What it is: A clan tournament that runs as two tournaments back to back.
Daily quests pay map fragments. Fragments make a map, the map reveals a Vault of Ancients' Coins, and the clan raids it together.
A leader or superior summons an epic Ancient squad, and the clan spends its attempts killing it.
Coins from the first day upgrade Clan artifacts, and the artifacts set the terms of the second: how many creatures appear, how long they stand there, what a kill pays. When Rise of the Ancients ends, artifact progress resets to nothing. It is one cycle wearing two names, and a clan that treats the first day as optional has already decided how the second will go.
How it scores
The first day is not scored for its own sake. There is no leaderboard on the vaults worth chasing. You are banking Ancients' Coins, and the coins are the only thing that carries into the second day, where the rewards actually are.
The second day is where the money is. Attacking the squad pays clan rating toward a top-100 finish, and it pays you personally whether or not the clan places.
The squad gets harder every time it is summoned. Each summon raises the level, so a clan that banked enough coins for six summons walks the squad up as it goes. Six summons took one clan from a level 32 squad to a level 37. That level then persists into the next tournament rather than resetting.
Vault losses are the cheapest fighting on the calendar. Reviving what dies at a vault costs a tenth of the usual price, and irretrievable losses are halved. If there is an opportunity to try an army stack you would not otherwise risk, this is it.
What you actually win
At a level 37 squad, one summon puts this on the table:
| Reward | On offer at level 37 |
|---|---|
| Valor points | 69.3 billion |
| Dragon Treats | 20.8 billion |
| Golden Guardian points | 2.13 million |
| Golden Guardian epic chests | 37 |
The Valor figure is the headline and it is not a typo. Nothing else on the calendar pays Valor at that scale, so if you are chasing a Valor target for anything at all, this is where you get it.
The Dragon Treats are the quiet one. Dragon food normally trickles in, and twenty billion of it in an afternoon moves a dragon a long way.
The Golden Guardian epic chests hold gold, sacred potions, dragon coins, Tar, silver and elite summoning scrolls. Thirty-seven of them go to the clan.
Two more things land in the battle report that the reward panel does not advertise: Mysterious Coins, which are what Pursuit of Fortune quests need, and Armor Fragments, which are what Valor missions in the Triumphal Challenge need. Golden Guardian points feed Triumphal Challenge quests too. A squad you hit for its own rewards is quietly finishing three other events while you do it, and the experience on top is enormous.
How to play it
Day one: unlock the vaults
- Clear the six daily quests. Each milestone chest pays a map fragment, and fragments are the only way to a vault. Miss the dailies and you have nothing to summon.
- Summon at the highest level you can beat outright. Not the highest you can summon. Full points need the vault destroyed on the first attempt, so a tier you can only chip is worth less than a smaller one you can flatten.
- Raid your own vault, and any marked free. Taking somebody's vault before they are ready costs the clan the points, not just them.
- Set a five-minute rally and aim for five players. Long enough that people can reach it, short enough that the window does not go to waste.
- Bring Amanitore. Her bonus only pays when you march with clanmates, and it counts per player, so a whole group running her compounds. She reaches 210% at full investment, and she is the wrong pick for the second part of this tournament.
- Send your two highest troop levels and nothing below them. The rungs beneath are dead weight that dies first and takes your capacity with it.
- Leave the catapults, Ariel and Grace at home. A vault has no walls, so Engineer corps is capacity you can't use, and the two heroes have nothing to do here.
Day two: kill the squad
- Be there when it is summoned. The clock is set by the Mysterious clock artifact and the attempts by how the first day went. A squad nobody is awake for is a wasted summon.
- One captain per attack, and as many attacks at once as you can field. The captain slot is not where the volume comes from. Marches running in parallel are.
- Lead with mounted. The squad punishes mounted least, at 45%, against 60% on ranged, 50% on flying and 80% on melee. Mounted also counters the Ancient Arbalester.
- Do not lead with melee. The Mechanical Griffin hits melee at 80%, the largest number on any of the four cards.
- Send your strongest mounted monster. Mounted is the class the Ancients punish least, so the top of that line is the one to bring: Devastator if you have it, then Ancient Terror, then Troll Rider. Leadership is the limit, and a Devastator II is worth thirty-four Battle Boars in the same slot, so take the top of the ladder rather than the bottom of it.
- Send every Superior Epic Monster Hunter you own. Its card names no unit type, because Epic Monster Hunter is its type, so the squad's bonuses cannot reach it at all. It costs one leadership.
- Bring Hercules if you have him. Two percent per level against epic monsters, double the usual rate, and all four Ancients are epic monsters. Cleopatra and Aydae are the fallbacks.
- Wear the Ghostflame Lantern. It raises the whole army's strength against epic monsters, which is the entire fight. Ifrit Lord's Belt and Source Flask are the next best.
- Send every mercenary you have. Mercenaries expire in about a week whatever you do, so holding them back is a straight loss.
Leaving the catapults in. There are no walls on the squad either, so Engineer corps is capacity you paid for and cannot use. Ariel and Grace go home too.
Ancient Artifacts
Three of them, raised with Ancients' Coins on the first day and reset when the second ends. The figurine is the one that decides how much event there is to play.
How many creatures get summoned.
How long the squad stands on the map.
What a kill pays in Valor, experience and points.
Whatever you bring to fight, something in the Ancient Squad punishes it
| Monster | Class | Punishes | By |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Guardian | Melee | Mounted | 45% |
| Tiger Rider | Mounted | Ranged | 60% |
| Ancient Arbalester | Ranged | Flying | 50% |
| Mechanical Griffin | Flying | Melee | 80% |
Your ranged beats the Golden Guardian, your mounted beats the Arbalester, your melee beats the Tiger Rider, and nothing beats the Griffin, because flying sits outside the triangle. There is no clean answer. The Superior Epic Monster Hunter is the one body on the field that none of those four numbers can touch.
Day two is how you get Amanitore
Her fragments come out of this event, and she is the best group-march captain in the game. She does nothing for you against the Ancient squad and a great deal in Ragnarök, clan raids, Clash of the Thrones and kingdom wars. Farming the Ancients hard arms the clan for the rest of the calendar, not just for tomorrow.