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I think its fine, sometimes you have low levels in health and level that fight grandmasters. Seriously do you thinks a someone with level 34 spells can beat someone with storm lord, tritan and other high level spells? There health is low and their spells are weak unless balance, they get judgement at 28 i believe. There decks are half the size of a grandmaster too. Treasure cards are limited in the amount aloud in a deck. If someone doesnt have ice as a secondary school are they supposed to not be able to get towers to defend theirselves?
People farm and do task for their treasure cards. They pay well for them and should be aloud to use any card in deck.
Learn to shield better, everyone tries to bolt cuz it only takes two pips. Most the times the bolts dont work and that gives you another chance to shield or attack.
Instead of getting all mad, get yourself a couple wild bolts to keep in deck so if they go that route.
I know i keep a couple in deck. If someone starts the bolting then I will respond. In pvp i also know to keep storm shields in deck.

So treasure cards get a yes from me, they are part of deck and everyone is allowed them.

In a way I sort of agree of mpisnumber1. But, with a shield, it can still do in 200-300 which can be substantial.

My belief is that, the lower the number of 'must-have' cards in a given format, the better. This places less inherent restriction on deck design and allows not only more cards, but by association more wizard archetypes become more 'equally viable'. That's not to say certain cards will not define a healthy format - Feint will never go away, nor will Tower Shield or Pixie. But it's important to look at the way certain cards push other cards out entirely.

Simple example: as one levels up, low level spells are traded for high level spells. Thunder Snake eventually gets dropped for Lightning Bats, which in turn trades up to Storm Shark, etc. Power Pips make playing such cards sort of superfluous. This is healthy and fair; there's no reason to assume a good format includes every lousy 1-pip spell in the game.

Less obvious example: Trap cards make Spirit Armor less attractive. The way trap/shield 'layers' work in this game is pretty much "First In, Last Applied". By following that it's easy to see how playing defensively is much harder, as a spell like Spirit Armor needs to be as close to last, or as close to the 'top' as possible in order to be effective. Meanwhile, traps and blades have a very natural interaction which are easy to be proactive with and are generally much cheaper than the awkward Ice Armor/Spirit Armor spells of the game. This isn't to say that no one should be playing Spirit Armor, because at the end of the day a well timed Armor spell can be much more effective than a Tower Shield in the proper situation. But on the whole, being proactive is simple while being reactive is much more difficult and much easier to play around. This is probably fine too, as it is generally very rewarding to pull off this style of play as it requires a little more thought and predicting and tends to leave the reactive player in a better position once both players are down on pips and trying to reclaim their position.

Prime example: Wild Bolt as a Treasure Card eliminates whole strategies. The mechanics of Treasure Cards being what they are - return the fizzled spell to the sideboard for another use - perfectly suit WB to be spammed. This might be okay if the overall speed of the format were fast, but it isn't. Wizard101 is a patience game, especially in the Arena. Even the fastest Storm grandmasters still require a few turns to set up traps, blades and the eventual Storm Lord or Triton to seal the deal, and this depends on their luck with the Power Pips. Wild Bolt dodges the waiting and preys on the game's mechanics to put itself in a position of extreme resourcefulness. No other spell approaches its capacity for damage at such a low cost, and as has been illustrated time and again its low accuracy is not difficult to circumvent. Warlord gear and accuracy enhancing Treasure Cards give the Bolt almost 50/50 odds of resolving, and being a Treasure Card makes it tradeable. The trading is where the system really breaks down; different Wizards exist to employ different strategies. Some summon minions, some hide behind shields, some can even run an opponent out of cards via regeneration and disruption (Weakness/Black Mantle effects). But all of those strategies can be and often are supplemented with this Wild Bolt fallback plan. It's seen time and again, when teams come from behind by breaking out this almost universal emergency plan - if individualized path to victory is failing, try Wild Bolt. This is a problem because it makes players think about going very specifically out of their way to change their deck in a way to deal with this plan.

In my experience with other card-based competitive games, when a format is defined more by its answers than its threats, you've got a very self-involved and reactionary metagame which is warping itself around one central strategy and can only really consist of (a) the problem strategy (b) the answer to the problem. If you don't think so, just look at the other various CCgs which have, at one point or another, gone so far as to BAN cards from being played. Banning is a horrible option; in the 'real world' it makes a piece of your investment worthless and unable to be played anywhere. In a game like this it creates another barrier between PvE and PvP, and the issue becomes less about what's playable and more about what ISN'T, and why. The last thing you want to tell an aspiring Arena player is that their spell that they spent the last hour completing a quest to earn isn't playable at all in Arena. By the same token, nobody wants to play in a format full of Storm Shields and Dissipates as those are obviously very specific answers to a specific issue, as opposed to a format full of independent ideas based around enablers.

Wow, some well thought out answers here. So far - usually these posts degenerate into whining and worse, so it's nice that it hasn't gone there yet.

I, too, agree that Treasure Cards in pvp diminish the enjoyment of arena battles. Low level players using high level spells, complete dependency on game changing spells like Wild Bolt, manufacturing super spells - all very contentious issues. But, as much as I wish things would change, I will also admit I do indeed use Treasure Cards simply because it's part of the game. It's NOT cheating, and if you don't accept them as part of the game you will A> never be happy and B> probably won't attain a very high rank. Not to say you CAN'T win without using them, but as a Warlord with around 1400 rank, I can tell you that I'd be at a serious disadvantage against very skilled players if I didn't. I learned some time ago that if I couldn't beat them, I best join them. And I did.

Well, mostly. I can honestly say I have never Wild Bolted anyone. Not because it's not fair, but because I think it's bad strategy. In fact, with out of school "penalty", the only Treasure Cards of more than one pip I use is for Healing. But that's me - if folks want to Wild Bolt, or any other Treasure Card spell, that's simply part of the game. Though one other "complication" that Treasure Cards create is that it's hard to come up with a perfect defense since any school can use any spell, I think it's safe to say that any could have Wild Bolt and it's probably in your best interest to load Storm Shields in any pvp deck.

That said, I do think there are a few ways to "curb" Treasure Cards without eliminating them from the game.

1. An idea presented by Ravenfell was to take Keen and Tough out of the Library. Brilliant. These cards are the key ingredient to "manufactured" cards and making them less available would radically change the way Treasure Cards are made / used / traded.

2. Why are Treasure Cards more powerful / better than the trained spell version? Shouldn't a spell you put a lot of effort into learning be more powerful / better than a spell bought / traded for? People would still use Treasure Cards to have access to spells they haven't learned, but it would make learning spells a premium.

3. Allow Treasure Cards, but perhaps limit the Tickets / Points won in pvp if more than 3 / 5 / 10 / X cards are used. Again, this would allow use of Treasure Cards, but it would prevent "Abuse" / overuse of them.

Alas, until KI changes things, I'm afraid that acceptance of Treasure Cards would be in everyone's best interest. Sorry to say, they are part of the game now and, love it or hate it, they are almost a "requirement" to making it to Warlord and beyond. (Please note ALMOST - I'm sure there are LOADS of pvp players who are Warlords that don't use treasure cards, but
as a general rule)

mlb

For the record, as an unaltered spell I don't have a problem with Wild Bolt. It's obviously intended to be a high risk venture with minimal investment, and on the frail body of a Storm wizard it is just fine. That's why each school has access to its own special spells; they are the things that separate wizards from each other beyond their life total and publicly available spells. It's when the 3000+ health tanks of the game start accessing the same skills that I feel an unhealthy blurring of the wizard builds takes place.

PvE is one thing; the essence of that is free-for-all and often requires outside assistance, especially at the higher levels - soloing Dragonspyre is a unique challenge. But PvP represents a different kind of challenge altogether, as it creates this metagame where the best players find the best plays and best ways to execute them. Such an format lends itself to finding broken plays; it just happens. So while an Ice Wizard Wild Bolting out in the PvE universe is probably fine, doing it against other wizards lets the air out of the tires too quickly to allow for real player interaction. That's the real issue here; fostering interaction between players.

It's not even like it's the most damaging play in the game, Balance wizards cast huge Judgments all the time and only Spirit Armor and Tower Shield stand between an opposing Wizard. But even a good Judgment takes time to set up, and it can be beaten to the punch, and if it fizzles you have to draw another one. The mechanics of Treasure Cards make Wild Bolt way too easy to access after a fizzle. In other card games, finding spells (called 'tutoring') often leads to the MOST degenerate plays. Often times, the card that finds the card is the one that gets banned - you ban the tutor, not the card. To approach this game in similar fashion: ban the mechanic (treasure cards) in PvP, not the card. Let Life wizards cast enhanced Wild Bolts against Jade Oni till the cows come home. But in the Arena it's a means to steal wins where none would have been before. You have to ask yourself; in a format where every Wizard has access to virtually every spell and the best equipment homogenizes the Wizard's stats (damage, accuracy, defense) but NOT their health, which Wizards have the most to gain?

I say yes they shoudl be allowed.

The game is well balanced enough to allow treasure cards. your decks only allow so many.

The problems with treasure cards isn't that they're there it's that they show up in low level matches.

In high level matches treasure cards don't matter at all. Everyone has access to their big spells by then. So having a couple more in your deck isn't noticed at all.

Only thing I can say to that is keep leveling. Until you reach max level you will always be at a disadvantage to the other guy who has either leveled more than you or has treasure cards higher than his level.

You won't find "fair" fights before level 50.

If you choose to PvP before then you have to accept that not all your matches are going to be fair. You're going to be out classed by someone who put in more time and effort than you did.

That's the nature of competition.

Finish leveling then you'll be back on an even playing field again, and their treasure cards won't matter.

using treasure cards are great i use stormzillas and they helped me to get to warlord in pvp. I'm a lvl 26 balance. :)

I dont think treasure cards should be allowed at all. I've made it to commander rank without using any. The duel shouldnt be based on how much money you've spent on cards but on your skill level with the cards you've learned.

nlhf1995 wrote:

We all love treasure cards, including myself, and they have proved to be very helpful. However, I dont think treasure cards should be used during a battle, this includes enhancing cards such as keen eyes, tough, etc. Yesterday, I went into a duel with a fire wizard and it was pretty evenly matched for a while. We both were about down to 500 health each when I had enough pips to put on a decent Ice Armor spell, being that I am ice. It had a value of exactly 1000. I went to cast a colossus to finish the duel when out of nowhere, he fired a wild bolt on me with a storm trap, elemental trap, storm blade, and 9% damage increase. This completely wiped out my armor and my health, causing me to lose. I dont think that it is right to use treasure cards during a duel, stick to your trained spells. If he was storm, I would of accepted it and admitted myself as fairly defeated but when just out of luck they have a wild bolt that a friend made that just happens to work, I dont think it is fair. If it comes with the robe or hat or boots then that is OK too but please no more treasures.

I think you should say in a pvp match because duel could be any fight.

My sideboard is bone dry. I do not use treasure cards, and never will. I don't consider them to be "cheating" per se, but I've discovered that treasure cards are nothing more than a tool to bridge a gap in PvPers that skill should be doing.

My personal belief is that if I can't beat you without treasure cards, I need to improve my game that much more. If you beat me with a dozen treasure cards while I use none, it means that I am a superior player who just happened to lose that match because you had to make up for a complete lack in skill with extra gold. I can sleep well knowing that.

Part of me hopes that they never ban treasure cards in arena. My main belief behind this is that so many people will be exposed for their mediocre skills to the point where they will simply stop playing. I don't like waiting for games, and I beat enough "treasure card warlords" to keep a good rating.

I think there should be a max of 2 treasure cards. But the treasure cards have to be at your level or less .

I only use treasure cards when facing big bosses - sometimes when I am going solo that's the only way I can complete a quest that involves high level bosses. As to PVP, I rarely play that way but I feel PvP should be treasure card free.