CONTINGENCY CONTRACT DAY 1: TEAMS & RISKS

Contingency Contract is finally live in Arknights: Endfield, and the first run, Re-Ignition Experimental Operation, is exactly the kind of optional, build-flexing endgame mode a lot of us have been waiting for. If you came over from the original Arknights, the name will be familiar, but the way it plays here is a different animal. This is a third-person action mode, not tower defense, so almost everything you knew about stacking risks needs re-learning from scratch.

This guide walks through everything you actually need for day one: how the mode works, the single most important thing to understand about rewards, how to read the risk modifiers, which teams are carrying clears right now, and how to push higher if you’re chasing bragging rights. I’ve leaned hard on what the community is reporting in the first 24 hours so you don’t have to grind blind. For where every operator lands against the risk board, see our Contingency Contract operator tier list, which ranks all 27 by how many Test Criteria their kit neutralizes.

Let’s get into it.

TL;DR - Key Points

• Risk 20 caps the rewards. Everything above it is bragging rights only, so there’s zero FOMO pressure to push the ceiling.
• Gimmick risks beat raw stat risks. Modifiers that change how the fight works are far easier than ones that crank enemy HP or shred your stats.
• Higher criteria auto-clear the lower tiers. Clear the 40% stat-cut and the 10% and 20% versions count as done.
• Estella is the easy-mode crutch, Wulfgard is the breakout carry, and ranged comps are smoother than melee at high risk.
• The “+100% damage but not basic/skill/combo/ult” node actually buffs Arts Reactions and Bursts, a near-free doubler for reaction teams.
• Skip the enemy +HP and your-damage-reduction nodes when picking risks, and drop the timer node first if you aren’t chasing the ceiling.
• Unlimited stamina means theory-crafting is free, your only real cost is gear-crafting catalysts.

What Is Contingency Contract in Endfield?

Contingency Contract (CC) is a challenge mode where you choose how hard the fight is. You stack modifiers, called Test Criteria or “risks”, onto a single endgame stage. Each risk you add increases the difficulty and bumps your total risk number. The higher your risk number when you clear, the better your record.

A few things make this version stand apart:

• It runs on unlimited stamina, the same way modes like Umbral and Etchspace work. You can attempt it as many times as you want, so feel free to experiment, fail, tweak, and try again at zero cost.
• This is an “Experimental” CC, essentially the beta version of the mode. That means it’s intentionally bare-bones. There’s no trimmed medal and no rotating daily stages this time, which is exactly how the very first CC played out in the original game. Treat this as the proof of concept; the first “real” CC will almost certainly add more.
• The difficulty is genuinely meaningful. People who’ve maxed their rosters are still getting their teeth kicked in at the top end. That’s the point.

If you’re brand new to CC, the loop is simple: pick a team you enjoy, pick risks your team can survive, run the stage, then adjust. Planning the run is half the fun; executing it is the other half.

Release Time and Server Access

Release timing is staggered by region, and this tripped a lot of people up on launch day:

• Asia server gets the event first.
• NA / EU unlocks at 12:00 PM EST.

If you’re on NA/EU and the event isn’t showing up at what you think is server reset, that’s normal. It’s tied to that noon EST window, not your usual daily reset. So don’t panic if Asia players are already posting clears hours before you can even open the mode.

The Most Important Thing to Know: Risk 20 Is the Reward Cap

Read this part even if you skip everything else.

You only need to reach Risk 20 to earn every reward in the shop. You do not need to push to 30, 40, or anywhere near the ceiling to fully clear the mode. Once you understand that, all the pressure evaporates.

Everything above Risk 20 is purely for bragging rights. Your max risk gets displayed next to your username, and that’s the real prize at the top end. There’s no pull currency gated behind hardcore clears, which is genuinely a good design decision for the long-term health of the mode. You get a handful of pulls from the event regardless, and the grind to the reward cap is very forgiving.

So here’s the practical reward strategy:

1. Hit Risk 20 once with whatever combination of risks your team can handle. Getting all the first-clear rewards is easy.
2. Clear each tag once for its individual first-clear coin bonus. Every uncleared tag has a small gift icon on the selection screen showing the coins available.
3. Check Cycle Missions for extra coins. There’s a button above the shop on the event overview screen. New Cycle Missions are added every few days and reward additional coins, so you may need to come back over the event period to fully clear the shop.

If you’re specifically after the cosmetic rewards (the profile picture and the profile decoration), be warned they sit behind a large Vitrified Coin total, around 8,500, that you can’t buy out from a single clear. You top it up by clearing each uncleared tag once and by the one Cycle Mission that keeps refreshing for 500 coins every couple of days, so the cosmetics are a slow grind across the event window rather than a one-session purchase.

One detail that saves a ton of grinding: higher-level criteria automatically clear the lower tiers of the same risk. If you clear a stage with the criteria that cuts your operator stats by 40%, you don’t have to go back and separately farm the 10% and 20% versions. They’re counted as done.

To unlock everything in the shop you will need to vary your criteria across runs, but you never have to go above Risk 20 to do it.

How to Read Risks and Test Criteria

When you open the mode you’re hit with a wall of around 41 selectable options, and it’s genuinely overwhelming at first. Here’s how to make sense of it.

Gimmick risks vs. raw stat risks

The single most useful mental model: gimmick risks are almost always easier than raw stat risks. Modifiers that change how the fight works are far more manageable than ones that just crank enemy numbers or shred your own.

• “Can’t switch operators” is about the freest risk available if you only need the minimum. Just build your rotation around staying on one unit.
• “No heals between waves” is similarly cheap if you aren’t relying on between-wave topping up.
• On the punishing end, the risks that increase enemy HP are some of the worst, especially stacked with attack-reduction risks, because they massively inflate how long each fight takes, and longer fights run you into the timer.

One risk worth singling out as a “skip if you can” is enemy +HP. Piling HP onto enemies drags every fight out, which pushes you toward the timer fail, and it’s nastier still when stacked with attack-reduction risks. One early clearer skipped it entirely and found the attribute-related risk easier to swallow by comparison, so deprioritize the HP node when you’re choosing what to take.

Two traps that quietly invalidate a whole strategy

A couple of risks don’t just shift numbers, they switch off entire game plans, so know them before you stack them.

• The damage cap limits how much HP an enemy can lose in a split second (roughly a quarter of its bar). One-shot crush teams that delete small mobs with a single Mi Fu MOVE3, or burst comps that chunk a boss with a stacked ultimate, lose most of their identity under it. Leave it unchecked on a burst team; a sustained-DPS team can take it close to free.
• The regeneration risk heals enemies when you crowd-control them (and in some versions when you heal yourself). With it active, stop pressing crowd-control ultimates like Tangtang’s, since freezing a full-health enemy just tops it back up, and remember that Ember’s combo heal also reaches mobs and bosses, not only your squad. One player shaved a full minute off a clear simply by never using Tangtang’s ult once this tag was up.

The “+100% damage but NOT basic/skill/combo/ult” risk explained

This one confuses everybody, so let me clear it up, because it’s actually one of the best risks for certain teams.

The criteria reads like it buffs your damage by 100% but then excludes basic, skill, combo, and ult, which sounds like it excludes literally every damage source in the game. It doesn’t. What it actually buffs are Arts Reactions (Combustion, Shatter, Crush) and Arts Bursts (stacking the same element). The wording lists the exclusions because it’s shorter than listing every reaction it boosts.

So if your team’s damage comes from reactions (crush teams, combustion teams, element-stacking comps) this is close to a free 100% damage node. If your damage is mostly raw skill output, it does nothing for you. For a full breakdown of which comps abuse this, see our Contingency Contract reaction team guide.

The Solidification risk and how to play around it

One risk extends Solidification to 15 seconds, and there are versions that can be removed by using a skill of a specific element. The play here is preparation:

• Don’t let your main carry’s skill be the one that triggers Solidification, and don’t have it be the skill immediately after.
• You can manipulate your combo stacks by either firing combos at the same time or deliberately delaying them to bank more Solidification stacks.

Do the prep work before you commit to your damage rotation and this stops being a problem.

The forced-control ult trap

This is a subtle one worth knowing if you run units with forced-control ultimates (the kind that take camera control during the ult). When you have the “can’t switch operators” criteria active, you can run into a situation where the unit’s ult fires but the AI essentially flops, running in circles and barely shooting, if you’re not the one in control.

The workaround: switch to the character you want before you activate the enemies. You aren’t actually forced to play Slot 1 as your main, and the forced-control swap doesn’t get triggered if you handle your switching during prep. Just sort out your positioning before the fight goes live.

Best Teams and Operators for CC Re-Ignition

Here’s where the meta is settling after the first day. The headline is that this CC is rewarding some unexpected units, which is very on-brand for the mode.

Estella, the easy-mode pick

Estella is the standout for low-effort clears and is reigning over a lot of the higher boards too. Her talent is doing absurd work here, several of the criteria simply don’t affect her, and she’s extremely comfortable to play. If you just want your Risk 20 reward clear with minimal stress, build Estella and run around staying alive while the rest of your team mops up.

The caveat at the very top end: near max risk she may have to be dropped for a “real” damage teammate, and you’ll have to sweat the dispel timings to push enough DPS. But for the reward cap and even fairly high pushes, she’s a god-tier crutch. The popular Estella plus Wulfgard combo (sometimes called the cheese) is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on the leaderboards. If you want to build her as a proper Shatter enabler rather than just a survivability brick, our Estella Risk 40+ build and team guide breaks down her potentials, rotation, and modifier picks in detail.

Wulfgard, the breakout carry

Wulfgard is stupidly strong this CC. Multiple people are reporting that he trivializes clears that took hours with other teams. One player got Risk 40 in a single attempt with Wulfgard after spending two hours on the same risk with a Fangyi comp. His combustion damage is the engine, so gear him for it (more on gear below). If you have him even slightly built, this is your fast track. For the full breakdown of why his kit ignores the Key modifier nerfs, plus his weapons and best teams, see our Wulfgard Contingency Contract build and teams guide.

Ardelia, the solo carry

If you want to flex, Ardelia can solo high risk on her own. The build plan:

• Lean into her doing damage through her basic and skills.
• Avoid any modifier that weakens that, specifically the -70% basic and the attribute-reduction risks.
• Use her Talent 2 (also great for applying Arts suspect and travel) and her ult to spawn sheep for sustain.

It’s a lot of sheep spam and self-healing, but it works, and it’s resilient because you’re not fighting damage-reduction risks.

Catcher, solo with free buff points

Catcher can also go solo and benefits from new buffs that act as basically free risk points. If you’ve invested in her, she’s a strong off-meta option for racking up risk cheaply. She’s also a sturdy pick as your controlled operator: her battle skill blocks and counters the big enemies, and her combo skill is great for interrupting them, which the -60% combo cooldown node turns into near-constant crowd control. Build her defensively and she can outlast a whole run on her own bulk, which quietly defuses the “no heals between waves” tag, and players report cleaner records once they stop over-stacking the enemy-HP nodes that drag her fights into the timer.

Fangyi, ranged powerhouse (with a caveat)

Ranged teams are having an easier time than melee overall, and Fangyi squads are putting up strong numbers. A common comp is Fangyi / Perlica / Arclight / Gilberta.

The big caveat for Fangyi mains: both of the locked conditional criteria reduce skill damage by 60%, which effectively locks Fangyi out of those criteria, since her damage craters without skill output. If you main her, you’ll be working around those nodes rather than through them.

Rotation notes for the Fangyi / Perlica / Arclight / Gilberta build (community-reported):

• Don’t use Gilberta’s combo unless the enemy is a Tidewalker, effigy, or the final big boss. Un-liftable enemies can’t be lifted, so they can’t heal off the “enemy heals on stun” tag. You’ll occasionally have to sacrifice an Arclight combo skill for this.
• If you took the “combo skill applies self cryo infliction” criteria: do a normal Fangyi combo when you’re below 3 stacks of cryo infliction, Perlica BS -> FS -> Fangyi CS + Perlica CS -> Fangyi BS. At 3 stacks: FS -> Perlica CS -> Perlica BS -> FS -> Fangyi CS -> Fangyi BS.
• Use Arclight’s ult as a free Perlica BS.
• Minimize dodge-cancelling; your stamina is better spent kiting.

Note: those rotations are player-tested, not from official notes, so treat them as a strong starting point rather than gospel and adjust to your own gear levels.

Mi Fu, crush damage engine

Mi Fu shines because her BS3 deals Crush damage, not battle-skill damage, which means the “-60% combo cooldown / -60% battle skill damage” node is insanely good for her. You eat the battle skill penalty for nearly nothing while gaining the cooldown reduction. Line enemies up for that BS3 and you can clear Risk 20 comfortably. Common partners are Pog, Chen, Ember, and Li Feng.

The electric / Perlica comp

An electric team (Perlica, Avywenna, Zhuang, Arclight) looks genuinely insane this CC, mostly thanks to the -60% combo cooldown node. With combos coming back that fast, Perlica applies Electrification constantly, Avywenna places nearly double her usual spears, Zhuang triggers Electrification a ton, and Arclight basically always has combo skill up off all the electrification and consumption. It’s a comp where one risk node lifts the entire team at once.

Chen and the crush core

Chen is a fantastic utility and lift unit, lifting small mobs and finishing off leftover HP while your crush source (Mi Fu, or an Endmin plus Chen pairing) does the heavy work. The Endmin / Chen / Pog / Li Feng core with Crush focus is a reliable Risk 20 setup.

A quick word on Tangtang

If you run Tangtang, remember her ult heals enemies, so it isn’t spammable. But it’s still useful on full-health enemies: pre-cast it before they appear, then plunge-attack to apply Cryo. That saves an SP bar versus casting her battle skill every time.

Gear and Build Tips That Actually Move the Needle

This CC genuinely rewards crafting and artificing gear to solve for specific risks rather than just slapping on your generic best-in-slot. A few proven setups from early clears:

• Arts intensity gear on Wulfgard to push his combustion damage.
• Combo skill damage gear on Tangtang, since her ult isn’t spammable.
• Two Redeemer Tags on Estella stack to around 39% damage reduction together, a huge survivability boost that makes her even more of a brick. (Player-reported figure; the principle is solid even if your exact number varies with investment.)
• Fortmaker is strong on Pog if you’ve got it.

Be prepared to burn catalysts experimenting. It’s normal to spend a few hundred fiddling with builds to squeeze out the last couple of risk points. Since stamina is unlimited, the only real cost of theory-crafting is your gear-crafting materials.

Boss and Mechanic Notes

One mechanic catching people off guard: the first blue Agloi boss won’t take damage while there’s a small add channeling into it. If your hits are bouncing off and you have no idea why, look for the little thing feeding it and kill that first. Once the channel breaks, the boss takes damage normally.

At higher risk you also can’t just camp with a survivability unit and wait for your team’s AI to kill everything, you’ll lose to the timer. You have to actively weave basic combos in to build stagger and recover SP. The fights get long, and the clock is real.

Movement and infliction tech worth knowing

The community has compiled a stack of smaller tricks that quietly raise your ceiling, and a few of them flip how certain risks feel:

• Everything is dodgeable by running or jumping. Every attack in the current rotation can be avoided on foot, including the ones that look undodgeable like the effigy slam and the Tidalkast swipe. You can also jump straight out of an attack animation the same way a dash cancels it, which is the cleanest mid-combo reposition. This is what makes the No Dodge nodes far less scary than they read.
• Ults and finishers have iframes. Ultimates are invulnerable right after the cast animation, and finishers are invulnerable for the whole attack animation, so you can time either one to eat a telegraphed hit on purpose.
• The first effigy’s grab can’t kill you. It looks lethal but leaves you at 1 HP, so don’t panic-burn a heal or revive when it connects.
• Use basics and corners for free crowd control. Basic attacks shove enemies together so a small-AoE skill catches the pack, and standing in a corner of the arena pulls your AI teammates to you, which forces enemies to path into one lane. Do it just before a wave spawns (the start of wave 2 especially) to group everything up.
• Cryo stacks have a 3-second cooldown. Two combo skills back to back only apply one cryo stack, not two, so you can bank casts inside that window. The cryo infliction meter on your own operator (the count toward 4, not the freeze itself) also decays over time, unlike Combustion or Electrification, so at 3 stacks and low SP you can just wait it out.
• Bent Edges only nerfs the ult itself. Empowered follow-up hits (Laevatain’s and Zhuang Fangyi’s enhanced attacks) and added hits (Tangtang’s waterspouts, Yvonne’s extra attacks) still do full damage, so reaction and empowered-attack carries barely feel that risk.
• Two acid-puddle tricks. During a rest phase you can step on an acid puddle to chip your own HP and proc on-damage healing passives without triggering the Synced Growth penalty (great on Snowshine), and Mi Fu’s first battle skill move can pull enemies out of puddles when they camp in them.
• Team order matters at high risk. Slot your two main damage dealers in positions 2 and 3 so losing an operator or two still leaves a carry alive, and remember that running or holding skills isn’t wasted time as long as your SP is recharging.

Tech compiled from an Arknights: Endfield community discussion (credit: compoundcomplex and commenters on the Endfield subreddit).

Pushing for High Risk (30, 40 and Beyond)

If you’re chasing a fat number next to your name, here’s the lay of the land:

• Risk 40 is achievable on day one with a properly built team. People are clearing it with Wulfgard, with Fangyi comps, and with crush teams.
• The timer risk is the final gate to max risk. Combined with No Dodge, that’s the combination that turns a hard run into a luck-and-execution check even with maxed potentials and builds. If you’re not going for the absolute ceiling, drop the timer reduction first. There are actually two timer-reduction tags, and leaving the second one off buys back enough time to fight the final enemy patiently: wait for interrupt openings to wear down its toughness bar, then go all out once it’s staggered, instead of racing its HP from full.
• Melee is harder than ranged. Ranged teams are generally having a smoother time at high risk, though stagger teams can still chunk enemies hard.
• The very top (Risk 45+) is brutal and demands a very specific comp. There’s no shame in waiting for the meta to mature and copying a proven team.

The general high-push philosophy that keeps working: minimize the enemy-HP and your-damage-reduction risks, and lean into the risks you can play around. Take the “increased damage taken” and “HP reduction after getting hit” risks if your defense is dodging rather than tanking, then just don’t get hit and kill everything before it kills you. Don’t be greedy.

For the scoring model behind these numbers (Criteria Sets, Locked and Key Criteria), our Test Criteria meta breakdown goes deeper than this teams-first guide, and the launch-day strategy walkthrough covers your very first session.

If You’re Undergeared or New

Plenty of players are still leveling up and can’t access the Risk 10+ tier of modifiers yet, and that’s completely fine. A few honest pointers:

• Unlock the upper row of modifiers (the ones requiring a 10+ run) before trying to push 20. Going for 20 without them unlocked is pure suffering, you’re leaving easy points on the table.
• If you’re hard level-capped (around Lv. 60, still progressing through the Valley chapters), something like Risk 8 may be your feasible ceiling for now, and that’s a great reason to finally level your operators.
• This mode is an excellent skill check. A lot of people are finding it humbling, and a genuine wake-up call for understanding the combat system better. Treat low clears as practice, not failure.
• Risk 20 doesn’t need a maxed account. One player cleared it with Elite 1 operators at Skill Level 1 and no Trust bonuses, so don’t assume you have to cap everything first.
• There’s a genuine budget team. A setup of Estella, Ardelia, Akekuri, and Endmin leans entirely on the -60% combo cooldown node, with missing weapon potentials covered by levels, etching, and artificing rather than dupes. The fast combos give near-constant single-target crowd control through the Ardelia and Endmin combos, which is exactly what tames the two advanced Agloi that open waves 3 and 4 (it only holds while the target has no Vulnerability or Infliction stacks).

Remember: Risk 20 gets you everything. You have the whole event window to get there.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

A quick self-check list, because most failed runs trace back to one of these:

• Stacking enemy +HP with attack reduction. This is the worst pairing in the mode for fight length, and it’s the fastest way to lose to the timer. Skip the HP node first.
• Pushing past Risk 20 thinking you need to. You don’t. The rewards are all at 20 or below; anything higher is a personal flex.
• Leaving the top modifier row locked. Trying to reach 20 without unlocking the 10+ tier nodes wastes runs on inefficient point spreads.
• Letting your carry’s skill trigger Solidification. Sequence your rotation so the freeze never lands on your damage window.
• Camping on a tank at high risk. The AI won’t clear fast enough; weave basics to build stagger and recover SP or the clock kills you.
• Forgetting forced-control ults flop under “can’t switch”. Position and swap during prep, before you activate the fight.

What Would Change This

This is launch-week meta, so treat the picks above as a starting board, not a final ranking. A few things to watch:

• New Cycle Missions roll out every few days and add more coins to chase, so the “fully cleared shop” goalpost moves over the event window.
• A fresh batch of Test Criteria is the kind of thing that has historically shifted lane math. If new nodes punish reactions or add Key modifiers, the team rankings move.
• Gear maturity. As more players finish artificing for specific risks, the high-push comps will tighten and new cheese strats will surface.

I’ll update team comps and high-risk routes here as the meta develops and the Cycle Missions roll out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the minimum risk I need for all the rewards? Risk 20. Everything above it is for bragging rights only, displayed next to your username. There’s no reward currency gated behind higher clears.

Do I have to keep the same criteria to farm coins, or do I go above 20? Neither. You change your criteria to clear different tags for their first-clear coins, and you check Cycle Missions for more. You never need to go above Risk 20.

Does clearing a high criteria count for the lower tiers? Yes. Clearing the 40% version of a stat-cut criteria auto-completes the 10% and 20% versions, so you don’t farm them separately.

Is there a trimmed medal or daily stages? Not this time. This is the experimental/beta CC, and the original game’s first CC also launched without them. Cycle Missions loosely fill the daily-stage role.

Does it cost stamina? No. It’s unlimited, so experiment freely. The only real cost of theory-crafting is gear-crafting catalysts.

Why does the music change? The battle track gets more intense as your risk climbs. Vocals kick in around Risk 20, and there’s a remixed version at higher clears (the EDM-style mix shows up around the 35-star range). Pushing higher is genuinely worth it just for the soundtrack.

What’s the deal with the “+100% damage but not basic/skill/combo/ult” risk? It buffs Arts Reactions (Combustion, Shatter, Crush) and Arts Bursts. It’s a near-free damage node for reaction-based teams and useless for raw-skill teams.

Who’s the easiest carry for a first Risk 20 clear? Estella. Several criteria don’t affect her, she’s comfortable to play, and the Estella plus Wulfgard pairing is doing a lot of the leaderboard heavy lifting.

Is melee or ranged better for high risk? Ranged is generally smoother at high risk because of the timer pressure, though stagger-focused melee teams can still chunk enemies hard.

Final Thoughts

Re-Ignition Experimental Operation is a strong first showing for CC in Endfield. It’s far more approachable than the original game’s brutal CC beta. The smaller roster means most players have the tools to compete, and the team clearly didn’t want to scare people off, so there’s a comfortable gulf between the reward cap and the hardcore ceiling.

For most of us, the play is simple: build Estella or whoever you enjoy, grab your Risk 20 clear and all the rewards, then decide whether you want to chase a big number for the flex. The mode is optional, the stamina is free, and the music slaps. Lock in, experiment, and have fun with it.

Bookmark the page and check back as the meta develops and the Cycle Missions roll out over the event window.