Markoth's 1000 Shard Challenge Log

The Challenge: To take an empty account with no runes, avatar, ranked exp, etc. (Basically a new account) with only 1000 shards to begin. 1000 shards are given as a ranked reward for achieving Legendary League. Assuming you win at least 34% of your games this is achievable by everyone. Using the 1000 shards I will build a deck and play it to the highest rank that I can.


The Rules: All changes to the deck may only be used with runes or tokens acquired by playing the game or purchased with gold acquired by playing the game. This is intended to be as close to a f2p run as possible. In the interest of keeping things as "pure" as possible I will not be trading with other players at all.

The Deck - Sticking to what I know best I decided to go with IS. The deck I ended up building costed 908 Shards which put me 92 Shards under-budget.


Deck Change Log:
[01/01/16] - Used 2 Silver Tokens to upgrade Barbarian Guardian to Lvl 2. Changed U1 to Defender.

Current Resources:
600 Shards
4130 G
0 Bronze Token
0 Silver Token
1 Gold Token
1 Platinum Token

Rank:
Current League: Standard IV [2/10]
Current Exp: 1076

 

Activity Log:

Spoiler: [12/31/15]

Daily #1.
+200 Gold
+Impervious x1

Daily #2.
+750 Gold (+350 for 2 games with a Paladin in your Battlegroup. )
+1 Earthshaker

Skirmish #1.
+40 Gold
+1 Renegade

PvP Game #1.
Legendary League Opponent - 1267 exp
Result: Loss (-6 exp)
+55 Gold

PvP Game #2
Battlemaster League Opponent - 1602 exp
Result: Win (+31 exp)
+256 Gold (+150 Achievement [PvP Win])
+1 Silver Token

PvP Game #3
Legendary League Opponent -1137 Exp
Result: Win (+20 exp)
+1050ish Gold (+1000 for hitting next League)
+1 Silver Token

Spoiler: [01/01/16]

Daily #1
+200 Gold
+Amplify Heal (Broke down for +4 shards)

Daily #1.5 (They reset during my first one)
+200 Gold
+1 Battle Matron

Daily #2
+400 Gold
+1 Mountain Sentry

Skirmish #1
+50 Gold
+1 Dwarven King (Broke down for +100 shards)

PvP Game #1.
Rare League Opponent - 931 exp
Result: Win (+11 exp)
+356 Gold (+150 Achievement [PvP Win])

[01/03/2016]
Daily #1.
+200 Gold
+High Mason (Broke down for +4 shards)

Daily #2.
+400 Gold
+Unbending Force (May experiment with the spell a tad before sharding it.

Skirmish #1.
+67 Gold
+Ironfist Paladin (Broke down for +100 shards)

PvP Game #1.
Rare League Opponent - 755 exp
Result: Win (+5 exp)
+203 Gold (+150 Achievement [PvP Win])

PvP Game #2.
Standard V League Opponent - 1029 exp (Old player returning)
Result: Win (+14 exp)
+173 Gold
+1 Platinum Token

Weekend Tourney Game #1
Result: Win (Opponent surrendered immediately)

Weekend Tourney Game #2
Result: Win (Opponent surrendered immediately)
+1 Savage Doombringer (Broke down for 300 Shards)
+1 3 Day Gold Token

Weekend Tourney Game #3 (Game 1&2 of 2nd Tourney)
Result: Win (Participants in other game of tourney surrendered and forfeited making this game the final.) (Edit: Apparently because the player forfeited and the final never technically took place I never received the tourney prize. :shrug: @Senshu To be fixed at a later date? )
+130 Gold
+1 Savage Doombringer
+1 3 Day Gold Token

 

reserved

 

This is a cool Idea and all, but you do realize the gigantic flaw of starting with the 1000 shards? The other challenge was meant to show new people that a budget deck can work and it most certainly can, but to get those 1000 shards you would have to play with a deck that you couldn't craft an ideal deck out of. After getting destroyed the whole time while trying to get those rewards most new players have been turned off and quit. So is this just a look how high someone with experience can get with a budget deck, because it's most certainly not the original intent of the challenge from the other thread.

 

To get 1000 shards you simply have to maintain a 34% w/l ratio. I could be wrong because the rank ladder on the main-site is now restricted to Battlemasters but I am pretty sure that there was no one with more than 100 games that had a ratio worse than 40%. Its pretty fair to say that anyone could get 1000 shards (even using a free deck) within a few weeks. At the halfway point you get 500 shards so really the total is 1500.

Your point is valid, however the point of this experiment is to test the upward bounds of f2p potential as opposed to the average. It could also be argued that I have a fair bit more experience than a new player so I will have an easier time of it.

 

Within a couple of weeks makes my point though. Most new players quit while getting smashed and if you look at the original Vorian post it was about new players not thinking exo/leg/LE= Power. So That's why I asked if it was different then his/her challenge and it was just a how high can someone can get with a budget deck which as burnpyro pointed out in the other thread isn't new.

 

I agree. I am not looking to prove a point or make a statement and it definitely is not a new concept. If anything it appeals to me as a personal challenge that I can derive some amusement from and simultaneously provide the community some small bit of entertainment.

 

For some reason this sounded extremely rude to me.

 

It's not meant to be rude at all. I Was just pointing out this wasn't the original intent of the challenge so to play it off like that was going to give horribly skewed results. If you look at the first post I asked if he was taking his challenge a different way, which he says he has.

 

I took no offense. I have sort of hybridized the challenges in a way. I eventually intend to acquire Exo+ runes but that is a tad ways off. For example I intend to play a few weekend tourneys to grab a pair of ST Doombringers. However my own limit on trading will mean these are only good for Forge fodder. Even if I do successfully get a pair I wont be using them to forge anything until after I get my current deck to be fully leveled. Either way you look at it though, my unleveled, no avatar, no exotic or higher deck has already beaten a player in the top 5.

 

I wouldn't doubt it, and I'm not arguing that budget decks work especially from someone as skilled and talented as you have been for as long as you've been. I was just wondering about the challenge, and with the answer of it's not the same as what vorian was talking about it's suffice.

 

Should be fine to stay in GD. @Zero did something similar an it was allowed to stay.

 

Update for 01/01/15
+1206 G
+104 Shards
+11 Exp
+Mountain Sentry
+Battle Matron

Notes:
Should get enough gold to purchase my Avatar tomorrow. Will also likely play a few tourneys to hopefully grab a pair of ST Doombringers. This will give me a nice pool of Shards to upgrade my deck. Bastion would likely be the cheapest upgrade to the deck but I would also have enough to grab a Zedin if I wanted instead. Will maybe hit Standard 3 tomorrow which gives me 3 common runes from the latest expansion. If I am lucky I may pick up a Squire which would be great for this deck.

 

When you get packs, I want a reveal. I'm invested now.

 

@Markoth Had a thought. If you're up to it, you've got the time to farm the extra 3k needed to get a Holiday Pack with gold instead of an avatar. Senshu said the cutoff will be around 8AM PST

 

I am a bit confused...

How did you get 1000 shards if you didn't get to Legendary on the account?

 

He sacrificed the runes he had in the account for them. He did it to speed things up a bit, and explained that there isn't much of a difference in the outcome, as the 1000 shards will be there anyway:

I believe he is entitled to do so as he is an experienced player and knows what to do with the shards, while a new player would actually be required to struggle through ranked games to be able to make good use of the shards, or of the runes obtained with them.

 

I am interested in this.

 

I thought about them a bit but decided against trying to get one since they are not something that is regularly available.

As Lush has said I kinda skipped the "brand new account" part. This is more a thing for when a new player finally gets that first bulk of shards and wants to build a deck to enter ranked. There is no way for me to tell what other resources may be available to them at that point to I minimized everything to 0. Depending on how well this goes I will likely try to play a different 1000 shard deck every ranked cycle and keep things logged so a new player can look at my decks and maybe see one they like.

 

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure someone made a thread about a single box yielding about 1000 shards. So a new player does the dailies/achievements and gets 1,800 gold a day, it'll only take 19 days to get a box. After that, they can build a budget BG.


I think it would be a good idea to make a list of budget BGs that can be made for under 1000 shards.

Sorry if i'm derailing the thread.