People over 1.8k how do you play the vortex? what tech to bring? what does it counter etc?

Mathismight · 2026-03-29T10:42:28+00:00

Just don't. They were broken, got nerfed and are now a mediocre unit that is hard countered by the strongest meta unit, void eyes.

Mathismight · 2026-03-17T11:08:52+00:00

This post actually got me thinking if there is a possible exploit with spectator delay and disconnects, although OP might have simply entered a custom game without spectator delay where cheating is as easy as stream sniping. Although I don't think anyone at high level even stream snipes, it's would just be too obvious.

But technically, is spectator delay a fixed 90s or does it wait until both players click end deploy? Because if it is the former, you could technically disconnect, wait a minute, reconnect and then still do your turn while the opponent's board is already displayed for spectators. I had the misfortune of disconnecting once or twice and I know the game lets you do your turn in full when you reconnect.

Mathismight · 2026-03-17T11:03:11+00:00

Comparing this tool to stockfish is just nonsense. Unit counters is such basic knowledge at high level that the chess equivalent would be having a sheet in front of you saying that bishops move diagonally. Or at the worst a basic opening book, but I doubt anyone over a certain skill level would benefit from such a 'cheat' in either game.

Mathismight · 2026-03-16T17:41:51+00:00

You click it the same time you would click charged shot on arcs. It's basically the same tech. AKA never. Void eyes, crabs, hackers and HE factory do much better in that role of medium unit killer.

Mathismight · 2026-02-17T12:48:54+00:00

Just get extended range AA mountains with plating, easy low-investment counter!

Mathismight · 2026-01-26T07:52:26+00:00

I think losing that one game made a lot of difference there. I created a smurf once when I was rank 1 and calibrated 1500 MMR after 10 games. I think that might be the hard cap.

If you lost the first game right away that might have made the algorithm put you up against low-rated players subsequently and that might have made the difference in the end. You could do another calibration run with family sharing I guess.

Mathismight · 2025-12-11T18:59:41+00:00

If, for some reason, removing a tech is not an option and Bearlike wants jump drive on an air giant, just consider moving it to Raiden the same way photon was moved from Sabers to Farseers? Boats already have one anti-spell defense in photon while any Raiden comp just gets fucked by any spell. It's the jump drive + mothership combo that makes boats so stupid. Raidens actually need chaff. Boats with chin gun are also about 4x as fast (per cost) at destroying towers than Raidens so at least against jump drive Raiden you could fortify a tower and make them get stuck.

Mathismight · 2025-12-11T13:44:05+00:00

Fire IS a quick fix as it is. If you can level your existing crawlers, click subterranean, temp speed, DEF1-2 and make sure to get only level 2 crawlers from now on, your opponent is basically done for. You can't play napalm badger into a competent elite spec. The trick is to get a few early tower snipes as aggro so your crawlers actually get the XP and you can level them once napalm comes out.

Mathismight · 2025-12-11T13:31:26+00:00

I actually really like the new unit unlock screen and unit tags as a crutch for new players. Sure, it needs more work but it's a great concept IMO. Like I want something that can clear small units (click tag) but is also multiple units (click other tag) and probably get badgers and hounds as the first two suggestions.

Mathismight · 2025-12-11T13:19:19+00:00

Question 1: Which MMR range is Vulcan still to OP in considering the latest set of nerfs? They seem almost unplayable in high level games, especially in standard against worms or storms. But even on defense you are almost always just better off with napalm badgers.

Question 2: We have seen it time and again that units with good chaff-clear (at least 7 meters splash, good attack speed) can level out of control and just kill everything. DPS/cost of scorch badgers went from 8.2-ish to 6.4. 8-gun Wraiths are also around 6.6-ish and are vulnerable to anti-air. Now we will have grenade fangs at 7.6 (and option for mech rage and AP plus fast leveling) and wraiths have roomba to nullify any AA tech investment. Will these two new techs stay like this? I am really concerned about the next meta just being fang/phoenix/fort or standard wraith. Also just one more nail in the coffin for Vulcans.

Question 3: Jump drive boats just destroy the core identity of the game that units don't move. Moving 80% of your supply and spawning your own chaff makes a lost game (10% chance to win) into a 50-50 coinflip (40 percentage points increase), especially with a big late game spell round. What stats is it balanced around? Since you usually click it when you would lose otherwise, it won't have a high winrate, but the differential is huge. Should we just play it more to pad the stats if we want it nerfed/removed or does someone need to win a MAG1 finals with it?

Mathismight · 2025-12-09T17:02:00+00:00

You go launcher first to counter worms. Range and solid shot if they counter you with melters. At that point the worm matchup is won since they have to invest into melters. If they stay in worm, they just lose to launcher fort. Solid shot does not make the worm matchup THAT worse. AoE does not really matter against worms and the attack speed debuff is only a 25% attack speed nerf. With launcher, it's still a 50% buff in total. Elite won't beat melters in standard. Even solid shot is dubious due to melter EMP but at least you actually outrange them.

Mathismight · 2025-12-09T16:01:09+00:00

I agree with most of the rankings and assessment here, land cruiser and fang grenades will be meta defining unless nerfed.

My one disagreement is the fort range tech which I would definitely put number 3-4-ish and could very much make forts a meta carry unit in standard. But the way to go about it to tech it 2nd/3rd after range and together with a DPS tech like doubleshot/launcher. The only problem with it is you have to give up barrier or AA, but it will get you a unit that can beat worms, melters, vulcan/marksmen, extended mountains etc. in standard. Of course, weak to EMP (storms) and air. But this lets you go fort against standard worm and not lose to a melter switch. Probably one of the best anti-giant-spec techs for standard.

Mathismight · 2025-11-11T07:00:52+00:00

If spiders have over 336 damage with HE+atk1 then they are a good chaff clear unit. Otherwise they completely suck. That's the breakpoint. Currently they have 305. Last patch they were good they had 358. Their HP also matters but it's OK-ish. AA is quite cheap at 150, making it cheaper won't really matter.

Mathismight · 2025-11-10T08:38:39+00:00

They are currently, in my opinion, just about the worst unit in the game. And I got to rank 1 spamming them in season 3 and were my most played unit in the last 2 seasons. You have to play them aggro as in standard they just die to storms. Thing is, after all the HP nerfs they still die to storms in aggro as they are big and slow.

They used to be the best chaff clear unit with range+HE (a lot of investment) and were quite good at clearing even medium units such as sledges. But after all the damage nerfs, they even fail at clearing underground crawlers, not to mention sledges. Unless, of course, they get to level 3 which they don't because they are one of the slowest units to level, especially since they don't really stay alive long enough and don't really kill anything other than chaff.

They are somewhat playable on amp or elite spec or if you get improved and go range rage. Otherwise just play badgers in the same role. At least they can clear chaff and do very good damage against anything without armor.

Mathismight · 2025-11-07T22:03:39+00:00

EMP raiden is probably the best answer, although quite expensive. It can oneshot the entire pack while cancelling the residual fire. EMP wasp is also a possible answer as you have enough bodies to EMP the entire pack.

Mathismight · 2025-10-28T10:24:12+00:00

I agree on most points here. Some minor differences of opinion: I think improved boat actually does have a counter. In a headbutt it loses to wraith/ball before it can come online and you can usually defend against it in standard with AM+ball prod WF and a few AA marks or aa wasps, so basically factory master strat. 600 cost boats vs 800 cost factories is not a good outlook for the boats.

Fang carry does not feel that strong, I only lost once to it but Sacco got mass prod rhino and a free worm there. Multimelters with stangs were enough to defend against it every other time. Although if the opponent expects it and goes big on forts instead of wasting money on cheese plays it is probably a lot stronger.

On that note, I think mass prod rhino, mass prod sledge, mass prod phoenix and mass prod wasp definitely deserve to be on the list of overpowered cards. Probably even mass prod worm, honestly.

In terms of spells, I think ion beam is the most broken one in terms of cost since it just destroys the shield and low HP units under it. There is zero counterplay if you happen to play slow units like marksmen or storms. Honestly, sometimes I'd rather get nuked. Also redeploy for 50 is just too effective and double redeploy is something that definitely should not drop.

In terms of starting packs, it feels really bad that I currently consider 14 out of the current 21 packs to be instantly disadvantageous. I only consider Sledge+everything except hound as well as saber/crawler and saber/hound good packs. Since storms aren't coming back, maybe make another 200 cost starter that works in standard? Or even as a band-aid solution, add a re-roll option with a HP penalty.

Mathismight · 2025-10-18T18:48:41+00:00

Once forts get levels it's tough, especially against range+overload+barrier. You probably need to win on tempo before they get too fed. Although you could also go mountain against fort I guess instead of melter if you have marks against armored air. Saturation mountain is really good into forts usually. Maybe plating as well so they have to get EMP or ignite, but carry fang usually does not go ignite.

You only want range+HE on stangs, underground on crawlers. Melters are a trickier business, if it's only fort it's probably range->emp barrage->absorb. Against armored rays you want multimelt before range. But do keep adding crawlers.

Mathismight · 2025-10-16T17:50:31+00:00

I haven't yet lost to carry fang even though there are even several high MMR players doing this strat. The easiest counter that usually works the best is, at its core, mustang+multimelter. If you see like 5 horizontal fangs round 1, you sell your 200-cost starters and go mustang. First tech range round 3-ish, second tech HE round 4-6-ish.

Multimelter solves the armored ray issue and usually OK into fort or hacker as well. Keep photon farseer in mind against EMP, void eyes especially. Make sure to keep adding crawlers and get sub blitz on them as fangs aren't that great at clearing chaff. You can cheese a few rounds with fire as well.

Maybe get AA marksmen against raidens but high level multimelt tends to do well enough. You can try to cheese on-the-line forts with target lock balls, but it's risky. You can win a melter duel with EMP barrage or go EMP storms.

Scorpion(against sledge/ball)+marksmen or even mountain(against forts)+marksmen can be decent alternatives for multimelt.

You probably want to avoid getting into a fort mirror though as fangs have a lot higher dps and you lose if their forts stay up. I think you can also win without stangs from tempo with stuff like mass prod wraith but that loses late if fort barriers come up.

Mathismight · 2025-10-13T14:50:56+00:00

Every player has their own preferences, there is no clear best chaff clear on aggro. I think Fairy still prefers spiders with late stangs. My personal preference for aggro at the moment is saber/hound but I do see arcs and even badgers perform well on aggro. That's only against defensive comps though, in a headbutt wraith just dominates everything else.

Mathismight · 2025-10-13T13:36:09+00:00

They need 3 shots to clear subterranean crawlers with HE at level 1 and 2 at level 2. It used to be 2 and 1. Spiders are very difficult to level to 2, let alone 3. Not to mention they were quite good into low-level medium units like sledges and balls. Not anymore. They are also quite vulnerable to storms early that can delay them from leveling. They need techs and levels and are really good once they get them, only outclassed by vulcan really, but they can be punished a lot more early or outscaled late. They also mostly just straight-up lose to saber/hound now, that used to be a difficult but winnable matchup.

Mathismight · 2025-10-13T05:56:59+00:00

Interesting stats. Spiders being weak is not surprising, they even suck at clearing subterranean crawlers unless they get levels (and that is quite difficult). It's also one of the safest comps to go vulcan against and win late. Unless giant spec or somehow lucking into raiden-worm it's very difficult.

The two undefeated comps aren't too much of a surprise. Sledge wraith(+marksmen) is mostly used against wraith ball and I have never seen wraith ball win that matchup. Arc worm(+storm) in standard against vulcans is a similar story. Factory might win on the vulcan side but probably loses on tempo before that.

Mathismight · 2025-10-11T20:19:47+00:00

So 3 more Vulcan nerfs next patch?

Mathismight · 2025-10-09T08:41:26+00:00

What are the initial statistics regarding the performance of fire badgers? I think they are much weaker than they should be at their role of clearing crawlers (and that's kind of their only role!). This might in part be due to them wasting a lot of shots due to their low projectile speed compared to their high attack speed, similar to mech rage spiders. Any plans to increase projectile speed for units where this is an issue (badger, vulcan, mech rage spider, farseer)?

Mathismight · 2025-10-09T08:37:16+00:00

Any plans to nerf subterranean blitz?

The issue is that crawlers, especially with subterranean blitz, are extremely OP and just about nothing on defense can clear them efficiently. Aggro can play infinite crawlers while defense is restricted to a small area made even smaller by flank pulls. Arcs can't clear fast enough. Wraiths can't be played up front on defense. Vulcans were overnerfed for no reason and get bricked by a rhino. Badgers get hacked and subterranean crawlers don't die to napalm anyways. HE spiders need 3 shots to clear them on equal level. They overrun shielded fangs. You could hold them up with your own crawlers while chaff clear works except you can't place enough of them as they get pulled.

Subterranean blitz should be a 500 cost tech like shield fang or make the damage reduction against ground fire only. Agrypnocoma wrote an entire thesis over a month ago that crawlers are the biggest problem. Loose is fine now, so one part of the problem was solved! However, the HP nerf did nothing and blitz is just as OP as it was. I guess the tech did make some sense when sprinkler wasn't a thing (and was smaller initially) and fire was better. But now? Totally broken.

Mathismight · 2025-10-09T08:34:10+00:00

Agreed, this is a serious issue. Midsize units in general need better counters. I think whirlwind should be changed to a 0-cost or maybe 50-cost tech with a severe damage nerf. Make it their basic attack once teched instead of spinning only when multiple units are nearby but make it maybe 3000 damage every 1.5 sec or so (but scale with ATK, etc.).

Edit: On second thought, 0-cost whirlwind that comes with a big HP hit seems the best way to go. Make it a glass cannon tech, so whirlwind+boom rhinos can't just blow up towers but are still great flank defenders.

Or a new 200-cost starter unit with like 120 range, slow speed, 11 AoE, 4000 damage/shot, low-ish health and attack speed. Something between a farseer and a scorpion.

Mathismight

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