AI3 vs AI4, electrum grinding for new players

[Leodip]

Was about to ask the same question, Marvaddin.
I did some accurate testings, and I realized that as of now, PvP1 is the best for me, next comes Bronze for the rares. I don't really need money right now, so grinding AI3 isn't that needed, but PvP provides a more risky way to get Electrums, but faster than AI3. Bronze gives me some rares for my decks, since I'm still building up my library.
However, there will be a change, hopefully, I'd want to get into AI4 farming with an upgraded deck. I now have about 10.000 electrums if I sell the upgraded cards I won't need for some time (till when I'll be trying to get all of the cards in the game). I think I'll be farming a little more to have enough money to get an half-unupped AI4 grinder, which one would you recommend me? Consider, too, that since I'm building up my library, I'd rather buy Supernovas/Cremations that have more applications in more decks instead of elite deja vu or ghost of the past that have few to no applications.
(before someone says "build a FG farmer", I did major tests on them, and both unupped or 6-ups weren't good enough for effectively farming, making me lose score, lots of electrums and giving me few possibilities in gaining uppped cards, AI4 is way better for that. I'll eventually build a FG farmer when I'll have lots of upgraded cards and get a fully-upped one, till then, I won't)

[treebeard xiii]

Was about to ask the same question, Marvaddin.
I did some accurate testings, and I realized that as of now, PvP1 is the best for me, next comes Bronze for the rares. I don't really need money right now, so grinding AI3 isn't that needed, but PvP provides a more risky way to get Electrums, but faster than AI3. Bronze gives me some rares for my decks, since I'm still building up my library.
However, there will be a change, hopefully, I'd want to get into AI4 farming with an upgraded deck. I now have about 10.000 electrums if I sell the upgraded cards I won't need for some time (till when I'll be trying to get all of the cards in the game). I think I'll be farming a little more to have enough money to get an half-unupped AI4 grinder, which one would you recommend me? Consider, too, that since I'm building up my library, I'd rather buy Supernovas/Cremations that have more applications in more decks instead of elite deja vu or ghost of the past that have few to no applications.
(before someone says "build a FG farmer", I did major tests on them, and both unupped or 6-ups weren't good enough for effectively farming, making me lose score, lots of electrums and giving me few possibilities in gaining uppped cards, AI4 is way better for that. I'll eventually build a FG farmer when I'll have lots of upgraded cards and get a fully-upped one, till then, I won't)

for my ai4 killing i'm using a modded version of sg fg killer which means you up hgs which are useful in a variety of decks including some of the fg killers and if built right you only need to up the hourglasses but some of the other upps are helpful but less use in a variety of decks

[Leodip]

Was about to ask the same question, Marvaddin.
I did some accurate testings, and I realized that as of now, PvP1 is the best for me, next comes Bronze for the rares. I don't really need money right now, so grinding AI3 isn't that needed, but PvP provides a more risky way to get Electrums, but faster than AI3. Bronze gives me some rares for my decks, since I'm still building up my library.
However, there will be a change, hopefully, I'd want to get into AI4 farming with an upgraded deck. I now have about 10.000 electrums if I sell the upgraded cards I won't need for some time (till when I'll be trying to get all of the cards in the game). I think I'll be farming a little more to have enough money to get an half-unupped AI4 grinder, which one would you recommend me? Consider, too, that since I'm building up my library, I'd rather buy Supernovas/Cremations that have more applications in more decks instead of elite deja vu or ghost of the past that have few to no applications.
(before someone says "build a FG farmer", I did major tests on them, and both unupped or 6-ups weren't good enough for effectively farming, making me lose score, lots of electrums and giving me few possibilities in gaining uppped cards, AI4 is way better for that. I'll eventually build a FG farmer when I'll have lots of upgraded cards and get a fully-upped one, till then, I won't)

for my ai4 killing i'm using a modded version of sg fg killer which means you up hgs which are useful in a variety of decks including some of the fg killers and if built right you only need to up the hourglasses but some of the other upps are helpful but less use in a variety of decks

What's the SG FG killer? what are hgs (guess hourglasses)

[TribalTrouble]

hg = hourglasses
SG = Scared Girl
FG= False God

[Leodip]

hg = hourglasses
SG = Scared Girl
FG= False God

I at least know False God, lol.
Is it this one?


I lack eternity, but I think I can get it, and the upped electrum hourglasses will be of help in other decks for sure.

[shadow303]

It is interesting how often this same discussion (grinding AI3 or AI4) comes up here in the forum and always there is someone says AI3 is a lot better and someone saying AI4 is a lot better. At least here we have a lot of very detailed statistical information to evaluate it - thanks for that!

I personally think there is no absolute answer to this - it all depends on the deck you are using. If the result is AI4 "is slightly ahead" going against AI4 with a slightly worse deck than the one that was used here may already change the result. I'm still convinced going to grind AI4 with an unupped deck is a really bad idea - at least for my experience that didn't work out - anyway if the deck is good enough (half upped or fully upped) it can for sure be a good idea for grinding.

[TribalTrouble]

Yes that is the SG Bow. That is severely outdated. Don't waste electrum for it.

[Leodip]

Is that so? Then I ask again that question

Was about to ask the same question, Marvaddin.
I did some accurate testings, and I realized that as of now, PvP1 is the best for me, next comes Bronze for the rares. I don't really need money right now, so grinding AI3 isn't that needed, but PvP provides a more risky way to get Electrums, but faster than AI3. Bronze gives me some rares for my decks, since I'm still building up my library.
However, there will be a change, hopefully, I'd want to get into AI4 farming with an upgraded deck. I now have about 10.000 electrums if I sell the upgraded cards I won't need for some time (till when I'll be trying to get all of the cards in the game). I think I'll be farming a little more to have enough money to get an half-unupped AI4 grinder, which one would you recommend me? Consider, too, that since I'm building up my library, I'd rather buy Supernovas/Cremations that have more applications in more decks instead of elite deja vu or ghost of the past that have few to no applications.
(before someone says "build a FG farmer", I did major tests on them, and both unupped or 6-ups weren't good enough for effectively farming, making me lose score, lots of electrums and giving me few possibilities in gaining uppped cards, AI4 is way better for that. I'll eventually build a FG farmer when I'll have lots of upgraded cards and get a fully-upped one, till then, I won't)

[ColorlessGreen]

Is that so? Then I ask again that question

Was about to ask the same question, Marvaddin.
I did some accurate testings, and I realized that as of now, PvP1 is the best for me, next comes Bronze for the rares. I don't really need money right now, so grinding AI3 isn't that needed, but PvP provides a more risky way to get Electrums, but faster than AI3. Bronze gives me some rares for my decks, since I'm still building up my library.
However, there will be a change, hopefully, I'd want to get into AI4 farming with an upgraded deck. I now have about 10.000 electrums if I sell the upgraded cards I won't need for some time (till when I'll be trying to get all of the cards in the game). I think I'll be farming a little more to have enough money to get an half-unupped AI4 grinder, which one would you recommend me? Consider, too, that since I'm building up my library, I'd rather buy Supernovas/Cremations that have more applications in more decks instead of elite deja vu or ghost of the past that have few to no applications.
(before someone says "build a FG farmer", I did major tests on them, and both unupped or 6-ups weren't good enough for effectively farming, making me lose score, lots of electrums and giving me few possibilities in gaining uppped cards, AI4 is way better for that. I'll eventually build a FG farmer when I'll have lots of upgraded cards and get a fully-upped one, till then, I won't)

To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever done stats-based tests on the differences between decks against AI4 since AI4 was changed a while back, so I don't think anyone has any actual definitive "best" decks to recommend for AI4 upped.

With that being said, though, AI4 is similar in terms of attributes to silver league, and is made up of crappier decks. I would recommend looking at the "Decks used against arena with stats 1.32" thread for upped decks used against silver and trying those. Anything that can beat silver should be at least as effective against AI4. I'd lean towards things with better TTWs, since there's a lot less cohesive defenses in AI4 than there are in silver.

[Leodip]

I'm trying a couple of the Silver decks, but none works well enough, the Essential worked way better, but it's probably me that's doing something wrong. Would someone please post a semi-upped deck for AI4?

[TribalTrouble]

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,19456.0.html
Try that one out .

[ColorlessGreen]

Using the following assumptions:

Spoiler for Hidden:

Sorry, these are in no real order. If I missed something, call me out on it. With luck, I just forgot to mention it rather than forgetting to include it in the formula I'm using.

A non-EM win is worth 2/3rds of the posted value of the game (i.e. finishing at roughly 33 hp IIRC).
An unupped successful regular spin is worth 50 electrum (nice round number slightly over the average value, incorporates the +5 electrum for match-2).
An upped card is worth 1150 electrum.
An unupped rare card is worth 150 electrum (used for special spins).
The chance of a successful regular spin is 50% (also a nice round number, and IIRC what was assumed in FGEI).
Therefore, each win against ai3/bronze/silver is worth an extra 25 electrum (50 * 0.5)
A win against AI4 is worth 99.7 electrum (1150 * 7.7% + 50 *22.3%)
A special spin is 75% likely to succeed if you play it without regard to which rare you get.
Bonus electrum for matching two cards (but not three, as it's included in the value of a successful spin) is ignored (mostly because I have no stats whatsoever on how common it is).
TTL = TTW.
250 turns are played in an hour (works out to about 14.4 seconds per turn. As all decks in question here are pretty simple, we can reasonably assume they'll take the same amount of time per turn to play, or at least close enough that this can be ignored. All of these numbers are actually just for 250 turns anyways, so if your per-turn time is different, the proportions are still correct.)
All cards won from spins (both special and regular) are sold at the values listed above.
AI3/AI4 win rates are taken from OP.
Bronze deck stats by me (not posted in arena stats thread yet, but will be when I get more games done): Antabow - 102 games; 79.41% Win Rate, 2.47% EM Rate, 9.17 TTW
Silver deck stats by me (mostly posted in arena stats thread, rest will be posted when I get more games done): Antabow - 217 games; 51.61% Win Rate, 5.36% EM Rate, 9.19 TTW

...here's the amount of electrum you'd win per hour:

Code: [Select]

Against AI4:           1,672.98 elec/hr
Against Silver League:   981.33 elec/hr
Against AI3:             966.33 elec/hr
Against Bronze League:   907.30 elec/hr

I want to do some actual tests of various decks against AI3 and AI4 to figure out what the best options are there and to use actual tests rather than simulated tests, but this is a start.

So, basically, AI4 wins by a lot, and AI3/bronze/silver are effectively tied. If you're curious, at these numbers, bronze produces 2.66 special spins/hour and silver produces 0.91 special spins/hour (both of these numbers are factored in to the electrum values above).

As an aside, Chapuz just mentioned in chat that he'd try to pull together some stats on firecell scavengers so we can figure out where it lies on the table. If I had to guess, I'd say near AI4.

Also, if anyone has any ideas on better numbers to use for any of my assumptions (or better yet, actual data for any of them), please let me know.