When should I stop farming AI3? v1.29

[zaen]

Hrm, this isn't the first time I heard of limitless speed.  Is it still better to go semi upped instosis over this semi upped limitless speed or rol/hope when I don't have the SoRea currently?

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,31572.0.html

Granted the overall win rate of the semi upped instosis is higher, but I only have 1 SoRea from the bronze arena so that's an issue.  While rol/hope has SoGr which I don't have, I could use sanctuary in there.  This limitless speed deck has no shards that I don't have.  Is it worth doing this first if I don't have all the shards or should I just do the rol/hope with sancs first or grind out the arena for the SoReas and wait to do an instosis?  Hah, sorry, I hope that makes sense.

...summary, between limitless speed, rol/hope, and instosis, I don't have all the shards so should I farm those or just go with the one I can when I can?

[zhangvict]

The only reason I went limitless speed semi unupped was that while farming with liquid antimatter, I won a light dragon and a rage exlixir from hecate and miracle. Since both limitless speed (slim version) and instosis used electrum hourglasses, it was only wasting 1 upgraded card for me to use it as an intermediate step between LA and instosis. For you if you don't already have rage elixirs or light dragons you would waste 3 card upgrades so you need to decide yourself if it is worth it. Semi upped slim version limitless speed was quite similar to LA in the sense you need to skip quite a few gods, but I found the card rate to be slightly better, but not better enough to decide if it is better than LA definitely. Whenever I got bored of false gods, I just farmed the arena, got lucky and won 2 shards in one session and made a 3 shard version of instosis semi upped and got rich lol. I have no experience with rol/hope but like I said before, if your ultimate goal is instosis, rol/hope might not be worth it to use as a step in between because you can't reuse the cards in rol/hope for instosos.

[mwaetht]

Without an upped deck and/or plenty of shards, you have no chance at all against anything higher than Bronze (the big money-makers), and even Bronze may be problematic.

It depends on your rares, really. Limitless Speed doesn't need SoG, but they help if you decide to use the fatter versions. However, Limitless Speed also requires more upgrades to function than you may be willing to farm for. (You of course need to upgrade the key combo cards Light Dragon and Rage Elixirs, but you still won't win much without the Hourglasses and maybe Phase Shields upped.)

RoL/Hope needs both more upgrades and more rares than Limitless Speed, and doesn't win much more. Games are faster but more boring. Ditch it. At least Electrum Hourglass and Phase Shield are useful in other anti-FG decks; Ray of Light is useless for any grinder other than RoL/Hope itself, and the only other application of Electrocutor to FG killing is mono-Aether. Even then, Phase Shields could be applied to mono-Aether. Basically, the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of RoL/Hope.

Instosis is above all. But you need two more SoR for that, and playing Bronze Arena with an unupped deck can be more frustrating than playing False Gods with Liquid Antimatter.

There are other alternatives, of course. You hate Liquid Antimatter because it loses so much, obviously; it works significantly better if you're willing to shell out the cash on Tower Shields and Chaos Powers, though, so maybe you should try it in trainer. Still doesn't work well without a lot of upgrades, though.

I've never tried Flay 'Em myself, but I've read good things about it.

Throwing a few SoSac into almost anything makes it a better FG farmer.

[zhangvict]

Without an upped deck and/or plenty of shards, you have no chance at all against anything higher than Bronze (the big money-makers), and even Bronze may be problematic.

That wasn't true in my experience, I won my 3 shards of readiness from the bronze arena relatively quickly using my ai3 mono darkness deck. The PvP grabboid novabow by antagon is also commonly cited as a good bronze farmer. Even with an unupped deck, bronze should not be problematic. It is not as good with an upped deck, but still have an acceptable win rate.

[zaen]

Without an upped deck and/or plenty of shards, you have no chance at all against anything higher than Bronze (the big money-makers), and even Bronze may be problematic.

That wasn't true in my experience, I won my 3 shards of readiness from the bronze arena relatively quickly using my ai3 mono darkness deck. The PvP grabboid novabow by antagon is also commonly cited as a good bronze farmer. Even with an unupped deck, bronze should not be problematic. It is not as good with an upped deck, but still have an acceptable win rate.

I tried dark, death, life, and aether monos (the AI3 rushers mostly) in bronze and they all did fine.  Its just an issue of winning 6 in a row which got in the way.

You guys made some good points earlier.  I'll probably hold out for Instosis.

[zaen]

Just tried the semi upped (dragon and SNs) instosis in the trainer.  30 games, won 10, 4 cards.  Lost a bunch due to time quanta issues which I can clearly see the upgraded hourglasses and time factories fixes.  I'll have to do this soon!

[furballdn]

Just tried the semi upped (dragon and SNs) instosis in the trainer.  30 games, won 10, 4 cards.  Lost a bunch due to time quanta issues which I can clearly see the upgraded hourglasses and time factories fixes.  I'll have to do this soon!

I don't even think instosis works without upped HGs. If it does, it's much, much, much worse than the fully upped or even the hourglasses, dragon, SN upped instosis.

[mwaetht]

Really? I read somewhere (can't remember where) that grabbow had about 85% win rate. Of course, this might be outdated. The special spin rate is 38%. Then you have to find the probability of actually finding SoR and then spinning three in a row (though upped decks won't help with the last two parts).

Bronze is frustrating unupped. I have enough upped cards for fully upped Bronze grinders and I STILL don't grind Bronze for rares, because the special spins are so annoying. (I prefer Platinum. Even if I miss the special spin, at least it won't feel like I'm wasting my time, because of the electrum gain.)

Without an upped deck and/or plenty of shards, you have no chance at all against anything higher than Bronze (the big money-makers), and even Bronze may be problematic.

That wasn't true in my experience, I won my 3 shards of readiness from the bronze arena relatively quickly using my ai3 mono darkness deck. The PvP grabboid novabow by antagon is also commonly cited as a good bronze farmer. Even with an unupped deck, bronze should not be problematic. It is not as good with an upped deck, but still have an acceptable win rate.