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  1. #1
    Senior Member Pat Jay's Avatar
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    How to Earn Gold and Shadow Crystals - Roadmaps for Newbies





    Introduction


    Shadow Era is one of the best free to play digital collectible card games available online. There are many ways to earn Gold and Shadow Crystals (G/SC) and there is also a lot of information on how to earn it. Unfortunately, this information is scattered and it can be difficult for a new player firstly to find and secondly to comprehend it all meaningfully.

    The purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the different ways to earn G/SC in Shadow Era and suggest different roadmaps new players can take to earn G/SC efficiently.

    As a result of this, it is hoped that new players will be able to better understand and utilise this information so that they can enjoy Shadow Era more richly


    TL;DR Summary or Conclusion



    There are 7 main methods to earn G/SC in Shadow Era. Each method differs in terms of its skill requirement, time requirement and efficiency (gold earned / time spent earning the gold) as summarised in the chart below.


    The amount of gold you can earn can vary in some methods. The TOP100 method had more variation than the FGW method and so its bar is longer along the efficiency scale. MD can take a medium to high amount of time to play and so it is both orange and red.

    Based on these differences between methods, we can recommend the following roadmaps for new players to take:

    • The Top 100 Road: farm gold in World to build a meta-competitive deck. Then use this deck to achieve a top 100 rank in a Quick Match month long season. Claim the treasure chest and glowing embers daily.
    • The Meltdown Road: farm gold in World to build a farm deck. Then use this deck to farm around 3,000 gold. Then use this gold to achieve 50% plus win rate in a week of Meltdown. Claim the treasure and glowing embers chest daily.
    • The Farming Road: farm gold in World to build a farm deck. Then use this deck to farm to level 12 and beyond. Claim the treasure chest and glowing embers daily.
    • The Crystal Road: purchase crystals with real money and pursue any of the 7 ways detailed in this article to earn gold. Claim the treasure and glowing embers chest daily.

    Hopefully the information in this article will prove useful to new players. May it encourage new players to continue playing and may the Shadow Era community continue to grow and thrive as a result.

    This thread will be updated as soon as there are more options available to earn gold.



    Foreword


    I will assume that you have a basic understanding of the game and how it works. If you are completely new to the game, I recommend that you read this guide before proceeding.


    7 Methods to Earn Gold and Shadow Crystals


    Quick Match without Top 100 Rank

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: Medium
    • Time requirement: Low
    • Efficiency: Low
    • Expected time input: 10-15 minutes per game
    • Expected gold output: 40-80 gold per win

    80 gold can be earned in Quick Match when you win against an opponent who has a rating higher than 100. If the opponent has a rating below 100, then the reward for a win is only 40 gold. Since even the best players can only achieve a win rate of around 60%... this makes QM the least efficient way to earn gold out of the 6 ways discussed.

    Farming Gold in World

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: Low
    • Time requirement: Low
    • Efficiency: Medium
    • Expected time input: 3-5 minutes per game
    • Expected gold output: 20-40 gold per game

    It is easy to win 100% of the time against the computer in world. Each time you win, you earn gold (G) and experience points (XP). The XP you earn, helps you level up. Each time you level up, you earn 25SC. The XP needed to level up increases exponentially as per here.

    A win against the computer can yield 20G/100XP, 25G/125XP, 30G/150XP, 35G/175XP and 40G/200XP from levels 1, 4, 6, 8 and 12 onwards respectively.

    If we assume that each time when we accumulate 250 shadow crystals, we buy an Raikka class pack and sell the contents for 7255 gold... we can chart the following:


    As you can see, the extra gold you get from selling Raikka pack is significant at level 10; but becomes less significant from levels 20 onwards.

    The computer is quite predictable in that it will focus on damaging your hero rather than your allies. And so if you build a 30 card deck with many 1CC and 2CC allies and you are able to win consistently by turn 5 - then you have yourself an efficient farming deck. Check out this thread for more ideas on farm decks.

    Quick Match with Top 100 Rank

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: High
    • Time requirement: Very High
    • Efficiency: Medium to High
    • Expected time input: > 10 games a day, every day for 1 month
    • Expected gold output: 50-350K gold in the form of gold, shadow crystals and legendary cards

    To familiarise yourself with what it takes to rank top 100 in a Quick Match season, read this guide before proceeding.

    As you can see, you will need to play a lot of games and maintain a high rating in order to generate a score large enough to rank top 100. To achieve and maintain a high rating, you will need to build and play a meta-competitive deck well. To discover what is meant by the term "meta", click here. To find out which decks are competitive in the meta, check out the strategy forum.

    Meltdown

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: High
    • Time requirement: Low
    • Efficiency: Low to High
    • Expected time input: > 2 games a day, every day for 1 week
    • Expected gold output: 5-50K in gold in the form of gold and legendary cards

    To familiarise yourself with what it takes to compete in a week of Meltdown, read this guide before proceeding.

    As you can see, we need a 50% plus win rate in order to return a decent profit in the tier 1-5 range. Hence for a new player, I would recommend to enter the Meltdown week with at least 3,000 gold in order to achieve tier 4 should the win rate be around 50%.

    Forum Based Tournaments

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: Very High
    • Time requirement: Medium
    • Efficiency: Medium to High
    • Expected time input: 100-200 mins
    • Expected gold output: 500G to 3500G (sell value of packs won coming 2nd in a 8 man tourney and 1st in a 32 man)

    You can participate in tournaments organised by forum members as per here. Tournaments vary between 8-32 man and are usually conducted in a double elimination format. Prizes are awarded in the form of foil packs. It is very difficult for a new player make it to the finals since the best players in the game usually participate. Hence these tournaments are more suitable for established players rather than new ones.

    Treasure Chest

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: Very Low
    • Time requirement: Very Low
    • Efficiency: Very High
    • Expected time input: 5 seconds
    • Expected gold output: 50-400 gold (sell value) in the form of a free card

    Shadow Era offers one free card a day for each account a player has.

    You can claim this free card by simply clicking on the treasure chest icon when it appears next to the menu button in the World screen. Anything from a common card to an epic card can be rewarded. It is unclear at this stage, if Legendary cards can be awarded as a daily free card.

    Claiming your free daily card is both quick and easy. And because of this, it is a must thing to do every day.

    Glowing Embers

    Quick Breakdown
    • Skill requirement: Very Low
    • Time requirement: Very Low
    • Efficiency: Very High
    • Expected time input: 30 seconds
    • Expected gold output: 5 SC

    After you open the treasure chest, it is likely that the glowing embers will appear in the same spot. Click on the glowing embers to watch a 20 second video ad. At the end of the video, you will be rewarded with 5SC. The glowing embers will only appear once per day like the treasure chest.
    Last edited by Pat Jay; 07-12-2015 at 02:19 AM.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Pat Jay's Avatar
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    The Roadmaps


    New players lack the skills to play Shadow Era competitively and have a limited card pool. And so naturally, methods to earn gold that require less skill are more suitable. Methods such as Treasure Chest, Glowing Embers and Farming Gold in World would be suitable starting points for new players to earn gold since they both do not demand a high amount of skill.

    Once new players have farmed a decent amount of gold, they should be ready to move onto other methods to earn gold. The most natural methods to move onto would be Quick Match with a TOP100 rank and Meltdown since they both require the least amount of skill out of the remaining options available.

    The TOP 100 Road



    The TOP100 Road is suitable for those who do not mind playing the same deck and able to plat 10+ games every day for a month.

    As mentioned before, you will need to build and play a meta-competitive deck well in order to achieve a top 100 rank. By level 10, you should have enough gold to buy the full contents of a meta-competitive deck.

    Try to buy starter decks that belong to the same class and faction as the hero in your meta-competitive deck. For example, if you are trying to build an Eladwen rush deck, then focus on buying Human Mage starter decks with your Shadow Crystals since most of the cards you need will be contained in these decks. This is so that you can sell less cards to build your deck since the Merchant buys at half the value of the sell price. To examine the full contents of all the starter decks, click here.

    The Meltdown Road



    The Meltdown Road is suitable for players who like building and playing different decks, able to achieve a win rate of 50% or more and able to play 2+ games every day for a week. This method is viable with as little as 3000 gold but entails the risk of making a net loss in gold. Simply farm the gold needed from World in order to take this path.

    The Farming Road



    If new players cannot take either the TOP100 Road nor the Meltdown Road, then the Farming Road might suit them.

    The Farming Road is simply to farm gold and experience points in World up to level 12 and beyond. At level 12, wins in World yield 40G/200XP per win. And if you can achieve a win by turn 5, this is still an efficient way to earn gold that is comparable to TOP100 and MD.

    The Crystal Road



    For as little as $6.49, you can buy enough Shadow Crystals to skip the tediousness of farming and move straight onto either TOP100, MD or even FBT to earn more G/SC.

    In my opinion, spending real money with Shadow Era is a wise investment for two reasons:

    One is because Shadow Era is one of the best collectible card games (CCGs) online that is fast paced, entrenched in deep strategy and well supported with a friendly online community.

    Two is because each dollar you spend goes a lot further in terms of value in comparison to what other CCGs are offering. In Hearthstone for example, when you disenchant a common card for 5 dust, this becomes 0.3% of the dust needed to craft a legendary card. In Solforge, when you sell a common card for 5 silver, this becomes 0.003% of the silver needed for a legendary card. In Shadow Era, when you sell a Puwen (a common card) for 50 gold, this
    becomes 6.3% of the gold needed for an Aeon (an Epic equivalent to a legendary in other CCGs that cost 790 gold). Hence you only need around 16 common cards to obtain a top card in Shadowera; whereas you will need around 333 and 33,333 common cards to do the same in Hearthstone and Solforge respectively!

    Thus when you invest real money to play Shadow Era, you spend less time tediously collecting cards you want and more time playing with the cards you want! For more evidence that Shadow Era can be great value for money, see this thread.


    Discussion


    Comparing the 4 Roads

    When we compare the efficiency of both TOP100 and MD with FGW, you will notice that both TOP100 and MD have the potential to be equal or less efficient than FGW.

    So if this is the case, then one might ask: why should we recommend new players to engage themselves in potentially less efficient ways to make gold?

    This is because although TOP100 and MD could be less efficient, they are definitely not as boring and tedious as FGW. Since this is the case, it can be argued that new players will not mind the potential decrease in efficiency so as long as they are making enough gold in a comparable manner.

    Hence this is the reason as to why both the TOP100 and MD Roads have been recommended.

    Other Ways to Earn

    Other ways to earn SC/G that have not been mentioned include:

    • You can earn SC/G by checking out what Super Rewards and Trial Pay have to offer here
    • You can earn SC with Swag Bucks
    • Kongregate offers special rewards for Kong+ members who play Shadowera through their website
    • You can earn SC by entering forum contests
    • You can claim your free bonus SC from Wulven here
    • Some guilds, like E2E, have special SC rewards for its members. Check out what all guilds are offering here and join one today!

    Should there be any other methods to earn G/SC that are not mentioned in this article that you know of, please let me know!
    Last edited by Pat Jay; 04-03-2015 at 01:43 PM.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Pat Jay's Avatar
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    Appendix

    Assume 250SC converts to 7255 gold from selling a Shadow Mage class deck.

    Treasure Chest

    Assume one receives a card worth 50 gold when sold to the merchant. Therefore...

    50 gold per 5 seconds
    600 gold per minute

    Glowing Embers

    5SC earned every 30 seconds used to gaze into and embers and watch video

    10SC earned per minute
    290 gold per minute

    Quick Match with Top 100 rank

    Assume Quick Match games take 12 minutes to play on average. Other assumptions are based on findings from this article

    Bottom range calculation

    Assume your rating is 250 with 55% win rate and your opponent won against is rated 245 on average.

    Therefore each win scores you 612.5 points

    Assume rank 100 requires 150,000 points and rewards you with 1000SC

    245 wins are needed (150000 / 612.55)
    446 games are needed (245 / 0.55)
    5352 mins needed to play (446 x 12)

    500SC per 5352 min
    14510 gold per 5352 min

    +19600 gold from wins

    34110 gold per 5352 min

    + 2500 gold from selling cards in packs

    36610 gold per 5352 min

    6.84 gold per min

    Top range calculation

    Assume your rating is 300 with 60% win rate and your opponent won against is rated 285 on average.

    Therefore each win scores you 855 points

    Assume rank 1 requires 500,000 points and rewards you with 10,000SC

    585 wins are neeesetded (500000 / 855)
    975 games are needed (585 / 0.60)
    11,700 mins needed to play (975 x 12)

    5,000SC per 11700 min
    145,100 gold per 11700 min

    +46,800 gold from wins

    191,900 gold per 11700 min

    + 26,000 gold from selling cards in packs

    217,900 gold per 11700 min

    18.62 gold per min

    Conclusion

    6.84 to 18.62 gold per min

    Meltdown

    Assume win rate is either 40% or 70%

    At 40% for tier 5, the efficiency is 1.9 gold / min
    At 70% for tier 1, the efficiency is 36.2 gold / min

    As per findings from here

    Therefore 1.9 to 36.2 gold per min

    Forum Based Tournaments

    A 8 man tournament takes around 100 mins to complete and rewards a minimum of 500G (packs sell value) if you come second.

    A 32 man tournament takes around 200 mins to complete a rewards a minimum of 3500G (packs sell value) if you come second.

    Therefore efficiency is 5-17.5G/min

    Farming Gold in World

    Assume each win takes 4 minutes, therefore...

    At levels 1-3:
    20 gold per 4 minutes
    5 gold per minute

    At level 12 onwards...
    40 gold per 4 minutes
    10 gold per minute

    Therefore 5-10 gold per minute

    Quick Match without Top 100 rank

    Assume that a new player will have a rating of 150 to 300. To maintain a rating of 150 and 300 would require a win rate of 40% and 60% as per here.

    Assume that each Quick Match game takes 12 minutes to play and yields 80 gold per win. Therefore...

    At rating 150:
    32 gold (80 x 0.40) per 12 minutes
    2.7 gold per minute

    At rating 300:
    48 gold (80 x 0.60) per 12 minutes
    4 gold per minute

    Summary

    1. TC: 600G/min
    2. GE: 290G/min
    3. MD: 2-36G/min
    4. TOP100: 7-18G/min
    5. FBT: 5-18G/min
    6. FGW: 5-10G/min
    7. QM: 2.7-4G/min

    This is the basis as to how the efficiency of all 6 methods have been depicted on the chart in the TL;DR summary whereby efficiency = gold earned / time spent earning the gold

    Please note that these numbers are not a true reflection of how much gold you earn per minute. They are just ratios for comparative purposes only.

    For example, TC is a reward that can only be given once a day and so in reality is it more like 50G / day. TOP100 and MD rewards are given at the end of the month and week respectively. And in reality for TOP100, it is more like 2.7-4G/min (like QM) until the end of the month when the prizes are awarded - that is when the 6-22G/min
    figure is fully realised. And in reality for MD, it is more like -8G/min (because the 200G entry cost makes you lose gold per game played) until the end of the week when the gold is awarded - that is when the 5-17G/min is fully realised.


    Acknowledgements


    Thank YOU for reading my article! I hope you have found it useful!

    I would like to say a special thank you to my E2E guild mates BraveBaldrick, Ballyworld, Capo 9, Echoenduring, Jacob31088, JEDI MIND TRICKS, Karlos4, Ludwig, Mitterneyer, Tmakk and Tyrano for proofreading my article, giving me helpful suggestions and encouraging me.

    I would like to also thank oggthekiller and gamerhellborn for helping me figure out the rewards when farming gold in world.

    I would also thank Muriah and Kyle for deeming this article worthy of being featured as per here

    Should there be any other ways to earn G/SC or should you have any feedback, positive or negative, please let me know in this thread. Thank you!

  4. #4
    DP Visionary 4Ak's Avatar
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    ...Yay! he did it again xD

    have not read the whole article yet, but am already looking forward to, thx Pat!

    ..edit: for a minute i was trying to picture how 33.333 Puwens would look in my deckbuilder ))))))
    Last edited by 4Ak; 06-19-2014 at 10:40 AM.
    "This is who I am, nobody said you had to like it."

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  5. #5
    Member angel white's Avatar
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    WOW! again WOW!

    Hey Pat Jay, do these Wulven guys pay you for doing all this? If they don't then they should. It's sure a lot of hard work.

    Btw, Thanks for such a useful and unique article.
    EVOLVING THROUGH COMPANIONSHIP
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  6. #6
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    Looks awesome Pat! This will be really useful to new players!

  7. #7
    Senior Member Lightning Fury's Avatar
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    Epic read. Thanks for a great job Pat

    Useful article for every new player out there.

  8. #8
    Senior Member udy's Avatar
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    2 thumbs up
    INDO Language Sub-Forum

    [SF]Solo Nish/Loest
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    IGN: BP Dragon
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  9. #9
    DP Visionary Preybird's Avatar
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    Very cool! The only thing that I dispute is that the Daily Card isn't 5 seconds, it's 24 hours because you need to wait for it to refresh, so that should be counted (or at least mentioned).
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  10. #10
    Lead Developer / Designer Gondorian's Avatar
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    This guide is awesome. Great research and well written.

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