Mobile Legends‘ hyped Arcade Mode Chess-TD has been available for nearly a week now, enough to get a first impression of the new heroes, synergies and features available. In our 2nd and more advanced Chess-TD guide, we’ll take a look at some advanced strategies that will push your rank in no time. New to Chess-TD?
Read – Chess TD Beginner Guide
Commander
Not only can we use skins for our Harper (the avatar that we’re playing), but we can actually buy other commanders in the shop. Along with this, Moonton also implemented Commander-specific abilities. You can choose one among 3 different ones, however, you have to unlock all of them except for the 1st by playing games with the respective Commander. As of now, we have 3 unique Commanders, Harper, Ragnar and Remy.
Attack Order
By clicking on the small icon on the bottom left corner you can check both your Attack Synergies and the order in which your line-up will approach the battlefield. Depending on your own Attack Synergies as well as your opponent’s units, it can be a smart choice to swap certain heroes in order to increase their chances of making it through the enemy’s bulwark. Especially heroes with very high cooldowns won’t be able to defend against Tanks units that launch when they just used their skill (Higanbana has 15 sec, swansong 20 sec CD for example).
Attack Synergy & Allocation of Items
Not always will you get passive traits that activate for specific factions or roles. Many items need to be equipped with individual heroes. In those cases, you should opt for those with the highest chances of making it through the battlefield. It shouldn’t come by surprise that tanks are the units with the highest hp pool. However, the level will also increase HP significantly and higher unit costs also often come with higher base attributes.
| Unit | Unit Cost | HP at lvl 1 |
| Belerick | 4 | 2550 |
| Johnson | 1 | 1300 |
| Miya | 1 | 980 |
| Irithel | 4 | 1425 |
Countering enemy line-ups
Checking the battlefield of your opponents comes in handy especially as the game progresses. Knowing their synergies will help you to identify the best strategy to counter it. Against Marksmen, Twilight Armor might be a good idea. Against CC-heavy comps, opt for Omni-Fortitute. Obviously luck is involved here, but making the right choices will definitely improve your chance of winning. Also, try to get role-fitting Attack Synergies under your belt since they will boost the strength of several of your units rather than only one.
Read – Mobile Legends Draft Guide: How to win in Hero Selection
Strategies
Since we only briefly covered those in our guide for starters, in our advanced guide we want to take a closer look at how you can further manipulate the Chess-TD battlefield in your favour.
Coins
Generally speaking, you have 2 main options: Economizing in order to gain maximum interest (6 at 30 gold) or you invest your gold instantly in order to maximize your full potential every round.
While the latter seems appealing, it’s also associated with risks:
- You’re effectively wasting gold because you won’t earn any interest.
- Refreshing the shop are 2 coins for nothing, especially if you can not get any desired units.
By budgeting, you might lose some health points early. However, learn to see them as another resource. You don’t lose until your points reach 0. In addition, you gain an increasing bonus point for losing streaks whereas you only gain 1 additional gold for a win. Later onwards, you’ll have enough gold to roll and level up as you please at the expanse of nearly nothing.
Desired units and adaptation
We all know the SoloQ horror. Nobody wants to adapt, everyone pines for playing their favorite Heroes. Do not make these mistakes (neither in SoloQ nor in Chess-TD). Learn to adapt if you cannot lay hands on your most favorite line-up. Sometimes you will happen to have bad luck and if you cannot execute other comps aside from your beloved Undead-Tanks, you won’t be having a good time.
That being said, in the early rounds things can still go many ways. What seems to work really well is planning ahead and purchasing different units for a variety of potential synergies. Even if you end up with Eudora, Johnson and Moskov at first, this still opens up for many potential comps. Keep in mind many 3- and 4- cost units will only be available as the game progresses. So make sure to stay flexible and don’t become set on one gameplan – there will always pop up surprising opportunities for great synergies. Maybe you’ll end up with Undead-Celestials even though you opted for Elf-Marksmen. That doesn’t need to be a bad thing.
Best Synergies
After all the changes, synergies feel a lot more balanced now. While definitely a matter of individual preference (and luck), there are arguably some factions and classes that pair much better than others. No doubt that every synergy has its advantages and flaws, so there is not the one best composition. In our Advanced Guide, we just want to give you some viable options to test out in your next Chess-TD match.
Undead
Probably the easiest and yet one of the most powerful synergies, Undead only require 4 heroes to unlock their full potential. Not only does this allow you to add several other synergies, but the required units also consist of 1-3 cost units, making them obtainable pretty early. It doesn’t hurt that all 4 units have pretty impactful skills considering their cost. It legitimately doesn’t seem to matter what you pair them with. They’ll always do their job.
Celestial
The addition of Gatotkaca boosted Celestials quite a bit because it opens up additional tank synergy and solves the lack of CC. Zhask and Karrie are great units by themselves while the 50% attack speed buff makes this comp incredibly effective both with MM and mage line-ups. You can also get those units rather early and swap Martins/Cyclops for Gatot later.
Cyborg-Tank
A comp that doesn’t do that well at defending later on, but works wonders when it comes to attacking others. Due to their large HP-pool, especially Tanks thrive in charging. Cyborgs will help to defend reasonably well due to never-ending CC. Meanwhile, the main source of damage will be the AoE burn from Tank synergy. Purchasing Franco and adding Aurora helps to boost the damage output in case you find yourself struggling.
Demon-Fighter
A high risk, high reward comp since you need Terizla who is a 4-cost unit. Once you get 6 fighters on the field though, this comp really devastates the battlefield. Additional AoE CC helps as the game goes on, so someone like Hanabi wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Dragon Altar-Assassin
The newly added Dragon Altar synergy solves a lot of issues for the Assassin class since it boosts damage output whenever Heroes use a skill. Getting 4 Dragon units is a necessity here in order to boost everyone’s damage for effective defense. Since this comp involves lots of 3-cost units and it also takes time to get both Ling and Haya (4-cost units), you should have a Plan B if the draws don’t go your way.
Read – Mobile legends Item Guide
Marksmen-Elf
This comp deals some crazy amounts of damage but also requires at least one 4-cost unit. Getting Irithel would be ideal, and 6 Marksmen take some time to collect. Belerick is another 4-cost unit yet pretty effective due to both his offensive value (HP!) and CC.
So, what’s your favorite Chess-TD line-up so far and did our Advanced Guide help? Tell us in the comment section down below. Also, don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more gaming news!
The Best Synergy is Demon – Dragon Altar – Scarlet Shadow, we also got fighter – Assassin from it. The META for my opinion
I agree that those factions synergize really well. However you also rely on several 4-cost units so personally I feel it’s a bit more reliant on RNG than Undead or Tank-Cyborg. Nice that it’s working out for you though!