Sauda

"With a calm fury, Sauda can carve Bloons up with her twin razor-sharp swords."

- BTD6 description

 is a Hero in Bloons TD 6, first released in Version 24.0. She is a swordmaster, and is the second melee hero in the game (the first being Pat Fusty). She uses her two swords to pop bloons, dealing one damage per attack across a 90-180 degree cone. She attacks quickly, approximately every 0.4s at base, and even faster at higher levels, but she has low range, at 23 initially. Initially, she pops up to 4 bloons per attack. She is the second hero to receive built-in camo detection at base level, the first being Ezili. However, her sword swings cannot pop Lead Bloons until at least Level 13. She is unlockable with a one-off cost of 5000.

She costs $510 on Easy, $600 on Medium, $650 on Hard, and $700 on Impoppable. If Hero Favors is enabled, she will cost $460 on Easy, $540 on Medium, $585 on Hard, and $650 on Impoppable.

In 28.0 update Sauda received new skin called "Viking Sauda" changing her appearance, quotes and deeper voice.

Upgrades
Sauda upgrades automatically after being placed. Her leveling speed is 1.425x, equal to that for Ezili, Pat Fusty, and Admiral Brickell.

Original Sauda
When Selected on the Heroes menu:
 * "My blades are legendary!"

When Placed:
 * "Let's make some ribbons!"
 * "This is me, pop-star!"

When Tapped:
 * "Ready to slice!"
 * "Heya."
 * "Hey!"
 * "Hey."
 * "What's next?"
 * "Hero time!"
 * "These are sharp, remember?" (When annoyed)
 * "Ah, wae!? (아, 왜?)" (means "Ah, why?")

Leveling Up:
 * "Good choice"
 * "Lookin' sharp"
 * "Ha, that tickles."
 * "Extra sharp!"
 * "Cool!"
 * "Now we're talking!"
 * "Even better!"
 * "I'm as sharp as it gets"
 * "My blades are legendary!" (When Level 20)

When MOAB Class bloons Appear:
 * "Get ready! M.O.A.B.!" - MOAB appears
 * "Big, red, and slicy!" - BFB appears
 * "Get that Z.O.M.G.!" - ZOMG appears
 * "D.D.T., I got this!" - DDT appears
 * "Attack as one!" - BAD appears

When a MOAB-Class Bloon is Destroyed:
 * "Clean-cut, and still cuts a tomato."
 * "Assa, jiryeotdari~ (아싸, 지렸다리~)" (a Korean slang which means 'Oh yeah, I was awesome.')

When activating Leaping Sword:
 * "Tteonageora. (떠나거라)" (a Korean word which means "Leave here")
 * "Leaping sword!"

When activating Sword Charge:
 * "Sword charge!"
 * "Ssanglyong-geom! (쌍룡검)" (a Korean word which means 'twin dragon sword')

When Bloons Leak:
 * "Aww, I could've popped that!" (anxious tone)
 * "Aww, I could've popped that!" (disappointed tone)

Viking Sauda
When Selected on the Heroes menu:
 * "Till' Valhalla!"

When Placed:
 * "Axes. At the ready!"
 * "We raid!"

When Tapped:
 * "I am ready."
 * "I am ready." (Different tone)
 * "To battle!"
 * "The enemy is near!"
 * "Yes my Jarl?"
 * "Yes my Jarl?" (Different tone)
 * "I have spent many hours sharpening these." (When annoyed)
 * "You challenge me?!" (When very annoyed)

Leveling Up:
 * "Ah!"
 * "Ah ha-ha-ha!"
 * "Ah ha-ha-ha-ha."
 * "Getting stronger!"
 * "Getting stronger!" (Different tone)
 * "Ah! The power!"
 * "Ah! The power!" (Different tone)
 * "My skills grow legendary!"
 * "The skulls will sing of this day!"

When MOAB Class bloons Appear:
 * "A captain approaches." (MOAB appears)
 * "An enemy red from battle." (BFB appears)
 * "This one looks like a troll." (ZOMG appears)
 * "A creature of smoke and death." (DDT appears)
 * "Finally. They send their champion." (BAD appears)

When a MOAB-Class Bloon is Destroyed:
 * "Rejoice in our victory!"
 * "The mighty fall!"

When activating Leaping Sword:
 * "For glory!"
 * "Leaping axes!"

When activating Sword Charge:
 * "I take you all!"
 * "Till' Valhalla!"

When Bloons Leak:
 * "We bleed yet we fight on!"

Sounds
Other sound effects related to Sauda that are not specifically her voicelines are shown here.

When Sauda swings her sword:
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [sword attack]
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [sword attack]
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [sword attack]
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [sword attack]
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [sword attack]

While leaping in the air via Leaping Sword with Hero Voicelines off:
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [leaping]

When striking the ground via Leaping Sword or Sword Charge with Hero Voicelines off:
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [sword strike]

When activating Sword Charge with Hero Voicelines off:
 * HeroIconSauda.pngHeroIconSaudaViking.png [swift sword swipes]

Summary
Sauda has low range, moderate pierce, but high attack speed. As such, a tight spot on the map will make for an effective chokepoint for the bloons. Her abilities provide useful additional sources of popping power if needed. She is very map-limited due to her low range, although simple Villages and Alchemist buffs can help counter her low range considerably.

Tips

 * The intermediate map Balance is designed specifically to optimize her high attack speed and pierce over her main weakness of low range, by placing her in the center spot.
 * The beginner map Resort features a similar spot at the top right corner to place her in.
 * Stacking stuns on top of other status effects will drastically increase her damage, up to +30 on MOABs at level 11 (+20 for the stun, +10 for the other status effect).
 * At Level 11+, adding any slow, immobilization, or damage-over-time will allow her to deal bonus damage to bloons and blimps.
 * MOAB Glue is one of the best cost-effective status effects to pair with her, as MOAB Glue slows down blimps to allow her to attack blimps more often before the blimps leave, while she benefits from the bonus damage from her Level 11+ special extra damage.
 * Bloon Sabotage is also an extremely effective tower to pair with Sauda due to its screen-wide slow, along with its 15 second duration.
 * Since the BAD is immune to all kinds of slow effects, it can only receive debuffs that grant bonus damage on attacks. This can add up to +10.
 * Sauda can pop Frozen and Lead with any of her abilities, regardless of level. However, her main attacks alone are insufficient for popping Frozen until Level 7+, and insufficient versus Leads until Level 13+.
 * Don't rely on her abilities to pop Frozen or Lead. Use other sources to pop Frozen and Lead until she reaches Level 7+ and Level 13+, respectively.
 * Much like Ground Zero and Tsar Bomba, be sure to watch out for her 0.8s time delay before any of her abilities activate. If bloons are about to leak, you should be aware that you'll probably leak before Sauda will be able to use her ability.
 * Because of Sauda's extremely short range and lack of any supportive capabilities, she is effectively useless on most True Expert maps and is much weaker than other top tier options, such as Etienne, Pat Fusty, Striker Jones, or Ezili would be.

Teasers
She was first teased here on 4th/5th March 2021. On March 9th/10th, 2021, a second teaser was posted on Twitter here, revealing her abilities: Leaping Sword and Sword Charge. On the next day, she was released in Version 24.0.

Bugs

 * Current
 * [28.3, possibly earlier] Level 3 Leaping Sword shows Sauda performing the act to have no swords held. Level 10+ Leaping Sword has no such visual bug.


 * Patched
 * [27.0] Would glitch out and crash within a few seconds if Sword Charge reaches the swamp holes in Bloonarius Prime. Patched in 27.1.

Trivia

 * As of Version 24.0, Sauda's appearance now brings the list of heroes purchasable on the first round of standard CHIMPS Mode to 3, alongside Quincy and Ezili. It was previously 3 before the Obyn price nerf in Version 11.0.
 * Sauda is the fifth female hero, along with Gwendolin, Ezili, Adora, and Admiral Brickell.
 * Sauda is the second hero to have built-in camo detection, the first being Ezili. Coincidentally, both of them are female.
 * Sauda's quote "Hero time!" is also said by Finn in Bloons Adventure Time TD. She is also inspired by the attack concept of Finn, who also attacks with swords, except he attacks with one sword at initially moderate speed (1 attack per second) instead of two swords at Rattleballs-quick speeds (2.5 attacks per second) like Sauda does.
 * Sauda is the second hero to speak in another language in addition to English, the first being Etienne (in his case, French).
 * However, in BATTD, Lady Rainicorn speaks Korean, so Sauda is not the first character in any of the Bloons games to speak that language.
 * The Bloon Bleed sprites are basically tear marks off bloons and blimps, while the Bloon Bleed damage-over-time animation is simply the animated leaking of air in the form of small white puffs of air.

Community achievements

 * Sauda has by far the most amount of 2TC combos out of any tower or hero, being the first hero or tower to reach 100 combos.
 * Sauda's first 2TC was accomplished within around 2 hours after the 24.0 update was announced, using Sauda + Sky Shredder.
 * The 2TC combo Sauda + Permanent Brew is the second combo to not have its first completion done on neither Logs nor Cubism.
 * On 9th July 2021, Sauda 1TC on Resort had been completed, making her the first tower or hero to be able to completely solo CHIMPS. Significant micromanagement, including proper timing, as well as manual leveling was required to get there. Prior to that, there were many close 2TC combos with Sauda with increasingly lower towers.
 * Sauda's 1TC completion has lead her to receive 33 associate 2TC combos, bringing her new total to 202 2TC combos.
 * The patch notes for Version 27.0 also refer to the Sauda 1TC community achievement while Ninja Kiwi was clarifying their intents to nerf Sauda on Version 27.0.
 * Until Flying Fortress and Superstorm dropped their Hard prices to $91,800 and $70,200 in Version 30.0, respectively, Sauda + Flying Fortress and Sauda + Superstorm were not completed. As of the Sauda + Superstorm combo, which was completed after the Sauda + Flying Fortress combo, the only CHIMPS-affordable towers left that do not yet have a 2TC are Sun Temple and Super Mines.

Blog posts

 * According to Ninja Kiwi's November 12th 2021 blog, Ninja Kiwi stated that Sauda is not the only swordsmonkey in the Bloons universe.
 * According to Ninja Kiwi's 18th March 2022 blog, Sauda has the best table manners among the heroes.

Cultural references

 * Based on the description of the Version 24.0 patch notes update video by Ninja Kiwi, Sauda is Korean.
 * Her name 'Sauda' means 'fight' in Korean. In Hangul (Korean script), it is written as "싸우다" (ssauda). It also sounds like 'Sword-a' in non-rhotic varieties of English.
 * The quote "clean cuts, still cuts a tomato!" is a reference to commercials about the Ginsu knife series. More specifically, the narrator of the 1990 commercial about the Ginsu 2000 says the line "The Ginsu 2000 can saw a lead pipe and still slice a tomato like this!" and the chef proceeds to slice a tomato cleanly after slicing a lead pipe cleanly.