How to Counter Armanz in Arena

Armanz the Magnificent is infamous for being one of the strongest arena champions in Raid: Shadow Legends. As a Fusion champion from March 2024, it’s pretty common for players to have to fight Armanz in almost every single fight in the arena.

In this article we break down 7 different steps that you can take to counter Armanz in Live Arena, Classic, Tag, and even Siege.

As always, let us know your tips in the comment section down below as well!

Although this is piece of advice is so obvious that it’s not very helpful, it still has to be number one for a reason: Armanz is literally so strong compared to the champions that most players have that he should be picked and banned in most matches.

The other tips here will help and give you alternatives, but you’ll still have to resort to a ban fairly often in Live Arena. Make sure to draft the rest of your team expecting to have to ban Armanz, or surprise your enemy by following the other tips in this article and letting Armanz through.

The most consistent way to counter Armanz is to out speed him and lock him out. Armanz is terrifying because his turn meter steal can lock you into an inescapable chain of crowd control. Lockout stops him from using his active skills–problem solved!

Since players usually build Armanz fast and accurate, he is almost never in 2-turns of Stoneskin. Even epic lockout champions such as Basher or Alika can lock him out for 1 turn, leaving him exposed for your damage dealers.

Recent free login champion Loki the Deceiver can achieve a similar result with his A2, but (unlike lockout) his Block Active Skills debuff will not go through Stoneskin.

The challenge here is winning the speed race. Armanz has high base speed, is usually built to be fast, and has a strong speed aura. You need to make sure that you have higher speed champions, a competitive speed aura, and the Intimidating Presence blessing to swing the aura in your favour even more (e.g. an Arbiter in full speed gear).

This strategy is harder to execute in live arena since your speed booster, speed aura, or, most importantly, your lockout champion can be banned in return.

The more champions you have with high blessings, the stronger Polymorph becomes against Armanz. Both his A2 and A3 can trigger the Polymorph blessing. Place your champions with Polymorph high up in the team order so they will interrupt Armanz’ abilities and protect champions placed behind them.

This strategy is, by definition, a gamble, but when it works it can let you beat an otherwise unbeatable Armanz team. Polymorph is also effective against Bomb champions or any other champion that relies on removing buffs or placing debuffs.

Stoneskin completely blocks Armanz A2, so gearing your entire team in Stoneskin makes his A2 be completely wasted if used at the start of the battle.

Against AI controlled opponents (i.e. in every Arena mode that is not Live Arena), a default AI setup for Armanz will actually use his A1 on his first turn if enough enemies are in Stoneskin. Alternatively, many players may set up his AI to open with A2, which Stoneskin also counters.

Unfortunately, his A3 is one of the best counters to Stoneskin in the game, but he can only target one champion directly. The buff strip effect it does to your other 3 champions has a 50/50 chance to be blocked by your other Stoneskin buffs, so at least some of your team can survive and get a turn.

If using this strategy in Live Arena, it is usually best if you have 2 damage dealers on the team, since Armanz can otherwise simply A3 your single damage dealer and remove your only kill threat.

The Intercept buff from the Pinpoint set (or a small number of champions) can block the Stun debuff from Armanz’ A2 or the Polymorph from his A3. This means that a champion in 4-piece Stoneskin and 4-piece Pinpoint in totally protected from Armanz on turn 1 (Odin Faefather is a common example that you might see streamers use).

The anti-speed boys of olde, both Tormin the Cold and Hegemon are strong champions to counter Armanz, particularly if your opponent is using other vulnerable speed champions like Arbiter.

Hegemon will only work if the Armanz does not have Stoneskin. If this is the case, you can either have a high damage Hegemon who can attempt to one-shot the enemy, or a control Hegemon with a Stun set and high accuracy who can attempt to disrupt Armanz with his A1 or A2.

Tormin cannot prevent Armanz from taking a turn like Hegemon can, but he can be a strong counter in longer fights thanks to his passive giving many chances to Freeze Armanz due to the many sources of turn meter boosting that Armanz has in his kit.

Since Armanz is Magic affinity and his A2 is an attack, he has a 35% chance to weak hit Force affinity champions. This can be enough to swing the fight in your favour!

Watch out for his A3, which is not an attack and therefore is unaffected by affinities.

Starsage Galathir is a top tier example of a good Force affinity champion for anyone lucky to have him, since he can cleanse off Armanz’ Stun and turn meter boost his team–or even swap to his second form and place Block Active Skills or Stun on the Armanz. Alika is a great Force affinity epic who can lockout Armanz. Pythion is a great Force affinity legendary who is a bit like a budget Galathir, cleansing and reviving.

This is a sneaky old school strategy to counter Armanz that is coming back into fashion thanks to the Bomb meta. Cardinal is an epic champion with a very special team revive, since she brings your team back with maximum turn meter. This is, unintuitively, different from full turn meter, since turn meters can overfill–i.e. maximum turn meter is better and will ensure your champions instantly take a turn! (They have changed the more recent nomenclature for this to the “Extra Turn” effect but Cardinal has never been updated.)

If you’re expecting to be overrun by an Armanz speed team, you can build a slow Cardinal in 2-turns of Stoneskin with high resistance. Simply wait for the enemy to kill the rest of your team while cardinal resists his A3 and survives in Stoneskin, then revive them all and wipe out the Armanz team.

An example of this team is: Yoshi the Drunkard, Madame Serris, Thor Faehammer, Cardinal. Increase Attack and Increase Accuracy with Yoshi, strip buffs and debuff with Madame, then nuke them with Thor.