# 9. You Shall Upgrade Strategically
“Ravenclaws are a bunch of nerds. You overthink everything.”
—Shut up.
There is a lot of luck involved in resource allocation. For the most part, you can’t select what Card Duplicates you find.
Resources like Gold and Gems, on the other hand, are yours to control. Understanding your options is important in selecting what is best for you.
There are three paths (strategies) for upgrading cards, each with advantages and disadvantages:
- Fast path: High Magic Book Level, Low Deck Level Average
- Regular path: Medium Magic Book Level, Medium Deck Level Average
- Slow path: High Magic Book Level, High Deck Level Average
What you do is up to you. It is too soon to claim there is an optimal strategy to follow.
# Why Upgrade Strategies Matters
“Your higher rank is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of my deck. You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate from what is otherwise a harmony of mathematical precision.”
—The Architect: nerdiest Ravenclaw Duelist
Players repeat the same complaint, from Magic Book Level 1 to Magic Book Level 99: the Matchmaking System sucks. The opponent always seems to have cards a little bit stronger than yours, at every level. Stronger cards generally signal a higher Magic Book Level. This is why you struggle (Matchmaking Wall).
Imagine both opponents have 1000 HP left and frequently use Expelliarmus. Your card at Level 10 does 157 Damage, and his at Level 14 does 207. It’s only a 50 damage difference, but it means you would need to hit the target 7 times to win while he would need to hit you 5 times. And you already started the match with less HP.
Small differences like that compound over the duration of a match. You either lose, or win a very sweaty match. Upgrading will not solve the Matchmaking problem, nothing will, but the way you upgrade cards may help (a little bit).
# Fast: The “Everything Goes” Strategy
“Don’t think, just do it.”
—Not a bad strategy, actually
This is what most players do: upgrade cards as soon as they can to increase Magic Book Level, regardless of the card. This is the fastest way to increase Magic Book Level.
The two barriers to upgrade cards are Gold and Card Duplicates. You can hoard Gold, but you have no control over which Card Duplicates you find. So by following this strategy you will mostly upgrade low level cards that demand less resources.
You will gain a lot of experience, but most from low level cards, meaning your Deck Level Average will be low.
This strategy is very simple, ideal for players who don’t like to overthink things. You can just click the button “Upgrade All” every time you are able to do so.
Why this might be the best strategy: The Matchmaking System does not take Magic Book or Card Level into consideration, only Dueling Rank. Magic Book Level grants more power than Card Level, so it might be better to have a high Magic Book Level even at the cost of low Card Level.
# Regular: The “Selective Upgrade” Strategy
A common adage in this game is: expensive equals better. It is usually better to save resources for something expensive down the line, at the cost of something less expensive right now.
Most of the time you have enough Gold to upgrade at least a few low level cards. The basic idea of this strategy is avoiding that.
To upgrade a card from Level 10 to 15 you need to invest 86% of the Gold and 89% of Duplicates necessary to fully upgrade that card.
That’s a lot of resources to spend on cards you do not use, or cards that do not upgrade well (like some utility cards).
Besides avoiding some upgrades past Level 10, this strategy relies on upgrade priority. A basic upgrade priority is:
- Cards you use in your deck;
- Most expensive upgrades available;
- Cards bellow Level 10.
Two people with the same Magic Book Level can have different Card Level averages because one upgraded anything they could, just to climb rank, and the other was more selective.
Why this might be the best strategy: A player sacrifices upgrade speed for a higher deck level average. This strategy trades upgrade speed for resources necessary for expensive upgrades. You end up with better cards.
# Slow: The “Blue Whale” Strategy
There is no evidence that anyone has successfully tried this so far. The “Blue Whale Strategy” is 100% hypothetical.
Do the math and you will realize that by Magic Book Level 40 (111,500 Total Exp) you could already have a full deck of Level 15 cards. In practice, a player with Magic Book Level 70 would be lucky to have even a couple of Level 15 cards.
This happens because players upgrade dozens of cards to gain experience, even though you only need eleven cards in a deck. But what if you only upgraded cards you use?
Imagine you play the game for years, or you put so much money in the game that resources are no longer a concern. That would make the Blue Whale strategy possible. You’d only invest in inferior cards once the ones you use are fully upgraded.
The problem, of course, is that most players would take a lot of time between upgrades. Most card duplicates you find would not be useful for a long time.
Why this might be the best strategy: this is the mathematically optimal use of resources. The only reason why most players invest in cards they never use is because they lack the resources to do otherwise, or they want to upgrade their Magic Book.
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