Discussion on the best strategy to spend gold (or buying packs)
Hi, in this post, I want to discuss the topic of spending gold strategy in this game. I have been thinking about this for quite some time now and really want to share it and know other people's opinions. I will mainly use my experience here.
For context, I have been playing this game since day 1. I play almost daily. I love this game a lot, I never play other games this often and for so long without taking some kind of break, Cygames really did something right and wonderful in this game for me. I spend some money in this game, but only on battle passes where I like the leader. I don't 'harvest' all available resources in this game, as I skip some weekend lobby tournaments and grand prix. I don't play take two.
First, some information. Packs we get from buying it directly with gold is just a small fraction of packs we get. Most of our packs came from many other sources. For example, dailies, weekend tournaments, grand prix, events, battle passes, single player content, etc. For example, currently in Anathema's Gambit, I have spent only 20,000 gold for packs I buy very early into the set (so, 40 packs). But, when I see the 'Lucky Chest in' number, it says 162. It means I have gotten in total 250-162=88 Anthema's Gambit packs, not even including dailies and intro packs, since they don't count toward the lucky chest pity. In addition, today is not even halfway through the set. So, I will get a lot more packs later on. My point is that, packs from gold is just a small fraction of packs you get in this game. Most of your packs come from playing the game (or buying it with real money, duh).
Without further ado, I will start with the first method of spending gold
1. Spend all gold when new set releases on the new set packs. Then, accumulate gold for the next one.
This has been my strategy on spending gold since very early. It makes a lot of sense and very simple. Spending all gold on the latest set is a good way to spend it. Getting all the silvers and bronzes without spending a vial on them is a must. We can immediately play with the newest cards. Then we can forget about our gold, and just wait until the next set to spend it all again. With this strategy, I can play the game very comfortably and have a lot of resources. I also accumulaate a lot of vial and can make almost every new meta decks every set. I started to accumulate 40k vial worth of extra cards at around Infinity Evolved (or Heirs, or Skybound... I forgot lol), then it just keeps adding up to 110k now at Anathema's Gambit. Again, the game is very generous and really rewards playing a lot.
However, around Blossoming Fate (iirc), I started to change my strategy. I had around 30k gold at the start of the set. Usually, I just get 60 packs of Blossoming Fate. But at the time, the new cards and ticket exchange were not really interesting for me. So, I only spent 15k at the start of the set, leaving the rest 15k of my gold unused. So, let's get into the 2nd strategy.
2. Spend only a fraction of gold when new set releases (maybe 15k-20k), then...?
The 'then...?' part here is for the part where we use the leftover gold, since by only spending 15k-20k gold per new set, we will accumulate a lot of gold over time. We will discuss it a little bit later.
First thing I notice is that, I don't feel any worse at all by spending only 15k gold (30 packs) for a new set. I still have all the silvers and bronzes, and just need to craft new legendaries and maybe gold I need. I also keep accumulating extra cards vial over time. It's as comfortable as spending it all. So, there's really an argument for this strategy, since we can then use the extra gold we accumulate somewhere else besides the latest set.
Fundamentally, we use gold to buy packs so that we can accumulate resources to get cards for a deck, so we can play the game and have fun. Using this strategy of spending gold fulfill this goal well enough and I have a lot of different maxed (fully optimized) competitive decks I can play. Therefore, this strategy fulfills the goal of 'gathering resources to play the game comfortably', just like strategy 1, but I am left with extra gold.
2a. ...spend the gold we accumulate for more resources
Now, let's talk about the extra gold we accumulate. At this point, spending these gold for buying packs for the goal of 'accumulating resources to play the game comfortably' is not a good idea, I'd argue. Right now, if I see my collection, I notice that, no matter on what pack set I use my gold for, I will mostly get duplicate cards. This is because I have all 3 copies of all silver and bronze, and almost all 3 copies of all gold besides Anathema's Gambit (and it's close to 3 copies of the 'good' playable golds). This means that I am hoping to get extra legendaries (4th copies or more) for vial or new legendary (hopefully viable, because otherwise it is unused and can't be liquefied).
I think hoping to get certain specific cards from pulling packs randomly is a fool's game. I am not a fool and neither are you, so I think at this point, using gold to buy packs for more resources is not a good idea. So, what do we use our gold for then?
2b. ...accumulate it for later
What I mean by later here is when for example, I take a break, then I come back in the future, where all sets have rotated. Then having some gold accumulated would be a nice boost to restart the game. 10 packs of all rotation playable set would be nice, 20 packs would be better. So, 30k-60k extra gold would be nice to have for the cases in which we take a break or such. But again, there could be changes into the game, like the new intro packs, which would help returning players get latest cards, making our extra gold for this purpose less necessary. So, this strategy seems like a good idea.
The problems here (in my opinion) are that, if I keep playing and the game keeps me hooked until it dies, then it's just unused gold and unused enjoyment that I could have gotten if I spent the gold instead. Second, if I take a break, then there's a good chance I never return to the game (essentially, quitting the game). This has happened to games I played, where I though I am just taking a break, but never return in the future. Third, this is kind of weird, you know...? I am banking stuff that I could have used to play the game... so that hopefully when I don't play the game, I get punished less... idk but I don't like thinking it that way.
2c. ...accumulate gold to spend it for exchange ticket
We get gold over time, we don't need more resources, so spending it on older set for chasing the exchange ticket pity (cosmetics) should be a good idea. We can get that leader we really wanted for long without spending hundreds of dollars. Besides that, we also simultaneously gather resources by doing this from duplicate vials we get. Even better so here since we pull so much we could get many duplicate legendaries.
The main problem here is that it takes wayyyy too long. I have been playing since day 1, and it could take me 1 or 2 more years to gather enough gold to hit that pity. Right now, the set that is closest to the 250 pity for me is Legends Rise at 121, which already rotated. So, I would need 60500 gold to hit the 250 pity, and the 250 pity ticket is not a good idea to plan around imo since it's random (only get that if you whale thousands of dollars and planning to get everything). The rational decision is to plan to hit the 350 pity, which means I still need 221 packs (110500 gold). That's insane. This game's resources gathering is pretty generous, but when it comes to cosmetics, it's really bad. Packs not counting towards pity, insane 250 and 350 pity threshold, insane crystal price outside battle pass, etc. Cygames gotta make money somehow, I guess.
Sidenote: If you are considering to chase the pity, the best set is Skybound Dragons, as it has the best chance to get naturally occuring exchange ticket (but of course don't pull here if none of the exchange ticket interest you).
That's all the (good) strategies I could think of right now. As of now, I am doing 2c, hoping to get Orchis some time in the future.
What do you think? What is your gold-spending strategy?