Early Game Strategy

Quick tips, suggestions, and things to think about for Arcanox newbies during the early days and weeks of play:

## First...

* Complete all Training Missions to gain useful free cards.
* Complete all starting Goals as quickly as you can.
* Play for a while and read the info panels for cards, defense units and enchantments before creating anything - there is no advantage to rushing.
* Don't use any of your precious rubies before you know what's really worth it.
* Don't add Enchantments to cards or defense units until you know what all the Enchantments do.
* Don't create a second Deck until you know what you're going to use it for.

## Building

* Build Guild Library to Level 1 and leave it there for now - you don't need that extra borrowed card.
* Build Quarters to Level 2, giving you two Builders - for now, nothing really needs to be built any faster..
* Build Card Shop to Level 6 as quickly as possible, this lets you craft all Minions and Enchantments except for the Bard (Level 7).
* Build Libraries quickly - more cards in your Deck means easier wins in Multiplayer attacks.
* Don't add multiple Enchantments to defenses - get just one per unit (Guard, Barricade, Cannon, Sprayer).

## Cards & Enchantments

* Start crafting cards immediately: read the **For Beginners** guide to the best 2-enchantment cards, you can't go wrong with these cards and they are cheap.
* Don't sell your cards, all cards can be useful later in the game (like in World Cup competition).
* Don't buy cards in the Bazaar (in the Shop) until you know what each Enchantment does - Bazaar cards are about half price compared to crafting cost, but the Enchantment combinations may not be too useful.
* Check Popular Cards (in the Shop) to see which Orange (3-enchantment) cards the top players count on - starting from the most popular, these are the Orange cards you will eventually want first.

## Rubies, gold, mana

* Complete Daily Tasks every day to get a decent amount of gold and mana.
* Complete the Multiplayer ruby bonus is often as you can, after an 9-hour cooldown, you can go again.

## Defense

* Don't use all Builders on early defense - no matter what, you'll usually lose when attacked - improve your cards instead, so you can steal more gold and Revenge castle defeats to win back lost trophies.
* Sprayers at low levels aren't too effective in defense - consider using them only later in the game (Rebuild lets you quickly convert between Guards, Barricades, Cannons and Acid sprayers, without losing levels or enchantments).

## Attack

* Knights have the highest hit points, they are hardest to kill single cards but don't do much damage - use them to block.
* Golems stack, you can drop up to three golems on top of the lead golem to add their hit points (but not their enchantments).
* Basic attack formation: use knight or stacked golem first to block guard fire, with other cards attacking from behind them.

## Guilds

* Join a Guild immediately so you can play Dungeons (where the real action is!).
* Ask questions in guild Chat: a decent guild should have at least a few players who can help.

## Dungeons

* In Dungeons, the fewer cards you use, the higher your score - use the Retreat button right after winning 1, 2 or 3 stars to post the score.
* You can retry Dungeon stages unlimited times, your most recent high score is recorded (you can reduce the number of enchantments used to try for Dungeon Highlights).

### Dungeon attack patterns

Here are some of the approaches to consider in the dungeons. You can calculate what should work using hitpoint (health) and damage (damage and speed per hit) of card and defense, or just try.

* Single card: Can it get through alone? Try everything that may have a chance.
* Damage+block: Card with higher damage but less health, with a high health card in front to absorb defense hits. Ex: Warrior with knight blocker.
* Damage+health support: Use Priest to keep damage card alive. Ex: Warrior+Priest.
* Hammers and fireballs
* Ghost damage
* Ghost hammers
* Trap tripper: A total or mainly sacrifice card that triggers one or more traps to clear the way.
* Quick kill sacrifice: Use a high damage, low health card to clear an obstacle, to finish a floor, or to clear the way. Ex: Witch 3x hammer kills first guard and dies immediately.
* Double warrior
* Lightning witch
* Ninjas