Unlike destroyers which can be used to generate mana, there are currently 15 “gem remover” troops in the game. Their ability is used to either boost damage or boost a specific effect.
While careful board examination prior to using a gem remover can gift you with an Extra Turn, it’s more likely than not that cascades actually give the A.I. a free turn rather than yourself.
I haven’t figured out a good way to stack the odds against this happening. Are there any good tips to keep in mind?
How do people use 4x Astral Spirit effectively in Invade when, after firing off two of them, the board starts to look chaotic and unpredictable?
My approach would be to preferentially target the opponent’s main colours, using Astral for mana denial. However, I still keep giving the A.I. free turns. Arghhh what am I doing wrong.
I think it depends a bit on the team they’re in. Using a gem remover in a normal team, compared to a 4x gem remover team (eg 4x Astral Spirit) would be done differently I feel.
Extra turns for opponents are hard to avoid with Astrals. That’s why I don’t use them much. They have niche utility in maybe taking out a strong first troop like Khorvash, but they’re pretty vulnerable after that initial salvo. Mainly good for Explore runs on low difficulty and such.
I seem to recall a few months ago that Sirrian was concerned that 4x Astral Spirit was taking over the meta game back then. Astral has since been toned down in power, but even @Lyya mentioned they were still cheese (read that as “using the easy button”) not too long ago.
Really? Clearly, people seem to know how to wield a pure gem remover with sufficient precision, but that usage eludes me.
It appears to be simpler to use gem removers that target specific colours like Yellow or Purple; the predictive possibilities for gem drop-down are less random.
I used to love Astral Bae, using teams with 2 or 3 of her before… You definitely can analyze the board and see when the gems will fall into place properly. It takes less time as you get better at recognizing the patterns faster, but even then, the time/effectiveness ratio is bad compared to transformers. If you’re playing not to lose, and willing to spend 20 seconds analyzing a move before you make it, then it’s great to deny the enemy mana, remove a color you don’t use, and take advantage of extra turns as well as the other spell effects. But, since your rewards are based more on your efficiency, the mechanic isn’t particularly worthwhile.
I don’t think Astral as cheese has anything to do with her gem removal- she’s just strong, empowered true damage. If your stats are higher than your opponents (ie, explore), that makes teams of 4 of her rather mindless and fast.
dont play removers and i have no idea how useful or useless it can be but here:
you could plan an extra turn if there are 4 same color gems in one column separated by only 2-3 gems
i suppose first removal wouldnt couse much mess while the second one could grant you that planned extra turn… providing the enemy or other columns movement didnt spoil it…
I’ve been thinking that it may be possible to stack the odds in your own favour of getting an extra turn.
Perhaps if you treat it more like a game of Treasure Hunt:
If you use a gem converter (Valkyrie) and turn most of the board into one colour, and then proceed to remove one of the AI’s needed mana colours but where it does NOT have a lot of that colour on board, the remaining gems should cascade from your pre-loaded Puzzle board and create extra turns of the converted colour, even if there weren’t any obvious possibilities previously.
This is sort of like removing the bronze coins from TH so that the board is preloaded with higher-value loot, increasing the probability of favorable chest cascades.
I hate them.
They almost always backfire for me and I don’t have the patience or desire to sit there and carefully calculate the board to try and figure out which gem to remove to cause a four of a kind for myself.
There are so many better strategies that I never touch those troops personally.
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