Gauntlet

The Gates of Wessia, commonly referred to as “gauntlet” by players, is an epic event where you defend the Gates of Wessia from the approaching armies of Gormadon the Cyclops Champion and his Orcish underlings! Your companions will face wave after wave of enemies as the lay siege to Wessia.

Gauntlet events take place every other week, running for seven days at a time. The goal is to survive as many waves as possible and to compete against other players' scores to obtain unique rewards. During each event, you have a maximum of 5 attempts, although only the first is free. Further attempts can be bought for 10 gems. As of now, the final boss is Gormadon at wave 25. Once he is defeated, you can keep playing against a never ending amount of waves to achieve a better score.

Further pages you may be interested in:

* Gauntlet Abilities
* Gauntlet Gear

## Gauntlet Rules

Gauntlet battles have slightly different rules compared to regular battles *(marked with a **\***)*. These were mostly introduced to prevent exploits that allow you to get high scores quite easily.

**Deck Rules**

* Minimum deck size of 100 (with 20 cards per hero) **\***
* Maximum deck size of 150

**General Rules**

* Surviving a wave gives 10 points. If you fail to beat a wave, 1 point is given based on the round you died on.
* You lose if 20 or more enemies are on the map at the end of a wave. **\***
* Priest equipment, Ashes of Ahriman has been changed to only trigger its healing effect the first time the attacked in the round. **\***
* There are reinforcement buffs provided to you at waves 2, 16, and 31, in which you can select 1 out of 3 options. The possible options are predetermined each week for each of the five gauntlet-runs and are the same for **every player**. This means that if player A didn't have "Scout" as a option at wave 2 in their first gauntlet-run, nobody else will have it in their first gauntlet-run either. **\***
* If your deck is empty at turn end, all your heroes lose 1 health for each turn your deck has been empty at turn end (so you will lose 2 health after two turns, etc). This counter does not reset if you are able to return cards back to your deck in a subsequent turn.

Quasi-thorough beginner’s guide: https://discord.com/channels/617035509121679410/689814607308783671/700285181839540244

## Wave list of possible encounters

**Each wave begins with a Vanguard turn**, where enemies spawn but cannot act. On the next turn, the vanguard is usually reinforced by the Main Wave, additional enemies who can move and act on that same turn. **Each wave lasts four rounds**, after which the next Vanguard will spawn (enemies from the previous wave who were not defeated will remain).

Waves marked with emojis indicate that achievements can be obtained, check message below to match emojis to achievements

* Wave 2: Reinforce
* Wave 4: Barrels 💣
* Wave 5: Supplies, Boss, Uzul the Rager, knock back 🧨
* Wave 7: Barrels  💣
* Wave: 9: Banner of Fear -2 armor while active, -1 buff all heroes when killed, Orc Bombers (Explode for 12 fire damage in 2 rounds) 🚩
* Wave 10: Supplies, Boss, Dire King Reracc, 2 attacks per turn 🐕 🏁
* Wave 11: Right side opens, Ogre/Orcs
* Wave 12: Catapult, top left corner, 15 range, 5 fire damage to adjacent, Heavy Wolf Riders
* Wave 13: Barrels, Orc Bombers/Ogre (May use Over Swing AoE attack) 💣
* Wave 14: Banner of Fear 🚩
* Wave 15: Supplies, Orc Bombers, Boss, Wrukag the Flamefist, AoE 5 fire damage . On death, 5 fire damage & dispel half buffs from all combatants ⌛ 🔇
* Wave 16: Reinforce, Orcs
* Wave 17: Catapult Top right, Ogre/Heavy Wolf Rider
* Wave 18: Barrels & Ogres 💣
* Wave 20: Boss, The Tunneler, 150 health, attacker take 3dmg. when killed poison all combatants. Lots of Maggots, on death poison all. 🦠  🎉
* Wave 21: Maggots
* Wave 22: Banner of Fear & Rogues 🚩
* Wave 23: Maggots
* Wave 24: Barrels / orcs 💣
* Wave 25: Supplies, Boss, Gormadon Cyclops Champion, 200 health, +2 reach, incoming damage reduced by 20%, attacks daze heroes 🕐  🚩 👁️ 🧪

## Boss Kill Rewards

For each boss you defeat (every 5 waves, up to wave 25), you will get a reward chest specific to that boss. These chests can contain Gauntlet Gear, Gauntlet Abilities, or Core Gear. The higher the level, the more likely you are to get epic or mythic abilities/gear, and each chest has its own individual "pity timer," after which a mythic drop (ability or gear) is guaranteed. There are no boss rewards after wave 25.

## Achievements

The achievements grant you chest with sweet swag in them. We appreciate how some of you want to figure out the riddles behind some of the achievements, so they are on another page. SPOILERS await you at the Gauntlet Achievements page.

## General Advice

Here are some terms and deck strategies players use to get an advantage in Gauntlet that become more relevant for the end-game as you go down the list.

**Always have Sharpening Tools running.** Do not take for granted that extra point of damage. Every little thing counts in Gauntlet and you will definitely regret seeing an enemy survive an attack with 1 life remaining (it happens more often than you’d think!)

**Try to always attack with Livia first.** One of Livia’s passive abilities is that allies will do +1 damage when she has caused damage. Again, do not underestimate how important every point of damage is because you do not want enemies surviving.

**Using Permanent Buffs** is key in Gauntlet. A permanent buff refers to cards that stay on the hero permanently unless they are dispelled and are identified by the infinity symbol (∞) at the bottom left corner of the card. Using permanent buffs is also key to deck thinning which is discussed below. Some veteran players save their permanent buffs until after wave 15 because the boss of that wave, Wrukag, dispels half your buffs when he dies. Also note that enemy fighters can use the Sucker Punch ability to remove one of your buffs so be careful! This does not apply to your hero if they are wearing a Gordian Loop.

**Always select the Sprint Reinforcement buff** if it’s available. The reason for this is it allows you to better position your heroes to face the oncoming waves of enemies while also allowing you to easily move away from the bomb barrel blast areas.

**Make every attack count.** The reason why this is brought up is because, if you have an enemy that is at 2 or 3 life and they are poisoned or bleeding respectively, you should use your attack on a different opponent. The reason why is that poison and bleed cause 2 and 3 damage respectively at the beginning of the turn meaning those opponents will die at the beginning of the next turn. Remember that, if you’re running Prophecy of Pain, these number increase by 2 and 3 if upgraded.

**Wave 3 will always come from the left and wave 11 will always come from the right.** Although where the waves spawn is somewhat random, what is consistent are where wave 3 and 11 pop up. This is because wave 3 comes from the trees on the left and wave 11 comes from the cliffs exploding on the right.

**Use the environment that’s available to you.** Ideally you can knock off one or two of the enemies from the Vanguard before the main wave arrives. However, if you cannot strike The Vanguard aggressively, you should consider drawing your troops back to avoid getting overwhelmed. A way to do this is by placing yourself diagonally from the enemies while having One of the area obstacles in the way to reduce the likelihood of them reaching your heroes. Another consideration would be to place your weaker heroes, like a Priest of a Mage, far away or behind an obstacle so that ranged units cannot attack them. This will not always be possible and you will get a better “feel” for what to do as you do Gauntlet runs and get a better understanding of how the AI behaves.

**Take a break from the game.** This might seem silly but one slip up in Gauntlet can be very very bad and you don’t want one of your runs to go to waste. So consider taking a 5-10 minute break every so often. You can always go to the main menu and do a Raid and your Gauntlet run will pick up right where you left off when you go back to Story mode.

**Blood Rage is the most important Fighter buff** and you should consider having at least two of them in your deck. With Blood Rage, you can consistently do critical hits and it combines really well with the Vehemence permanent buff Which causes 4 indirect damage to all adjacent opponents and is important for using Kill Steak (explained below.)

**Juggernaut refreshes sprint and you should capitalize on it.** The reason why this is here is because you might take it for granted or forget to place your fighter once your attacks are used. Most importantly, if you have Blood Rage, Warlord and Vehemence on your Fighter, be sure to place your Fighter in a way so that the splash damage from Vehemence hits as many enemies as possible remembering that your Sprint is refreshed after your first attack. To be clear, you can sprint to a location for your first attack, have it refreshed if you have all the named buffs in this paragraph, then replace your Fighter in a second location to cause the most damage possible.

**You should have a Crusader’s Road card in your deck.** Crusader’s Road is a priest permanent buff card that helps you gain additional HP every turn. This extra HP is extremely helpful for survival, especially for beginners.

*Past this point, the advice applies to parties with recycle gear and cards*

**Consider making Waves Last 4 turns.** There will be times when you can finish a wave quickly but the question is do you want to? Sometimes it is worth letting one enemy survive so you can draw better cards (this only applies if you have equipment that recycles cards so you don’t lose them to the discard pile.) Another reason to extend the wave is to heal you allies.

**Deck thinning** is a very important strategy for Gauntlet. What deck thinning implies is that you are using cards in your deck that will not return to the deck or discard pile. In effect, this results in having a smaller deck (thinning it) which improves your odds of drawing and recycling the cards you want. The two best ways to thin your deck is by using permanent buffs and cards that are removed from the game when played. **Please note that the permanent buffs that are being referred to in this paragraph are the buffs that go on YOUR heroes, NOT the Permanent debuffs that go on enemies.** Any debuff, permanent or otherwise, applied to an enemy will go to the discard pile when that enemy dies.

**Deck thinning can be enhanced** with turn duration cards. Let’s use a Fighter’s Commander ability as an example. Did you know that this card doesn’t go directly to your discard pile after it’s played? It’s true and it’s because it stays on whoever receives the buff, in this case the Fighter casting it, until the end of it’s duration. That means to say, for two turns, your deck’s thinned just a little more and, as has been mentioned before, **every little bit counts.**

**You can wipe entire waves with Kill Streak provided you know what you’re doing** and that’s what we’re here for ;). First thing to know about it is that it mostly works best once you have all your permanent buffs on your Fighter, especially Blood Rage and Vehemence with its splash damage. Kill Streak will give you an extra attack and refresh your sprint with each kill, this **includes** enemies killed by splash damage. Ideally, you have Gauntlet’s reinforcement sprint buff to help you jump from enemy to enemy but, even if you don’t, you can still wreak havoc on your opponents. So, how does it work? You’re not going to just run around hoping it’s going to work out, you need to plan your path to make sure you kill as many enemies as possible. As this is important, we’ve made an entire page dedicated to it and you can find it here.

## Strategies and Decks from Top Players

* Drawing too many cards will become a disadvantage in the long term unless you have cards to redraw from the discard pile or use equipment that shuffles discarded back to your deck.
* Heroes unable to travel more than 2 tiles will struggle to avoid the exploding Black Powder Barrels (each barrel does 15 fire damage to combatants in its blast radius). However, barrels can be knocked back or contained by the Priest ability Excise.
* Beware of permanent debuffs from Orc Shamans - if you're not prepared to dispel them, they could easily ruin a run...even at lower levels!

⭐ Rogue+Priest+Fighter, Wave +43, Discard positioning. A variant build has gotten to 473. A gordian loop variation has made it to 41. Applicable for gauntlet update after 10/23/20 with improvement to bleakwaste orcs and obstacle ignoring shamans/archers. Use for reference as its not the most optimum skill composition currently conceived. This build was run with a max lvl and renown Achae and Livia. Violeta was only lvl 12. Some of rare and most of the epic and mythic skills were not the upgraded version. Behemoth grips would greatly improve Archae's tanking ability. The general idea is to use Violeta's stealth passive as an obstacle to protect other heroes. Discard is to protect her from aoe skills. Excise can be cast prior to protect violeta and livia from bleakwaste main wave initial spawn. If cast at the right time excise will wear off the turn after and with the correct cards saved up discard lockdown can be done. See video: https://youtu.be/OkJPdIrZjIo

⭐ Mage+Priest+Fighter, speed clear ~37 min solo Archae. Main skills are fighter buffs and intuition. A sucker punch can be saved to deal with gorm's battle scar. Take out shamans ASAP but even if you get hit with pacifist you just won't have any additional skills besides intuition for gorm. Priest skills like omen and foresight help cycle cards for buffs. Priest can die after casting sanctify on fighter. Mage can die after casting infernal weapon on fighter. Other skills for mage and priest to take just turn into vengeance so epics are nice to turn into wraths and mythic is good for fighter to get vendetta for extra move and attack. See video: https://youtu.be/vTH-vdxjdv8

⭐ Survival to wave 25 https://discordapp.com/channels/617035509121679410/689814607308783671/700285181839540244

⭐ Speed Clear tip with Fighter+Fighter+Priest https://discord.com/channels/617035509121679410/689814607308783671/727827304549449758

⭐ Archer+Fighter+Priest, Survive +43 waves https://discord.com/channels/617035509121679410/689814607308783671/728020355071082496

⭐ Fighter builds https://discord.com/channels/617035509121679410/689814607308783671/705848079265300490

## Gauntlet Ranking Rewards

Surviving Enemy Waves to enter the ranking list. Players with tied scored will share the rank one lower than their scores merit. When the event concludes your best performance in the Gauntlet will earn you the below rewards.