AFK Arena team comps for PvP, towers and boss modes in 2026

A late-game account should build toward three lineups: Awakened Shemira with Misfortis, Sung Jinwoo, Dracula and Shuna; Odysseus and Leviathan with Hybris, Velufira and Lan; and Saitama and Gorok with Skylan, Elthara and Awakened Pippa. None of them share a hero, so you can field all three at once in the Legends' Challenger Tournament and on King's Tower floors that ask for three teams. They took shape before the summer 2026 releases, so heroes added since June, such as Athena and Judy & Punch, aren't in them. If your account is new, skip to the starter team, which uses only heroes the game gives you.

Every table lists the two front-row heroes first and the three back-row heroes after them. Faction bonuses and the Celestial, Hypogean and Draconis exceptions are covered in the factions guide.

Starter team from free heroes

You don't need a single lucky summon to field a full team. The campaign hands out a hero for every chapter from 2 to 25 (listed in the campaign chapter rewards guide), and clearing stage 1-12 opens Hero's Covenant, a 56-day event that lets you pick Eorin or Crassio as your Covenant Hero and gives you an Elite token for them. Pick Eorin. By the end of chapter 13 the chapter rewards have given you six Wilders (Arden, Ogi, Ira, Nemora, Kaz and Lyca), and with Eorin that's more than enough for a team of five Wilders.

Five Wilders earn the full five-of-a-kind bonus, +25% Attack and +25% health for everyone. Ogi's ultimate gives him a shield worth 350% damage for 10 seconds, and Kaz dodges one attack every 10 seconds from level 41 and gains 70 Dodge at level 61, so the front row lasts. From level 11 Eorin opens every fight by rushing the enemy with the highest Attack Rating. Nemora's ultimate heals the whole team for 30% of her max health, and her Beguile charms an enemy into hitting its own side for 6 seconds. Lyca adds 35 Haste to the team for 8 seconds at the start of each fight (from level 41), and from level 61 her hits lower the target's Defense by 15%.

Before chapters 11 to 13 pay out, fill the gaps with Arden and Ira, the chapter 2 and 4 rewards. If you'd rather take Crassio, the Mauler side fills more slowly: Ankhira at chapter 5, Golus at 6 and Brutus at 14. While the event runs, a Covenant Hero can only be used as ascension material for copies of itself. Put your levels into these five only, as the beginner guide explains.

The three late-game lineups

Awakened Shemira and Sung Jinwoo

Shuna puts a mark on every enemy at the start of battle that cancels the first ultimate each of them casts, so the other side's opening burst never lands. Sung Jinwoo's ultimate hits every enemy and stops them moving or using skills for 3 seconds (5 from level 161), and he levels up every 15 seconds, refilling his health and gaining 1,000 Energy each time, up to three times (five from level 221). Dracula's Blood Moon dispels most enemy buffs and heals your team while it ticks, and Eternal Decree stops the enemy's top damage dealer from receiving healing or shields for 5 seconds.

The front row keeps the back row alive. Misfortis links every back-row ally to himself at the start of battle and absorbs part of the damage they take, and when he takes fatal damage he sleeps for 5 seconds, invincible, instead of dying. Awakened Shemira's Soul Sanctuary caps any single hit on the protected ally at 60% of their current health, and Delay Death keeps a fallen ally fighting for up to 5 more seconds.

Albedo can take Misfortis' slot, since Black Guard teleports her next to the weakest back-row ally and makes her take all the damage meant for that ally for 5 seconds. Rem can replace Dracula: her Morning Star Swing knocks 250 Energy off the enemy with the highest damage and she heals and shields your weakest hero.

Odysseus and Leviathan

This one wins by making the enemy hit weakly and late. As he enters battle, Hybris cuts all enemy heroes' damage by 40% and blocks Attack Speed and Haste gains for 8 seconds, and any enemy that steps into his Usurper Domain loses 60% Attack Rating for 5 seconds. Leviathan's conch shell lowers every enemy's Attack Rating by 30% while it stands. Velufira's barrier keeps lowering enemy Crit Rating as it charges, and her Binding Restriction imprisons whoever pushes deepest into your side for 4 seconds. Lan's Dense Mist makes each of your heroes ignore the first three skill or ultimate hits (each up to 600% of her Attack Rating) for 5 seconds, and her rain heals and dispels.

Odysseus is built for this formation. His ultimate brings Sunshade weather, which gives your front row 30 Damage Resist and your back row +90% normal attack damage, and Oath of Sin taunts the enemy with the highest damage. Leviathan's Tide Barrier shields him and the two weakest allies, and after 3 seconds each shielded hero also becomes immune to control.

If you're missing Odysseus, Awakened Lucius is the closest fit, a tank who shields nearby allies and taunts. Awakened Skriath can replace Lan: for the first 7 seconds his sand veil caps every hero's damage at 25% of their Attack Rating, which shields your team through the opening the way Lan's mist does.

Saitama and Skylan

Elthara's Dragonflare weather cuts every enemy's Energy Recovery Rate by 60 until their first ultimate and makes them lose health every time their Energy changes. Skylan's Draconic Thunder cuts Haste by 20 and, once his Stormsurge is up, Energy Recovery Rate by 35, so the enemy team gets its ultimates out late if at all. Awakened Pippa's Mischief Time Rewind reverts an ally who takes fatal damage to the health and Energy they had a few seconds earlier, twice per battle or four times if her starting Insight is over 120, and Acorn Delight turns the two enemies with the highest Attack Rating into acorns that can't attack for 6 seconds.

In front, Saitama takes 60% less damage and ignores control while he has Guard, and at Engraving 30 he takes over all the damage aimed at a front-row ally who is about to die. Gorok makes the enemy opposite him a Sworn Foe: every ally who hits it gains Haste and Physical Pierce, and his Valor Cleave cuts its Defense Rating by 45%.

Sion can stand in for Skylan, since his Whirling Blades steal 50 Energy and cut Energy recovery and shield gain by 60% for 8 seconds. In Elthara's place, Kaelon is another Draconis damage dealer who shields himself and lowers the top enemy's Crit Rating.

Campaign and King's Tower

Use the Awakened Shemira lineup for campaign stages and single-team King's Tower floors, since three of its heroes rate at the top for campaign play. King's Tower and the faction towers start asking for two and then three teams on their higher floors (the King's Tower guide has the floor numbers), and that's where the Leviathan and Saitama lineups come in as the second and third teams. Leviathan rates lower for campaign than for any other mode, so if a stage won't fall with that team, swap him out first. Each floor also shows replays of earlier clears, which tell you which of your lineups matches that enemy formation.

Arena of Heroes and Legends' Challenger

The Arena of Heroes takes one team, and the Awakened Shemira lineup is the one to use on attack and defense. The Legends' Challenger Tournament is best of three with three formations, so run all three lineups.

Challenger has one rule worth building around: if the timer runs out before one side is wiped, the attacker loses. That makes a team that refuses to die a real defense. The stall team built for this has Awakened Thoran and Talene in front with Awakened Fawkes, Knox and Mira behind. Awakened Thoran revives at his killer's location each time he dies while he still has Stormblades, Talene turns into a fireball and regenerates when she dies, and Awakened Fawkes dodges fatal damage by reappearing from one of his caskets. The Arena guide covers tickets and rewards.

Faction towers

Each tower only takes heroes of its own faction, borrowed mercenaries included, so every team below stays inside one faction.

Tower of Light

Awakened Estrilda forms a pact with the other four at the start of battle, healing herself for 10% of the damage they deal, and she adds a quarter of their combined Attack Rating and health to her own, up to 120% of her base values. Awakened Lucius shields nearby allies while his Divine Radiance lasts. Palmer's prayer stacks Attack and Defense on the team, and his Precepts send Energy to whichever ally has the highest Attack Rating, which should be Awakened Belinda. Every ally who feeds her Energy gets Blaze of Glory, so their own skills start setting off her Cleansing Flame. Jerome's ultimate dispels debuffs, heals everyone and halves the damage they take for 7 seconds.

Brutal Citadel

Naroko brings young Nadia into the fight, and every 5% of max health Nadia loses heals your whole team for 75% of what she lost. Awakened Antandra starts each battle with 500 Energy and duels her target, taunting it for 7 seconds. Talimar's fishing buddy pulls out fish that give the whole team Crit Rating or 35% damage reduction for 8 seconds, and her ultimate drags enemies together before landing. Awakened Safiya's domain gives your side 35 Tenacity and a shield every 7 seconds, and Gorren's Dish of the Day heals 30%, grants control immunity and adds 50% Attack Rating.

World Tree

Atheus and Tamrus pull and stun: Tamrus drags enemies into his Painwheel and hooks the two furthest away, and Atheus' Nature's Breakthrough stuns for 4 seconds while his Purging Evil cuts the damage of enemies it hits by 25%. Awakened Eironn's skills stack Cold Snap, two stacks freeze the target in a Crystal Cluster with a 2-second stun, and his Icy Strike takes 25% of the remaining health of everything it hits. Misha's normal attacks heal your weakest hero, and her pollen paralyzes enemies that her allies hit while raising those allies' Attack Rating.

Forsaken Necropolis

This is the tower where a full Graveborn team pays off most. Awakened Thoran adds 40% of his own max health to every Graveborn hero at the start of battle, and he gains 10% more max health for each Graveborn on the field. Ivan turns the ally with the highest Attack Rating into a puppet with a Spirit Shield worth 2,000% of his own Attack Rating, and Randle's Soul Serpents copy 75% of that same ally's attributes. Make Awakened Fawkes that ally. He starts the battle invincible inside his casket, and his Spirit Caskets heal nearby allies every 3 seconds.

Celestial Sanctum

Misfortis anchors this team the same way he does in the Awakened Shemira lineup. Alna's passive takes 40 Haste off everyone on the field and her Winter's Call makes her immune to damage and control for 7 seconds. Aurelia is invincible while her ultimate plants grain, and her harvest zones give your heroes Physical Pierce and make enemies inside take 20% more damage. Daemia adds a stacking 3% damage taken on every hit, up to eight times, and Liberta splits health between an ally and an enemy and keeps healing and damage orbs rolling.

Infernal Fortress

Five Hypogeans earn all five tiers of the Hypogean bonus, from +30% Defense to +15 Haste. Knox's marks lower Attack Rating, Defense Rating, Haste, Tenacity and Crit Damage Amplification one stack at a time, and at five stacks his companion Munin steals them for good. Hybris suppresses the enemy with the highest Attack Rating. Envydiel turns those debuffs into damage: every attribute an enemy has lowered makes it take 10% more normal attack damage, up to 70%, and his enhanced normal attacks cash that in. During his 15-second Opening Act, Lavatune adds 8 Haste to your team every time an ally casts an ultimate, up to 40, and his Power Metal boosts the Attack Rating of your top damage dealer. Canisa & Ruke survive their first fatal hit fully healed.

Twisted Realm

Twisted Realm opens after stage 12-40, long before most accounts own the heroes above, so here is a team of older heroes that still rate well against bosses (Grezhul is the chapter 18 reward):

Grezhul's Demonic Assault halves the target's damage and makes it take 25% more, and against a single boss it lasts until Grezhul himself dies. Saurus gains 10% Attack Rating and 25% Defense each time he finishes a skill uninterrupted, up to five times, and his Phase Form adds a copy that repeats his skills. Rowan's coins give allies 50 Energy and +30% Attack Rating, Elijah & Lailah's ultimate adds 75 Haste to the team, and Rosaline follows the hero you assign her: her ultimate fully refills that hero's Energy, and she heals them and sweeps away enemies that come close.

Change one slot per boss. The Twisted Realm guide explains each boss.

Once you own the late-game heroes, the Cursed Realm boss teams below fight the same six bosses and carry over. The exception is Ice Shemira, whose Cursed Realm team is built against a Dodge curse that the Twisted Realm doesn't have.

Cursed Realm boss teams

These are the teams top accounts ran most in the sixth battle, the one against the boss itself, on the leaderboards from December 2025 to February 2026. Each boss puts a curse on your side (Cursed Realm guide), and every team here is built around it. The five Shadow Guard teams come from the rest of your roster under the same curse.

The second choices on the same leaderboards: Awakened Athalia for Awakened Fawkes against Kane, Palmer for Awakened Fawkes against Burning Brute, and Jerome for Aurelia against Demonic Nemora.

Nightmare Corridor

The Nightmare Corridor is a weekly event against six bosses, open to accounts with Resonating Crystal level 350 or 30 Ascended heroes. Every hero fights at level 480 with their own gear and tier, artifacts do nothing, and you can use one mercenary per challenge. Killing more bosses ranks you higher, and among players with the same number of kills the faster time wins. If you kill nothing, total damage decides it. Results take 24 hours to calculate.

Each boss stays for 24 weeks, and the lineup swaps one boss every 28 days. Right now it's:

Each week one of the six carries a faction buff. If your team for that boss meets the buff's condition, all your heroes get +100% Attack and Defense Rating and the boss takes 30% more damage for the whole fight. The four conditions rotate week to week: three Lightbearers or three Wilders, three Graveborn or three Maulers, three Celestials, or three Hypogeans. The two factions in a pair don't add up (two Lightbearers and one Wilder don't count), and summons are ignored. The team setup screen shows the buff's icon on whichever boss carries it that week.

Molten Crystalline Worm Queen

The Worm Queen takes 99.9% less damage from anything that isn't a normal attack (80% less once she's under 30% health), but every Magma Guard you kill takes a slice of her max health with it. So the team kills Guards. Severin's ultimate and Flowing Onslaught hit every enemy unit, Elthara's Molten Star crashes into the thickest cluster, and Alvida's normal attacks hit everything around her, knocking it into the air. Misha heals through normal attacks alone. Gorren or Dracula can take Rowan's slot.

Cindercrow Specter

This version of the Specter starts your team at 100 Cursecrow Marks that lower your damage. Every 5 normal attack strikes peel off one mark, and resisting a knockback removes ten. Its rice fields stop physical damage, and four of these five (Talimar, Awakened Skriath, Daemia and Tavriel) deal magic damage, so the fields don't shut them off. Tavriel funds your top damage dealer with +30% Attack Rating and a shield, and against a boss his Unfair Contract makes it take 60% more damage and health loss for 8 seconds. The second team that works here is Begris, Awakened Fawkes, Talimar, Lysander and Leviathan.

For Demonic Puppet, Ashen Prophet, Mirror Demon and Infernal Overlord, open the leaderboard, which shows the formation and replay behind every top score, and copy what the players above you used. In the week one of them carries the faction buff, rebuild that team so three of its five heroes meet the condition.

Abyssal Expedition

Blessed Relics boost every hero of one Elder Tree class, so an expedition team is easiest to power when all five share a class. A Warrior team runs on the Dura's Might relic alone:

All five are Warriors and all five deal physical damage, which matters at the end of the map. The expedition's Cindercrow Specter is not the Nightmare Corridor version: its rice fields stop magic damage instead. Its marks cut Attack Rating by 10% each, and its Cursecrow Inferno kills any hero carrying 10 of them. Begris' Pioneer's Pick lowers enemy Physical Resist by 40 for 12 seconds. Awakened Athalia's Piercing Aura raises the whole team's damage by 10% and Physical Pierce by 6 for every 5 Sacred Blades she collects, up to three times. Hybris deals 50% more damage to the enemy with the highest Attack Rating, which in a boss fight is usually the boss. Laios' meals heal the whole team every 8 seconds, and Jerome's ultimate halves the damage everyone takes for 7 seconds.

Cha Hae-in is a Warrior too and can replace Laios. The Relic's Soul lets one hero per team borrow your highest relic level, so a single non-Warrior can join without losing the bonus. The title tasks still ask for all five core relics later, which the Abyssal Expedition guide covers along with boss health and the Harvest Totem that shrinks the rice fields.