As another tip: It is also possible to play without even saving up for the interest, I've been playing this whole time spending all I had on the shop XD and it is still possible to win, best part is that you can get all your team pieces to 3-stars by just... going crazy... hahaha.

Also speaking about the "Strategies", I basically use none because I go crazy with the units too, I try to have a little bit of everything and one that at least can cure or protect the rest, you just slap the pieces right there and whenever you might feel one is not working just go swapping them until it works lol, yeah, you might lose a few points early game but since they are VERY few it's just basically a smooth sailing from the point in which you begin a winning streak.

In conclusion: cease thinking, make your brain return to power saving mode and perhaps it won't hurt so much.

Just gonna post my thoughts as a new-ish player and first time in a month long event. When I started playing, I avoided the Arena until I completed all the other starter achievements and it was the last one. I looked through the tutorial and it just seemed so difficult. Really didn't like it the first few times I played and lost miserably. But I stuck to it and now it's one of my favorite parts of the game! Except how long it takes (ugh). I actually enjoy seeing what kind of team I can put together using the companion pool given.

I usually go for the red, pink and poison synergies (idk the proper names). Never go for the yellow star, rarely the shield and healing. My strategy is basically to utilize every synergy every companion has. I.e. if I have 5 reds, can I swap a companion so I keep just 4 reds for the first synergy benefit and get progress toward another synergy? Or is there a way for me to get to 8 for the second benefit? I try not to keep any partial progress bars unless necessary.

Now for the Murkwood arena, I expected to love it even more because there's NO wait time (yay!). BUT I feel like the bots are much weaker in this version and I hit a winning streak in the first 5 rounds or less and then it seems it doesn't even matter whether I have good synergies or not and it's so boring when I'm winning every round every time. Curious if Icerun arena was more/less difficult than Murkwood?