Your first run: a beginner's guide

Amarantine Realms is a roguelike auto-battler. You climb a 16-floor tower, recruiting a team of up to five heroes along the way. You choose the route and build the team, and then the battles play out on their own.

That means nearly all your decisions happen between fights. Which door should you take? Which hero is worth keeping? Should you save your gold or spend it? This guide covers what matters most on your first few runs.

How a run works

Choose a champion. You start with Ilse and Pip. Your champion changes the rules a little and helps your team in every fight.
Pick your starting heroes at the Entrance. You normally see four heroes and take two. Each comes with a gift, usually a blessing.
Climb the tower. Each floor offers rooms joined by doors, and you can only move along the paths connected to your current room.
Win battles for gold and heroes. A win pays gold and lets you pick two heroes from a set of offers.
Beat the boss on floor 16. Lose a battle earlier and you lose a life. Run out of lives and the run is over. Losing to the boss ends the run however many lives you have left.

Start with Ilse

Ilse is the easiest champion to learn. Every ally starts each fight with armor, which is a big help in the dangerous early floors. Her drawback is that selling a hero pays nothing, but that won’t matter much while you learn.

Picking your first heroes

For your first run, look for two things at the Entrance:

Real attack power. Your first battle might be against an armored Mimic or a pair of fast Goblin Sappers. A team that barely hurts anything can lose right there.
No harmful curses. At higher difficulties, entrance heroes can carry curses. Avoid Blunted on a low-power hero, since it may leave the hero with no damage at all.

If a Shop or Tavern is reachable before your first battle, consider going there. A third hero makes the first fight much safer.

The five habits that matter most

Fill all five slots. An empty slot is wasted strength. Even a weak spare hero can soak up hits.

Level up a few heroes instead of many. Copies of the same hero merge and raise its level. Three level 1 copies make a level 2 hero. New abilities come with each level, and most heroes gain a powerful Signature ability at level 3. Try not to spread your picks across many different heroes. Read more about drafting.

Put a sturdy hero in front. The first slot takes most of the melee attacks. Put a hero with plenty of health or armor there, and keep fragile heroes further back. Learn how battles work.

Spend your gold. Gold does nothing for most teams at the end of a run. Reroll battle rewards when you can afford it, and buy copies of your key heroes at Shops.

Plan your route a few rooms ahead. You can’t reach everything, so look ahead before you commit to a door. See what every room does.

A simple team to aim for

You don’t need a perfect team to beat the lower difficulties. This shape works well:

Slot	Job	Good examples
1 (front)	Soak hits	Shieldbearer, Wildheart, Guildmaster
2	Strong melee damage	Sellsword, Berserker
3	Team power	Warchief, Bard
4	Area or back-line damage	Archmage, Bounty Hunter
5 (back)	Healing or a second caster	Acolyte, Apprentice

Take what the run offers, though. A level 3 hero outside this list usually beats a level 1 hero who fits it.

After your first win

Winning unlocks harder Peril levels, each adding a new rule on top of the last. From Peril 7 you can also play ranked runs and earn Aether to buy new champions. See the Peril and ranked guide.