Yo,

My name is Vanghern and I'm writing this guide for you, while playing the game on Hell mode. Before you jump into the Tier Lists, please hear me out.

Since this is single player game, there is no competetive aspect of this game, thus, I don't think there is an objectively wrong way to play the game. Make mistakes, lose matches, get demoted, learn, disagree with me and, most importantly, have fun playing.

The goal of this guide is to help you out starting the game and give some pinpoints, so you have sufficient intel to learn how to play and how to win.

None of my ratings is "final", "indisputable" or "perfect", but hopefuly it will help you out to start more smoothly.

You might find alot of tier lists, based on player preferences, but the truth is, champion power changes, based on Version (in game event), Item Pool (in game rotation), your tactic cards, or even athlete traits. That means, it's fluent and you will start feeling it somewhere in the mid game (League 1/Premier League). That said, I hope, I collected some useful information, that will let you make better decisions or understand things more easly on the begining of your journey.

Last thing - If you play on Relaxed/Easy, you don't really need tier lists. Just play whatever brings you joy, game won't punish you for that :)

Hi and welcome to my first Steam guide, this one is for Esports Godfather, hopefully I can help you becoming one!

This first section will cover game settings, you should browse, while clicking on "New Game" button.

To the left of the screen you can pick one of the difficulty presets, presented by creators, those are kinda fair, however they don't cover special settings I'll talk about here.


There is some interesting settings on the top of the screen, let's talk about them here.

The first one is [Creation] menu, where you can decide whether or not you want to create your custom players, who will play in your esports team. You can have some fun playing with those randomly created, especialy if it's your first playthrough, since there is alot of stuff going on there, so it might be a little bit overwhelming to setup it by yourself.

Another menu you want to take a look at is [Version]. Make sure to tick "Yes" under "Survey Version Rules". Versions in this game comes after couple months of your career an they cycle. Each version has some crucial rules, that changes gameplay significantly. This survey allows you to ban some of those rules and have more control about the game.

Under [Club] menu you have an option to have Youth Academy for your team, where you can train youngsters, who can become a super players later. If you plan to play on low-mid difficulty, turn it off. Youth Academy and Transfers are absolutely obsolete on lower difficulties and they will only consume your time and add some unnecessary layer of decision making.

Chosing your first Athletes, you might wonder what is the most important thing and what you should focus on early. The answer is pretty simple - Hero Pool.



Hero Pool is an extendable feature, you can modify and change it during the playtrough, however, it's not that simple on the begining of your career, thus, you should get good ones, since they will carry you for some time.

Here is the list of the most important ones:

• Kid
  
  
  Kid is a top tier solo laner, during the fight, he's getting stats from fallen champions, and the longer the fight is, the more powerful he becomes. Thanks to his card "Amnesty", he has natural synergy with other beast, which is Frank.
  
  
• Hakuna
  
  
  He is another must-have champion, you can pick him both for your jungler and top laner. Hakuna has insane initiation card [Dominant Onslaugh] and can chip damage turrets, thanks to [Plunder]. He's a good frontlaner too.

• Zealot
  
  
  Really strong jungler, his cards allows him to powerfarm, deal damage outside the combat and gank efficiently. Really hard to take down in 1v1 fights, escpecialy in early-mid game.
  
• Hakuna

• Frank
  
  
  Now this champion is stupidly strong. He gets stronger, the more gold he has, he gets more HP, whenever he takes damage outside the combat and he gets more attack damage, the lower his HP gets. If you are looking for a champion that requires multiple nerfs to be fair to play against, this is the one. He can easly 1v9 most of the games.

• Shougong Lei
  
  
  He might not look too strong, but you can unleash his true potential playing Xayah-Rakan combo with Peiniang Zhu. This bot lane combo is probably one of the best in the game. Strong push, strong teamfighting and strong poke.
  
  
• Niels
  
  
  Niels is a natural counter to Zealot. His attacks deals AoE damage in teamfights, he has decent sustain and ability to powerfarm. Really decent champion for begining of your career.

• Peiniang Zhu
  
  
  This support is rather on offensive side. As mentioned above, she does the combo with Shoung, but it's not necessary to pick this carry with her. She has riddiculous poke and supports your team damage dealing potential.
  
  
• Tiger Boy
  
  
  Now this guy flavor is stunning enemies. During the teamfights, when he hits an enemy for the first time, he stuns him. That might not sound like the strongest ability in the game, but his card [Double Trouble] gives this abillity to another champion of your choice. Now you might think "it sound good to pair it with Niels".
  Yep. It does work.

• Wolfgang
  
• Wukong
  
• Justice
  
• Fatty White
  
• Aurelio
  
• Lubos
  
• Palulu
  
• Gang
  
• Paisai

When you are done with champions, the next most important things is Traits.

Match Trait is a passive ability of your Athlete, that works during the match. Pick those realy carefuly, as they can give you great boost during the match. There is plenty of those in the game, try to skip those you don't understand and pick those, which sounds good. But my advice is - don't sleep on them.
Routine Trait is a passive that works outside the match. Make sure that you have at least one related to fan gain, as it can produce you currency. Other than that, try to not pick those giving you penalities, as it's hard to play around them in the early game (for example "Let's Eat First"). Also I'd skip those with some conditions to meet, since you can't use the reliably (for example "Enjoying Cheers").


Now it might sound like Attributes are very important for your Athletes, and they are of course, but don't focus on them, while picking your initial 5 athletes. Attributes are easly fixable and you will have dozens of points in those later on.

Here's some more advanced tips, from higher difficulty levels (you can ignore it if you play on Easy or Relaxed).



Every athlete has it's personal distribution of attributes (shocker) and those attributes actually do things during the matches (another shocker). While on lower difficulties you can keep having more attributes than your enemies, on higher you will struggle a bit. So first, I'll post some intel from in game manual:







Now, it affects some match related statistics:

1. Field Hit - Increase the chance of hitting when attacking or harrasing in field.
   
   This statistics is related to laning phase and your push (mainly). Each round of the game, your athletes will trade attacks with enemy on their lane. It comes down to this relationship:
   
   • If both you and enemy hit you will ramain on the same hex
     
   • If you hit and enemy doesn't, you will push your lane by 1 hex
     
   • If enemy hit and you don't, enemy will push lane by 1 hex
   Having a push is important, also being able to chip some hp from enemies, makes them vurnelable to ganks.
   
   
2. Field Evade - Reduce chance of being hit when under attack or harrased in field.
   
   It's exactly opposite of Field Hit, when Field Hit is calculated, it takes into account Field Evade to tell if attack hit or not.
   
   
3. Fight Hit - Increase the chance of hitting when attacking during the fight.
   
   
4. Fight Evade - Reduce chance of being hit when under attack during the fight
   
   Both or above are fight related and works the same ans their Field counterparts (except for pushing thingy)
   
   
5. Offensive Scaling - Increase Attack Power provided by gold.
   
   
6. Defensive Scaling - Increase Max HP provided by gold.
   
   Gold in this game doesn't only let you buy items (after initial 5 matches), but also affects your scaling. So simply as that more gold - more stats. You can boost this ratio, using some traits and cards.
   
   
7. Farming Efficiency - Increase gold gained from natural growth, laning and eliminating monsters.

Now, having those information from manual, we can spend a minute or two to analyse how do this impact on your game. First of all, let's talk about Field Hit.
I wanted to build balanced team, with pretty balanced athletes on Hell difficulty. The problem is, AI scale much faster than you, so you should expect to fight versus enemies with more stat points. That said, it is important to focus on some stats, to allow your athletes do your job. My main struggle was Field Hit/Evade. My Mid and Bot was constantly pushed and when I tried to engage I was missing like crazy, which was a pretty tilting experience. This made me think about priority of statistics on specific roles and this is what I came up with:

1. Top
   I don't really play squishy top carry. Kid is the squishiest champion I play there, so I rather draft Bruisers/Tanks here. Therefore this is my priority list of stats for top:
   
   • Farming
     
   • Defence
     
   • Reflex
     
   • Offense
     
   • Mechanics
   
   
2. Jgl
   There is several ways to play jungle. Sometimes it's your carry (like Bond jungle), sometimes it's tanky initiator (like Hakuna). However, when jungler does some activities on the map (ganks mainly), he is supposed to be consistent.
   
   • Offense
     
   • Mechanics
     
   • Defence
     
   • Reflex
     
   • Farming
   
   
3. Mid
   Mid push is arguably the most important thing for you, if we speak about field-related stuff. It opens the map for your jungler and allows you to roam and spend more resources on poke from mid lane.
   
   • Offense
     
   • Defence
     
   • Mechanics
     
   • Reflex
     
   • Farming
   
   
4. Bot
   Bot laner is your late game win condition. He need to farm a lot and win trades with opposing bot laner.
   
   • Offense
     
   • Mechanics
     
   • Farming
     
   • Reflex
     
   • Defence
   
   
5. Support
   Last, but not least. No matter if you play enchanter (like Palulu) or engage/tank support (like Peter), your task is to make your bot laner win.
   
   • Defence
     
   • Reflex
     
   • Mechanics
     
   • Offense
     
   • Farming

It's not like you absolutely need to follow this priority list, but when you have this close-for-no-reason match (or even a lose), it's good to double check your stats distribution. During the playoffs you will have stats comparison screen, before the match, so you can make some adjustments!

Every Athlete holds 3 tactic cards. Full list of cards can be found in [Info.] -> [Archive] -> [Cards] -> [Tactic]



Here is the list with my comments, I'll rate the card with following rating.

• SS - Pretty much best in slot
  
• S - Amazing card, take one
  
• A - Good to have
  
• B - Situational/Requires Synergy. Take this if it fits your play style/champion pool/other cards or traits. Or just a filler if you don't have anything better.
  
• C - I think you can ignore it

• Advanced Transfer - B - It's not bad, cause of Perishable and Single-Use
  
• Adrenaline - B - I can see deck built with that, but requires some synergy cards
  
• Aggresive - C
  
• Aggresive Laning - C - Expensive and duration is too low
  
• Aggresive Push - C
  
• Aggresive Tower Push - C
  
• Attack and Attack - C - Floods your deck
  
• Break In - B - It's a free poke card
  
• Bush Ambush - C
  
• Careful Budgeting - B - Good if you can draw/redraw alot
  
• Clash - C
  
• Clear Mind - C - Would be cool if you were able to reorder cards in your hands. Doesn't synergize with other passive cards, sux when lands on rightmost or leftmost in your hand.
  
• Clear Jungle - A - Cheap economy boost
  
• Confrontation - C
  
• Continuously Poke - C
  
• Cooperative Assault - C
  
• Cooperative Roam - C - Expensive
  
• Emergency Dispatch - C - I don't like the fact, that you lose your hand and strategy points
  
• Energy Boost - B - This card lets you push, however it should be in your hand just before winning a fight, so requires some setup.
  
• Farm - B - Keep it, until you can replace with better farming/scaling card
  
• Farm Command - B - Good for support
  
• Farming Training - B - It scales good, but the duration is only 5 rounds
  
• Farming Jungle - C - Expensive
  
• Fast Jungle Clearing - A - You can steal jungle camps with that
  
• Feigned Attack - A - Good initiate card
  
• Find Another Chance - C - I mean, I can see some usages for that, but 2 SP is just too much
  
• Flank Protection - C
  
• Focus - B - I didn't found an use for it, but I can imagine, you can speed up clearing your deck, so you are left with only good cards.
  
• Focused Thinking - B - 2 SP is alot, but you sacrifice push for that. It's bad when you are behind and good when you are ahead.
  
• Forceful - C - Okish for Mid and Bot, but there are better cards
  
• Freely Firing - A - Good poke card
  
• Gathering Momentum - B - Worth picking if you don't have anything better
  
• Gold Rush - B - It gets value from 2nd use and it stays in your deck forever, getting the cost increased. On the other side, you can spend 8 SP in 1 turn to boost farming by alot
  
• Hot Hands - SS - Scaling, scaling, scaling
  
• Initiate - C
  
• Invade Jungle - C
  
• Leeching - B - Virtualy good for your bot
  
• Meticulous Plan - A - Especialy good if you miss initiate cards
  
• Offer - C - Expensive
  
• One-Carry - S - Really good for your Bot
  
• Overpower - B - Good poke for Top, also Single-use
  
• Overwatch - S - Great for counterganking
  
• Passive Farming - A - If you happen to have an athlete, who does bad on his lane, this can help
  
• Patient Waiting - B - You can combo it with other tactic cards
  
• Pause - ?? - Sorry, never seen this one, would need to test it :)
  
• Perfect Opportunity - C - Good initiate card, but so damn expensive
  
• Plan B - B - I mean, draw 2 is cool, but cost of 1 is quite expensive.
  
• Poke - C
  
• Poacher - C - You need to combo this with cards like Devour, which makes it somehow difficult to setup
  
• Precision Poke - B - Good damage
  
• Prepare for action - B - Not bad movement card for initiators
  
• Probe Attack - A - If you land your hit, card gets removed and it makes your initiation cards cheaper. Just good.
  
• Push - C
  
• Push Command - C
  
• PVE Jungle - B - I don't think it's too good, but can be potentialy used?
  
• Quick Decision - SS - Makes every other card cheaper.
  
• Quick Recall - A - This card helps you with Special Teamfight setup
  
• Quick Thinking - C - Too expensive
  
• Racing Forward - B - Probably one of the best tactic roaming cards
  
• Ratting - C
  
• Reckless Assault - C - Good if you are ahead, bad if you are behind
  
• Resourceful - C - Kind of too much random
  
• Resource Sacrifice - SS - If you happen to get this one for your support, take it
  
• Resource Stealing - S - More money for your carry
  
• Rethink - A - Unless you run some trait, allowing you to draw many, this can help you.
  
• Roam - C
  
• Skillful Roaming - A - Better than Roam, allows you to reposition
  
• Stacking Camps - A - Great econ boost for your jungler.
  
• Stealing Jungle - A - Not only you get money instantly, but you also take it from enemy jungler
  
• Stick to Plan - B - Has some potential uses, but it also takes 1 tactic card slot AND is not Single-Use or Perishable
  
• Strong Push - B - It's not [A], because I think there are better cards for its slot
  
• Supression - B - Great for Field Attackers, but you usually draw alot/redraw, so it's somehow difficult to stack and keep it in hand. Athought, I'd pick one if it suits your playstyle.
  
• Surprise Assault - A - Good initiate card
  
• Swift - C
  
• Tactical Adjustment - S - Virtualy 0 downsides
  
• Tactical Roaming - C
  
• Teleporting for Support - S - Amazing card, for 0 SP you can setup a favorable fight for yourself
  
• Thinking Tank - S
  
• Transfer - C - Too expensive
  
• Turtle - C
  
• Versatility - C - Pay 1 SP to get medicore card
  
• Warm-up - SS - Boosts stats, let you draw and is single use.
  
• Watch This! - B - Allows you to win the game in 1 round, however too often it sits in your hand, being useless
  
• Witted - A - Good resource boost

X is the card I switch sometimes, given new circumstances (like hero pool change or Version change)

• Top - Warm-up, Hot Hands, Overwatch
  
• Jgl - Fast Jungle Clearing, Stealing Jungle, Stacking Camps
  
• Mid - Warm-up, Hot Hands, X
  
• Bot - One-Carry, Hot Hands, Resource Stealing
  
• Sup - Quick Decision, Thinking Tank, Resource Sacrifice

You might enjoy some Frank&Kid gameplay for a while, but this game is not gonna let you be One Trick Pony. As the career progress, enemies are more keen to ban your strongest champions, so you need to adapt to that. Also, what's the fun of spamming the same team comp over and over again? Here is a tier list:

• Ada - I was thinking "which physical bot lane fits S tier the most" and I came with that answer. Ada participate in every fight (sometimes for 1 hit, that's true), which allows her to get extra money. Thanks to her passive, she gets extra 30% attack power for the first shot in early game. She has stun and AoE attack and thin deck of Hero cards, which eventualy dissapear, making your overall deck stronger.
  
• Tiger Boy - Stun is busted, attack power buff is amazing and on top of that 0 cost draw as a hero card.
  
• Niels - It's a little mixed feeling for me, wheter he should be S or A tier, but I can tell you, that Niels has amazing AoE damage. Put some shield on him to prevent him from being stunned, add Tiger Boys [Double Trouble] and this thing is absolutely broken. The downside is, he is slow and he might lose the shield before he attacks, which results with stun.
  
• Dylan - This guy just make other champions better. Increases farming, attack power and max HP. Also great passive for teamfights.
  
• Digo - Very strong mid laner. He is untargetable as long as there is some ally in the combat, so he can pew pew enemies from safe position. Has access to decent poke and good (but expensive) initiation card.
  
• Lady Deadfire - She has the longest passive description in the game, coz developers wanted to tell you how good she is. Insane damage.
  
• Wukong - If enemies has any debuff, feel free to pick him and you will turn it into your weapon. Also initiation all over the place and attack power scaling from max HP.
  
• Justice - Safe first pick. Good scaling, this is how bruiser should look. Also executes low HP enemies.
  
• Kid - Stupid scaling, during the teamfights. He can't be your only frontlane, but if you start kill enemies, this guy doesn't stop.
  
• Zealot - This guy triples his attack power (well, not exactly, but you know what I mean). Comes with really good hero cards. Easy to get ahead and keep the lead.
  
• Hass - Steals buffs from enemies, steals stats from enemy, can initiate.
  
• Reinhardt - Poke, heal, initiation. In teamfights deals AoE damage and can tank.
  
• Frank - The best scaling in the game (probably). He is easy to shutdown in draft (for example by Justice), but if not counter drafted, he is a real trouble on the map.
  
• Bart - His passive allows you to reflect physical damage, during the teamfights. If left unattended on lane, he will constantly push. Amazing tank.
  
• Big Foot - Stupid passive, makes this bear stupidly annoying, during the stupid teamfights.
  
• Palulu - Annoying support, shields everyone, boosts attack power.

• Shougong Lei - Great Bot for laning and teamfights. Pairs really well with other debuffers.
  
• Elemi - Don't underestimate her! She has double attack, during the teamfights and has some strong push.
  
• Omaha - He can initiate, he can get kills/assists all over the place, thanks to his Wild Heart and has built-in front lane.
  
• Bariel - Good sustain, good mobility, strong damage. However, being a frontlane is not always good for your team comp.
  
• BaJie - Very good scaling, requires some support to make it work, but as soon as you catch 1k gold advantege over enemy bot (which is not THAT hard), you will snowball
  
• Bond - Sick damage, good ganker in jungle, doesn't do really well when behind.
  
• Crank - Really cool DoT user. He shines in longer fights, but also can buff/debuff during deployment. Works great as a support and mid lane.
  
• Bunu Shan - On mid lane she is probably a C tier, but on Bot lane, with correct support, she really shines. After she hits threshold of awakening, she smacks hard.
  
• Lubos - He's there, because of [Duel] and his teamfight passive
  
• Kamaitachi - Very mobile, let's you redraw your hand and during the teamfights, every 5 actions, he has bonus attack.
  
• Gillis - Scary as f*ck. She accumulates attack power, during the first round of the fight, to nuke enemy on the second round. And the nuke can one shot squishy champions easly.
  
• Mo - He is fine. Scaling with money (every one does, but he has extra scaling), ability to participate in every fight and initiate card. Good assassin.
  
• Miki - Very mobile, participates in every special teamfight, gives you win more mechanics.
  
• Wolfgang - Good scaling in longer fights, but his hero cards are kind of expensive to combo together.
  
• Aurelio - Bruiser with crit scaling. Good jungle clear and some mobility + initiation potential.
  
• Hakuna - Good on the beginning, when you have limited champion pool. Has amazing Initiation, deals damage to turrets and can reposition enemies on the map. Later in your career, you just prioritize other champions over him.
  
• Peter - Comes with taunt, poke and initiation tools. Really good tank.
  
• Merisi - A tank who want to do more stuff. If played on top lane (where you usually want to put tank), his hero cards are wasted. If you put him on mid, he can do nasty stuff to your opponents. Also decent passive.
  
• Peiniang Zhu - Good debuffer, good teamfighting.
  
• Acedia - Teamfighting skill, let her shutdown every first turn threat from enemy team. Also decent hero cards.

• Deep Space - Very good late game scaling, but he's slow and his poke is a little cost inefficient (except for Volley, which is amazing)
  
• Gang - AoE attacks during teamfights, alot of field damage, but somehow outshined by other bots
  
• Mihawk - On paper his passive abilities look really strong vs tanks. If he were a front laner, he would be much better, but he is somehow hard to fit into your team
  
• Kaka - I think, he is a really cool mid laner, if you like to micromanage alot and 5 characters is not enough for you.
  
• Xiangxi Ke - She's cool, comes with initiation hero card, with AoE monster stealing card and with passive, making her attack the most vurnelable target in teamfights. She is in my B-tier, because neither me, nor AI on Hell difficulty made her work to the extend she left that impression of being amazing.
  
• Fatty White - Buffing your armor, allows you to poke and push. Not terrible.
  
• Paisai - On paper he boosts your teamfighting to the infinity. But he lacks a little something more to be A tier.
  
• Tivie - Alot of field healing and more teamfight healing, but she often feels obsolete.
  
• Beverly - This character misses some beefeness to be in A tier. Squishy for frontlane, but has good hero cards. Great with Bunu and BaJie.
  
• Charon - I figured out this one! He is a counter to assassins and Kid. Also synergizes with Mo.

• Enidi - Maaaan, I really tried to make him work. When he stacks his [Charisma], he deals insane damage during the teamfights. He also deals great field damage, but he requires tactic cards and team comp built around him, to make him consistent. I still think he is fun to play, but his inconsistency made me put him here in C.
  
• Cubey - I mean, if you want late game scaling tank, just pick Frank. This guy does pretty much the same things, but worse.
  
• Lan - If you make her play Step C 3 times on Hell difficulty, send screenshots. She's just hard to scale.
  
• Manta - On paper he is not terrible, has a little of everything, but doesn't do anything exceptionaly well. Just why bother?
  
• Babe - Idk what was the idea here
  
• Qube - She does something, but the cost of it is expensive and the result isn't much better if you would've used another champion.
  
• Blocker - Decent if you want to stop your door from closing, just put him on the floor.

Here is some combos I figured out, during my playtrough on Hell. Note that on Easy/Relaxed you can play, pretty much, whatever you like and you win anyway, but on higher difficulties, you need more strategy.

• Zealot + Enchaters
  Zealot + Palulu + Paisai
  
  Main advantage of Zealot (during the fights) is the fact, that he has, basicaly, 3 attacks per turn. Main disadvantage tho, is that he shares his HP between 3 characters, making him especially vurnelable to AoE hits. To reduce this vurnelability, use Paululu, she will shield all Zealots every turn. And to get some more damage and quicker scaling, add Paisai, since he increases attack power every turn.
  
  
• Frank + Kid
  
  Frank gets max HP, each time he takes damage on field, making him an excellent counter to all those pesky field attackers. And Kid has this cool Amnesty card, allowing you to hit Frank (for max HP) and give him gold. It's not like the game breaking combo, but something good to know and use sometimes. It's worth to mention, that BaJie benefits from Amnesty as well.
  
  
  
  
• Scaling trio
  Enidi + Beverly + Bunu Shan
  
  Here is how it works - Bunu Shan is a carry, that need to awaken to unleash her (or his?) true power. To do that, you need to play Serenity Training card (or just wait, but the faster, the better). Beverly choses 1 champion to be her Designated one. She can permamently add max hp and attack power to that champion and force draw his cards, thanks to Surge. Those two makes a good combo already, but to push it further, lets look at Maintenance card. You restore 3 HP to chosen turret, then attack ALL enemy champions, dealing turrets attack power and ignoring armor. And there comes Enidi.
  Enidi is rather difficult to stack his charisma passive, but when he enters the fight stacked, oh boy, he deals insane AoE damage. To stack him, you need to deal damage with field attacks.
  Maintenance + Serenity Training + Return Performance just gives you good opportunities to do so. And even if you don't succeed, Bunu Shan will still carry the game for you.
  
  
• Tiger Niels
  Tiger Boy + Niels
  
  Niels deals AoE damage in combat, Tiger Boy enchants allies to have his passive (which is stun on hit). Thanks to that, Niels has AoE stun. Now, there is an important note - targets having shield cannot be stunned. It applies both to enemies and Niels himself.

For this section I decided to share my coach notes for some champions. I tried to figure out synergies and counters, during my gameplay, I'm looking forward for your comments to improve it tho :)