Wouldn't Cerberus be a great choice for a Mist Walker/mage combo? Either dogs or Rangers would be my pick for that line-up.
Yes and no. Like I said in the previous post, this tourney is full of mean combos. There are light range, mages, heavy range, and heavy melee all lingering about. If I only used doggies, it's gonna be problematic once the Mist Walker is dead and doggies have to go up against secondary enemies like a heavy melee Knight or Orc General. Two hits and that would be the end of them, and it's unavoidable too since doggies are melee so they would need to run up to the Heavy Melee units to attack.
But ignoring this particular tourney, if it were
only Light Range/Mage combos, then yes, Cerebus would get the job done in that situation. HOWEVER, Cerebus is a light melee unit, which means he can only be buffed by fed Fire Phoenix. So far no wonder or expiring buildings can buff him more that I am aware of. This means up to a certain Province, it will take more than one bite to get rid of those pesky mages, whereas a buffed Archer can still kill the mage with one shot. Secondly, Cerebus acts
after both Light Range AND Mages. He has to play sitting duck for a few rounds before he goes. In the higher provinces, that means he's likely going to be debuffed already by the time he goes since there are 3-star enemies abound. The Archer will go before the mage and you can already be done with the mages in one round.
As to Rangers, a lvl 3 Ranger has the health level that is only slightly better than a level
ONE Archer, and lower than a level 2 Archer. Would I want to send a lvl 1 Archer into the higher provinces where I am grossly outnumbered? It's gonna have to be very specific scenarios, like Marble tourney combos of just Heavy Melee and Mages, but
much harder to deploy in T3 tourneys with ugly combos. I mean, a lvl 1 Archer can barely handle province 10! If I spent 4 units on opening round trying to take down one Terminator Mist Walker that won't die, there's going to be 4 mostly untouched enemies to retaliate still before Round 1 concludes. A Ranger prob won't survive to see round 2. At province 21, if that Ancient Orc reaches him, I'm losing the whole Ranger stack in one go. They just don't get enough done in their short life and you'd just have to replace that whole stack of lost Rangers anyway. I also find that Archers kill other light range faster than a Ranger and definitely can take more hits. On mages, my Rangers like to play with their food and leave a morsel of health left on those pesky mages to make a mess of things debuffing everyone again instead of just killing them off with one shot. Rangers are very effective in the lower and mid-provinces though, but harder to deploy in the higher provinces when you can't afford to take many hits.
Essentially, if I only cared about victory, then it matters less. If I'm trying to win while also saving the most troops possible, I'll generally go with Archers.