Dragon's nest

Heartstone

Well, I don't know what made this ridiculously overpowered deck, but it's been a while since I had that much trouble and fun beating an opponent in a PvE event 😁

It took me 9 games to finally win: now i just have to add the flying creatures.

So, anyway, thank you to the deck creator for this fun challenge !

naabaldan

It was too easy for me. Done by the second try. 

TheHunter

That was mad! First attempt I killed Tiamat on turn one and was immediately met with a wall of bonkers dragons!
Locked the nest down and won on my second attempt.
This was a really fun format, and decent rewards for the effort (if you regard packs as decent rewards - I do).

Stormcrow

I thought it was fun...I'm sure I'll be less enchanted with it in a few months, but for a first-run of a PvE event, that was the most fun one I can remember. Definite kudos to the designer(s)!

Random thoughts I had as I was going through:

• I know it's not this set's mechanic, but seriously, how can "Gather Your Party" NOT have "Have a full Party" as an objective?
  
• Equipment room was surprisingly dangerous! I got a bad starting hand my 1st attempt and didn't get the time to recover.
  
• During my initial "exploration" I went straight from fighting a mob of skeletons to fighting Vecna. Well, that escalated quickly. Dear DM: whatever we did, we're sorry and we won't do it again.
• Vs. Pit Trap, I got a freeze of a type I've never seen before - a soft lock, mid-cascade, with a bunch of blank spaces on the board and the gems above them just stuck, floating. Never seen that one before!
  

Tremayne

When I saw the title “Dragon’s nest” I said to myself “it is going to be Tiamat” and I was right, so I thought how predictable. 

Then I saw that the cast part of Tiamat was triggered and I was sincerely surprised. Not so predictable after all.
After my white Angel deck got crushed a few times I went for destruction and lifelink with Bolas1- big mistake. Substituting my destroy spells with exile spells and that was it. Bad draws will still get you but. Seems like quite a solid challenge, even for a Platinum level. Would hate to meet this with a tiny library.

Lorick

You know, I thought I had gotten use to the annoyance of the last boss being virtually unbeatable in these events. But THIS!  Having a story where it's a dead-end trap and where it's impossible to accumulate more than 8 points on any of the previous levels- THAT YOU CAN'T DO AGAIN= genius! The only "challenge" here is how much unnecessary frustration you've been conditioned to tolerate before it occurs to you exactly how little you're getting out of your efforts (or you'd ever get, EVEN if you did beat this level so that you could and move on to being able to repeat the previous challenges again), and how incredibly NOT fun it is.  It's only then this fantastic game turns into your psychotic ex-wife and you just wonder why you keep falling for their same ol' b.s. time-after-time-after-time. Basically, these events are designed as time sinks. But it's just great that my first impressions of the Forgotten Realms have been so very, very negative. It's really sold me on investing in it!  Actually... it's the only thing that breaks my addiction to this game, by being so angry I have to take a break, while I remember: this game doesn't care how you feel. Noice'.

Actually, it just occurred to me...the REAL reason for these events is to hype the cards that are available for instant purchase, by making them seem better than they are, by presenting them in ridiculously over-advantaged situation. Problem being: I've already kicked Tiamat's collective **** in several events a half-dozen times. And once, they were backed up by Velomachus Lorehold and Shadrix Silverquill. My white angel vigilance tactic killed them 1-2-3. But it didn't work this scenario. Even when I had a perfect draw. Because the blue dragon DISABLES your first defender! Wow. That IS an awesome combo. It's just kinda sad,  the perfect weather conditions they have to fabricate to fluff up this dragon.  heh...'fluff the magic dragon'. I think I'll call Tiamat that from now on.

Persil

This works well for Dragon's Nest. So far 4/4 games won, although sometimes forgetting to or not getting the flying achievement.

Used Bolas B2 because of high HP, access to Blue and Black cards, and his final transformed ability stops the enemy from getting cards.

People may not have the same cards, so the general idea is:

1. gain mana,
2. exile,
3. have defender or vigilance of flash (good against haste)
4. have lifelink.

E.g., instead of Eradicator Valkyrie, can probably use any flying + lifelink creature. Other similar functionality cards: Old Gnawbone (Mana, Flying), Galazeth Prismiar (Mana, Flying), The World Tree (Mana), Rise of Extus (Exile).

Hope this is of any help.

FregTheGnome

Here's an accessible deck for beating Dragon's Nest. After about 10 losses with various other decks and other versions of this, I beat it twice.

PW: Karn (level 40ish)

Strategy: Get lucky and cast a "Disable first opposing creature" support first turn. Then it's just a race to getting out Karn's 3rd ability creature and adding Reach. Prevent all damage, Reach, and Lifelink is the answer to a lot of questions in this world.

None of the cards below are essential. You just need anything to disable, build loyalty\mana, cast 3rd ability, give it Reach, and give it Lifelink or restore your life some other way.

HomeRn

Now THIS was a challenge - and one helluva surprise the first time!  Nothing like having Tiamat just saying "Hi.  This is how it's going to work."  Right at the start of the battle.  Basically exile, somehow outrace the nest (going to need lifelink for that), or you are going to get smoked.

Not to mention I had lots of trouble with the Equipment Room as well - seeing all of that equipment already on the board AND seeing a weeny goblin appear... don't think I've facepalmed when I saw my opening hand with 3 identical supports.

ArielSira

It was tough (got down to 12 life) but beat it on the first try, liked most of the battles in this event....Also loved that the final reward was 3,500 runes so I could skip it 😆

Machine

ArielSira said:

....Also loved that the final reward was 3,500 runes so I could skip it 😆

Exactly THIS!

HomeRn

ArielSira said:

It was tough (got down to 12 life) but beat it on the first try, liked most of the battles in this event....Also loved that the final reward was 3,500 runes so I could skip it 😆

Yeah... that final reward is a bit of a let down.  The 40 jewels leading up to it on the other hand...

Persil

Most of new mechanics added to the game are awful and useless. Snow? Enhance? Dungeons? etc. Thank you, no.

TomB

Snow's not too bad, but you're right - you can keep the rest...

BongoTheGrey

I don't think those mechanics are awful and useless. The thing is that you have to build decks that revolve around those abilities to truly take advantage of them.

I do think that enhance could be improved by making it work like snow where you can flood the board with enhanced gems instead of having cards create "up to" X enhanced gems.

But other than that I think that snow and dungeons were well implemented in PQ since those abilities do work like their paper counterparts

BongoTheGrey

I cannot think of any different way of implementing dungeons without that Dungeon UI. You need to chose your path both in paper, Arena or Puzzle Quest. In paper there is no UI but in digital platforms such as Arena or PQ you need some prompt that lets you chose your path throughout the Dungeon. Does it slows down the game? Yes. But is not something automatic like Sagas so there needs to be a pause to select whatever you want.

The good thing is that is completely up to everyone to use it, so if you are in a hurry and just want some quick matches you can chose to never use that mechanic

Machine

BongoTheGrey said:

I don't think those mechanics are awful and useless. The thing is that you have to build decks that revolve around those abilities to truly take advantage of them.

I do think that enhance could be improved by making it work like snow where you can flood the board with enhanced gems instead of having cards create "up to" X enhanced gems.

But other than that I think that snow and dungeons were well implemented in PQ since those abilities do work like their paper counterparts

Agree. If they used permasupports that encouraged the use of the new mechanics, like Snow / Boast / Foretell in the Doomskar Claimants event, these cards would be way more effective. Note: I love playing the DC event just because of this.

madwren

If you need a perma-support that turbocharges a mechanic in order for that mechanic to be playable/effective, then it’s a symptom of poor design choices.

Anyway, Dragon's Nest was a nice challenge, but it's odd that the level it leads to (Song of the Bard) was so trivial.  It seems like the most challenging level should have been the capstone. 

Persil

madwren said:

If you need a perma-support that turbocharges a mechanic in order for that mechanic to be playable/effective, then it’s a symptom of poor design choices.

I so much agree on that. Sure, one can build good decks with combinations of Snow cards (etc.), however at the same time there are many cards which are more powerful even on their own, and these are the  building blocks for the winning deck.

gillkonam

Dragons Nest was pathetic. Glad people had fun, bur it was not a challenge, but a labor. Thats not fun. Thats not invention. Thats grueling neccessity.

Wilvialo

There was no Tiamat as reward this time?