May 8, 2018 November 12, 2023

Best School-Level Combinations
for PvP

Today we’ll take a look at the best school-level combinations for PvP. By school-level we mean any school and level combination that people PvP at. While the ease to play and win at a certain school-level combination is definitely a factor that helps determine which school-level is “best”, we’ve included two ofter factors:

Ability to achieve high rank
Effort/thinking required to make effective moves/combos
How hard is to counter their moves/combos

Playing one of the schools that made this list will make your life in the Arena easier. They have the best tools and/or stats. Going first with one of these schools is an almost guaranteed success. If you want to succeed with them, make sure that you have all the gear/spells/time available. These excellent school-level combinations can require some investments, but that’s pretty much the case for almost every school on every level. Whether it’s the time we spend farming for gear or the crowns we spend on packs, PvP always requires some investments.

A certain school or level can appear more than once on the list. We can for example have two different schools at same level range or the same school on two different levels. We’ll exclude some playstyles (aka put only one on list), if it appears with the same schools within close level range (for example jades) as well the same playstyles from different schools on the same level (For example Grandmaster schools).

Honorable mention: Magus Fire

Fire wizards at Magus who have Burning Rampage in their arsenal can be treated as one of the best school-level combinations, but there is a little catch. While they are godlike when fighting opponents of their own level, unfortunately that’s not the only criteria. If that was all it takes, Magus Fire would probably get ranked on the #1 spot.

Unfortunately, all they get is a honorable mention, because the reality is that Magus Fires lack the ability to reach high ranks. In the beginning when ranking up, fighting other Magus wizards with low health from second doesn’t possess much of a threat for the Magus Fires. They usually have Rampage after all, which leaves the opponent wide open. However, once you get to a rank of more or less 1.2k, a Magus Fire will start to face Grandmaster warlords. Grandmasters have more health, higher resist and are masters of survival. Not an easy match-up for Magus Fires, even if they have Burning Rampage!

Number 5: Grandmaster Ice

Grandmaster Ice’s potential to achieve high ranks is much higher than Magus Fire’s. While I ended up picking Ice for this list, this was not the only school that is excellent at Grandmaster level. In the end, Ice won because their extra health, combined with a Life mastery, is the way to go.

Out of the criteria stated above, the ability to obtain high rank definitely stands out for Grandmaster Ice. Grandmasters are capable of reaching a rank where they fight (and beat) wizards that are 50 levels higher than them. Grandmaster Ice doesn’t require too much effort because of their health buffer and the useful tools they have in their arsenal. Their combos are fairly hard to counter, but it doesn’t make them as easy as the following school-level combinations. Because of that, we’re putting Grandmaster Ice on the fifth place.

Number 4: Exalted Ice

Exalted is the highest level in this list, because school-level combinations at max level can’t steal rank off of higher level, lower rank opponents. This means that max level wizards will usually face people with a similar rank to themselves, which theoretically assures they get opponents from the same skill level. At Exalted, Ice can still face higher level less-skilled wizards, which assures they can rank up comfortably. Compared to Grandmaster Ice, Exalted of course has much more health. While they have better defenses than other schools, Exalted Ice can also achieve really nice offensive stats.

All in all, while the ability to reach high ranks is definitely here, it’s less pronounced than at Grandmaster. The other two factors definitely play a big role here. Exalted Ice is hard to counter: they have excellent defensive tools. Among other things, they have the ability to carry 10 tower shields in their main deck. They also have Abominal Weaver and Steal Ward. Abominal Weaver both hits hard and provides a nice defensive after-effect. In addition, Ice has another hard hitting spell – Lord of Winter with the nice “Mana Burn” after-effect.

Number 3: Legendary Balance

Legendary Balance is like a hybrid of the two school-levels stated above. Legendary Balance’s survivability is better than Exalted and worse than Grandmaster Ices’. For their offense it’s the other way around: they have better offensive options than Grandmaster Ices, while being worse at offense than Exalted Ice. While they don’t hit as hard as Exalted Ice wizards, Legendary Balance faces much easier opponents. Their great offensive tools are awesome for shreading opponents to bits at their own level. Meanwhile, minions, Availing Hands and a bunch of shields allow them to switch to a defensive style if needed.

Legendary Balance is the school-level range that has all the attributes that we stated as factors for this list. Switching to defensive play with all the available tools allows them nice survivability to climb ranks. It’s also really easy to perform combo(s) with Loremaster and on top of that – Lore spam is really hard to counter. These three reasons give Legendary Balance the third place in this list.

Number 2: Archmage Life

You can put other levels here – basically any Life with access to Cosmic Kris, Stellar Signet and Guardian Spirit (either trained or item card) – but Archmage tops it all. Jade gear is really strong here and GS become a trainable card. This level works perfectly for them, since they face two kinds of opponents. Either their opponents are high ranked lower levels, that have the skills needed to defeat them but no tools to beat them. The other type of opponent are the low ranked higher levels, who have the tools but not the skills to beat them. The healing boost possibility skyrockets at this level. This means that – even if you manage to beat them – Guardian Spirit forces you to start again.

Looking at the factors that contribute towards getting on this list, Arch Life has everything. It’s easy to play, since you need to focus only on defense to outlast the opponent, it’s hard to counter (reasons explained in paragraph above) and in addition Archmage Life has the opportunity to reach high ranks.

Number 1: Archmage Death

Archmage Death is almost like Archmage Life’s big brother. Death has almost everything Life has, and in addition they have the Bad Juju spell. Granted, the Guardian Spirit card comes from your wand, but the amount of Juju’s Death can put on their opponent, combined with other defensive mechanisms, is more than enough to cycle through the deck and get another copy in hand before (if) the opponent manages to kill them.

The factors are exactly the same as they are at Archmage Life, only amplified. It’s even easier to achieve higher ranks, even easier to pull out combo(s) and much harder to counter them. As long as you have a lot of time at your disposal and the gear necessary, this school-level is the ultimate range to PvP on.