Starter Ranking for Defend Your Base From Scary Worm

The first 450 cash on a fresh plot decides whether you still have a door when the Scary Worm countdown hits. This page is the early-game half of the Tier List Hub. It is a buy order, not a complete roster. Later letters live on the unit tier list; the full-clear shape lives on the endgame loadout. Numbers here are from observed footage and the same first-hour loop described in getting started — not from an official shop dump.

Claim an empty base as soon as you load in. Servers hold up to 35 players, and empty plots in a busy server disappear while you stare at the worm art. Once you own a pad, the shop is trying to sell you three jobs at once: print cash, put cheap DPS on the grass, and keep the wooden door near 400 HP. You cannot max all three with 450. You can fail all three by buying the wrong fourth thing.

Printer first versus spears

Default: printer first. Full-clear players talk about the money printer the way other tower-defense games talk about a farm: it is the building that buys the rest of the base. Footage treats each printer upgrade as roughly doubling income. That doubling is why the first 450 should usually go into getting a printer down and ticking, not into a decorative wall of unupgraded spears. If the printer is down, every later wave prints faster than the last. If it is not, you will still be staring at a 16,000 blue unit you cannot afford while the worm heals.

Spears first only when the door is already being chewed. Spear throwers are cheap DPS. They exist so the first boss nibble is not a free chew on an empty pad. If you joined mid-countdown, or a neighbor’s worm path is already on your door, drop one or two spears then plant the printer. Do not spend the entire 450 on spears “for safety.” A spear wall without income is how you arrive at wave 13 with the same shop you had at wave 2. One spear (or two on a hot angle) plus a printer is the community split; a printer with zero damage and a forgotten repair button is the other failure mode.

Use the wave planner if you need a visual of that split before the timer. The build checklist is the same idea as a pre-flight: printer present, at least one cheap DPS pad filled, repair bound in your head.

The door is a starter purchase even when you buy nothing

You do not spend 450 to “unlock” the wooden door. You spend attention. Footage keeps repeating the same death: DPS looks fine, someone forgot to repair the door, HP slides from 400 toward 30, and the worm wins. Early repairs are cheap compared with later 800-cost panic repairs. Starter ranking therefore treats repair on cooldown as part of the opening build, and door upgrades as something you buy with leftover cash after the printer is online — not as the first click in the shop.

Upgrade versus repair is the trap that eats new players. Upgrade makes the door look stronger (colored and later diamond doors show up in longer videos). Repair is what actually interrupts a chew. If you dump early cash into upgrades and skip repair, you own a prettier door with the same “I forgot” death. If you repair and never print, you own a healthy door and no path into mortars. Do both jobs; sequence them.

What not to buy with the first 450

• A second farm instead of a printer. Farms exist. Full-clear commentary still says you do not really need them once the printer is upgrading. Starter cash on a farm is C-tier spend; see how to farm.
• Mortars on wave 1. Mortars are the right mid-game splash, not the right opening. They show up after income exists. Buying one “because splash is A tier” with no printer is how A-tier units become a bankrupt plot.
• The blue unit. About 16,000 and about 120 damage is an endgame ticket. It is not a starter. If the shop shows it, ignore it until printers and mortars are already working.
• Crate rolls, exclusive cosmetics, and unnamed rares. Footage rolls crates after a clear, often with 100+ gems. Gambling the first 450 is how you own a rare you cannot support. Keep rares in C on the unit sheet until the door has survived a win.
• Filling every pad with the same cheap spear. Fill the plot, yes — empty pads waste range — but identical unupgraded spears are a stall. One or two cheap DPS pieces, then income, then better splash, is the best builds shape for hour one.

A starter loop you can actually click

1. Claim the plot. Face the door. Find repair before you find vanity.
2. Plant a printer. Start the income tick.
3. Drop spear throwers on the angle the worm actually walks, not on the back wall “for symmetry.”
4. Repair whenever HP leaves the 400 band. Do not wait for the “door is low” shout.
5. Upgrade the printer when the shop offers the double, not a third spear.
6. Save toward the first mortar only after that loop is stable.

If a teammate already printed, you can lean spears and repair duty; the 35-player tag is real, and plots can specialize. If you are solo on your door, you cannot specialize your way out of a missing printer. Either way, the starter list is over when mortars are the next honest buy. That is the handoff to endgame ranking and, when the boss starts healing through spears, how to beat the worm.

New plots fail from shop greed, not from a secret unit this wiki forgot to name. Spend the 450 on a printer, a little cheap DPS, and a door you actually repair — then stop shopping for a legend that is not in the opening roster.