I ended up using Paladin, Wisp (traited, cuz I’m stupid), Portal, Portal. Protect your Paladin long enough for him to get some casts in. Hammer enemy Wisp with skulls in final room & nail his paladin & portal with Wisp. Leave his warlock for last. With a second Portal, you should win the war of attrition.
Hoard 175, Tier 7 x5.
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I gave up on this one out of frustration. Too much depends on skyfall and ridiculous casting of Umbral Portal (never set me up for anything good). I had done Pf300 for legendary pet. I guess I’ll settle with it.
1 Like
Potionless Umbral Nexus
Hoard 196, 4 x Wisp, 2 Nysha, 1 Seasons, Silver Banner
This was actually my first try with 4 Wisps. I had mainly been doing Paladin, Wisp, 2 X Umbrals or Wisp, Warlock, 2 x Umbrals but often found myself at the boss room with them having either web, freeze or agile traits. The AI likes to leave skulls at the worst moment, but the value from skulls in this faction is countered by the AI going almost every turn and stealing life.
Back to all done without potions 
1 Left…
Went all the way round the clockwise section, so 7 rooms in total. Mainly because Agile from Bandit room. I used 3 Orpheus vs Wraith rooms.
At Boss, all intact. AI went absolutely mad, the purple it made sent it into a frenzy of skulls and purple and within 5 minutes they were setting me up into leaving me skulls and them taking life. So, I was unable to hit their back troops well enough, and the Warlock cast a couple of times and then when I had mana, no mana to steal etc.
Looked like a total lost cause here;
However managed to avoid skulls as best I could, but never had enough to survive a double skull hit, so it was awkward.
Eventually got it.
10 Likes
The luck factor on this faction is very high to the point of being obnoxious. I tried for a full hour with potions (and finally beat it 1 min after the faction ended, so no credit), but managed to get it the very next try without potions. (199 hoard, 50%, 4 wisps). Tried it twice more to see if it was a fluke and I got destroyed.
It really depends on if the AI wants to focus fire your troops, on how the skulls drop from the sky after every turn, and how the create a gem on both sides decides to screw with you.
1 Like
It’s just an example of how to create something to maximise player expenditure.
It honestly is absolute nonsense, in some games the AI troop will fill itself from 0 and the Warlock will fill completely just from the Born of Traits matching purple.
My first PF run, fully intact at the boss. Took 3 purple, had to pass turn. The AI created 16 mana from the trait, and hit me with 3 seperate sets of sky skulls to kill my full health Wisp without a further move.
On the actual winning effort - the AI looped twice on purple mana 5 matches created by purple gems into 2 sets of sky skulls. It’s exactly what the designers intend, and have been doing on factions, changing the board state to accelerate ridiculous skull drops. Here, they do it before their move…
The other thing I noticed was the Umbral Storm feels like a Bone Storm, the board state changes so much. I found I could work this to my advantage if I ran 2 of the Umbral Portals by casting on top/directly after each other, if I kept the turn and both were previously full. I tended to find however that getting a full team intact with summoners beyond room 1 was much harder than most initial PF rooms, due to overlooking traiting stealth on Wisp and the AI’s ability to cast nearly every turn.
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Hey, did anyone over here complete Wyrmrun this tuesday? I am interested to know how many Tier 7s was needed with the current (original) traits?
yeah i think their original skull spawning trait will be super annoying to fight against
I bought 7x Tier VII
6 sigils was left when I reached lvl500
Took 4 tries to finish.
Never did a full “Tuesday Faction” before. I decided to do it after I tried to finish in regular way, It was depend on pure luck and could take forever to finish so I finished it on faction event. Still needed to be very lucky to finish. Worst delve experience for me.
2 Likes
Thats It, All Pure Factions done Without Potions
let’s see what kind of challenge the devs are preparing for us.
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Awesome job mate! I have four left. Wyrmrun is what I am currently trying, then have Werewoods, Hell Gate and this new one. I dunno how am I going to get treasures for all this but hey, it’s a long game I guess…
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And there she goes… final delve without potions.
Lava Scorpion
Wrath Naga
Magma Dragon
Lava Spirit
3 Nysha
197 Hoard + 50%
Volcanic Banner
5th go, basically got mauled by true damage or Nasty T5 on other goes.
I only had 3 troops at boss, Scorpion died to Domovoi enrage and sky storm of skulls from a Goblin Rocket cast.
In terms of Fire Rift, basically avoid red if you can. When at boss, avoid skulls as best you can. I was only hit by skulls on AI’s last two freak moves.
In terms of hoard I had 2 goes at 133, 1 at 166, 1 at 169 and 1 at 197. None of the others were close, although got to boss 3 times, had no damage when I did etc.
All done.
First 20 or so were done without ever doing weekends. All done by grinding dailies and getting some bits done to speed along. Tuesday never more than 240 I think, all time, work, too busy, found a way. Weekend only from about the last 7-8 on have I completed there and then had goes potionless. It’s simply impossible to generate the treasures without weekend or Tuesday, but I did actually help myself by now having a higher gem hoard than I would had I done the weekends from beginning.
7 Likes
Yes baby, Wyrmrun with current traits FINALLY beaten! 199 + 75%
Two to go, Hell Gate and Werewoods!
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Luckboxed Werewoods! 176+50%
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Wow, finally beat Frostfire Keep lvl 500 yesterday pure faction! Had been going at it for at least a month, was a hard slog. Hoard level 209 +75% stats from kingdom leveling. Team was Wraith, Troll, King, King.
I was expecting that I would need a lycanthropy miracle to beat this one, but that wasn’t the case. Denied the AI blue, red, and yellow the best I could, and got a good early run that allowed my Wraith to get stacked up in health. Got very lucky in that my middle troops were the ones killed off, so AI King’s splash couldn’t rack up splash damage on my surviving troops. Once I was able to kill the enemy Wraith, I was winning the war of attrition. Run of skulls in my favor (and a very lucky AI King cast that hit my Wraith both times) led to the win. Still in shock it worked out.
(EDIT: In the end this one felt a lot like Sea of Sorrow. The main difference being that instead of the amazing Sea Witch, whose healing, enrage, and board control were all critical, we’re stuck with Troll for board control, who just sucks. Def one of the hardest pure faction runs I’ve done, and probably the largest hoard I’ve had to use for any of them.)
6 Likes
@Mana_Surgeon How did that team work for you as far as board control went?
I ask because this is my current “project”, and my Hoard levels are approaching yours (albeit with only a +50% boost from Kingdom Levels). The paradigm I’m using is Wraith / Wraith / Witch / King; I have no problems whatsoever with the opening room but a lot of the middle rooms can get me when I simply don’t have the ability to reduce dangerous enemy casters away from the tank spot quickly enough and I’m completely out-classed stat-wise if I do get to the Boss room intact. (Which I have a few times, even at lower Hoard amounts.)
I worry that the Troll would simply leave a bad board too often to be viable and therefore I’d probably not cast her unless I’m in a situation where I need to “pass” a move. And that the lack of a Witch and her being the only faction troop that can aim damage would hinder me as well. Plus the double King at the rear being difficult to fill, although I suppose it’s much less of an issue if there’s only one troop ahead of them to siphon Blue.
@Kezef Re: Board control, Troll is a bit unreliable, but easy access to freeze from King takes the edge off of miscasts. Wraith’s self-healing and ice armor really help too, as this faction team is less vulnerable to bad skull skyfall than many other delves. Troll’s function in the middle rooms is to ensure steady access to blue and red gems moreso than it is to get an extra turn or get rid of skulls (though it can sometimes come through for those purposes as well).
This is the real danger for this team, which is why I prioritized for my third room whichever room had less spell damage. Like many delves, if you have to pick between two rooms with a lot of spell damage dealers, you are just screwed.
I tried for a little while to make Witch work, but I found it not viable in the boss room to burst down a target with magic damage on Witch teams. My better runs always seemed to come when I was able to outtrade the AI Wraith (with timely help from King casts) and kill it first. Even then you need luck, because if your back troop dies first and all your troops eat splash damage from King every time it casts, it’s going to be a rough go.
As for the double King, I didn’t end up casting the back troop’s spell too much anyway, so I picked King for his trait to get extra freezes. I even thought about (but didn’t end up trying) to put a second Wraith in the back line, thinking maybe the extra tankiness could ultimately help. 
EDIT: Also picking a banner with extra mana on red, such as the Fang Moor banner, helped with filling up the Kings faster.
1 Like
And there! All factions done potionless to this date! Hell Gate completed with 265 + 75%! Such a slugfest that one! All is going well and then a single brain fart and it suddenly is a “one skull match and dead” situation lol…
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Hello everyone!
A new “Gems of War Factions” discord server has been established and is up and running! The server moderators gather information from other members who have submitted their data and have created a crowd-sourced difficulty ranking for factions.
Come join us!
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