The goal of this build is to do all Armaments in the game, consistently, with as little luck as possible needed in cards/relic/map nodes etc.

Earth is defensive, Wind is for control. Use boulders to tank hits and stay healthy. Make tornadoes and knockback melee enemies to keep them out of range. This is essentially the same as free armour. Kill ranged enemies where possible and focus fire on the hero/boss. Remember knocking enemies into another one behind them deals 300 damage too. The build relies heavily on tile effects and requires proper setup for the right payoff.

Your main goal is to set up a Tornado/Boulder under the enemy Hero/Boss and then nuke them as fast as possible. This is to avoid having to deal with the x2 Cards and x2 Passive effects from Armament 40. Trash mobs can be ignored, tanked with armour or knocked back if necessary. As the hero can usually do more damage than them combined if left alive too long. Trash mobs will also often incidentally die to Tornado knockbacks, Firestorm, Firebomb and other AoE effects like Firebreath so it’s not worth investing potential combo damage into clearing them one by one. Unless you don’t have the combo set up yet.

Remember that spreading Earth with a Wind effect counts the same as if you used an Earth card on a Tornado. Don't be lazy about placements. Try to have place any Earth tiles or Wind tiles you get from cards with multiple tiles placements on the cardinal directions from the target (Top/Down/Left/Right) of your main target. You can do the combo both ways, Earth card hits a small Tornado and spreads or using a Wind card on a Rubble tile. if you can get multiple Tornadoes/Boulders next to the target, that should take priority over spreading Earth.

The deck heavily relies on extra card draw as getting to 20+ cards in deck is your main goal. You need both the extra draw and the extra AP from Golden Dragon to draw your combo and use it consistently. At the start of the game whether you draw both cyclone cards in the first hand or not can be the difference between killing the hero and only a single Rockstorm.

The overall build


Alternative Build if you're having trouble with surviving Armament 40

Golden Dragon
Replace all Fireballs with Tectonic Crushes. Max AP increased by +1



There are a few reasons for picking this dragon over the Blue Dragon, even though the +1 Draw is good. There are other sources for Draw but none for Max AP. Vortex Slash is also a bit underwhelming. Given the build focuses on maximizing card draw, you’ll want that extra AP to cast all the cards in your hand, and also help get rid of curses from Armament.

Earth is in my opinion the best element/tile effect overall and having big damage single target nukes with earth is amazing for early game. You can also add Char for 1k extra damage on top. Having 4 base AP means you can use both Fire-breath cards from the first fight, which is also nice. The extra AP will mainly help you with more expensive/rare cards you pick up in the run later.

But the main reason I love Golden Dragon so much is that Tectonic Smash exhausts. This is the only dragon that can give you more deck consistency without needing to remove cards from a merchant (which is also bad for this build until late game). If you can set up a tornado on your first hero fight, then Tectonic Smash is almost guaranteed to delete them with Rockstorm procs even if you get unlucky.

One Phase 1/2/3 Mechanic each.
These can technically be any mechanics you like, however I do have a default setup that I tend to use.

Scythian Eclipse (All Phases)
If you cast 3 different cards in 1 turn, Rockstorm gains +100 damage
Can proc multiple times per hand.
The only really mandatory mechanic for maximum power. Draw lots of cards, play lots of cards, kill everything. This can stack extremely quickly with 0AP cards and card draw. Our main single target damage comes from Rockstorm, so this is free damage scaling for playing the game.

Essence of Air (Phase 1)
Apply 2 Wind to random tiles every turn
Not really any other useful options. Free wind is good for setups. Can also spread earth tiles and hit boulders for free Rockstorm. Solid.



Rumbling Vein (Phase 2)
Apply 3 Earth to random tiles every turn
Earth tiles, this is what the build wants to do so doing it for free is perfect. Useful to set up boulders or spread earth with wind cards.



Whispering Death (Phase 2)
If you like Wind more, or find yourself lacking AoE then try this.
Deal 100 Damage to all enemies for every Wind card played at the start of the turn.
Note: this will allow enemies to have a turn to attack you before it procs at the start of the *next turn* so it will not prevent as much damage as you might think in some cases.

Titan’s Skull (Phase 3)
Create a random legendary Earth card at the start of each turn.
Earth is our primary defensive tool and usually also our damage mechanic. If you find yourself in danger of dying, having more armour or nuking the enemies is the best response. Terra Eminence is amazing.


Silver Scales. (Phase 3)
Another more general option would be Silver Scales.
Gain 5000 armour once, then 2000 armour every turn.
Simple, but Earth can usually do just as much if not more with boulders. Slightly better if you are using the boulders for combo and filling your deck with wind cards.

I usually run this set of Mechanics after the first Raid fight has destroyed my starting ones for nodes 6-10 or after beating the first Dragon slayer raid. You will fight some potentially deadly enemies if you’re heading straight for Fiona.

(Pick any Phase 1/2/3 and and All phase Mechanic of your choice for first 5 nodes)
You can slot this setup in wherever you find you’re having the most trouble or dying.

Ideally you can try to save it for the Act 2 or Act 3 boss, depending on your power level at the time.
After the second Raid and before the Dragonslayer there are only two fights so you can skip taking Mechanics if you think you won’t have any trouble with beating the first boss. I find the early game to be the most volatile and the power spike from Mechanics is otherwise, mainly warranted for the Act 2 and 3 Bosses if you can get to them.

Talent points 5/5

Fiery Infusion
Start with +5000 HP
Mandatory

Conduit of Power
Firebreath damage increased by +300
Required pathing to the next two points and also good early damage for clearing soldiers.

Reality Warp
All Elemental Cards cost -1 less AP but lose -200 Attack.
An amazing power boost to any deck looking to use tile effects. This makes the basic 1AP cards like Avalanche and Gale Tempest free and excellent for generating elemental tiles/effects. The -200 attack is negligible since most elemental cards don’t focus on damage, but generating tile effects. The damage comes from combining elements.

Catalyst
Draw a card when you enter the Inhale state
Card draw is the best power increase in the game and this gives you a 0 power card in your starter deck, which now cycles and also buffs firebreath.
Note: You only gain the card draw effect when entering Inhale, you need to use an Exhale card before you can draw a card with this mechanic again. Using an Inhale card while already in the Inhale state will not draw.

Dragonheart
Start with +1 Boss mechanic
Mandatory for the later half of the skill tree, this essentially activates a +1 Draw per turn from Rapid Empowerment, while letting us keep our main damage scaling Boss Mechanic.

Alternative Build
Instead of the extra card draw from Catalyst and Boss Mechanic +1 from Dragonheart, you can go full Earth and defense to avoid dying in Armament 40.

Dragon Claws
Add 2 Upheaval card to starter deck


Stoneborn
Start with 15k armour during raid fights (Act fights count as raid fights)


With this build taking any Phase 1/2/3 Mechanics to activate the extra card draw is fine, with the same ones above being notable. Think of it as the easier and more safe/consistent version of the build with a lot less risk involved or luck needed. A good way to start trying maximum difficulty content.

Rapid Empowerment
If you have at least one Phase 1/2/3 Mechanic, draw one more card every turn
Amazing. Helps if you have the extra boss slot from the first half of the skill tree to allow for build flexibility. Card draw is the key to this deck. As for which Mechanics to take to activate this, they can be whatever you want. Doing max difficulty armaments with Decipher (Selected Boss Mechanics will be destroyed at the start of every Raid and Act fights) then taking any Phase 1/2/3 Mechanics regardless of what they give themselves, is worth it.

Vulcan’s Forge
If you have more than 12 cards in deck, draw one more card each turn.
Sadly this does not work as written given your “Deck” is the total pool of cards you have. In reality I *Think* this only activates when you have 12 or more cards left in your draw pile, when you trigger a hand draw. As far as I can tell, or else it may be bugged.
(However given you can start the game 12+ cards in your deck *Dragon’s Bounty and other talents that add cards. I have to assume it's a typo and working as intended.)
This is still a good talent to take for this deck, as you should be drawing 7 cards baseline and you will want a minimum of 20 in the deck so you will end up activating this, just later into the run. Remember to add extra cards to the deck if you pick up Spyglass (Draw 2 relic) to keep the pile 12+.
Honestly, I'm not sure if this is working or not. I haven’t tested it thoroughly. If you find it isn’t doing anything for you, pick up whichever one you missed for Dragon’s Bounty/Scorched Destiny.

Dragon’s Bounty
Every time you spend 1000 Gold you get pissed off and gain +100 attack. Add 1 Dragon’s Greed and 1 Rock Toss card to the starter deck.

OR
Scorched Destiny
Start Raid with 2 Whelps with 1000/2000 stats (Act fights count as raid fights)


Either Dragon’s Bounty or Scorched destiny can be picked up as an extra point depending on if you don’t mind diluting your deck with Dragon’s bounty (Adding free cards for Vulcan’s Forge and your 20 card target) or just prefer to have safer raid fights so you can can tackle harder nodes sooner, and sculpt your deck more. The extra attack from Dragon’s Bounty doesn’t really shine in this deck. Unless you hit a 5k gold roll, then you probably won’t notice. Purely personal preference whether you like Dragon’s Bounty or not. The extra cards can help make early runs consistently hit their power spikes, but also lowers the number of wind cards in your opening deck.

I tend to favour Scorched Destiny, purely because I don’t really like the Dragon’s Bounty’s added cards in my starter deck. Early game should be easy enough for the first zone and raid to make up for the lack of extra cards in deck.

Flames to Whelps
Start every fight with 500/1000 Whelp for each territory conquered.
Required pathing for our capstone talent. However, this is a solid talent overall for any build, helping reduce damage taken and clean up some potentially messy turns with stragglers left over.

Tactical Supremacy
If you have more than 20 cards in deck, all tile interactions deal double damage (Rockstorm, Firebomb, Firestorm and Ruin)

The capstone of the build and the one we are building our talents, mechanics and deck around. The main focus here is on Rockstorm, however Firestorm can be useful for clearing trash (With relics) and Ruin is extra single target damage when removing char tiles or using firebreath.
The main combo of this build is to create a tornado (wind*2) or Boulder (earth*2) on top of the hero or boss and then spam earth/wind cards to proc Rockstorm for damage, because the tornado/boulder will not disappear. The main power of the build comes when you can set up multiple tornadoes/boulders around the boss/hero and activate several of them at a time.

Given the starter dragon is earth, this means you will want to use tornadoes early on and then can use boulders more as you get extra wind cards, or if you get good boulder relics. I prefer using tornadoes in general because after dumping your damage you can use any leftover wind cards to shove everyone for control. As well as the fact that you ideally want one setup element and one damage element. Starting as Earth Dragon leads you into using Earth as your damage element with more earth cards in the deck.

Rockstorm and Char both have 1000 base damage, although Char doesn’t have any good scaling options, Rockstorm has both a Boss Mechanic and an amazing Relic that increase its base damage (which is then double dipped with this talent).
Firebombs and Firestorm both require relics to be useful as more than just incidental damage.

I won’t be going over every card individually as the game is a rogue like and inherently random.

You want to be picking a card whenever offered until you hit 20 cards in the deck even if the card isn’t great for you. Unless you think it will be positively counterproductive to put it in there. You can always remove it later with Merchant if you really don’t want it in the deck.

Earth will be your Primary damage source and card type in the deck, with Wind being more supportive. This is due to their nature in tile effects, because you start with more Earth cards (More Rockstorm procs once a Tornado is up) and the fact you can spread earth with gusts for even more chaos.

Priority always goes to Earth and Wind elemental cards/generators.
Avalanche and Gale Tempest are your premium elemental cards, 0 AP is the best. As far as I can tell exhaust cards being removed in combat shouldn’t affect your +20 card deck. (Otherwise Tectonic Smash would be terrible and Blue dragon/Wind would be better)

Inhale cards are good to add more draw and consistency to the deck, but try to keep them at the same number as exhale cards+1 to help avoid them being dead cards in hand. The exception is if it’s a Preparation (Inhale, Combo: Draw 1) a Discharge card (Next card used is 0 AP) or an Ancient Pulse (+3 AP and +1 Card draw next turn). All three have effects good enough to be considered without noting the Inhale part itself.

If going for the alternative defense build, Inhale cards are not as good. Taking a base Inhale with no upside is not worth it and the one in our starter deck is just there for better firebreath. Taking at least one Preparation/Discharge/Ancient Pulse is always a good idea but you are only looking at their added upsides. While all Inhale cards with extra upside are still good, they are no longer as good as the better Earth/Wind cards. When you get over 20 cards you can remove the base Inhale from the deck if you want, which is why taking an extra inhale with upside is still worth it.

Fire cards are not very useful here, apart from exhale cards adding some damage. They tend to mess up the terrain with the amount of Earth and Wind tiles you are generating. I find the two base fire breaths are plenty of fire in most cases to activate early char and remove certain terrain blocks like water.

I don’t generally use dual elemental cards as their AP cost is not worth the extra tiles, but if you love min-maxing they may be worth playing around with.

Usually the build goes heavy into earth with enough wind for setups. So having two elemental tiles in one card isn’t really necessary. There are better single element cards for that AP spent.

There are only two main relics that make this build overpowered.

Spyglass - Draw 2 extra cards each turn

You can get this every run by killing Admiral Fiona Blackthorn. It is recommended to rush towards her zone while fully clearing the zones on the way for whelps and bonuses. The boss fight should be relatively easy with wind pushback control to keep her away, lack of fire cards to transform into puddles and the ability to nuke her 50k life with a few good hands. If not confident or low life before a raid, just clear her zone or path towards a second objective, like finding a merchant or going towards Dragon Slayer.

Earth Shatter's Mantle
-300 attack but Rockstorm gains +1500 damage (Which is then doubled to 3000 with 20+ cards)
Makes the game easy even on armament 40 as long as you make it to 20+ cards it should be impossible to lose the game.

Honourable Mentions:

Sacrificial Dagger
Lose 10,000 Max HP but draw an additional card every turn.
Potentially a big downside if you find it early, but later into the game it can be offset entirely by killing Dragonslayer. Always worth picking up unless doing so is about to get you killed somehow. Card draw is just too strong.

Oldoron’s Soul Stone
Every time an Earth Card is used, a random card in hand is reduced to 0 AP cost.
Exceptionally powerful to get early on and helps to fix an unlucky run of higher AP cost Earth/Wind cards. Also makes other expensive card options that you take or get rewarded with usable. But ideally, you should have enough 0 AP cards in the deck by endgame to not need to rely on this effect to function.

Sands of Time
Fire Tornadoes deal +800 damage
Picking this up makes clearing soldiers a breeze, literally. If you don’t take Whispering Death, this does the same job in most fights and at instant speed.

There is a zone between Glacius and Fiona called Hallowed Shores that rewards +1 Max AP for completing.

So there are two main paths to go through:

The main path is-
The Black Heel (3 nodes), Hinterlands (4 nodes), Twin Sentinels (4 nodes).

• The Black Heel Reward: Random Relic
  
• Hinterlands Reward: Random Relic + Random Legendary Card
  
• Twin Sentinels Reward: Random Relic + 3 Random Wind Cards

Bonus if going Black Heel route:
Mirror Lake Academy in the middle only has 2 nodes and gives a Random Relic and 3 Random Elemental cards. Useful to add more cards to your deck if you haven't hit many card rewards or found a shop. But getting fire cards from this are mostly dead. Can also clear this if you only have 2 more battles till next Raid/Act for a chance at a good Relic.

Alternative-
Great Colline (3 nodes), Gallagan (4 nodes) and The White Bulwark. (4 nodes)

• Great Colline Reward: Random Relic
  
• Gallagan Reward: Random Relic, +1000 Max Hp
  
• The White Bulwark Reward: Random Relic +3000 Max Hp

Then either go to Hallowed Shores (4 nodes) or Saint's Landing (Fiona +3 Nodes). And clear the other one afterwards.

• Hallowed Shores Reward: Random Relic and +1 Max AP
  
• Saint's Landing Reward: Random Relic, 2000 Max Hp and 2 Random Epic cards.

Going through the middle with Black Heel is the most likely path, this keeps you closer to Dragon Slayer if you find yourself with enough free battles, as well as lighting up more surrounding area nodes to look for Merchants. This path also adds 4 more cards to your deck for zone completion making it so that you should always be able to get to 20 cards in deck by the time you are considering fighting Fiona.