ValSolitary check out these zone 2 setups:
https://prnt.sc/q4m1v5
https://prnt.sc/q4m1i8
I believe these are basically the best you can get (eventually sub out investor dogs for imps if you wanna go hard on wood for ascensions)
It seems that there are quite a few viable strategies. Personally, I put knights on top and have them focus on defense. Keep a strong presence at all times and overwhelm with force of numbers. In the middle, have spearmen. Put a few on the bottom half, the rest on the top, and spam their lunge ability while clearing with bombs. On the bottom lane, go mages. keep them spread out and use the laser ability frequently, but don't spam it. My upgrade path goes mana regen -> both troop capacity upgrades -> max mana -> bombs. Never lost a battle.
The game idea is amazing, but unfortunately much of the strategy can be cheesed by jumping in place repeatedly (the magic number for each location is 2 jumps).
Here's one hint. When you are gathering the shadowslayer armor and there are enemy rogues everywhere, press tab a few times when you enter a new area to target and locate anything that's hiding.
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 "Puzlogic Plus"){kind=icon}
 "Creature Card Idle"){kind=icon}
 "Pacifish"){kind=icon}
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 "Pixelo"){kind=icon}
 "Hippolyta"){kind=icon}
 "Hexagon"){kind=icon}
 "Hover Bot Arena"){kind=icon}
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You can thank anthropomorphism for that one.