Loop Hero Strategies: Cards, Classes and Coaching for the Best Builds

Loop Hero is proving to be a game everyone wants to check out, and for good reason. There’s something so satisfying about setting up your loop and watching your strategies play out.

The fact you can carefully consider your moves without pressure (like in tower defense) lowers the barrier of entry a lot. Even the ambiguous storytelling is fascinating to read as you make your way through each chapter.

We’ve already pointed out some beginners’ tips thanks to our pal Jesse, but I’m taking it a step further here. If you want some insight into what you should be doing to make optimal builds and really kick ass, take a look at this guide.

Loop Hero Strategies: Cards, Classes and Coaching for the Best Builds

There are always alternatives, different takes and even things I could have just missed. That’s how stuff like this generally works – there’s a lot of freedom in Loop Hero and all kinds of viable strategies.

But the principles below are foundational, meaning at a base level these tips will help you dive into the game at a high level.

Related: Loop Hero Tips & Tricks For Getting Started

Early Game vs Late Game

The further in you get, the more Loop Hero fundamentally changes. That’s because as you build more of your base up and unlock new cards, your game necessarily becomes more aggressive.

Therefore, in the early game you’ll be poking around and experimenting, but you’re also going for defensive, slower-paced resource grinding. Then in the late game, you’re looking for damage, speed and HP.

In the start, once you start getting some unlocks in there are cards that will stick out more than others, and cards that seem all but useless. You want to aim for a certain balance between getting yourself the resources you want and overwhelming yourself. 

As you head to the later game, you’re going to drop the stuff you were using for building and risk management, and load up on rivers, forests, rocks and special cards.

Optimal Deck Examples

Regardless of where you are in Loop Hero, you want to try shrinking your deck as much as possible. Ditch the fluff and you’ll make sure you get the cards you need.

Early Game

• rock
• meadow
• spider cocoon
• grove
• blood grove
• oblivion
• road lantern (maybe)
• battlefield

The goal here is minimizing risk and still giving yourself chances to get loot. Spiders and wolves are the most fragile enemies, so you can manage them easier in groups. If you’re worried though, you can incorporate road lanterns.

Blood groves increase the loot you can earn as well. Oblivion is there in case you need to blow up some goblins!

Late Game

• rock
• forest/thicket
• river
• grove
• cemetery
• ancestral crypt

Multipliers, baby. Rivers double the effect of anything they touch, so loading up thickets and rivers gives you enough attack speed to murder everything. Meanwhile, the cemeteries and groves produce “soul” enemies which activate the crypt.

Strats

Now for the more complicated stuff. Loop Hero is big on interactions, meaning cards you place can be transformed or modified when placed next to other specific cards.

There are also ways you can get disparate cards to work together less directly. And hey, you can chose between three classes, and that changes your goals too. Check these tips out that can take you through the whole game.

Meadows and Mountains

Early on, you want to take any help with HP you can get. If you make a 3×3 group of rocks or mountains, you’ll create a mountain peak. This gives you a huge HP bump every turn at the cost of harpies. You can only make one, though.

Which brings me to the next part. Meadows “bloom” when placed next to other tiles. Mountain tiles are great for arranging around empty space and attaching meadows to.

The extra few HP per day are great when your resources are still low. You’ll ditch meadows eventually, though.

Vampires

The world of Loop Hero seems to have a complicated relationship with vampires. There are a couple things you can do with them though if you’re feeling brave. Putting a vampire mansion next to a village will destroy the village for three loops, filling it with zombies.

But after three loops it becomes Count’s Lands, an enhanced village. This gets riskier the further in you get, but if you can set this up in the first two or three loops of a run, it can be super good.

Vampires are also considered “soul” enemies for the ancestral crypt. Adding vampires is always risky because of how strong they are, but dropping mansions next to groves and cemeteries increases your HP gains substantially.

Be Picky

In some cases, cards will have variants. We’re talking about things like rocks/mountains and forests/thickets. It’s fine to mix them together early on, but later you’re going to toss out the weaker ones.

There’s a world of difference between forests and thickets when you’re dropping them by rivers. Being more efficient with your tools will make sure the boss won’t show up until you’re ready.

Classes

Warrior

Warrior is easy to look at as generic, and that’s mostly true except for a small damage bonus you get over time. Load that boy up with as much HP and defense as possible and you’ll have a self-sustaining tank. Don’t be too tempted by Vampirism, because that often comes at the expense of defence. Get regen instead.

Rogue

Rogue is obviously based on speed and damage, but there are a few other tricks. If you have outposts, the Rogue will stiff them because of how their loot works. Because of that as well, you also want to make sure any battlefields you’re using are right after the campfire. Not much nuance to this fella, but the tradeoff is tangible.

Necromancer

While the Necromancer itself is weak, its skeletons use their gear to function. Attack speed is summon speed, and that’s going to be your main focus. The Necromancer’s magic HP also allows you to play with things like Sand Dunes. You also need to make sure you’re prioritizing skeleton-boosting stats over stuff like evasion, regen, etc.

Building

As you grind resources you’ll be expanding your camp. For the most part it’s pretty straightforward, but there are a few spots you want to get ASAP. The Intel Center is how you can use hefty cards like the arsenal or ancestral crypt.

It’s smart to upgrade the Field Kitchen early as well, since it boosts the campfire. Everything else is up to you! Ideally you’ll just do everything then forget about grinding.

I think if you follow these guidelines, and just consider them guidelines, you’ll be setting yourself up for success. Loop Hero really benefits from more focused strategies, so try not to do too much at once and you’ll be in good shape.

There are plenty of other great builds, and it’s likely the balancing may change over time. But for now, these are some ideal foundational points that will get you well past the early chapters and beyond.