Sunderfolk Arcanist Guide: Teleport Builds and Tips 2026

The Sunderfolk Arcanist is the class that makes every other player's job easier without always getting credit for it. When the Berserker lands a clean kill chain, it might be because the Arcanist spent their previous turn pulling two enemies into adjacent hexes. When the Pyromancer hits four targets with a fire spread, it's because someone clustered them first.

That "someone" is the Arcanist, and doing it well requires reading the room constantly.

TL;DR: Arcanist is a control-damage mage built around teleport repositioning. A tier in groups of 3+ where teleport affects multiple players. Prioritize Pull and Teleport cards over damage cards. Don't compare your kill count to the Berserker's. You're playing a different game. Patch 2.0 adjusted teleport range to be more consistent. Not a beginner class.

Sunderfolk Arcanist: quick answer

The Arcanist repositions units (enemies, allies, and itself) on the tactical grid through teleport abilities. Every Arcanist card that moves a unit is potentially worth more than a pure damage card, because the repositioned unit stays there for everyone else's turn.

The Arcanist doesn't have the Berserker's raw damage output or the Bard's passive team multipliers. What it has is a degree of board control unavailable to any other class: enemies go where the Arcanist puts them, and the team attacks whatever cluster results.

GODEEPER: How the Arcanist fits into party composition at each group size, and when Berserker or Vanguard is the stronger frontline choice. Sunderfolk Complete Guide: All 7 Classes →

Key takeaways

• Arcanist is A tier in groups of 3+, where repositioning scales with team size
• Core mechanic: teleport repositions enemies, allies, or self to a specific grid hex
• Update 2.0 added the Vanguard and Knockback mechanic; Arcanist Pull + Vanguard positioning is a strong combo
• Prioritize Pull and Teleport cards over damage cards in your hand
• Control-first build: your job is to make everyone else's turn better
• Not recommended for first-run players; pick Berserker or Ranger first
• Best party pairing: Berserker (benefits from clustered enemies), Pyromancer (fire spread), or Vanguard (Arcanist delivers enemies to the Vanguard's Grit range)

How teleport and pull work

Arcanist abilities come in three categories: teleport (move a unit to a specific hex), pull (move a unit toward the Arcanist), and damage. The control abilities are the reason to pick the Arcanist. Damage cards in the Arcanist's set are secondary.

Teleport places a unit on a specific hex you choose. Against enemies, this means pulling a high-priority target away from your fragile allies, separating a cluster before it can converge, or positioning a slow enemy in a dead-end corner where it spends its turns approaching rather than attacking. Against allies, teleport moves the Bard to a position that drops notes on the whole group, repositions the Ranger to a clear firing line, or repositions the Pyromancer to ignite a cluster before enemies scatter.

Pull drags a unit toward the Arcanist's current position. Pull range and pull distance vary by card. The GRAVITY NEXUS card (Pull 3, Range 1, adjacent-target attack) lets you collapse enemy spacing in ways that set up both Arcanist follow-up attacks and other players' area attacks. After a pull, the pulled enemy is within attack range of whoever is standing near the Arcanist.

The key mistake with pull is using it reactively: "this enemy is about to attack my ally, pull it away." That's better than nothing but it's not full-value Arcanist play. Full-value pull is looking three turns ahead: positioning enemies so the Pyromancer's fire spread catches four of them at once, or clustering enemies adjacent to the Berserker before the Berserker's turn fires.

The Mana System: resource planning for every round

The Arcanist's most important resource isn't teleport range or pull distance. It's Mana.

Every round, the Arcanist passively gains 2 Mana. The Mana cap starts at 10 and increases to 12 and then 15 through Workshop upgrades. Most of the Arcanist's strongest cards cost Mana: Stargate costs 2, Storm Chain costs 1, Mirror Image costs 3, Flummox Flux costs 3, Mirror Shatter costs 4, Gravity Nexus costs 5, Chaos Beam costs 5, and Aetherize costs 8. Thunderclap is the only zero-cost card in the base set.

This means the Arcanist is always managing a budget. In early dungeon rounds, play Thunderclap (free) while banking Mana toward the high-cost payoff cards. The real decision is never "do I play a card" but "do I spend Mana now or hold it for Gravity Nexus next round."

Mana Spring is the always-available bonus card every Arcanist carries into every dungeon. It teleports you 3 hexes and restores Mana (1/2/3 depending on upgrade tier), plus 1 extra Mana per adjacent character, including enemies. In a room with 2-3 enemies nearby, a single Mana Spring play can return 3-5 Mana while simultaneously repositioning you to a safer hex. That adjacency bonus is the reason the Arcanist plays from mid-range rather than the backline: close enough for Mana Spring recovery, far enough to avoid priority targeting.

Practical planning: if your goal for the round is Gravity Nexus (5 Mana) followed by Mirror Image (3 Mana), you need 8 Mana available. At 2 passive gain per round, that requires 4 full rounds from empty. Mana Spring recoveries and Storm Chain (1 Mana, hits two targets) are what shorten that window. Keep Mana Spring upgraded ahead of everything except Gravity Nexus.

One ceiling note: in Cycle 1 with the 10-Mana cap, Aetherize costs 80% of your total pool. Fire it only when a kill refund is likely. Once the cap reaches 12 (Cycle 2 upgrades), Aetherize becomes a semi-regular finisher rather than an emergency-only card.

Reading the room: the Arcanist's real skill requirement

Every class in Sunderfolk benefits from reading the room. The Arcanist requires it at a deeper level than any other class.

Before playing any card, the questions are:

• Where will each enemy move on its turn?
• Where does each ally need to be to maximize their cards?
• What's the two-turn setup? (Turn 1 repositions, Turn 2 commits)

The Rogue needs to read the room to set up stealth. The Arcanist needs to read the room to evaluate every single card choice, because teleport cards are useless if you move things somewhere wrong. A misplaced teleport doesn't just waste a card; it potentially puts an ally in a worse position or an enemy in a more dangerous one.

This is why the Arcanist is not a first-run class. You can't read the room on your first dungeon because you don't know yet how enemies move, which patterns the game uses, or where your allies will be on their turns. That knowledge is built up over multiple runs.

Build: control-first (recommended)

Card selection priority: Pull and Teleport effects first, then damage.

When building your hand at the start of a dungeon, evaluate cards by control impact. How many units does this card move? How far? Do the resulting positions benefit my team? A card that does 3 damage and pulls an adjacent enemy is potentially worth more than a card that does 10 damage to a single target, depending on what your party can do with the repositioned enemy.

The damage floor doesn't drop to zero. The Arcanist's damage cards interact with its control setup: after pulling enemies into cluster, an area attack that hits all of them is high-value damage. The damage cards you want are area-effect cards that punish the enemy positions you've been creating.

What to avoid: building for single-target damage output. The Arcanist isn't the Ranger. If you're trying to compete with damage dealers on kill count, you're spending cards in a way that does less total value for the group than a control-first approach.

Between dungeons, evaluate your next card pool with group positioning in mind. Pull cards pay off more when you know your party's attack ranges.

Sunderfolk Arcanist cards and Forge priority

Knowing every card in the Arcanist's set is the prerequisite for making good Forge decisions. Some cards that look strong in isolation compete directly with a higher-value option in the same Mana slot.

Core cards (upgrade first, never cull):

Gravity Nexus (5 Mana) is the signature card: Move 2, Pull 3 on all monsters in Range 3, Attack 6 to adjacent hexes, then Teleport 3 to safety. The combination of mass Pull, area damage, and self-repositioning in one card is unmatched in the set. Upgrade this first. Both the Pull range and Attack 6 scale with upgrades.

Stargate (2 Mana) is the most Mana-efficient control card in the set: Teleport 4 for yourself, then teleport any character in Range 3 to a chosen hex. At 2 Mana, it costs less than half what Gravity Nexus does while affecting both allies and enemies. Upgrade priority second.

Mana Spring (bonus card, always available) returns Mana while repositioning you. At tier 3, it restores 3 Mana plus the adjacency bonus. Upgrade this before Aetherize, because faster Mana recovery funds every other high-cost play.

Situational cards (keep if running a specific build):

Mirror Image (3 Mana) places two Decoys at Range 3. A Decoy is a 1-HP allied unit that draws enemy targeting, giving your fragile allies some breathing room. Mirror Shatter (4 Mana) destroys active Decoys for Attack 6 plus 1 per Decoy destroyed, then creates a new Decoy. With two Decoys in play, Mirror Shatter hits for 8 before Fate cards; with three, it hits 9. The combo sequences correctly across rounds: Mirror Image round 1, Gravity Nexus round 2 (different Mana ceiling, no conflict), Mirror Shatter round 3.

Important caveat on Decoys: not all enemies are fooled by them. Reaper-type enemies in the Fog Corridor missions have pull targeting that bypasses Decoys entirely and pulls heroes regardless. Read the encounter type at mission start before committing 3 Mana to Mirror Image in those fights.

Storm Chain (1 Mana) hits a primary target at Range 3 for 4 damage, then a random secondary target within Range 2. Low Mana cost for two attacks is efficient. The secondary target is random, which limits setup value, but in crowded rooms the probability of a useful secondary hit is high. Worth keeping in most builds.

Cards to consider culling:

Flummox Flux (3 Mana) teleports you and attacks random targets within 2 hexes, inflicting debuffs. The randomness on targeting conflicts with the Arcanist's setup-dependent playstyle. If your hand already has Stargate and Gravity Nexus as the control backbone, Flummox Flux often sits unused while occupying the same 3-Mana slot as Mirror Image. Cull it if the Forge offers a second Stargate or an upgraded Storm Chain.

Aetherize (8 Mana) is the finisher: Attack 15 at Range 3, plus 1 per Mana remaining after casting, and a 3-Mana refund on kill. At a 15-Mana cap (fully upgraded), Aetherize deals 22 damage before Fate cards and refunds 3 on a kill. It is the correct card against single high-HP targets in late cycles. Remove it from your Cycle 1 starting hand when the 10-Mana cap makes the math unfavorable; bring it back in Cycle 2 once your cap reaches 12.

Starfall (Ultimate, unlocked at level 6) gives Teleport 4, then attacks a small hexagon at Range 3 for 4/5/6 damage scaled by upgrade tier, Stuns the center target, Confuses all others hit, and refunds Mana per target. Pairing Starfall with a prior Gravity Nexus pull maximizes the hexagon's target count and the Mana refund.

Party synergies

Arcanist + Berserker: The Berserker wants enemies adjacent. The Arcanist delivers enemies adjacent. Berserker's Protector's Fury also gives passive damage reduction while adjacent to enemies, which means a Berserker surrounded by repositioned enemies is also tanking with bonus damage reduction. This is the most naturally synergistic pairing in the game.

Arcanist + Pyromancer: Pyromancer's fire spread hits multiple adjacent enemies. Arcanist's Pull and Teleport creates those adjacent clusters. In a four-player group with both, the Arcanist sets up the clusters, the Pyromancer ignites them, and the damage output is multiplicative. The positioning requirement: Pyromancer needs to be in range to hit the cluster after the Arcanist sets it up. The Arcanist may need to use a teleport to put itself in a position that brings enemies near the Pyromancer rather than pulling everything toward the Arcanist's own location.

Arcanist + Bard: The Bard drops notes when it moves. Arcanist can teleport the Bard to specific positions that generate note zones over multiple allies in a single Bard movement. This requires planning ahead: where should the Bard end up, and what teleport gets them there? In a four-player group with Bard, Berserker, Arcanist, and Pyromancer, the Arcanist is simultaneously managing enemy clusters, Bard positioning for note coverage, and Pyromancer range. It's the most complex coordination in the game. It's also the highest-output configuration at endgame difficulty.

Arcanist + Vanguard: The Vanguard (added in Update 2.0) is a retaliation tank whose damage output scales with how many hits it absorbs. Arcanist Pull abilities bring enemies toward the Arcanist's position, and if the Vanguard is standing adjacent, those pulled enemies immediately become Grit trigger targets. Rather than relying on enemies walking to the Vanguard, the Arcanist delivers them. Conversely, the Vanguard's Knockback abilities (like Into the Fray, which Knockbacks enemies 2 hexes) can scatter enemies that the Arcanist can then Pull back into a tighter cluster. In practice: Arcanist pulls enemies into a pile near the Vanguard, Vanguard absorbs the attacks and retaliates, Pyromancer ignites the pile. This loop is more coordinated than Berserker-Arcanist because both the Arcanist and Vanguard are actively positioning enemies rather than one holding and one repositioning. In solo mode, Arcanist plus Vanguard is a functional pairing: Arcanist handles control and damage, Vanguard handles frontline absorption without needing a player to actively manage attack cards.

Each hero draws from their own card pool. Managing hand size and knowing which cards to hold across rounds separates strong players from average ones.

GODEEPER: Why the Bard's music note system rewards active positioning, and how combining Bard note coverage with Arcanist repositioning maximizes team damage output. Sunderfolk Bard Guide: Music Note System and Best Builds →

Cycles 2 and 3: how the Sunderfolk Arcanist scales

Sunderfolk's difficulty system loops through the same five chapters with scaled enemy health and damage, elite enemy variants with modified behavior patterns, and new card options unlocked at each cycle threshold. The Arcanist's role and card priorities shift across cycles in a specific pattern.

Cycle 1: Gravity Nexus and Stargate are the primary tools. The Mana ceiling at 10 means Aetherize costs 80% of your total pool. Play it only when a kill refund is likely. Focus on the control backbone and build Mana reserves before committing to high-cost turns.

Cycle 2: Enemy health scales enough that the Arcanist's area output from Gravity Nexus becomes more valuable relative to single-target cards. Pulling all range-3 enemies into adjacent range and hitting all of them for base 6 damage multiplies in value as individual health pools grow. The Mana cap upgrade to 12 makes Aetherize viable as a semi-regular finisher rather than a reserved situational card. If you haven't upgraded Mana Spring to tier 3 yet, do it before entering Cycle 2 encounters; the recovery rate improvement is the bottleneck in longer fights.

Cycle 3: Elite enemy variants include behavior patterns that counter some standard control setups. Gravity Nexus Pull remains one of the few controls that works consistently against elites without resistance, making it even more central in Cycle 3 than in earlier cycles. Starfall's Stun plus Confuse area becomes more important because neutralizing multiple elites simultaneously is often worth more than raw damage. Mirror builds face harder counters from Decoy-ignoring elite variants; most Cycle 3 Arcanist hands pivot toward Gravity Nexus plus Starfall as the core loop, dropping the Mirror combo.

Two-player note: Arcanist plus Pyromancer in Cycle 2 Act 2-3 encounters runs into documented difficulty spikes related to encounter design for smaller parties. The developers acknowledged the imbalance in early 2026 and indicated spawn adjustments were planned. If you're hitting a wall with this duo, the issue is encounter tuning rather than build failure. The practical fix: use Stargate more aggressively to keep the Pyromancer at safe firing angles rather than expecting the Pyromancer to self-position around active threats.

Arcanist in solo play

Sunderfolk solo uses a two-hero control system where you play two classes simultaneously. The Arcanist works in solo, but its control value scales with how many players benefit from repositioning. When you're the only player other than the Arcanist's partner, the setup payoff is more contained.

Arcanist + Berserker is the strongest solo pairing: the Berserker benefits directly from every enemy you pull into adjacency range. Arcanist + Ranger also works if you want to play at range, using pull to keep enemies in the Ranger's firing positions.

The solo caveat: the Arcanist's turns that don't deal damage feel more expensive when you're managing two heroes than when you're part of a four-player group where other players are hitting things while you reposition. In solo, every Arcanist control turn is a turn your partner isn't also contributing. Factor that into your hand evaluation.

Related Reading

• Sunderfolk Complete Guide: All 7 Classes 2026: party composition at every group size, tier list, and where the Arcanist fits against the Vanguard in the control slot.
• Sunderfolk Berserker Guide: Protector's Fury and Best Builds: how the Berserker's adjacency-based mechanics make it the natural partner class for Arcanist repositioning.
• Sunderfolk Bard Guide: Music Note System and Best Builds: positioning the Bard for note coverage, and why the Bard-Arcanist combination maximizes passive team buffs.
• Sunderfolk Class Tier List: All 7 Heroes Ranked 2026: where Arcanist sits in the overall ranking and how it changed after patch 2.0's teleport adjustments.
• Sunderfolk Vanguard Guide: Grit, Retaliation, Best Builds: the other A-tier group control option, how Vanguard's passive approach differs from Arcanist's active repositioning.
• Sunderfolk Pyromancer Guide: Fire Builds and AoE Tips 2026: Sunderfolk Pyromancer guide: fire spread hits multiple enemies but the class dies fast. Correct positioning, frontline requirements, and....
• Sunderfolk Ranger Guide: Range Builds and Party Tips 2026: Sunderfolk Ranger guide: A tier ranged damage and traps.
• Sunderfolk Rogue Guide: Stealth Builds and Tips 2026: Sunderfolk Rogue guide: C tier for most players, technically powerful for experienced ones.
• Sunderfolk Online Co-op Guide: Setup, Fixes, and Party Tips: Sunderfolk online co-op supports 1-4 players on Steam and Epic.

References

• Sunderfolk on Steam: official store page, patch notes, and Update 2.0 changes from Secret Door
• r/Sunderfolk: community Arcanist build discussions, teleport range threads, and patch 2.0 reaction posts
• Arcanist on Sunderfolk Wiki: card values, Mana system details, and ability descriptions for the full card set

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Arcanist good in Sunderfolk? A tier in groups of 3 or more. The teleport repositioning scales with team size: in a four-player group, one good pull benefits up to three other players simultaneously. In solo, the control value is more contained but still functional when paired correctly. Fully mastered, the Arcanist is the highest-impact class in a coordinated four-player group.

How does teleport work? Teleport places a unit (enemy, ally, or the Arcanist) on a specific hex you choose. Range and targeting varies by card. Patch 2.0 adjusted range values to be more consistent at mid-range. The point of teleport isn't just movement. It's setting up positions that benefit your whole team's next turn.

What's the best Arcanist build? Control-first. Prioritize Pull and Teleport cards over damage cards. Your job is to make enemies attack from bad angles and die to your teammates' cards, not to compete on kill count. Damage cards that hit clustered enemies are worth keeping; single-target damage cards are lower priority than any control card.

How does Arcanist compare to Berserker? Berserker deals more direct damage and has clearer feedback on what it's doing right. Arcanist does more team-enabling work that's harder to see directly but changes what's possible for everyone. They're the strongest pairing in the game when the Arcanist commits to creating adjacency for the Berserker.

Is Arcanist beginner-friendly? No. Start with Berserker or Ranger. The Arcanist requires reading enemy movement patterns, knowing ally card ranges, and planning two turns ahead. That knowledge comes from playing the game, not from reading a guide. Come back to Arcanist after your first few runs.

What did patch 2.0 change? Adjusted teleport range values on several Arcanist cards. Mid-range became more consistent; maximum range is slightly less extreme than before. The Arcanist became more reliable overall without losing its core control identity. Players who bounced off the old version due to range inconsistency should give it another try.