Making the Best Use of a Lose Streak
If you have read my first tempo guide, you should now have some idea how to keep your early lead. However, you won’t be always lucky and there are always games where you have 4 to 5 pairs of 1 star units and no 2 star units in the early game. In that case, your best bet is to build up a losing streak.
1. Why Keep Losing Is the Best Way to Comeback
Fact: The player who ends up last usually starts in the middle. The player who stayed at the bottom early usually ends up in the middle or higher.
To make the point, we have to do some math. Let’s compare a 10 round winning streak to a 10 round losing streak and a win-1-lose-1 cycle.
The difference between winning streak and losing streak for 10 rounds
- Win streak gold = lose streak gold
- 1 victory gold per round = 10 gold difference
- Losing streak reach 50 gold earlier because no need to level = more interest
- HP difference = about 70 (assuming you start losing from round 4)
Total: Economy comparable, HP deficit about 70
The difference between winning streak and win-lose cycle for 10 rounds
- 5 victory gold deficit
- Win streak gold = 15 gold difference (do the math yourself)
- HP difference = about 35
- Win-lose cycle needs to keep up with leveling so reach 50 gold later à less interest.
Total: 20+ gold deficit, HP deficit about 35.
The Question: Would You Trade 35 Hp for 20+ Gold in Round 14?
The answer is HECK YES. Health is a resource in this game. Since winning with 100 hp or 1 hp does not matter at all, its a good deal to trade hp for gold especially early in the game.
If you get in the win 1 lose 1 cycle, you will stay in the middle for most of the game, but you are hugely behind in econ. The most likely outcome is you are the first to leave.
You may ask: If losing streak is so good, why doesn’t everyone do it? That’s because it is a high risk high reward strategy. If a winning streak stopped, it’s no big deal. But if a losing streak is stopped accidentally, you are in huge trouble because you have neither hp nor gold. So it is not a strat to be used in every game.
2. How to Do It
If you find yourself losing in round 4 and is unlikely to win next round, don’t level. If you lose again in round 5, now you need to consider whether you are going for the lose streak strat. Compared to winning, losing is way easier because you always have the option to place nothing on board.
Fact: In a queen lobby, it is unsurprising to see someone with an empty board by round 6.
The Open Fort strategy
It is impossible to write a good guide about losing streak without mentioning the open fort strat. There are multiple definitions of “open fort” but I’ll take the simplest one – which is not placing any units on your board to secure a losing streak.
Why does this make sense? Because:
- You will never win accidentally (very important)
- You don’t need to buy anything unrelated to your final comp, hence more interest
- You won’t get screwed by summoners (werewolf, worms etc)
- You can stop someone else’s lose streak and screw them up
Do you absolutely need to open fort to get a lose streak? No.
For more seasoned players who knows the power level of units, scouting the other teams is always an option. As long as you have the weakest team, you can keep your lose streak while not bleeds out so much.
But remember, the stronger your board is, the more likely you will accidentally break the lose streak, which can be fatal. So, if you just want to secure the losing streak 99% of the time, just open fort. (in 1% of the time another player is also open forting, if you are so unlucky to face that guy it will result in a draw, which breaks the streak)
Round 10 is quite tricky for lose streaking. Since winning in neutral round doesn’t break the lose streak, you should try fighting it. Killing 1 to 2 golems is good enough. Even if you get destroyed completely it is not the end of the world because they usually give only 1-2 items.
From Round 13
If everything goes as planned, in round 13, you will have 50+ gold, +3 lose streak and 30 to 40 hp. You have 2 options:
Option #1 – Level to 7 and start rolling for a team.
The first option is what usually happen in aggressive queen lobby because you will bleed out quickly otherwise, it also prepare you for the five wolves in round 15 and make sure you can beat them and get those items. You are also usually one of the first players to reach level 7 at that time and has higher chance to get epic units.
Option #2 – Place units but still keep losing till round 15.
The second option is more greedy because you carry the lose streak to the neutral round. However it is more risky and drains your hp. It may be doable in slower lobbies.
No matter which option you choose, once you win a round, start rolling. Your goal is now to convert your gold to power to stop bleeding and start a winning streak.
3. Which Is the Best Comp for Losing Streak Strat
It is also impossible to talk about the open fort strat without mentioning the 4 druid 6 feathered comp. In a queen lobby, 90% of the time people goes for this build if they open fort. Why?
Advantages of Druid Feathered
- Druids are cheap! A 3 star unicorn only cost 4 gold.
- Druids level up very easily, a 3 star druid requires only 4 unicorn pieces (given you have all the other druids)
- The power spike from 3 star druids in mid game usually guarantee a win streak
- Druids carries the 2 beast buff already and 2 feathered (no buff)
- 6 feathered is easy to get (there are 8 feathered units in game now excluding egg)
- Healing from unicorns and Warpwood Sage synergize with feathered evasion buff.
Disadvantages of Druid Feathered
- Get countered by hunter comps: they have a percentage chance to ignore dodge and lots of hard CC
- Get countered by mage comps: you can’t dodge spells, can’t out heal burst damage
- Rely on getting Razorclaw, which is highly contested
Unit Guide: Druid Feathered
Classically, the build is 4 druids: Unicorn, Sage, Razorclaw, Seer with 4 other feathered: Wind Ranger, Lightblade Knight, Taboo Witcher, and Shinning Assassin. Generally you want to 3 star all the druids. Other units details:
| Piece | Notes |
|---|---|
 Wind Ranger | - 2 star is enough - Put in corner for max ult travel range - The main aoe magic damge dealer in this comp |
 Lightblade Knight | - Need 2 star, ideally 3 star - Damage item bearer - If you get 3 star with good items, dps over 9000 |
 Taboo Witcher | - 3 star - Counter single demon buff - Mana burn can be used to target important units (late game positioning) - Cheap |
 Shinning Assassin | - 2 star is enough - 6 feathered + ult = extreme survivability - Great damage with 2 star - Can jump to back line to assassinate and direct skill shot to the back |
 Shining Dragon (NOT optimal) | - Takes years to charge ult if no dragon buff or the Source - Fragile - Can be temporarily used to get 6 feathered buff if you can’t find others |
 Shadow Cralwer (NOT optimal) | - Not good enough without assassin buff - If you add an extra assassin the build become much more expensive (feathered assassin is a viable variant of this build.) - Can be temporarily used to get 6 feathered buff if you can’t find others |
The comp is completed by lv 8. When you reach lv 9, you can add Doom for the demon buff and silence/ legendary units depending on your opponent. At lv 10 consider Siren and Tsunami Stalker for the marine buff and hunter buff (wind ranger is a hunter).
Notes: As I am writing, the new feathered hunter is not released yet. She may be another viable option in this team. You guys can test it out after her release!
In case you missed it, here’s Part 1: Win Streak Guide
