Tips and advice for a new player

[Deleted User]

Tips and advice for a new player:

Don't. Get. Addicted.

Manage your expectations or escape while you can.
If you have an obsessive personality this game is a trap.

• It's tiered currency systems are needlessly complicated and broken beyond belief. 
• Gameplay is frustrating, grindy and astonishingly unbalanced. 
• Progression is completely redundant and unsatisfying. 
• Card drop rates are dubious on a level akin to gambling .It's a hilariously infamous topic on this forums, made worse by... 
• ...the greedy Freemium business model, which is among the most stressful and intensive I've ever seen. You will endure heavy prolonged mental pressure to spend comical amounts of money on extremely poor-value purchases unless you manage your expectations before committing to the game.

Last year I foolishly, and somewhat accidentally, pumped over £2,000 into this game with very little to show for it. I was completely addicted, my life revolved around all the intrusive timers and event schedules. Freemium games are predatory. They erode at your patience and willpower. 

My wife, who was concerned at the lifestyle and habits I had formed, (such as waking up at 3am to open a booster pack) called for an intervention and, eventually, helped me get therapy. I've lost count of how many times I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game. How many times I've quit "for the last time".

tl,dr: It all comes down to the Sunk Cost Fallacy- which I often preach here:

The Sunk Cost Fallacy.
The Misconception: You make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences.
The Truth: Your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate, and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it.

Ohboy

Lol this game can be so addictive for such silly reasons.

I still remember the weekend I spent fighting grizzo for top spot in a QB. I think I didn't get anything else done the entire weekend.

500+ games I think. I had to skip QB for a week after that.

The sunk cost fallacy can be avoided by educating yourself on how value is calculated.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_value

If you find yourself making dubious decisions, you should read up on it.

ElvaanStride

I appreciate the concern but I will be fine lol.

I don't spend money in games, if the game "requires" p2w in order to be successful then I quit the game when I hit that wall.

I am well aware of the age of this game and I started playing when there are 1,444 cards in existence. I know full well not to expect anything close to a complete collection.

I'm also great with time management and planning. I have kids, so no waking up in the middle of the night. I just use all my charges so when I wake up, I have 1-2 to use with time to spare. The only thing I "miss" is 3-4 cards a day in exchange for a good night sleep.

shteev

I dread to think how much time I spent on QB when they first offered Garruk as a prize for top 10. Let's just say I spent that weekend also watching the first series of Lucifer and all seven Police Academy movies..

ElvaanStride

What exactly is QB?

shteev

ElvaanStrider said:

What exactly is QB?

Quick Battle was what we used to have instead of Training Grounds.. a PvP environment where you could play as many games as you liked. In fact, when the game was launched, we didn't have events, just Story Mode, and Quick Battle.

What Quick Battle *did* have was a leaderboard which reset every 3 days or so... the top players on the leaderboard at that point would get some significant prizes. This fostered a very competitive attitude which some people really liked... also cheating, which nobody did... also an odd style of play which favored playing games as fast as possible rather than winning as many as possible, which in turn lead to many accusations of cheating, as people couldn't figure out how the top players were scoring points so fast. D3, bless their cotton socks, dragged their heels about fixing cheating for as long as they could, and then gave up and asked the players to track down cheaters for them by guessing who was cheating based on their scores. You can imagine the kinds of arguments that caused.

The problem of cheating was eventually fixed by a) scrapping QB, and b) making all the prizes in the game a lot more rubbish so nobody could be bothered to cheat to win them any more.

Exploiting is still a major problem in the game now, using methods such as [REDACTED] and [REDACTED], but actual cheating by [REDACTED] isn't a problem that we all care so much about now.

ElvaanStride

Ah yes the dreaded REDACTED!

Sarahschmara

ElvaanStrider said:

Ah yes the dreaded REDACTED!

Join any of the slacks/discords for an uncensored discussion about [REDACTED]

span_argoman

ElvaanStrider said:

Thank you for the response @span_argoman, you seem to be one of the knowledge-keepers here by your reputation.

I'm getting the hang of everything quite well, have a solid plan going forward and now just need to accumulate cards and Crystals. 
--------
My Plan (in no particular order):

Level my PWs to 26, Chandra to 27
Accumulate 695 Crystals to get Kiora
Login bonus and get 4 wins in Training Ground DAILY
Participate in Events to the best of my ability and aim for booster reward levels
Accumulate at least 500 cards and have a viable Cycle deck before tiering to Silver

Thanks for the compliment! Everyone here is pretty knowledgeable, I'm just someone who bothered to record the stuff down somewhere lol.

The plan looks good. Though I just want to point out several things:

1. There's no real reason to level all your Origins planeswalkers to level 26. Each planeswalker has their own sweet spot depending on when they next gain +1 to a mana bonus or when one of their useful skills level up. Runes will also start to feel rather limited come the next phase of the game for you (where you start purchasing the planeswalkers which you do want to use longer term), so it might be a good idea to keep some of the planeswalkers at a lower level anyway. Go ahead and level any which you enjoy using though, just don't bring them too high or you start facing crazier opponents. Also, as people have pointed out, it costs a LOT of Runes to level above 50. My general rule of thumb for newer players is if you can win with the planeswalker consistently, you probably don't really need to level him/her. If you can't, see whether leveling brings any real benefits to the planeswalker first. Octal's site is great for checking these stuff.
2. Kiora costs 650 Crystals as with any other dual-colour planeswalker (mono-colour planeswalkers cost 295 Crystals though)
3. The actual number of cards doesn't really matter, it's more the key cards of each set. Try to work on filling out Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation before anything else. You'll have to figure out on your own (or with the advice of others) when you want to move onto some other set. And save some Crystals for planeswalkers and for Ixalan which is purported to come out in November.

ElvaanStride

@span_argoman

I'll respond to your points first;

1. I just want the ultimate abilities and that's all, I understand and prefer to keep them leveled low and plan on saving Runes solely for new dual-color PWs as I acquire them.

2. Simple mistake of swapping the values of the PWs. 295/650, I have since committed it to memory lol

3. I'm aware it's quality over quantity. My number is just a guess of how many total cards I will need before I have the cards I truely need, at least in the basic sense. Improvements will be made as I progress.

I'm only a week old into the game so I have a long climb ahead. I'm aware and I'm prepared. Thanks to the kind folks here I have a solid plan for progression and I am confident moving forward with all the guidance I have been given.

span_argoman

ElvaanStrider said:

@span_argoman

I'll respond to your points first;

1. I just want the ultimate abilities and that's all, I understand and prefer to keep them leveled low and plan on saving Runes solely for new dual-color PWs as I acquire them.

2. Simple mistake of swapping the values of the PWs. 295/650, I have since committed it to memory lol

3. I'm aware it's quality over quantity. My number is just a guess of how many total cards I will need before I have the cards I truely need, at least in the basic sense. Improvements will be made as I progress.

I'm only a week old into the game so I have a long climb ahead. I'm aware and I'm prepared. Thanks to the kind folks here I have a solid plan for progression and I am confident moving forward with all the guidance I have been given.

1. Well if you prefer, but the only ones having an interesting level 1 ultimate are Liliana and Gideon. Jace and Chandra's ultimates shine when they're at least level 3, whereas you're just about never gonna trigger Nissa's ultimate.

3. Well if that's the case, you'll find that you don't actually need that high a count. Perhaps 300+ will get you in the range of a decent collection as a start.

Have fun!

ElvaanStride

Thanks a lot @span_argoman, I'll consider everything.

Corn_Noodles

shteev said:

and all seven Police Academy movies..

I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.

madwren

shteev said:

 all seven Police Academy movies..

By the gods, man, you need to seek help immediately.