Every Summoners Greed map is an endless wave defence: you hold a lane against monsters that get tougher every wave until you can't. This page covers the order maps unlock in, the suggested tower level for each, what the difficulty tiers change, what the side modes are for, and why every loadout eventually hits a wall.
How the campaign is built
The story is a chain of themed maps, each ending on a named boss. Clearing a map unlocks the next one, and story progress is also what unlocks the game modes and the higher farm maps.
Each map exists at up to four difficulty tiers — Normal, Hard, Nightmare, and the separate Insane variant. Higher tiers want a much higher tower level and pay out better materials for the same clear.
You never 'finish' a map. You clear its wave cycle, beat the boss, and then the waves keep coming and repeating the boss, harder each loop. 'Clearing' a difficulty just means beating its boss once.
Campaign map order
The early ladder, with the tower level the game suggests for each step. The first three maps (The King, Ragefist Chieftain, The Joint Revenge) each come in Normal, Hard and Nightmare; the numbers below are roughly where each tier becomes comfortable.
Later themed maps (Ice Queen's Storm, Summoner's Backyard, Meat of the Matter, Volcano Goddess's Eruption, Kami Pantheon's Reckoning, Spectre Club) unlock as you push and follow the same Normal → Hard → Nightmare structure.
| Map / step | Suggested level | Boss |
|---|---|---|
| The King — Normal | 1+ | The King |
| Ragefist Chieftain — Normal | 60+ | Ragefist Chieftain |
| The Joint Revenge — Insane | 120+ | Ragefist Chieftain |
| The King — Hard | 140+ | The King |
| Ragefist Chieftain — Hard | 200+ | Ragefist Chieftain |
| The Joint Revenge — Insane (Hard) | 320+ | Ragefist Chieftain |
| Meat of the Matter — Normal | 380+ | Spiralhorn Chieftain |
| The King — Nightmare | 440+ | The King |
| Ragefist Chieftain — Nightmare | 500+ | Ragefist Chieftain |
| The Joint Revenge — Insane (Nightmare) | 560+ | Ragefist Chieftain |
| Meat of the Matter — Hard | 590+ | Spiralhorn Chieftain |
| Summoner's Backyard — Normal | 800+ | Queen Bee |
Difficulty tiers — when to move up
Normal is where you clear the boss the first time and start farming. Hard roughly doubles the health curve and wants you meaningfully above the suggested level. Nightmare is a long-term farm you grow into over weeks — the drops per clear are the best in the game.
Insane maps (The Joint Revenge) are a separate, harder track that mixes both bosses' mechanics; treat their suggested level as a hard requirement, not a suggestion.
Rule of thumb: only sit on the highest tier you can still clear the boss on quickly. If a run takes minutes to reach the boss, drop a tier — a fast clear on Hard out-farms a slow grind on Nightmare.
Special modes
The Master's Challenge (boss: Master Summoner) — a rotating puzzle mode with fixed monster, buff and video modifiers each run. Good rewards, but it checks specific answers rather than raw power.
The Evil Summoner — a chest-defence event: you protect a target instead of a lane. Different placement priorities.
Elemental modes — The Ice Queen's Tempest (Ice), Wrath of the Volcano Goddess (Fire), Kami Pantheon's Retribution (Lightning), each with that element's boss (Ice Queen, Goddess of the Volcano, Fujin). These are the reliable source of element evolution stones (Ice / Fire / Lightning Stone) and the element-damage charms — run the one matching your main attacker's element.
The Cosmic Tower (boss: Lord of the Tower) — the Cosmic-element endgame. This is the only place Cosmic Damage and the Lord of the Tower's Eye charm matter.
Pirate maps — a 30-stage side track that unlocks the Pirate-rarity towers.
Zodiac — a rotating seasonal mode tied to the 12 zodiac signs, with its own shop and the two Zodiac towers (Sagittarius, Capricorn) and their signature charms.
Endless waves and where a loadout walls
Enemy health rises a few percent every wave and it compounds. A loadout that flattens wave 100 will start leaking around some later wave and then fall off fast — the wall is a curve, not a cliff, and it moves out every time you add levels, stars or a better charm.
Milestone rewards keep dropping as you climb — Power Stones, gold and gems on a repeating schedule, logged out past 1,600 waves — so a deep run on a map you clear slowly still pays, it just pays less per minute than a fast farm loop.
A travelling salesman appears every few waves offering a pick of a tower, a charm or gold. Take the charm or tower upgrade over gold once you are established.
The map's boss returns at the end of every wave cycle, tougher each loop. How far you get is set by how hard your defence scales versus that compounding curve.
Which map to farm
Farm the highest-difficulty map you can auto-clear almost instantly, many times over — clear speed is the whole equation. The Ice Queen Nightmare map is the usual gold farm once you can hold it.
Put Osiris (1.5x gold) on any map you re-run, and a coin-drop or Power-Stone-drop charm on a dedicated farm unit — Hanzo is the classic holder. See the progression guide for the full farm setup and spend order.