Summoners War RTA Fast Cleave Guide: Turn Order and Drafting

To run a fast cleave team in Summoners War World Arena (RTA), you must secure the first turn with high base-speed initiators, prevent enemy cut-ins through strict speed tuning, and immediately eliminate high-priority threats with burst damage.

Establishing the Initiator Core

Your opening draft requires monsters with high base speed paired with universal 24% or 33% speed leads to force favorable pick-and-ban trades.

Speed Leaders: Vanessa, Oliver, and Psamathe provide universal speed leads that scale your entire team's combat speed.
Turn-One Boosters: Monsters such as Eshir, Kabilla, Sekhmet, and Ethna contest the opening turn against opposing Swift units.
Rune Priority: Equip your fastest combat runes on your primary booster. Broken sets on slot 4 or slot 6 are preferred over complete set bonuses if they yield higher total Speed substats, unless completing a Swift or Will set.

Speed Tuning the Turn Order

Winning the opening turn fails if a wide speed gap permits opposing Nemesis healers or Swift disruptors to interrupt your rotation. Follow this four-step sequence:

Primary Booster or Stripper: Takes the first turn, removes enemy Will runes, or pushes allied attack bars forward.
Secondary Buffer or Defense Breaker: Grants Attack or Critical Rate buffs, or applies multi-target Defense Break while cycling turn priority.
Primary Assassin: Eliminates the opponent's primary damage dealer, reviver, or counter-cleave threat.
Cleanup Sweeper: Deals area-of-effect damage or resets cooldowns to finish the remaining enemy units.

To avoid enemy cut-ins, ensure your secondary and damage units maintain at least 85% of your fastest booster's total combat speed, calculating for arena speed towers and leader skills.

Core Cleave Monster Roles

Modern cleave drafts combine single-target defense-ignoring assassins with broad area-of-effect sweepers to handle both tanky bruisers and fragile damage dealers.

Monster Role	Example Monsters	Combat Function	Target Rune Builds
First-Turn Booster	Eshir, Kabilla, Adriana	Attack bar boosting and base-speed contest	Swift / Broken (Maximum SPD)
Strip and Control	Chiwu, Cheongpung, Sekhmet	Dispel Will runes and reset enemy cooldowns	Swift / Focus (SPD, HP, ACC)
Speed-Scaling Burst	Sonia, Miles, Masha	Single-target elimination and defense ignore	Swift / Blade (SPD, ATK, CD)
Cleanup Sweeper	Lushen, Kaki, Psamathe	Multi-target burst to finish weakened boards	Rage or Fatal / Will (ATK, CD, SPD)

Prioritizing Artifact Substats

Raw rune stats supply baseline Attack and Critical Damage, but artifacts provide the flat scaling needed to defeat high-defense tanks on turn one:

Additional Damage by Speed: Maximizes the baseline output of speed-scaling assassins like Sonia, Miles, and Ethna.
Additional Damage by Attack: Increases multi-hit output for cleanup sweepers such as Kaki and Lushen.
Skill Critical Damage: Raises Skill 2 or Skill 3 damage to hit decisive elimination thresholds.
Damage Dealt on Fire/Wind: Allows precision single-target snipers to bypass bulky elemental bruisers.

Countering Common Defensive Picks

Against Leo: Do not attempt to out-speed his passive directly. Draft Will runes, heavy Attack Bar push, and fire-attribute threats like Masha to absorb and counter his turn manipulation.
Against Passive Cut-Ins (Amduat, Tian Lang, Abellio): Use single-target assassins to eliminate the cut-in threat directly without triggering multi-hit or team-wide attack bar passives, or draft targeted cooldown resets.
Against Multiple Enemy Speed Leads: If the opponent drafts multiple contest picks to take turn one, either ban their primary booster to secure speed dominance, or pivot your final pick into a counter-cleave option that exploits fragile Swift attackers.