Auto Arena

Overview

Auto Arena is an eight-wave auto-battler about drafting, economy and trust. Each round you browse a five-slot shop drawn from a ten-unit roster — cheap Squires and Sprites, mid-cost Guards, Archers, Knights and Mages, pricey Golems and Warlocks, and the five-cost Dragon and Oracle — and spend gold to add them to a 2x3 board or a four-slot bench. Melee units prefer the front row and walk forward to engage; ranged units and the healing Oracle hold the back row and fire from 150 range. Owning three copies of the same unit at the same star level fuses them automatically into a star upgrade worth 1.8x stats each, up to three stars. Then you press FIGHT and watch the wave resolve itself: units pick nearest targets, swing on cooldowns, and the Oracle heals the most wounded ally. Income is 5 gold a round plus up to 5 interest for saving, plus streak bonuses; losses cost 4 HP plus the wave number against your pool of 20. Clear wave eight — a two-star Dragon with a full court — to take the title.

How to Play

Press Enter the Arena. Browse the shop with Left and Right (or click a card to highlight, click again to buy), and press Space to buy the highlighted unit. Units place themselves: melee to the front row, ranged to the back, overflow to the bench. Click a unit and then a board cell to reposition or swap. Reroll costs 2 gold. Press F or the FIGHT button when the squad is set; the battle runs at spectator speed with no input needed. After the wave, income lands and a fresh free shop appears. P pauses, R restarts from wave one.

Tips & Strategy

Buy pairs, not singles: the merge rule means two copies of a unit are a threat and three are a power spike, so early gold is best spent completing triples of one-cost units rather than sampling the whole roster. Front-load the front row — a lone tank with three ranged behind it beats a balanced line, because enemies always chase the nearest target and a healthy Guard buys your Archers the whole fight. Respect interest: sitting on 30-plus gold by wave four pays for itself every round, so buy nothing on rounds where the shop offers no pair progress. Reroll only when one copy short of a merge. The Oracle changes late fights — its heals punish the wave-six and wave-seven burst damage — so keep one on the bench from wave five onward even unstarred. Against the final Dragon siege, three-star cheap units plus a healer outlast unmerged premium units; wave eight is won in the shop, not the arena.

What Makes It Distinct

The enemy wave composition is shown before you commit, turning each shop phase into an answer-drafting puzzle: you scout the wave, then spend. Combined with loss damage that scales by wave number, the economy curve forces a real choice between early dominance and a greedy interest hoard.