For an uncertain opening, prioritize useful starting cards and survival; for an established engine, prioritize the perk that strengthens its actual recipient. Hoarder and Resilient are straightforward general candidates. Elevated suits summons, Wrathful suits troop damage, and effects such as Arcane, Hunter or Brutal belong to more specific plans.
This is a conditional recommendation for version 0.9.8, Patch #31, not a tested win-rate ranking. Perks are chosen before a run and differ from Royal Decrees received during it. Supplies and Overwork are decrees, so they should not appear in a pre-run perk loadout even when an older discussion calls them perks.
Choose the opening problem first
A good perk answers a problem you expect to have. An additional useful card can help establish a working force sooner. Extra survival can create more room to recover from an imperfect opening. A king-specific effect may be stronger when the intended troop or tower is already central to your plan.
That makes consistency and specialization different priorities. On a run where you are still learning the ruler, broad opening advantages are easier to apply. On a run built around a clearly identified card, a specific perk can create value more directly than a general bonus that reaches everything weakly.
Do not start with a complicated multiplier layout and then ask what build should use it. Start with the carry, protection and growth mechanic. Choose regular perks that support those jobs, then arrange rainbow perks around the effects worth strengthening. The purpose of the layout is to amplify a useful loadout.
Your account's unlocked choices also matter. A developed player's preferred loadout is not a complete recommendation for a new account missing its rainbow perks. Use the available effect that solves the opening, and revisit the loadout when progression provides more options.
General-purpose priorities
| Perk | Recommended use | What to check before selecting it |
|---|---|---|
| Hoarder | More opening options from your king | The extra card still needs a useful role |
| Resilient | More tolerance for an imperfect run | Survival should buy time for a stronger kingdom |
| Expansionist | More opening space | The available card plan must use the plot productively |
| Ingenious | A plan that develops the base | More level capacity needs enough actual upgrades |
| Wrathful | Troop damage from the opening | Troops should be an important damage source |
| Elevated | Summon-centered force | Your build must produce useful summons |
| Thorough | A useful card at year 33 | It does not solve an opening that cannot reach that year |
These recommendations are ordered by role rather than a universal numbered ranking. Hoarder can be valuable because it supplies options earlier, but the random card may not be the exact piece you hoped to draw. Resilient buys another life; it does not improve the board by itself. Use the additional chance to repair a weakness rather than repeat the same failing plan.
Patch #30 established Resilient as a starting extra-life perk, Thorough as an additional random king card at year 33, and Elevated as a summon-strength effect. It also raised Wrathful's troop damage bonus to ten percent. Those are current documented roles, replacing older assumptions about the same names.
Ingenious is more specialized than it initially sounds. A higher base level cap helps when the base is part of the plan and the run can supply upgrades. If you spend the entire attempt without developing the base, the capacity remains unused. Do not treat a possible maximum as actual opening strength.
Nothing perks for a readable opening
Ruler identification screen; this older illustration may show a previous deck arrangement. Read current tooltips for card effects.
Nothing's flexible deck makes opening-card and role-based perks easy to understand. Hoarder can provide another option from the starting deck. Expansionist can provide room for an adjacency plan. Fortifier fits a tower-focused approach, while an increased base-level allowance is more relevant when you intend to develop Castle.
Farsighted was buffed in Patch #30 to give Archers fifty percent more range distance. This makes it a specific candidate for an Archer plan, not a generic reason to fill the board with Archers. The troop still needs damage, protection and useful support. Select it when range is part of the role you want the Archer to perform.
Benevolent now gives an extra Wildcard at each Rainbow Army battle, replacing the old Berserk perk. Its value is later upgrade flexibility. A guide recommending Berserk as the current Nothing perk is using a previous design. Read the present perk page before copying a familiar old loadout.
For a beginner-oriented loadout, favor advantages you can recognize on the first board. For a practiced tower or Archer plan, shift toward the relevant recipient. You are changing what the loadout serves, not declaring a general perk permanently weaker than a specialist.
Spells perks follow the recipient
Arcane now gives Wizards one percent damage for each enchantment they bear. The useful relationship is explicit: a Wizard needs enchantments, and the loadout should support a run that can supply them. Choosing Arcane while the board's damage comes from another troop leaves its specialized effect unused.
Sorcerous was reworked to give Warlocks health according to tomes used. That makes it a different planning choice from a flat initial health bonus. It suits a Warlock plan and a run using tomes, rather than a generic assumption that every Spells kingdom gains the same benefit.
Eldritch increased Shaman damage support from its old bonus to twenty percent, and Electric increased Static's added damage to three. Those are documented changes in Patch #30. Choose between them according to whether your force uses a Shaman support relationship or a Static recipient that can attack productively.
The common error is selecting every enchantment-themed perk without identifying the troop that receives its value. A Wizard-focused setup, a Warlock survival setup and a Shaman support setup can overlap, but each should have a clear reason. Your strongest multiplier belongs on the effect that reliably reaches the central plan.
Blood and Nature prioritize different growth
Blood's current perks should reflect its reworked deck. Blighted gives a Pile of Bones when a Cemetery is placed. Explosive now starts Bombers with three additional units. Diabolical lets Pagoda summon nine additional Ghosts. Those effects support different pieces of a sacrifice and summon kingdom.
If the plan uses Bombers, the count increase is an opening-combat candidate. If it uses Cemetery interactions, Blighted contributes a specific card relationship. If it uses Pagoda's summons, Diabolical addresses that recipient. Selecting all three without a clear sequence can create a scattered loadout whose pieces compete for plots and cards.
Nature offers another set of decisions. Toxic makes poison ticks ten percent faster. Gardener now scales its Orchard benefit with plot level, while Elven supplies twenty percent more Elf damage. None of those effects replaces the need to decide whether the kingdom is using poison, control or ranged damage.
Nature's durable troop plan can make survival and health support especially valuable, but that does not require every available perk to be defensive. If the troops already survive and fail to clear the enemy, choose a damage-related effect that reaches them. The best perk is determined by the limiting job, not only the ruler's theme.
Stone and Progress need current effect text
Hunter was reworked around Trapper's stun, extending trap stun duration by fifty percent. That pairs with the current Trapper design, which gained stun and a larger number of units before the subsequent damage increase. It is a control choice, and its practical value depends on whether that control creates time for the kingdom's damage.
A tower-focused Stone plan should prefer effects that reach the damaging constructions and the defense supporting them. A starting tower or Stronghold improvement may help the opening, while a Wallmaker-related recovery effect serves a different problem. Read the current card and perk descriptions together before expecting a particular interaction.
Progress's Trashy gives a Trash card whenever Recycler is destroyed. It replaces Bellicist, so the latter is not a current perk recommendation for the Progress deck. A Trashy plan needs to understand the destruction and pit roles involved; simply adding the perk does not create a productive recycling engine.
Old Progress advice also commonly relies on the former Reinforce damage effect. Reinforce now supplies health during battle. Even if a perk name in an old loadout remains available, the build it was meant to support may have changed. Validate the engine first, then decide whether its loadout still addresses a real job.
Nomads and Time reward a clear sequence
Rebellious now gives Mob plots one additional unit each year. Reptilian gives Dragon Den a three-percent buff for each destruction effect. Jurassic increases Raptor damage by twenty percent. These are different recipients, so the loadout should follow your intended sequence of movement, population and plot clearing.
A Nomads run that rarely destroys a plot has a different use for Reptilian from one intentionally built around repeated destruction actions. A Mob plan and a Raptor damage plan also need different priorities. Identify the recurring trigger before assigning a strong multiplier to the perk that uses it.
Time's Brutal was buffed so all your troops begin with one Adrenaline stack. Patch #31 also fixed Orbiter gaining enchantments from adjacent troops placed with pre-applied enchantments, explicitly including Brutal as an example. That gives a documented interaction to consider when evaluating the loadout.
Destructive now gives forty percent per stack in Patch #31, superseding the fifty-percent value in Patch #30. This is a concrete example of why even a recent numerical guide needs a version check. Use the latest applicable description, and avoid presenting the older value as a current bonus.
Exiler allows Bastion an additional troop warp, which is another specialized effect. Choose it when that card's role is part of your plan. Time-themed perks are not interchangeable simply because they belong to the same ruler.
Use rainbow multipliers on reliable value
Rainbow perks modify the perk screen and other perks. Leftist, Verticalist, Nationalist and Expander can produce layouts with different combinations of strengthened effects and additional slots. The useful question is which ordinary effects deserve amplification, not which diagram contains the most impressive multiplier labels.
Concentrated layouts suit a plan relying on a few king-specific effects. Broader layouts can fit a build that needs several different opening jobs. More slots also have a cost because the rainbow perks themselves occupy part of the arrangement. Count the regular effects you actually use, not just the total size of the perk grid.
Layout illustration; verify the current effects and displayed multipliers before starting a run.
An expanded arrangement and a concentrated arrangement allocate space differently. Compare the regular effects that remain available after the rainbow perks occupy their own slots.
Layout illustration; verify the current effects and displayed multipliers before starting a run.
Before locking the page, inspect the multiplier shown on each important perk. Make sure the arrangement reaches the intended recipient and that the perk belongs to the category affected by the rainbow effect. This is more reliable than copying coordinates from an older screenshot without checking its arrows and labels.
Multiplayer adds effects with explicit fixed multiplier behavior. Patch #30 set Authoritarian's top-left regular perk to exactly three times and Moderate's universal perks to exactly twice. Their wording matters: a fixed multiplier is not an invitation to assume unlimited stacking from another old layout.
Separate opening, recovery and late value
A strong loadout can contain different timing roles, but each should be intentional. Opening cards and immediate troop effects help establish the board. Recovery and extra-life effects help absorb an imperfect sequence. Later card rewards or specialized growth effects need the kingdom to survive long enough to use them.
If you repeatedly lose early, replace an unused late effect with something that contributes before the failure. If the opening is reliable but the force stalls later, shift toward the recipient or growth trigger that becomes limiting. This gives each loadout change a clear purpose.
Do not judge a perk from one run where its preferred card never appeared. Record whether the effect was available, whether its recipient existed, and whether the benefit addressed the board's actual problem. Those observations tell you whether the perk is too conditional for your goal or merely had an unfavorable attempt.
Before the next run, check the updated perk text, the displayed multipliers and the intended first fighting board. The best loadout is one whose effects you can explain in that order. Start with broad opening value when the plan is uncertain, then specialize as the engine and its needs become clear.