[Note: The creator of this guide is MN who gives permission to post this guide:]

feel free to repost on steam or whatever
I know, it's weird to do an e3stall guide when the person its named after already did one, but I think I have a better theoretical understanding of the game than even them.
some strategic concepts:

I classify the main CEO army types as rush, midrange, and stall. Stall is an army type that wins by move decay and morale.

how?

here's a toy example, which explains two more important e3 stall concepts


consider this scenario
by a conventional metric, black is ahead
not only do they have 32 morale to white's 29
they also have more pieces
since even a 0-value piece is worth something, this is another advantage
but, i claim white is winning

why?

first, note that if both players incur 24 points of decay, white can win by ramming the queen into a berserker. the fact that the queen could be retaken doesn't matter, as the game is over before then

however, you may ask: what stops black from moving berserkers to white's king and crushing it? which brings us to our second concept

if black wants to make an effective attack, they need to move multiple berserkers in - the king and queen can easily defend 1, and can probably defend 2

however, if black does not leave at least 2, probably 3 berserkers in the king, the fast white queen can just zip over and inflict checkmate or perpetual

as such, if black wants to make progress, white's queen ties up berserkers on both offense and defense

which brings us to the last important stall concept

perpetuals favor the side who wins in decay, and the core strategy of e3stall is to be that player, and therefore get the better end of every perpetual

this is very powerful

imagine if you could force your opponent to take back their move and play a different one

that is basically what a perpetual accomplishes

with that in mind, I would like to introduce a core unit of e3stall:


since e3stall benefits from perpetuals, we want to use the unit that is most likely to induce it

ranger's ranged attack is important because they can't simply develop a unit to support it (and therefore make progress), they must move the unit back

normally, ranger+ is superior, but being a stall army means we can benefit from perpetuals and give ranger++ power it normally does not have. let's a give some examples



this type of scenario is the situation where ranger+ excels. here, a knight comes in to poke the ranger, but ranger can shoot the samurai, and trade for the knight. it's an uptrade.

in this scenario, when our ranger pokes the samurai, the knight comes, and the ranger doesn't get to eat at all, because the knight taking would be a downtrade



or does it?

well, as the stall player, we can simply force them to undo their move. and when they do, we move the ranger back



so this is the stall concept of "undo their move, make them play a different one" in action

similarly, we can chase non-entropic minions with a ranger. even if we don't win it, we force them back
this is a deep synergy between morale decay plans and ranger

not only do morale decay plans mean you can perpetual things with ranger, but ranger poking things means they have to move them back, which stops them from making progress, and therefore helps with the morale decay plan!

with these concepts down, along with basic OOCBA fundamentals, we are ready to play the army, so let's get along to building it
start off with the famous chastity cage


this is the best generic defense in OOCBA

there are some variations on it, for example pride if the meta has few promoters, or salamanders to defend against pawn storm, but if you're starting out with e3stall, i suggest you start with this

next, add the three core champions



Ranger++ was explained in detail

Queen++ was mentioned earlier in the stall plan. There are other options like Queen=, Vampire+++, and Angel+++, but these do not have the counterpressure and finishing power that Queen has

Finally: Nullmage++. I'm not going to go into this in detail, but it's a very powerful unit in morale decay (and has some Queen synergy), which fits with the core gameplan. It is a liability in some matchups, so you can play stall without it, but if you do, you are no longer playing e3stall.
(Overall, the same concepts apply, but you'll have trouble vs e3stall since perpetual no longer favors you due to them having the nullmage and you not.)

Also, note the positioning. Queen on the corner hits both corners, where kings most likely are, setting up turn 1 pins. Nullmage is placed to give the king as much swap distance as possible, allowing you to save it from tough spots. Ranger is overall centralized (though may be moved if there are more important champions to center, such as Temperance)

You do not really want to trade your core units, so your other champion slots should be filled by champions that provide good board control for their cost and can efficiently trade
HauntedArmor, Medusa, Guardian+++, Temperance, and Lust+++ are all solid options and I'd recommend starting out with some combination of those

As for minion choices, here's the community top 10 list, followed up by my thoughts on the specific minions:

frostmephit: 2.611111111111111
mercenary: 1.8928571428571428
samurai: 1.444047619047619
drake: 0.9852564102564102
butterfly+: 0.9111111111111111
royalguard++: 0.7678571428571428
pawn: 0.7
hoplite+: 0.654599567099567
royalguard+++: 0.6444444444444444
duelist+: 0.6095238095238095

frostmephit
Best minion in the game. It ranges from good with no synergy to excellent with it. In this deck, it's closer to the good side. Still, I would recommend at least 2 for king defense, and you can never go wrong with more.
mercenary
quintessential stall unit. Cheap cost and great mobility makes it great trade fodder. I recommend running at least a pair, so they can move up, supporting each other. I also recommend no more than 4. It is the most efficient unit stall-wise, but even at 4 you will run into defensive issues and not have enough anchors for your champions.
samurai
Not suitable for stall. Stall does not want any non-entropic units.
drake
Heavy, but reasonably efficient minion. Has a niche as the best minion for poking pyro. I think it's fine to run, or to not run.
butterfly+Though not an entropic minion, it relies on a proactive gameplan capable of making threats and benefits from a disturbed king. Stall is not the best fit for this unit.
royalguard++Highly recommended as a 1-of in stall. Being able to TP in with your queen gives your queen infiltration threats that much more teeth, and is very high value vs comet. In addition, can help defend the king in a pinch. Severe diminishing returns, and poor minion tradability so I would not run more than 1.
pawn
see samurai
hoplite+is its own archetype, and that's not stall
royalguard+++Possible replacement for the ++ tier. Though the swap has utility, its primary use is to nuance armor, and is not worth the point if you aren't running into armor.
duelist+
Acceptable 1-of. Can hold its own in a fight and displace champions. Another attraction is its promotion threat. It costs only 1 and can tie down one or more pieces (that are more expensive than it) by forcing them to stop its promotion.
In the words of e3, "With taste and nuance involved there is no such thing as a perfect army." but this should provide a good starting point when building your own.

For "HauntedArmor, Medusa, Guardian+++, Temperance, and Lust+++ are all solid options", more elaboration:

HA
• + generically best 8-drop in the game
  
• + pretty much always uptrades
  
• + excellent at bullying enemy rangers and FEs (though this army already has tools to do this)
  
• - slow to develop, and limited ability in providing anchor points for ranger
  
• - best in endgames, and the goal of stall is to never play an endgame

• + generically best 9-drop in the game
  
• + good board control for its cost, and excellent at poking away the likes of SK
  
• + nullmage can fix colorboundedness
  
• - petrify is sometimes pretend

• + Sick queen++ synergy
  
• + Can stop opponent from trading ranger (and protect it vs summoner/nexus, which it is normally pretty vulnerable to)
  
• - Mediocre board control on its own, especially compared to the others on this list (which tend to be premiums at their price point)

• + generically best 10-drop in the game. at least 1 undercosted, its nuts
  
• + if ranger gets traded, it can sometimes function as the second copy
  
• + you can ruin hoplite formations
  
• - vulnerability to mephits and double attack threats mean i'd never run more than 1 in stall
  temperance

• + Good at zoning ranger, sk, and especially phal which stall sometimes struggles with
  
• + Provides anchors and an extra king defender (with side attack) without need for development
  
• - value loss may cause issues in decay endgames