Talk:Battle Arena/@comment-35265348-20180428172157/@comment-27957947-20180501092553

I disagree about the level 15 Champs. They do make it easier, but they certainly aren't necessary.

I don't have any level 15 dragons (too stingy with my food, lol!) and regularly win tournaments. By using the battle calculator and setting hourly alarms, I used to win tourneys before I had any Champs (or any ADIPS- which mine still aren't super effective because I haven't fed them up to level 13+). And, I still use the calc and set alarms, even now that I have a bunch of Champs to use.

The 10%ers (high level Champs and bomb/food/map producers) are where people get stuck, and high level Champs are nothing special when used against them.

I think time management and persistence are the most important thing with tourneys. The difference between a 25% chance of winning and a 10% chance of winning is pretty small- they are both still crappy odds. Only persistence will take the 10%ers down.

Where I do use my highest level Champs to the best advantage (12Shaman and 11Glasswing) is in the first 10-12 rounds. That goes by quickly with a string of one-or-two hit knockouts. It's even better when the ads are working and I can steamroll my way to round 11 in just a couple minutes. (I find this to be kinda funny, because another myth heavily promoted on the "official" site is that you should use lower level dragons against low level opponents. They have no clue, whatsoever, about how odds algorithms and DS battling actually works ... and it really annoys me that the mod/S8 employees never correct these false "facts"). Anyhoo...

Then, once the opponents are level 12+, I bust out a pad of paper and look up the rest of the opponents in the calculator. I write down my dragons with the best odds against each opponent. Often, my best choice is a Champ but, just as often, it is not.

There's a handful of dragons that repeatedly appear in my tourney calc searches, so I consider them my "best" fighters. I think everyone's "best" are different, depending on which dragons they own. My crew has changed over the years as new dragons have been added to my Isles. My current personal list includes: Anemone, Aether, Blue Tang, King, Lost Bones, Nightwing, Jade, and a few others. All are level 10, al are used in every tourney. There are a few "specialists," too, who are only effective against one particular opponent- like using Mummy against Cleric, and Sobek against Wardrum. The battle calculator has all these little details figured out for us, which is awesome!