Strategies for destroying "The Crucible" Special Event

A quick guide, with screenshots, for beating the Crucible. Feel free to submit alternative strategies in the comments.

How this works

Each guide will be rated based on the parts of the NAPSFRILLS challenge it achieves. For my purposes, NAPSFRILLS stands for:

• No
  
• Agents
  
• Premiums (includes injections)
  
• Specialties
  
• Farming
  
• Road
  
• Items
  
• Lives
  
• Lost
  
• Selling

For example, my personal strategy is N**S*RILLS, meaning it doesn't need specialties, road items, losing lives or selling but does use agents (there is a way around that though), premiums and farming.

Creator's Strategy - Heli + Dartling (N**S*RILLS)

What You'll Need

Lab requirements here are uncertain, as I already had more lab upgrades than I think are necessary once I started employing this strategy.

• Attack Speed Lab: Around tier 4.
  
• Starting Cash Lab: High enough to get Quad Darts near the start of round 1 (I have tier 4.)
  
• Big Bloon Sabotage Lab: Tier 5 is what I used, but I'm not sure it's entirely necessary.
  
• Bigger Beacons Premium (needed for one village to reach all other towers)

No specialties or road items required (well, I have the Dart Monkey specialist on, but since Dart Monkeys and Boomerang Throwers never factor in at all it doesn't matter). However, you will need a Banana Farmer or the tier 4 Bloonchipper specialty to collect the bananas from the farm lest you go insane trying to micro both your towers' targeting and collecting the bananas. It is technically possible without, but it's too much trouble for me so I didn't put the A in NAPSFRILLS.

Gameplay

At the start, put a Heli Pilot on the left pillar. Track the first Bloons with your cursor for optimal performance. Upgrade it to 1/0 ASAP, then put a Village in the center after round 3. After round 5, upgrade the Heli to 3/0.



After round 7, buy a Banana Farm at the bottom of the map and upgrade it to 2/0. Throughout the next rounds, get it to 3/0, buy a 2/2 Dartling, and get the Farm to 3/2 in that order. You should be done during or after round 15.



After round 17, get the Dartling to 2/3. Next round, upgrade the Village to 2/1.



The final upgrade of the run is upgrading the Heli to 4/2, which can be done after round 23 or during round 24.



This will easily get to round 25 and conquer it, winning you the event.

Submit your own!

If you have your own reliable strategies, then drop them in the comments and I'll test and add them when possible.