Summoners Greed is an idle tower defense where you play the villain — you summon monsters along a path to stop heroes reaching your stolen chest. The trap most players fall into is spreading upgrades too thin. This guide is built from the game's own systems and community creator consensus, reworded. For where individual monsters rank see the Tier List; for loadouts see Best Teams; for charms see the Charm tier list.
The one rule: don't spread your resources
Leveling cost scales hard, and stars cost Power Stones. Taking one monster to a high level beats taking three to a medium level every time.
Pick one main attacker per element you need and pour into it. Everything else is a booster, a slow, or a utility unit that barely needs levels.
This is why the Tier List weighs upgrade cost, not just power — an expensive Legendary or event 'Special' can be strong and still be the wrong pick, because the resources it eats would do more on a cheap Mythical.
Rarities, and what to actually spend on
Common / Rare — pure early game. Level to ~200, then drop them. Commons star up fastest, which is a real early boost when gold is tight.
Epic — mostly early game too, except the three totems (Speedy, Mighty, Sluggy) and a couple of others. Max the totems.
Legendary — your early-game main attackers. Pick ONE cheap one (Ash, Frostbite, Puffy, Kevin) and level it to 500+. Avoid the expensive ones (Felina, Orc Hunter, Deep One) entirely — they drain you for no lasting payoff.
Special (event units) — almost all skippable. The exceptions are Hellhound (best attack boost) and Archimedes (global freeze). Everything else is too expensive for what it does.
Mythical — the real endgame. Cheap to upgrade, strong, and the 50-summon guarantee lets you pick the ones you need. This is where your resources should go once you're past the early game.
Evolution
Evolving a monster (with duplicate copies / evolution material) unlocks a stronger form and often a better skill — Ash → Dust, Frostbite → Glacial Frostbite, Poseidon → Swoleseidon, and so on.
Evolve the units you're actually keeping: your main attacker, your boosters, your slow. Evolving an early-game Common or a monster you'll replace next week is wasted material.
Some skills change meaningfully on evolution (Loand gets a big attack jump, Archimedes just gets prettier). Check what the evolved skill does before spending.
Boosters and placement
A booster only helps the towers its aura covers. Placing Speedy/Horus and Mighty/Hellhound so their range overlaps your main damage dealer is as important as which units you pick.
Speed is the biggest multiplier in the game — a speed booster is almost never a wrong slot. Horus with his charm turns his boost map-wide.
Anubis's 5× damage mark makes everything behind it hit far harder — it belongs on nearly every serious loadout, and it needs no leveling.
Farming: gold and Power Stones
Gold gates leveling; Power Stones gate stars. Both are farmed by clearing a repeatable map fast, many times.
Osiris (1.5× gold) earns a slot on any map you re-run. The Ice Queen Nightmare map is the usual gold farm.
Put a gold-drop or Power-Stone-drop charm on a dedicated farm unit (Hanzo is the classic) and leave it on the farm map.
Only farm a map you clear almost instantly — clear speed is the whole equation.
Early-game order of operations
1. Clear the story to unlock game modes and higher farm maps.
2. Get one cheap Legendary main attacker to level 500 and evolve it.
3. Max the three totems (Speedy, Mighty, Sluggy).
4. Start pulling for the Mythicals you need — Horus, Anubis, Osiris, Athena, and a main attacker for your element are the priority chases.
5. Once you have Anubis, learn the insta-kill pairings (Anubis + Deathbite, Anubis + Devon) — they unlock the hardest maps.
6. Only then start on the elemental modes, Kami Pantheon and the Master's Challenge.