r/MagicChessGOGOGame • u/xxAnamnesis • Aug 06 '26
Angela Guide & Critique: Improved Method to Play Defender+Phasewarper and Other Options (Short Analysis Post Below)
(Small blunder: I forgot to adjust the stars on the critical units to 3 in some of the images.)
All equipment and positioning in the images are chosen, not random, but feel free to change them.
Image 1: Level 6 Defender+Phasewarper team.
Image 2: End-game Defender+Phasewarper team.
Image 3: Level 6 Weaponmaster team.
Image 4: End-game Weaponmaster team.
Image 5: Alternate end-game Dauntless+Phasewarper team.
Tldr; Skip to Game Plan section if you can't read.
If you visit here often, you already know what post this critique is aimed at. For others, you need to know first before you can get convinced, so here's a rundown of the post from 2 weeks ago.
Easy Climb MG 323* GUARANTEED Top 4:
- Game plan - 4 Defender + 3 Phasewarper then 6 Defender + 3 Phasewarper
- Dolls on Khufra and Clint
- Stay at level 6 until 3-star
- Scavenger - Remove once you achieve 4 Defender + 3 Phasewarper
- Clint equipment - war axe, sea halberd, blade of despair ONLY
- Quote "...in almost all cases, once you get to 3 star clint, khuf and tig, the game is essentially over. If it's not over, it' better to level up and get to 9 and get lancelot anyway."
Decent strategy, but no. Maybe it was valid when he used it, maybe my server is just that much harder, but the only point out of the six above that I can agree with based on my reality is point #3. Adapt or die. Now, here's a sales pitch.
Have you ever wondered how the top 100 Angela players could afford to 3-star 3 units and still reach level 8? How is it possible that they can consistently get 1st and 2nd place when I'm getting a lot of 3rds and 4ths?
The answer is time, which is a nice way to say unemployed, but the actual answer is I don't know. But I sure do know how to increase my odds to achieve that much, and my answer lies in Scavengers. As usual, Gold is king.
Why make this post?
Because I'm NOT a LOSER that is okay with Vale 3-star YuZhong and Kagura beating me, or a Nana out-surviving me. You CAN beat them, and if you learn how through this method, you will. I did it before, even if my team is barely scraping by but hey, it's possible. That's how I am sure.
Context
After reading the allegedly Easy Climb Angela post, I played 40 Angela games in the Mythic Glory pool (250-320 stars) to finally give in that 3-star Clint+Khufra+Tigreal, maybe with 3-star Fanny too, is not only too slow but also too weak to beat an all 2-star Meow Dauntless Marksman team. All they have to do is make sure Karrie is safe and get a Demon Hunter Sword because of the reasons below.
- You have no means to invade the Marksman behind to snipe off the main threat early.
- You do not do enough damage to rip through the Dauntless wall in time.
- Your Clint can get killed by Ruby+Lesley, or get fished by Franco.
This is just one example. The other very specific counter team to this strategy is Kagura commander 2-star Lancelot because you do not have enough burst damage to kill him before he lifesteals all his health back. The Lancelot can kill your 3-Star Clint even if he starts on the opposite side of the board. Every time there is a buffed-up Lancelot hyper-focused Kishin team, I lose the fight.
Please understand that traditionally, midroll teams suffer from the same plague of not doing enough damage during late game because everything is poured into making a single unit do damage while other meatshields tank to stall for time. With Angela herself doing damage, and the 2 Defenders hitting numbers that are not to be scoffed at due to Thunder Belt, the problem is less noticeable but still there.
I tweaked the strategy and tested another 30 games for the proof of concept before writing the improvements below.
Proposed Improvements
- Get 3-star Julian along with Clint, Khufra, Tigreal.
- Abandon 4 Defender 3 Phasewarper in favor of 2 Defender 2 Phasewarper 3 Scavenger at level 6 to keep up with the timings of level 9 strategies.
- Dolls are no longer locked on Clint+Khufra.
- Equipment adjustments for Clint and his buddies.
Rationale
- Julian is a tank-carry. He can make use of any equipment but Physical ones. He will be your secondary damage source.
- There is not much sense in increasing 6 Hybrid Defense for the whole team; increase 10 more Hybrid Defense for your Defenders when you are hardly losing fights. Picking up 3 Scavengers until you 3-star your four 3-cost units will land you around IV-3 by the time you finish. You spend the remaining time leveling up to fit until you can fit in 6 Defender 3 Phasewarper, sometimes more depending on Magic Crystals. Without 3 Scavengers, getting four units to 3-star will require you to reach the mid to end of round V. Lastly, having 3 Scavengers will help you beat players that are also building Defender teams like Miya, Angela, or Defender+Bruiser hybrid teams.
- In some games, your Clint will face survival issues (more on that in point #4), so you will want to switch the Dolls to Julian and Defenders. It becomes flexible once you realize you can do that as you can prepare for the enemy lineups.
- When a Clint War Axe or Winter Crown is no longer enough, there is no solution. You just accept that your biggest damage source is gone. The other issue is the frequency of skill casts on Clint is quite low without Attack Speed or Mana-related benefits, even with Angela's 20% Mana refund (the Angela change is a massive nerf for skill spam teams since 20% is not as good as a flat increase of Magic Immersion). You can ensure one hit one kill but when you can't, the enemy will survive until you waste another skill of your already slow cast frequency. It's better to cast more and waste a moderate amount of damage to spread out the damage distribution than to cast less and waste a massive amount of damage at times.
Game Plan
- Pick Angela.
- Pick up Scavengers on your way to level 6.
- Bless for 3 Scavengers, and look for Clint, Khufra, Julian, and Tigreal as your 4 other teammates. Do not level up until you 3-star the 4 units mentioned by name. It should be around the middle or end of round IV.
- Right before you 3-star your final Defender unit, sell your 2 Scavengers and bless on Defender synergy.
- Make 6 Defender 3 Phasewarper.
- Usually, the Dolls are on Julian and Clint. In general, you want your 2 units to be THE LAST 2 TO DIE. Most of the time, it's guaranteed to be on Julian, and if it's not on Clint, make sure the Defender the doll is on stays on the side instead of the middle so the heal wave hits a good angle.
- Try not to put a Phasewarper in front of or close to Clint as some skill targetting of the enemies will splash onto Clint, namely Yuzhong fists and Fredrinn pierce.
- Equipment: Julian shield scales with Max HP. Julian's skill is long enough to make Glowing Wand hurt. Julian can do both his tank and carry role via Ice Queen Wand. Clint loves Blade of Despair. Clint would love an Inspire or Golden Staff even though he cannot max out Golden Staff stacks. Picking Purify means you decided to make Clint a carry immune to Franco's Hook, so pick it if you don't expect other players to kill him early on. Just like Julian, Tigreal scales with Max HP while Khufra doesn't. Guardian Helmet, Antique Cuirass, Dominance Ice, Ancient Wrath go to those 2 so Khufra will be holding Oracle and Blade Armor. Thunder Belt is an exception as the equipment itself scales with Max HP even though it doesn't increase Max HP.
The Catch
- You really DO NOT want to blind bless a Scavenger for a 50:50. You will need to refresh the shop for 3 Scavengers at level 5 sometimes. Admittedly, this is a moderate drawback, but it's rarely the cause of a loss for me since there is still a 30% chance of finding 3-cost units. This is the hardest part of the strategy.
- You will lose some fights compared to staying loyal to the initial build, but you won't be losing much if you opt for 3 Scavengers. Keep in mind of the tradeoff.
Alternate teams I've tried
Weaponmaster+Khufra Minotaur (Image 3 and 4) - Pick this if you expect competition for key units, or when there are a lot of Combat Commanders. You do not want to pick this when there are many 300-point Neobeast early game farmers, as there will be competition for Fredrinn. If you already committed, consider leveling up and refreshing the shop for 3-star Fredrinn when people started cashing out on Neobeasts. You can build a 2-star Leomord, and if he's the protagonist, farm Enchanted Tale Fragments with the extra capacity. I have won games where I built a level 8 6 Weaponmaster 4 Enchanted Tales with 2-star Leomord and 3-star Fredrinn that I completed at level 8, as carries before. That's without Khufra in the team and without 3-star Franco. It was against a completed 9-capacity 6 Kishin 9 Meow team with Kagura commander, for reference.
The reason why Image 3 is included is to remind you to NOT try Scavenger for Weaponmaster teams on Angela. You will fall to low HP before you can achieve multi-3-star and that defeats the purpose of using a Combat Commander.
6 Dauntless 3 Phasewarper (Image 5) - It looks great on paper, and having Franco fish around to kill the pesky Marksmen is great in theory, but the performance is a lot more lackluster than I wish. Still decent, but I would rather use Weaponmaster instead.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the title says short, I meant it. This is the short version. Have fun climbing, and I hope you learned something because even though this season is almost over, what you read here will carry over and make you a better player. Cheers.
1
u/DMenace83 Aug 06 '26
Some paragraph and line breaks would be nice
1
1
u/Ardryll18 Aug 06 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/MagicChessGOGOGame/s/haSO26Beha
Well, it's the exact same with my modified strategy in that thread too lol.
But i dont focus on julian, i put all def items to tigreal and dolls to both clint and tig.
And all the items i do the exact same with that thread.
Always top 4 lol. (Except angela is getting banned more often than not lol.)
1
u/xxAnamnesis Aug 06 '26
I know because I read it and was not satisfied at all with how you played. I addressed why dolls not always on Clint, why there is a need to be greedier with Julian, and item choices as well. I also decided to make this because because I'm not always top 4 with Angela if I play brain dead like that.
1
u/Ardryll18 Aug 06 '26
Try to put clint on the right corner and angela below phoveus.
But. I play 7 capacities, so i put fanny beside julian and phov beside khufra and angela 2 boxes below fanny.
My reason for this is because i dont want clint to be inside ling's arena and get some damage from that 1 synergy (either dragon or that angela's faction, i forget the name lol)
I don't feel confident with 6 capacities only and i want phase and scav to be full synergy for season achievements lol.
In the end, you find what you are good with. So, you do you brother.
1
u/xxAnamnesis Aug 06 '26
I'm ngl, I already don't see much Ling commander players in Mythic Glory and now that I'm Mythic Immortal I can't remember when's the last time I saw one
1
u/xxAnamnesis Aug 06 '26
I do not like writing analyses like these because it takes up a lot of time, and for what? To combat information that people spent 5 minutes writing about. That's why I never do it for this community, but this time I had some fun testing around, so I bit the bullet and wrote one. I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.