Ludus beginner's guide: 7 tips to take your casual adventure to the next level

In Ludus, you build a deck made up of five cards/heroes and start summoning them onto the arena. Every time you merge the same hero, they get upgraded, and their stats increase. Basically, they become stronger. Your goal is to make your opponent lose all their hearts (before you lose yours, obviously).

As soon as the match starts, you can begin summoning your heroes onto the board. It’s important to note that both the position where each hero appears on the board and which hero you get are completely random. There’s also a limit to how many heroes you can summon each round, since every summon costs 3 energy out of the total 16 energy you gain by default.

To merge your heroes, two conditions must be met:

1. They have to be the same hero
2. They must have the same merge level.

In other words, you can’t merge a hero at merge level 2 with one at level 1, even if they’re the same unit.

Another very important thing to know is that every hero has a different buff pattern. You can see it by tapping on the hero while building your deck. Your other heroes that “sit” on top of that pattern increase their Battle Prowess.

The buff pattern is also one of the ways you can break the stones on your board and earn extra energy.

When a hero reaches merge level 3, they unlock certain special abilities.

Even though there are no traditional RPG-style classes here, each hero has abilities that place them into one of the following categories:

1. Tanks / Frontliners: These units usually have high HP and take reduced damage thanks to shields or damage reduction effects. Ideally, you want them at the front of your formation so they’re the first to absorb enemy hits.
2. DPS: Their role is simple - deal as much damage as possible. Not all heroes function the same way: some are single-target, others are AoE. Some perform best in the backline, while others need to be up front. Either way, their job is to deal damage.
3. Support: Supports provide buffs to your heroes or apply crowd control to your opponents.

There’s also another category of heroes defined by their ability to summon minions.

The reason I’m mentioning all this is simple: when building your team, it’s important to have balance. Even though the game relies heavily on RNG, a well-balanced team can still win many matches.

The basics you should keep in mind when creating your deck rely on the number of heroes and the roles they have. You need to:

• Have 2 Tanks / Frontliners
• Have 2 DPS
• Have 1 Support

This is a very general approach to building a team, but it’s a great starting point. Once you understand the system better and have more heroes available, you’ll be able to adjust your strategy accordingly.

If you want to know the best cards to use, all you have to do is check out our Ludus tier list.

Something important I’ve noticed is that new players (and not only) often get merging wrong.

Earlier, I talked about each hero’s buff pattern and how it increases the battle prowess of the other heroes on your board. This means it’s not always a good idea to merge two heroes if there are no other heroes or stones placed on their buff pattern.

Many times, it’s better to wait - even if that means losing a round. After all, the goal isn’t to win one round, but to win the entire match.

Make sure you’re as efficient as possible with the merges you do - especially for your main carry (your DPS), your tank, and your stones.

Try to break the stones as quickly as you can, because this gives you a much stronger econ than your opponent and helps you maintain a faster tempo. Summon as many units as possible before your opponent powers up.

In the later rounds, sometimes it's okay to sell some of your level 1 units that you cannot merge, so you can summon again.

Upgrading your hero cards is important - not just the ones you are using for your deck, but all of them. That way, you will increase your overall Might level. The higher your might level, the better stats your cards get.

Obviously, try to prioritise your main cards first, but do not be afraid to spend gold on other cards.

At the start, this will be quite time-consuming (and rather hard) because you will get a lot of cards, and not that much Gold. Don't worry about it, though, because in due time, it will all make sense.

To upgrade your cards, you need resources. Especially if you’re an F2P player. If you don’t spend real money, quests are the best way to earn resources. Daily quests, seasonal quests, and career quests should be your priorities.

On top of the quests, there are always various events running, and it’s a good idea to participate, even if you can’t win. Grand Tournament, Content Rush, and Portal Challenge are some of the best ones. Take part in as many as you can and complete the missions to earn even more resources.

Also, the Shop has different offers every day, as well as free resources you should claim. I get that watching ads all the time isn’t the best experience, but that’s the model, so it unfortunately needs to be said with our Ludus beginner's guide.

And for even more extra resources, why not have a look at our Ludus codes too?

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Ludus: Merge Battle Arena