June 2, 2019 June 3, 2019
Deckathalon Top Leaderboard Contestant
Wizard101 has finally concluded its first Ice Deckathalon event and the results are in! 10 brave wizards fought viciously for the spot of ULTIMATE WIZ HEAD CHAMPION but alas only one has survived! If you (my wonderful reader/audience) has ever delved into this event then you might just know who I am referring too… the Top Leaderboard Contestant!
Meet the Ice Deckathalon Champ!
It’s my pleasure to announce that I’ve had the chance to interview Alexander Owl, the #1 spot in the first-ever Deckathalon event. Surprisingly, Mr. Owl boasts an amazing 17,000 points as you can see below. Well done to everyone that participated, especially the other top 10 contestants displayed below!
We asked Alexander Owl the following questions and I personally hope that Kingsisle can take a look at his amazing feedback. Thanks again to Alexander for providing us with these responses.
1) How much time did you invest in this event?
I legitimately couldn’t even guess at how much time I invested in this event. I know at several points in time I was getting a rather unhealthy amount of sleep, then waking up and going right back at it. At one point I was waking up at 6-7 am and going until 1-2 am the following morning. I DEFINITELY do not encourage others to do this. (Farming for such an unhealthy amount of time).
2) What changes would you like to see implemented?
I would like for it to become less of a marathon, (whoever has the most amount of time to devote to this), and actually have some more skill come into play. I feel it would have been near impossible, if not completely impossible for someone with school, or a full-time job to place top 10.
For example, a change they could maybe implement would be a limited amount of credit resets per day, with no way to speed up this process of how long until the credits become available to purchase again once the player has used them all. This would also encourage players to farm the higher tiers instead of lower tiers over and over. A problem with this idea, however, is a lot of people would be tied for the scores.
In addition to this, a random set of mobs that could spawn, (similar to the Exalted Zeus fight) and those mobs could use different cards. It would then require more versatility instead of it being the *exact* same thing every fight repeat x100. A different set of mobs spawning in for each floor would mean that those most prepared would ultimately end up with the most points I feel.
3) What tips would you give to beginners?
For any beginners to this event, do not stress out. You will likely fail a few times, but after each failed run you will end up getting better and better, learning what each mob likes to do when they have a certain amount of pips.. So you will be able to counter it and ultimately succeed. Don’t worry about crafting the Gauntlets at first. First craft the Deckathalon decks as they can be an insane advantage with their flat resist, health boost, and extra jewel socket. Remember you don’t have to use the biggest and best tc for the smallest of mobs. Take your time to learn what will be the most effective use of your time and gold.
4) What approach did you use to gain points the fastest?
My approach day 1 was a mess. I woke up a bit late and just threw in some fire tc and hoped for the best. Somehow I managed to make my way to stage 4 just winging it. At this point, I hit a hard wall in the 2nd fight (2v1). After many, MANY failed attempts trying to clear this fight with scald I tried a fire dragon. The initial hit taking off the towers really helped a ton, but it didn’t kill because they kept shielding.. I tried bladed fire dragon and found that to work. After some trial and error, I found reliable strategies that also worked for the 1st fight and 3rd fight. The hardest by far is the 2nd fight in stage 4 in my opinion.
The first day I just farmed stage 4 nonstop without even considering that another of the stages might be quicker. The 2nd day of the event a friend mentioned that it might be more efficient to farm stage 2 or 3. Since they also tower shield in stage 3 I decided to try stage 2. Initially, here I was taking 3-4 minutes a run for 8 points, which was still a bit slow. But compared to the 7-8 minutes in stage 4 for 16 points it about evened out.
Similar to stage 4 after some trial and error I did a strategy something like this: Fight 1: Pass, Sunbird, Fight 2: Pass, Pass, Meteor, Fight 3: Fireblade, Sunbird. I did this for a day or two and it was brought to my attention that sunbird can *usually* kill without Fireblade, so instead of blading in the third fight, I would pass and just sunbird. If it didn’t kill I would use the Special Event button (Side note: This REALLY needs to be deactivated during PvP.) to just teleport out quicker and already be at the library ready to run back in. Ultimately a run like this would take between 2:00-2:30 usually which was much more efficient than stage 4.
5) Did you have enough gold for all your treasure card needs?
A couple of different things, I had 2 accounts relatively full of gold but after doing stage 4 the entire first day I ran out pretty quickly on the chars that had a decent stash. I turned to selling useless TCs that were piled up here and there and only using 2 TCs that were relatively cheap, I made this last for a while. I started the event only shooting for top 10, but friends convinced me to go for top placement instead. With this, they also offered to help me buy the TCs that were needed. Usually, they would be in stacks of 300 sunbirds, 150 meteors, since 2 sunbirds and 1 meteor were used per run.
6) Will you be participating in the next event?
I most likely will be participating in the next event. However, I will certainly not be participating for top 10 again unless some sort of insane new reward for it is made. But as of right now, I only will be going for top 25 for the School Pets.
7) Do you feel that the first Deckathalon was worth all the effort?
With the assumption (although I doubt this will happen) that the top 10 requires 10,000+ points, I do not believe it is currently worth it. Even top 25 required ~7,000 – ~8,000 points or somewhere about that. An insane amount of effort for little payoff.
8) How do you feel about the rewards?
The School Pets are awesome for sure, but the Gobbler mount isn’t exclusive to those who placed top 10. The Ultimate Runes you get are used for crafting the School Gauntlets. Even with the Best Loot going the entirety of the last day of the event, I received 0 Strengthening Runes and 0 Superior Runes, both of which are also required for crafting the School Gauntlets. So that makes the Ultimate Runes essentially useless until future events.
I definitely believe the rewards need some sort of revamping. For example, an idea I have seen floating around would be to give the top 10 that tower’s school’s Gauntlets. This way they don’t have to craft them and it would be more encouraging for players to do it. I would also like to see a Badge, or something more exclusive that would be available *only* for the top participants.
Looking Towards the Future
I would like to thank Alexander for taking some time out of his busy day to chat with me! I am beyond impressed with how far he got in the event and his willingness to share his knowledge with us. It can be extraordinarily frustrating finding the top player of any category through social media. If you’d like to give him a virtual high five, here’s his twitter link. To see more on this new event, be sure to check out some of our other articles here and here.
