Current Patch Meta Comps and Build Strategies Guide

Current Patch Meta Comps and Build Strategies Guide

Table of Contents

• Buildings
• Meta Comps
• Arclight + Worm + Raiden
• Ball + Wraith
• Sabertooth + Arclight/Hound
• War Factory (and its most common counter, Abyss)
• Fang Carry
• Tarantula + Void Eye
• Vulcan + Marksman/Raiden
• What feels too strong?
• What feels too weak?
• Random parting thoughts
• Can we get some changes to buildings?

---

Buildings

We have had the same game state for about a month now, which is more than enough time to get a pretty good read on the meta. These are some of my thoughts and suggestions.

Buildings have largely eliminated symmetrical opening placements of units. Symmetrical aggro starts are completely doomed, and symmetrical or center defenses are often split apart by buildings, resulting in a loss to asymmetrical aggro placements. Even in standard, asymmetrical positioning tends to be superior in early rounds. Furthermore, units in standard are now often built as far back as possible, with crawlers on the back walls and sledgehammers approximately even with towers. We can generally categorize starting building placements in one of three ways:

1. Center walls allow for the most consistent aggro play. If the aggro player’s opponent deploys defensively in the center, they risk having half of their army become distracted by a wall, usually resulting in an easy victory for the aggro player. On the other hand, the agg ro player is encouraged to deploy even more claustrophobically than normal to avoid giving their opponent free value from turrets. This results in situations where the defender is encouraged to simply guess which side the aggro player is occupying round 1. If they guess correctly, the defender tends to have a significant advantage. Otherwise, the aggro player tends to have a significant advantage. This often leads to matchups that heavily favor one player from round 1. For this reason, many people are frustrated with center wall layouts.

2. If the walls are on the outside and the layout is symmetrical, then aggro play is significantly unfavored. The defender is often allowed to commit to the side without the walls. Then, if the aggro player pushes into the defender’s units, they are likely to lose round 1, especially against strong defensive units like sledgehammers and void eyes. If the aggro player pushes into the wall + turret combo, they risk the defender getting a free defensive setup from the unit drop round 2 and easily holding their weak side using the wall + turret. This is especially true if the wall is supported by the anti-armor cannon. If both players deploy aggro, you will almost always get a headbutt game (one where it’s also more difficult than normal to threaten the weak tower). If both players deploy standard, the side with walls will be largely ignored for the first couple turns. This layout is so constrained and so defender-favored that it is also often disliked.

3. Finally, the building layout can be skew-symmetric with walls on the outside (see the picture below). These layouts provide the most flexibility for both players. Center deployments on defense are more viable than on the other layouts. Aggro is possible, though it still feels somewhat unfavored. If both players play aggro, then the game is very likely to turn into a crossfire, as both players build near their walls.

Meta Comps

In general, unit diversity is not bad, but the late game tends to be consistently dominated by a few units, depending on your playstyle. In a headbutt, you almost always need to play wraith. In standard, worm and raiden dominate the late game. On defense, it depends more on your opponent’s strategy. Here are a few of the comps you are most likely to see in the late game right now at the highest MMR:

Arclight + Worm + Raiden

This is the S-tier comp this patch in standard. Arclight is the best early-game chaff clear unit and can generally suffice all-game long with a bit of help from worms, stormcallers, sledgehammers, or whatever other useful units drop. Worm is the best tank in the game. With mechanical division, practically nothing can efficiently answer it. The spawned larvae tend to instantly burrow and distract units for far longer than they have any right to. Finally, raiden is the ultimate late game DPS unit, with a good matchup against all possible enemy DPS units except marksman and farseer (which will struggle against sandworms).

Note, however, that raiden and worm are expensive units that you cannot afford in the early game. Often, when playing this comp, you will try to maintain strong tempo until the midgame, when you start to have the funds to transition to giants (waiting for a giant from a unit drop can provide an especially strong transition).

Ball + Wraith

This is the S-tier comp this patch in a headbutt. In aggro it is also very strong, but has more counterplay. Recently, mechanical division on steel ball was buffed, taking it from a strong tech to a borderline overpowered tech that produces a wave of chaff that often has no efficient answer. EMP is an impractical answer due to the threat of photon, and hackers tend to be very weak against wraiths. While the early game of wraith can be weak, its strength comes once range and floating artillery array (8 guns) are purchased. At this point, with 4-5 wraiths with a few levels, you should have all the damage and chaff clear you should ever need and you can mostly buy chaff (balls tend to be your main late-game choice but wasps and crawlers have their uses as well).

When headbutting against a wraith composition, you almost always need to eventually build wraith yourself. Then, you probably need either marksman AA or farseer AA for anti-air. On defense, you still usually want to build your own wraith. Sledgehammers with field maintenance are strong against wraiths unless the wraiths outlevel the sledgehammers.

Note: wraiths are often an early purchase, and balls come later when you need chaff other than crawlers or wasps.

Sabertooth + Arclight/Hound

In my opinion, there is no S-tier aggro comp this patch, but this one probably comes the closest. Sabertooth is the only aggro starting unit that has all-around decent matchups in the first few rounds. Both arclights and hounds pair well with sabertooth, providing adequate chaff clear for much of the game that can later be supplemented by mustangs if needed. The sabertooth also provides a convenient tank for phoenixes in the early game, multiplying the damage threat. The sabertooth player aims to build early tempo and snowball levels onto their sabers to the point where it is difficult to put any units between the sabers and the tower and have those units survive for any meaningful period of time. However, if the sabertooth units cannot level up, they usually have to be sold for a transition into a different unit. Fortunately, transitioning into an agg ro raiden composition tends to be fairly smooth.

War Factory (and its most common counter, Abyss)

Popularized by Factory Master (shown below as the blue player), round-4 factory compositions have become quite popular lately on the high-MMR ladder. These days, they are often supported by early incendiary hounds. If you see unit placement similar to the hound, crawler, and fang placements from the blue player below, expect a factory on round 4. The most consistent response to factory is abyss, which forces the factory player into melting point as a counter to the abyss. This matchup is bad for the war factory player, but it still requires precise play to win with abyss.

I have no experience playing the war factory side of this matchup, but when playing abyss, I always recommend starting with wraith summoning. Your abyss should come out immediately after you see the factory (or even turn 4 if you want to go for a hard read). Try to develop at least one wraith or wasp early if you suspect factories. The ultimate late game board is 4 abysses spawning ranged wraiths with disintegration, backed by lots of ground chaff, plus wasps with range, emp, and (if they go wraith) AA. To deal with hound incendiary, you can ignore it for a few turns or put a distraction crawler on the line. Ultimately, you will want either subterranean blitz on your crawlers, your own hounds with fire extinguisher, or a decent amount of anti-missile (I usually use devices but you can also build mustangs)

Fang Carry

After a long break, fang carry is back and arguably stronger than ever! While it can be vulnerable in the early game, selling your buildings rounds 1 and 2 provides a smooth curve into round 2 range, round 3 AP, and then mech rage usually on round 5. Ideally, I think you play fang carry in a crossfire, which can start from an initial defensive deployment or from an initial crossfire aggro deployment. One of the main strengths of fangs is their ability to produce inexpensive flanks that require many resources to consistently defend. Using these flanks, you can split apart the enemy army and gain early advantages in the main fronts of the battle. With a few levels, the fangs quickly become fearsome DPS units. The most common response to fang carry is mustang with high-explosive ammo, but these mustangs are completely unable to kill armored phantom rays (not shown below because this was a rare game where I didn’t need them). Therefore, the counter to fang carry isn’t as simple as it may seem. Overall, fangs can utilize any tank in the game as a companion, including sandworm, rhino, steel ball, scorpion, fortress, or sledgehammer. This gives a lot of opportunities to play off of unit drops and be creative.

I don’t actually have a good suggestion for defending against fang carry. The most consistent answer in my experience is wraith, but you can only play wraith vs fang in a headbutt. Transitioning to a late headbutt is unlikely to be fast enough unless you get the redeployment spell, mass-produced wraith, or a strong immediate unit drop. Other than wraith, you may simply have to play mustangs with HE and crawlers. Just make sure you can deal with armored phantom rays, both on the flanks and with the main army.

Tarantula + Void Eye

I only rarely play this combo, but it is the most common way to open the game with tarantulas and can scale into a formidable late game threat even without investing significantly into other non-chaff units. Alternatively, the void eyes can be later abandoned for more powerful late game threats like raiden. Tarantula + Phoenix is also still a popular option, even out of tarantula + void eye openers. Raiden is also one of the best answers to tarantula + void eye in the late game. Here is a game where I am playing the raiden side of that matchup.

Vulcan + Marksman/Raiden

The classic vulcan + marksman comp never really goes away. Because sandworm is extra strong this patch and vulcan is a little bit weak, we see less vulcan + marksman play than usual. However, if it has the opportunity to scale, there is little that can challenge it in the late game. Because raiden is extra strong this patch, it is sometimes played along with vulcan instead of marksman, especially when using giant specialist (who will also likely add worms).

What feels too strong?

• Raiden of course is the star of the patch. It is the most-built giant unit in the game, and with some levels, it often scales to the point where it feels oppressive. It combos very well with the other overpowered unit this patch:
• Sandworm might fly under more players’ radars, but it is just as powerful as raiden. The main culprit here is mechanical division, which for just 100 ensures that no non-titan unit can efficiently clear a bunch of sandworms.
• Mass-produced wraith is nuts. It basically gives you a ton of free money if you were thinking of going wraiths in the first place, without significantly affecting the ultimate power of your wraith comp.
• Subsidized steel ball is in the same camp here, at least combined with mechanical division. This card can make ball + wraith feel almost impossible to answer.
• Enhancement module (when it’s good). This item is generally either worthless or absurdly OP. And unfortunately, it’s usually only OP for one player because they have intensive training or overlords or both. It feels bad when someone just gets a free win with this item.
• Smoke bomb is a crazy spell. It only costs 100, has a reasonably short cooldown, lasts 2 rounds, and gets insane value if it lands, sometimes basically winning the game outright
• Improved overlord doesn’t seem to have a realistic counter, other than ending the game before the overlords can be built and teched.
• Void eye’s suppression shots probably provide too much value for their price tag of 100.

On the other hand, I feel like void eye would be a pretty terrible unit without this tech.

Maybe some of that power can be shifted somewhere else?

• Giant production line items should probably have a limit to how much they can spawn, like all spawning techs

What feels too weak?

• There are a lot of useless cards that I basically never see picked (and they don’t win when I see them picked):

○ Most elite variant cards, especially stormcaller

○ Berserk rhino

○ Mass-produced sabertooth (note that level 1 sabers already are pretty bad, so weaker level 1 sabers are extra-extra bad)

○ Improved sabertooth (honestly, a boring card anyway)

○ ER Factory

• Fire badger is probably the worst unit in the game. It got nerfed way too hard when it was moved to a core unit, and is mostly only used now for lighting oil on fire.
• Aggro feels a little weaker than defense right now on average, and the viability of various aggro starting units feels more skewed than ever. Hounds and steel balls can get punished pretty hard by the buildings and tarantulas were nerfed to the point where they are difficult to play, leaving mostly sabers as the remaining aggro unit.
• 200-cost starting units other than sledgehammer and sabertooth generally just feel pretty bad. Indeed, it feels like almost everybody just picks sledgehammers if they can. That said, when tarantula is actually strong, it leads to games that invariably play out in very similar ways, which is bad for the competitive meta.

Random parting thoughts

• The 2v2 compact map is much much worse with buildings. It was already smaller than a normal map, and the buildings just restrict it way too much. Aggro is also absolutely terrible on that map.
• Marksmen feel like decent early-game units now in the era of buildings. They outrange all the turrets and they enjoy the free chaff clear and protection that the buildings provide in the early game.
• Moving stormcaller to a 50-cost unlock and nerfing its stats feels like it has opened up unit variety a bit in standard. Tarantulas and sabers feel much more playable (though they still aren’t great). And now there is more reason to consider not playing stormcaller every single game.
• EMP wasp feels like a decent answer to teched worms, sometimes. It only costs 100 (same as mech div) and will always land the EMP on the worms since the worms will walk into melee with the wasps. This isn’t an excuse to not nerf mech div worm, though.
• Hackers have seen a huge surge in play, mostly to try to counter mech div worms. It usually doesn’t actually work against worm, though, in my experience.
• My favorite comp is standard hound carry, which unfortunately was significantly nerfed by the introduction of buildings (it wasn’t top-tier just before buildings either). That makes me sad, but I still try to play it sometimes.
• I pointed out that a bunch of variants are pretty weak, but we should also consider not allowing variant cards to drop for players that already have those units. This can be really brutal with stuff like assault fortress that can add hundreds of thousands of HP to the board for free all at once.
• The specialists feel pretty balanced to me. Even giant and aerial specialist are pretty good this patch because of sandworm and raiden. I pay much more attention to the units when choosing starting packs.
• Can we get some changes to buildings? At least something would be nice.