Your post inspired me to try it and got it done in 3 attempts. Last room I was down to Matron with 40 health against a full health Rogue and after the 3rd time casting the 10% hit I couldn’t believe it haha. Thanks for your post
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Dark Court L500 potionless second try
Hoard 111 + 50% (+ campaign week 10 + all kingdoms to L15)
Dark Knight (elite gold)
Kelpie
2x legend with Fell Roost banner
Middle rooms were
2x Pyggra/Lord Ember/Sheggra and
2x Gorbil/Plague Rat/Hex Rat.
Had one Kelpie devour in a run that I lost, nothing in final run but a few lucky deathmarks.
No lycanthropy on enemies, twice on me in boss room - first legend turned into Pharao Hound (helped a bit with barriers), other legend into this flaming horse when we were left one on one.
Just keep them strategically drained and slowly chip away - got to the boss room with full original team, but then the skyskulls started to fall.
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Mirrored Halls, Wild Court and Amanithrax done in the last two days. I must say lycanthropy is really growing on me it’s a massive help for pure faction runs. What’s the minimum hoard I would need to have a chance at The Labyrinth? The plan would be to get lucky with lycanthropy.
Dark Court done, 100 hoard, 50% bonus.
1 Orpheus, 1 Nysha, 1 Anu for the boss room, 3 Orpheus room 1 and 3 x Nysha for the Tier IV and V.
Dark Knight
Kelpi
2 x Leanansidhe
Didn’t do it on PC so didn’t record it or get so many screenies.
I honestly don’t think you need 2 x Leanansidhe, 1 is sufficient. Kelpi works when you let opponents get as much mana before they cast, and easier to fill with blues.
First room, 3 Orpheus. Key is do not keep skull hitting to reset deathmark, try and skull, fill, cast, manipulate mana and skull again after 2-3 turns. Let them skull you if you are barriered and full of mana, and they are death marked.
Tier V - Webbed Court - Dark Maiden and Co, long battle, all out on trying to devour Webspinner and avoid being hit hard by the Tomb Spider. Devoured webby when at 14/15.
Tier IV - Worm Tunnels - Really tough to beat with the worms doubling up, but I managed to shut them down as much as I could with drain, and skulled Kruarg down. Made it a very long battle. I devoured Cockatrice near the end, so controlled brown and managed to fill the Legendaries just enough, let skulls hit barriers to scrape through, while draining.
Final Room - Fairly easy. I nearly beat it Monday with my second try, but their Kelpi as the sole troop left, devoured 2 of my 4 troops and skulled the others.
Strategy same as room 1, let their legendary have as much mana as you can get away with and Kelpi it. That way you can avoid being 2 skull hit and done.
I devoured the legendary, skulled away their Dark Knight, with the leggies doing some damage and traded skull hits for barrier when full. Deathmark killed their Sluagh and then just kept draining their Kelpi. I did let Dark Knight die to trading a skull hit so I could drain it, to stop it’s chance of devouring and turning the tide like on Monday.
Just Hellgate without potions, still not interested in trying too hard, it’s ridiculous.
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Finally finished Hell Gate without potions. Hoard was 309, Kingdom 15, and an unknown number of attempts. Team was Charonas, Fury, Lemure, Judge of the Dead, Hell Gate Banner. I also made several runs with a second Lemure in the first spot - felt about as viable as this one.
Center rooms were Rat Pack (no devours, thankfully) and Frozen Cavern, where I lost Charonas. Last room, had little luck with Death Mark until the last troop, but Lemure got an early Attack debuff in on Judge, which helped us survive by skull-baiting until we could put some damage out. All 3 survived, all 3 were one-shot by the end.
Cleared both Indrajit and Dark Court shortly after their releases, so I’m back to 100% no-potion clear for all delves.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I left Fury’s 2nd and 3rd traits locked so I didn’t have to deal with Bonestorm in center rooms.
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I just finished my Dark Court pure faction run about twenty minutes ago, and I agree. On PS4, and not a screenshot guy, so I can’t link those here in this thread, but my hoard was only at 123 which is among the lowest hoards in my entire collection. I’m also pretty darned lazy when it comes to Medals and re-arranging them, so I did my entire run with Anu/Seasons/Orpheus.
My team? Dark Knight, then Kelpie, then Leanansidhe, then Slaugh. The last to absorb red, to give me another way to target a specific troop for mana drain, and because he’ll often fill my Kelpie and Leanansidhe if he drains 12 mana. I went for a while with 2xLeanansidhe, but it felt a bit slow to me as far as filling and casting.
First room, I agree with the tactics in question. Won’t add anything more.
Tier V - Sunken Grotto. Which is a bit of a pain. It’s hard to keep the Dark Knight barriered while Nimue is around and matching Green. Sea Witch has Mana Shield, so you can’t really stop her from casting. Her spell isn’t too much of a threat if you can keep a barrier up to absorb an unlucky skull hit, and unless she hits a cascade of matches with the generation of gems you’ll appreciate what is there to fill your own troops. She’ll lengthen the fight because she also gives Life with the spell, but it is what it is.
I got fortunate enough to fill and cast my Dark Knight on my opening turn, which prevented Siren from casting back; she eventually cast once later on in the fight but Death Mark got to her. Once she was gone, I focused my spell damage on Nimue and used Slaugh if Nimue or Azura was almost full. Eventually hit a devour on Nimue, much later a devour on Azura, and skulled Sea Witch to death.
Tier IV - Guarded Chamber. Got the Dark Monolith pretty quickly with a Death Mark. Got the Dwarven Gate the same way. The Anubite Warrior has “Warded” but isn’t really a threat; nor are the Fortress Gates he summons. (Unless I was going to get roasted with skyfalling skulls, which I didn’t.) Arcane Golem is a pain in the butt because dispel + True Damage, but I focused on depleting his mana and kept him to two casts during the fight. Fortunately for me, aimed at two different troops.
Final Room - Turned out to be pretty easy with Kelpie eating three troops. My Dark Knight finally kicked the bucket on the second-to-last turn when the enemy Slaugh skulled him, but my Kelpie was already lined up to finish him with a cast.
…
This one takes a little bit of luck, but it’s not a “pray to RNGeezus” festival like Crypt Keepers (which I finally did the other day) or Stonesong Eyrie or Mirrored Halls. I feel like I probably got a fair amount of good fortune in this one and wouldn’t have beaten it this early without it, but it’s easy enough and there’s a real strategy behind it and that’s what makes me like a delve.
Lottery offends me; strategy makes me smile.
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Cleared Dark Court a few hours ago. Actually very easy once I figured it out.
+2 yellow instead of +2 purple because we want to use more yellow, Sluagh makes it, their Sluagh makes it, and between the other rooms in the way I’m pretty sure there’s a larger abundance of it available.
I ran 3x Nysha on all rooms. Straightest path through the nightmare-fuel rooms. To be fair my long route had a Dragon Fountain before the obligatory tier 4, so that looked sort of unappealing.
Basically need to not carelessly leave your Dark Knight without a barrier. Always take skulls unless it sets you up for disaster, because Deathtouch is pretty dumb. Just be careful about hitting Sluagh’s Infernal Armor and losing barrier - this is fine if there are no other skulls and you’re charged, for instance. If you have a barrier up, don’t cast Dark Knight again unless you really need to drain them or there’s an appealing use for the column destruction like multiple potions or it gets the last two mana for the legendary or something. Using the column to hit a couple skulls to break their barrier is relevant. Once a Deathmark kills off one of their troops, you have one less thing to drain and your fight becomes much easier to handle. I had at least a few Deathmark kills on my final run, I think the boss room netted two but I’m not sure if I needed both.
Identify threats, reserve Kelpie for draining them when needed. Don’t even think about the devour, if it happens then it happens. My final run had no devours.
Use Leanansidhe on their backmost troop for damage, obviously this also keeps that one locked down and drained unless its immune. Use for emergency draining on threats if need be. Keeping Dark Knight and Kelpie charged enables easily recharging Leanansidhe.
Sluagh is for emergency draining or quick-charging your other troops if there’s a chunk of yellow or their side doesn’t use it. Use with caution if they use yellow, i.e. the boss room, I did have this backfire on me a couple times with “safe” amounts of yellow on the board.
Two Leanansidhe is exceptionally slow to charge and you’re better off burning the first in short order to keep them drained anyway. Besides soaking up red mana, having Sluagh also nets a large amount of extra stats, given the existence of pets for 4 Fey, 4 Ghulvania (x2) and Dark Court (albeit not maxed before clearing). On my run, Sluagh gave my team 19 life, 9 armor, 9 attack and 3 magic.
And just check what can and can’t be mana drained. There’s a bunch in these rooms that can’t.
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Hell gate down, back to all potionless. Hoard 291
Charonas
Fury
Judge
Lemure
All medalled, Fanged Banner.
Nearly did it at 245, final Lemure had 21 life when it got skulls from sky while I setup skulls.
First room 3 x Orpheus. Very important, can’t lose Fury or Lemure. Death marks on their Fury.
Coral Cave T4 3 x Nysha, Fury on Coral Golem.
Volcanic Shaft T5 3 x Seasons, Fury on Sheggra. Let Pyggra summon if you can then you can cast Charonas. Lost Charonas right at end to Lord Ember and sky skulls.
Boss, 3 x Seasons, probably should go 3 Orpheus but the extra attack really helps. Fury v Fury, it died to death mark. Charonas died to skulls, I fired Fury hereafter at the Lemure. Killed it with my own Lemure. Then a mostly full Judge vs 3 troops. I tried to be clever, so clever that I took a 3 match skulls before a 4 match thinking it fell into it, but ended up causing more damage to me.
Their judge cast twice and two skull hits killed my Fury and Judge but I’d rendered its spells useless with Lemure by then.
I traited Fury, it helped at times tbf.
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Potionless done at hoard 111 + 50%; 2x seasons/Nysha medals.
The team was
2x Terra Wyrm
Great Wyrn
Nether Wyrm
I had tried a few times with double Terra/double Great but somehow it didn’t go too great, so I reckoned I might use Nether Wyrm for strategic drain when Terra Wyrm was buffed sufficiently.
Full team reached boss room going through
4x Mimic room
Goblin throneroom (enemy agile was annoing at times)
3 stealthy with Scurvy Seadog room (self agile was helpful at times).
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I did it on weekend with Potions, went 1x Terra, 3x Great Wyrm.
had 4 attempts with this setup → 2 times rolled drowned grotto in the middle and even though i ended up getting to final room, without Terra it was difficult
3rd attempt- had orcs in the midddle, but went greedy, went for Mimic room, got my terra devoured…
4th try → Sheggra in middle, grabbed Agiles from 2nd battle, and Arcane from 4th battle (probably 2 best buffs for my setup). Ended up with Perfect Pure Win…
Not sure how effective that setup be without potions…
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Also done without potions - all done again without.
I did it in the event with 100 hoard with same team, albeit with Tier 7s etc.
Hoard 155, 3 Nysha, Eagle Banner.
Starting board - no potions etc.
4th attempt. Tried a couple at 100, but think I would be at it too long, many stressed efforts. Hell gate took all my treasures too.
I was doing better but you can’t keep them down for long with skulls. Their last Wrym made about 5 skull hits from killing a troop, which ended up being 2.
I was very tempted to cast the Nether Wyrm, it needed 2 skull hits though, so managed to avoid skulls and hit it twice the normal way😊
Rooms were Bandit/Sea dog and co, Siren and co and Dark Magus Secrets. All intact at final room.
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anyone got a lineup and strategy for potionless dark pits?
i keep losing troops on the V room
Now you’ll have to do it again when they “fix” the traits and see how it compares 
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I’ll take it! 
Hehe, I fear the Horned Wyrm will be pretty tough if you haven’t killed Terra Wyrm with all those extra skulls landing from the traits.
You may have to change the team and use it yourself, it’s so strong in the AI’s hands.
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I avoided it. Did it at 160 and 25% with Sledgepaw, Hex Rat x2 and Rattigar if memory serves me. (It’s somewhere in this thread) Post 1550.
I went round the left outside, used a brown/purple banner and ensured I cursed with Sledge, cast both Hex Rats one after the other and went top down. Both Rats on troop 1 for double damage, then curse the 2nd again when it’s dead with Sledgepaw.
It is tempting to use Rattigar for its curse on skull hits, but it will die to skulls unless you have a much higher hoard.
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Pretty sure avoiding Dark Pits is the right call.
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Overpowered. Zoom! All done.
No sorry, I had hoard level 300 and had a lot of luck, before I managed it.
100 Hoard 0 potions doable.
Basically another case of ‘cast frontline troop as often as possible and hold every other ability until absolutely necessary’. Do not want to have a bad skull board with this mirror. If their Nether Wyrm charges, drain it before it drains you - if you’re going to have the skulls come down, best you at least go first. If you’re looking at a lot of skulls, plan on using Nether Wyrm to take advantage.
I ran two Terra Wyrms, Great Wyrm, Nether Wyrm. Horned Wyrm is sadly not of value. Eagle banner for me, could just as easily use Kobold banner (+2 brown +1 yellow or vice versa). 3x Nysha medals. Gotta get them stat buffs.
Oh and take almost every skull match.
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Was this with the nerfed traits, or during the brief period where they were reverted back to “intended”?