Tavern Hero First

The simple way to open with a Tavern hero as Night Elf: Ancient of War and two Moon Wells before the Altar, three Archers, pick up the neutral hero at 20 food and tech at 25 during the first creep.

By Link· Updated 25 September 2026

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About this build

Full guideTavern Hero First Build Order For Night Elf

Night Elf is by far the most common race to pick a Tavern hero first. Sometimes it is simply fun; sometimes it is one of the strongest things to do on a map against a certain race, like Beastmaster first against Human on Last Refuge. This is a general build to get a Tavern hero first, not a discussion of what to do with each hero.

This is a lazy build: not the most efficient, but the simplest and most straightforward. Easy, as long as you can Ancient of War creep a medium camp, which is what you normally take first.

Build order · 17 steps

#	Food	Instruction
1	5	4 Wisps to the gold mine, 1 to harvest lumber, queue 3 Wisps at the Tree of Life.
2	6	The 1st Wisp from the Tree of Life becomes your Ancient of War, so rally it to where you want the Ancient.
3	7	Build the Ancient of War with the 1st Wisp, then rally the Tree of Life to where you want the 1st Moon Well.
4	7	Build the 1st Moon Well with the 2nd Wisp, then rally the Tree of Life to the gold mine so the 3rd Wisp saturates it (5/5).
5	7	Queue 3 more Wisps. Shift-click the Moon Well Wisp to build another Moon Well right after the first.
6	8	The next Wisp (3rd made) goes to harvest lumber, so rally the Tree of Life accordingly.
7	9	The next Wisp (4th made) builds your Altar, so rally it where you want it.
8	10	The rest of your produced Wisps go to harvest lumber.
9	10	The 1st Moon Well and Ancient of War finish around the same time. Instantly start training your 1st Archer.
10	12	Queue another lumber Wisp and use one of your lumber Wisps to scout the opponent.
11	13	Queue another lumber Wisp.
12	14	Queue a 2nd Archer and move another lumber Wisp to a tree close to the Tavern.
13	16	Queue another lumber Wisp.
14	17	Queue a 3rd Archer and your final lumber Wisp as soon as you can.
15	20	Your Altar and 2nd Moon Well finish around the same time. Have your Wisp in range of the Tavern and pick up your neutral hero.
16	25	25 is the food count you want. If you lost your scout Wisp, rebuild it quickly before tech. You want 9 Wisps on wood.
17	25	Tech as soon as you have enough lumber, which should be during your first creep (usually an Ancient of War creep of a bigger camp).