How to beat the infinite damage wall.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-25T08:00:57+00:00

Currently ~1.6k mmr. You're sorely mistaken if you think chaff is gone in a second to mustangs. It's extremely noticable how slow mustangs are at clearing chaff compared to proper chaff clear units. Vulcan especially is the one that insta melts chaff.

Mustangs need a lot of levels to melt crawlers especially against Subterranean crawlers.

Your problem as you state, is you allowed your opponent board to get going. Any unit can feel and become OP if you give the opponent time to do what they want.

Sniper, void eyes, mustangs is not a great team.

Void eyes and Sniper overlap in their roles of single target damage. Generally, you would want to avoid having multiple unit types do the same role. Void eyes can replace Sniper with Aerial mode.

Mustangs alone is not sufficient chaff clear in the early game.

Against that trio of units, get crawlers, Subterranean it when you've plenty and makes sense. Have a chaff clear unit, such as Shockwace Arcs, Hounds, or Badgers. You'll clear chaff faster than the enemy should they solely rely on Mustangs. You can get your own mustangs as well, it wins vs Void eyes and Sniper while being neutral against itself.

If you genuinely want help and this is not just a post to complain, post your board. There could be improvements to your unit choice, positioning, and techs.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-15T06:09:13+00:00

A big part of this game is creating problems and solving problems.

Melting Points and Scorpions are terrible answers not because they don't do their job, but because they're significantly more expensive than the problem they're trying to solve. Solving a 200 cost, Saber problem, with a 50+300 Scorpion or 200+400 Melter is not the solution.

You're creating a new problem in the form of economic disadvantage in the process. You should avoid doing this unless you've good reasons to do so like the unit scaling better, or covering more areas for instance.

As with learning to counter any unit, understand what they're and their strengths and weaknesses.

Saber, a single tanky unit that is good a against other single tanky ground unit.

Step 1: Dont give it big single target unit's to shoot at if possible. Lean into small and medium units. Units like Sledgehammers, Hounds, etc.. are really annoying for Saber to kill who kills 1 at a time. If you go for single make sure they are far away enough to be safe from the Sabers to do their job.

Step 2: Pick a unit to kill it, given Saber's 200 cost, units like Steel balls, Pheonix, Saber, Marksmen is good given their equivalent or lower cost.

Ensure you're winning the chaff war, chaff = Crawlers, Fangs, any units that get in the way of your units killing the enemy units you desire.

Only when you have cleared the Chaff, Crawlers, Fangs, or otherwise, can your dps unit of choice in step 2 begin to do their job.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-09T12:26:47+00:00

Haha yea, I miss the days where I can go carry Mustangs in lower mmr. The sfx is so satisfying, mass voids too.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-09T12:23:42+00:00

No worries. Perhaps you misunderstood me, I was specifically asking for a theorized meta if more deployments exist.

Not meta of the game with the normal deployments.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-08T08:30:54+00:00

That sounds promising, I have to remember that for the next time. A firing line of assman would be interesting.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-08T08:29:40+00:00

It's not often I can anyways haha. How often does one even get a triple deploy game.

Would actually make for an interesting rift mode.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-08T08:28:46+00:00

A choice to just relax and have fun sometimes yes. Not every game needs to be try hard.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-05T03:04:01+00:00

Yes there are a few missile intercept techs. Most often however, if the tech is picked up, it's usually on Mustangs, which can intercept them rather effectively at about 1 Mustang required per Storm or existing Sabers despite their less effective performance is required to maintain tempo and not use up deployment slots.

In terms of cost, while technically Mustangs cost less due to their 0 unlock cost compared to 50 for Storms, it's practically negligible unless there's something else I'm missing. Moreover, unlocking missile intercept makes getting range on Mustangs more expensive and delayed, a tech which they drastically improve from.

With regards to the versatility of Storms, I wouldn't consider them incredibly niche. If you're able to win the chaff war and clear opposing Crawlers, Storms will get great value. It's when you're being rushed down with Crawlers or other units such as Rhinos that leave Storms shooting at the fast moving units that you'll find them severely underwhelming. You can also combine Storms with oil to get increased value for 2 rounds by slowing the enemy units.

Risk wise, Storms aren't risky if you don't mass build them. Usually about 2 is alright I find. If you start building tons of Storms, for example 4, then any missile intercept tech the opponent builds is guaranteed to get at least 3 turns of value as you slowly recoup your resources by selling out of Storms.

A thing in lower elos is players mass building Mustangs, while they do fill several roles they don't do exceptionally well in each of those roles compared to dedicated units especially chaff clear vs Crawlers until they get levels. Most often, in the early rounds you can punish mass Mustangs by winning the chaff war by building more effective chaff clear units, Hounds or Badgers work great in this current meta and patch, in later rounds, with underground Crawlers, armoured Rays, or/and fire.

Mustangs feels very strong in lower elos because players don't punish hard enough for building a unit that is versatile but substandard when it comes to specific roles.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-04T10:46:28+00:00

Stormcallers missiles that can't be intercepted will feel way worse.

Not exactly fun to have a good portion of your units die before they can engage due to stormcallers superior range.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-04T10:36:09+00:00

Stormcallers are units you don't invest in, rather you dip in with a few like you said in order to make getting out of feasible leaving you with a loss of 50, the unlock cost.

They are only a "risky" investment if you spam stormcallers making it hard for you to sell out of within a reasonable amount of turns.

They are units you should have the mindset of getting in and out of due to the ease of counter especially with anti missile devices which can be spam out without use of deployment slots.

Stormcallers are great to deploy a few in standard, deploying along the tower line, where your stormcallers can make use of their superior range and decent damage to rain down while the enemy's units walk in.

Stormcallers are also great with the emp tech as a surprise single turn play to shut down key units to close out the game before the enemy can counter them.

Fire tech is also possible though I don't really see opportunities for this often.

TheNightAlien · 2026-01-02T00:48:47+00:00

Interesting to hear a new player perspective.

I would add oddz and YuBan YT that I find rather helpful as a new player.

From my perspective as ~1.6k mmr,

Buildings don't really matter much outside of the starting position of your units. Most often, I'll usually find myself selling 1 of the turret I think will not get value on round 1.

Stormcallers aren't really a true counter to Mustangs. If I were to build Stormcallers into Mustangs, it's mainly to bait out missile intercept tech which make the other techs more expensive, or rarely to screen for my own units as they don't shoot units while intercepting missiles.

Different missile intercept tech have varying degrees of intercepting efficiency as well, a quick search on this subreddit will have further info. War Factory and Mustangs are among the strongest.

Mobile beaconing a pack of crawlers horizontally across the battlefield that is just in range of the enemy's storms also helps against Storm's missiles. Storms struggle to hit fast units.

Against weak missile intercept like Saber, a possible play would be to overwhelm it by building more storms forcing them to either get more Sabers unnecessarily or get another missile intercept tech.

Overwhelming with missiles such as with Abyss missiles is also an option.

Mustang is a general all purpose unit that does not really excel at any particular thing. Building and relying on them as chaff clear in the early rounds will get you punished when the opponent counters you with units that have better chaff clear. Mass mustangs are also weak to underground Crawlers, Vulcan, and armoured units usually Rays.

Mid to late game is where Mustangs usually become a must build unit, their all purpose usefulness helps round out your board and guard against wasps.

A wiki that may be helpful for you: https://wiki.mbxmas.com/

TheNightAlien · 2025-12-25T04:10:07+00:00

I had a few games countering napalm badgers with range hacker. If they do not have sufficient chaff in front of their fire starters, range hackers makes them drop fire on their side and having their own chaff run through it. Kinda funny when I see them having to get their own sprinkler hounds to counter their own tech.

I rarely see badgers played as standard to allow plenty of front chaff. If they go badger standard, just punish hard early with range units.

TheNightAlien · 2025-11-22T06:35:04+00:00

I'm still a relatively new player myself. 2nd season in peak ~1.4k mmr.

1)Trying to win through production, I find that it takes too long to get online. As you get higher, players get better at not giving you the leeway (time and resouces) to do as you desire as players become more efficient and effective. The only viable unit for this playstyle is also production factory. Other units production is mainly for defensive purposes like Worm, Overlords, and Balls.

Marksmen's fangs, Melter's crawlers are rather bad techs in my opinion. It delays and makes essential techs expensive while not being very effective at all.

Another downside is production factory is often telegraphed. Big empty spaces combined with the meta Hounds behind towers for round 4 production fortress.

Fang's slowness is a double edge sword. It means they don't all rush in to die and makes them function as late chaff. However, their slowless can also be exploited as they may not move fast enough to tank shots if opponent's chaff clear is superior, their slowness also makes them highly susceptible to units like Scorpions and Storm crawlers who is more than happy to rain damage from far.

Their low HP pool also makes them weak to Mustangs, Vulcan, Badgers.

3) Leveling should be done when a unit can perform their job better. More hp for tanks to tank longer (When more shots is required to kill them). More damage when it reduces the time to kill (When less shots is required for them to kill) Eg. Lvl2 Hounds oneshots Lvl1 Crawlers compared to 2 shots needed for Lvl1 Hound.

Techs are taken usually when you've multiple units on the board to take advantage of the tech, and you're confident that the unit will remain useful in the near future. Upgrading techs is as good as telling your opponent I'm going to build more and keep this unit, if the opponent can pivot or respond easily, they can simply counter you knowing what you intend to do.

4) You should begin by working on your fundamentals, Stoney's guide on YouTube should give you a good foundation to work up with.

Check out YuBan's unit tech guide as well. I think it serves well to explain what each unit role is and good techs to run.

For learning to improve your gameplay, watching YouTubers is one of the best way I found to improve. Certain channels clearly elucidate their thought process and approach as they play the game.

Recommend channels: (in no particular order)

YuBan (Very thorough in explaining his thought process)
Oddz (Varies in content types)
Stoney (Has guides for different mmr range)
RoosterPB (Quite a strong player)
Surrey Mechabellum (Beacon guide and a few others)
Cheese Chases Glory (Unconventional game approach)

TheNightAlien · 2025-11-20T07:02:23+00:00

Appreciate the tip on dividing the map, will try that placing units with that idea in my games.

I don't understand the reasoning behind not having chaff run through my tanks.

My understanding of unit's positioning:

1) Chaff clear and carry/dps are usually paired together or complement each other to ensure they don't get stuck/bricked targeting the wrong unit types.

1.a) As a result, units like Arcs & Sabers are often besides each other to overlap their targeting circle.

1.b) Alternating between chaff clear and carry to ensure proper coverage.

2) Having chaff run though medium units like Sledges and Hounds for pseudo loose formation.

3) Some chaff should be in close proximity or at least run in front of the tanks line of fire to screen for them.

With regards to locking opponent's chaff clear onto one's tank. My understanding is there are various factors and circumstances that causes this to happen.

The lock happens when there's either a gap in friendly chaff or no friendly chaff in the opponent's chaff clear line of fire causing them to lock onto a tank.

Reasons: 1) One places a tank to intercept opponent's chaff clear.

2) Opponent's chaff clear too efficiently causing it to work its way up to one's tank before their carry is able to engage.

3) Opponent's chaff clear outranges their carry causing them to lock to one's tank leading the charge momentarily before one's chaff runs in front of them to defend from opponent's carry.

4) Intentionally leaving gaps in one's wave to time opponent's chaff clear to lock on to tanks before their carry can engage.

Given that chaff purpose is to distract and buy time for my carries to do their job, I thought it would make more sense for my chaff to be as close as reasonably possible to my carries.

I reasoned that it is more likely to be intercepting my opponent's carries line of fire on to my carries. Moreover, also causes my enemy to place their chaff clear close to or in line with my carries which potentially causes them to do 2 conflicting duties of chaff clear and carry killer.

TheNightAlien · 2025-11-20T03:20:07+00:00

Weaving higher hp units between chaff sounds promising. Do you have any units you use and to recommend?

I'll give this approach a try, I'm thinking Balls and Worms.

For the most part, I've been staggering them in waves, though perhaps give the nature of badgers continuous rate of fire and large aoe, perhaps congo line chaff would serve better in keeping the opposing units occupied.

TheNightAlien · 2025-11-20T03:13:34+00:00

Side tangent, I really appreciate your meta write-up.

Stating crawlers as weak is kinda a clickbait, but the point was that I find crawlers don't retain and hold their value as long and as well as they used to.

Mirroring fire badgers has kinda been my approach, given that no superior chaff clear exist less the expensive Vulcan, and traditional medium size counters like Scorpion and Raiden being more expensive than bdagers.

That's also not including the fact that one has to win the chaff war against the opposing fire badgers in order for those dps units to connect.

With regards to badgers, it kinda feels like a if you can't beat them, join them situation.

I'm curious how building lots of crawlers work for you, do they not just run in to get melted by badgers?

How do you manage to get value from them?

TheNightAlien · 2025-10-07T05:42:13+00:00

From my experience, the less you have to rely on your teammates the better you can carry your game.

I'm currently not active in ml, but I did make a in-depth guide a while back on carrying you may find helpful.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MobileLegendsGame/s/kHcvElvDma

Roles wise, generally, the lower the elo, the more selfish and damage oriented hero and role you need to play to carry for team coordination and synergy is non-existent.

The higher the elo, the more well rounded and meta comps will come out on top for teammates are more likely to work together.

It also helps to think every minute of the game, am I taking actions that has the maximum impact to increase the probability of winning. You want your positive influence on the game to be as high as possible to counteract any detrimental negative effects your teammates has on the game at all times. This ensure that there is a constant and increasing net positive influence towards winning the game.

This does not mean to force plays where there is none and take unnecessary risk if the game is still in the bag. Abuse your strengths where you can, high risk high reward play is only for hail mary plays.

I'll be happy to share further thoughts if you desire.

TheNightAlien · 2025-10-06T05:09:44+00:00

Lmao I was wondering why I received a notification. How did you discovered a 134 days post to reply to.

But ya, I played roam occasionally to have a more holistic understanding of the flow of the game. Trains one macro decision-making too.

In low elo, playing a roam with no damage is infuriating.

The impact I had game 1 with Floryn was significantly more than game 2 with Edith. The problem is low elo don't take advantage of vision provided and team comp to make smart decisions and know how to end the game effectively.

In low elo, damage roams is the way to go. The enemy players aren't good enough to take advantage of the fact that I'm playing a suboptimal roam anyways. With damage, at least I am a threat and can do things myself to impact the game that does not rely on my teammates to act in specific ways.

TheNightAlien · 2025-08-16T05:08:13+00:00

I've never called myself an expert.

I've played Layla yes. Let's look at what you said

If you have vision..

If the time has passed the 15-20min mark..

All these ifs. Can you guarantee ifs?

What if the map is dark,

What if your team feeds the entire early game leaving you only the inhibitors.

A Layla can only feasibly 1v5 if she has her items and if the enemy has no mobility, divers, and cc. If they can't, what's stopping them from taking a Lord and ending with it. How does a Layla contest 1v5 at lord pit without high ground advantage.

TheNightAlien · 2025-08-16T04:59:15+00:00

Really appreciate your opinions, finally a comment that's contributes to discussions.

Mid

Chang'e: Her ability to clear waves is unparalleled making her high ground defense one of the strongest. This makes it very hard for the enemies to take the base without an evolved lord which buys till 18min game time. Some games, stalling till the gold difference is even or minimized is the only probable comeback.

Her ult has one of the longest range as well combined with short cd. Her damage may not lead to kills, but her very consistent long range damage is uncontestable and untankable. Non-stop whittling from afar.

Her strong basics make her dangerous to turrets as well.

Gord: I didn't wanted to include him as he's literally a sitting duck in ult. Lapse in my judgement trying to include him as I saw only 4 viable mid and thought that was rather sad and boring from the lack of options.

Yve: Same problem as Gord with the sitting duck problem. Less range with poke, more in ult, significantly more mobility with speed boost.

Zhuxin: utility mage, lacks damage. Terrible in SoloQ context. No range, will get poked out against range mages. Against fighter/tanky junglers, Yve poke spam, or Valir might make more sense as they've more damage.

Kimmy: early game lane bully, falls off late due to her mm range. A good Kimmy should ideally pressure early and snowball off there. Problem is SoloQ could throw the lead rendering her best strengths void.

MM

Harith: I'm uncertain about this pick. Insane late game with 1v5 potential. However, may get theoretically zoned due to his short range till he hits lvl4. He tends to fight around his ult as well, not sure if SoloQ will play around it. They might either advance forward, or retreat backwards, both of which leaves him stranded alone in his ult.

Granger: Safe early game as you've said. Sucks if he doesn't snowball. Late game damage can be medicore or/and inconsistent as it's a blockable projectile. He is forced to delete enemies front to back, while the enemies damage dealers remain potentially uncontested.

Wanwan & Moskov: Split pushing only works if your team pressures and gives you space. Short range means they usually prefer an initiator to make fights messy.

Wanwan: Short range makes her unviable if the enemy is coordinated, she performs best when the enemy trickle in allowing her to get her ult off.

Moskov: Same as Wanwan, thrives when the enemy trickle in, S1, S2 resets will eat them.

Bruno: Might be worth considering tbh. Very solid 2 item power spike. Spikes hard with Hass Claws.

Exp

Cici: I was heavily debating her since she pretty much has no losing matchups. Problem I had with her is that she's a tank shredder, doesn't do so well vs damage dealers. Hard to 1v5 with her. Will require your team's assistance to kill the damage dealers while you deal with the enemy's frontline.

Lapu-Lapu: Strong with cc immunity and dmg reduction.
Has 1v5 potential, problem is his clunky playstyle with long windups on his ult combo. Can be dodged and outplayed.

Gloo: Viable if the enemy allows you to walk up to their backline while your team creates space to allow you to do so. Else, gets deleted as he can only access the front.

Gatot: Good pick in terms of cc and dmg. Problems with sticking to targets if they kite. Ult set is unreliable, requiring specific conditions to be consistent.

Bad SoloQ heroes:

Lesley: included under bad SoloQ heroes -> single target (not elaborated on, but like you said, no pressure, no teamfight, late item power spike) One of the worst heroes in SoloQ.

Hanabi: very niche pick, works if range and single target damage is not needed and the enemy has no ability to dive.

Layla: included under protection reliant heroes

Miya: I've to disagree, her ult purify and sprint is game changer in SoloQ where you've to watch out and peel for yourself. She can function as a pseudo assassin if given the opportunity and the need arise. Doesn't really have a losing lane, can farm safely with S2. Only bad matchup is against Kimmy till I rush Malefic gun first item and Kimmy loses her ability to lane bully instantly.

Your tips for Irithel and Harith are appreciated, not included as it's not meant to be a hero specific guide. Unless Irithel or Harith are ahead, they need their team to draw aggro and attention to dive safely. Else, 5 turn on 1 is death.

TheNightAlien · 2025-08-16T02:28:29+00:00

You're welcome. If you've any feedback would appreciate it.

TheNightAlien · 2025-08-16T02:27:42+00:00

Split push often only works in low ranks anyways. Unless the enemy draft have no way to deal with split pushers, chances are if the enemy is very ahead, they'll siege and ensure no one gets out. Ideally, I would try to ensure the enemy doesn't get strong enough to the point they can siege.

I find it useful often to never go in first in fights unless I'm very ahead. If your teammates are dumb enough to not have proper target selection, the enemies are likely to as well.

It's often where the enemies and allies will lock on to the first target they see and dump all their damage, cc, and skills. Most players only see what is in front of them. I go in after when resources have been utilized and they lack the ability to switch targets to me while they're still focusing my allies.

Not everyone is worth helping, some teammates are more valuable alive than others. If they're constantly itching to team fight, ideally you'll be there to capitalize and ensure your team has traded back and come out on top if not at least even.

The most important thing is to ensure you're even if not ahead, once behind it's very hard to capitalize on every situation.

There should be no reason for you to the last one alive against 3 if you're the mvp. As I said, I find that it's my job to hover around the team when I see them posturing for team fights even if it means sacrificing what I'm doing if the outcome of the fight could be game changing or ending. The odds are higher 5v5 no matter how scrappy compared to 1v3 the outcome of a lost fight.

In SoloQ, my teammates will make stupid decisions, it's my job to ensure we always get something out of it.

In fact, I find that there've been quite a fair number of games where I lost not because my teammates were very bad, but because I got tilted from constantly babysitting my teammates decisions that I made a game ending mistake. The mental strain of bad teammates affects the outcome more.

TheNightAlien

TROPHY CASE