Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-9713390-20130706000013/@comment-11133001-20130706161435

*****PLEASE READ IF YOU EVER PLAN TO ATTEMPT TOP TIER FINISH***************

Final Rank: 50

Final Score: 29,771,690

Deck Strength (Pre-event, during, and Post-event): 11,500 / 20,985 / 12,214 (Still have not upgraded any of my new cards as of yet)

Money Spent (Amount and Currency): $200+ unintentionally and with some remorse. Went though all tier levels of the space bridge, was able to get one Venom MTM; two Chopshop MTM and 3 maxed Alt cards; four Barrage MTM and 4 additional Alt cards. Was able to get Venom's weapon through the points as well as Barrage's weapon through the first Space Tier.

Mobacoins Spent: 20,000+

Cubes burned: 600+

Medals (Type, Amount, and Draws): Only cracked about 800 gold warrior/weapon medals; no raid cards at all. Did get some 4 cards like two Ironhide (A), one Megatron (R), two Soundwave (A) and a Jazz (R). Peobably opened 1,000 silver warrior medals and not much came from these.

Liked: After buying my deck strength, the first three days I felt all powerful, one-shotting anything with a 50,000,000 point boss. It almost didn't seem fair because having been in 3 events before, the best I could ever do was about 26,000,000. This was how I was able to get down to rank 17 on the first day. Also enjoyed some parts of the new update, like seeing the status of a battle with an MVP or group icon. I also liked the sorting of the cards in the space bridge which saved some time.

Disliked: I had to buy my deck strength. My initial goal for this event was to take it casually and try to farm cubes and medals for the next event that would give me a x10 or in this case a x7 raid card within the first few tiers of the space bridge. My plan was to max out at $20 per event, which will likely be the case in future events; however I drew a x7 Venom (A) card on the $1 tier of the space bridge, which opened the flood gates for me and made me go for a top tier spot. I did not expect to spend what I did, but once I was committed, I almost nearly went for broke. Also hated the lag for this event.

Any other notes/comments: Okay, please read this if you have never had a top tier finish and plan to do so. This event took everything I had: my sleep, my work, a good portion of my income, my free time and unfortunately, my family time. Now, I am glad to say that I tried it, and moreso considering I did finish 50th. However, this is one player who will NEVER, EVER do that again.

First off, here I am with $200 fewer than I started and yes, I did get all cards including the Bumblebee (5) cards, but so what? My deck strength will be a little bit stronger than before, but now I have no desire to spend 20 hours a day going for another top tier spot. My work suffered, I was stressed to try and keep what I thought was a comfortable lead of about 4,000,000 points going into the last 24-36 hours, only to see it nearly washed away at the end, down to about 700,000 points. It was a good thing I did not stop at the 29,000,000 I thought was safe, otherwise I would have finished 101-105. It was like watching a herd of animals coming towards you and no matter how fast you tried to out-run them, they were still gaining on you. I am sure if I spent more money, I would have had an even stronger deck and would have been in a better situation, but that is what my point is: you have to spend some serious scratch on this game to finish towards the top.

There is no way, no way that a non-paying player can finish top tier, unless the following perfect storm happens: you get super lucky drawing 3 minimum x7 or x10 MTM sets through the medals (which means you have to save 10,000 or more before an event) to go along with the reward cards you get through the points rewards. And those MTM sets have to come in the first day in order to not fall behind in the rankings. You also have to have at least 500 cubes farmed before the start of an event, because as I recall, I was able to earn about 150 until I could no longer one-shot a boss. Fortunately, I had another 80 farmed prior to the event, but had to buy the rest. Lastly, you have to have 250+ energon charges banked once you can no longer one-shot a boss. They become your regenerative power for cubes of course once you level up and can easily keep you level for the next 3-4 days if you work them correctly.

Bottom line is, I personally did not have the type of fun I was hoping for. I was too tired, too distracted from all the things in my life, and way too stressed since I did not want all of my money going for naught. I had tons more fun on previous events when I spent no money, only 12-16 hours a day, and got at least 7 hours of sleep a night. You can try it if you want to, but unless you have a week off to do nothing, an unlimited budget to buy your deck, the best allies possible and a completely farmed set of battle/energon cubes along with thousands of medals, you are better off doing something else with your time and money. Good luck to all who try it going forward. Consider yourselves warned!