How to maze: a beginner's guide

Mazing is the skill that wins games in The Last Maul: turning the open ground of your lane into the longest possible walk past your towers. These are the rules the game really plays by, and how to use them.

The grid

Every tower takes a square of 2×2 tiles. Creeps walk on the tiles between towers, so a one-tile gap is a corridor. You can't build on a tile a creep is standing on, and you can build only during a game, not in the lobby.

What you can't do: block

Creeps always take the shortest open way to the goal. If a tower would close the last way through, the game refuses it. That is the only limit on your maze: make it long, but leave it open.

During a wave you can still build, but you can't keep re-routing creeps that are already in your maze back over ground they have walked (juggling). Between waves there are no creeps, so plan your big changes then.

Start with bricks

You start with 100 gold. Spend it on your race's maze brick: it costs 20 gold (25 for Light and Arcane) and builds in 1 s. Lay a wall across the lane with one gap, then another wall below it with the gap on the other side. Each wall doubles back the path: that is the zig-zag.

Building takes time

Every tower and every upgrade takes time to build, longer the more it costs: a brick about 1 s, a 200 gold tower about 4.1 s, a 600 gold ultimate about 9 s, and never more than 15 s. While it is under construction a tower already blocks its tiles but doesn't shoot. Build before the wave arrives, not when the creeps are at the door.

Put the damage where the path folds

A tower in the middle of a zig-zag sees the creeps pass several times. Put your strong towers there, inside the bends, not at the ends of your walls. Slowing towers belong at the start of a long stretch: every tower after them gets more shots. Slowed creeps also regenerate at only 50% of their normal rate.

Gold: spend it

• No interest. Gold in the bank earns nothing, so a tower now is better than gold saved for later, unless you are saving for your ultimate.
• Wave bonus. Clearing a wave pays every player a bonus that grows with the wave: 27 gold after wave 1, 67 after wave 10.
• Send waves early. Between waves there is a 20 s countdown. Press Ready (or Space) to start the next wave early: everyone in the game gets bonus gold, 6 gold for wave 1 and one more for every wave after (25 for wave 20). It pays only if your maze is ready.
• Selling. Selling a tower gives back 75% of everything you spent on it. A tower still under construction gives the step being built back in full, so a misplaced tower is cheap to undo if you sell it straight away.

Upgrade or build more?

Early on, more bricks make the maze longer, which helps every tower. Later, upgrades matter: most lines branch after tier I into two specialisations with tiers II to IV, and every race has an ultimate that costs 600 gold. Check your race's page for the numbers: Fire, Frost, Storm, Nature, Water, Light, Gale, Arcane.

Watch the sky and the bosses

Flyers ignore your maze, so keep some damage along the straight line to the goal, ideally towers that target flyers first. A ground boss that reaches the goal costs 3 lives instead of one; giants cost far more. While a giant walks, selling refunds 100%: sell what it has passed and rebuild ahead of it.

Elements

Fire beats nature, nature beats water, water beats fire. A tower's strong hit deals 1.5× damage, a weak one 0.5×. Look at what the next wave is made of and favour the towers that counter it. More on the races page.