What order should you unlock mythics in?

Note for context: to get a unit to level 6 it costs 115 stones and 23k gold. Level 6 to level 12 costs 940 stones and 188k gold. This guide was written with these things in mind.

This is the order you should unlock/upgrade mythics in if you want the fastest possible route to clearing hard mode regularly. Explanations included.

The Main List

Batman - level 1 (if you haven't cleared normal yet)
Rocket Chu - level 6
Verdee - level 6
Master Kun - level 6
Lancelot - level 6
Monopoly Man - level 6
Kitty Mage - level 12
Vayne - Level 6

Your next level 12 mythic

Lancelot
Lazy Taoist

Why this order?

Batman - level 1

When you're starting out, you'll not have many options available to you. Most mythics are blocked off until you clear normal mode for the first time. But for 3000 diamonds, you get access to Batman. Batman is great at level 1, and it's recomended you keep him at that level.

After you get Batman, read

and you will have everything you need to beat normal mode.

Alternatively, if you go to the official Lucky Defense discord, you can find many people willing to help you get your first win easily. However you do it, once you beat normal you'll gain access to the full list of mythics. Start with the ones below for the quickest progression.

Quick Note About Hard Mode Dungeon:

In hard mode, one early challenge you'll face is how to clear dungeon. Honestly, as long as you spend some luck stones throughout the game on upgrading you mythic damage, all of these units will clear dungeon:

Batman
Rocket Chu
Verdee
Master Kun
Vayne
Tao (level 12)

This is good to keep in mind. If you get storm elemental, another good reason to summon Vayne is that at level 6, she becomes strong enough to solo dungeon as long as you level up your mythic damage mid game. This means that since she can't clear waves, you can keep any of the other units I listed above out on the field handling the waves and Vayne can stay in dungeon clearing that for you.

Rocket Chu - Level 6

I mentioned that batman will feel mostly the same for you, so I would leave him at level 1. But Rocket Chu sees a big improvement at level 6. Rocket Chu has an upgrade ability that makes him significantly more powerful, or it will fail, and he'll explode, dealing damage to the area around him, and killing him. At level 1, he'll only succeed in upgrading 35% of the time. At level 6, Rocket Chu will succeed 50% of the time. This is a huge upgrade. Not only is this a huge improvement, but Rocket Chu is basically a second Batman, but a little bit stronger, and can attack from range. He won't seem more powerful starting out, but his damage increases more than Batmans damage does when using safebox and money gun. Chu is arguably the strongest wave clear mythic in the entire game at the time of writing.

Verdee - level 6

Verdee is a good option to have because assuming you have Rocket Chu and either Batman or Master Kun, you'll have a mythic capable of clearing normal mode 3 out of 4 times you summon a legendary. (Batman/Kun for Tiger, Rocket Chu for War Machine, Verdee for Sheriff) Her strongest attack, other than her summon, has a 10 second delay so you will need to focus on getting really good stun. Also, she does need defense reduction because she's physical. She's a solid addition to the wave clearing roster even at just level 6, and since she's so cheap, she's a must get if you're trying to get more consistent clears in hard mode.

Master Kun - Level 6

Master Kun unlocks after you beat normal mode for the first time. Functionally, Kun and Batman are very similar. They're both melee units that power up mid-game using their abilities. Batman upgrades skill costs gold, while Kuns upgrade is his ult. This means that while Batman can upgrade much faster, Kun can upgrade without costing you gold. Since gold is the biggest source of damage in the game, this makes Kun much better.

Lancelot - Level 6

Lancelot is one of the best units in the entire game. Important note: Lancelot is not worth using in normal mode. He won't make much of a difference on wave clear in most cases, and in normal mode Batman and Rocket Chu can clear the waves AND the bosses just fine by themselves. With this in mind, don't use Lancelot in normal mode. But in hard mode, he is the strongest boss killer. When he's not level 6 though, he doesn't have his ult. This makes him practically useless. This is because when he performs a skill, every hit that skill lands does up to 2% of the enemies health in damage. His ult is great for this because it counts as 10 skill hits back to back. If you pair this with a bunch of mp regen from Kitty Mage, you can get your Lancelot to spam his ult over and over, making the boss of Wave 80 on hard mode very easy.

Monopoly man - Level 6

Monopoly Man is a staple of hard mode. This is because he does two extremely good things. First and more obviously, he gives lucky coins. This is great because lucky coins are extremely valuable. But his second benefit is what causes him to be in every game - Each Monopoly Man gives you 20 Defense Reduction. This is extremely powerful. Level 12 Hunter gives 15 Defense Reduction. He's the easiest source to get Defense Reduction from. Monopoly Man not only gives more than that, but he doesn't use any epics to summon that give Defense Reduction. Orc Shaman uses a Hunter and a purple stun, so you gain 20 Defense Reduction, at the cost of 25 Defense Reduction. Monopoly Man costs you a Tree, a Wolf, and a Devil. You lost at most 7.5 Defense Reduction, but you gain 20. And since you keep all your hunters, if you start summoning a couple Monopoly Men to support your Batmen/Rocket Chu/Vayne, you'll be able to hit 160 Defense Reduction much quicker.

Kitty Mage - Level 12

Kitty Mage is great. They passively increase MP Regen for all units on both sides. His ult instantly recovers 10% mp for all non-Kitty Mages. That's super good with all characters that have ults. But Kitty 12's upgrade is insane. It says "increases MP Regen from skills by +100%". This is already great. But what can be missed here is this also affects their ult. So not only will Kitty Mage go from 20% Mp Regen to 40% Mp Regen, but every time they pop their ult, it will recharge 20% of the ult of every non-Kitty Mage in their attack range. This is almost overpowered. Every other level 12 unlock is outshined by this one. If you have been playing for a while without it, and you try a game with Kitty 12 the difference is immediately obvious.

Vayne - Level 6

Vayne is an interesting character because when you summon her, she seems useless. That's the first impression she'll give 90% of players. However, she is one of the best possible tools to add to your kit when you're trying to clear hard mode more often. The reason is, once you get Vayne to level 6, every third attack does 5000% damage. This is strong enough to clear the dungeon easily, and it also stacks with her ult (+5000% * +400%, it's very strong). Vayne will NOT help clear waves though. Keep that in mind. But getting Vayne early, and knowing that she can't clear waves, it's basically a "clear the dungeon free" card. Since she can't help outside of dungeon, you don't have to bounce her back and forth between dungeon and the main battlefield. Not only that, but she requires a Legendary that can only be used outside of summoning her, to summon Lazy Tao, or Coldy. Coldy is honestly great stun. However, Vayne starts to really shine on the late game bosses. Here's the thing, you can only have 2 Lancelots hitting a boss at one time. You're going to need a lot of Kitty Mage's to have Lancelot doing enough damage to kill the final boss. But even then, your two Lancelots might short just barely on damage. You can get a third Lancelot maybe and rotate him in whenever his ult is charged, or, you can get one or two Vayne's. If you have one or two Vayne's hitting the wave 80 boss, and two Lancelots, you're basically good to go even if your partner can't help you with boss clear. When you're just starting out, you're likely to most often struggle with the last boss. The only other thing to keep in mind is that Vayne does physical damage. So you need to support her with defense reduction. Shoot for 160 defense reduction. You'll also want to get as close to level 20 legendary/mythic damage upgrade in game as you can, and you'll need at least 100k+ gold. Lancelot doesn't benefit from any of those things, but you do that, and Vayne will give you a little insurance on that last boss. Also, read how Vayne's tumble skill works. You'll want to use that as well.

Eventually with Vayne level 12, and with only Safe Box and Money Gun level 4, you can finish the boss at the end with just Vaynes. Don't rush for Vayne level 12, this is just what to expect with Vayne 12. Choose the level 12s that seem fun/good to you. Lancelot level 12 is the second best 12 after Kitty Mage, (as you'll read below) and makes hard mode easy.

Second Level 12?

For the second level 12 mythic you get, you have more freedom. Once you have Kitty Mage 12, you can start clearing hard mode pretty regularly with many strategies. If you experiment with defense reduction, you'll really get the most out of Rocket Chu, and you'll even be able to start killing bosses with Vayne instead of Lance as long as you have Vayne 6. That being said, there are two level 12 upgrades that stand out as being particularly strong. Lancelot and Tao level 12.

Why Lancelot 12

If you've used Lancelot 6 you'll know that sometimes, it can get close on that wave 80 boss. With Lancelot level 12, his % damage is increased to from 2% per hit, to 3% per hit at max skill level. This is very powerful, and once you get this it makes clearing hard mode a lot easier. There's not much to say here. Get a Lancelot level 12, and support it with Kitty Mage 12, and it's going to be pretty difficult to not win. Lancelot will even clear waves for you at that point. You'll still need to survive long enough to get Lancelot set up, but it's very straightforward to do so.

Why Lazy Taoist 12

In Lucky Defense, some characters shine at particular levels. Batman, Chu, and Lancelot are good examples of this. While Batman doesn't gain as much as other mythics from being leveled up, Rocket Chu gets a big increase in his odds of surviving being overclocked at level 6. This is a huge buff that's well worth the affordable level 6 upgrade. With Lancelot, he unlocks his ult, and this is huge because his entire playstyle is centered around how often his ult comes out. Tao is similar to these other characters, with the exception being that his "glow-up" happens at level 12. Before level 12, he's not that good. His strong attack doesn't happen very often, and his other attack is basically useless. Once he's at level 12, his main attack will happen twice as often. Not only that, but his treasure is a direct increase to both the strength and fire rate of this main attack, making it one of the better treasures in the game. Since Tao also uses Storm Elemental, this means that when you're playing hard mode, if you opt to save your epics for merging, every time you get a legendary you have a 100% chance to get a powerful wave clear. Tiger gets Master Kun, War Machine gets Rocket Chu, Sheriff gets Verdee and now, Storm Elemental gets Lazy Taoist. Without being level 12, Tao isn't quite on the same level as the other two options. Level 12 puts them on a similar playing field, and it could even be argued that Tao outdamages the other two in certain cases. Once you get that Wave Clear Mythic, you're free to look for support and Boss Killer Mythics. Knowing this, Lazy Taoist is the clear best choice for the next character to take to level 12 after Lancelot 12, being useful past Hard Mode, and into Hell Mode.

Why were other mythics not mentioned?

I chose to stop the list here because even there are some units that are obvious contenders for being the next level 12, these ones I've already talked about are the ones that will improve your hard clear rate the most. The next obvious one would be Rocket Chu 12, but he's not neccessary because he's incredibly strong at even level 6. After you get the mythics listed here, you are free to experiment. To help you make your next choice on what to level up, you can refer to Mythic Categories where I go over all the different mythic categories, and rank them/explain what builds they synergize the most with.

Or even better, you can use these two meta hell mode builds I've typed up to help you choose mythics in a way that lets you build your mythic team in the most optimal way. There's some overlap, but the two builds are

Choose one of these two builds and you can quickly get a high level hell-ready build. The easier to play build is magic, but when played well, physical damage seems to have an edge. You'll see many high-level players use a blend of both strategies. The idea there is to play what you get. Get a ton of eagles? Lean into the magic damage. Get a bunch of hunters? Add some Chus to the board and easily clear waves. If you're doing a hybrid like this, it's good to get Watt and save him for the final wave. If you're focusing physical, Vayne will clear all wave 80 bosses including Barrier. Regardless, check out the two builds and it'll be easier to choose your next mythics to level.

Good Luck!