When you start Total War, you'll first encounter the Common grade, where you should field your two strongest available decks. Assuming you have a sufficient hero pool, a attack deck and a magic deck are reliable choices. This season, however, the magic deck has seen a major transformation. The introduction of the Awakening system has significantly boosted its power. The new hero Skuld can utilize Awakening, and Silvester, a veteran hero, has also jumped into the starting lineup following his Awakening.

You can consider the Rare grade to be where the real team-building challenges begin. Here, attack and magic decks remain the core, but you need to deploy a third team, for which a defense deck is a solid choice. Since it includes Ragna and several universal-type heroes in the back row, it can also be seen as a 'universal deck.' Alice is typically included to boost the effectiveness of Palamus' mark and provide stability through healing. Some players opt for a '4-universal' setup by adding Son Goku to the back row instead of a support hero, or they may swap Alice for Platin, but the former remains the most popular choice among top-tier players.

For the attack deck, you can consider Lu Bu, Teo, Branz & Bransel, Karl Heron, and Ragna as the core starters. Yu is frequently used as a pet. If you lack growth on certain heroes, Kagura or Pai can serve as alternatives. The magic deck, having fully benefited from Awakening, is effectively locked in with Awakened Skuld, Millia, and Reginleif. Some players also swap out Omok for Freya to focus more on offense.

Next is the Unique grade. If reaching the Legend grade is difficult, this is a very realistic goal. Don't overcomplicate your team building. Keep your attack, magic, and defense decks as they are, and add an Instant Death deck to score points when matched against a defense deck.

However, the Instant Death deck's win rate varies significantly depending on the opponent, so it's best not to have overly high expectations. The Instant Death deck featuring Nia is operated by prioritizing speed settings to secure the first turn, then chaining Nia's skills after increasing the opponent's skill cooldowns. For reference, while Nia is sometimes replaced by Gelidus in the Instant Death deck—with Son Goku or others filling the defense deck slot—at the time of my check, most players in the Unique grade were using Gelidus in the defense deck and Nia in the Instant Death deck.

Let's look at team combinations in the top-tier Legend grade. This season, most top-ranking adventurers are opting to build two magic decks. The attack deck composition of Branz & Bransel, Teo, Lu Bu, Karl Heron, and Ragna remains unchanged. It is the most reliable setup and, depending on accessory investment, can maintain a high win rate even after Awakening.

For the magic deck, the combination of Awakened Skuld, Millia, Awakened Silvester, Omok, and Reginleif handles the first team. The second team's composition varies slightly from player to player. What is certain is that Freya serves as the core of the firepower, and Melcure, who lost his starting spot due to the arrival of the two Awakened heroes, adds extra strength. Rin, Vanessa, and Sung Jin-woo are also deployed. Looking closer, Vanessa and Sung Jin-woo can be swapped for Juri and Kyriel depending on preference. Yorang is a popular pet choice. Since Kyriel and Sung Jin-woo share the same passive, you can choose either, while Juri's potential to block resurrection and Vanessa's crowd control (CC) skills should be considered based on your hero development status.

A reliable skill sequence for the first magic deck is Omok's 1st skill, followed by Awakened Skuld's 2nd skill and Awakened Silvester's 2nd skill. Speed-focused settings are preferred; think of it as laying down a guardian spirit with Omok's 1st skill, inducing skill cooldown increases with Skuld, and then concentrating firepower with Silvester. Since Skuld's 2nd skill can increase skill cooldowns when the target is in a magic-vulnerable state, pairing her with Millia, who possesses that passive, is essential. A 'Shaman' setting is often preferred to increase the probability of triggering skill cooldown increases.

In the Legend grade, Gelidus is frequently used in the Instant Death deck. Replacing Nia with Gelidus reduces the need to prioritize speed, allowing you to focus on internal stats and potentially score points in matches outside of defense decks. The defense deck includes Son Goku. For reference, while the images below show Platin as the support hero, Alice is also a viable option, as mentioned earlier. You can choose to put Gelidus in the Instant Death deck and Son Goku in the defense deck, or keep Gelidus in the defense deck and use Nia in the Instant Death deck.

Of course, this combination is not the 100% definitive answer. Looking at actual top-tier data, there are cases where the two Awakened heroes are placed in different teams, and variations exist where Son Goku is used in a single team alongside magic-type heroes. Since this is the first Total War held after the addition of the Awakening and exclusive equipment systems, it seems many experiments are underway. It is a time to find the optimal combination possible based on your hero roster and current settings.