April 25, 2019
Deckathalon Event Thoughts
Kingsisle introduced a brand new Deckathalon Event in the Spring 2019 test realm. You can check here if you want to learn more about it. Read further to see some of my thoughts about this event.
Okay, let me just start by saying that I simply love this event. It’s true that it becomes pretty hard later on, but that’s also one reason it is a fantastic concept. I’ll explain this point later in the article. There’s a well thought out design behind this event. Other events and dungeons are just here in game, they give you nice loot and provide a challenge but that’s pretty much it.
It’s Free and Everyone Can Participate
Well, you do need to be level 10 in order to enter, but that’s pretty much it! But i will give a fair little warning here, you will struggle in this event if you try to finish it as a low level. This is because of not yet having access to gargantuan treasure cards and learnable shift spells from Khrysalis. The first one drastically improves spell damage, while the second one provides nice aftereffects alongside an attack.
Also, you can find the Deckathalon Event in Wizard City’s library, and you know what that means. You can participate without a problem, even if you ran out of membership or are a free to play player. Granted you’ll have a harder time collecting gold. However, this event is an excellent example of KI providing a variety of content to players who are limited to Wizard City.
Furthermore, no crowns are required to enter, as everyone gets a number of free entries per day, with members getting slightly more than non-members. If you want more credits to enter, you can buy another 6 for just 1000 gold (at the time of publication). You can still spend crowns for Deckathalon bundles, but those are completely optional. In these bundles, you’ll get a mix of tc’s and runes which will speed up your crafting process and net you some sweet treasure cards. The best thing is that bundles can be really attractive (depending on needs), but aren’t necessary at all if you want to proceed.
PvE Competition
For the first time, KingsIsle has introduced PvE competition among wizards. And the whole design is just fantastic:
- All gear is removed and base health is set to 500 for everyone
- You compete against each other
- You work together with each other
- Top 10,000 wizards get some reward
(Source)
The cooperation part is good for two reasons. First one is the obvious one: everyone benefits from that! Even if you’re there to just craft some goodies and have no interest in winning the rewards, you’ll be getting more reagents after every fight (from current observations), which basically translates into less grinding to achieve your goal.
Crafting Recipes Preview
Secondly, this is a new game mechanic, which allows all wizards to work towards a common goal. With this basic logic set up, it becomes easier to put similar incentives in other events. Who knows, maybe other in game events or dungeons will be adjusted in the future to give a specific item after reaching a milestone.
Finally, we have a different type of competition. Competition where wizards compete against each other in a fair, non-pvp environment. It’s this kind of competition where a mix of skill, cleverness and perseverance will prevail.
Difficulty level
So, here it is, probably the most controversial part of the Deckathalon Event. I think the difficulty level surprised every single one of us. I was pulling my hair and dying a lot before finally reaching and beating a stage 3 monster. The most important thing at this difficulty level is that it teaches us good practices for battles.
Gear does matter!
Even though we’re stripped of all gear, there is one piece that stays with us, our deck. At the end of every stage, you’ll be able to buy deck crafting recipes. Make sure you grab every one you see and craft it before proceeding to the next stage. While it’s true that on first glance the difference isn’t too big between the decks, but trust me – it is. The tower is designed that way, so every point of extra resist helps a lot, since most of our attacks are weaker and low-pip.
Smaller is better!
You’ve probably heard this a lot. Make a small deck – add only the cards you need. Having and using so much available space makes you clutter your deck. Well, you can still use a different deck with a bigger sideboard, but you’ll end up dying due to lack of health, resist and extra damage. In order to get the best stats possible in these fights you have to equip a Deckathalon deck. This forces you to use a small deck and to add only the cards you really need.
Finding a way around the shields!
Tower shields are annoying – everyone knows that. However, everyone knows the way around them. You simply cast two Efreet’s instead of one and that’s it. While this technique can work in regular fights, it won’t work in the Deckathalon Event. You’ll probably die before gathering enough pips for a second attack. This tower will force you to think smarter and find more efficient ways around the shields.
Trying different strategies!
Speaking about thinking smarter and finding more efficient ways. Tower shields aren’t the only problem when it comes to difficulty level. One of the best examples is monsters switching to frostbite attacks at Stage 4. Shielding won’t be as effective anymore, which forces you to find different solutions.
Or, when you’re facing 2 enemies at the same time and you still need to have leftover health after the battle. Is it better to go for an AOE attack or kill them one by one?
Acknowledge school boosts!
I think it is no coincidence the way the decks are designed. I’ve seen too many players who ignore a monster’s school resist and simply attack without any plan at all. Since these decks play a vital role in proceeding through different stages, you pretty much need to equip it. And combining the deck’s damage boost to the opposite school with opposite school treasure cards you see around every corner provides a nice and subtle way to lead players toward acknowledging the school boosts mechanics.
Miscellaneous
There are also a few other new miscellaneous gameplay mechanics that i found fascinating. First one is that we always start first. We already saw turn based mechanics (PvP tournaments), switching who goes first mechanics (Old Cob battle) and now we have a brand new one. A one where we always go first. This is a good thing, since it makes all the learning experience about good practices at least a little bit easier.
The second one is instant Mana and Health refill once you exit the dungeon. On the grand scale it might look like it’s not too important of a thing, but imagine how good it would be if this mechanic get ported to other fights as well. It’d lead to way less time spent running around the world to refill health and mana during farming sessions.
The last notable new mechanic is a direct teleport to the event. This is nice quick access to the tower regardless of where you’re located at this very moment. Now we have an additional method of teleporting instead of the classic mark area. I really hope we will get more similar buttons to quickly hop around the spiral in the future.
