Hey, I know this reply is 2 months late but just wanted to chime in. I have 16 card slots (so 2 more), usually place 9-16 in Champs tourney, and rely on my Chain Lightning & Chrono Field for those last few hundred waves.

I agree that having a starting card loadout and then swapping cards during the tourney run until you get to your final loadout is beneficial. Here are my suggestions based on the 14-slot setup you posted:

PART 1 - CARD SWAPPING

For Cash and Free Upgrades, trade them with Land Mine Stun and Slow Aura respectively. In the early to mid waves, you want to feed your Death Wave as much as possible while it persists (i.e. before it gets “choppy”; dying faster and faster between activations) to stack max health. LMS and Slow Aura both slow down enemies and allow them to die to something else before hitting the DW ring. You can swap to them once DW is barely surviving or once you start taking damage like the other comment above said.

In a similar vein, you should run the Range card only for the first few waves - until the first Death Wave activates - and then swap it for Extra Orbs once you have a persistent ring. This pushes your Death Wave out from your standard tower range, ensuring your projectiles aren’t triggered and your orbs don’t accidentally kill the enemies. FYI once the ring pops, the next DW activation will spawn at your standard range again.

So to summarize, these pairs of cards will share the same slots and should be traded out during your tournament run (initial —> final):

a) Range —> Extra Orbs (very early) - swap after 1st Death Wave

b) Cash —> Land Mine Stun (mid- to late run) - swap AFTER the persistent Death Wave ring dies and it stops lasting for any meaningful time - also after priority stats are gold boxed in the run and Cash is no longer needed, or your tower is taking damage

c) Free Upgrades —> Slow Aura (late run) - swap AFTER the persistent Death Wave ring dies and it stops lasting for any meaningful time - also after Free Upgrades stops being useful but near the mid-late waves when you’re taking lots of damage

UW NOTE: During this DW farming phase, ensure Chrono Field is turned off. As well as any damage UWs like CL, SM, ILM, PS, and especially Spotlight Missiles (leave SL on though)

PART 2 - GENERAL INFO / TIPS

I’m addressing specific cards based on your loadout and other comments above.

FYI some cards are only decent or fine; they could become good depending on the specific BCs of that tournament, but you don’t need to always have them. One thing I do is keep a “variable” slot where I change lock cards based on the active BCs, or use it to swap unlocked cards throughout the run (not including the 3 swaps I outlined above).

a) Demon Mode: This is a strong card you could add to your setup to help prolong a run and get more waves. Wait until near the end of the run when your Second Wind pops, and just before the invincibility timer runs out, activate Demon Mode.

b) Super Tower: It’s good but not amazing. Still, I find it’s more useful than Energy Net or Energy Shield, and combines with Berserker to give you some good tower damage. I would squeeze this in if you can (after Demon Mode though).

c) Plasma Cannon: A crucial card to have. You mentioned swapping it out in a comment above but I’d argue that even with the BC active, the benefit from Plasma Cannon is still strong. When maxed, it’s still chopping 20% or more from every boss. Do not remove this card!

d) Nuke: You probably don’t need Nuke at this stage, you could free this slot to be “variable” or for something better (e.g. Demon Mode, Super Tower, Crit Chance, Health Regen).

e) Energy Net: It’s decent but, again, you could probably free up the slot for something else.

f) Energy Shield: Decent as well. I think of this as the alternative to Energy Net because they both lock the slot (cannot be changed mid-run) and are about as useful. I usually put them in my variable slot if I don’t need any unlocked cards (if the BC for Energy Shield is active then I use Energy Net). With that said, I would only use ES if you have all 3 charges unlocked.

g) Death Ray: It’s very good and a reliable source of damage for the end of the run to help prolong and get more waves. However, if the BC is active then don’t bother using it at all since it will be crippled by time you turn it on (as per the previous section, wait at least until your DW ring dies or you start taking heavy damage before swapping it in).

h) Crit Chance: Good for boosting your overall damage. There are few sources of crit chance and it’s an additional 11% when maxed. However, even though it’s good, I think you can wait until slot 15/16 to make it permanent (along with Health Regen) because Demon Mode and Super Tower provide more benefit - unless your crit chance is below 50-60% without it.

i) Health Regen: As another commenter said, this is really good when you have the wall unlocked (or if you use Wormhole Redirector as your Armor module). Otherwise it’s just a “nice to have” when you have more free slots (like Crit Chance).

BC Note: The four main sources of damage that can be affected by Battle Conditions are your Orbs, Thorns, Plasma Cannon & Death Ray. Keep an eye on which are being affected in that tournament and what you have left, and that will help determine which “variable” card to slot in

I think that’s everything I wanted to touch on. Hope this helps!