Never switch Google Play accounts! It will wipe out your deck!

Have you connected your Card Wars game to Google Play yet?

Here's the good news -- if you connect your game to Google Play, if you ever lose your phone or tablet, you can restore your game, as it will store the information on the servers (actually, information is always stored on the servers, but normally you can't restore your account without a User ID).

Here's the bad news. If you have more than one Google Play account on your device and you switch between them, it will overwrite one account with the deck from the other. So you'll now have two accounts that look the same, with the same deck, but different User IDs.

This is what happened to me. I normally have two games going -- one on my phone and one on BlueStacks. But I got greedy and wanted to play both on my phone, so I added a second account on Google Play. When I logged back into Card Wars, I noticed it was still my old account. But not really. It was my old account that had overwritten the new account!

This means that I've lost four black cards that I worked so hard to obtain (Sandasaurus Rex, Party Ogre, Sun King, and Timmy Magic Eyes). I'm hoping that the Card Wars support can help me out, but I'm doubtful, and they haven't replied back yet.

This makes me sad. :(




UPDATE:

I received this email from D3 support:

We apologize for the delay!

It would appear that the save information from your account has been copied to the [redacted], as apposed to being recovered as normal. Because of this we will be unable to restore your progress. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. However, we can offer to compensate the [redacted] account with the rewards you earned from previous Deck Wars tournaments? According to our records, you have received Top 1 rewards for four separate tournaments, as well as Top 10 rewards for another four separate tournaments. We would be able to send you the 4 Black Cards, 8 Gold Cards, and the currency rewards for these tournaments. Would you find this an amicable resolution to the issue?

Of course, I have no choice, so I've opted to restore my account with my previous tournament winnings. This means that I've also lost my deck and some pretty sweet cards. Oh, well. It could have been worse. And really, it's just a game.

UPDATE (2015-08-05):

Still no word from D3 support, despite their offer. :(

UPDATE (2015-08-19):

Yay! They restored my gems and cards! D3 came through!

Fionna and Cake Glitch

Just for the heck of it, and also to make it to the third F&C quest so that I could increase my heart maximum, I played some Fionna and Cake. Note that you can use only Fionna or Cake as your hero, not your regular hero. But because my regular heroes are low-level, this was not an issue for me. (Don't forget, my heroes are low-level so that the Deck Wars match cost is only one heart.)

When I came back to Deck Wars, there was a glitch where it wouldn't let me play my normal heroes. I could only play Fionna or Cake! Which was okay, because they were Level 5 heroes with extra hit points and card slots. But, being level 5 heroes, it cost two hearts to play each match in Deck Wars.

After I quit the game (fully exiting) and restarting, I was able to use my normal heroes, once again. But the pics above prove the glitch.

Fionna and Cake DLC -- is it worth it?

You've already spent $4 on Adventure Time Card Wars. Why should you shell out another $3 just to get the Fionna and Cake DLC (Downloadable Content)? Especially when Kung Fu Factory creates such a glitchy game. And especially when they're constantly trying to fleece money from you to buy gems?

Well, I did buy it. If you're going to be spending several hours a week playing this silly game, then sure, it's just another $3.

You get two more hero cards: Fionna Level 5 and Cake Level 5. But you can't play them in the Deck Wars Tournament, nor can you play them in regular Quests. It's almost like a separate, alternate Quest reality.

As far as I can tell, if you don't level up the new Fionna and Cake Hero cards, this shouldn't affect the heart cost when playing in the Tournament. But once you do (say, to Level 6), then your heart cost will immediately jump up to 3, which is Level 6 divided by 2. This is consistent with the rest of the hero cards. The heart cost of playing a Tournament match is your highest level divided by 2, round down (but not less than 1).

But, I was able to complete the third quest in the F&C DLC, getting me an extra heart maximum and refilling my heart meter. That's not too bad. Just be sure not to level up the heroes beyond Level 5.

Also, as you can see from the picture above, those are some pretty sweet Chest Drops. From Quest 3, I got a Scroll of Bad Breath and two Evil Eyes. That's not too bad. I might try to get through Quest 6 to further raise my heart maximum, but not sure. I don't want to risk raising my heart cost.

End of Tournament #2 Timmy Magic Eyes and Brain Gooey

I have two games going on. One on my phone, one on my PC, using BlueStacks. On my phone, my highest hero card is Level 4, which means it costs 2 hearts to play each match, but I also completed up to Quest 33, so I have a maximum of 16 hearts. But on my PC, my highest hero card is Level 3, which means it costs 1 heart to play each match, but I also completed up to Quest 12, so I have a maximum of 9 hearts.

On my phone, I got the Black Card. Yay!

But on my PC, I joined only Friday, got over 500 trophies, and established a comfortable lead. The next highest player had only 60 trophies or so. But I didn't think to check my progress on Saturday (I didn't even play), and I found out just now that somebody beat me, and I got only rank 2.

So let this be a lesson!

Don't assume that you're safe. Someone can easily fill up their heart meter and win several hundreds of trophies! Stay vigilant!

Anyway, now that I have Timmy Magic Eyes, I'll have to build a decent Blue Plains deck. I don't have enough cards, and I can't mine the Quests, or else I'll increase my Hero level.

Gems and never forget to do your Daily Gift

I can't believe my luck today. I actually got 50 gems from the Daily Gift!

I wasn't fast enough with the screen shot (on Android, it's Power and Volume Down), but you can see my 56 gems above.

The Daily Gift is in in Daily Dungeon section of the game. Click this:

And then click on the Daily Gift.

If you haven't clicked more than 24 hours ago, you'll have one Daily Gift available. I suggest you set an alarm to always check back every 24 hours. You don't get more gifts if you wait longer -- you max out at 1 gift.

As you can see, the possibilities are hearts, coins, gems, and cards. Most of the time, you will get either 5 hearts or 10,000 coins. Save those up before you enter a tournament!

If you want to know what your chances are of getting each individual gift, look here:

http://cardwars.wikia.com/wiki/Daily_Gift

What if you get 50 gems like I did? Save them up for the next Rare Card Carnival. These are events that happen every once in a while where they increase the chances of getting good cards. Also, it helps to spend some gems on expanding your deck size. You get five extra cards per gem. Don't go overboard, though. If you are playing with a low-level deck, you probably don't need too many cards.

You can also earn a gem for each Quest where you get all three stars. But the way I play, I intentionally keep my hero levels low, which means no XP. Fortunately, you don't earn XP from playing in the Tournament.

An alternative way to get Black Cards

On the message boards, people suggest that the way to get black cards is to completely level-up your heroes, build an awesome deck, store hearts from the Daily Gift, and look for matches that are 10 trophies.

You can do this, and I'm sure that lots of people get Black Cards this way. But in terms of maximizing trophies, there's a problem with this.

When you completely level-up your hero and build an awesome deck, you get 45 hearts maximum. Hearts still regenerate at 1 heart per 15 minutes. It costs 9 hearts to play a match and 1000 coins. This means that you can play only 5.3 games per day. Assuming you win all the 10 trophy matches and get a winning streak, you win 14 trophies per match (10 trophies + 4 trophies for the win streak), which means 74.2 trophies per day. Which is pretty good, and if you spend gems to refill your heart meter, you get an extra 126 trophies per gem. And I know that this is what many people do.

However, if you keep your heroes at level 3 or lower, it costs only 1 heart and 75 coins to play a match. You'll pretty much be matched up with only Level 2 decks, meaning only 8 trophies per match (4 trophies + 4 trophies for the win streak). But in one day, you can (theoretically) get 768 trophies! This means that you'll have to constantly play, as your heart meter maxes out at maybe 9 hearts, which means you'll have to play every 2 hours 15 minutes. Even at night. This can be exhausting. Plus you'll have a really weak deck, and it's no fun playing with a weak deck. And you'll lose some of the matches. But even then, you should be able to rack up hundreds of trophies in a day, more than enough to win a Black Card Tournament.

On my phone, I've done something slightly different. I leveled up my heroes to Level 5, except for Jake, who's still at Level 2. This means that it costs me 2 hearts and 125 coin to play a match. Because of my Level 2 Jake, I'm matched with Level 2 decks, which are only 4 trophies per game. But my heart max is 16, which means I need to play only every 4 hours to maximize my trophies. I did this by completing more quests and using an extra hero card from the Algebraic Chest. This gets me about 384 trophies per day (assuming I win all my matches, which I usually do). And this is usually still enough to win me a Black Card in the Tournament.

So, to sum it up,

Maximum level hero -> 14 trophies, 9 hearts, 1000 coins per match -> 75.4 trophies per day, playing every 11 hours 15 minutes
Level 2 or 3 hero -> 8 trophies, 1 heart, 75 coins per match -> 768 trophies per day, playing every 2 hours 15 minutes
Level 5 hero -> 8 trophies, 2 hearts, 125 coins per match -> 384 trophies per day, playing every 4 hours

Hope this helps!

A good place to be

So here's a good place to be, as you can see from the screenshot above. I have completed all Quests through 12, which gives me 4 extra hearts, for a grand total of 9 hearts maximum. I also have three hero cards: Finn level 2, Jake level 2, and Winter BMO level 3.

If you're wondering where I got Winter BMO, it's from the code redemption. Go to Settings and click on the code redemption.

This will get you a new hero card with which to play. The third hero card is important, because we want to keep all of our heros at the lowest possible level. If all heroes are at level 3 or lower, it costs only 1 heart to play each Deck Wars match. And with low-level hero cards, your opponents will also be low-level decks, which will make them easier to defeat.

Also, find more redemption codes here: http://cardwars.wikia.com/wiki/Redeem_Codes

Not all codes work. Some might get reactivated around the holidays.

I have the following deck. It's a very simple, starter deck that would be able to defeat only the lowest level opponents.

Travellin' Farmer x4
Ethan Allfire x2
Cornball x2
Mouthball x3
Brief Power (use redemption code BRIEF)
Cerebral Bloodstorm (use redemption code C3R3BL)
Comfy Cave
Corn Dome
Volcano

...which is 16 cards, all that a level 2 hero can handle. Is it a great deck? No, not really. But hopefully it will be enough to win a Black Card in the tournament.

The Battle Wheel

Do you like to play with the Battle Wheel on or off?

In case you don't know how to do this, go to Settings and you'll see the option in the lower right.

First of all, the Battle Wheel can be helpful. When attacking you have a very slight chance of doing double damage. But you also have the not-so-slight chance of missing. When Defending, you have a slight chance of blocking, and an even slighter chance of counter-attacking. So, all-in-all, it's better to use the Battle Wheel, as it tends to help more than harm, on average.

While the Battle Wheel is slow to begin with in Quests, it does pick up speed. But in Tournaments, it is blindingly fast. You can get good at it, and over time, I've gotten pretty good with it, but for those few times that I miss when I meant to hit, it is very frustrating.

My suggestion is to turn it on for Quests, but leave it off for Tournaments.

During Quests, the Battle Wheel is much slower, so that you actually have a good chance of controlling the darn thing. Also, with it on, you can opt to not attack. You just let the wheel spin a few times and it will eventually miss. Why is this good for quests? Sometimes you don't want to defeat your opponent immediately, and instead you may want to maximize on the number of creatures you destroy. Each time you destroy an opposing creature, you have a chance to get a loot chest or a bag of money. The loot chests can come in handy, especially if you don't have enough coin for the Cool Chest.

However, during Tournaments, I always leave the wheel off. It shortens the game (the spinning wheel does take extra time to play the game), and when you're playing dozens of games to rack up trophies, every second that you save counts. Also, I can rely better on my math to make sure I can defeat the opponent, rather than sometimes missing when what I really need is a hit.

The secret of my success

The secret of my success is pretty simple. Win as many trophies as possible. To do this effectively, we artificially keep our hero cards at the lowest possible level. This does three things: (1) it reduces the cost of each tournament match, and (2) it limits your opponents to decks of the same level, which makes them easier to beat (though your own deck is pretty weak to begin with), and (3) unfortunately, it also limits the number of trophies you can win per match to four trophies (plus four additional trophies for the winning streak).

Most players level up their heroes as high as possible. This gives them a maximum of 45 hearts that they can store up, but matches cost 9 hearts and 1000 coins to play. Occasionally, you'll get matched up with someone for a maximum for 10 trophies (plus 4 additional trophies for the winning streak), but you'll have to spend a lot of coins to find those matches. But let's say you do. That means you can play 5 games per day -- hearts recharge at 1 per 15 minutes, but matches cost 9 hearts -- which limits your winnings to 12 trophies per match, or 70 trophies per day.

However, if you keep all your heroes down at level 3 only, it will cost only 1 heart per match to play, and each match will cost 75 coins. Hearts still recharge at the same rate, so you can play 96 matches for 4 trophies each win (plus 4 additional trophies for the winning streak), giving you a grand total of 768 trophies per day. That's more than three times the number of trophies you can win had you leveled up your heroes to the maximum.

But there are many downsides to this strategy.

First of all, if you've already leveled up your heroes, there's no way to level back down. You'll have to restart your game and lose all your progress and awesome cards you've already acquired.

Secondly, you can't play too many quests, or else your heroes will level up. If your heroes level up, the heart cost to play each match will increase. Once a single one of your heroes levels up to level 4, your heart cost goes up to 2 hearts per match. This effectively reduces the number of matches you can play per day to 48, giving you a grand total of 384 trophies per day. Plus, your match cost will increase to 100 coin.

The inability to play quests will limit your ability to acquire new cards from quests. The only way you can obtain new cards is by purchasing them.

You also can't play things like the Daily Dungeons of Doom. Doing so also increases your hero's experience, thereby increasing the level.

And finally, yes, there are ways to cheat in Card Wars, but I don't recommend it. Cheating is not cool. Don't do it. Yes, there are glitches you can take advantage of, but that's cheating. You can also hack the game files, but that's cheating, too. Don't cheat. It takes the challenge and fun out of the game.

When to join the Tournament

So, when is the best time to join the tournament? In case you don't know, it's not the first day.

In the Black Card Tournament, you compete with 100 random people within your bracket. Everyone in your bracket joined the tournament around the same time, typically the same day. These people are not necessarily at the same card level. In fact, when you compete, you don't necessarily even play their decks. But how each player does in the tournament (the number of trophies won) is what determines ranking.

Here's a screenshot of the last tournament I just won. I blacked out my name because it's sort of an identifying detail and... by the way, you can't change the name that you used, so choose wisely.

You'll notice here that I'm at the top of my bracket, with 3,529 trophies. The next highest has 1,097 trophies. You'll also notice that I won 451 games and lost 3. As you can see, I earned almost 8 trophies per match. This is not very high. The next highest player won about 14 trophies per match. This, of course, is the secret to my success -- keeping my hero levels low means I spend fewer hearts to play each match. Instead of five hearts, I spend two. I only get 8 trophies (4 trophies for the match plus 4 trophies for the win streak), but I get to play many more matches everyday.

Anyway, so the best time to join is certainly not the first day of the tournament. That's when all the crazy people who just finished the previous tournament join. These are the eager players you want to avoid. They are typically aggressive players who rack up a lot of trophies.

Instead, join a couple days later, at least. If the tournament ends Saturday evening (as it always does for me, because I live in California), then wait until Monday or Tuesday at least before joining.

Another strategy is to use the Daily Gift to get as many hearts as possible, beyond the maximum your heart meter already has. It's pretty typical to get five hearts or 10,000 coins, but sometimes (very rarely) you get 50 hearts. Store those hearts up until the day you join the tournament. You'll also need to store coins if you're just starting out.

I don't suggest joining the tournament on the last day or the second-to-last day of the tournament. By then, you'll likely be competing with other people who have stored up hearts, too.

My quest to get all the black cards

This blog is about Card Wars the video game. I thought I'd start a blog to detail my journey to get all the Black Cards in the Black Card Tournament.

If you don't know about the game, there's a Wikia page that talks about the game and other useful information about it: http://cardwars.wikia.com/

There's also a discussion forum on the same site: http://cardwars.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Forum

Reddit also has a discussion forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/CardWars/

As of this entry, I already have three black cards from Tournaments #14, #15, and #1. I am currently in first place in my bracket for Tournament #2.

All black card tournaments follow a round-robin bi-weekly schedule. This is helpful so you know what black card to expect and which tournaments in which to invest your time. The schedule can be found here: http://cardwars.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Card_Tournament