I have a ways to go, but I am on my third SAsc, and I thought I would plan out my next Insane Artifact.

I currently have AV, A$B, and TW.

Right now, the main contenders are:
ACB, HB, SAC, QS/TS, and $B.
But there are a few things to consider with each.

Army Camp Boost - Reliable all around. I just invest 100/150% through AP (since it’s cheap), so this would be a huge boost to help get to that first Market.

Hospital Boost - Excellent choice, but the I can get away with a Rare HB if a better Insane choice takes its place.

Supercharge Army Camp - With Clan War bonus, this is essentially full time SAC. I did the math, and if I have 0% AP boost, then I need 6 camps for ACB to be better. 12 camps at 100% boost and 15 at 150%. Downside is that if I finish a level early, then it is dead weight until it recharges. Generally I can just use an Epic SAC if I want an early level boost for a request or WZIB.

Quad/Triple Strike - Level breaking for certain levels with a huge wasteland (for lack of better term) like HEH. But it seems like a bit of a waste overall. It would help for those levels where I accidentally strand myself with no more Mercs.

Cache Boost - Complements A$B, but I suspect that HB would be a better investment.

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Essentially, they boil down to 3 pairs of similar effects:

ACB/SAC - Increased army production to help levels start faster. SAC is stronger unless you have a lot of Artifacts, but it has strings attached. ACB is reliable and gives flexibility, but lacks the oomph.

HB/$B - Both are great for attacking and are the best after A$B for taking territories. I think that HB is the better of the two, but a Rare/Epic HB is still good. $B is only worth considering at maybe Legend.

QS/TS - Both are game breaking at Legend to bust levels with a big wasteland. QS is stronger (slightly), but TS is more flexible. As far as I can tell, QS works for most levels I would even consider using it on. These are the lowest on the totem pole for consideration.

(Bonus consideration is Mercenary Discount for obvious reasons, but money tends not to be a problem with InsAV except for very rare occasions/levels.)

I am leaning towards ACB for the flexibility and early boost that it affords. Second choice would be HB.

I just wanted to hear the thoughts of others. Thanks.

Edited 2026-04-10 14:13:30

How do you play? Do you SAC/Clan request than TW/Clan Request than SAC/Clan request than wait 8 hours and repeat? Or do you keep all 3 slots open so you can use A$B CB and HB? If you are 3 slots open well ACB is likely the best to get started. If you are don't mind having all your slots with active than QS. I lost FS spreadsheet but I believe very few levels have TS better than QS.

Insane SAC is largely pointless except for WZIB. Even a poor SAC is perfectly fine otherwise as generally it should stop mattering at all as soon as you hit the first market. Even better is to not use SAC at all though so you can keep 3 slots open for passives.

My choice would be A^B or CB. A^B helps a lot with the terrible early levels and also helps you get a CRA off faster. CB helps with cache surfs, although with an Insane A$B already in the bag, the improvement will be less noticeable and you're mainly taking it for the extra end game armies.

You might consider running the numbers of the armies delta between 6% more HB (Rare -> Insane) vs 25.6% more ICA (none -> Insane CB) if you don't care about the other benefits of CB, IIRC HB wins that battle in more cases than you might expect.

If you play Idle than using actives is good. If you play continuous than keeping three slots open is better.

Krinid really seem to push the active artifact tactic while Ivan pushed keep the 3 slots open.

SAC is useful when you still don't have the AM to finish a level but SAC above Epic is for battles.

Thanks for the input.

Yes, I use SAC to start off a level to get a request to zip to the first Market.

Based on the discussions, I agree that locking a slot is not the best choice.

Technically, SAC is almost always better than ACB when active, but if a level is finished quickly, then its usefulness drops off.

Based on this, I see (at least for me) that HB>CB and ACB>SAC (in terms of priority to upgrade).

As it stands, it looks like passives are going to serve me better than actives considering that I always have 1 slot taken by an Insane TW.

I’ll revisit SAC/QS/TS once I have enough openings to carry them over with a SAsc. Thanks.

This was for future planning purposes. Right now, I only have space to carry 1 Legend in addition to my 3 Insane next SAsc (in a couple weeks).

Basically, I’m looking at ACB vs HB. I am leaning towards ACB to power through the early levels and hope that I get lucky with an early HB.

I could potentially carry the Legend ACB with a lower tier HB so that I don’t have to hunt for one, but I would have to skip the 25% AP bonus.

I think I’ll try my luck.

I did something similar and let RNG serve me up a HB for the first many SAs until I had room to keep one persistently. Unsurprisingly, RNG stabbed me in the back a number of times and other times less so. One time I pulled an Epic HB out of one of the first digs I did in an SA, that was good.

I have the following Insane(s): Draft Boost, Alloy Values, Time Warp, Supersharge Army Camp, Quad Strike, and Army Cache Boost.

AV, DB, and ACB seem to make the most difference when gaining armies and generating troops for mercs. TW lets me activate an artifact and then almost immediately let it cool down (with Clan Wars bonus) which is really helpful for QS and SAC. SAC works well on early levels, especially when paired with clan requests.

After 6, on my last super-ascend, I choose 25% more points to SAC faster this time.

^^What Mindori said (:

It depends on your play style, but if you like to drop in, advance a bit, drop out and come back later, Insane IM, TS, QS are top notch imho.

You can raid a merc camp, pop the 2 largest terrs in sight, come back 16h later to advance things. If you have 4 slots, do all the above, then pop back 8h later and make the call if you're ready to finish the level or not.

If you're more of an active player or already have TW, IM, TS, QS, then imho Cache Boost, Money Cache Boost, Merc Discounts, Tech Discount are the next biggest contenders. Field Hospital is also kind of fun but imho not as useful as TS/QS b/c of the 'refund' aspects of those 2. Pop them on big terrs and increasing your armies is a wild concept, too good to be true

If you have those ... Territory/Bonus Money Boost, Hospital Discount can come in useful

Item Values, Craft/Smelt Double, Efficient Smelters/Crafters, Army/Money/Resource Cache, Fog Buster and all the rest are only necessary if you're going for a full Insane set

You mean to imply that Insane Fog Buster shouldn’t be a strong contender? I’m shocked

I SA'd with ISAC, IACB and IACB. My drafts and caches are more than double when SAC is activated. Downside is I didn't get any money boost until the middle of my second run through (Scandinavia) and was starving for money until I finally started getting money artifacts. I need to ascend one more time before I SA again and am planning on taking a legendary money boost this time. I now expect subsequent SA's to take less than 6 months.

When you say "money boost", do you mean MCB, or do you mean AV? I notice that your arti lineup is missing the absolute, hands down, unquestionably, most important artifact, which is Legendary AV.

Since you mention your SAs taking 6 months or more (and also the missing AV), I'm guessing you may not be aware of "Market Strategy", https://war.app/Forum/572780-514-marketbased-strategy is a good starting point.

I think you missed it Fancy.

"I currently have AV, A$B, and TW." implying they are all Insane.

I think it takes so long as he is either dig for the next insane or doesn't play very often as 6 months does seem a long time.

My previous comment was directed at El_Hombre (the previous poster), not Z (the OP).