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THE FIELD NOTES · CRITTERFRONT

Evergrowth: a mixed six-unit defense

Four distinct Evergrowth families support durable marching while poison, Hydra coverage and a timed Bomb cover different defensive jobs.

Test budget40g
Net roster investment40g
Base-copy purchase total59g
Round rules testedRound 5

Net investment deducts merge refunds from the purchase total. 0g of the test budget is unspent. This is an owned-roster comparison, not a starting purse or a promise you can find these copies in that round. Shop rolls, reroll costs, liquidity and other players’ purchases were not simulated.

Advanced · 6 DEPLOYED RECRUITS

The exact roster

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Exact families and stars, with an illustrative starter layout. Edit both formations before playing. This is not a recorded simulation layout. The planner’s base-copy value is the 59g purchase reference, not 40g net investment.

What the families activate

Attacking threats

  • Nightveil: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus
  • Evergrowth: 4 distinct families · 4-family bonus

Defending roles

  • Blaster: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus
  • Hatcher: 2 distinct families · 2-family bonus

Duplicates do not add faction members. These are current rules interactions, not proof that a particular bonus caused the recorded score.

Give each side a job

Placement notes below are practical interpretation of the abilities, not experimentally optimized hex positions.

YOUR DEFENDING TOWERS

Cover the route

  • Placement suggestion, not a tested hex layout: overlap Seed’s route control with Mushroom’s poison coverage, and give Hydra several valid targets in range.
  • Demon loses fifteen percent of maximum health per second and needs a kill to refill. Give it meaningful firing opportunities rather than assuming it survives passively.
  • Bomb has no auto attack and disappears after its five-second explosion. Petal shields the Hatcher Guardling without needing to stand beside it.

YOUR ATTACKING MARCHERS

Plan the approach

  • Demon, Hydra, Mushroom and Seed activate the four-family Evergrowth tier; Petal and Bomb separately provide the first Nightveil bonus.
  • Try to line up followers with Seed’s healing sprouts and Demon’s flame trail. These are routing suggestions, not a measured launch sequence.

Recruit toward it, without forcing it

This is a conditional recruitment plan, not a tested shopping sequence. Keep a playable board while the shop decides which copies are available.

  1. Suggested collection priority, not a tested buying sequence: keep a functional mixed board while upgrading Mushroom and Hydra when offers justify the commitment.
  2. This uses all six normal deployment slots and requires eight Mushroom copies. Forty net gold excludes reroll costs and contested shared-pool reservations.

Where it can struggle

Recorded matchup notes

What the experiment measured

77.9%

Historical points
A win is 1 point. A draw is ½.

Opposing compositions
48
Battles in this comparison
864
Opponent-panel 95% interval
72.0%–83.4%
Cap or allocation-drop battles
0

Each opposing composition spends at least 85% of the test budget. Each opposing composition has equal weight. Repeated seeds and swapped seats are not independent opponent strategies. The interval describes this tested panel, not ranked players or a guaranteed result.

Formation sensitivity · the same roster under three placement policies
Test policyHistorical points
Planned defense · front-row offense79.2%
Random legal defense · randomized Nexus79.5%
Planned defense · randomized full-depth offense75.0%

Scores pool many placements. None of these numbers is a result for the editable starter layout linked above. They compare both armies’ applied Nexus damage, not total DPS.

Evidence source and reproducibility

Frozen run: validation-20260906
Stage: validation
Roster: r-fabb8342131ae9a9508e

Download the compact evidence snapshot, including source SHA-256 hashes. Read the method and limitations.

A different direction to try

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