Endless Strawberry Cake Tower Walkthrough — Trays & Comps

Updated 11 October 2026: This guide has been rewritten. An earlier version was built on a "no gear" premise: it said Endless Strawberry switches your toppings off and flattens every Cookie to 4-star, level 70, and that Trays 40 and 50 need three Ranged Cookies. In fact the rule raises Cookies to a floor of ★5 and Lv.70, switches off only topping bonus effects (the random substats) plus a short list of account buffs, and neither tray asks for Ranged Cookies.

The earlier version of this guide called Endless Strawberry the tower where your gear stops mattering. The rule card says something much narrower. It lifts under-built Cookies up to a floor, switches off eight specific effects, and leaves the rest of your account in play: topping main stats, Beascuits, treasures, Magic Candy, Crystal Jam, and every level and Ascension grade you've paid for above the floor. Then it hands you 300 trays, and 129 of them tell you what kind of team they reward. Read those and the climb gets a lot less mysterious.

What Endless Strawberry Cake Tower is

Endless Strawberry is one of the two sections of Sublime Cake Tower, the mode added in CRK's Heaven-Splitting Lightning update (v5.4). Decadent Choco Cake Tower opened first, on April 24, 2024, and is built around boss fights. Endless Strawberry opened in the second half of the update, on May 8, 2024, and sends waves of World Exploration enemies at you, with a boss every tenth tray.

The wiki calls Sublime Cake Tower the successor to Tower of Sweet Chaos, which ran two-month, 250-tray seasons until it ended with Season 18 on January 19, 2024. The big difference is the payout: Tower of Sweet Chaos's rewards refreshed, and Sublime Cake Tower's never do.

Each tray pays its first-clear reward once. Early trays give EXP Star Jellies, Coins, Purity Crystals and Chaos Cake Pieces. Most boss trays add Crystals (Trays 20, 40, 60 and 80, then every boss tray from 100 up; Trays 10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 don't): Tray 40 alone gives 2,000 Crystals and a Lv.50 Star Jelly Concentrate. Milestone rewards unlock the first time you reach set trays, such as three Special Cookie Cutters at Tray 40 and 1,000 Crystals at Tray 100. Because nothing refreshes, re-running a beaten tray earns no tray rewards. Separately, the permanent Ominous Cake Tower event has missions to play Endless Strawberry 10, 20, 30 and 40 times, each for a small one-time reward.

The Special Rule: what it raises and what it switches off

Both sections of Sublime Cake Tower share one rule card:

That is the complete list, and it applies to Decadent Choco exactly as it applies to Endless Strawberry.

It's a floor, not a flattening. Any Cookie below Lv.70, skill Lv.70 or ★5 is raised to those values when you add it to the team, so a 1★, Lv.18 Cookie fights as a ★5, Lv.70 one. A Cookie that's already above the floor keeps what it has. Cookies now level to 100 and ascend from ★1A to ★5A past ★5, so your built mains still out-stat your bench in here, and several trays' bonus effects check for exactly that investment: Tray 100's wants three Lv.80+ Cookies, and seven trays ask for ★2A+ or ★3A+ Cookies.

About "4-star, level 70". You'll find that figure in older guides, including Pocket Gamer's May 14, 2024 guide and the previous version of this one. It isn't in the rule. A May 22, 2024 hotfix in patch 5.5 fixed a bug that had set Endless Strawberry's minimum grade to ★2A, an Ascension grade above ★5, instead of ★5; the patch notes don't say when the bug began.

What still works inside the tower

Anything not on the disabled list still applies, and the tower's own bonus effects prove it. They wouldn't ask for things that switch off at the door.

A Rally Effect is a team-leader effect. Ancient Cookies get one when they're Awakened, Legendary Cookies get one from their Crystal Jam, and a team can equip only one. If you're short on either, the Awakening guide and the Crystal Jam guide cover how to get there, and the Magic Candy priority guide covers the Candy trays.

What the topping rule means for your build

"Bonus effect" is Devsisters' own term for the random stats a topping rolls as you upgrade it. Per Devsisters' support page, a topping can gain a bonus effect at +6, +9 and +12, and each one is a different stat. Those substats are what Sublime Cake Tower switches off. The topping's main stat, the reason a Searing Raspberry is an ATK topping in the first place, isn't on the list.

Here's what that leaves on an Epic (M) topping at +12, using the wiki's per-upgrade values:

Three things follow from that:

• Upgrade level and topping type still count. Roll quality doesn't. A +12 set with bad rolls performs like a perfect one here, so a Cookie you've benched for mediocre substats gives up nothing to a better-rolled one in this tower.
• Builds that lean on rolls lose the most. Five +12 Swift Chocolates give 15% Cooldown from main stats plus 5% from the set, and Cooldown rolls could add at most 10% more (one per topping, 2% at most), so rolls can be up to a third of that Cooldown. DMG Resist is hit harder still: five +12 Solid Almonds give 20.5% DMG Resist from main stats, while DMG Resist rolls go up to 6% each, so they could add as much as 30%. Five +12 Raspberries, by contrast, keep 45% ATK from main stats against at most 15% from ATK rolls. A Cookie that leaned on Cooldown or DMG Resist rolls can cycle slower or take more damage in here than in modes where rolls count.
• Set effects: probably on, not confirmed. The disabled list names only "Topping bonus effects", and the wiki's Toppings page uses "bonus effect" for the random substats, so set effects should still apply. No source says so outright, though, and none says whether the extra bonus effect on Legendary Topping Tarts (added in v7.7) counts. Treat those two as uncertain.

Even the user-written Tray 40 notes on the Fandom wiki list a topping build for every Cookie on the team. The toppings guide covers the standard sets, and the Topping Tarts guide covers Tarts.

How the 300 trays are laid out

Listed power climbs from 19,249 at Tray 1 to 35,394 at the first boss tray (Tray 10), 569,505 at Tray 40, 922,924 at Tray 50, 2,276,780 at Tray 100, 2,971,470 at Tray 150 and 4,199,510 by Tray 296. Most of that climb happens early: power rises about 64-fold from Tray 10 to Tray 100, then less than doubles over the next 196 trays.

The tower has grown in stages:

The v7.4 changes come from the wiki's changelog; we found no official Devsisters notice for them.

Three more things to know before you climb:

• Weakened past Tray 60. After Tray 60, a Cookie that lands too many regular-attack hits on the boss in a short window gets Weakened, an undispellable debuff that sharply cuts its ATK and ATK SPD. The wiki names Crème Brûlée and Twizzly Gummy as Cookies it hinders.
• Stage effects. Some trays inflict Data Copy or Paper Storm. The wiki doesn't list which ones.
• No recommended-Cookie list. The wiki's Decadent Choco tables list recommendations for each tray (such as Zap-inflicting Cookies); the Endless Strawberry tables don't. The bonus effect is the per-tray hint you get.

Read the bonus effect before you build

A bonus effect is a condition with a reward in brackets: meet the condition and your team gets the reward. 129 of the 300 trays have one, and here's what they ask for:

Two corrections to things you may have read, including here:

• Tray 40 has no Ranged requirement. Its condition is three Lv.50+ Cookies, and the reward is +20% ATK for your Ranged Cookies. Bringing Ranged damage is what makes that reward worth anything, but the tray doesn't demand it. The wiki doesn't say whether the Lv.70 floor counts toward a level check, so don't count on it with under-levelled Cookies.
• Tray 50 isn't a Ranged tray at all. It asks for two Cookies with Magic Candy and gives +20% DMG Resist.

Only two trays in the whole tower set a Ranged condition: Tray 63 (one Ranged Cookie, +20% ATK SPD) and Tray 135 (three, +70% ATK SPD).

The rewards also scale. Through Tray 100 the listed bonuses are all 20% effects. From Tray 151 many element bonuses add +100% to +400% element-type ATK or DMG, which is why the deep trays reward a team built around one element.

Tray 40: Doom Star X-1 Protection Unit

Tray 40's boss is the Doom Star X-1 Protection Unit, the World Exploration boss from Episode 16. Our own Tray 40 video and the Fandom wiki's tray notes both name it; the wiki's tray tables don't name bosses at all. Its tray version isn't documented separately, so this is its kit from stage 16-16:

The shield is a hit counter, not a timer. The previous version of this guide said the shield takes about 30 seconds to expire, a claim whose only source we can find is a user-written note on the Fandom wiki. The boss data says Energy Barrier grants a Hit Shield, and a Hit Shield blocks direct damage a set number of times, up to 30 here. The size of each hit doesn't matter; each direct hit uses one up. So the answer isn't saving your burst. It's bringing Cookies that land a lot of hits quickly, which is what the Fandom tips recommend.

Two more things the kit tells you:

• Debuff immunity blunts debuff-based tools, with one exception. The Fandom tips name Pilgrim's Slingshot, Eclair and Sherbet as less effective here, because their power comes from debuffs. Linzer's Suspect and DEF Down debuffs apply to any boss regardless of debuff immunity.
• Planet Destroyer's Shock slows skills for about 9 seconds. Per the Fandom tips, Cookies whose skills ignore ATK SPD changes, such as Golden Cheese, keep casting at full speed through it. Explorer's Monocle purifies it.

Cookies whose kits fit Tray 40

Linzer gains Deduction stacks instead of regular attacks and hits hardest at 7 stacks, which is why the Fandom notes say to hold her skill until then and fire everything else freely.

For a full lineup, the user-written Tray 40 notes on the Fandom wiki (last edited April 30, 2025) run Crème Brûlée, Linzer, Rebel and Star Coral plus one damage dealer: Golden Cheese (Immortal), Wind Archer, Fire Spirit or Shadow Milk. They pair it with Librarian's Enchanted Robes, Vial of Raging Dunes and a Jelly Watch, and say the same team works on Tray 50. That's a user-written team, not an official one, and it repeats the three-Ranged claim even though its own lineup holds at most two Ranged Cookies.

Our own run is on the CookieRun Mythras channel: F2P Tray 40 guide, published May 9, 2024, before the December 2024 update made Trays 1–50 easier.

Boss trays from 50 to 100

Boss names come from our own video titles and Pocket Gamer's guide; the wiki's tray tables don't name them.

On Tray 80 the bonus element matches the boss's weakness: the Animatronic of Deceit's passive makes it vulnerable to Fire, and the bonus adds +20% Fire-type ATK. Tray 70's bonus is Fire too, and Pocket Gamer calls the golem weak to Fire, but the wiki's kit for the Ice Candy Golem (from the Icicle Yeti special episode) lists no Fire weakness; its passive cuts the damage it takes until it's Frozen. Both bonuses also want two ★2A+ Cookies, which the ★5 floor won't give you.

M. Cursor at Tray 60 is another Hit Shield boss, and right after it the Weakened rule starts punishing Cookies that pile regular-attack hits onto the boss. Crème Brûlée, the multi-hit pick for Tray 40, is one of the two Cookies the wiki names as examples, so check how much of a Cookie's damage comes from regular attacks before you carry your Tray 40 team past 60.

Pocket Gamer's guide, dated May 14, 2024, is a team log from before the December 2024 easing. Its author cleared Trays 1–59 with Cream Puff, Snapdragon, Frost Queen, Crème Brûlée and Burnt Cheese, and beat M. Cursor at Tray 60 with Snapdragon, Crème Brûlée, Black Lemonade, Twizzly Gummy and Stormbringer. Our channel has all-Epic runs of Trays 1–10 and Trays 11–20, and F2P runs of Tray 50, Tray 60, Tray 70 and Tray 80.

Trays 101 to 300: the elemental blocks

Past Tray 100 the bonus effects settle into a pattern. The wiki doesn't label it; this is read straight off the tray table. Trays 101–150 put bonuses on trays ending in 3, 5, 8 and 0. From Tray 151 the tower runs in ten-tray blocks, each built around one element. A block typically opens with a bonus for three Cookies of that element, carries a Beascuit (or Magic Candy) check and a Rally Effect check, and ends in a boss tray whose bonus wants four or five Cookies of the element.

What that means in practice:

• Build element teams, and expect to reuse four of them. Darkness, Wind, Fire and Steel each get two blocks.
• The investment checks get stricter. From Tray 163 every Beascuit check asks for five Legendary+ Beascuits, at Lv.20+ on Tray 163, Lv.25+ on Tray 181 and Lv.30+ from Tray 193 on. Thirteen of the fifteen blocks also have a Rally Effect tray. The Beascuit tier list is the place to start if your Beascuits aren't there yet.
• Tray 160 shows why the element matters. It closes the Electricity block, and its boss, the Webbed Spider Queen, is vulnerable to Electricity; its Cocoon can only be damaged by Electricity-type damage. Our channel's boss runs name Nutmeg Tiger Cookie at Tray 150, Webbed Spider Queen at 160, Remorseful Sugar Swan at 170 and White Sugar Guardian Golem at 200.
• The top pays well. Trays 250 and 300 include Epic Topping Tart choice chests (two at 250, three at 300), Tray 300's first clear gives 7,000 Crystals, and the Tray 250 and Tray 300 milestones each give a Butter Amber.

Treasures for tower runs

Treasures aren't on the disabled list, so every treasure works at its full level in here, and Trays 45 and 72 check them directly: two Lv.10+ treasures for Tray 45, and two Lv.12+ treasures for Tray 72's +20% ATK.

The three Jelly Watches are variants of one treasure, and since patch 4.2 you can equip only one variant at a time. In manual play you decide when active treasures fire, so on a boss tray hold the Monocle for the debuff wave rather than the opening. The treasures guide covers every treasure in detail.

Common mistakes that wall your climb

1. Benching your built Cookies because "gear doesn't count". It does. Only topping substats, Bonds, the Sugar Gnome Lab, Costume Sets, Guild Level and Relics, Landmarks and the Statue of Heroic Radiance are off. Levels, Ascension, Beascuits, Magic Candy, treasures and topping main stats all still apply.
2. Reading Tray 40's bonus as a Ranged requirement. It asks for three Lv.50+ Cookies, and Ranged Cookies get the +20% ATK.
3. Waiting out the Doom Star's shield. It's a Hit Shield of up to 30 hits, not a timer. Bring Cookies that hit many times.
4. Carrying a regular-attack spammer into every boss past Tray 60. That's where Weakened starts punishing exactly that playstyle.
5. Skipping the bonus effect on the tray screen. It tells you what the tray rewards, and from Tray 151 many bonuses add +100% or more to one element's ATK or DMG.
6. Re-running cleared trays for loot. Tray rewards pay once and never refresh. Push the next tray instead.

Quick Action Checklist

• Know the floor: any Cookie below ★5, Lv.70 or skill Lv.70 is raised to it, and anything above it stays where it is.
• Know the disabled list: Bonds, Sugar Gnome Laboratory, Costume Sets, Guild Level, Guild Relics, Landmarks, Statue of Heroic Radiance and topping bonus effects. Nothing else.
• Keep your toppings on. Main stats count; rolls don't.
• Read each tray's bonus effect before you pick the team.
• Tray 40: three Lv.50+ Cookies, Ranged damage dealers to use the +20% ATK, multi-hit Cookies for the Hit Shield, and Linzer for a debuff that sticks.
• Trays 50 and 60: two Cookies with Magic Candy.
• Before Tray 67, have a Rally Effect leader. Before Trays 70 and 80, have two ★2A+ Cookies, ideally Fire.
• From Tray 151, build one team per element block.
• Treasures: a Jelly Watch, a damage treasure, and Explorer's Monocle or Sacred Pomegranate Branch.
• Push the highest tray you can nearly clear, and never re-run a banked one for loot.