Introduction to the top 5 commanders in Wargroove
This article was contributed by Groove of War community member and competitive player xTimekey.
In competitive Wargroove, a question often asked by newcomers is “who is the best commander?”. While the tiering of most commanders is often debated, the community unanimously agrees on the 5 best commanders. The top 5 are: Tenri, Nuru, Caesar, Mercia and Valder. Before delving into the top 5, this guide will explain how groove charge works and why speed is so important to consider. After that, the guide will rundown the strengths and weaknesses of the top 5.
Groove speed’s effect on a commander’s viability
Groove charge is based on a points system where every action a commander does will accumulate points. The point distribution is as such:
End of turn/counter-attacking: 10 points
Attacking: 20 points
Killing: 30 points.
Killing by countering: 40 points
Killing by attacking: 50 points
Every commander will gain the same amount of points; what determines when a commander gets groove is the total point amount, which is itself determined by the charge speed. The groove thresholds are as such:
Very fast: 50 points
Fast: 100 points
Medium: 150 points
Slow: 200 points
Very Slow: 250 points
One may have noticed that killing by attacking gives a whopping 50 groove points, which immediately triggers “very fast” grooves and charges half of “fast” grooves. As such, the key to getting groove quickly is to engage into combat as much as possible.
Groove points converted to percentages table:
Very important to remember that idle groove charge is accumulated at the end of the turn!!!!
Why does groove speed matter?
Being able to charge groove faster means that a commander needs to get into less battles to get it. Having a slower charge speed means that the commander needs to shoulder more risk to get groove, which is a detriment since losing your commander loses you the match. To put it another way, faster charging speeds are safer and more consistent, since wargroove matches do not tend to last very long in turn count.
In fact, all of the top 5 speeds are no slower than a “medium” charge: Tenri and Caesar are at “medium” charge, Mercia and Nuru are at “fast” charge, Valder is at “very fast” charge.
Sidenote: killing means that the commander defeats a unit, which includes structures. Uncapping a building and destroying gates counts a killing; since a full health commander does a minimum of 70% do captured villages while taking very little in return, the former means that full-health commanders are very effective at slowing down capture phases.
The Top 5
Now that you understand how having a faster speed contributes to a commander’s strength, I can now delve into the top 5 individually, starting with the commander that is unanimously considered the best, Tenri.
Tenri:
Groove: Rising Wind
Speed: Medium
What it does: Tenri can teleport any unit (with the exception of opposing commanders) that lies within a 6-tile radius of herself to any other tile within the same radius. Units can only be moved onto tiles that they can exist on; for example, warships can only be teleported on sea tiles, not land tiles. If Tenri grooves her own units, the moved unit can still act that turn.
Strengths:
As one can imagine, being able to move any unit to another tile opens up all sorts of plays. Teleporting an enemy unit allows Tenri to effortlessly break defensive formations by sniping a key unit, like a trebuchet protected by a pike wall. A more concrete example would be Tenri sniping a mage and thus removing an answer to your powerful air units. For those new to Wargroove, Wargroove is a game where losing a single key unit can massively put you behind and can even lose you the game. Using Tenri’s groove on a key enemy unit can potentially win you the game right then and there at best or put you in a much stronger position at worst.
Teleporting an allied unit may not seem as innately powerful, until you remember that the teleported unit can still act that turn. This essentially allows Tenri to reposition a single unit for free and is very powerful when used on units like knights, trebuchets and warships. Tenri can set up knight crits, trebuchet crits and, if the map allows it, her own warship crits. In a pinch, Tenri can even use her groove on herself to escape a surround.
Tenri giving up an attack for a turn is moot when compared to these advantages. These massive advantages contribute to getting Tenri banned in all forms of serious competitive matches.
Weaknesses:
Medium speed means that Tenri needs to put a bit more effort to get groove, since Tenri can not turtle and expect to get groove charged quickly. Also, the strength of Tenri’s is directly related to her army’s composition, since Tenri absolutely wants to be able to remove a teleported enemy unit.
Tenri also performs worse in long turtling matches where unit counts start to get higher. In low unit counts, removing one units is more impactful. In high unit counts, removing one unit has less impact on the game state.
Why is Tenri banned in serious competitive events?
Tenri is banned due to her sheer versatility that has no effective form of counterplay. Tenri’s groove also allows her to break maps by bypassing terrain designed to slow down certain units, most notably trebuchets. Tenri can greatly accelerate the advance of trebuchets while also occasionally having the benefit of sniping an enemy unit with that trebuchet. This is especially true with warships, where Tenri can greatly accelerate them and even get an HQ snipe with a warship if the map allows it.
Sniping a key enemy unit is extremely powerful and can essentially decide a match for the Tenri player. Staying out of range of Tenri’s groove only means that you give up control of the map, which allows the Tenri player to position their own units more aggressively and even take control of villages. Since Tenri has the same range as a ballista with the added benefit of being able to move and shoot, this is no easy feat.
Add all of that to a medium speed charge speed. While Tenri does need to put in more effort to get groove than when she was at fast charge, getting groove with a medium charge is feasible and consistent in a serious competitive environment. In fact, given the right circumstances, Tenri can get possibly get her groove charged twice in one match. Medium speed also means that Tenri is unlikely to engage in long turtling matches, rendering her weakness mostly moot.
Tenri is essentially too powerful and if she were allowed, there would be absolutely no reason to pick any other commander in the game. Only Tenri stands a reasonable chance at beating Tenri.
Nuru
Groove: Teleport Beam
Speed: Fast
What it does: Nuru summons a unit to an adjacent tile to herself. The summoned unit costs double its standard cost (ex: trebuchets go from 900 gold to 1800 gold) and it can immediately act.
Nuru must control the appropriate production facility to spawn certain units (ex: controlling ports allows her to summon naval units). The following units are always available for summon: swordsman, pikemen and dogs.
Nuru can only summon a unit on a tile that it can exist on (ex: she can only summon naval units on sea tiles, she can’t summon knights on mountains, etc.).
The teleported unit can immediately act.
Strengths
Before I delve into how useful Nuru’s groove actually is, it is important to understand that in most maps, the production facilities are at least a turn away from the frontlines, meaning that spawned units take at least two turns to reinforce the frontlines. With that in mind, Nuru spawning a unit adjacent to herself means that she is summoning a unit into the frontlines, where it is most needed and useful.
With that out of the way, Nuru’s groove is a veritable toolbox. With enough gold, Nuru can toolbox her way out of many situations or set up more favourable positions for herself. Nuru can pay 300 gold to get an on-demand pike crit to break down walls or reinforce her position. She can pay 800 gold to spawn a mage to snipe an air unit. If Nuru is feeling particularly miserly and if the map has enough funds, she can spend 1800 gold to spawn a treb in the frontlines to snipe a unit.
Nuru is particularly powerful on naval maps where commanders can get close to naval fronts, since Nuru can easily spawn an extra naval unit. Naval warfare is especially big on unit number. Spawning an 800 gold turtle can shift the battle in your favor, a 500gold merfolk can get extra damage on a unit. Spending 1100 gold on a harpoon ship is especially powerful, since Nuru gets a harpoon ship in position and can snipe an air unit or a stray turtle. A 1800 gold warship is very powerful, potentially more powerful than a trebuchet.
At its best, Nuru’s groove can set up lethals on commanders or HQs, effectively winning her the game. At its worst, Nuru gets an extra unit on the field while crippling another enemy unit. On average, Nuru goes +1 in her unit count, while her opponent goes -1 in their unit count. Nuru’s groove allows her to get a two-unit lead, while forcing the opponent to deal with an extra unit on the frontlines! With how strong pike crits are, Nuru will more often than not snipe a unit to put herself in the lead.
At a fast charge speed, Nuru can not only build up groove with relatively little effort, but she can effectively use her groove multiple times in a match. Nuru building groove quickly means that the opponent is quickly put on the defensive.
Weaknesses
Paying doubled costs on her groove eats at her existing funds and can force Nuru to give up builds. If Nuru wants to stockpile gold for an expensive groove purchase, then she needs to produce cheaper units, which can limit her current options. That being said, given how strong and cheap pikes are, this is usually not an issue.
Despite having a fast charge, Nuru can not afford (pun intended) do have her summoned unit do nothing in the short term, so more often than not, she can’t use her groove immediately without proper planning.
Doubled costs also heavily restricts what she builds unless she stockpiles gold. Even then, the opponent can anticipate what she can spawn by paying attention to her gold. Seeing that Nuru has less than 1200 gold means the opponent does not need to fear a random knight or trebuchet popping out to ruin their day.
Nuru also performs worse when they are more units on board, since sniping one unit is less impactful than when there are fewer units on board. As such, Nuru is stronger on low production maps.
Caesar:
Groove: Inspire
Speed: Medium
What it does: Caesar can allow adjacent units to himself to act once more, for a maximum of 4 units.
Strengths
Caesar’s groove can allow him to instantly swing the game around and is one of the most respected threats in competitive. By allowing his units to move twice, Caesar can whittle down opposing defensive formations or even threaten game-ending lethals.
Caesar’s groove effectively increases the range of 4 units and is extremely powerful with siege units and highly mobile units. This is especially relevant for knights who can set up knight crits easily with Caesar groove. A well-executed Caesar groove backed up by powerful tech units, like dragons or golems, can at best win you the game or at worst put you in a better position. Caesar essentially controls 8–10 spaces with his groove.
Because Caesar can groove up to 4 units, if he is surrounded by units, it becomes very difficult for the opponent to anticipate what plays Caesar can do, which can make them slip up or give up ground. At its best, the opponent has to play very defensively to avoid the effects of Caesar’s groove, which in itself is very powerful.
Caesar’s strengths are limited to your imagination in how to utilize his groove.
Weaknesses
Caesar is possibly the most technical of the top 5 to use, because of the vast array of options available to him. While his groove is possibly the most game-changing, the strength of his groove is directly proportional the units he can groove. A Caesar with a bad or weakened army will not accomplish much. For example, if all that Caesar can inspire is swords, then the effect of his groove is minimal.
On top of that, Caesar can only groove units that are adjacent to himself, meaning that you can anticipate what he can groove based on what units are within his range. With that in mind, an effective tactic to neuter the threat of Caesar groove is to simply keep your commander away from Caesar, thus reducing the chance of random lethals occuring.
At medium speed, Caesar needs to be slightly proactive to get groove faster and can not afford to spend the entire match doing nothing, lest he get groove by turn 15.
Mercia:
Groove: Healing Aura
Speed: Fast
What it does: Mercia heals a flat 5hp (or 50%) to surrounding units within a 3-tile, cross-shaped radius of herself. This healing also heals Mercia for the same amount.
Strengths
Mercia can punish any attack that does not kill her units by simply negating the damage by healing it and counter-attacking with her fully healed units. As such, Mercia plays very well with units that are difficult to remove like giants and pikes. Giants are a unit made more powerful by Mercia’s groove, since a golem’s utility lies in their ability to dish out massive amounts of counter-damage.
Mercia’s groove is not just good for punishing, but it is also good on offense, since Mercia can ram her units into yours and just heal off the counter damage right off. It also means that Mercia’s units can do attacks that they would normally be hesitant to do. For example, one usually does not ram dragons into mages, since mages will counter attack and weaken the dragon. But with Mercia groove, Mercia can heal her dragon back to full.
Mercia is especially powerful in naval battles where 2-hit kos are harder to come by and the only consistent one-hit ko is turtles fighting merfolks. Merfolk and turtle skirmishes often lead the attacking units taking significant amount of counter-damage.
Mercia’s groove also makes her fairly resilient to damage herself, since she can just heal off most of the damage you deal to her. Because her groove heals her unit for free, Mercia is very good at keeping the value of her units. For those who may not understand what that means, it is possible to heal damaged units at a cost equivalent to the percentage healed. So healing a 50% giant to full would cost you half of 1200 gold, which is 600 gold.
In short, Mercia’s strength lies in giving herself and her surrounding units a pseudo-tank status by negating most of the damage done to her. As such, Mercia performs better when there are more units on board and she can stall the game out. More units leads to more chances to heal and allows Mercia to maintain a higher healthier unit count than her opponent.
Weaknesses:
While Mercia’s strengths lie in her ability to render her units nearly impossible to cripple, that is in turn her biggest weakness. Mercia relies on her units surviving assaults to make her groove useful, so if they don’t, Mercia’s groove effectively does nothing. If one can not cripple her units, then the opponent simply needs to kill off her units. Unfortunately for Mercia, most players will not attack into formations unless they are able to kill off her units.
Without units around to heal, Mercia’s groove is borderline useless. As such, isolating Mercia from her army is an effective way to deal with her groove.
Finally, while Mercia’s groove is good for sustaining units, it does not increase their firepower. So it’s difficult to use offensively.
Valder:
Groove: Raise Dead
Speed: Very Fast (!)
What it does: Valder summons a full-health swordsman to an adjacent tile to himself. The summoned sword can immediately act.
Strengths:
What seems to be weakest groove in the game is in fact one of the more versatile grooves in the game. One part of that versatility lies in having the fastest charging groove in the game. If you look at the speed table, you may notice that killing a unit immediately gives Valder groove. What this means is that Valder kills a unit and then spawns a sword to increase his unit count; the opponent goes -1 while you go +1. If the spawned sword kills a unit, Valder can just increase the gap in unit count!
Valder getting into combat gives him 60% of his groove, meaning that he only needs to wait two more turns to get groove. Valder thus does not mind getting into grind games, since he only needs to wait five turns of doing nothing to get groove. Valder is one of the few commanders that can expect to get groove multiple times in one game.
The second part of that versatility lies in how useful a sword actually is. For those new to Wargroove, if a unit can attack another unit, it will always deal damage, since it is impossible to zero damage. Since Valder’s sword is free, unlike Nuru’s spawns, Valder can freely chip down far away units with his spawned sword. Since Valder can move before spawning a sword, he can hit a unit that is 9 spaces away from him. This may not seem powerful until you realize that mages and all of the siege units take hefty damage from swords. Weakening an exposed mage with a sword can allow you to finish it off with a dragon in the same turn.
Valder can also get an on-demand sword crit, which is only slightly weaker than a pike crit. Getting a sword crit in or even just an ordinary sword can be enough to guarantee a kill or cripple the unit to allow Valder to finish it off. Additionally, getting a sword poke in can soften up an enemy unit allowing another unit to finish it off and may lead into a formation break. Most relevant is that a sword crit can uncap a 5 hp village, allowing Valder to cut down his opponent’s income.
Finally, having an effective 9 movement sword can allow Valder to capture far away villages before his opponent. Giving up a commander attack to capture a village and put an extra unit in the frontlines is very powerful.
At its absolute worst, Valder can use the free sword to shield his units (forcing his opponent to waste an attack to get rid of it) and strengthen his defensive formations.
Weaknesses:
While Valder has many qualities, he still only spawns the weakest unit in the game. This means that Valder relies on getting his groove off multiple times to affect the game state, which means that Valder lives and dies by aggressive plays. Denying Valder groove via pressure is a very effective way to slow him down and neuter him.
Since swords are so weak, it also means that Valder’s groove does not really pose much threat in lethalling commanders, unless he gets a sword crit. Swords are also useless at affecting naval battles.
Additionally, Valder gets weaker the more units on board there are, since it’s harder to take advantage of one extra sword on board when pikes, knights and other more powerful units are flooding the board. In other words, Valder aims to get a massive lead before the opponent can build up their armies and performs worse if the opponent does manage to build up their army. Like Nuru, Valder is stronger on low production maps where an extra unit means much more.
Valder is also a tad predictable, since he wants to use groove as soon as possible so that he can restart building it. With that in mind, he will usually spawn a sword on the turn he gets groove. Opponents usually do not have to worry about Valder attacking into their armies himself when Valder has groove up.
His biggest weakness, however, is that his free sword can translate into free groove. Valder can usually not ram his free sword into units if a commander is nearby, since the commander will finish off the sword to get free groove. As such, keeping your commander near your own units is a good way to discourage opposing Valder players from freely chipping away at the value of your units.
Note: this guide pertains only to the Wargroove 1.3 patch. Details may be subject to change in Wargroove 2.0.
