Hello everyone. I wanted to put together a proper beginner-to-midgame guide because when I first started, I ran into a lot of missing, outdated, or straight-up misleading information. This Cup Heroes Beginner Guide exists to fix that. I am not claiming to be the best player in the game or an authority on every system, but everything written here is based on what I personally used to push progression much faster than expected.
At the time of writing this, I am sitting around stage 215 and can push further if I am willing to wait out longer stage clears. I have also topped limited-time events consistently for the past few weeks by a wide margin. If anything in this guide turns out to be inaccurate or outdated, feel free to point it out and I will update it. I am intentionally leaving Arena out of this guide because normal progression naturally makes Arena easier over time, and I do not feel qualified enough to speak on high-level Arena strategies.
CHARACTERS TO PRIORITIZE
There are many usable heroes in the game, but progression becomes dramatically smoother if you focus on characters that either deal percentage-based damage, trigger instant kills, or stack multiple attacks per turn.
Felorc is one of the strongest progression heroes in the game once he reaches level 8. At that level, he unlocks Hellfire, which deals true damage equal to 13 percent of an enemy’s maximum health. This damage ignores mitigation entirely. When combined with his level 7 talent, Find Enemy Weakness, Felorc will always kill a standard enemy in six turns. This also applies to bosses, which makes him incredibly consistent for pushing stages where raw damage starts to fall off.
Cowboy becomes extremely powerful at level 8 when Rifle Shot unlocks. This skill gives every attack a chance to instantly kill an enemy. On its own the chance seems low, but once paired with the Legendary Rogue Ring, the instant kill chance increases to the point where enemies regularly disappear before they can threaten you. Cowboy scales extremely well with any setup that increases attack frequency.
Eiva is a strong all-around hero and makes early and midgame progression much easier. She really starts to shine when paired with the Legendary Rogue Ring. With enough wisps active, most waves will end within one to three turns purely through instant kill procs. She does not rely on raw attack scaling, which makes her very effective once enemies start becoming tanky.
Mammon is more of a late-game-focused character, though he can still function earlier if built correctly. His power spikes heavily at level 8 and again at level 11, where his health-drain mechanics start to stack meaningfully. From my experience, he can feel RNG-dependent, but when things line up, he provides excellent survivability and strong boss damage. Mammon is also very effective in Arena when fighting opponents with similar combat power due to how much health he can sustain.
Barbarian deserves special mention because he plays very differently from most characters. His entire kit revolves around being hit repeatedly and reflecting damage back at enemies. Reflect damage is calculated before damage mitigation, which allows it to scale extremely well. At level 7, he unlocks a 30 percent damage reflect, and with proper gear investment, this can climb much higher. If you plan to main Barbarian, using Defender gloves and sword alongside Tactician pieces is highly recommended. With higher gear levels, reflect values can reach around 50 to 55 percent, and the S-rank Defender sword can even reflect 100 percent of incoming damage on proc, leading to massive damage spikes.
Beyond these, almost any hero capable of stacking multiple attacks per turn can perform well when paired with the Legendary Rogue Ring. Heroes like Munara, Rickie, Rogue, and Yasuhiro are all solid picks if built around attack frequency rather than raw damage.
GEAR SETUP
After extensive testing, I have not found a general progression setup that outperforms the following gear combination. There may be stronger Arena-specific builds, but this guide focuses purely on pushing stages efficiently.
When you unlock S Stones and are offered a free S-rank gear piece, always choose the Collector Helm. This is not optional. You will use it forever. The Epic-rank skill alone justifies the choice.
The ideal progression setup consists of a Tactician weapon, Tactician gloves, Tactician chest, and Tactician boots. This four-piece bonus gives you extra cards and extra balls, which directly translates into more chances to trigger instant-kill effects. The ring slot should always be the Rogue Ring, and the helm should always be the Collector Helm.
The Collector Helm gives you an extra card choice at the very start of a stage. This single effect is mandatory for pushing higher stages where your opening cards determine whether a run succeeds or fails.
The Rogue Ring is the most important piece of gear in the entire build. At Legendary rank, it provides a 5 percent chance to instantly kill any enemy. While that number sounds small, it applies to every instance of damage. Characters with multiple attacks, ricochets, wisps, or pet attacks effectively roll this chance dozens of times per turn. With a hero like Eiva and around ten wisps active, your chance to instantly kill something each turn becomes absurdly high.
COMBAT STRATEGY AND DAMAGE WALLS
With the gear and heroes mentioned above, early progression is straightforward. You can simply play normally and watch enemies melt. Eventually, however, you will hit a wall where enemies become extremely tanky and start one-shotting you. This is where most players get stuck, but this is also where the build truly comes online.
Your first card choice should always be Armor, preferably blue or Legendary if your hero can access it. Armor is unique because it scales with the stage rather than your stats. A single blue Armor card provides roughly 80 to 90 percent damage reduction regardless of whether you are on stage 1 or stage 200. Due to diminishing returns, one card is usually enough to buy you the time you need.
With the Tactician set bonus and Collector Helm, you should aggressively reroll your opening cards until you see Armor. If you do not get it, leave the stage and reroll again. Once you have Armor, the goal is no longer raw damage. The goal becomes survival while instant-kill effects do the work for you.
From that point onward, prioritize cards that increase attack frequency such as ricochet or multi-hit effects. Damage-boosting cards become mostly irrelevant unless your build relies on lifesteal. Heroes like Felorc and Mammon primarily need survivability so they can stay alive long enough for their percentage-based damage to end the fight.
PETS
Pet choice is flexible and largely depends on what you have available. Pets that provide healing, shields, or extra attacks tend to be the most useful for progression. Extra attacks from pets count as your attacks, meaning they also have a chance to trigger instant kills from the Rogue Ring.
Personally, I have found a lot of success with the Crup pet. The shield it provides stacks, carries over between waves, and significantly improves survivability during long stage clears. Combined with Armor cards, this can make otherwise impossible stages manageable.
I am not an expert, but everything written here reflects what has given me the highest return for my time and resources. If you are struggling to push stages or feel like your damage has fallen off, shifting your mindset away from raw attack and toward survivability plus instant-kill mechanics will make a massive difference.
If you have questions or notice something that needs correction, leave a comment and I will do my best to respond or update the guide accordingly.
