I'm not here to write a Shadow Era review, so we won't debate the quality of the game in this article; by the way, for me this a great freemium game :)
The question that we want to answer is that: is it possible to play with competitive decks for free? And the answer is surprisingly yes... maybe it's a bit difficult at the beginning, but Shadow Era is a great game also because you can play strong decks without spending a dime.
Of course tossing in some money will make things easier, but I will just post here some guidelines to help newbies in the road to a complete card collection. If you'll appreciate Shadow Era during this path you can still spend money later, if you feel the game deserves it.
Buying cards will require you either gold (for the merchant) or Shadow Crystals (to buy starter decks or booster packs). We will now list the best ways to earn and use them.
Shadow Crystals: how to get them
I know, I just wrote that we're not gonna spend a single cent, so talking about SC seems out of topic; but there're still several ways to get them for free. Let's recap them: |
| This screen is much more nicer than the "Victory" one |
You can reach them from Merchant -> Earn Crystals. Free offers from Android device are very reliable, whereas you will have to be more careful with other ones. Just ensure that any offer will not take you away more time than playing for gold on Shadow Era would have done.
2) Level up. Every time you win a match, in both World and Challenge mode, you will gain a certain amount of experience. Once you reach a milestone you will be promoted to next level of Shadow Era and be rewarded with 25 SC.
3) $2 Million Giveaway. You've read it right, Wulven Studios just gave away $2 million of Crystals some time ago.
Check this page in order to claim you bonus and find out how much you won: SE Bonus Page. But be quick, because there're new players everyday who are going to grab those shiny Crystals.
4) Pop-ups, contests and other tournaments. There's a section in SE forum about Organized play. You can find many running and upcoming tournaments there, which are almost all free. You can have a lot of fun testing your decks against a variety of other players, and if you're good and lucky enough to reach final stages you will be rewarded with Shadow Crystals as well.
All you have to do is sign-up, provide your availability for certain times and respect rules stated by the organizer.
For example winning a standard 8-men single elimination tournament will net you 500 SC, and will last approximately 3 hours of play.
So tune your deck, take a seat, and enjoy the fun and prices of competitive play on Shadow Era.
There're also other non-play contests in other sections of the forum, so check the forum often and you won't miss them.
5) Writing for the Phoenix Fire. We're a new website, and we eat writers and their stuff as much as pancakes. If you think you can write an article in a good English which talks about anything related to Shadow Era (like this one, for example) we will send you other 500 SC so you can continue your conquest of world domination.
Shadow Crystals: how to spend them
Once you earned some SC, it's time to spend them in the best way to get the best cards. As many experienced players can confirm you have to avoid booster packs and focus on Elemental starting decks, which will bring you more gold by selling their cards.
Another option is represented by other starter decks, you can buy one each of them if you need it to make a new deck for a new hero.
For example, if you wanna try a Boris deck you should buy a Human Warrior deck before buying Elementalis ones to get gold. This way you will have more useful cards and you won't need to trade so much with the merchant.
Let's see what different ways to earn gold there are in Shadow Era:
1) Playing vs AI. That's an easy way to gain confidence with the game and many cards. AI level is also quite weak, so you shouldn't have problem to get your wins and relative gold.
After some practice against the CPU you will be able to tweak some decks of yours in order to win those matches in very phew turns, increasing your hourly amont of gold and experience. This technique is called gold grinding and it's a great source of income for players new to the game and who don't want to spend much money.
2) Playing vs humans. Challenge mode gives more gold per victory and it's definitely more fun, but it's of course harder than against the CPU. So I still reccomend to improve your game knowledge by practising against the AI and climbing at least 8-10 levels before trying to play Challenge mode.
3) Meltdown jackpot. Avoid it! That format is new, fun and whatever you want but you will have to play many matches in order to make a decent profit. So play it without the hope of gaining enough gold to complete your collection, or don't play it all unless you're a medium/high experienced player.
Selling cards which you are not using right now, but you may use in the future, it's a hard choice instead. Do this only if it's necessary to try a new deck, otherwise you'll lose half of the value of the card and your collection will never grow up consistently.
Give selling priority to cheapest cards. You usually can afford to sell Extra Sharp to the merchant for 45 gold, and buying it back one day for 90. It's far worse to sell an Aeon for 395, then spending 790 gold to re-adding it to your collection.
Maybe you're asking how could you decide which cards are worth adding to your collection, what to keep and what to sell. There's no definitive answer... search on the forum for pre-built decks to try; see which are cheaper cards to buy and try them first.
After some training against CPU or human players you will have more clues on which cards were more useful to apply your favourite strategies; and in the meanwhile you will have earned some gold, so that you can keep the buy-practice-sell-rebuy loop going.
It will be hard, it will require time, but we're still talking about a card game that should bring much more fun than real work :D
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| The future of your card pool depends a lot on this Elemental guy, who could have known? |
Another option is represented by other starter decks, you can buy one each of them if you need it to make a new deck for a new hero.
For example, if you wanna try a Boris deck you should buy a Human Warrior deck before buying Elementalis ones to get gold. This way you will have more useful cards and you won't need to trade so much with the merchant.
Gold: how to get it
As for SC, there are different ways to earn gold. One thing is for sure: you cannot directly buy gold, you always have to follow these steps: money -> crystals -> gold.Let's see what different ways to earn gold there are in Shadow Era:
1) Playing vs AI. That's an easy way to gain confidence with the game and many cards. AI level is also quite weak, so you shouldn't have problem to get your wins and relative gold.
After some practice against the CPU you will be able to tweak some decks of yours in order to win those matches in very phew turns, increasing your hourly amont of gold and experience. This technique is called gold grinding and it's a great source of income for players new to the game and who don't want to spend much money.
2) Playing vs humans. Challenge mode gives more gold per victory and it's definitely more fun, but it's of course harder than against the CPU. So I still reccomend to improve your game knowledge by practising against the AI and climbing at least 8-10 levels before trying to play Challenge mode.
3) Meltdown jackpot. Avoid it! That format is new, fun and whatever you want but you will have to play many matches in order to make a decent profit. So play it without the hope of gaining enough gold to complete your collection, or don't play it all unless you're a medium/high experienced player.
Gold: how to spend it
Once you have more than 4 copies of one card or more than a single copy of an hero card, you can sell extra copies the merchant without any problem.Selling cards which you are not using right now, but you may use in the future, it's a hard choice instead. Do this only if it's necessary to try a new deck, otherwise you'll lose half of the value of the card and your collection will never grow up consistently.
 |
| To sell or not to sell: that's the question! |
Give selling priority to cheapest cards. You usually can afford to sell Extra Sharp to the merchant for 45 gold, and buying it back one day for 90. It's far worse to sell an Aeon for 395, then spending 790 gold to re-adding it to your collection.
Maybe you're asking how could you decide which cards are worth adding to your collection, what to keep and what to sell. There's no definitive answer... search on the forum for pre-built decks to try; see which are cheaper cards to buy and try them first.
After some training against CPU or human players you will have more clues on which cards were more useful to apply your favourite strategies; and in the meanwhile you will have earned some gold, so that you can keep the buy-practice-sell-rebuy loop going.
It will be hard, it will require time, but we're still talking about a card game that should bring much more fun than real work :D
