A perfect looping team

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As we all know by now, board control is probably the single biggest thing in terms of building a winning team. Even if your board control is as minimal as transforming something to blue with Valkyrie to fill Mab/the Bat/Khorvash/etc., it’s hard to do without a good control troop. Since anti-Mab troops are becoming common and the Bat can’t get extra turns, I’ve been working on finding a good looping team that still does solid damage, and I came up with this:

Gloomleaf ***
Green Seer**
Giant Spider**
Keeper of Souls

Each of the man’s transformers feeds an attack troop AND the other mana transformer, which means even if you lose the turn (usually by firing Gloomy) you can probably start the chain all over again next turn, and Gloom and KoS work really well together.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

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I’d swap Gloom Leaf for Sylvanimora. It will allow you to do AOE damage and leave a skull match for the AI to take whilst entangle, so basically a free turn!

I use:

Sylvanimora***
Giant Spider***
Green Seer**
Staff of Madness*** (Necromancer)

Red is there to fill up from the explodes.

Also been using the following loop team with the Necromancer class which I traited up because of the flood of spirit stone events. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Aziris
Hellcat
Alchemist**
Death Knell***

Team bonus: +2 armour, Banner of Progress

Prioritise filling Hellcat, depending on board. Aziris is cheap so will have little impact on blocking red mana. His spell is great at keeping the turn and picking off the lead troop weakened by Death Knell or Hellcat. Being able to +4 match skulls is a regular occurrence.

Death Knell packs a serious punch, doing 28 damage plus the utility of extra turn. :grin: It will generally target either the first troop or Hellcat’s first target, as they are the troops more likely to sustain damage early on.

No green or blue mana troops is fine as you will want to convert those colours to either red or yellow. Troops don’t rely on traits either to be effective, other than the Hero of you want soul generation.

On that topic, I’ve been finding that I get around ~40 souls a match, hitting the 60 cap a couple of times. So, less generation than Valkyrie, but significantly more capable versus Impervious teams than a double Mab team.

Frozen is a pain, three red and three purple troops means one frozen unit can be harsh!! I’ve had this happen a couple of times, just kept using Aziris to create skull matches. This meant I still kept doing damage at least while frozen was in effect.

A fun build, with a couple of flaws, but is a capable alternative if people are looking for something other than a blue mana based team. :grin:

2 Likes
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Haven’t been able to pull Sylvanimora yet… :frowning:

I also haven’t been able to build up enough trait stones to trait my hero classes, so I focus on non-hero troops. That and I’m working on earning the Priest weapon, so… Lol

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Green Seer also loops with Mercy, as does Valk. Getting second or third casts is much harder unless you clear a lot of room for new purples to drop. Using these loops, the front troop should not use yellow, so you can get your universal converter up. There are many, many teams that can be built around those. Khorvash/Mercy/Valk/Plague (or Mab, or Bat) and Dragon Cruncher(or Marilith)/Mercy/Green Seer/Famine (or Vinelash, or recently Sylvanimora) are just a few.

If you are going with a skull engine based on the Seer/Spider loop, though, my personal favorite is:

Black Beast***
Ettin***
Green Seer
Giant Spider**

With skull devour out of the picture (for now), very few things used on defense pose an actual threat to the beast itself once it has devoured Ettin, and even less so after subsequent devours. After that, it is the simple matter of looping to get a spider swarm summon in the empty spot and simultaneously fill up green seer, then eat the spider swarm with Black Beast. Black Beast usually drops the turn and creates a skull match for your opponent, but also frequently gets a skull match itself in the process, and occasionally, will get an extra turn or cause a huge cascade. Extremely bad luck will create 2-3 skull matches for your opponent, but even this is usually survivable, even if you don’t happen to entangle the front troop. Since Black Beast constantly heals to full with his devour, any skull trade he can live is a favorable one, and a couple devours means he oneshots anything without resistance. Just don’t use it versus entangle or Hero (Archer/Assassin) - Archer can one shot you even if you entangle them. Mab is usually doable, but will slow you down considerably if they get a 4 match, since anything getting frozen stalls your loop, and Shadow Hunter has the threat of instantly dropping your Beast and therefore the team, but only if you let it cast (technically, you can still win just by zerging them with spider swarms, it just usually takes much, much longer than is worth it).

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Actually any looping team of Hellcat + Alchemist won’t ever need to give up turn in order to kill the enemy, as Hellcat does damage.
You could speed it up by including Moloch (third trait) or Plague (third trait), or someone like Jarl as a backup “keep the loop going” idea.
I do very like the idea of taking along Aziris to help with clearing out skulls (at some point those skulls will be making it very difficult to find a new transform to keep the loop going)

Possibly simply Jarl/Alchemist/Hellcat/Aziris

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A team that won’t lose once it gets control (though it is slow, and susceptible to being Mab-frozen before it takes control):

Hero (Mang, Archer*** or Assassin***)
Giant Spider**
Green Seer
Boar Rider***
Green/Purple banner
http://ashtender.com/gems/teams/mang,giant-spider,green-seer,boar-rider?banner=zhul-kari

Giant Spider and Green Seer can loop almost indefinitely. Boar Rider gets the splash from both, and does considerable damage, gives a free turn, and can prime the board for another 4-5 match for the next green or purple conversion. Hero with Mang can shred armor if there’s a free moment (for instance, if the lead troop has been Entangled by Green Seer and there’s a 3-skull as bait) to boost Attack, and the third trait of Archer and Assassin will randomly execute a troop on incidental skull matches made by the green and purple spam. With some care in conversion selection and Boar Rider row selection, you can loop until everything is dead.

3 Likes
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Any suggestions on replacements for Mang? I need a new army since my hide behind The Silent One strategy got nerfed. Wish they would at least let me refund him since he’s less than worthless now. Anyways, I am not high enough level to unlock Mang yet.

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You can also use Gorgon in the top slot. He destroys a row, which can sometimes get you a free turn if there’s a pattern like AABAA in a column and you destroy the “B” row. He’s also got Stoneskin and is Red/Brown so he doesn’t interfere with mana generation. This also means that he won’t mess up the loop if he’s Frozen by Bone Dragon. (These last two points are also true for Mang.)

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My tried and true looping team is still:

Templar / Valk / Paladin / Mercy

It very rarely gives up turns and with Templar generating both armor and green mana, by the time it finally does leave me with no turns, Paladin becomes a one-hit sniper.

If you get Mercy’s 3rd trait and get her fired off first turn, it’s entirely possible to win without ever giving the AI a single move.

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I’ve split this hair before, but with your lineup, that’s not possible (unless you’re referring to incidental skull hits from Templar, but I doubt you are). Paladin’s spell always gives up the turn.

1 Like
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Yeah, I’m talking about the gradual withering of the opposing team through Templar skull matching. Sorry for not making that clear.

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My loved looper team is composed by:

Celestasia/Siren/Rock Worm/Jarl Firemantle

Being a multicolored team, any combo will fill some of your mana pools. And Siren can begin producing loops even if there isn’t one available as first move. That way you can shield the usually hated (by oponents :smiling_imp: ) Celestasia from the beginning. Celestasia herself can be used to fill other members of the team, depending of which gems do you see abound more in the field. Rock worm fills itself, but also helps filling Jarl. And of course, with each loop, Jarl will ensure that some flammable opponent could burst in flames.

Weakness to Stun because it can make you lose the shield creation trait, but it is survivable. The real pain is Freeze, as any looper team can atest.

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The other weakness with a creation-based looping team is RNG. Converters are predictable, creators are not, so you can end up with scenarios wherein the created gems just don’t make a 4-match, despite your playing the odds. That said, it can be fun to play, it’s just not what I’d call a “perfect” looping team.

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Not only can you end up without a 4 or 5-match with a creator, you can end up handing one or more extra turns over to your opponent. It can really be devastating in PvP.

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If only I had 14 more red/purple arcane stones for the assassin class. :pensive:

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I’m not a huge fan of Mercy because her spell is specific->specific rather than choice->specific, which makes her a bit of a one hit wonder and it might be a while before purple and yellow line up. She works well when powering other one-shot troops like Maw, but for a true looping team she’s sub-par, IMHO.

I do have a Hellcat/ Alchy/Jarl/Gob Rocket team, which is probably the best in terms of pure looping potential, but damage output is low enough that it just takes too long to win.

I like @Lyya’s team though; need to test that one out.

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Before the Impervious change and mana shield, Valk, Valk, Mab, Mercy was hands down the strongest the strongest perfect looping turn in the game. With one Valk, you sometimes have to give up the turn once or twice to refill Valk before Mercy lines up again, but by the second cast, you usually clear enough space that you can get the extra turn. Setting your banner to yellow is crucial (at least +1, ideally +2) so Valk fills as quickly as possible and you can eliminate other colors. The main problem with the valk/mercy loop is all that blue mana doesn’t have as devastating of an effect (save for Mab) and the Yellow mana from Mercy can be used to fuel things that are much more devastating such as Infernal King/Maw instead. Behemoth/Shadow Hunter does okay with the engine, as does Treant/Terraxis (but requires much more specific usage).

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My looping deck is:

Valk,
Giant Spider
Keeper of Souls
Valk

The ability to choose what gems I want to change makes it more effective than decks with Mercy. Plus, I don’t have to give up any turns for abilities (like I have to if I use Mab’s ability). I have gotten plenty of games where the AI has never gotten a single move because I started with a 4-of-a-Kind in White or Red and was able to activate Valk’s ability immediately. Once I did so, it activated Webspinner and the game just rolled from there. Keeper of Souls kills the enemy while still being able to make 4 of a Kinds. And, after changing 2 of the gems to Blue or Purple, there are always more blue and purple to activity Webspinner & Keeper of Souls again after I use Keeper of Soul’s ability.

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So - one of those Valyries is really a Giant Spider? :thinking: As you said you change gems to purple.

:grin:

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Jarl Firemantle***
Valkyrie***
Green Seer***
Green Slime***
Holy Banner (Yellow/Yellow)

Great for troll wins on Defence.