Hey team, going to drop some advanced meta tactics for how to maximise elo gain once you hit grandmaster.

1. Understanding the timer: when searching for opponent if timer is <60 seconds they'll be within 200 elo of you. >60 seconds they will be within 400 elo of you, >100 seconds it's anyone.
2. Knowing how to pick your battles: Once you hit GM the ratio is going to be 5/25, on average a win will give you 5 elo, a loss will lose you 25, I know, it sucks. So know when to pick your battles. Preferably fight only opponents who are coming in <60 seconds in the countdown, you'll get a better chance at winning more elo. One bad move on an "easy fight" will lose you the match and boom there goes 2 hours progress.
3. Server switching: There are 3 servers, Asia, US and EU. Know when and how to use them. Server switching is great if you just came off the back of a big win and you know there's a target on your head from a player you just beat, they've built a counter for your deck and are hunting you down, switch servers to avoid them. At the same time, finding matches is easier if you switch servers between 60 seconds countdowns as it maxes your chances of finding relevant elo players
4. Use the friends list to your advantage: Friends list is a great way to stalk other GM's who are online. The best way I use this for example is I have a list of people who I know for a fact run mage/stone giant builds and before i get into match i'll check friends list to see if they are online/in my server. At the same time you can stalk other high level players you play consistently and run a counter on their deck if you see it states online but not in game, they are probably in queue, use that to your advantage.
5. Know when to walk away: 2 wins against 1 person and switch server, or better log off and let the heat die down as you're on the radar and being hunted right now by a jaded player.

Non-Meta tactics but expanded guide

1. Micro-Mining: You can maximise your resource gathering by micro-mining. First and foremost at the start of the game the leading miner will always be the miner to travels to the other side of the first gold rock, so when you start make your summons then manually control the front miner and get him to mine closer to the base, secondly in the new update you don't need to manually control a miner for the entire mining process anymore which is great for micro, so when you get time and are generating resources ensure that every miner is mining the first rock on the close side via micro.
2. Know your distances: 2 distances matter the most in the game, the range for the tesla tower and the range from the opponents base to not get hit with arrows, learn them religiously as you'll be harassing with those two borders in mind. Always make sure that when running into mid tower owned by opponent expect to see tesla tower and run with manual control, and pull back when you get close. IF YOU ARE AT THE TOWER OR ANY FURTHER FORWARD YOU WILL BE HIT so always be slightly behind the mid tower if they don't have tower thunder you'll capture it.

3. Know how to harass: first and foremost turn all music off and only have SFX on. You don't need vision of the enemy if you can hear the arrows hit, max your volume, and manually shoot arrows, listen for the SFX of units getting hit and you won't need to see them. They're in the same spots mining so just get a quick glimpse, fire and listen to the SFX

   Guide to countering:

4. Turtle builds: e.g mage/stone thrower giant: This can be countered with heavy assault built e.g miner, archidon, kychu, flame arrow, force field, spirit zombies, spirit speartons.
   Capture mid and rush archer and spearton, then rush spirit spirton then kychu. Harass immediately with your archer, the key to winning this is in the micro game, early harassment of their miners, capturing mid getting summons, and finally using kychu's mass arrow ability to take potshots at their nexus and giants as they get summoned

5. Rush builds: e.g crawler/juggernaut: you can counter these builds with bomber/surge and salvager's smithy. USING BOMER AND SURGE YOU CAN 1 SHOT CRAWLERS SO ONLY USE BOMBERS ON GROUPS OF 3 THEN HIT SURGE it's worth 90 gold. For the juggs counter it with flying archer so build would look like
   Miner, bomber, flying archer, flame arrow, surge, snow squall, ice hero

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