The League is one of the signature parts of Returners and is held as week-long competitions.

League is great for veterans in Returners; when the grinding in dungeons and Adventure stages gets a bit dull, you can experiment with different strategies and team compositions in the League.

There is no one unbeatable strategy when playing in the League; players can create different compositions and even counter-strategies to climb to the top of the ranking. Some heroes are actually more suited to League than Adventure or Raid, so it gives you a chance to try out different heroes as well.

■ Tank: Use King Arthur in the Early-Mid Phase; Alexander Is the Best, Athena Is Second Best

Actually, there aren’t many tanks to choose from in the early to mid phases; you do get a few more options when you get to the platinum league. This is why King Arthur, the hero you receive at the start of the game, is used the most in all parts of the game, including Adventures and League.

King Arthur’s skills are all CC skills, including his charge skill, which is considered a must-have for good melee heroes. He is one of the most useful first heroes you receive; he is irreplaceable in your early run of League, and he is even used in the highest league tiers.

He is a great hero to use in all content including Adventure, Raid, Arena, etc. making him a hero worth scaling from the start of the game.

Players who get over 150 wins in the League can and should purchase Alexander with gold at the shop, since he and King Arthur are useful even into the late phase of the game.

The reason Alexander is mainly picked in the League is because his priority target is the enemy tank with the lowest defense, unless there is player interference. Using his ‘Charge!’ skill will allow him to dive into the enemy lines quicker than anyone on either side. Also, this skill inflicts 2.5 x damage to tanks, which will make it easier for you to win if both tanks target each other.

Alexander, just like King Arthur, has 3 CC skills, and his ultimate skill, ‘Eliminate!’ knocks enemies airborne while giving an attack speed buff to allies, making him probably the best tank for League.

Alexander’s ‘Charge!’ and AoE CC (Engage!), make him one of the top tanks for League.

Once you have made it to the diamond league, you can get Athena. Athena does not have any gap-closing or buff skills, but she is worth using in the League mainly for her ‘Shield of the Goddess’.

On a side note, the best DPS heroes in the current league would be rangers like Taejo and Jumong; the longer these rangers survive, the more of a threat they become to enemies since their damage mainly comes from basic attacks.

Athena’s ‘Shield of the Goddess’ makes the affected ally heroes invincible for 4 seconds (at top skill level) while greatly increasing their physical and magic attack. If rangers are invincible for 4 seconds and can inflict boosted damage (as each of their basic attacks deal a good amount of damage), they can even reverse a losing battle.

■ Support: Pick a Healer Support from Your Adventure Team in the Early Phase, Cassandra in Mid, Then Either Cleopatra or Zhuge Liang in the Late Phase

It can be difficult to keep supports alive till the end of a battle, especially since most opponents set their focus on supports prior to the actual match. Supports usually have the lowest basic HP and defense out of all 5 heroes on a team, making them the first target. Not only that, support are targeted first because their ults are more likely to turn the tide of battle compared to the skills of other classes.

Because of this, healer supports whose main use is their ults are not that great the League. For supports in League, it’s best to go with ones that have useful normal skills like buffs or CC, though ones with good survivability are also a viable option. Of course, it does not really matter what support you use in the early phase when you are still clearing stages in Adventure.

Nevertheless, Cassandra is one of the better choices among the supports you can get in the early part of the game. Her two normal skills, ‘Time Warp’ and ‘Burning Time’, can both be used to increase enemy and decrease ally cooldowns, greatly enhancing your team’s combat strength while hindering your enemies.

If you can get either Cleopatra or Zhuge Liang in the mid or late phase, then you should mainly stick to those two supports. Zhuge Liang is especially useful thanks to his ‘Mind Control’ skill, which temporarily makes the 5-on-5 battle a 6-on-4.

Cleopatra is great at disrupting enemies and also has good survivability since her ‘Fatal Attraction’ inflicts damage and heals her at the same time.

Use these two heroes once you make it to higher levels; until then, use a healer support or Cassandra and you will be able to get fairly good results in the League.

■ DPS: Taejo and Jumong for Ranger, Sun Wukong and Xian Yu for Fighter, Rasputina and Alice for Mage

Which heroes will take the remaining 3 spots for DPS depends what the patch is. Unlike Adventure, which has a definitive ending, there is no end to League. When you reach the high tiers of League however, you’ll be using heroes that are more or less fully leveled and enhanced.

This is important because there are heroes who aren’t very efficient in the early and mid stages of their growth, but become monstrously powerful once they get fully enhanced end-game gear. However, this process takes too much time and resources to be reliably repeated, so it is better to pick your DPS heroes based on the meta.

If you look at the ranger class in the current meta, Jumong and Taejo are considered tier 1 heroes. Taejo goes especially well with Cassandra, while Jumong works well with Athena since he inflicts a lot of damage through continuous and enhanced basic attacks.

However, you will probably get these two heroes in the later phase, so Kunoichi can take their place until then. Though she is labeled a ranger, Kunoichi functions more like a mid-ranged assassin. She uses ‘Shadow Walk’ to move behind targets then uses her Dagger Storm - Windmill Shuriken combo to inflict AoE damage; this mobility of hers is quite useful in League battles since positioning is vital. Since her preferred targets are rangers, she can work as a counter to the current meta.

Sun Wukong is considered the top among the melee fighters as she can be quite strong in most game modes; she has great survivability, a good gap-closer, and can debuff enemies. Her ‘Clone’ skill is extremely effective in League and Arena, where targets cannot be changed manually.

Xian Yu is another hero that goes shoulder-to-shoulder with Sun WuKong in the League despite his bad reputation in Adventure mode. Xian Yu is a hero you can actively use to counter rangers; he has 2 AoE CC skills as well as a debuff skill.

If you think it is going to take too much time to get these two heroes on your team, then picking Musashi and Hercules, two heroes that are focused on dealing damage rather than CC, is not a bad alternative. Notably, Hercules is one of the heroes that becomes dramatically stronger as he gets closer to having end-game gear. With Musashi, his Sword Trance can inflict a lot of damage on enemies as he becomes immune to CC and targeting; add Cassandra in the mix and you will be able to get more efficient results.

When it comes to mages, Alice is at the top of the list since she is reliable throughout all phases of the game and in all game modes. Rasputina is also a good mage, though she shines most in the later phase.

Alice, who you can get somewhat sooner than other preferred heroes, has great CC and magic damage. Regardless of enemy team composition, she can provide a good balance of physical and magic attacks to some extent. Once you get her, be sure to level her up as much as you can.

Rasputina is a unique type of mage -- one that focuses mainly on killing tanks. At the moment, Rasputina is the only ranged DPS hero that deals multiplied damage to tanks, and is great to use in a tank melting composition with Alexander.

Dracula isn’t a bad option if you would like to use a mage from the game’s early phase. Dracula can decrease enemy magic defense and has an ult that deals a lot of damage while healing him in proportion to the damage dealt. He is a great pick for a team composition that mainly focuses on mages.

Generally, you can mainly use King Arthur & Cassandra (or a healer support) until the early and mid League phase; add in Alice, Kunoichi, and Musashi for a fairly well-balanced team. After the mid phase, use Alexander (or King Arthur), Zhuge Liang (or Cleopatra), Taejo (or Jumong), Rasputina (or Alice), and Sun Wukong (or Xiang Yu) for a balanced and powerful team.

As previously mentioned, there is no one absolute answer to picking heroes to use in the League, unless the CP gap extremely wide. The heroes mentioned above are effective in general, but always remind yourself that strategies and counter strategies can have huge influence over how the League battles go.