What is Summoner Duels S Like at the Top Level? – Fire Emblem Heroes

For this month’s (November) Summoner Duels S event, I went from Tier 13 → Tier 14! That puts me in the top 1,900.

Those were the teams I used this time around. For context, going up one tier means you need to win 3 matches. Each match grants you 100 points, and each tier is separated by 300 points. If you use one of the bonus units on any of your teams, you can lose 1 match without penalty.

This is one of the few game modes that lets you show off your collection of heroes.

Teams Used

Here’s a look at all the teams I used this time around. I am mostly free-to-play. I have bought the FEH Pass a couple of times using the money I earned from Google Opinion Rewards.

Captain Skills

Here were the captain skills this time around.

I went with the Earth Rendering skill for all 4 teams. In FEH, it is much easier to play the defender and make the opponent need to attack you. Having the Capture Arena move towards you makes it so you can zone out the enemy and it makes it really difficult for your opponent.

Matches

Match 1

I got destroyed. This match, I just did not pay enough attention, and was unprepared. I did not expect Edelgard to teleport and take out my Byleth, or double. After that, my team pretty much fell apart.

One of the reasons I played like this was because I did not have a proper opening. My opponent is able to fit all 5 of their units in the Capture Arena, and if I didn’t get 4 of my units in there, they would be 2 points ahead, which is quite difficult to catch up on.

I completely forgot that B!Catria had the triangle attack function. I should have banned that team. I learn from this mistake, however, and make sure to ban all B!Catrias in the future matches I played.

Match 2

I made sure to ban B!Catria this time. However, this time I was facing the new Armor Robin, which from what I remembered from playing in the Arena, is really difficult for me to take out. I thought no one on my team can take her out, which is why I was super confused when my opponent played defensively at the end of turn 2, which allowed me to gain the 2 points for having at least 2 more units in the Capture Arena.

At the beginning of turn 3, when my opponent was preparing Medeus to charge, I make sure to play defensive and make them come to me. From what I remember, Medeus is unable to take out Askr since Askr has follow-up negation and since Medeus is so slow. When my opponent moved their Armor Robin to the right, I moved S!Sonya around just to see which opponents she could eliminate and surprisingly enough, she’s able to take Robin out, even though she has Elimine’s Reduces damage from foes’ attacks during combat to allies within 2 spaces by 30% and grants Def/Res+4 to those allies during combat.Holy GroundTooltip content buff active.

After that, I prepare to dance my S!Sonya to take out their Elimine and they surrender the match.

Match 3

This match was an intense one. I was matched up against Twitch Streamer benfm222, who streams FEH content. You can check out the vod that included this match here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1664387756

During the team selection, again, I made sure to ban the team containing B!Catria. Of the remaining teams, it was a tough choice for me, but I ended up banning the team containing the Colorless tome robin and Fallen Edelgard, as I remembered struggling against those units in the past.

My team 1 and 2 seem to get banned the most, so I end up going with my team 4. I almost never choose team 3, even though it has B!Catria in it.

When the match starts, I notice my opponent’s Brave Edelgard and checking up on the merges, I see +10. Since I use Corrin and Byleth all the time in my arena matches, I know I am going to have a hard time, as I know that no one on my team can take her out in 1 round. My opponent also notices that no one on my team is capable of taking out Brave Edelgard as well.

I still don’t have a proper opening allowing me to get all 5 units into the Capture Arena by the end of turn 1, and I notice that my opponent is able to get all of his units in there. This time around, I make a mistake with my opening and am unable to get 4 of my units in the Capture Arena to avoid letting my opponent get the 2-point bonus. So, I decide to trade my Byleth for his Corrin. My opponent notes that Byleth might be able to take out his Edelgard, however, I know from my Arena matches that Byleth cannot, which is why I am okay with making this trade.

I confirm that this is the case way after the match is over:

Turn 2

On turn 2, I am preparing for my opponent to use Reginn to Reposition Edelgard forward and defeat one of my units. This does not happen thankfully, and I notice that my opponent has moved their Plumeria down. I need to make sure that Corrin is able to run away and sneak around/take out the enemy units if Edelgard is Repositioned in front, which is why I kept Corrin still initially.

Turn 3

On turn 3, my opponent makes the play, Repositioning Edelgard forward. Edelgard should only be able to defeat 2 of my units: Corrin and Ninian. I kind of hoped that Edelgard would go after my Ninian, because then what I could do is take out his Plumeria with Corrin, use the Duo skill, and then take out Reginn, and then Canto into the Capture Arena as Camilla isn’t able to take out my Corrin. Camilla would have been able to take out my Corrin if Corrin didn’t have the En Garde effect from Medeus, negating the recoil damage from her Atk/Spd Push 4 skill.

After he took out my Corrin with Edelgard, I noticed that I could just take out his remaining units while Edelgard is stuck down there, as he no longer has any dancers. I make a small mistake at the end of turn 3, and I should have just moved Fjorm 1 square to the right instead of swapping. Ninian has the Cross Spur Atk buff, which would allow Medeus to do more damage back to Edelgard, and also to have more allies around for Medeus’ Def/Res Form seal.

Turn 4

At the beginning of turn 4, he attempts to take out Medeus with his Edelgard, which doesn’t work. I was actually surprised by this, as I fully expected Medeus to get taken out, and me losing but thankfully he lives, allowing me to take out his Reginn. I was actually expecting his Reginn to run away two tiles up. Thankfully I switched to Ninian for this season of Summoner Duels, as the Odd Pulse tie skill came in handy, allowing me to un-charge Reginn’s Seiðr Shell skill, which would probably have finished the damaged Medeus off if she had the first strike.

I take out his Reginn with my Medeus and at this point, it didn’t matter what I did now, as Edelgard is only able to take out 1 unit on the final turn, awarding my opponent 3 points, which is not enough to win at this point. I put Fjorm in front of Edelgard since Fjorm has Hardy Bearing, which disables Edelgard’s guaranteed follow-up attack.

Definitely not my best matchup, and I still have a lot to learn.

Here’s the snippet of the stream that features this battle, in case Twitch deletes old vids or something. Note that

Match 4

I noticed that my final opponent has a fully-kitted-out Ilyana. I actually wanted to get Ilyana with that exact build during the October Hall of Forms, however, I was unable to get Atk/Spd Oath 4 or Atk/Spd Ideal 4 to show up on my forma Ilyana, so I didn’t end up getting her.

I was pretty confident that no one on their team would be able to take out my Medeus, and since Ilyana is blue, she is countered by my Fjorm, nothing to worry about in this match.

After my opponent realizes that there is nothing they can do take out my Medeus, they surrender.

Conclusion

After winning these 3 stressful matches, I took a break and didn’t do any more duels. Even though this event has happened multiple times already, it’s still quite stressful to fight other Summoners in real time. If I continued playing matches, I would have to win another 3 to go up to tier 15, and if I lost one, I would need to win an additional match, making it 4. It could also be that I lose the next 3 matches in a row, putting me back down to Tier 13 where I started and all this progress was for nothing. As such, I decided to just cut my winnings here and get out while I still could.

Well, that’s about it for what Summoner Duels S is like near the top. It’s not as “whaley” here compared to the top of the Arena, at least from my matches. Sure, players have some  highly-merged units. However, seeing full brigades of +10 units with the most-recent premium skills has been quite rare actually – nothing to be super afraid of.