New PW or Booster Packs

Feyda
Feyda Posts: 105
edited January 2017 in MtGPQ Tips & Guides
Looking for advice on if its a sounder investment to save up mana crystals for a hero like Nahiri or to spend the crystals on something like a 14x origins card set. Sitting on 380 crystals at the moment.

Comments

  • allways get the cards first. A new PW with nothing to put in his deck is awful.
    That said if you allready have some nice cards in white and red then yeah getting a rw PW like nahiri is great.
  • Shaidar
    Shaidar Posts: 9 Just Dropped In
    I'd suggest going for the cards as well, I got Kiora before having decent card and it was a pain. Leveling was slow, was getting a lot of losses in QB, had almost no chance @events, etc.
  • If you have a decent card pool then go for the pw, if not, cards should come first. And second. And so on 'til you get together at least one deck with wich you can harvest the crystals from story mode. Keep in mind that you also have to level the pw to be useful, which means ~80k (~120k for multi-colored pws) runes in reserve.

    For the eldrazi story battles: get some creature with first strike/ds, buff its damage and put a hedron blade on it (and keep the reinforcement plus a blade in your hand if it falls). It saves you a lot of grinning icon_e_wink.gif

    IMHO Nahiri (the Same goes for Sorin) without cards can't even compete the weaker pw-s with decent decks. Chandra isn't bad, Gideon1 has the RC combo at the moment so if you want a sound advice, wait for Kiora/Ob Nix to return and buy one of them instead, they are way above Nahiri in power, even with uncommon cards to survive 'til the 3rd ability triggers.
    Go for the strongest pws first (when deciding between pws i mean), even if it takes more sacrifices. When you have a stable income from events, then it will be much easier to obtain those weaker pws if you still want them.

    Edit: When spending on decks, never go below the big boxes, it isn't worth it. They can sck too, but still, they have the best odds to get good cards. Never tried single colored big boxes though, they can be even better for start.
  • Feyda
    Feyda Posts: 105
    Thanks for the advice, think ill get the mega pack first, I have a FEW good cards but not a ton yet. I've had some fun on Nissa with the Runaway Carriage + Mantle of Webs combo and my Chandra is generally pretty strong with Mage Ring Bully, Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, and Magnifying Glass. With the mana flow and card draw from the supports can usually murder any cards that come up unless they happen to miracle cascade summon early. Definitely seeing how the cards help.
  • octal9
    octal9 Posts: 593 Critical Contributor
    HunMike wrote:
    Never tried single colored big boxes though, they can be even better for start.

    The mono-color big boxes (assuming you get lucky, of course) are a fantastic way to jumpstart a planeswalker. My red decks got a great start because of one.

    I had pretty good luck with the "mystical creatures" box when that was around too. Definitely gave my decks a significant boost.
  • HunMike wrote:
    And so on 'til you get together at least one deck with wich you can harvest the crystals from story mode.
    Dumb n00b question, but is there any way (aside from pulling out my wallet) to get crystals besides completing story mode challenges at 15 manacrystal.png each, or beating an opponent with all five PWs for 10 manacrystal.png? I'm starting to slow down and lose some challenges because my cards aren't that great, so I need boosters.

    On a related note, do those standard crystal rewards ever go up? (My highest PW is 32 Nissa, and I've just started Origins 3/1 (along with finishing the 1st level of Zendikar.).)

    I need something like 360 crystals for a 14x pack (which would have been much more achievable if I hadn't bought Tezzeret, big rookie error). Not sure if I want to continue if I have to repeat each enemy four times for every 25 manacrystal.png (and that's assuming I snag the manacrystal.png challenge on each opponent with one of the 5 battles).
  • GoldenAnkh wrote:
    HunMike wrote:
    And so on 'til you get together at least one deck with wich you can harvest the crystals from story mode.
    Dumb n00b question, but is there any way (aside from pulling out my wallet) to get crystals besides completing story mode challenges at 15 manacrystal.png each, or beating an opponent with all five PWs for 10 manacrystal.png? I'm starting to slow down and lose some challenges because my cards aren't that great, so I need boosters.

    On a related note, do those standard crystal rewards ever go up? (My highest PW is 32 Nissa, and I've just started Origins 3/1 (along with finishing the 1st level of Zendikar.).)

    I need something like 360 crystals for a 14x pack (which would have been much more achievable if I hadn't bought Tezzeret, big rookie error). Not sure if I want to continue if I have to repeat each enemy four times for every 25 manacrystal.png (and that's assuming I snag the manacrystal.png challenge on each opponent with one of the 5 battles).

    You will get some by competing in the PvP weekday and weekend events as part of a progression reward and at the end of each event if you manage to hit top 100 or so (which shouldn't be too hard if you can consistently play). Quick battle will also give some crystals if you hit top 250 (at least for silver tier) but it is a bit grindy.
  • keeshond
    keeshond Posts: 8 Just Dropped In
    Ok, get the packs. As they said, the planeswalkers you get, the first five, and pretty decent, and with the right cards can be completely broken. But this goes a little further, since you start factoring in the amount of rares a big box can give you, and the fact that a gold level event, if you can gather enough wins, can fetch you about a 100 crystal per. So all around, it's better to save up for the cards, then the walkers. icon_e_smile.gif
  • I'd drop the 10 manacrystal.png grinding if i were you, until having a decent card pool to get all the pws working. Push forward for the 15 manacrystal.png s as long as you can with your strongest one or two pw, depends on the cards drawn.

    The daily prizes add ~160 manacrystal.png a month, event grinding idk (i'm in platinum), like 100 manacrystal.png a week. After 2, max 3 big boxes you ought to be having decks good enough to safely grind the manacrystal.png s from events, that's the point where the original question comes in again. I'd settle with kiora, ob and nahiri/ajani (or kiora, koth and sorin if you have better cards for that), so the original 5 matches for harvesting the 10 manacrystal.png per match can get down to 3 matches. Can't help with the most important thing though: in which order should they be bought. It strongly depends on what you've opened.

    Dont master all your cards too soon. Though more than half of the matches in the upper tiers still can be won with inferior cards (if they work together in a near to perfect sinergy), it is a much bigger challenge and in some cases (mostly when enraged) you have to have instant answer in hand which simply can't be done with only uncommons.
  • Feyda
    Feyda Posts: 105
    Starting to worry about ranking up mastery wise. Got 4 PWs at level 40-50 and mastery level 84-88 in red green and blue. How big a difference does going from Bronze to Silver make? I'm actually pretty psyched today because I managed to pull off rank 5 in the Saheeli Rai event and got her added to my roster.

    Also, I've opened 2 of the 600 crystal packs so far and was SEVERELY dissapointed with the second round, something like 40 repeat cards and I think only 2 rares out of the whole thing with one of them being the guaranteed rare. Still, I think its probably good advice to open 1-2 of the big packs before expanding your roster. On the plus side, with my card diversity, my purchase of Tezz feels a LOT less wasteful icon_e_smile.gif He's turned into one of my favorite PW in my lineup.
  • I just moved from bronze to silver, the difference isn't too bad but it is noticeable. Whereas in bronze it was unusual to see many mythics, in silver you see quite a lot of decks that feel like they could beat platinum players. The vast majority are casual decks though, which are on par with what I've been able to create with my collection.

    When I was still in bronze I was able to get top 5 in Terrors in the Shadows. When I moved to silver I was top 30 but after a couple more weeks of learning the game and tweaking decks I've been able to get top 5 in the Saheeli event now.

    If I were you I'd stay bronze for as long as you can but don't worry too much if you go to silver. I hear that gold is a considerable jump in difficulty so that's the one to be wary of.
  • Where is the BFZ/OGW packs? They are not in vault new, will them return?
  • span_argoman
    span_argoman Posts: 751 Critical Contributor
    afterlife wrote:
    Where is the BFZ/OGW packs? They are not in vault new, will them return?
    Yes they will return again when the developers deem it appropriate. But we don't know when.
  • Get the cards!
  • Hoooo hoooo hoooo!
    Merry Christmas everyone!
    I borrow this post for a similar question.
    I started playing this addicting game a week ago and grinded them 600 crystals now. Though I don't know what big box I should buy. I have like 150 cards, Chandra and Nissa(of course) PW's. Shall I go for the Origins, Kaladesh or BFZ big box?
    Have been searching around on the forum for an answer but haven't found very much about it.
  • span_argoman
    span_argoman Posts: 751 Critical Contributor
    Mullbakk wrote:
    Hoooo hoooo hoooo!
    Merry Christmas everyone!
    I borrow this post for a similar question.
    I started playing this addicting game a week ago and grinded them 600 crystals now. Though I don't know what big box I should buy. I have like 150 cards, Chandra and Nissa(of course) PW's. Shall I go for the Origins, Kaladesh or BFZ big box?
    Have been searching around on the forum for an answer but haven't found very much about it.
    Origins is good to build up a nice base of cards to build decks around. But use Inventory in-game to check how many of the common and uncommon cards you have from Origins (check "Show all cards" in the bottom right to see even cards you don't have). If you already have a sizeable proportion of those cards then you might want to try your luck on other sets.

    Personally I feel BFZ had overall the most number of useful common and uncommon cards. If you look at rares and mythics then imo SOI has the strongest rares and mythics. So I guess if you're feeling lucky you can spend on an SOI Big Box when it rotates in. Otherwise I'd recommend an Origins or BFZ Big Box if you're more conservative.

    Try to also go for the good mono-colour planeswalkers when they're available (or upcoming) to help you get more quickly up to speed for events. Mono-colour planeswalkers are only half as expensive to level in runes compared to dual-colour planeswalkers (80k vs 161k).

    I'd recommend getting Ob Nixilis, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets (NOT Jace, Telepath Unbound) and Koth. Dual colour planeswalkers are a bit more of a mixed bag for newer players cause the greater benefits will come from having the right cards in the two colours to maximise the potential of the dual-colour planeswalker. Also being doubly as costly to level means that they take longer to reach max level and hence may not bear fruit till later unless you're willing to spend tens of hours grinding runes through QB to level them up (300 runes per win once your planeswalker level hits 20 or higher I think).

    That being said, don't be in a rush to level your planeswalkers to level 60. As events nowadays and QB do level matching (QB is +/- 5, I hear events are +0 to 5) you don't really need your planeswalkers to be maxed out. The cost to level from 50 to 60 is exorbitant. Use http://mtgpq.info to check the numbers. And typically around level 40+ to 50 the planeswalkers have decent enough mana gain and ability levels to work well. The only exception being your designated QB planeswalker (typically Nahiri or Koth) as QB ribbons per win is your planeswalker level divided by 10, rounded down. So you typically want your QB planeswalker to be level 60, or at least level 50 (or more importantly for new players not too high a level that you start to lose too often).

    Hopefully by then you can find a good group of people to advise you how to progress. Try to join a good coalition with people willing to give advice. There's also a Slack channel that you can ask around the forums (or pm Majincob) for an invite. I hear there are a lot of active MTGPQ players there who can help.
  • Wildcatbarry
    Wildcatbarry Posts: 8 Just Dropped In
    Is there a list for the amount of mana crystals each PW costs?
    How much (mana crystals) will Tezzeret the Schemer cost?
  • hawkyh1
    hawkyh1 Posts: 780 Critical Contributor
    Is there a list for the amount of mana crystals each PW costs?
    How much (mana crystals) will Tezzeret the Schemer cost?
    the recent pricing is:
    dual colour cost 650(tez likely cost)
    single colour cost 295
    original planeswalkers cost 50

    HH
  • Wildcatbarry
    Wildcatbarry Posts: 8 Just Dropped In
    Thank you.