain (it’s very likely at this point)
From then on just keep Tentacle-slapping the opponent, they won’t get a chance to do anything about it.
It happens once in a while that the Justice/Kraken combo stops, if none of them are charged and no 4-5 matches are available. That is where the 4th teammember gets useful, that is also why the spot is interchangable, what matters is that they can generate either blue or purple gems and is charged by either color (preferably blue), if not they won’t get charged.
Pros:
Absolute board control after the first 3 turns
Bypasses any special traits like Stealthy and Frozen Soul
Scales infinitely, with 3 dmg per 4-5 match it’s just a matter of time
Kraken can’t be stunned so you’ll never loose your Tentacles
After the first activation it mostly only needs Kraken and Justice to keep going
Due to the above-mentioned it is possible to get back after a few setbacks, Krakens Devour can really help here as well
Explore matches takes less than a minute and PVP is as fast as I have tried them.
Cons
The key is Kraken, without him there is absolutely nothing to do, so if he dies due to a few unlucky cascades, the match is over
Very vulnerable to frozen, Valkyrie and Kraken can get frozen without it being terminable but if any blue gets frozen the match is over (avoid Mab if possible she can destroy the team in a turn)
Justice isn’t exactly hardy so if she dies it can be hard to come back
Pretty luck dependent in the first 6 or so turns, the luck is stacked in your favor but if there is a lack of yellows and reds in the start or Justice doesn’t trigger a cascade you will be vulnerable.
Now if anyone has any good suggestions for the 4th teammember I have no Mythics and most likely won’t have in the forseeable future
Any other comments would be welcome too
I’ll do Elspeth - 2x Bombot - Mechanist hero with brown weapon. Sacrifice the hero first turn for the brown mana, and most times you have two Bombots ready to roll.
Gives a bit more cushion if you hit a team with high health. Heck it’s pretty good for PVP if you check the math beforehand (mine do something like 70 damage combined to all enemies)
If you have two Krakens, you might want to try Green Seer/Giant Spider/Kraken/Kraken. Green Seer is quick to get looping and the mana from both transformations feed Kraken. Once you get going, Green Seer and Giant Spider can feed each other forever and each loop does a multiple of 6 damage to everyone. If you happen to get stuck, cast a Kraken and hope for a devour or an extra-turn off the blue mana that spawns.
Frozen is still deadly to this team, obviously, but it works against pretty much anything else.
Relying on Bombot is fine until you come up against a troop with Life Drain. On PC/mobile, at least, Life Drain triggers after Bombot’s damage and prevents the spell from killing the enemy troop. Thus the recommendation for Black Manacles as a cleanup spell.
Elspeth/Boombot/Boombot/Hero (mechanist 3 traits with pure brown weapon) requires 3 less brown than Elspeth/Boombot/Black manacles/pure brown troop. 5+5 for 1st team, 5+8 for 2nd team.
Elspeth sacrifices the last troop, that’s the whole point of her, so you can cast two bombot one after the other, if required. It’s an Explore team you you rarely need both and certainly you’ll not need black manacles to finish off explore opponents on normal. I think some people have crossed wires here.
Why would you need that though? Elspeth kills the brown hero, fills bombot usually both, with an extra turn, which gives you an instant cast with bombot and victory. The ai won’t even get a turn. If you have a life drain scenario you have another bombot ready to go. I don’t understand your logic. Sorry.
The Bombot explore team is super-fast. I find using DeepBorer/Bombot/RandomMech/MechanistHero (Blackhawk banner) to be about as fast, and more reliable than Elspeth, which can be mega-fast, but far slower if the opening Elspeth cast misfires.
For when I get tired of Bombotting, here’s another super-fast explore team:
GreenSeer
Rowanne
Elspeth
Mercy
(blue/green, or double-green banner)
Plan:
if yellow/purple board suits, cast Mercy - fill Seer - cast Seer - fill Rowanne - win
if not, cast Elspeth on Mercy - fill Rowanne - win
if more yellows. cast Elspeth on Elspeth - fill Rowanne, or fill Seer - cast Seer, and so on
I like the versatility and choice depending on opening board - and Rowanne can still wipe most Explore mode teams in one cast (for me at least).
I gamble that the knight Elspeth summons will be able to mop up any Life Drain troops - which it almost always can. Other than Templar, Alastair and maybe one or two more they all can deal direct damage.
I suggest a slight tweak to the Bombot team, which is to make it Elspeth/Bombot/Steam Turret/Mechanist with Warden’s Gauntlets, using the double Brown flag. Having three unique Adana troops and three unique Mechs nets an extra 6 armor on Bombot compared to the bonuses for just having two Adana troops (two Mechs gives no bonus), and that extra three damage with Bombot can sometimes make the difference between wiping a team in one turn and needing to spend an extra turn cleaning up. In case Bombot doesn’t destroy all enemies or in the case of Life Drain, Steam Turret can focus all its damage on just one or two troops which is always enough to take them out.
