Addendum:
Just opened 10 Glory chests on iOS and got this:
Herdmaster
X2 Templar
Orion. NEW
Revenant
Major Earth Traitstone
Dark Maiden
Hellhound
FLAME CANNON
94 souls
Well I much appreciate getting Orion-- experimenting with RNG (random number generators) is a fascination of mine. But… Flame Cannon yet again?! One surely has to wonder whether the RNG is evolving a particularly twisted sense of humour.
Even a VERY low-level player can muddle through a quest line or two - and each kingdom gives you an epic character as a reward. Most epic characters are good enough to build a team around.
So pre-level 200, I suggest you always focus your teams around an epic card. Luther, Rowanne, Alastair, Raven, Lady S - tons of great options there. Level up your epic of choice, and then a few cards to support it, and play. Personally, I used the following team for about 200 levels:
Hero with purple weapon
Rowanne
Paladin
Templar
Only when you get to pretty high levels of play should you think about REALLY focusing on a legendary troop, or on a team with multiple legendary troops or without your hero. That’s a natural move into the more complex team composition that you see discussed a bunch on the forums here. But you don’t start by building teams around legendary troops, etc.
To be honest, the city Epic that I’m seriously considering for team synergy is Alistair. Problem is, I’ve spent so much time working on my Templar that I don’t want to throw him by the curbside, so to speak, just to shoehorn in an Epic that does virtually the same job as Templar.
My current build that I’ve been driving is this:
Archon Statue
Templar
Paladin
Valkyrie
This team seems to be rather iffy despite the Whitehelm bonuses (anyone who can define why that team sucks in particular, please jump in to comment). I’m hoping that after grinding through all 500 matches to win both the Warden and Necro Hero Class weapons, I can remove Archon and substitute in my Hero as a Priest that does AOE damage.
This is a month-long project for me, and after all that, I have NO IDEA whether Hero-Templar-Paladin-Valk is going to more enjoyable for my play style.
I’d much rather do this:
Hero with brown weapon
Shadow Hunter
Sabertooth
Valkyrie
Actually I’ve got a burning question about this synergy, Mr Strange. I’ve run into several people who say they use Templar in their teams (@Shimrra?). But one of Templar’s “usage features,” if you could call it that, makes him awkward for me to use.
What I find is that about 85% of the time at the point he gets filled, the board is arranged in such as way that, if you cast Templar right then, the red-to-green gem conversion automatically gives the A.I. an Extra Turn.
I mean, the frequency of this occurring is INSANE. It makes me wonder if I’m playing this deck correctly… Should I waste valuable time rearranging the board just in the offhand chance I’ll still get a match-4 when I do cast him? (The preemptive-rearrange tactic has never really worked in the past). Worse, if I delay casting Templar too long, I get punished big time.
So this forces me to conclude that I’m either (1) not casting my Spells in the right order, OR (2) the unsavoury alternate explanation is that I’m supposed to let the opponent get a free turn whenever I use Templar’s spell. I don’t know why my Templar acts like this, when high-level players seem to have no problem using him. Thoughts on this, anyone?
Here’s a key bit of advice for playing my team properly: NO RED MANA USERS.
I 100% focus on clearing brown gems, to power up Templar ASAP. My goal is to NOT match any green or reds, so that when I cast Templar, I get ton of conversions, and enough green to instantly fill Rowanne and hopefully Paladin as well. Then I use Paladin, and save Rowanne for emergency use, allowing both blue and brown to power more templar casts.
I think Valkyrie is not a good choice for this team, because it encourages you to match red - and the yellow conflicts with Paladin. I use blue/brown banner, to really focus on getting Templar maxed as my mana source.
I play the opposite team, using Anointed One to convert green to red, and like @Mr.Strange (but opposite), I play no green mana users in that team.
@Lyya, I’m experimenting with Anointed One currently. What is your team build composition?
@Mr.Strange I have to thank both of you for the crucial advice on red-green gem management. I decided to play my Whitehelm deck to the hilt, to see if I could still keep Valk in it, whilst avoiding red-gem matches insofar as I was able. Whooooooah that made a tremendous difference!
Hey I think I’m getting better at this. I’ve misplayed this particular Paladin build for only 40 hero levels. That’s better than what I did with my lone-Goblin deck, which had quite underwhelming damage and with which I muddled through 60 hero levels before discovering far more effective green troops.
My team is:
Anointed One***
Mercy***
Sheggra*
Valkyrie***
Red/red banner.
Mercy when possible (when a yellow/purple 4-match is present) to heal and to power Valkyrie. Valkyrie on yellow (ideally) or brown or purple to power A1 and Mercy. After those two cast, you’ve effectively eliminated two colors from the board, making a red/green 4-match likely. A1 to boost health and attack, and with the red banner he’ll often be powered up again. Extra red goes to Sheggra. Mercy should be powered up from Valkyrie, so ideally, this setup loops for a few cycles.
This does look like a great team, and Anointed One seems to match GloomLeaf for front-line scariness. I know Mercy’s strength must be her empowered trait of pre-emptive support, like Celestasia. I’d like to equip her like that eventually.
I do want to say that I finally managed to get Shadow Hunter in this week’s Kingdom event. Yes! Unfortunately, I’m down to 1 Glory Key now, and I’m depleted of both souls and gold attempting to level three troops for this week’s Rakshanin Double Glory days. I’ve never been down to only 6 souls since my first day, so pushing to the limit while building a new team was something of a shock/surprise 