Tournament #4 Sandasaurus Rex and Husker Giant

So Tournament #4 came and went, and even though D3 flagged my account for "exploiting Deck Wars", it appears I was still able to win first place, thanks to all the trophies I racked up before the "Connection Failed" issues started popping up.

Now I'm wondering if the Connection Failed issue is D3's way of "throttling" players who win lots of trophies or are highly ranked. If so, that would be a very cumbersome way of going about it. I can think of better ways to do this, like fixing game mechanics and rules. Or how about just making it easier to win Black Cards?

Tournament Matches -- I have no idea how matches are determined

I don't know if something has changed in the way matches are determined, but I've been getting some rather random matches in the Deck Wars Black Card Tournament.

First of all, I sometimes get matched with Level 1 decks. These still earn the minimum 4 trophies per match (plus 4 for streaks for a total of 8), but it's kind of odd to be matched up with them, as my hero is Level 3. In fact, how is it even possible for a Level 1 deck to exist, especially Finn or Jake? My guess is that someone didn't finish the tutorial and immediately started playing Deck Wars before leveling up the heroes to Level 2, which you normally do within the first 6 Quests.

Needless to say, beating a Level 1 deck is pretty easy. There are usually two open lanes where you can place 5 ATK cards, knocking the opponent from 15 down to 5 points. Then the opponent, who already has a weak deck, typically uses Mouthball and stupidly floops it, leaving you an open lane to finish the match.

But I've also been getting some Level 4 or Level 5 matches. These earn more trophies (7 trophies in this case). They're a little harder to beat, but with a decent deck, it's possible.

 See?

My next match was very strange -- a Level 14 deck for 10 trophies! But Level 14 heroes have 80 HP, so this is almost impossible to beat with my weak Level 3 deck.

And of course, I lost. Even if I had been able to make a few more hits, I would have quickly run out of cards.

After that Level 14 match, I was matched up with Level 1 and Level 2 decks again.

So, to summarise, I have no idea how Card Wars determines matches, and from what I can tell, they are often mismatched.

Throwing my hat into the ring again -- Tournament #4 Sandasaurus Rex and Husker Giant

I joined the tournament again, this time on Wednesday or Thursday. I decided not to repeat a mistake I made with one of my accounts last time, where I earned over 500 trophies on the Friday before the tournament ended and didn't check my rank until it was all over. That time, #2 had somehow earned more than 500 trophies in less than 24 hours, which is, of course, within the realm of possibility. So let that be a lesson!

This time, I earned over 700 trophies with #2 only at 100 or so. But soon #2 surged to 700, so I had to play pretty hard and now I'm at over 2600. If #2 stays at 700, I can maybe take a break, but I still have to be ever vigilant!

Meanwhile, it'll be nice to get Sandasaurus Rex, a decent Black Card, though I don't have a decent Sandy Lands Deck yet, so I won't be able to use it yet. I had a very nice Sandy Lands deck before my whole Google Play fiasco where I was switching between accounts on my phone and had one account overwritten by the other. D3 still hadn't gotten back to me yet on this, which makes me sad.

Don't forget, my hero cards are intentionally low, at 2 or 3, to keep the cost of Deck Wars matches at just 1 heart. This way I can maximise on the number of trophies earned, even if each match I earn only 4 trophies for the low-level opponents plus another 4 trophies for the streak. Meanwhile, I can't mine for cards using the quests because I need to keep my heroes at a low level and quests would give me XP and increase my hero levels.

Cheaters on the global tournament board

If you've been playing in the Tournament, you'll notice that the global leader board always has these two players -- "Master Manme" and "Dax". "Dax" used to be called "AZ1ZONK". But I'm pretty sure both of them are cheaters. After only 3.5 days in the tournament they've racked up about 9K trophies each. How is this possible? Look at "Master Manme" -- 1178 wars won, averaging about 7.7 trophies per win, at a rate of 14 matches per hour. Never mind that hearts regenerate at only 1 per fifteen minutes, or 4 per hour. "Dax" played 1274+924=2198 matches, at a rate of 26 matches per hour.

Yes, I know there are ways to hack this game, but that really defeats the purpose and takes all the fun out of it. It's much more fun to beat the game within the parameters of the game itself. That's the real accomplishment. Never mind the cheaters.

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!