About two weeks ago, I broke through to the Platinum Arena for the first time. I was ecstatic and enjoyed two quick Treasure Chests with much-improved loot (as compared to Gold Arena).
Then I got attacked and knocked back to Gold. No problem, right? Except that it was. I started losing raids. A lot of raids. And I got frustrated. REALLY frustrated. In the meantime, I was leveling up my heroes and my team was getting stronger. But I was still losing. Not every raid, and yes I could still fill the Treasure Chest. But my trophies were falling, from the 1700’s, to the 1600’s, to the 1500’s. And raiding wasn’t fun for me anymore. And my anger made the situation worse. I was overly emotional and making a lot of mistakes, including:
- Forgetting to edit my team after Titan fights
- Hitting the Reroll button so quickly I was bypassing good matches without realizing it
- Noticing only the enemy tank color and not their complete hero lineup
After a couple of days (and rants in my Alliance Chat), I realized that the problem was me. I needed a reset. I needed to find a way to be less emotionally attached to raid outcomes. And most of all, I needed to find the fun again. Because I LOVE this game.
I had heard about people “dropping cups” and I got curious. Then I found @Gryphonknight’s thread on Waffle & Drop.
What better way to get a fresh perspective on raiding than to deliberately lose all my trophies? Maybe I would get over my irrational fear of losing cups. Maybe I would learn how to raid better. In any event, I’d get a mini-vacation from the grind!
I began my experiment with approximately 1630 trophies. In between Treasure Chests, I started raids and fled immediately. When I had an active Treasure chest, I killed four Heroes and then fled. Losing became fun in a bizarre sort of way.
It look me about 32 hours to drop to zero trophies. Then began the return. Rather than use Team 1, I decided to use my weakest available bench team that still had a Team Power above that of my opponents. As a result, I got some valuable practice time with some of my weaker teams and learned better how those heroes fight together.
It took less than a day to get back into Silver Arena, and by the next day I was back in Gold. During this process, I focused on leveling up my heroes. The Attack Team with which I had previously reached Platinum was Scarlett 3-60, Rigard 4-20, Cyprian 3-60, Tibertus 3-60, and Gunnar 3-50. In the interim, I was able to ascend Kelile and Chao to the 3rd tier and move them into my lineup.
Earlier tonight (about 3-1/2 days since I hit zero trophies), I got back to Platinum and completed a treasure chest there.
And here’s what I learned:
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My previous success was artificial and premature. I had received two Raiding Flasks just prior to getting to Platinum the first time, and as a result of that I had a long session of online time when I was raiding without being attacked. Whereas a trophy count normally goes up and down, mine went up, and up and up (all the way to 1970) before my extra raids ran out. This fact was lost on me until a couple of days later.
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Color balance makes raids SO MUCH EASIER. My three Purple heroes got me all the way through Season 1, but I had only one strategy for raiding: look for a yellow tank and hope for a good purple board. By the time I got back to Gold Arena, I was able to swap Tibertus for Kelile and use her and Scarlett together. Now I had options on the board! Purple meant healing and prolonging the battle, and Red meant sniping. In addition, my practice time with the bench teams helped me remember what it’s like to fight with a rainbow. (I had almost forgotten that.)
By the time Chao joined the fight, I had even more ways to attack (and a way to drain mana). Now I was looking for opponents with either a Yellow or Green tank and with two or more of either Yellow or Green.
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Losing trophies really (REALLY) isn’t a big deal. I needed the experience of hitting rock bottom to show me that the game is still fun even if you aren’t winning raids, and even if you’re not getting amazing loot from Treasure Chests.
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This community is amazing. The forums are so full of great insights and tactics. The Waffle & Drop concept crossed my screen at exactly the time I needed it the most.
I’m currently in the low 1800’s and fully expecting to get knocked back to Gold again. When that happens, I’ll be fine. And I’ll be back in Platinum again before too long.
Thanks for reading.