Summoner Duels

[XRay]

Not as bad as last week, but still miserable. Stayed at Gold B with 2 wins and 4 losses, so I did not go anywhere. I should have just stopped playing when I got into Gold A, but I tried tested my luck to see if I can get into Platinum.

[Ice Dragon]

Testing out a new team composition (at least, new to Ranked) with both Duo Chrom and Harmonized Edelgard in it. It worked out okay. Edelgard is hilariously good at zoning, but the terrain in the middle of the map made it difficult for Chrom to apply pressure if the opponent was running fliers. I probably should have replaced Legendary Myrrh with Duo Thorr after taking my free loss or maybe even replaced Harmonized Azura.

I got into Platinum D from Gold A and then made a push for Platinum C, but ran out of losses one victory away from promotion at 6 wins and 4 losses. Ended up with 3,616 points at rank 973.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Ice Dragon

[jameslove001]

So, I committed to reading through the whole thread before commenting and asking some questions. It seems like everyone is in consensus that Ash is great in this mode.

I have found that Yuri's mere presence makes me think and re-think, and seems to do the same for other players. 

I am wondering if this is true, or just seems to be true, but it seems like Brave Marianne would be great as a way to gain an extra turn without a dancer, plus she has decent offense.

My current team comprises: Summer Edelgard, Dimitri and Macaiah, Peony and Yuri, although I am thinking of switching out DuoChrom for Peony since dancing doesn't seem to do much. I was also considering adding Ash in there somewhere.

 

Any thoughts?

[XRay]

On 7/13/2022 at 9:38 AM, jameslove001 said:

So, I committed to reading through the whole thread before commenting and asking some questions. It seems like everyone is in consensus that Ash is great in this mode.

She is pretty good. She provides mobility support. She is not the best combat unit, but she can hold her own.

On 7/13/2022 at 9:38 AM, jameslove001 said:

I have found that Yuri's mere presence makes me think and re-think, and seems to do the same for other players. 

Yuri is... interesting. His mobility is insane and he is very fun to use. However, the main issue I have with him is that he does not hit hard enough as a nuke, and Save tanks will just kill him on the counter attack. This is not a huge issue in other modes where the AI is just horrible with positioning their units, so it is easy to snipe vulnerable foes. This is an issue in Summoner Duels though since it is much harder to exploit such vulnerability and Yuri just does not have the firepower to break Save tanks.

On 7/13/2022 at 9:38 AM, jameslove001 said:

I am wondering if this is true, or just seems to be true, but it seems like Brave Marianne would be great as a way to gain an extra turn without a dancer, plus she has decent offense.

She is not good in Summoner Duels. Her Dance/Sing functions like Galeforce, and Galeforce in general sucks because it gets interrupted by the opponent's turn. With a regular Dancer/Singer, you can still Dance/Sing an ally without needing to attack a foe first.

On 7/13/2022 at 9:38 AM, jameslove001 said:

My current team comprises: Summer Edelgard, Dimitri and Macaiah, Peony and Yuri, although I am thinking of switching out DuoChrom for Peony since dancing doesn't seem to do much. I was also considering adding Ash in there somewhere.

Dance/Sing is severely nerfed in Summoner Duels, but you still want to run one for flexibility. I would swap out Yuri for Chrom: Fate-Defying Duo instead.

[jameslove001]

6 hours ago, XRay said:Dance/Sing is severely nerfed in Summoner Duels, but you still want to run one for flexibility. I would swap out Yuri for Chrom: Fate-Defying Duo instead.

Thanks! I went 4-1 after the change. And the loss was because Edelgard’s special didn’t trigger and she got stranded next to Dimitri and my opponent got first turn.

[jameslove001]

Starting the Summoner Duels S mode for the first time. If any of you have a moment and could comment on my team configurations it would be greatly appreciated. Here they are with Captains first, followed by other 5* units

1. Summer Edelgard, Brave Dimitri, Gatekeeper, August, Duo Chrom

2. Savior Dimitri, Mareeta, Valentines Lucina, Tempest Jaffar, Peony

3. Summer Micaiah, Reginn, Thunder Ishtar, Summer Dimitri, Summer Thorr

4. New Xander, Holy Sigurd, Hapi, Ash, Freyja

Red - Guy, Alfonse, Lif, Leni, Legendary Ike, Better Palla, Elinicia, Keaton, Muspell, Magic Eirika, Constance, Olivia, Ike, Xander, Seigbert

Blue - Summer Claude, Summer Elincia, Ninja Mirabilis, Sharena, Fjorm, Legendary Tiki, Nifl, Petra, Reinhardt, Oswin, Melady, Brave Ephraim, Lute, Ninian

Green - Astrid, Anna, Dagr, Summer Seth, Kana, Brave Ike, Balthus, Grima, Ymir, Helbinidi

Colorless - New Years Lyre, Yuri, Eir, Bridal Cordelia, Marianne, Xane, New Celica, Tine, LeAnne

[Ice Dragon]

I ran into that one guy that has a Bonus Doubler Doubler Doubler Nowi again. That team is really annoying. I should try to copy it because it seems fun to use.

Anyways, 3 wins and 1 loss for this week, which is enough to bring me up one tier into Platinum C. Currently sitting at rank 444 with 3,720 points. No motivation to continue.

This week's setup looks like this:

No real surprises on my builds other than Galeforce on Xander and my usual hilariously bulky Maria. Each team runs the Captain Skill that moves the capture zone towards your side of the map. The goal is to use my offensive units to zone the opponent out while forcing them to have to come to me if they don't want to constantly lose capture points. Or just rush them down if they make a mistake and lose a key unit.

I ended up using team 3 for 3 matches and team 1 for my last match.

Having both Sigurd and Xander on team 3 was very interesting. Since Far Save is still the dominant Savior type, it's really nice having two melee attackers because I can viably use Sigurd as bait to lure the opponent's primary ranged attacker into coming in for a kill, and Mediuth prevents it from using Canto to get out while Xander can kill the baited attacker and still get out with his own Canto, even if the attacker is still covered by Far Save. This functionally neuters the Captain Skill that grants +1 Movement, which seemed to be pretty popular, since I can intentionally let Sigurd sit in the opponent's attack range.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Ice Dragon

[Sunwoo]

I don't bother with SDS normally, but I got really bored this week and decided to actually try playing.

My first loss in this mode was to a fellow SF user on my friend list named Ciarre (at least, I'm 99% sure that was the same person). And then it took me eight wins until I finally lost my final match. It was kind of funny because I wanted to lose already and put the mode behind me. Went up 6 tiers because of it.

Building a throwaway semi-built team with fallen Edelgard was the best idea ever. Most people just ban it on the spot. My other three are built so in case someone doesn't ban it I still have a decent team to use.

[Ice Dragon]

Four wins and one loss bring me up one more tier to Platinum B. Currently sitting with 4,099 points at rank 566.

Brought out Duo Nina this time around, and she's really fun to use. Just need to make sure the opponents don't have access to Canto Control or Brave Hector, and she'll just melt everything else.

[Ice Dragon]

Finished with 10 minutes left on the clock because I was lazy this week. Summoner Duels R is such a chore. Excluding matches where the opponent surrenders on turn 1 or turn 2, it's somewhere like 10-15 minutes per match, which is tedious.

Currently rank 971 with a score of 3,879 in Platinum C. Five wins and 2 losses.

It looks like higher-tier players are starting to run Canto Control on units that normally don't have it, which is kind of annoying. Duo Thorr being able to remove Bonuses with her Duo skill is also annoying, though at the very least, it's limited to one use per match, and I can bait it out with Duo Nina's Duo skill, which refreshes on turn 4.

[Diovani Bressan]

I decided to giv Duels R a try this week because why not. I still hate it very much, but at least I got some nice matches.I was able to improve my ranks, and I think I can be top 3k from now on (I would usually drop to top 6k before).

Not sure if that was worthy though... the stress is kinda annoying. I will probably not care for Duels S though.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Diovani Bressan said:

I will probably not care for Duels S though.

I've found Summoner Duels S to be significantly less stressful than Summoner Duels R.

In S, each player's best units have to be spread out across four different teams, so even if you can't use all of your best units all at once, the opponent can't either. And while it might seem a bit overwhelming to build four teams, you actually only need to build three since the opponent can't veto all three of your "good" teams (though it does allow the opponent to effectively pick which team they want to play against).

R is an absolute drain to play because you're always up against the best units the opponent has, and as a general rule of thumb, your opponents always have access to better stuff than you do.

[Ice Dragon]

We've finally looped back around to the first map again. This one is my favorite because it has a lot of open space, which is good for cavalry and Assault Troop. I managed to win one match by just having Harmonized Edelgard sit in the middle of the map, winning with capture points alone with no rounds of combat fought.

Four wins and zero losses this week puts me at 4,699 points, which is currently rank 567 and promotes me up to Diamond D.

I rearranged my teams a bit with some of the more recently released units and managed to make my team 4 even more intimidating, even though it's supposed to function as an actual team now. I assume Duo Chrom is still just an auto-veto, though I also assume Duo Duma tagging along is an instant nope.

Teams 2 and 3 were vetoed twice each, but I really wanted to use Edelgard this week and picked team 1 for each match.

I should probably build a Far Save Brave Edelgard sometime. It seems like she can probably function as both a Far Save tank and melee wall at the same time with a single build.

[XRay]

18 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

I managed to win one match by just having Harmonized Edelgard sit in the middle of the map, winning with capture points alone with no rounds of combat fought.

Damn! I wish I was that lucky! I do not think I have ever won from just sitting there and get capture points before. My battles are usually hard fought, and sometimes frustrating because the other side takes forever.

[Ice Dragon]

Six wins and zero losses today puts me at 4,314 points, which is currently rank 899 and promotes me up from one point below Platinum C to Platinum A.

The captain skill that gives Distant Counter worked great on Mediuth, even if I ended up using him a lot as bait to take out an opposing Brave Seliph.

Today's funny story was my last match, which was against someone in Gold C. They were up by 1 point until turn 3, when it was just my Legendary Ninian and Duo Nina against their Duo Peony and Brave Eirika, and then I managed to push them out of the capture zone to secure the lead and then kill Eirika on turn 4. The player then rage quit and timed out their next turn and then disconnected. As if spending 90+ seconds waiting for them to leave was in any way an inconvenience for me since that was already the last match I was planning on doing (since it promoted me to Platinum A), though I guess they wouldn't have known that.

My other interesting story was that I got a surrender out of my second-to-last opponent at the start of turn 4 despite me being down by 5 points.

My team this time was Mediuth, Duo Nina, Duo Chrom, Harmonized Edelgard, and Legendary Ninian. I might actually stop swapping out units for bonus units based on how good the performance of this team was.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Ice Dragon

[Diovani Bressan]

I managed to reach Tier 13, which was my objective. Now I can not play this mode anymore.

[Ice Dragon]

Two wins and 4 losses brings me up from 4,599 to 4,682, which keeps me in Diamond D (Tier 17) and puts me at rank 863 with 75 minutes left on the clock.

I should probably do some real team building at some point, but it always feels like too much work.

I also just realized that it now takes 400 points just to go up from Tier 17 to Tier 18. After that, it's 500 per tier for the next three tiers, but then it inexplicably drops down to 200 to get from Tier 21 to Tier 22, and then it's 300 per tier for the next two tiers. What the hell?

[Ice Dragon]

Five wins, 2 losses, and 1 draw brings me up from 4,599 to 5,067, which moves me up to Diamond C (Tier 18), which is currently rank 472 with 75 minutes left on the clock again.

It looks like this is probably where I stop climbing since it takes a whole 501 points to go up to the next tier, which just looks like way too much work. I should also be able to comfortably stay in top 1,000 for a while. On the other hand, there's basically no downside to losing anymore as long as I win at least one match due to how hard it is to advance, so actually going for the promotion isn't a terrible idea.

Also, it was amusing watching an opponent slowly push their Brave Dimitri into my army only to get deleted by Legendary Ninian when he got too close.

[Ice Dragon]

Four wins and zero losses this week brings me up from 4,299 to 4,699, which moves me up from Platinum A to Diamond D (Tier 17), which is currently rank 457 with a bit less than 5 hours left on the clock.

I could keep going, but I have other plans for tonight and don't have the time or motivation to continue.

Ninja Camilla is annoying. I'm going to need to figure out a better counter against her. Maybe I could just give someone (probably Duo Chrom) Hardy Bearing and call it a day.

[Ice Dragon]

Bleh. Five wins and 4 losses puts me at 5,418 points, which is currently rank 376.

I had originally planned on stopping after the first win, but there's literally nothing to lose in tier 18 since I'm already guaranteed top 1,000 since there aren't 1,000 players in this tier or higher yet since it takes 5 wins just to reach this tier from the previous one.

Annoyingly, this does put me one win away from moving up another tier, which is annoying. That said, from here on out, it's literally three tiers in a row that require 6 wins to go up, which is also annoying.

[Ice Dragon]

Forgot exactly what happened last time in Summoner Duels S, but I think I got 1 win and 3 losses, which left me 2 points above the cutoff, and I decided to just leave it at that. Still somewhere in top 1,000.

Four wins and 1 loss this time in Summoner Duels R brings me up from Diamond D to Diamond C (4,599→5,004), which is currently rank 343.

Ninja Camilla, Gotoh, and Legendary Robin make for a really stupidly bulky core, and using the captain skill that moves the capture area towards you meant I could play pretty passively until the opponent gets desperate. I could probably add a Brave Dimitri to round out the team, but the Vital Astra build requires me to give up one of my spare Desert Ninos, which is absolutely not happening until Atk/Spd Finish 3 is made available on a 4-star so that I can transfer both of her premium skills at the same time.

[XRay]

7 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Forgot exactly what happened last time in Summoner Duels S, but I think I got 1 win and 3 losses, which left me 2 points above the cutoff, and I decided to just leave it at that. Still somewhere in top 1,000.

Four wins and 1 loss this time in Summoner Duels R brings me up from Diamond D to Diamond C (4,599→5,004), which is currently rank 343.

Ninja Camilla, Gotoh, and Legendary Robin make for a really stupidly bulky core, and using the captain skill that moves the capture area towards you meant I could play pretty passively until the opponent gets desperate. I could probably add a Brave Dimitri to round out the team, but the Vital Astra build requires me to give up one of my spare Desert Ninos, which is absolutely not happening until Atk/Spd Finish 3 is made available on a 4-star so that I can transfer both of her premium skills at the same time.

Is Camilla: Midnight Bloom that strong? I figure most melee wallbreakers should have no issue killing her, even if they have to eat her Meister attacks first, since the more modern and later ones got damage reduction and access to Surges for healing back up.

Edited March 13, 2023 by XRay

[Ice Dragon]

7 hours ago, XRay said:

Is Camilla: Midnight Bloom that strong? I figure most melee wallbreakers should have no issue killing her, even if they have to eat her Meister attacks first, since the more modern and later ones got damage reduction and access to Surges for healing back up.

Legendary Robin supplies her with +6 Atk/Res from Grand Strategy that can't be removed with Bonus nullification, and Gotoh supplies her with an additional +6 Def/Res in regular Bonuses (and near-immunity to AoE Specials). If the opponent runs debuffing skills, she can also get additional Def from Grand Strategy.

Even if Camilla can't actually tank a unit, the opponent is usually dissuaded from attacking because I have Robin, Gotoh, and Legendary Ninian behind her, and Robin's Canto Control prevents them from getting away afterwards. My team can usually afford to lose one of its three tanks. The opponent's team usually can't afford to lose its attacker.

If I get her merged up with the upcoming AHR banner, I can also run her with Legendary Eliwood shenanigans since, when fully merged, she's close enough to get Eliwood's buffs with just a stat-up Sacred Seal equipped.

[XRay]

I just realized something, with all the pre-combat damage that is un-Dodgeable nor mitigable in any way, is there still a point to bring a Save tank? You might as well just run another nuke since tanks and nukes both die in one round of combat.

[Ice Dragon]

On 2/11/2024 at 5:15 PM, XRay said:

I just realized something, with all the pre-combat damage that is un-Dodgeable nor mitigable in any way, is there still a point to bring a Save tank? You might as well just run another nuke since tanks and nukes both die in one round of combat.

It depends.

Because of the overwhelming strength of offensive units right now, the current meta is to vie for position using units with high mobility to force the opponent to back off and potentially leave a unit vulnerable to be picked off for free.

A Save tank can be used to help get multiple of your own units into more forward positions or to cover an attacking unit's retreat, allowing you to sacrifice your Save tank in exchange for keeping your attacker alive and potentially opening up the unit that killed your Save tank to be killed in return.

In Summoner Duels S, where you're forced to spread out your good units over multiple teams, it's easier to fit Save tanks into your teams since you're less likely to have enough of the completely overbearing offensive units to completely fill out all of your teams with them.