Soul Exchange

Bob’s Brief Bizarro Budget Breakdown VI (Nov 2025 edition) 

A lot of attention gets focused on the high-end choices, especially for folks who want to clear a whole bunch of roster space even first and foremost, but once again I’m looking first to the 10-soul choices, offering a few thoughts about each of them: why folks on a budget and trying to decide “take a cheap option” or “pass” might lean toward the former... or the latter.

Before we get going, let’s be super clear: if your roster is sufficiently strong that you regularly - or almost always - find Heroes of the Month to be disappointing compared to your other choices, then Soul Exchange is unlikely to excite you.  By definition, these are “yesteryear’s greatest hits” sorts of heroes, which means stat decay (compared to current premium heroes) makes them generally relatively small by comparison — and even many of the Specials (and passives and family bonuses) that were powerful upon first release may have any number of counters now that didn’t exist then.

This is primarily a guide for “the rest of us” — who don’t have a lot of the most premium heroes and/or who are missing important, useful abilities represented by heroes on this list.  If you are lucky and/or deeply-budgeted enough to not need any of these abilities, then this event and this guide may not be for you (other than, I hope, some entertainment value).

On some heroes, I will include personal notes from my own experience.  By definition, your mileage may very much vary depending on your roster and gaming experience!

Without further adieu:

10 souls

🟡 Ogima 

take: minion busting that throws mana-gen-curse stacks as punishment, bard mana bonus

pass: Ogima is the oldest, smallest of the current SE choices, and by a fair bit and cGormek exists (the latter actually has similar stats — as a 4* — if you have most/all his costumes) if you generically want “minion-busting plus”: note that cGormek in his abacus form is a S1 wizard with all the free tile dispelling that entails

Note: minion busting is good to have generally, but it tends to matter most when facing lots of minions AND they aren't on costumed W3K heroes, which tends to matter most during Bloody or Minion wars/tourneys.  Given that Gormek's abacus costume is about the same size as Ogima, how much do you want to invest in a 5* that has the stunt of throwing mana generation curses if you bag a lot of minions together in very specific situations?

🟣 Phantom of the Opera 

take: because he is there inside your mind 🤪 Not least of all if you are lacking an offense-dance hero, and would like one to counter defense-dance heroes or enemy buffs. (Note that offense dances wipe all existing buffs AND ailments — unless ailment block is up first — and effectively acts during its duration as both buff-blocking and ailment-blocking, other than to other dances.)

pass: he’s one of the older choices even by SE standards, countering dance isn’t as common a thing now as it used to be, and you need to watch out for bards like Astrid who lower dance durations to 1 turn

Note: Phantom is showing his age a bit, but he can still provide a interesting counter option, e.g. when playing wars.  Be careful not to bring along a bunch of other ailments of your own, though!

🟢 Nogu

take: you want anti-boosting tech, between Nogu’s passives that benefit him whenever enemies try to boost-heal, but notably, Nogu turning boost healing instead into max health reduction -- jujutsu can be an effective and satisfying strategy against more powerful foes!

pass: Nogu’s damage isn’t the headline, and Nogu’s anti-boosting may not matter so much if you have other anti-boost tech (e.g. S4 costumes or Goblin family, which don't reverse boost healing but can tear it down)

Note: if you're reading this guide for advice and not just entertainment, chances are at least at times, you're punching up (even punching WAY up) in PvP.  Making your opponents defeat themselves can sometimes be your best play (see also: any hero that gives reflect [color])

🔴 Eliane

take: the newest of the SE choices, actually still throws respectable damage (to all) for her tier of hero …and dispel (all)… and can self-mana-charge off burning foes

pass: obviously, as a HotM, if you already have her; but also watch foes who resist fire (or even boost heal from it), or enemy teams that throw lots of ailment-block

Note: I use her actively currently.  Her hit is actually decently functional for me, and having more dispel options is always nice. (Yes, yes, it would be nice if she dispelled first, but she's still a pretty respectable HotM and respectable hero overall.)

🔵 Lysanor 

take: you want a reviver with more modern stats than, say, cMother North; high revive %; as a Monk, she resists a lot of ailments that might otherwise try to disable her; does well in a buff-happy team (gaining health and mana with every buff and positive stack); if she fires before you need revive,  you still get a pretty hefty attack bonus and boost-heal over time

pass: unlike some revivers, doesn’t do any direct immediate heal; is a stat upgrade over many revivers, but still doesn’t match the size of, e.g. Astrid, Mother Lemminkainen, or cNadezhda (and on PvP defense you should expect that a reviver will be a Priority Target for anyone not bringing revive-blocking); revive-blocking Specials *and Bard passives* do exist (potentially making her better on offense than defense,  unless your alliance runs many war defenses all using revive)

Note: This is one that I'm personally considering, though it's tricky - I find I currently don't use revive much on my account, but that's in no small part because of having a biggest reviver of... um... Dabria; my toon Cyprian has better defenses.  D'oh.

... following previous posts and in response to previous requests, I will also look to the 15-soul choices, offering a few thoughts about each of them: why folks on at least a bit of a budget and trying to decide “take a moderate option” or “pass” might lean toward the former... or the latter. 

15 souls

🟢 Daroga

take: sniper-plus (the DoT is not insignificant, and spreads; potentially further interesting if you can amplify or extend ailment damage; Bleed not as commonly resisted as other DoT types); attack-buff stacks can get significant especially if fires more than once

pass: if you just no like snipers I suppose, or you face a lot of near-constant ailment block, or your PvP fights are over fast enough that Daroga often won’t fire more then once

Note: you might have heard that I actually don't mind snipers; I don't have this one, but he's got enough "plus" on his sniper that I'd notice more than "just" his direct damage.

🔵 Satori 

take: while his damage isn’t as devastating as it used to be, he really doesn’t like cleansers and dispellers (slapping them significantly harder plus doing all sorts of stuff when enemies try to dispel), plus his “chance to say lolnope to all damage” for nearby allies

pass: you don’t want to have to do a tax return to keep track of all he does and when to bring him (two parts of his Special have special conditions and he has three different “passives”)

Note: I don't have this guy, but during the era in which he was predominant about my only answer to facing him was "reflect blue" (and even then, I still had to deal with his damage-block buff left behind on his buddies).  These days he's more vulnerable to straight nuking, of course, but even that is still potentially covered if he gets his "no to damage" buff up.

🔴 Sparklight

take: he’s a hit-3 that also does some DoT-that-heals-you and notably, reflect buffs for 3 foes, plus he has all the Elf stuff (never misses, immune to poison, family-bonus freebie chance to dispel a foe who hits him with a Special, and, elfiest of all, will smugly push his teammates under the bus to take some of his damage)

pass: if you face a lot of ailment-block you can’t stop/deal with/beat to the punch, alternatively if you DON’T face much enemy buffs, or possibly if you face a lot of natively fire-immune (or even fire-healing) foes

Note: given the number of super annoying buffs out there, being able to reflect them to you is A Very Good Thing against certain heroes.  Since you can't count on necessarily getting his reflect up before some smug enemy ailment blocker, pair him with a dispeller in those cases.  (Even "just" Eliane, who is a convenient match...)

🟣 Carta 

take: solid purple healer (heals and then boosts heal from repair core); can’t have its Special blocked (the way foes would like to do to your healer); does at least a bit of a cleanse plus redistribution; mana buff

pass: cleanse isn’t a full cleanse nor a safe cleanse (the latter can matter with some ailments, notably moth dust); as a non-Cleric healer, vulnerable to mana cuts (but note, due to passive, is immune to effects that would stop Special skills)

Note: often, it's generally hard to have "too many healers" overall given events, wars, W3K, tournaments with different color restrictions, etc, and different healers have different extras.  Carta is a respectable purple workhorse, so how much you want him depends on how much overall strength in healing (and in purple) you already have

🟡 Alvar 

take: plays the buffs/debuffs minigame pretty hard, cleansing your own ailments, throwing them to foes while refreshing foe ailment durations AND making them reflect their buffs to you.  Oh yeah, and he hits-all at Average to boot.

pass: if your foes have ailment-block up first, that will stop a fair bit of what Alvar does (you’d want to pair Alvar with a dispeller, ideally a similar-speed yellow); note that Alvar’s cleanse isn’t a safe cleanse (can matter with some ailments, notably moth dust)

Note: this guy is really tactical, especially when it comes to timing, but pair him with a similar-speed yellow dispeller on offense and he can be effective against a lot of problems. Also plays well if you have serious DoT... of your own... or your enemies' (note that Alvar refreshes ailment duration after handing ailments you've suffered back to foes).  DoT is a tricky game to play in PvP to say the least, but watching every turn burn/freeze/bleed/drown/poison your foes inexorably down into oblivion while none of their smug superiority can save them can be pretty satisfying when you can pull it off.

On the 20 tier:  I usually focus on the cheaper choices because the general SE discussion tends to address the full-price heroes more often – and also the kind of folks who might have trouble affording a 20-tier hero (or justifying emptying the kitchen sink to get one) are the ones perhaps most interested in squeezing every bit of value out of the SE they can do. 

But what if you’re asking yourself, “is this the time to go all in?”  Well, if you’ve been playing the game for long at all, a lot of these names may well be familiar to you, but read on…

20 souls

🟢 Mena

all your mana are belong to us

take: while Lemonwood blasts a whole bunch of mana in one fell, but random, volley — this annoying plushie takes steady little mana bites.  Also? Softskin (so Mena can’t be easily hoist on its own petard, once it gets going)

pass: random gonna random with those mana hits, though there are more individual hits over time than Lemonwood's burst.  Vulnerable to pre-emptive buffblock (and dispel, especially from a mana-uncuttable foe)

Note: I probably don't need to tell many of you this, but man this thing is annoying. Smug stupid plushie with his too-often-suspiciously-targeted "lol you never fire special" poofballs while everything rolls off his Softskin.  Timely buffblock is a good antidote to this annoying goof, but the key word there is "timely" - which means that's an ingredient you wanna watch for if you take and use Mena.  --Additional note: naturally, you'll want to watch out for foes who just can't be mana cut, but (special thanks to ValiantFrog) also that 25-emblem Clerics have a chance to self-heal on attempted mana cuts!

🟡 Lemonwood 

i will burn your heart in a fire

take: seriously?  mana-nuking machine-gun madness, with all the elfy smugness of his family

pass: random guy gonna random, depending on whether Lemonwood starts a Chain of Doom targeting a foe with at least 50% mana… or just goes “plink” at a single foe

Note: If facing Mena annoys me, then facing Lemonwood still evokes for me the hatred of a thousand burning suns what with his "oh no, you just had a tile cascade and every one of your heroes is over 50% mana now but it's my turn and my arrows will blot out the screen enough to cause your game to stutter and lag and your heroes to be buried in a wooden-shafted carpet of despair"

*eyetwitch*

it's possible these days Lemonwood's damage might not be as world-ending as it once was, comparatively, but "your mana is doomed" kinda doesn't go out of style.  And against those immune to mana cutting, Lemonwood ... just keeps shooting.  (No, it's not actually an infinite loop, but it's not a lot of fun to be on the receiving end of either.)

anyway, if you're gonna use this guy yourself on offense, be tactically minded in the timing, and try to catch as big a chain as possible to screw over as many of your foes' heroes at once as possible.  Patience....

🔵 cHetepheres 

you... can't touch this

take: with the costume bonus, the chonkiest SE choice; also throws a good-size heal at Average speed (*plus* a guaranteed small boost-heal and cleanse-one from the costume-boosted passive), defense up vs green (useful if running cHet as a healer tank, or together with another blue tank), and, oh yeah, blind all.  Also potentially handy that you can choose whether to run Cleric version (to resist mana cuts) or Monk version (to resist ailments)

pass: depends how many healers you have (does one ever have enough?), whether you are likely to run a healer tank, and how often you face “never miss” opponents (who don’t care about your blind, and .. so can touch this)

Note: as a tank, cHetepheres might suffer a bit from people who can choose to bring "never miss" heroes to ignore the blind (and elemental defense matters less if opponents just don't color stack against you because they are packing Phenomenal Cosmic Power and care not for puny tile damage) but if you bring cHetepheres on the attack, well, well, not every defense can afford to be packed only with "never miss" heroes now can they? ahahahahaha....

🔴 Daemon

i don't believe in the no-win scenario

take: Very Fast denier: current buffs, class talents, incoming buffs and debuffs?  nope. pretty-boy can smack the smug grin right off the stupid faces of OP heroes with just two tile matches.  (Oh yeah, he also actually stabs them, too.)

pass: well, he is a sniper, so he only gets to say “nope” to one foe at a time.  Fantastic tactical use, but probably not so much a defense hero as one you’re driving on offense.  Note that he doesn’t stop everything; a tagged hero still fires, and raw damage, straight up healing, mana cuts, and anything from a passive or family bonus still all work just fine.

Note: this guy is actually pretty fantastic against a lot of popular heroes that have Real Problem Abilities.  As noted above, he can't stop everything, but he can stick a pin in a lot of You Lose buttons -- Song Jiang/Ceres silence or Bearnadette's paintings shutting down your team, or whatever latest megataunter or ailment-blocker from doing their job, or just keeping a freaking enemy fighter from reviving for the 32192nd time, plus on top of everything else he is dispel-then-hit and so can open a window of vulnerability on a hero you Really Want to Take Off the Board Right now.

He may not be full jujutsu and make enemies smack themselves, but being able to say "no" to a lot of problems is a pretty evergreen ability.

🟣 Darkfeather 

we don’t make a lot of the heroes you summon; we make a lot of the heroes you summon… better

take: decent size heal, but stacking Growth bonuses is fantastic for PvE events and titans, and still handy in PvP, plus the whole “every time a Special is fired, more hits go off” thing.  Also?  the Goblin “passive” can do a light hit-all *and* blind, and the family bonus nerfs foe boost-healing.  Wow.

pass: there’s not a *lot* of downside, outside of “many people who can afford 20 souls to trade for Darkfeather may already have him”… and he’s not quite as stats-sized as some of the other SE healer choices this time around, even as a 20 (due to his general utility)

Note: While it may be tempting to look at Darkfeather's stats and be a bit concerned, overall he has aged remarkably well, not least of all because one of the things he does is boost stats with Growth, ameliorating some of his own problem of age, and everything he does is great... and even better when his allies are better.  Get Darkfeather rolling with some kind of mana hax and a lot of quick firing heroes, and the extra free hits that Darkfeather grants might be enough to punch many foes right now.  If you have gotten this far without Darkfeather and can afford the 20 souls, he's a great all around choice.

Summary:

No one choice is the right one for everyone, but a few general points:

-- decent healing choices at all levels, whether you're looking for revive, a "straight" healer, or a Growth/buff healer

-- also, more than a few manipulation tricks (dance, boost-healing-busting, general buffing, buff/debuff switchery and reflection, mana cutting in different flavors, denial specialization, and Growth) -- if you already have all you want of all of these things, then you've got a deeper roster than most!

-- remember, these aren't supposed to trade blows toe-to-toe with the Latest Monster Heroes, they're to give you a general leg up on play (including PvE) and the chance to punch up against those monsters in PvP by stealing their mojo