No takers on those five? I’ll take them off in that case.
We’ve been on a bit of a streak for good Epics, with Volthrenax and Lamashtu arriving on the list in September. Adding both to the list.
I noticed that pretty much all gem creators have been eliminated from the list, except for Moneylender and the Turtle Cannon-types. Is there still a niche for them, or are the trolls just better, more reliable gem creators these days?
No Harpy Mage on list?
Minogor packs a whole punch after the rework, having pretty much the largest single target damage output in non-legendary/mythic area (Earthcaller has a bit higher initial damage, due to higher inherent stats, but Minogor can buff its damage output via traits).
Red Charlotte should make the list too, I’d say. Pretty low nominal damage, but instant refill (with egg thief or thief+bronzelock pistol on team) and can shoot every single turn.
Spirit fox can be as annoying and deadly on offense as on defense. Empowered stealthy true damage dealer, with minuscule mana cost, and mana drainer to top the cake.
I did add a couple of rare-level faction troops by popular request (since they’re easier to get for early-game players), but generally am omitting them from this list, wanting to focus on troops available in chests (Harpy Mage is amazing though).
I do think Minogor is pretty good too, almost exclusively because of its traits. The combo of armor-piercing+bloodlust mean it can really do some damage via skulls. Its spell hits pretty hard too, though I feel it needs some form of external stat buffing to really be dangerous. What kind of teams are you using it with?
Did you mean Bonnie Rose (Red Charlotte is the siegebreaker troop)? She’s another borderline case. I feel like she’s been rendered obsolete with the Skeleton Key usually filling her role, making me hesitant to include her, but maybe I overlooked something?
I have some experience with Spirit Fox on offense, as a Spiritdancer summon. It’s not bad for a summoned troop, but I don’t think it’s particularly good on offense. There are a lot of high-end troops with mana drain immunity, after all, and we’re seeing more true damage options available these days. Are there good endgame options using Spirit Fox?
No backers for the gem creators (Moneylender and the Turtle-Cannon types), who I guess are not relevant now that we have more reliable troll and converter options. I’ll take them off for the next revision.
Since my last post, we’ve gotten new arrivals Moira Cragheart and Kryshound. I was looking to add both to the list - Moira’s a lock, but I’m a bit less sure about Kryshound. In theory it will make true damage troops a bit better in scaling content, but will it make enough of a difference to justify changing the existing teams? Would welcome some opinions there.
Other troops that I was taking another look at are Astral Spirit (bane of empowered converters) and Royal Engineer (since he got buffed, he seems like he’d be useful on scaling content with armor-based troops like Rowanne and Tesla). Any thoughts on those two?
I use minogor mainly in full tauros teams, with chief strongholm, minogor, soothsayer and sometimes earthcaller. It’s the opposite to skull spam teams, as it packs a huge skill damage potential, perfect vs tank teams (or to take out first liners like gorgotha, bulette and stonehammer).
I meant the siegebreaker, Red Charlotte. She’s selfrefilling, instant refill together with egg thief, and can shoot every single turn without being dependant on a refill loop.
Spirit fox is the perfect counter vs certain meta teams, together with astral spirit, while having less mana costs. Things like rope dart for example, oe skeleton key, depend on empowered converters to loop and win. Spirit fox takes away that part, being an empowered mana drainer itself. So far there’s no empowered stealthy/mana drain immune converters…
Kryshound is great in all scaling contents, as it’s damage scales with the enemy. Shoot it vs a 500 life/500 armor enemy, and it will deal 250 life/250 armor damage. Also is great for filling blue troops, like Moira. Or for spamming blue for troops like King Bloodhammer.
I agree for sure Kryshound is good for low-level players on scaling content. My question is if he’s good enough to displace/supplement the options end-game players already have. Would he have a place on Megavore teams, for example, on delves where you can’t use HKI?
That’s a good point re: Spirit Fox. Event though I have my doubts about the utility of defensive troops like it and Astral Spirit in the current game (since they would take the slot of your own empowered mana kick-starter), I’ll include them on the next list.
Minogor still seems a bit borderline IMO. Yeah he’s good for full Tauros teams, but that team isn’t great overall, and wouldn’t see use in general pvp or GW. Is he worth trying with beast-based rope-dart teams, perhaps?
As for Red Charlotte, I get what you’re saying, but we’re still talking 28 damage/cast, with no other side benefits (besides the “greedy” trait). Unless I’m missing something, there are just too many other options, even on gold-based teams, for her to be useful to non-early game players.
I’ve got a handful of edge cases I’ve been thinking of lately, anybody have any thoughts on these?
Sunweaver, a Tauros-event-only troop, or better? I’m trying to avoid including type (or kingdom)-limited event troops on the list, but she might be better than that. Her speed and stat boosting may make her good on scaling content, does anybody use her?
Volthrenax: This troop does more damage than any other Epic troop (and more than many Legendaries), but is just doing damage enough these days to merit use on endgame teams?
The Guild Wars commons (Aurai, Myzmer, etc): The team-wide stat boost from their third trait is costly, but I figure it could be good to use, especially on teams with summoners (e.g., use these troops as meat shields and substitute with a summon).
Sunweaver: meh
Volthrenax: good early/mid-game troop. respect the boost ratio 
Guild Wars commons: not really, except maybe Myzmer for the Sorcerer Hero class event.
Thanks again for the feedback.
Trying a different format on for size, this one emphasizing troop role, rather than rarity (for now I’ll maintain the original list as well). I also included the lower-rarity faction troops (marked by “*”), which serve similar functions as these troops in general, and you’ll want to consider while building teams. Some troops straddled the classifications I came up; happy to revisit their placement if you think I got it wrong.
Color Converter (inputs, conversion type):
Alchemist (r/br, to yellow)
Apothecary (g/bl, to brown)
Asha (p/g, blue to)
Dark Maiden (r/g, yellow to)
Diviner (g/br, to yellow)
Erinyes (y/p, to purple)
Giant Spider (g/bl, to purple)
Green Seer (y/p, to green)
Hellcat (y/p, to red)
Lord Ember (p/br, to red)
Spirit Dancer (bl/p, to green)
Stormsinger (y/p, to blue)
Valkyrie (r/y, to blue)
Exploder/Board Shuffling:
Azura
*Harpy Mage
Wisp
Gem Creator (inputs,gem created):
Dark Troll (r/br, purple)
Desert Troll (g/br, yellow)
Flame Troll (bl/p, red)
Forest Troll (bl/br, green)
Rock Troll (r/p, brown)
Sea Troll (p/g, blue)
Skeleros (r/p, skull)
Turtle Cannon (bl/br+skulls, green)
Empowered mana creation (inputs, spell colors):
Daughter of Ice (p/br, red to blue)
*Drowned Sailor (r/p, yellow to blue)
Gimlet Stormbrew (r/y, green to brown)
*Grave Seer (r/y, green to purple)
Lamashtu (r/y, yellow to purple)
Leprechaun (p/g, explode green)
Mercy (g/bl, purple to yellow)
Moon Rabbit (p/g, blue to yellow)
Moonsinger (bl/y, purple to green)
Scurvy Seadog (r/y, green to blue)
Tai-Pan (g/b, brown to red)
Spell Caster-Offense:
Bul’Tauros
*Gargoyle
Moira Cragheart
Rowanne
Sunbird
*Water Elemental
Spell Caster-Defense:
Astral Spirit
Sister Superior
Spirit Fox
Scaling-content troops:
Corrupt Magus
Faunessa
Glutmaw
Kryshound
*Sea Witch
*Watch Mother
Resource farming:
Acolyte (souls)
Aziris (souls)
Banshee (souls)
Bombot (explore)
Fire Bomb (explore)
Princess Elspeth (explore)
Misc:
Clockwork Sphinx (armor/all)
Dwarven Gate (with Ethereal Sentry)
Egg Thief (gold team)
*Ethereal Sentry (increase attack)
Fire Giant (Jarl+giants team)
Fortress Gate (with Ethereal Sentry)
Greed (gold team)
Wall of Bones (with Ethereal Sentry)
Wall of Tentacles (with Ethereal Sentry)
Got a few updates I’m mulling over, any feedback would be appreciated:
I thought of this post a few weeks back, when Wall of Tentacles released on Switch. I ran it with Ethereal Sentry in pvp all week long…it was fun, but I definitely noticed a hit in my win rate in T3 pvp. With no skull reduction, Wall of Tentacles (and Fortress Gate, probably) is just too squishy to be worth using past the early-game phase. I’m thinking I’ll drop those two from the next revision; Dwarven Gate and Wall of Bones might be a bit more viable, so I’ll leave them on for now.
I’m considering also dropping targeted curse troops (that don’t also stun their targets), specifically Corrupt Magus. In a post-Cedric medal world, are these troops worth using still? The risk of auto-cleanse means you’ll have to delay casting these when setting up HKI, and the curse not sticking means that they won’t be as good for things like setting up mana burn/mana drain and other status effects.
Lastly, are the speed-explore troops (Fire Bomb, Bombot, and Elspeth) still worth using by endgame players post-4.6? Other than for gnome weekends, it doesn’t seem like we have much incentive anymore for speed-exploring (worse for arcane traitstones, worse for tokens).
Yeah, when I said pvp-“viable” I didn’t mean “great” 
glad you had at least a little fun though! I should add a gate/sentry combo over to the “stupid teams” thread … maybe the next construct event week will motivate me to 
No argument that they’re at best inconsistent in late game, mostly just a neat trick. Like a Rube Goldberg machine. Easier and better ways to do it but interesting how it comes together when it works
Nice job on that thread btw. We need more public discussion on team formation in general, and I keep an eye on the stuff you post there.
I think Copycat should maybe be considered as a cheap way for low-level accounts to stay alive forever (and also, potentially double their good cards. Anyone test whether a duplicated troop’s traits work correctly, for instance? Doubling Pharos for anyone that has one…)
By a similar token, a doppelganger can be a poor man’s mythic
Thanks for bringing them up, I was definitely looking at adding the new Mirrored Halls troops as well. My concern with Copycat is the whole “an Ally’s mana color” issue with multi-mana color troops being too random. You may be able to construct a team where her spell is a win-win in terms of color generation, but it seems finnicky to me. Definitely has potential though, and I’d like to see what kinds of builds people come up with. (lol @ copying Pharos; the Sacrifice meta is coming!)
Doppelganger as a “substitution” troop for newer players could be a thing, though it still requires the player to have the right support for whatever mythic troop they copy (and they won’t get any of the traits). Seems like a lot of work. I think Doppelganger is more likely to make the list as a substitution troop for scaling content - it curses its targets (making them devour-eligible), and allows a player to get around color/type/kingdom restrictions.
Both could definitely make the list, let me know what you come up with!
Back in the day, I used Mang, Goblin Rocket, Goblin, and Boar Rider. I also used Lion Prince, Black Beast, Giant Spider and Boar Rider so much that Boar Rider was my most favored troop until this past summer.
When I created an alt, I used a brown weapon until I could craft Mang, Gob Rocket, Boar Rider and Goblin (+1 Green, snipes) in pet rescues, and could normally complete all 8. Too many times Fizzbang fizzled for me. And eventually the alt could use Skeleton Key team, so, no more Rocket/RIder, but I loved those chains.
I’ve found copycat fantastic when casting on single colour troops and that’s the key really when team building with it.
When doing Tod last week I just used single colour hero (actually used Doomed Codex). Literally cast copycat on that and had an undead team behind, TGK either one or two or Xathenos. Used Titan hero and just kept casting on brown with Copycat. Was great for final all purple doom. Always having barrier and magic multiplying so nicely. Very easy to suppress with TGK and refilling mana to copycat to codex etc.
I’ve paired copycat with YG and that works extremely well as both of its colours fill it or your usual support.
Thanks Xolid. I figured Copycat would be reliable (as reliable as a 10-gem creator can be, at least) with single-color hero weapons, but then you lose the summon aspects of the troop. Cool looping idea with Gray King though.
With the Yao variants, was giving the opponent a good board not too much of a problem? I could see that setup running into some Jarl-ish problems on a green miscast, since Yao teams tend to build up so much red on the board.
I used the following team in T3 pvp and strung off 50 or so wins, probably finished 70:1 with it. Team lacks banishment, but you could go Mech for that.
Tai Pan
Yao G
Doomed Crossbow
Copycat
Dragon banner 2 red, 1 yellow - 1 brown.
Tidecaller/Frostmage/Sunspear/Shaman or Hierophant
Shaman gives lightbringer +1 yellow but as a downside to bloodthirsty, which although hero is down near the back, could come in handy when matching doomskulls.
So I figure Tidecaller with the blue explosions on 4/5 matches in a converting loop team or Sunspear would be better. Frostmage can be handy if you want to not be so precise and hang around, more casts, more chance freezing etc.
2 x Cedric, 1 x Anu
TP - you will go if you can match a few red (remove all brown of course)
YG awaits red
Doomed Crossbow appears blocked…
Copycat with Anu 2/12 is close (10/12) with a surging yellow to fill it.
Basically how it generally works is you try and match yellow for Copycat. Bear in mind a lot of opponents are still using Rope Dart meta or Webspinner meta and a yellow storm appears anyway, so often you get a free yellow storm…
I generally find if I match yellows if I can’t cast TP, when I do cast TP, I have both YG and Copycat full (only needs 1 yellow most of the time, which comes from an explosion of a 4 match then).
When YG is full, most of the time I find, I either take more red, cast YG to 4 match purple to red or I refill TP. Every 4 match tickles mana with Tidecaller. Crossbow is again 1 short with a 3 match red, so you can see you don’t have to do much to actually fill it.
As soon as Crossbow is full, Copycat will invariably be full and you cast Copycat on Crossbow or TP. If Copycat makes blue, often enough that aligns the Bow (if not already). Yes, you could pass the turn, but the difference between YG and Jarl is generally speaking 2 casts of YG with a couple of red 4 matches and you have killed (or just about) the AI top two troops. Ideally however you cast Copycat on the hero. If you keep the turn, you’ve won from this point. A doomed Xbow cast, even with missing a further turn will definitely have killed the top two. There are times when I’ve done this, that I only cast YG and Copycat in the match after a good TP cast and killl all 4 troops with YG alone.
Quite funnily, a lot of the time Copycat is full, from 4 gem reds, blue explosions and board manipulation as a result. I sometimes cast it on YG but it’s not as safe as on Crossbow.
When/if TP dies to skulls, you can sometimes summon a further YG.
In general it works ok. Grave Seer for L&D makes purple, so does Lamashtu, so you probably are going to cast YG thereafter and then a Doomed Weapon. It’s a real shame Diabolist does not have undying, as I’ve tried it with this and the red bonus/red storm but the lack of a 1/2 start hurts and AI storms overwriting not repeating storms. Basically it then becomes too slow.
If you don’t want to use Copycat, the original team has Lep in it’s place(which I use to level classes in ranked pvp). It’s more fun with Copycat and it’s fast enough to not whittle about losing.
Weakness is death mark to L&D from a lack of cleanse, but Tidecaller cleanses hero and a lack of stun, which I generally don’t leave base without… Fun though.
Clever team, and thanks as always for the detailed breakdown and explanation. Will add Copycat to the next version of the list. It sounds like if you mostly stick with casting on Crossbow, it’s pretty safe and doesn’t drop the turn too often (my main worry with gem creators). Taking advantage of its flexibility is pretty handy, mixing in tactical casts on Tai Pan.
Re: weakness to L&D, you ever play around with Necrocorn? Similar idea to your usage of Copycat here, plus it blesses its target.