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I planned on commenting on this, too 😅 I guess the life-lesson here is: Create your own luck

Wouldn't be enough to survive fire and does nothing to boost fort's survivability, it could have been a good pick for oppo though because it negates Fang's ignite and this photon is lest costly than Overlord's photon.

Yes, 3m! This is the same amount as melter. It allows them to kill a couple crawlers/fangs at the same time when clumped up, but nothing more

@RoosterTH-cam oh. I didn't know that melters also had splash. Thanks

Yes! It will not be available in 1v1 or 2v2, and can only be obtained in unit drops

With how late they come, that will be a very hard task to achieve, but a worthy venture.

just replicate and more worms?

My preferred counter to loose formation is mustangs! Fire also does a great job, so something like firecallers could be a nice alternative

Much love! I really like charged shot phoenixes, and they would probably have the damage to contest the worms. However, they really lack range, which will cause problems in long-range fights if the opponent picks up marksmen or mustangs. As for the worm level, I wanted it to be able to contest the existing fortress on that side ^^

Sandstorm is a tech I only really use when playing worm/wasp, which is a different comp (and pretty niche). Clicking it when you have important ground-based units (like the arcs) will often come back to bite you.

I will only pre-emptively buy anti-air if I am: A) at risk of dying to lack of AA in 1 turn B) Air units are offered in a free unit drop and my opponent is likely to take those air units In most of these games, I am on high HP, so losing one round to lack of anti-air is not a big deal. In addition, most air units do not have the required DPS to take down armored worms, so I will still be winning the ground. Units like overlord are expensive and rather weak in long-range fights, so I would simply be able to purchase some marksmen, phoenixes or mustangs to deal with air problem. Air units might punish lack of anti-air for a turn, but they do not really fix the long-term DPS problem against worms.

Thanks! I currently run replicate, impact drill, loose formation and subterranean blitz on crawlers. Loose is still very good against any unit with 7 or less splash (like arclights, fortress, typhoon). If you want to run acid, you can take of subterrannean if you like (I just like subterranean as a counter to mustangs).

Sorry to hear that! First off, this strategy is NOT meant to be played against aggro. Worm/arc exploits the most common setups people will use in standard/long-range games. Against aggro, I will simply respond as needed and play a different setup. I will place storms between towers if I start with them and my opponent has steelballs or spiders in their opener, as those are more commonly played on aggro. Enemies that do not buy chaff will be very vulnerable to single target DPS such as marksmen, phoenix, stormcallers and scorpion. If opponents spam fangs, stormcallers will be highly valuable. If opponents make unusual moves and/or purchases, you will have to respond in kind. Unusual moves have the benefit of surprise, but will have strong counters available (which is why they will be unusual). Against early air units, you can buy a couple marksmen or phoenixes. Later, mustangs are great into heavy air boards and the same goes for fortress AA against phoenix and/or wasp. Hope this helps somewhat!

based, both of u

@RoosterTH-cam Okay, so that basically answers my main consideration that I found after playing (and losing) with it more over the evening. It seems that if your opponent opens aggro, you just gotta straight up bail on the strategy, which matches my own findings for my play session. Likewise, if they do a non-chaff opening, just bail on the strategy and respond with a typical one for non-chaff starts. _Essentially,_ if your opponent does anything _other_ than feed you delicious chaff on Round 1, just bail on the strategy. When working in early Marksmen or Phoenixes to deal with early air pressure, I find that means I have to compromise on the build timing somewhere. In your estimation, what part of the timing has the most room to be delayed or moved? Obviously it changes based on the board state, but if you had to move one of them to make room for the AA expenditure early on, would you be delaying Arc Range, delaying the Worm drop, or some other change? I think this is just something that I need to get out of this MMR bracket to actually participate in. At 1,700, it's been genuinely ages since I've played a standard vs. standard game. My last 42 games have been against an aggro opponent according to my spreadsheet, so I guess the strategy just kinda breaks down at an MMR where the playerbase metagame is to just never play standard. Edit: I've since had my first standard game in genuinely weeks and I forced this strat with an Arclight, no Storms start. Outside of delaying getting additional Arclights until like round 6 in order to get AA against a turn-2 double-Phoenix drop, it worked pretty flawlessly. So yeah, I can see why this works well in Standard specifically.

I see the problem here mainly in the mmr-bracket (except for being pushed ofc). Roosters 2.4k opponents will usually make very similar moves. The „Standard“ Moves, that are widely considered „good“. If the ppl in 1.7k played only the „normal“ „good“ moves, they would probably be higher in mmr. So against their chaos, you need way more flexibility, i guess.

Typhoon boat is pretty universally an aggro build, and Rooster was clear that this only works in standard v standard

@@earlkoh216 You are certainly correct in stating that shielded fangs would be a strong counter to arclights, as well as stopping worms for a good amount of time. I think fortresses with fang spawn would definitely be a possible counter to the strat for that reason. However, you don't necessarily know what your opponent will be playing when purchasing units in the early game. Building nothing but fangs will be very vulnerable to stormcallers, and late game you will likely have to use your limited deployments for bigger/more important units. Building a comp that can deal with arc/worm might be possible from round 1, but nothing forces me to simply play a different comp if my opponent is that committed to countering something I have not yet purchased. What is so powerful about the comp is that it indeed builds around arclights, which can be paired with a number of carry units aside from worm. Fortress remains weak in long range fights, and stormcaller + melter is an easy pairing with the core of arcs. While you might be able to buy arc counters, they still need to get through sandworms first, which is not easy at all. And many worm counters will be weak in long range fights, which the arc/worm player can transition back to.

That would be a great play as well! I just felt like I was in a really strong position in the game, so I didn't mind taking the better-scaling card and invest in my board long-term. I am sure that buying two level 2 worms would have worked just as well to close out the game 😄

Boats are not good in standard, as they lack range to compete with units like marksmen and phoenix. If the opponent commits to air, you can simply buy an AA unit of choice (marksmen, phoenix, AA wasp, mustangs) and they will stay safe as the worms cause chaos on the frontline. Most air units do not have the DPS to currently kill worms, which is why you do not see people heavily investing in air boards against it. The opponent might be able to win one round with it, but it is easily countered and they will still be losing the ground war and their towers.

really depends as you had to invest a lot of money into the spec as elite and range have priority. If your enemies answer is wasp spam, it could work but if it's something like wraiths or overloards, I don't think the arclights culd deal with them on their own.

I don't like AA arc all that much, as they can get overwhelmed by all the different tasks they perform. If the enemy commits to air, you can simply buy some marksmen or mustang for example. They will stay safe behind all the worms causing chaos and kill whatever air units the enemy may have.

Air will work for one round, after that I can easily buy mustangs for example. Most air units will not be able to kill the worms fast enough, so the enemy will still lose the ground war and their towers. This is also why you don't see the enemy buy air units, as it will not help them in the long run versus the scaling worms.

Got one game with giant specialist and arc+caller and opp was in standard opening position. Placed every unit exactly as the video. Mowed my opp over to the ground. Thanks for the free mmr! Some details: In the 2nd unit drop, opp got two Lv2 balls on one side and stopped one worm's tower rush. On the other side, opp spammed mustangs and stop my two worms during my tower debuff. Next round, I teched replicate negating the balls and teched fire caller with tower oil clearing the mustangs. I'm super spooked by air units threats. The first unit drop had a pack of wasp. I figured I would be economically better off just sell and missile defensing corners. luckily he didn't go air units. I think it was because the board is quite standard-like at early round, so there is no obvious gaps. I wonder what will happen if the opp did go air units. It looks quite hard to set up a line to stop the worm where is not in the range of storm caller...

Yeah, I was thinking about that too, how his board has almost no anti air. Only 2 packs of fangs...

Air really does not matter vs this. The opponent cannot ignore the ground, or they will simply lose their towers. With worms as frontline, you can easily buy marksmen, mustang, AA wasp or whatever other anti-air you would like. They will remain safe behind all of your frontline. This is only if the enemy commits to air though, no need to overreact if there is no threat on the board and you are at no risk of dying.

I was just obliterated by boats and wasps, but probably reacted one turn to late as well.

Its not a super popular tech, but burst mode phantom rays do well vs worms. I think someone mathed out that a lvl 1 phantom ray squad does 56k per volley with burst mode. I havent checked that math, but they certainly do a lot.

Swap armour on arclight for aa.