Battle System

Here is an overview of different battle elements of Ember Strike.

The Breakdown
The basis of winning is move speed, and, most importantly, how you're using your mana. There is a lot more depth in Ember Strike than can seem to new players.

Move Speed
the faster you move the more mana of all types you'll get.

Mini-Game Skill
The more accurate you are, the more damage you do. If you aren't hitting your shots, it doesn't matter how fast you are collecting mana. Mini-games capture mana stones. Matching your captured mana stones is the only way to activate strikes. If you aren't striking, then you're going to lose.

Strike Strategy
A lot of Minions have conditions on their strikes like Duke Bot. If you're putting Duke Bot at the top of your party, then you're limiting how many targets he'll be able to hit with his strike. If a Minion's strike is better early game, like Ivy Bomb, then you should place them at the top of your party since strikes activate top to bottom.

Learn What Your Strikes Actually Do
Try to learn exactly how each Minions strike works. Consider how it fits into your party. Some minions complement others. Don't just blindly use Conjurer if you don't have any DoT minions in your party.

Vary Minion Mana Types In Your Party
A Metal Minion captures Metal Mana Stones, a wood Minion captures Wood Mana Stones. Since there are six different mana types and only five spots in your party, you want to be able to capture as many types of mana during a battle as you can. If you're equipping more than one minion of the same mana type, then you're limiting your ability to capture mana stones.

Focus firing
Sometimes, it is better to focus on one Minion at a time, especially early game. Identify the opponent's biggest threat, and try to kill him off first especially if your minions do direct damage and not damage-over-time.

Make defensive matches
Even if you have a power active, and you see a match of 4 mana stones that have been captured by your opponent, match them immediately.

Reserve mana
Once you hit mid-game, pay attention to the mana types of your alive party members. Prioritize those mana types first. If you match mana stones and you don't have a member of your party that can use it, the match is worth less and it goes into your reserve. Once you make a match of mana stones that a party member can use, then you'll distribute the reserve mana. Reserve mana value goes up as your minions die, but don't rely on that.

Hero Alignment vs. Neutral alignment
Minions are either aligned to a hero, or they are neutral. A neutral minion can be used with any hero. A Hero aligned minion can only be used with one hero, BUT the more hero aligned minions you have in your party, the stronger your hero's ultimate gets. You can tell the alignment of a minion at the bottom of their card.

It doesn't matter if you have a full party of legendary minions - if you're not using them right, you will get crushed by a player with nothing but commons.

Prematch Screen
This is the screen where you choose your team before entering a battle. If you are playing Story Mode then you will see your opponents on the right side of the screen. If you are playing PVP or Challenge Mode than you won't know the team you are fighting against until the battle starts.

Your in-game strike order is based on your minion placement (from top to bottom and then the Hero), so the Prematch screen is where you want to pay attention to who you are equipping to what slot.