Builds and a cautious tier list
There is no stable, official Slotbound tier list for 1.0. The game has been live for a couple of days, the developer shipped six hotfixes in that window (including difficulty cuts and skill-trigger fixes), and most public “tier lists” still describe the demo. This page is a snapshot of what people are actually saying, plus the constraints official achievements put on “must-play” claims.
If a ranking below disagrees with your tooltip on the current build, the tooltip wins.
Caveats (read these first)
- Patch moving target. v1.0.0 (4)–(6) eased Stages 1–2, overall difficulty, and the first boss of each stage, and fixed skills that did not trigger. A “this composition one-shots Hard” post from 13 November 2026 may already be stale.
- Player reports, not a lab. Names and passives in this section come from public Steam discussion posts. Spelling and numbers are [verify in-game].
- Faction bonuses are optional. Official systems include 10 factions and a highest-tier synergy achievement, but at least one 1.0 player argued that the strongest units are spread across factions and that they often finish with zero faction passives on later maps.
- Demo capstones may not be your 1.0 plan. Older lists that only rank Veil, Necro Lord, and Ringmaster should be checked against the 1.0 Collection. See units.
- Difficulty and luck still matter. Official design is built around jackpots, nudges, and Cores that bend RNG. A composition can be strong and still die to a dry spin.
A 1.0 composition players have reported
One launch-week Steam thread, “Found my winning strategy,” described this plan. It is a starting template, not a recommendation that it is “S-tier on every map”:
- Rush an Arch Mage (the author called it a 3-star T1 wizard) and push Piercing.
- Add crowd control from other units’ passives: Stun (Maceman), Blind (Ranger), Poison (Sorceress), sometimes Fear (T3 Spearman).
- Prefer to promote most T3 units if they appear, except T3 Archer. The same author preferred T2 Archer → High Elf for attack speed that repeats Blind/Stun.
- They claimed this could “one-shot” Hard modes unless the reels were very cold, and they called out Watchtower plus a high-Piercing Arch Mage as a damage spike.
A second 1.0 thread, “Faction Passives are not worth the trouble,” listed units the author liked for their own kits, not for a shared banner:
- Arch Mage (Tribe)
- Undine (Forest)
- Templar (Holy)
- Gladiator (Outlaw) or Spartan (Empire)
- Victor (engineer) — called good
- Grenadier (engineer) — called not worth picking just for a bonus
- High Elf (Forest) and Raging Cavalry (Tribe) — raised because the units were good, with faction overlap as an accident
6-elf boards were described as cute and workable on easier maps, not as a late-campaign plan.
None of those names, passives, or piercing ranks are in official news posts. Confirm them in 1.0 before you reroll a run to chase them.
A cautious “role” list, not a power ranking
Until Collection data exists, rank roles you need on a board, not a fake S–D grid.
| Role | Why you want one | Official or reported examples |
|---|---|---|
| Frontline that you actually feed | Judgment and bosses punish a row of 1-star melee | Official Warrior; player mentions of Templar, Spartan, Gladiator, Maceman |
| Primary damage | Needed once stuns are not enough | Official Mage / Archer lines; player mention of Arch Mage + Piercing, Undine |
| Crowd control | Players describe Stun / Blind / Poison / Fear as the glue of a “mass CC” board | Passives above; all [verify in-game] |
| Reel control | Official nudge, blast, and Cores that change the machine | See Items and Cores |
| Jackpot / special | Official Prism and Jester can change a run; they are not a plan by themselves | Units |
Jester is officially rare (Special-rarity, v0.4.0) and has a hidden achievement for owning two at once. Build around a Jester if you find one; do not stall a campaign clear waiting for one.
Pure-faction and anti-synergy challenges are official optional goals, not default advice: Pure Blood (final Hard boss with units of a single faction) and Babylon (final Hard boss with every unit from a different faction). Ordinary Is Special (no 2-star units) and Pride of the Commons (boss win with only Normal-grade units) also exist, so “always promote to the rarest class” is not the only viable axis.
Meta upgrades that affect “builds”
Your in-run composition sits on top of the persistent upgrade tree. Official hotfix (3) retitled how the Units section is counted after dropping 5 faction nodes from the total (16 → 11). Fast-forward x3 may be locked behind that tree and, according to one player, limited to Endless — [verify in-game]. Buying 30 upgrades, and buying every upgrade, are achievements; they are not required to finish Open Forest.
How this page will stay honest
We will not invent percentages, “win rates,” or a 40-unit S-tier list to look complete. When someone provides 1.0 Collection screenshots or a post-hotfix replay, send them in and this page can move from “reported” to “verified.”