There is no official grade
Expeditions Entertainment has not published a unit ranking. The tier board on this site is an editorial reading of public lists from October 6 through November 8, 2026. Launch lists put Shadow (Divine), 8th Sword (Berserk), Puppet (Telekinetic), and similar evolved units at the top. By Update 2.5 the written cores had shifted toward 5th God Hand, Sovereign (Djinn), and Iron Wolf (Struggler). Update 3 lists then pushed Crimson Captain (Moon), Devil Hero, and Fallen Angel (Holy) up. Those are different metas, not one argument to average.
What the later lists agree on
A November 1, 2026 damage order and an October 6, 2026 S-damage block both keep these names near the top:
- Crimson Captain (Moon)
- Devil Hero, also printed as Devil (Hero)
- 5th God Hand
- Iron Wolf (Struggler)
- Crow (Black Fire)
- Prodigy (Rage)
- Fallen Angel (Holy)
- Sovereign (Djinn)
- Dark Mage (Sovereign)
Subject 8 (Monster) was third on the November 1 list and was not in the October 6 S block that was readable here. Water Sage (Founder) and Lightning God (Overcharged) sit in that same late band, sometimes inside S and sometimes just outside it. Shadow (Divine) and 8th Sword (Berserk) were still ranked, but lower than they were at launch.
On November 1 the five new Update 5 names were explicitly unranked: Impaler, Atom, Dead Melody, First Blade, and Princess. A November 8 evaluation then placed Impaler, Atom, Dead Melody, and First Blade in its own S group and printed upgrade-8 lines for Impaler and Atom. That is one evaluation a week later, not a retraction of the November 1 note. Emerald Fist was added to that November 8 pass with a warning to judge Wolf and Emerald Fist across their attack cycles, not from a single hit.
Rules that change the grade
- Listed DPS ignores passives, summons, damage over time, and changing attack cycles. A November 8 note said this outright. Impaler's bleed and summons, and Dead Melody's auras, will not show up in a raw damage-per-second cell.
- Dead Melody ignores summons and clones when it picks a melody target, and it cares about Captain status. It was offered as a local buffer that can stand in for Rainman. Brew's Melody stops attacks and grants damage, range, and crit chance to nearby allies when the closest unit is not a Seafarer. Hero's Melody wants a Seafarer as the closest partner.
- First Blade cleanse buffs are local. Princess Gloom can reduce enemy-driven cleanse or retaliation triggers.
- Silver Falcon's Captain buff does not stack across copies. Space manual control around the automatic effect.
- Impaler's Level Zero and Iron Wolf's Zero Machine Gun were described as one-use abilities with local cooldowns. They compete for bleed teams rather than stacking as two identical carries.
- Traitless Tower turns traits off. An Unbound grade does not apply on that ladder.
- Elemental resistances on Tower and Boss Bounty punish a one-element squad. Gold rerolls a bad Boss Bounty lineup.
A November 7 team talk said there is no single best team, and that the author alternated between two or three cores, including a bleed team. Build the role you lack. Investor stays on the farm. Trait Crystals stay on the unit that is still in the team next week.
Unit-by-unit notes are on Units.