July 15, 2017 October 1, 2018
Most Successful Schools in 3rd Age PvP
We’ve said goodbye to 3rd age PvP and welcomed the 4th age. Let’s still look at the past for a second and check which schools and levels managed to obtain highest rank in the 3rd age. We’ll check the top 1000 highest ranked players and break them down by school popularity. We’ll be looking at the amount of players across all levels as well splitting them by every 10 levels.
Notes:
- The data was taken on July 6th 2017. It might come with little anomalies if you’ll compare the data with actual standings on other dates.
- There are obviously a lot of boosters on the leaderboards. Some are easy to find, others (for example in the 2.5k-3.5k range) harder. We kept all players in data to prevent accidental mistakes, like keeping some in and eliminating the others.
- People might level up after reaching a certain rank and will thus show up as higher level in the leaderboards than they were at the time they were pvping.
Most Successful Schools over All Levels
Ice, the Master of All Levels
The Ice school is well known to be good choice for PvP at any level. Whether you’re starting, fighting as Grandmaster or max wizard, Ice is always on top. It’s no surprise that it had the largest amount of wizards on the leaderboards. With 277 wizards, they were covering over one quarter (28%) of the whole top 1000 population.
Another strong school on all levels is Balance, which followed Ice with 22%. They have a lot of tools to control their opponents which can quickly turn them into an unbeatable force. Fire and Myth, another pair of strong PvP schools, had a surprisingly low attendance. Fire was on 4th place with 130 players (13%) and myth on 6th with only 69 players (7%).
On the other hand, there are positive surprises like the Life and Death schools. Although Life is good choice for any level, it doesn’t achieve the status as best school yet. Still, 16% with 163 wizards was pretty impressive. Life’s survivablity definitely plays a big role for players making their way into the top 1000. Death on the other hand is known as a low tier school. While the school does have its perks, having more wizards on the leaderboards than Myth (101 Death vs 69 Myth) and only 29 less than Fire is pretty impressive.
And then there’s Storm. They look really scary, but regardless it’s still one of the easiest school to beat. With only 37 wizards on the leaderboards (4%), it’s obvious they have some struggles. One of main reasons is that the school is so highly offensive, while you need to be pretty defensive and careful to reach high ranks at lower level.
Most Successful Schools According to Level
Boosters Paradise (0-9)
We’ll start breaking the popularity down by levels starting from the lowest levels. If there is any legit top 1000 player in the level 0-9 range, I apologize, but reaching 1,8k at this level is pretty much impossible. You would start fighting magus warlords and having such a small deck with small amounts of spells and low health makes ranking high really hard. With 38 players being on the leaderboards, they represented almost 4% of top 1000 population.
For the Lazy Ones (10-19)
You start getting your first power pips, you can train Tower Shield and don’t need to waste your time questing. Have one high level wizard to provide you with good tc’s and you’re ready to go! However, these levels still don’t have enough tools to survive so it’s still pretty tough and challenging to reach the leaderboards. The situation here is similar to the one with the lowest levels: we can still find lot of boosters here. Regardless, some players might legitimately reach the top 1000. The number of wizards on the leaderboards in this level range was also almost the same as it is at the lowest levels – 37 , which means another 4% added toward counting boosters on the low levels.
Bone and Basilisk, Baby (20-29)
Personally, I don’t find this range appealing since there is the juicy Sky Iron Hasta wand at level 30. Still, quick blades with strong high pip DoT spells turn out to be a really successful combination. However, our data shows that this still isn’t good enough for leaderboards, since it contained only 11 people from this range. With all of them having insanely high ranks it’s pointless to waste any more words for analysis here.
Getting Bullied by Grands (30-39)
Magus is a pretty popular PvP choice among wizards. The size of your deck is growing, you have more health and power pips and plenty of training points for defensive purposes. But even though they have all these things, we still don’t see many magus wizards on the leaderboards: 25 wizards (2,5% from total amount), represented by only 6 schools.
Despite the popularity and general attraction of this level, there are still a lot of problems when ranking up. The low amount of high ranked maguses often means cross-level matches as you progress. We already know that higher ranked lower levels are mostly boosters and are out of the game, which leave you with grandmaster opponents.
And with the rank requirement being so high, you’ll most likely need to beat a nice amount of grandmaster warlords before reaching the top 1000. While the difference in rank exists, they still have warlord gear and know how to play.
What?!? (40-49)
What! Why PvP at Master level?! It’s a pretty awkward level for PvP in my opinion. You’re limited to commander gear and due to its unpopularity there are high chances you’ll get matches with grandmasters in full warlord suit. Some storms like these levels, since Barkingham palace gear gives a nice damage boost. Balance wizards have access to the mana burn amulet.
Even though certain schools have certain perks here, that’s still not sufficient to get a larger amount of wizards to the leaderboards. They managed to get only 12 wizards (1,2%) in top 1000.
The schools were distributed pretty evenly here and it’s a bit hard to determine the reasons. It is most likely due to defensive plays, but the question is on what level these ranks were achieved. Being on the leaderboards means you can already get matched with legendary warlords – players that can easily chew through low health and put defenses.
Birth of the Turtles (50-59)
Here we are. With 43%, grandmasters boast with the highest amount of players on the leaderboards. Needless to say this is players’ favorite level to PvP. It’s also the level where it’s safe to say that 3k+ players can obtain their rank without boosting.
Their turtling strategies are extremely annoying and many of us wouldn’t mind them gone, but we have to admit one thing. They’re highly skilled players who have managed to harmonize playstyle, given tools and gear set up. Still, even though all grandmasters have access to warlord gear, there are still differences in schools. The top was almost exclusively covered with Life (20% of grands), Balance (21% of grands) and Ice (41% of grands).
Ice wizards have really high health and together with the life mastery they have the ability to fend off attacks more easily than other schools. Life and Balance don’t have as much health as Ice, but they have other tools at their disposal. They’re the only schools that can effectively use healing spells together with Luminous Weaver and Loremaster. There are a lot of options to stack weaknesses on top of shields, which makes up for lower health.
Lore and Ramp in a Nutshell (60-69)
Legendary wizards were in second place (26%) if we’re looking at what level range is the most popular in the top 1000. The number looks nice, but the situation is similar to grandmasters when it comes to school representation.
Fire and Balance were the most present here, together having over 50% on the leaderboards in the Legendary category. Burning rampage is already insane at lower levels, but here it can actually push PvPers into the top 1000. It’s not too hard to achieve a 100% damage boost and with all possible combinations it’s often really hard to counter it – even from first.
Balances have another infamous spell – Loremaster. It’s even stronger than it is at Grandmaster level and many players are aware of that. Its double effect, together with Supernova and Mana Burn, is still an unsolvable puzzle to many players.
Trolling with Supernova and Mana Burn (70-79)
The transcendent levels are pretty weird to PvP at and this is reflected on the leaderboards. Despite everyone getting interesting utility spells in Avalon, these levels haven’t gotten much popularity. Since there isn’t any better gear available, many wizards prefer to stay at Legendary levels to lower the chances of fighting shadow magic.
However, there is one school that stands out here – it’s once again Balance. They probably received the best pair of spells (Supernova and Mana Burn) and they don’t hesitate to use them. Out of the 21 transcendent wizards on leaderboards, the Balance school alone represented almost half of the population.
Supernova and Mana Burn are already popular at lower levels. Still, having a trainable version at your disposal provides sorcerers with a huge boost. One aura alone can completely turn the tide around, since enchanting them is possible now. With great controlling tools Balance spreads terror among Grandmasters and Legendaries and is able to compete with less skilled players who has access to shadow magic.
Bad Juju <3 (80-89)
With 62%, Death dominated Archmage levels: 24 of the 39 Archmages on the leaderboard were Death. From all players on the leaderboard, death wizards alone got 2,4% from all players on leaderboards with all Archmages being at almost 4%.
While Balance received the best pair of spells in Avalon, Death (and Life to a degree) received their most abusable spell. While Bad Juju is really situational and a tricky spell to use with aggressive Death builds, it’s a really strong utility when used with defensive set ups. Jade gear provides a nice amount of universal resist, ward pets make the situation even worse, then there are enfeeble pets covering them and on top of all that there’s the Guardian Spirit wand. Similar to Grandmasters, Archmage Death has found the perfect combination, which is often impossible to counter.
Life was the second most popular school at Archmage with 18%. They have a strategy that’s a bit weaker, but still really strong. Their ability to put several copies of Guardian Spirit into their deck means they can pull it up without as much deck digging as is required for Jade Juju’s. Cosmic Kris and Stellar Signet with possibly Sanctuary mean that there are high chances that they’ll return with full health after they’re defeated. That’s of course if their minion doesn’t heal them the same round as you kill. In that case, Guardian Spirit stays on them and the procedure has to be done from scratch.
Who Even Does This?!? (90-99)
Short answer: no one. There isn’t a single promethean wizard on the leaderboards. Shadow magic and shadow spells are so close, so there isn’t any point to stop and PvP here.
Getting Fancy Gear and Spells (100-109)
With only 7 wizards on leaderboards, Exalted PvP was even less popular than Master PvP. At Exalted, we receive our first major gear update after level 60, insane pierce and shadow spells. Despite all these additions, there aren’t too many dedicated Exalted PvP players. Exalted PvPers have similar problems as lower levels. In order to make your way to the leaderboards, you’ll be forced to work your way through max level warlords. They have even stronger spells, even better gear and there is always the RNG shadow pip factor involved.
Mirage isn’t Interesting Anyway (110-119)
Prodigious PvP was a bit more popular than Exalted (3,6% out of all players) and the schools distribution was quite even at this level. There was only a 5 wizard difference between the top (Ice and Balance) and bottom (Life and Myth) schools. Nowadays, you can barely see anyone playing at these levels though, so there’s the high probability that these Prodigious Top 1000 wizards achieved their rank before the Mirage update, but unfortunately quit the game or simply stopped PvPing.
We are the Champions (120)
Currently the highest level possible, they had 79 wizards on leaderboards and were on 3rd place behind the Legendary and Grandmaster levels (7,9% out of all players). While max level PvP’s popularity is close to the other two ranges, it’s much harder to reach ranks high enough for the leaderboards at this level. There is no priviledge of fighting higher level privates and huge differences among school strengths make things even harder for bottom half.
As with most levels, we found Ice and Balance on top once again. There were 24% (Ice) and 22% (Balance) max leveled wizards on leaderboards, closely followed by Life (19%). Ice’s high health and Abominal Weaver made the PvP life easier for many Thaumaturges. Weaver doesn’t only give a 75% universal shield, it also deals a nice amount of damage. While Balance’s power isn’t as strong as it is at Legendary and Transcendent levels, they’re still really strong. Loremaster is still a really strong spell, especially when used under shrike. Unlike Weaver’s shield that increases backlash, Loremaster’s effects won’t get the caster punished.
Life is doing surprisingly well – even better than Fire. Angel strategies still exist and are still a really strong way to gain rank. While killing them with blade stacking has become a bit easier due to the lack of enfeeble pets at max level, there are still other problems. People don’t carry as many infections/dooms/bubbles as they do at lower levels, which makes healing much easier. Life’s total health is much higher and minions are still equally annoying. The lack of off-school hits often forces you in tough decision: let the minion live or sacrifice the blades?
