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.