PSA: UR Shards are a Massive Bottleneck and You May Have Already Utterly F*cked Over Your Account. (Long Post With TLDR at Bottom)

# Why Master Duels is Expensive

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There’s a lot about Master Duels that are very inexpensive. Compared to other cards game not named Legends of Runetterra building a deck is relatively inexpensive. The Secret Pack system is efficient allows you to very reasonably build most of the cards you need for an archetype in about 6-7 pulls. C and R shards are very plentiful and SR shards are reasonable to obtain. You can’t build every SR you want but you can build SR cards you need. This along with the very frontloaded reward system has let many players build whatever deck they want. Personally, I built the cores for Sky Striker, Tribrigade, Madolche, and Dinosaur and yes, I’m boring.

However, there is something we really need to talk about and that is by far the most limiting factor for any account; UR Shards. Getting random cards from Secret Packs is very reasonable, the problem is that MANY crucial UR cards are simply not in Secret Packs or very inefficient to obtain from Secret Packs.

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These cards are hand traps(Ash, Max C, Effect Veiler), going second tools(Lightning Storm, Dark Ruler no more), anti-hand traps(Called by the Grave, Designator), and generic Extra deck cards(Apollusa, Knightmare Unicorn. Abyss Dweller). Konami wants their money and this is how they’re doing it. Many decks NEED these cards to function, for example, I’m playing Sky Striker and the deck will not function without generic staples.

The problem is that many of these staples are not in Secret Packs and are only found in Master Packs which contain literally thousands of cards, which heavily dilutes the chances of pulling a staple. This means that you have to craft them which is insanely expensive for reasons I'll discuss in a little bit. As for generic Extra Deck monsters, many of these monsters are in Secret Packs BUT you normally need one extra deck monster and Secret Packs are very bad for getting a specific UR due to RNG. For example, I experimented and spent 5000 gems pulling for Ezolvar Lagia and Dolka for my Dino deck. I only pulled a single Dolka.

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# How Much a UR Shards Costs

**(MAJOR EDIT: I may have really messed up writing this. At the time of writing, I assumed that the best way of getting cards was from Secret packs but this might not be the case. There is a rumor floating around that the UR rate from Master Packs is slightly higher than that of Secret Packs.**

For context: here are 5 10 pulls from a Secret Pack:[https://imgur.com/a/0oblWMH](https://imgur.com/a/0oblWMH)

Here are 5 10 pulls from a Master Pack: [https://imgur.com/a/Z0fw3Cm](https://imgur.com/a/Z0fw3Cm)

If that is the case all of this right here is not accurate. I myself cannot verify for certain if this is true or not. I don’t have access to enough data to determine if this is true or not and the above results are most definitely not enough to be statistically significant if it’s only a minor increase then it’s not going to affect the results. Until it’s proven, I stand by what I say below, but definitely keep this in mind for the coming weeks and if you’re particularly uncertain, save your gems until we can verify if this is true or not.)

**Crafting UR card costs roughly $24-32 without the deal buying at max gems. Crafting with gems from the deal costs $12-13 roughly.**

MAJOR DISCLAIMER: This is rough math based on anecdotal evidence from what I’ve experienced so take it with a major grain of salt. But the logic goes buying gems without the deal with the biggest bundle gets you 62 gems per dollar and buying with the deal gets you 121 gems per dollar.

This is where things get really speculative. IN MY OPINION, the average number of URs per pack averages around somewhere between 1.5 and 2. Quite frankly I can’t tell you what the actual average is without a sample size significantly larger than my budget but really it should be around that ballpark.

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This means that means over a large period of time, all your 10 pulls will eventually reach a very close number. So the average pack will get you 15 to 20 UR shards which are very low compared to the 40-50 SR shard you average from a ten pull. This makes pulling packs for the purpose of dusting everything and crafting your ideal cards VERY expensive in comparison to pulling them from a pack. But since we can’t do that for some really important cards, this puts us in a very difficult spot.

As for in-game gem income, it’s really hard to say right now since we haven’t seen any events. But as of right now and for the foreseeable future, once you burn through the frontloaded mission rewards, the only renewable source of gems seems to come from gems at about 2700 per ranked season right now. The problem is that we simply don’t know how events work or how often the ladder will be up. The standard details page mentions “during the tallying period” so I’m hesitant to tell you just how reliable ranked will be as a source of gem income over a long period of time. But assuming the best, you get 2700 roughly every two weeks and some extra from events and various missions. That’s fine for pulling out of Secret Packs for archetypes but at that rate, you are going to struggle a lot with hard crafting staples which brings me to my biggest worry regarding the playerbase.

**If you used a large amount of your UR Shards to craft many Archetypal Cards found in Secret Pack. You may have screwed over your account’s ability to be competitive.**

Let me spell it out, UR shards are very valuable, and pulling bulk non-specific cards from Secret Packs is very efficient. Therefore if you use a large number of your UR shards to finish archetypal decks you are squandering the value of your shards greatly. It’s not bad to use your shards to craft some URs but if you’re consistently drafting 4+ per pack, that’s when it gets worrying.

I want to talk about my account for a little bit. I have reached the point where the rewards have started to fizzle out. I invested in four decks; Sky Striker, Tribrigade, Madolche, and Dinosaur. I currently have all the SR shards I need and have the major core of all of these decks minus a few URs. My problem is that I’m struggling with UR shards after building a diverse hand trap package and even if I disenchant everything I am willing to I only have enough for two UR Staples which is not enough. My Sky Striker deck is fairly fine but it wants some URs like Upstart Goblin and Terraforming for max effectiveness. My Tribrigade and Dinosaur deck are not functional because I don’t have the UR Shards to afford the extra deck cards they require.

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I personally think I made some iffy decisions like I don’t think I should’ve built Madolche but overall I’m in a decent spot. While I built myself a good hand trap core I am pretty set when it comes to playing Control or Midrange. Once you have the staples the rest of the deck that works with it is cheap. I should be able to get my Tribrigade and Dinosaur deck off the ground in the coming weeks and my Madolche and Sky Striker deck is pretty much competitive. What I'm worried about are the players who have not done so and used their UR shards on poor decisions. Once you use up the frontloaded mission rewards, you may have screwed over your account’s ability to afford staples for a long while. It is to the point that if you want your account to be competitive and you have made this mistake, you may want to just start another account.

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# Optimal Gem Usage and Strategic Budgeting

I think it’s very easy to walk away from this screaming “Konami Greedy!!!” or something similar. But I don’t think that will get us very far with solving the problem, to be fair it is Konami so I didn’t think that it would be all sunshine and rainbows. Reveling in outrage doesn’t do us much good in the short term, especially when there are strategies available to offset these problems.

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* (MAJOR EDIT: Maybe Incorrect Depending on the Rate in Which URs Drop from Master Packs. Need more Testing and Talk so take this with a grain of Salt) First of all, let's talk about what I think is the optimal usage of gems. You want to be investing your gems into the Secret Pack of your choice. You invest pulls until you have 75 to 90 percent of the cards you need. At this point, it is highly unlikely you pull the cards you need so you move onto a different Secret Pack. You craft the card you’re missing, ideally three or less, and use the remaining dust on the staples of your choice. Pretty simple process, however, this won’t get you all the staples of your choice so this brings up my next point.

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* Secondly, specialize your account for a while, you don't have the gems to afford all the staples in the game. You’re going to spread yourself far too thin doing so, which is a mistake I think I started to make. Instead of spreading yourself thin pursuing different kinds of decks, get the staples for one type of deck and just focus on that style. Did you build hand traps like Ash and Max C? You’re now a Midrange and Control player. Did you build Floodgates like Imperial Order and There can be Only One? You’re a Stun player. Did you build anti-hand trap tools and generic extra deck options? You’re a Combo player. Once you have the core staples that enable your strategy, everything else is pretty reasonable to obtain.

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* Thirdly, utilize SR Staples and decks that do not need strong staples. SR shards are plentiful and there are quite a few SR staples out there. The problem is that most of them are not as generic as their UR counterparts and because this is the OCG you likely still need to pay the Max C tax and play three of them and three Ash. However, most of the players don’t need the best to enjoy the game. I speak of this from a player who has seven years of CCG experience over multiple games like Duelyst, Hearthstone, Duel Links, Magic Arena, Shadowverse, etc. 99% of you players just want to chill on the ladder or climb to Plat, if you wait until the end of the season and all the good players have long made it, it shouldn’t need the best deck to do well and have fun. Aside from, you know, OCG Max C Tax.

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* Unless you’re planning on playing in tournaments, you don’t need the best decks and staples. They help and will improve your win percent but with enough knowledge on the game and understanding HOW these staples interact with the meta, you can have a good amount of success. For example, if you’re a-going the second player, you may want to consider going for cards like Evenly Matched and Dark Hole over Lightning Storm for the time being. Will it suck? Yes. But it’ll make your deck tick for the time being.

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* Also, I want to briefly mention this because it really deserves a separate article but there are UR staples like Nibiru and Forbidden Droplet in the Secret Packs. Solemn Judgment and Strike are both in the Counter Fairy pack. I don’t think it’s worth pulling solely for them, but if you want a for fun deck, you may seriously want to consider playing Aliens or Darklords because that will save you so many UR Shards if you want these staples.

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