Strategy:Wizard Monkey (Battles 2)

The Wizard Monkey has many strong upgrades that make it very versatile and good on a lot of maps. While not the best at what it does, it still offers a lot of utility in a loadout that cannot be matched with other towers.

Upgrade Overview

On maps with intersections, you can start by placing a 0-1-0 Fireball Wizard alongside your hero tower. Afterwards, you can upgrade your Fireball wizard into a 0-2-0 Wall of Fire to deal with the earlier rounds. Be careful on round 8, as this is the round that introduces Purple Bloons which can extinguish your wall of fire easily. It is usually recommended at this time to invest in other defense that can deal with the purples, or pop all the purple layers consistently. This may not be a problem if your hero tower has purple popping power and consistency, but these heroes often do not benefit wizards outside of that niche. A few good tower choices for this include: A 3-2-0 Spike-O-Pult, A 2-0-3 Cluster Bomb, and a 2-3-0 Blade Shooter.

However, The Wall of Fire isn't the only strong starting option, and can certainly fall short on maps without intersections. The 3-0-1 Arcane Mastery is a strong starting tower and is preferred over the 0-2-0 wall of fire on those maps. The round 8 issue is still the same although with less emphasis on having a tower that can fully pop the purple and more on just popping the purple layer. Depending on your other towers, you can either by a 0-3-2 Dragon's Breath or a 0-2-4 Necromancer for the mid-game defense. If you have a second very strong camo popping tower that can beat the purple layer on grouped purples, Dragon's Beath is a solid option. If not, then Necromancer is a decent option due to having the ability to de-camo due to the Shimmer upgrade and also having the ability to pop purple balloons using the zombie bloons it reanimates. This upgrade is usually paired with a second tower due to the stockpile nature of the necromancer, often needing support when the graveyard runs dry.

For the mid-late game, you can buy a 4-0-2 Arcane Spike. This is a strong MOAB DPS option with decent non-MOAB popping power, long range, and deals with many difficult rushes in the middle-late game, like the infamous DDTs, decent tight lead supporting fire, and great MOAB damage for ZOMGs. If you need a strong immediate mid-game damage with good moab and bloon popping power then the 0-4-0 Summon Phoenix is a good option. The 040 phoenix has a powerful ability that can easily beat fortified BFBs, tight MOABs, and help with tight BFBs. If the opponent decides to "all out" with a massive bloon rush, you can buy a 0-0-5 Prince of Darkness. This upgrade has a good amount of grouped damage and can easily deal with hordes of BFBs and DDTs while also dealing major damage to ZOMGs depending on graveyard count. Although the Prince of Darkness has good DDT damage with the graveyard MOABs, it's not the most reliable and you should consider using the 502 Archmage instead. the Archmage has one of the strongest DDT popping powers in the game for its cost, while also providing decent BAD damage. The 0-5-2 Wizard Lord Phoenix is the strongest and most expensive wizard monkey upgrade. This tower's ability can easily beat clumps of tight rushes, even tight ZOMGs, while also severely damaging BAD bloons. During the late game, the most optimal defense includes the three tier five towers with the rest of your space taken up by 4-0-1 Arcane Spikes. The Arcane Spike has good space efficiency and can pop fortified BADS even in the late 30s if you have a lot of them, providing optimal time to win the game.

Because of the Wizard Monkey's de-camo options, it pairs well with many towers not otherwise seen on their own due to a lack of camo detection, including Tack/Farm/Wizard, Bomb/Farm/Wizard, and Boomer/Farm/Wizard. However, one can also opt to play with a safer Eco reliant strategy by replacing the Farm with a Village or Sniper. On most loadouts with the Wizard, it is beneficial to use Ezili with them in order to boost the pierce of nearby wizards, and provide a way to temporarily counter purple rushes with the Heartstopper ability. However, the Wizard is flexible enough to be run with more loadouts, such as using Bonnie and replacing the farm with a Spike Factory, or running other towers that don't necessarily have a camo weakness, like Dart or Ice.

Starting with the Wizard Monkey

As mentioned above, Different maps require different strategies depending on if there is an intersection. For the purposes of this guide, "Intersection maps" include: Sands of Time, Star, Oasis, Banana Depot, Sun Palace and Time's Up. "Longer non-intersection maps" include: Dino Graveyard, Garden, Castle Ruins, Cobra Command, Off-Tide, Pirate Cove, Precious Space, Salmon Ladder and Bloonstone Quarry. "Shorter non-intersection maps" include: Glade, Basalt Columns, Koru, Ports, Inflection and Building Site. The maps Mayan, Docks, Bloontonium Mines, In The Wall, Thin Ice and Island base aren't in any category due to not being found in Hall of Masters. Bloon Bot Factory is also excluded due to the map's gimmick making the Wizard Monkey nearly obsolete, aside from the Summon Phoenix and WLP Phoenixes staying above when the wizard drops.

If the map has an intersection, A Wall of Fire start can be used.

• Buy a 010 Wizard with your hero.
• Upgrade the 010 into a 020 on round 3.
• Get your secondary popping tower by round 8.
• Upgrade to a necromancer or have a secondary popping tower that can deal with r11-12 due to the highly dangerous grouped purple rush.

Once you have a necromancer and a strong secondary tower, you should be fine until BFBs are able to be sent. Against an unfortified BFB, you should use a Sacrificial Totem and your secondary tower+necromancer should be enough to deal with the BFB. For the map Time's Up, You should also purchase a 031 wizard against them due to the short length. You can buy arcane spike against bfbs for permanent defense although it can be quite pricy for this point of the game. If the BFB is fortified, you can afford to purchase more expensive wizards like a Summon Phoenix for a temporary solution or an Arcane Spike for permanent defense. For ZOMGs, Wizards typically cannot handle this cheaply, so the secondary popping tower can help here, or alternatively wait or buy level 10 to use Ezili's Hex ability. In scenarios in which this isn't available and where your secondary tower doesn't have strong ZOMG popping power, an Archmage or Prince of Darkness can suffice.

If the map is long but does not have an intersection, instead of starting with a Wall of Fire you build into Arcane Mastery.

• Buy a 010 Wizard with your hero.
• Place a secondary wizard on round 2. This will be the 301 Arcane Mastery later. It's not recommended to rush this upgrade and sacrifice your eco from bloon sends.
• Sell your Fireball wizard to buy Arcane Mastery on rounds 4-5.
• Get your secondary popping tower by round 8.
• Place a new wizard to upgrade to necromancer by round 10, or upgrade your secondary popping tower to deal with the round 11-12 rushes.

From there, since you already have an Arcane Mastery on the field, Arcane Spike can be used to defend BFBs and above for slightly cheaper, and can last you until ZOMGs.

If the map is short but does not have an intersection, you will need to be fast when purchasing the Arcane Mastery.

• Buy a 010 Wizard with your hero.
• Place a secondary wizard on round 2.
• Sell your Fireball wizard to quickly buy Arcane Mastery on rounds 3-4 to avoid leaks.
• Get your secondary popping tower by round 8.
• Place a new wizard to upgrade to Necromancer by round 10, or upgrade your secondary popping tower to deal with the round 11-12 rushes.

On some of these maps, a Necromancer may not be the best option and other round 11 options are preferred over it. These shorter maps have much more emphasis on buying Arcane Spike due to their sheer difficulty. You can use same tips discussed in the other starts, but it's recommended to try and over-defend certain rushes to avoid dying early.