SvS Scouting & Pre-Prep Guide — Running Your State from Matchmaking to Battle
Prep phase doesn't start on Monday. Scouting the enemy state, running the title queue (VP / Minister of Education, the 49-slot trick), the spend-late master sheet, the Tuesday checkpoint, and the battle participation poll — Ton's state-running workflow.
One-line takeaway — Prep phase doesn't start on Monday. The state that organizes scouting → title queue → item timing → participation poll from matchmaking Saturday is the one that wins.
A write-up of Ton's (TontonYouTube, State 948) "How to prepare for Preparation & Battle phase" video plus his public master sheet (SVS Preparation breakdown). While the SvS Prep guide covers "what to spend on which day for how many points", this article covers what a state needs to organize between matchmaking and battle day. Example numbers (thresholds, headcounts) are how State 948 runs it — adjust to your state.
🗓️ Weekly timeline
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Saturday | SvS matchmaking |
| Sat→Sun reset | Opponent confirmed → start scouting immediately |
| Sunday | Aim to finish scouting (Mon–Tue at the latest) · collect title requests, assign slots |
| Mon–Fri | Prep phase — run the title queue + manage item timing |
| Tuesday | Mid-week checkpoint — if you're behind even on your research-buff day, go all-out |
| Around Wednesday | Post the battle participation poll |
| Thu–Sat | Finalize the battle plan · coach rally leaders (voice) · alliance swaps |
| Saturday | Battle phase |
🔭 1. In-game scouting — what you can see without an account
| Where | What | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Click their castle | President's message · state buff schedule | When they run construction/research/troops buffs = their prep strategy. A state running research buff on Friday is suboptimal post-T11 (Tue research → Thu train & promote is standard) — a differing strategy is itself information |
| Castle battle history | Local Sunfire capture pattern | Repeated "3-hour straight" holds by one alliance → the alliances are rotating the castle cooperatively (no infighting = strong state) |
| Hall of Fame | Odd terms = local castle · even = SvS | Supreme President = won both prep and battle (castle). Reading back from recent terms gives you a weight-class read like "they only lost their very first SvS and never lost battle since" |
| Map scouting | Alliance territories · bear trap spots | Main vs farm alliances, bookmark top alliances and targets. Many weak accounts inside a strong alliance's turf may mean mid-transfer. Fringe alliances are mostly dead cities at this stage |
🕵️ 2. Create a scout account in their state
At least one person makes a new account in the opponent state. City (furnace) Lv.7 = leaderboards, Lv.8–10 = Arena.
| Ranking | How to read it |
|---|---|
| Alliance power | Number of main alliances and the gap structure (e.g. our 2-strong-of-4 vs their 4 evenly matched) |
| Player power | Reference only — can be empty power (troops-only accounts). Usually meaningful on older servers |
| Strongest hero power | Their #1 march's weight class — in SvS what matters is the first march |
| Total hero power | Account depth (spots players with 2–3 strong marches) |
| Pet power | Spending proxy |
| Labyran ranking | The best overall indicator — reflects chief gear + hero gear + charms + research all at once |
⚔️ Reading the Arena
- You can see their top players' hero gear and Essence Stone levels per march (5 marches) — gear Lv.100 / stone Lv.20 is max
- Which troop-type gear is maxed predicts their rally leaders' lineup → prepare counter formations
- Max vs near-max (stones lagging on some marches) is the basis for "how many rallies to take the castle?"
📄 Get battle reports
- A report against one of their key players is the best data — stat % and "0" entries confirm whether they're maxed
- Reports are also dated (a few weeks old = they're stronger now)
- Share them in your strategy channel and use them for rally-count math
⚠️ Every number is a pre-prep snapshot
Players who saved for 2–3 months jump massively during prep. Rankings are only a snapshot — both sides change during the week.
👑 3. Running the prep title queue (the core)
If you're serious about winning prep, don't leave titles first-come-first-served. Build the roster and schedule in advance. Two people run it: the President + the Minister of Interior — the Minister of Interior can also assign titles.
| Day | Theme | Title | Buff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Construction | Vice President | +10% construction/research/training speed |
| Tue | Research | Vice President | same |
| Thu | Train & promote troops | Minister of Education | +50% training speed, +200 training capacity |
🧮 Slot math and tricks
- Titles last 30 minutes → 48 people per day (it used to be 1 hour / 24)
- 49-person trick: start at 23:45 UTC the day before and run :15/:45 offsets → +1 slot per day
- 15-minute split: construction fits in 15 minutes → split the last slot into 15 min × 2 people (Mon/Tue)
- No gaps in the queue — to seat a 6 a.m. slot everything before it must be filled → plug holes with filler accounts (farms/alts). The US-evening-to-Asia-early-morning window is the hard one → cover with Asian players
- Scheduling: the President / Minister of Interior can pre-schedule titles and state buffs → no midnight babysitting; on the day itself it's just adjustments and crisis management
📋 Thresholds — State 948 example
- A slot goes to anyone spending 800+ Fire Crystals / 30+ days of research speedups / 25+ days of training speedups
- Submit: desired title / day / time window (UTC) — e.g. "Minister of Education Thursday, 110 days of training speedups, 10–12 UTC". Set your own alarm once assigned
- Collection method is up to you (DMs to the two organizers, a web form, per-alliance sheets) — find the workflow that fits your state
- The roster makes pushing visible → whales who saved but aren't on it get a personal nudge. If oversubscribed, prioritize by speedup/crystal stock
⏱️ 4. Item timing — the master sheet
★=optimal (buff/top points) · ✅=scores · ❌=don't waste · 🕛=state buff activates 00:00 UTC that day
| Item | Mon D1 | Tue D2 | Wed D3 | Thu D4 | Fri D5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charms (chief gear) | ✅ | — | ✅ | ★ | — |
| Fire Crystals + Refined (rFC) construction | ✅ | — | — | — | ★ |
| Fire Crystal Shards research | — | ★ | — | — | — |
| Construction speedups | ★🕛 | ✅ | — | — | ✅ |
| Research speedups | ❌ | ★🕛 | — | — | ⚠️* |
| Training speedups | ❌ | ❌ | — | ★🕛 train & promote | ⚠️ |
| Lucky Wheel | — | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
| Hero shards | — | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
| Gathering | depart | ★return | — | — | — |
| Essence Stones / Widgets / Mythril | — | — | — | ✅ | ★ |
| Chief gear score | — | — | — | — | ★ |
| Pet score / pet refining advanced & common Wild Marks | — | — | ✅ | — | ★ |
| Polar Terror rally | — | — | ★ | — | — |
| Beast kills Lv.26–30 | — | — | ★ | — | — |
| Beast kills Lv.1–25 | — | — | ❌ low value | — | — |
| (Experts) learning speedups | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
| (Experts) Sigils · Books of Knowledge | — | ✅ | ✅ | — | — |
* State buff schedule: Construction = Mon 00:00 · Research = Tue 00:00 (or Fri) · Troops = Thu 00:00 UTC.
🕰️ Principle: as late as possible, on buffed days
- If an item scores on two days, spend it on the later one: charms → Thu, Mythril/stones/widgets → Fri, pets → Fri, rFC → Fri
- Why: dumping everything early shows the gap and gives enemy whales time to decide to swipe their way back. Spending late denies them that reaction window
- The wallet-war risk is highest in a state's first few SvS. With monthly SvS on older servers it's rare — though Ton has seen an opponent empty every pack in the game to flip a prep once
- But forgetting to spend is the worst outcome — set alarms
🚨 The Tuesday checkpoint
If we run the research buff on Tuesday and they don't (confirmed by scouting), we should be ahead on Tuesday. If we're still behind, their prep weight class is simply higher → go all-out on Wednesday beasts/Polar Terrors and Thursday training, and announce "no skipping, spend everything" state-wide.
🎖️ Overlapping with Officer Project — tentative
- Hero shards / Essence Stones & widgets / chief gear score missions clear automatically if you spend on the SvS-optimal days above
- Even if a "Defeat Nearby Beasts" mission appears on Tuesday, save beasts/Polar Terrors — Tuesday ❌ → Wednesday ✅ to double-dip with SvS D3 points
🗳️ 5. The battle participation poll
Post an alliance poll around Wednesday. Too early (Sunday) and people don't know their schedule; too late and there's no time to plan. Question: "Will you participate in SvS battle?" — first 3 hours / last 3 hours / full 6 hours / not at all (single choice, pinned). Don't slice it into 30-minute windows — balance information against response rate; rally leaders get confirmed by DM anyway.
🔁 Counter-rally manpower math
- If taking the castle costs us 3 rallies while they need 1 → two alliances alternate 3 rallies each = 6 rally leaders + ~30 joiners per alliance for 6 hours
- Leaders/joiners must swap between alliances → keep 10–15 free slots — kick announced non-participants (bubble up, wait in a farm alliance), bring them back after. Run it routinely and members treat it as normal
- Time-zone coverage: the first 3 hours are early morning for the US, the last 3 hours are late night for Asia
- Spot FC6–8 joiner gaps → secure your next-strongest players' attendance. Thu–Sat: share the plan + voice-coach rally leaders
🏛️ 6. What actually makes a state strong — Ton's observation
- 4–5 active alliances + no infighting wins prep almost automatically. Most states are dead below their top 2–3 alliances → a 4–5 alliance structure is a systemic edge
- The last missing piece is one maxed player (chief gear, charms, research all maxed): if the gap is only hero gear, a double rally can take them down; if they're ahead on charms and research too, it takes 3–4 rallies, and if they reinforce well between rallies the timing war gets brutal
- If your castle falls to a single enemy rally, design the game around counter-rallies that steal their occupation time, not around holding it
🔗 See also
- Counter formations & lineup guide — counter picks after reading their Arena
- Rally comps & ratios master table — rally leader/joiner lineups
Source: Ton (TontonYouTube) video (Aug 2026) + his public master sheet. Title buffs cross-checked with whiteoutsurvival.wiki (Vice President +10%, Minister of Education +50% training speed).