Strategy & Tips

Combat in Aether Chronicles is automatic, so duels are won by where you put things and when. Every tip here follows from how the game actually resolves a duel, so you can rely on it.

Know the elements

Every card has exactly one element, and decks have no element restrictions. Each element has a clear personality:

"Typical Summon" is the average Attack / Defense / Health of that element's Summons in the launch card pool.

Using the wheel

• Fire beats Wind, Wind beats Earth, Earth beats Water, Water beats Fire. Light and Shadow are sworn rivals: each deals ×1.25 to the other, so those clashes cut both ways.
• The bonus only applies unit against unit. Hits to Soul, spells, Burn, Toxin and Requiem ignore elements completely.
• When you can, put a unit across from one it beats. ×1.25 on a 4-Attack unit is a 5-point strike, and Bane doubles that to 10.
• Avoid parking a unit across from one that beats it: you strike at ×0.80 and its counter-blow lands at ×1.25.
• One or two elements is the sweet spot. Spells and Events need a Summon of their element on your side before you can cast them (the element gate), so decks with fewer elements rarely get stuck with locked cards.

Lane placement

The game's own coaching panel follows a simple rule, and it's a good one:

• Read the board, not just the card. A big attacker facing an empty lane is the best play there is: it hits Soul for its full Attack every turn, with no Defense or element in the way.
• Block the biggest threat first. Any enemy unit facing an empty lane on your side goes straight for your Soul. Fill the lane in front of their strongest attacker before anything else.
• Lanes resolve in order: Aggressive, then Balanced, then Defensive. A Bulwark that dies in the Aggressive lane can't pull attacks in the later lanes.

Combat math you can use

• Strike first, then counter. Damage isn't simultaneous. The attacker strikes, and the defender only strikes back if it survives. Kill a blocker outright and you take nothing back.
• Defense can't stop everything. Damage is the strike minus Defense, but never less than a third of the strike (rounded up). Even a huge wall wears down under a stream of attackers.
• The counter-blow has no minimum. Your Defense reduces the counter, and it can drop to zero. High-Defense attackers trade very well into small blockers.
• Pierce and Unseen skip the counter-blow. They're ideal for attacking into big blockers.
• Shield absorbs one whole hit from a Summon (even the minimum chip), so pop it with your weakest attacker first.
• New units are exhausted. A Summon played this turn doesn't attack until the end of your next turn, unless it has Vanguard. Plan a turn ahead.

Walls: Bulwark, Guard and Shelter

• Bulwark pulls one unblocked enemy attack per turn onto itself, from any lane. That's powerful, but every blow a Bulwark takes costs your side 1 Soul (the wall's price). An ordinary blocker blocks for free. Use Bulwarks to stop big hits, not to soak a parade of small ones.
• One pull per Bulwark per turn. If two enemy units face empty lanes, one Bulwark only catches one of them; the other walks through to your Soul.
• Guard only works beside a different Bulwark. On its own, Guard does nothing.
• Shelter catches the first damage to your Soul each turn for your whole side. A second Shelter unit on the board is a spare, not a second shield.

Aether, Tithe, Maneuver and Eclipse

• Spend your Aether. You have 4 on your first turn and 1 more each turn after, up to 10 on your seventh. It refills every turn and unspent Aether is lost, so a turn where you float 3 Aether is usually a turn you fell behind.
• Tithe early, not late. A Tithe card lets you pay Soul instead of Aether, 1 for 1. Paying 2 Soul to land a 5-cost wall a turn early is great when you're healthy. Paying it while low on Soul against an aggressive deck can lose you the game. You can never Tithe yourself to zero.
• Maneuver costs more than 1 Aether. Moving a unit exhausts it, so it skips that turn's attack, and a Crest bonus stays behind in its old lane. Move to dodge a bad element matchup or to block an open lane, not just to tidy up.
• Eclipse stacks a new Summon on top of one of your own units for +1 ATK and +1 DEF. When the top unit dies, the one underneath comes back (exhausted for a turn). It's two bodies in one lane.
• Hand size: you can hold 7 cards. Drawing past that scorches the extra card into your discard, so don't sit on a full hand.

Mulligans and openings

• You get one redraw per duel. Keep a hand with at least one cheap Summon (cost 3 or less): you need something on the board early, and Summons unlock your spells.
• Redraw hands that are all spells or all 5+ cost cards. The AI uses the same rule: it redraws when its cheapest card costs more than its Aether or it has no Summon.
• A d6 roll decides who goes first. There's no bonus for going second, so if you lose the roll, plan to block your opponent's first attackers.

Deck archetypes

The 18 opponent plans in Practice (also used by Auto-build) double as a map of the game's main strategies. A few to try:

The rest are Shadow Toxin, Wind Ensemble, Shadow Pinch, Gambit Wager, Respawn Recursion, Shelter Bodyguard, Wyrm Solitary, Mirage Tomb and Balanced.

Want proven lists instead? Best Decks has four decks we tested in thousands of games, with deck codes, matchups and how to play each one.

Beating the AI

• Every AI above Easy spots lethal, so don't leave lanes open when your Soul is low.
• The Hard AI goes after open lanes and element advantages. Fill the lane facing its biggest attacker and don't hand it favourable matchups.
• Use Practice with a specific opponent plan to test a deck against a matchup you're struggling with. The setup sheet shows your record against each plan.
• Story bosses change tactics in phases as their Soul drops. Hold some removal back for the next phase.

Ranked tips

• Quick Match is ranked too, so warm up in Practice or Draft Duel (both unrated) first.
• Watch your Match History replays (You tab) after a loss. Most losses come down to one open lane or one bad trade.
• Your opponent's first Summon tells you which element's spells they can cast.
• See Progression for tiers, rank points and season rewards.

Collection tips

• Open your Daily Free Pack every day, and clear Chapter 1 of the story early for its gems.
• Duplicates turn into Motes automatically, and packs never give you a copy you already own. Craft the specific cards your deck needs instead of hoping to pull them.
• Card mastery is free alt art: play your favourite cards and they'll earn their PROVEN skin.
• More on spending in the Shop guide.