Defense Derby - Beginner’s guide - How to improve your army and master synergy

Despite its background as a tower defence, Defense Derby turns that genre upside down, not least by allowing you to build a deck, but its flagship Derby Mode is seemingly intent on never letting you play the units you included. It can be a little difficult to comprehend at first, but hopefully, we can give you a bit of a head start.

Success in Derby Mode will come down to your mastery of the Scouting Phase, a bidding war between the round's four competitors. You will start the round with two random units being drawn from your deck, and you will get a few guaranteed after each boss wave, but most of your team building will be down to how many Derby Chips you are willing to spend.

Don’t be too eager to spend straight away, though. Sometimes it is worth holding on to your coins. The scouted unit is drawn from the deck of the player who has the most Chips, so if you see a unit pop up that doesn’t work in your formation, sometimes it is worth passing it up if you feel you can last another wave as you are.

As you play your first match you will quickly realise that speed is essential, and you will need to match the pace of the rapidly advancing waves. As a result, you will need to constantly redeploy your units around your castle, but it is not as easy as that. Every time someone moves, there is a cooldown before they can move again, so you can’t spam it. You will also need to plan ahead. There's no point moving a melee fighter where an opponent currently is, because they will be almost immediately gone and you won’t be able to move that warrior again, so think ahead. Place your short-range battlers a bit ahead, perhaps next to an ally who slows foes down, so they can knock out a bit more damage, which leads nicely to skills.

Every unit has a unique skill, and it is important to learn them before you place them. Cannon Master has faster attack speed at the beginning of each wave so you want her at the start of the route, whereas Lupine Berserker deals more damage to targets low on HP, so place him towards the end. It is worth having a working knowledge of everyone's skills because of the random nature of recruitment.

The most important thing to keep in mind when deciding unit placement is the Synergy system. Defense Derby has three Factions; Human, Beast and Spirit, and then splits these into Physical and Magic types. There are nine spots in your castle during rounds, with the centre being taken up by your ever-unmoving Hero, the only permanent fixture you have in Derby Mode, who also has its own Faction and Type.

By placing troops of the same Faction next to each other, their power raises by 20%, which will stack a maximum of three times. Then, place three of the same type of units in a line, which also increases strength by a sadly unstackable 30%. Mathematicians out there will tell you smart placement will net you a 90% boost, so build your decks, and plan your movements around these buffs.

You are also going to want to check out the second big mode; Blitz. Defense Derby has an Idle Defence mode that lets you rack up some Gold and Elixir - the game's currency - when you are offline, and the higher the Blitz stage you reach dictates the amount you will receive. It is a fun mode where you are told what enemies you will face, and you get to send in your full deck against them, which leads to another use for this mode.

Since you can replay the highest level of Blitz you have reached, it is an excellent tool for trying out new Factions, new fighters, or any new tactics that you can think of without having to worry about the random nature of acquisition in Derby Mode. This will help you decide just what type of deck you gel with and can help you learn all the units, so you know who you want to upgrade.

Given the tower defence background to Defense Derby, there is a surprising amount of depth put into its deck building, so let’s start with levelling up troops. By spending all that Gold and Elixir you have picked up through Blitz, you can level up all the units you have amassed, so that anytime you use them in any mode, they will be stronger. Boost that Rogue Mouse to Level 20 and recruit him in Derby Mode, that's a strong Level 20 rodent.

In the same vein, when you collect multiple of the same character, you can merge them to upgrade their Grade, which gives extra power, a stronger Special Ability, and a higher level cap. All this levelling up does get expensive, so it is highly advised that you pick your playstyle early, whether that be a pure-Beast player or a generic Magic-type user. Also important is the Army feature. The least upgraded of your eight top units decides your Army level, and then you get to pick some other fighters to be automatically increased to this strength, which is pretty nice given the number of characters there are, so don’t neglect this.

There is a lot to learn if you are hoping to rise to the highest heights in Defense Derby, but hopefully, this will give you a few good stepping stones to success. So, pick your faction, build your deck, and prove you have what it takes to be the last castle standing.

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Defense Derby