Metagross31

Yeah is started sending the mails, and then got a phone call 😅
will try to send the rest later this evening 🙂 

I had a lot of fun with this! Please do more soon. 🙂

The majority of our playerbase is in Europe (CET timezone). You should be able to easier find matches in the evening hours (19:00 ->) and weekends. 

aaaah finally, another reason to drink lots of alcohol to drown the despair inside
 

Hype! Lot of challenges in front of us, but I say we will prevail! 

Greetings Skylords!
A new month; a new Community Update! It's time to bring you up to speed with everything going on in Skylords Reborn!

• Season #1 - Primordial Fire - Month #2

Last month, we released a patch that kicked off our very first Season, and the reception has been largely positive! Player numbers have gone up, and Skylords are enjoying the fresh challenges the season brings. This season will last for four months: June, July, August, and September.
Unfortunately, with so many moving parts, some bugs were inevitable. Our team has worked hard to fix as many of them as quickly as possible. We've addressed these issues through several hotfix patches, which you can find in the patch notes here. Some of these hotfixes include minor touch-ups related to the season, such as description clarifications and small UI improvements. The update from June 29th also included minor balance changes, so be sure to check out the patch notes.
We'd like to take this opportunity to address a few topics that have come up frequently since the season's release:
 
Connection Problems for Russian Players

We've noticed that some Russian players are experiencing issues connecting to our server, which is located in Germany. Although these issues began around the time of our patch release, they are actually the result of sanctions outside of our control.
We're currently exploring alternatives, such as hosting a VPS in another region to forward traffic. We expect to have more information within the next 1 to 3 months. In the meantime, we advise affected players to use a VPN to connect.
 
Nightmare Challenges

We’ve seen some players expressing frustration about not being able to complete certain challenges or finding them too difficult. We want to emphasize that Nightmare challenges are intended for the highest-level players and are not required to earn the top rewards. You will be able to unlock Promo Sunderer this season without completing any Nightmare missions. However, you will need to complete the second and third batches of challenges (along with most repeatables), which will be released today and in August.
We highly advise players not to burn out on a specific challenge if you are not having fun. We’ve tried to include content for everyone this season. That means some challenges may feel too easy, while others may feel too difficult, depending on your playstyle. But remember: you don’t need to complete everything. We do encourage you to try strategies outside your comfort zone, but at the end of the day, it’s all about enjoying the game. And if you do want to conquer a particular challenge, the community is more than happy to help. Be sure to check out our Discord if you're looking for advice or teammates!
 
Dwarfen Stronghold

Challenge 2.5 requires players to complete two community maps. It reads: 
Win the 4-player featured community maps Dwarfen Stronghold Rework and Twisted Legends on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members using decks that contain 10 or more Fire, Twilight or Bandits cards.
Some players experience a crash or error when trying to host the map Dwarfen Stonghold Rework.
To fix this, close the game, go into your doc/BattleForge/map folder and delete all instances of Dwarfen. After restarting the game, you should now be able to download the correct map and host your match.
 
Filtering for Twilight Edition

Challenge 2.8 has caused some confusion among the player base. It reads:
Complete 5 different campaign maps or featured community maps on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members using decks that contain only Fire, Twilight or Bandits cards, none of which are from the Twilight edition.
Back when the original BattleForge came out, cards were released in expansions, with the base set being called the Twilight Edition, and cards were purchasable in boosters from specific expansions. When we overhauled the economy to free-to-play, we actually removed those edition-boosters, and replaced them for faction-boosters instead. While this was a great improvement, it also means that non-veteran players were never really exposed to the "Twilight Edition'' naming. This was an oversight on our part when we created this challenge. 
 


To clarify; cards from the Twilight Edition all have the Sunrise Icon, are only Nature, Shadow, Frost and Fire (so no hybrid/neutral), and have no affinities. Even though the name might imply it, the Twilight Edition contains no cards from the Twilight faction.
For this specific challenge, there is actually a filter you can use to exclude every card from the Twilight Edition. If you write the following text into the search bar of your inventory, you are left with all cards that are not included in the Twilight edition:
!(edition=twilight)
Just remember that challenge 2.8 also restricts you to Fire, Bandits or Twilight (the faction, not the edition!) cards, though you can easily filter for those with the elemental buttons on the left. 
If you want to know more about filtering options, have a look at our Advanced Filtering document. It goes into detail what is possible with the search bar, and how it came to be. 
 
Fire Wormlings

Fire Wormlings, unfortunately, hold the questionable honor of being the most problematic card in the history of this project. Initially intended as a new type of archer to be placed on walls, it had to be completely redesigned after model issues made that original concept impossible. Then, after finally being released, the card caused lag spikes when played for extended periods. Thankfully, we were able to fix those lag issues relatively quickly, but soon after, another problem surfaced: players began reporting widespread desync issues.

Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to identify and fix the root cause of these desyncs.
To better understand the complexity of the situation, consider the following:
- Fire Wormlings is a resized version of an XL model.
- It's a squad unit, based on a model that was never originally intended for use in a squad.
- Its attack lays down a unique visual effect that deals damage over time.
- It has a buff that checks for specific unit classes nearby, activating and deactivating accordingly.
- It uses the worm model, which moves in a very unique way, basically teleporting across the map while appearing to burrow underground.
- Desyncs are reported in most matches where Fire Wormlings are played.
- In single-player matches, the desync warning does not appear, but replays are often out of sync with the actual match.
- None of our tests so far have been able to pinpoint the issue with certainty.

We’ve been testing a variety of solutions, including removing the passive ability, resizing the worm, or converting it to a single unit. While we still lack a definitive answer, current evidence suggests the desyncs are related to the movement behavior of the worm model. Similar reports have occurred for the original XL worms in the past, but those units are played less frequently, and later in matches, due to them being Tier 4. Additionally, those issues have been rare and hard to reproduce consistently. We suspect that the combination of smaller size and squad mechanics increases the likelihood of movement-based desyncs. For instance, if the squad moves over uneven terrain or is knocked around, parts of the squad can get separated or stuck, increasing instability.
We considered temporarily restricting the card in multiplayer, until we discovered the same issue also affects single-player matches. Adding to the challenge is the open in-game market. While Fire Wormlings is part of the season rewards, some players have paid a significant amount of BFP to acquire it. Simply removing the card and refunding players isn't viable, since that also raises questions about how to handle those who sold the card. We obviously don't like players not being able to use their new cards. At the same time, players are currently asking each other to stop using the card, basically banning it from play anyway. 
We considered replacing the model entirely and reworking the card from scratch, but this would also require new artwork, effectively meaning we’d need to remove the Wormlings and create a completely new unit. This would be a months-long process and would seriously disrupt our planning. Fire Wormlings is also heavily featured in our marketing for the season, so removing it is something we hope to avoid.

So, where does that leave us?
We are currently testing a version of Fire Wormlings that removes the squad mechanic, and results so far have been promising. However, we still haven’t found a consistent fix for the desyncs, and we’re increasingly concerned that the worm model itself might be inherently problematic. 
Because of this, we’re also exploring the option to rework the burrow movement, potentially replacing it with a more generic movement style while maintaining a similar visual through existing animations. However, we are limited in our options here, considering we don't have the source code and can not create new models or animations yet. 
We hope this breakdown helps players understand why Fire Wormlings is still not fixed and why solving the issue has been so challenging. Due to our limited testing capacity, we are now considering deploying the most promising version of the card to the live server soon, to collect feedback and data from the broader player base. We would also like to expand our internal testing, so if you want to help out as a tester, consider reaching out. 
With your help, we hope to finally identify the exact cause and deliver a stable version of the card for everyone to enjoy.
 
Changes mid-season

Many of you have already shared what you like and dislike about various aspects of the season. From challenges and rewards to UI and descriptions, your feedback is incredibly valuable in helping us determine whether we’re on the right track. While we’ve already been able to implement some quality-of-life improvements based on your input, not all suggestions can be incorporated mid-season. That said, we are carefully observing what works and what doesn’t, and we will take this into account for future seasons.
Common feedback includes the option to play Standard difficulty on certain challenges, less restrictive deck-building, and the concern that neutral/legendary cards are not playable in any future season with the current setup. We’ll definitely keep this feedback in mind as we prepare for Season 2. 
 
Non-seasonal content

We’re also hard at work on a new patch unrelated to seasonal content. While we believe it’s important to offer exciting rewards through the seasonal track, you can still expect new cards and new map releases through content patches, just like we did before the introduction of seasons.
While we don’t have anything concrete to share just yet, we expect to have more to announce soon!
 
• Seasonal Challenges Batch #2

As we enter the second month of this season, a batch of additional challenges is now available!
The following challenges are now active:
 
 20+10 1  3.1 - Survive until the end on the survival community map, The Last Soultree on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire cards.     20+10 1  3.2 - Win the 1-player scenarios Behind Enemy Lines and Siege of Hope on advanced difficulty or higher, with you playing only Fire cards and no building cards.     20+10 1  3.3 - Win the 2-player scenario, Crusade and the 1-player featured community map Spooky Encounters on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire cards of Tier 2 or below.     20+10 1  3.4 - Win the 4-player scenarios Empire and Raven's End on advanced difficulty or higher, with all team members playing only Fire or Neutral cards, with units of Tier 2 and above being Neutral units.  
We hope you enjoy the current batch of challenges! The final set of challenges (including new Nightmare missions) will release in August. Players will then have the entire month of September to complete any remaining challenges before we wrap up this first season.
After the season concludes, players will be able to use the new Relic resource to purchase any missed seasonal cosmetics rewards, including the Promo Sunderer, through the Relic Shop. Relics can be earned during the season by completing challenges and by beating the weekly map affected by a map modifier. The Fire Boosters and the cards Fire Wormlings, Hellhound and Treasure Wagon will not be purchasable with relics however. The new cards will drop from boosters after the season has concluded. 
Our next season will also feature relics that can be used to purchase rewards from Season #1 – Primordial Fire.
 
• New Card Reveal - Amii Ashrider

While players continue with the first season, we are constantly working on additional content and are once again able to give you a sneak peek into a future new card. We have already expanded the Amii unit roster with various new cards: Amii Paladins, Amii Sentinel, Skydancer and Energy Core. Now that Elkondo has settled into our art department, we are able to create a new tier 2 unit for the faction.
Let's take a look at Amii Ashrider!

Please note: We are still working on the card. While we are generally happy with it, numbers and effects might still change before release.  

 
Ride of the Amii
When the unit is surrounded by 3 other friendly Ashriders in a 25m radius, it moves at high speed (8.0 m/s) and knocks back small and medium units dealing 25 damage, up to 100 in total.
 
Elusive
Units with Elusive have the duration of the immobilizing effects of Freeze and Paralyze reduced by 10%.
 

Design notes:
There are several cards in the game with movement knockback mechanics that deal damage. These are mostly confined to the higher tiers and besides the reworked Colossus are found on ranged units like the Worms or the hybrid melee-ranged unit Thunderwagon. When we were thinking of a new Amii T2 unit, we thought it was time to finally put the movement damage effect on a lower tier unit. Particularly, we thought it would fit with a horse-based Amii unit, therefore allowing players to simulate performing a cavalry charge. As can be seen with the new Treasure Wagon card, having a perpetual M-sized trample effect in T2 provides a substantial amount of crowd control.
Ashrider is our first non-T4 Amii unit made specifically for PvE. Other Amii units, towers, and spells are on the way to flesh out the faction's T2 and T3 arsenal in PvE and allow players to enjoy a full Amii deck from T2 onwards.
Amii Ashrider will release in an upcoming content patch, date to be announced. 
 
• Art Spotlight - Amii Ashrider

Amii Ashrider was drawn by our artist Elkondo. Below, he will share what went into creating the new unit. Take it away Elkondo!   "The first challenge was to come up with a clear and distinct pose for the unit. Since Skylords Reborn already features multiple horseback units, it was important to differentiate it with a unique silhouette as well as colors."          "After some exploration, the pose was quickly decided, and with a quick paint-over, the general vision for the artwork became clear."     "At this stage all that was left was cleanup. The 'Ride of the Amii' skill causes the unit to leave behind a trail of green smoke - this was something we wanted to show in the artwork."
  "As cool as it was, however, it looked too much like flames. At the same time, we wanted to simplify the background to make the unit stand out a bit more. It took a few attempts to finally find contrast that works best."          "With the background done, it was time to polish the main subject a bit and add some much-needed details. We realized the attempted strong perspective on the rider didn't really work any more. The green flames were also removed to try a different look later."     "Lastly, alongside additional polish and new smoke effect, the lance was simplified and moved, as the previous intricate design didn't really fit the Amii aesthetic."  

And that is how our latest Amii unit got its artwork! We hope you are looking forward to Amii Ashrider! 
  • Team Changes
  We are happy to announce that two new members have joined our volunteer team!   First off, VicRattlehead has joined our team as a Discord Moderator, while also showing interest in helping out with development in the future.    Secondly, Arphox has already offered a lot of help in regards to improving our updater, and has now properly joined the team as a Tool developer with the goal of making more improvements.      Thank you both, and welcome to the team!  
• Contribute to Skylords Reborn
Skylords Reborn is a community-driven project fueled by the passion and dedication of over 50 volunteers. We are always on the lookout for like-minded individuals. If you have a passion for gaming, programming, design, or marketing, we invite you to have a look at our open positions!
 


Don't have time to formally join the staff, but still would like to help out? Please check out this guide on how to support Skylords Reborn as a community member.
 
• Events

In between our monthly Community Updates, we host various events and tournaments, so be sure to keep a close eye on the in-game event tab and the forum calendar to stay informed and not miss out on any exciting events!

Current events:
• STREAM - WINNER REVEAL: Battle of Tactics #9: The Great Mage Magician - 04.06.2025
Find out who is the greatest of the Great Mage Magicians and their mighty generals in the winner reveal stream of this 3-player event. Join Ultralord on July 4 at 7:00 PM on Twitch.
 
• FINISHED - The Skylords Reborn Spring Cup 2025
The Spring Cup was our second PvP tournament of the year, and it included some great matches. The tournament was hosted and livestreamed by Ultralord, and you can watch the action here. 
 
• NEW - PvP Tome Tournament - 06.07.2025 15:00 CET
Tome was a PvP game mode in the original BattleForge where players had to build their decks with cards from boosters. With everyone playing with random cards, there are bound to be some unconventional strategies! Please sign-up in advance. 
 
• COMING SOON - Crystal Solid Defence - PvE Event - Starting 11.07.2025 until 27.07.2025
While we arent ready to reveal this event just yet, be sure to check back in on the 11th for a new PvE Event!
 
 
• Host your own tournament / event
Want to host a tournament or event? Please reach out to our Event Organizers @Metagross31 or @Ultralord. We can help you out with various topics and are glad to discuss potential ideas. We can also sponsor the prize pool for your event. If you have a cool idea for a PvE event, or want to host a PvP tournament, please don't hesitate to reach out to us; we will gladly assist you.
 
• In Conclusion

That's all for this Community Update! We appreciate you taking the time to read through it.
As is tradition, we're including a scratch code as a small token of our appreciation for your support.
The code will reward you with a Fire booster: HEAT-LAVA-FIRE-CARD
This code is valid until August 1st, when we will bring you another Community Update.
We're always looking for ways to improve and value your feedback. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, please don't hesitate to share them with us. We'll be back next month with more updates on our ongoing projects and upcoming features.
You can also sign-up to our e-mail newsletter here.

Archive
• Skylords Reborn Documents (Deep Dives, Behind the Scenes, PvP Guide)  
• Overview Community Updates
• Community Update June 2025

Dont forget its the last weekend to show off that YOU are the Greatest of all GREAT MAGE MAGICIAN!

Added Promo Mana Wing in the First Post 🙂 

After many months found the time to update the initial post:
Added Into the Jungle & Unexpected Visitors Added Empire solo being possible Updated with the current all-time records as shown in-game For times not showing ingame, due to anti-cheat, please request thresholds to be lowered, and then perform a valid run again.
Feel free to check the table if I missed something.

Hey, these are some tips:
For difficulty 1 single player is faster than multiplayer on average Roll for a Bandits map as it has the least amount of hp per camp out of all factions Strikers + Mine offers a very fast and healthy clear  Adapt to the map layout. You can see camp structure even through fog of war. Plan ahead, avoid triggering early waves and don't waste time with unnecessary pathing. If you have Towers at the second row you can leave one squad of Strikers behind to finish them while the main army moves on Fire Bomb does great damage to structures for the last row. Try to hit the spawner and the Tower. It can also be used if there are any birds.  Sacrificing your army into a Banner of Glory just at the end. It grants you extra power to finish off the last enemies with eruptions. These 3-4 seconds might make the difference in the end.  I hope this is helpful, good luck with the challenge. 

After 2 days of struggle with Wine and several different launchers, I finally got it working. Plus it's a relatively simple, compared to the original method posted in this topic. I use Steam. It handles all the Wine stuff.

Here is what finally did it for me:
Download the game client (you only need part 1) from the official download page. IMPORTANT: check the integrity of the downloaded file!!! (I learned this the hard way). The download page tells you the checksums. Unzip the file to where you want the final game folder to be. start Steam. Click the "add external game to steam" button (bottom left in your steam library) In the dialog that steam opens, select the file of the game: use the file "SkylordsRebornUpdater.exe" from the folder you unzipped in step 3. The game is now listed in your Steam library. Rightclick it and go to settings. In the field starting options enter "PROTON_NO_D3D11=1 PROTON_NO_D3D10=1 %command%". This will prevent render bugs by forcing steam to use DirectX 9. In the same settings menu, go to the Compatibility section, activate compatibility mode and select the latest stable proton version. Start the game from Steam. This should now open the Skylords updater and it should patch the game. When it finishes, you can click the play button. If the updater tries to patch but the window closes before the patcher finishes, stop the game via Steam and do the following three things: Make sure that the unzipped game folder is not "read only". From the game folder, open the terminal and use "bash skylords-upd.sh" manually. This is an updater script that has been provided thankfully. Restart Steam and try step 8 again. The ingame patcher should patch the game now.  
Below is a video that shows the process. NOTE: the fixing in step 8 is not shown in the video.
Thanks to all the people contributing and sharing their findings :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDdliFWRAR8

What a great event. I hope you all had as much fun as i had.
You can rewatch the Event Stream here (with timestamps):

Hope to see you in the next one.

Hype 🤩

And so it begins the Great Battle for the Great Mages, to find out who is truly the GREAT MAGE MAGICIAN!!!

love the promo harvester pic

It feels like forever we played Tome - Cant wait to see the strange decks of our participants.  

Bonus: If you want to defend against the Twilight spawn building with minimal effort, play a Juggernaut and move it right next to the spawner. If you time a Stampede to go off right as the Twilight Manifestations spawns, you can destroy it without it spawning a single unit. The manifestation will respawn, but it takes a long enough time to allow the Stampede to recharge, so you can repeat this method indefinitely (assuming you have enough power at this point).

You can already make PvP-only decks, which helps a lot with organizing your decks.
What Riviute says is a nice approach imo - make it possible to create more categories and allow players to open/close (or rather fold/unfold) them.

I'd like to clarify two things:
- Promo Sunderer will not drop from boosters after the season. It will be purchasable with Relics though. 
- You will be able to collect Promo Sunderer in the season without doing Nightmare missions. You will need the 2nd and 3rd batch of challenges (in addition to some repeatable) though, which are releasing in July and August. 

5.2. Challenge
Took care to mostly avoid overly expensive cards BFP wise (like Spitfire). While I used Thunder wagons for firepower against Ravenships, they're optional.
Core cards:
- Any swift units, preferably nomads to avoid edge cases against artillery.
- Magma hurlers + Undying breed. Unity comes close to mandatory.
- Fire dragons + bloodthirst. Earthshaker and firespheres will also make your life easy, one of the two is strongly recommended.
https://smj.cards/deck?code=40410m0q0r0u0o6A06600w4B6C070E45650p0t0x&name=Slave+master+no+buildings+pure+fire+challenge
Fire slave master.pmv
Strategy in short:

Wait untill the Twillight breaches the rightmost wall segment. Latest is the 1st abom spawn. Secure the fire emitter and activate it. Nomads sneaks into the wall segment (wallbreak if neccesary) without artillery fire.
Congrats, you skipped T2. Magma hurler + melee to secure T4. Optimizing Undying breed is crucial to build T4 army.
Fire Dragon + Emberstriker + Bloodthirst should secure the rest.
Deck is not meant to defend the emitter, only delay.
Rest of deck is free-style.

Took care to mostly avoid overly expensive cards BFP wise (like Spitfire). While I used Thunder wagons for firepower, they're optional.
Core cards:
- T1 Nomads(R), fire bombs (to deal with Deep Ones), Makeshift tower
- T2 Fire Stalkers, lava field
- T3, Magma hurlers + unity. Use Spitfire by preference but Voodoo shack at your starting is also a viable substitute to destroy MoTK and several other buildings
- T4, technically free style but Fire dragons + Bloodthirst is strongly preferred.

Deck used:
https://smj.cards/deck?code=40630b0d0m0q0r0u0304430o060N0l4B0E450p0t&name=Titans+pure+fire

Strategy in short:
Description is mostly for Pos 4 since it's the most difficult. I suggest going north first since it has 4 wells.
Red Nomads are used to 2-shot the Swamp drake. Go in with 4 Nomads incase 1 gets caught by Deep One or sniped by Living tower.
Use fire stalkers + spells to clear your way to T3.
Use Magma hurlers + Unity to get through the rest. Use by preference Spitfire but Voodoo shack can also be used from your starting position.
Finish off with fire dragons + bloodthirst.
Note:Jorne can be blocked with buildings at entry.
Titans pos 3.pmv

Introduction
Hello there,
After receiving several questions about this, I decided to make a short guide on solving the current Nightmare challenge of solo-ITJ with a pure Fire deck. The challenge is definitely one of the hardest ones the Fire season has to offer, but with some tips and tricks it is certainly managable. I will mostly try to cover the general concepts you need to understand in order to solve the map consistently. For those who just want to see a replay, I attached my personal solution at the end of this post.
In terms of deck building I will try to cover alternative options for expensive cards, whenever possible. Based on my experience, the only completely mandatory card from a high price range would be Mine (fortunately no charges required), even though I would heavily suggest running Shrine of War as well. Every other rare/ultra-rare can be replaced in some form. 
The goal of this guide is about offering a consistent way to clear all three camps before the timer runs out. Theoretically, it is also possible to lean towards defending at later stages of the game as Tower of Flames, Pyromaniac (r) and Morklay Trap are reasonably powerful buildings, but this would be significantly slower and much more difficult to pull off. Every missed timer can potentially lead to a loss. After you learned how to clear the three camps in time consistently, it will be much easier to solve this challenge.
T1 Stage
Required Cards: Strikers*, Mine, Suppression, Blaster Cannon
*Can be replaced by Nomad (green), but I highly recommend using Strikers for this map. For those who don't know, damage reduction buffs get amplified on targets with unity effects like "Gang Up" making them almost twice as effective. This allows Strikers to scale as tanks into T2 when paired with Fire Force (blue), making them a stronger choice than Nomad on this map. 
Task 1: Defending the waves
First of all you need to deal with two waves attacking your main base right away. Dealing with this isn't difficult per se, but when playing alone you want to spent as little power for your defense as possible. It is important to make a lot of early progress on the map and ideally clear some power wells to make up for the economy deficit as quickly as possible.  
The important thing you need to know is that each of these two waves respawns two minutes after being cleared. Keeping one unit alive will delay the respawn of the entire wave. Clear the eastern wave first with Strikers and your Amii Phantoms, but keep one of the Maulers alive. The wall at your main base will keep it busy for minutes and you don't need to worry about additional attacks as long as the Mauler stays alive. Do NOT do this freeze with one of the ranged units as they are much more prone to follow your units around the side path instead of staying at the wall. It is the preferred method for speedrunning, but overly complicated for a normal playthrough. Also make sure you don't lose a unit until you have 4 Strikers. Once the Gang Up effect is active, it will be way easier to keep them alive. You can then clear the wave to your left entirely afterwards, you will be in time to deal with respawns without spending additional power besides keeping the wall. 
Task 2: Clearing the first camps
After getting 5 Strikers you can move on to clear the first southern camp. I recomming using one mine for the melee units while charging onto the Spirit Hunters or some of the other small units. Use the Amii Phantoms to clear the spawn building quickly as the units do respawn quite early. If you keep this in mind, the camp is quite easy to clear. 
Now there should be enough time to clear the camp to your left as it provides two power wells. Getting these early will make your life easier at later stage of the game. Prepare a Blaster Cannon for the Mana Wings. It can also be used to heal up your damaged units. Pull the nature units away from the Living Towers, so you don't have to deal with them at the same time. I would recommend pulling with a phantom as it doesn't get knocked around by the Living Tower. Use one Mine for the Fathom Lord and focus it after pulling. The Blaster Cannon will deal with the Mana Wings and can be destroyed afterwards. At last you can take out the buildings and use the Amii Phantoms to get those power wells quickly.
From here the wave you cleared at your main base will be respawned, you can just use your army to clear it again. Do not spend any additional power. It is not necessary and will be needed later on. The Mauler used for the Freeze can be ignored as it just dies to the orb eventually. 
Task 3: Razorleaf fight
Fighting a buffed XL unit on T1 seems intimidating at first glance, but Fire has a very easy solution to this. You can stack three Mines in right in front of the Razorleaf as the explosion radius is larger than the spell placement blocking. The Razorleaf won't move, but you can pull the Dryads through those Mines to trigger them. This is already enough damage to kill the Razorleaf even without focussing it at all. Upon placing the third Mine you can engage with your Strikers (I usually have 6 of them at this point) and run right to the main camp. The Razorleaf might not respawn, but the Dryads and Mauler do, so getting rid of that spawn building should be the priority. Cast Suppression on the Living Towers. If you are fast you can suppress before the tower gets its first shot. You can keep the Phantoms out of the fight for safety reasons, but using them to clear the Strangleholds can save a few seconds. Now you can unlock your T2. 
T2 Stage
Required Cards: Fire Force, Wildfire*, Firedancer**, Pyromaniac (red), 
*Wildfire can be replaced by Lavafield. Having a damage spell at this stage of the game is important and Wildfire is certainly the stronger choice (more damage for lower cost), but alternatively this can be played whenever I mention the use of Wildfire. 
**Firedancer can be replaced by Firestalker. It's slower due to inferior building dps, but you gain good S knockback when fighting units and as its base mode is melee, Firestalker will benefit from the Fire Force buff. If you delay your engagement on the second main camp and add 1-2 extra units, you should be fine. 
Task 1: Preparations for the next stage
While building T2 you should use the side path to get the three Windweaver squads from the jungle path to your left. Then move back to your main base. Once your T2 is finished, cast Fire Force (blue) on one of your Strikers right away, keep all of them until T3. On a sidenote: There is a small bug, which probably will be fixed eventually, but right now the Amii Phantoms do count as melee units. They most likely won't get in danger here anyways, but the bonus damage reduction being an extra safety net is a nice bonus.
For the solo run it's probably best to ignore the Eastern and Southeastern camps for the entire game, so you need to continously defend against waves here. Rebuild the right wall and build Towers to defend. At first one Pyromaniac will be enough, but once the Island starts attacking, there needs to be a stronger defense. 
Task 2: Clearing the way to the second camp
The next two camps are quite easy to clear as long as you keep an eye on two things: 1) Always use Suppression onto the Mindweavers. 2) Do not forget about the wave. If it overlaps while you are in the middle of a fight things might get tough. At this point you should have the power to use Wildfire to support your attack. You will get two additional power wells on the way, take them as soon as possible. If you have some spare power afterwards, you can start summoning Fire Dancers to progress more quickly and get rid of any annoying structure on the way. The second camp has the spawner for one of the waves, so you can leave the left side of your main base unguarded for the rest of the game. 
10 Minutes into the game the Island will start sending waves to your main base. These will always hit the right wall, so you need to build more Towers there. At the bottom of your wall you might want to consider a second Pyromaniac to defend against the ground units and one Blaster Cannon at the top as there will be Parasite Swarms aswell. If you use only one Pyromaniac you probably need Wildfire against the big waves of Drones and Deep Ones, otherwise you might get in trouble once the wall goes down. Always make sure to repair these buildings between fights as these waves will hit your main base for the rest of your game and losing your orb might lead to a loss. 
Task 3: The Bramblethorn fight
Once you have 6 Strikers and 5 Fire Dancers and enough power for one Wildfire you can start fighting the second main camp. You can just pull everything by destroying the Healing Gardens with your Fire Dancers from a safe distance. The key unit to considere here is the Bramblethorn. This Tempest-like unit deals massive damage over a long distance and roots on hit. Your Strikers can tank the damage, but once your Phantoms start getting hit, things will be dangerous. It is important to note, that unlike the units the Bramblethorns do not respawn after getting taken down. Bursting them early with Wildfire and unit focus is beneficial for that reason. Keep your Strikers close together and let them tank everything for your ranged units. Use Wildfire whenever possible. Move your Firedancers to the top and destroy the Living Towers one by one until you can focus the spawn building. From here you probably win rather easily, so keep an eye on your main base and check what happened to the wave from the Island.
T3 Stage
Required cards depend on strategy:
1) The Spitfire strategy: Spitfire, Hellhound*, Shrine of War, Unity (green), Dying Breed (purple), Morklay Trap (optional), Disenchant (optional)**
*Can be replaced by Juggernaut or Sunreaver (low budget)
**Can be replaced by Gladiatrix (also counts for strategy 2) 
2) The Hellhound strategy
Hellhound, Aura of Pain, Shrine of War, Unity (green), Disenchant, Morklay Trap, Disenchant
3) The camp skip strategy
Any melee unit, Unity (green), Inferno, Magma Hurler, Eruption, Scorched Earth (red) (optional)
Task 1: Clearing the Hurler boss (strategy 2 & 3) and the first camp 
After taking the power well and T3, build two Shrines of War and keep the buff up at all times. Void return is such a powerful mechanic and enables much more frequent spell usage. You can sacrifice your Strikers and Firedancers to get more power for T3 units. Clearing the Magma Hurler Boss opens up a path to ignore the fully buffed Razorleaf later on. This is good for the previously mentioned strategies 2 and 3. If you have either Hellhound or Virtuoso, this can be done quickly as they are L-counters and the Hurler Boss only takes less damage from ranged units. The next camp is rather weak, so you can clear it easily. If you have Dying Breed, use it to generate some extra power, also wait for SoW activation to get void return.
Keep an eye on your main base and always repair your buildings. The attacks will continue as there is no time to destroy these spawners, but at least they won't grow any stronger. Your T3 orb will be attacked by Energy Parasites from the River. A Blaster Cannon at this position does solve this, but also needs to be repaired afterwards.  
Task 2: The Abyssal Warder camp (difficult)
This is probably the hardest camp the map has to offer. Apart from the triple XL units with formidable dps here are numerous mechanics you need to consider here. 
1. The Primeval Watcher's Statis Field: An AoE cc, which will be cast right at the start. It lowers your upfront damage significantly. 
2. The Grove Spirits and their Revive mechanic. This will be cast onto some of the XL units, making the fight extremely tedious, especially when cast on the Abyssal Warders. This buff can be removed by Disenchant. 
3. The Abyssal Warders: Apart from their tankiness due to summoning smaller versions on death the Crystal Spikes are a huge threat as they circumvent damage reductions, which can kill units through unity+fire force.
4. Mark of the Keeper prevents spell casting at the camp, so it's worth pulling units away from it.
5. The Spawner: Will resummon the Abyssal Warders quite quickly, so pulling to far bears a risk. 
You need to approach this fight differently depending on the strategy you are using. Either way you should collect some power before taking this fight. Morklay Traps or maybe even Tower of Flames can be used for extra damage on a pull and you need a plan to destroy the spawner here. When playing Spitfire you want to pair them with melee units like Hellhound or Juggernaut, which tank the upfront damage. You can pull by destroying one of the Towers from huge range, ideally the Mind Weaver as it's in front of the spawn building), then focus the Primeval Watcher right away. The Primeval Watcher does not respawn, whereas the Abyssal Warders do. Then try to focus the spawner if possible and use unity to keep your units alive. Once it's destroyed you can play hit and run and slowly destroy the camp. If you play for Hellhounds I recommend stacking Aura of Pain, a quite underrated spell with incredible damage potential and pull the XL units into morklay traps to weaken the XL units. Then focus the spawn building and finish the fight. The ramp up on the damage reduction will make them incredibly tanky and as long as you keep an eye on Crystal Spikes and disenchant the Revive, this fight will be managable if you have at least 6 Hellhounds. 
Now the slowest, but also easiest strategy to deal with this camp is to ignore it completely. You just stack a bunch of units, ideally bait out the Statis Field and try to reach the other side of the camp with at least one unit. You have to clear it later on, but prioritizing to clear the last spawner will guarantee you a win as this is the last hard loss condition which exists. Then you can clear this camp later with unlimited time to create a path for the Amii Phantoms. This can also be achieved with low budget strategies like the classic Magma Hurler stacking. 
Task 3: The Razorleaf camp
If you cleared the Magma Hurler boss you can just use the new path and circumvent this one entirely (melee/skip strategy), but with Spitfires you can use melee units to bait and tank the razorleaf shots and focus it with Spitfires. Always try to resummon melee units to make sure your Spitfires don't get attacked, otherwise it will be devastating. From here you mainly fight Living Towers, that can be easily outranged or tanked by Hellhounds. 
If you use the Spitfire strategy it is recommended to go into the south-western cave and kill the swamp drakes. Not only does this stop the Energy Parasite waves from spawning, it also will give you a unique angle onto the final camp to destroy it in time. 
Task 4: The final timer
If you destroy this camp in time, the map is essentially won. It can be achieved in different ways, but difficulty usually depends on remaining time and your performance in previous encounters. If you use the Spitfire strategy, you can circumvent most stuff by flying across the River and attack the camp from there. For killing the units at the cave you will also get some free Swamp Drakes, which provide an additional health pool for Unity. Focus the spawner directly, it's fine to lose all units for it as long as it goes down in time. The Hellhound strategy can just take down the camp directly. Disenchant the revive from the Forst Elder and focus it with unity being active all the time. Suppression on the Howling Shrine is a game changer here. You can just use a brute force approach through this camp with Aura of Pain stacking. When playing the camp skip strategy you just build a massive army, and charge onto the spawner. Use unity (and fire force) to keep your units alive, then cast Scorched Earth, Inferno and Eruptions onto the Spawner. A small trick to remain ground presence for spells a little bit longer is to summon units right before losing your army as they are untargetable for a very short time depending on their spawn animation. As long as you destroy the spawner in time, you will win the game eventually as you have unlimited time from here to clear the remaining camps.
T4 Stage 
Recommended cards: Moloch*, Fire Dragon, Bloodthirst, Fire Sphere
*Other unit card combinations will work aswell, but Moloch is the most reliable one as it makes your army virtually unkillable with unity. Comet Catcher is a good and reliable alternative to an army based approach. 
Final Task: The Boss Fight
This is the easiest part of the map as there is no time limit anymore (still keep an eye on your main base and repair your towers). But to make the boss fight as smooth as possible, you need to clear the Living Towers first. This can be achieved by building a large XL unit army and supporting it with unity + bloodthirst. If you are afraid of running out of unity charges, you can guarantee full unity uptime by playing both affinities. Otherwise, Comet Catcher is a great tool to make permanent progress step by step. Once the Living Towers are destroyed you can enter the boss fight and focus Terra until the Howling Shrines lose their immunity. Switch their focus onto them and finish off Terra afterwards. If you reached this point, congratulations for finishing the achievement! 
Replay and final words
Here is my replay for the map (used the Hellhound strategy for T3). Execution wasn't flawless, but it follows the strategy I described above. If you have any suggestions, further advices or questions, please let me know. I will try to improve this guide whenever possible and I hope this can help lots of players to tackle this challenge. 
ITJ_solo_26min.pmv

update:
- added new cards:
Fire Wormlings Hellhound Treasure Wagon Sunderer (Promo) - updated changed cards from the latest patch
- updated "Non-Unit" enum and filter value to simply "None"

We like to stress that Nightmare challenges are aimed at the highest level of players, and are also not needed to reach the top rewards. 

You will be able to collect Promo Sunderer in the season without doing Nightmare missions. You will need the 2nd and 3rd batch of challenges (in addition to most repeatable) though, which are releasing in July and August. 

Additionally, the season lasts 4 months, and we are now on day 9. While some Nightmare missions can be frustratingly hard, every single challenge so far has been completed. I highly advice players to not burn out on a specific challenge if you are not having fun. We tried to put content for everyone into the season. This will result in some challenges being too easy, and others being too hard for certain players. 
I don't want to dismiss the feedback or even frustration players have with certain challenges, we will collect all feedback and take as much of it into account for the next season. But we build the season specifically so you can pick and choose what kind of challenge you want to do. Some of these harder challenges also cause players to figure out strategies (Radical just wrote a guide on ITJ for example: 
 Play whatever you find fun, there is plenty of time in the season left, and two complete batches of challenges (and another nightmare one) coming up too!
 

Maybe allow the player to create their own categories, like RPVE or Seasonal, and then you can add a tag to your decks that automatically arranges them in these categories. Then you could toggle your categories and it only shows the ones with these tags.