I have not played this game in a while, as the last time I played elementals didn't exist. I have absolutely no idea how to play against them, popular strategies used by players playing as them, and I haven't even memorized all of their units. Any and all advice or tips to play against them would be greatly appreciated.

SSM --> Miner spam with occasional swords --> Archer stream --> Wall --> Merics --> Spears w/ shield wall and bash --> Shadowrath with shinobi 2 --> Mage --> Stall for as long as humanely possible --> Win

U must watch this video :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7d6y3g4Ag

AM works better than SSM because you'll win tower (unless they go air start in which case theyre giving you the game anyway). If its a small map and they go fire start just outspace it and follow with a sword and another archer to push them back.

In most cases they will ignore tower and spam miners to go into fast trees. From AM you just spam your own miners, and make 1 sword to test for castle air. When you can just flow out a stream of miners swords and archers and then go heavy into mana to get all necessary upgrades (hustle, passives, fire arrows, shinobi). Get walls up and a spear with spear wall + CA if he pushes you off tower or tower spawn if you're able to hold it.

From then on you'll just want order deathball - ninja/meric/mage/spears. You dont really need archers unless they're making charrogs with fires/airs for some reason, since mages and ninjas have enough dps.

Keeping those archers however will give the ele player reason to que a unit to get rid of them. Utilize your archers as much as you are able and be conservative and/or methodical about utilizing spears in your sword/archer/meric stall as competent ele can manipulate what you are able to do with the wave after wave of scorplings supported by fires that is then teched into V. With the proper ele macro timing the ele user can have a v or two alongside 3 trees and at least 2-3 fired by roughly between 4-5 mins. The v will then target units of interest such as your merics, shadows, or spears to utilize as tanks against your archers and Ca in which case the only option you would have to safely approach without killing off your stolen units is to run at the v with melee units such as your swords and/or additional shadowrath. The ele player can still counter play by dealing damage with the scorps and queing waters to catch the shadows if they fail to shinobi which dodging shadows as the ele player with the v is rather simple. Those waters will freeze the shadow if you opt to shinobi attempt too early or too late and still press in meanwhile the remainder of the ele units tack on damage to the walls and eventually the remainder of your units. If both players micro well, it can be just a very long process eventually leading to ele sacrificing trees and chomplers to make room for more V's that can become scary af if used properly with clone micro and The actual v control. Unlike chaos, order lacks ranged instant kills to which you can take full advantage by selecting targets beyond casting range as ele v and unless the opponent opts to shinobi out of range will allow for free possessions. It's a really difficult process that is tough to explain, even to higher ranked players, however if you get some experience in the mu and perfect your macro timing and individual unit control, the whole endeavor will become a tad less strenuous for you and raises the potential of a higher w ratio against ele in EvO

Hopefully someone else can word this in a manner that is easily read.

Thanks guys two questions though 1. Can Vs choose who they control and is there a limit on the units they can control (can they take them all) 2. why is the air start bad for them? the airs do lost of damage and are good against my spears, swords, and shadows

by limits i meant strength not numbers

V's can control anything, even giants, but only 1 unit. And yes, they choose which unit they control.

Air start is bad because you cant make any earths (miners) along with it, and the air takes a pretty long time to make. So you'll get tower but by that time the order player would have a bigger economy lead and it wouldn't even matter. Airs are pretty good against spears swords and shadows of course but they get destroyed by mages and archers, so making a lot of them isn't really ideal.

@zomar Well making a good amount of airs is okay as long as you get support units to kill the wizard. Airs are excellent against archers as long as they have sufficient tank (like any ranged unit except dead).

In theory, what you say makes perfect sense. But you've also got fire arrows which will zone them out and ignore any ground tanks, and 1 poison spray will either force a premature water usage or a retreat. But a few cycloids > anything that order can make, so at the end ele should win 100% of games, its just possible to stall them out for a while and potentially win if they're bad enough.

Quote from nutsophast

@zomar Well making a good amount of airs is okay as long as you get support units to kill the wizard. Airs are excellent against archers as long as they have sufficient tank (like any ranged unit except dead).

10ish airs or so can murder a magikill instantly so maybe just worry about sufficient tanking and spellcasters?

Even if he gets a poison spray off, just use a water and that trade was most positive for you.

Quote from Zomar

In theory, what you say makes perfect sense. But you've also got fire arrows which will zone them out and ignore any ground tanks, and 1 poison spray will either force a premature water usage or a retreat. But a few cycloids > anything that order can make, so at the end ele should win 100% of games, its just possible to stall them out for a while and potentially win if they're bad enough.

so i should live in fear in all of my gameplay that they not only suck, but my turtle convinces them to rage quit? im scared.

More questions guys 1. How many scorplings can treatures make? 2. what does the unit description flying melee mean on a cycloid?

Quote from Dudebroguy

More questions guys 1. How many scorplings can treatures make? 2. what does the unit description flying melee mean on a cycloid?

1. Three at a time.
2. It flies, and it's melee-range.

Quote from ActiveFirewall

2. It flies, and it's melee-range.

i know but can it only melee flying units (besides tornadoes)

Yes