Introduction
The “hot” topic of the month is Monster Point cards and which one to buy. I created a helpful reference guide and tier list (which can be found HERE and generally speaking, you can simply go down the tier list until you find a card that best fits your box); however, I felt that showcasing what I am doing along with my rationale behind my decision may be beneficial for people to see.
I want to stress that my decisions are the best for myself and my own situation and may not apply to everyone. What you should try and take away from here is the thought process behind the decisions and try to see if you undergo a similar method for coming to your own conclusions.
Video commentary
—video goes here—-
My purchase history
When Yomi Dragon 
was first released, she caused quite a stir as she was one of the most universally accessible and powerful leaders at the time along with providing wonderful utility as a sub. As such, I decided to make the investment as I had a modestly diverse dark box and the potential to clear more content with her. You could read more about my initial purchase from a year ago HERE.
She has proven efficient and was instrumental in helping me clear more content at the time while transitioning into a powerful utility sub for my Awoken Lucifer 
team.
While her value has been on the decline from about half a year ago, she has once again been catapulted into great relevancy with her newly released evolution 
.
This new evolution enables her to achieve 81x ATK and 4x RCV with only a single 5o1e combo. This is quite phenomenal as you are able to quickly clear through high level content including a speedy 12-minute Arena 1 clear:
—
Now, not every run will be this fast as certain spawn such as the first floor blue ninja, Dark Shieldras, Sopdet, Parvati/Hino, and Dark absorbing Zaerog dramatically increase clear times. However, even with those hurdles, I have never taken more than 18 minutes with un-ideal spawns.
Now, many people may feel that quickly farming Arena 1 is not worthy of 300,000 Monster Points, but in actuality, it is a great asset to have as you can quickly rank yourself up along with having a limitless supply of Py.
Despite the amazing Arena 1 potential, Yomi Dragon is actually capable of tackling end game content and with only a few slight tweaks to my team, I feel that she should be able to clear Arena 3 with modest consistency (will try this weekend) along with being an amazing sub on virtually any dark team.
As mentioned in my Tier List, Yomi Dragon is in the second highest tier and only trails behind Ra Dragon 
and Dark Athena 
.
The only time I would recommend someone to not buy Yomi Dragon is if they have the potential to make a reasonable Dark Athena team as she is simply the stronger choice.
Current Monster Point Situation
Yomi Dragon was my first and only Monster Point card and have simply been saving and hoarding ever since. I was mostly waiting for both a more developed box (mostly hoping I could pull a single Dark Kali 
or Kanna 
for Ra Dragon) or new cards to be released/new evolutions. There is no justifiable reason one should ever rush their decision making process as this is a considerable investment despite the fact how much easier MP is to acquire.
Presently speaking, I am at 840,000+ Monster Points on both accounts with all the free gifts and various challenge/ranking dungeon rewards still unclaimed in my mailbox.
Combining all the unclaimed MP in my mailbox will probably put me close to 1 million and will enable me to purchase Dark Athena with plenty to spare.
Dark Athena is simply an amazing card and I would be thoroughly disappointed and impressed if they did not bring her to North America/EU. It makes no financial sense to not bring her state-side as she will most certainly cause players to heavily liquidate their boxes to purchase (something I do not recommend).
If this is going to be your first Monster Point purchase, Dark Athena is generally the safest/most desirable option provided you can field a reasonably competent team for her.
Thus, the question for me is what do I pursue after Dark Athena.
What to purchase after Dark Athena?
There is a certain degree of opportunity cost involved with Monster Point cards in Puzzle and Dragons. For the most part, cards tend to be the strongest at the time of their release as they are as well positioned against Powercreep. Of course, you should never rush a purchase if you are missing cards to feasibly run their team.
For myself, I am still unable to efficiently run Ra Dragon as I am still missing both the Dark Kalis and Kanna. Thus, I need to try and determine what I want/value most moving forward.
With the future acquisition of Dark Athena, I would have another end-game team at my disposal as she joins the ranks of Myr 
, Meridionalis 
, and possibly Yomi Dragon . As such, I do not really have a need for another high-end team and Odin Dragon 
has debatable viability when compared to those other four.
Neptune Dragon 
has no interest due to his cumbersome nature while Ragnarok Dragon 
does not fit anywhere for me. All of the Four Gentlemen are unappetizing and all that remains is Shiva Dragon 
.
Shiva Dragon is one of the fastest teams available for longer dungeons and while I do have Yomi Dragon for Arena 1, Shiva would be marginally faster due to only requiring 4 vs 5 orbs. However, the main draw for Shiva Dragon is the prospect of acquiring Crowns in future ranking tournaments.
Shiva Dragon dominated the earlier tournaments and I do feel a sense of regret not purchasing him upon release as I could have probably had a Gold crown by now. Presently speaking, Shiva Dragon has not dominated a ranking tournament for a long time due to the release of more leaders and somewhat falling behind with only 25x ATK. However, with his soon to be released evolution (next week), he will gain a third TPA 
, 39x ATK, and access to more subs as more cards are starting to gain God typing with their Reincarnated evolutions.
Shiva Dragon will once again begin to shine in Ranking Tournaments if we gain the ones with around 10 floors as pure speed is most important. This ties beautifully with his non-orb hungry nature as you simply require a set of 4 fire orbs to sweep the majority of content.
At this point in the game, I do not really foresee my rolling luck dramatically improving in which I roll three 6* GFE for Ra Dragon (and the inherits). In addition, I can already clear all the content in the game without too much difficulty and mostly what is left now is to improve my ego flower with additional Crowns.
Pulling the trigger
After writing all of this, I decided to pull the trigger now on Shiva Dragon to both alleviate box space (so many evolution materials ), but to also be adequately prepared for his new evolution release date. While an appropriate ranking dungeon may not appear for a month or two, I also do not want to take the chance Shiva Dragon is unavailable when it rolls around. Furthermore, I am able to immediately take advantage of Shiva Dragon and truly benefit from him before Powercreep sinks in.
Mantastic will follow in the YouTube video.
Conclusion
Let me know what you plan on purchasing with your Monster Points and let me know your thought process/justification for it.
Happy Puzzling!
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Mantastic Puzzle and Dragons 
Nota bene: I spend too much on the game, something that has been exacerbated lately by paypal allowing purchase of itunes gift cards with paypal credit. Bad frontendchaos, bad!! As a result, I’ve had a ton of MP lately, so I’ve had to make some choices regarding what to do with the excess. Nothing here is generally applicable to anyone, I’m just sharing some of my PAD life 🙂
A few weeks ago I burned some MP on the blue puppeteer, and built the Minerva cheese team for A3. Well, news flash, cheese is boring, and it’s not easy after all. At least I run blue a -lot-, so the blue puppeteer was a good add to the toolbox. She’s the only puppeteer I have.
After chasing some stuff in the REM lately, I ended up with enough MP to pick up Odindra a couple days ago. So now I have all the MP dragons (including a second yomi dragon). The one that’s going to get the most play is definitely Yomidra (once I get Heradra, grr), the other ones are definitely more novelties. I have an optimal Radra team, but boy I’m not good enough to enjoy it much. Uuvo Shivadra might be fun, and go with my alt’s Yamamoto.
You Yu was my gentleman of choice back in the day… powerful and fun, but he got glass cannony really quick. I actually think he’s more playable these days with badges and inheritance, but he doesn’t stand out much. I also got BMyr after You Yu (my only seasonal MP purchase), and she became the hotness for quite a while.
I pair Tifa with other people’s Xiu Min’s, so I don’t need to add him to the mix… I’ve considered Plum to screw around with Gremory, but after Gremory’s buff Yomidragons (with the uuvo) are better, so that wasn’t enough value. And I never had the subs for Orchid, plus power creep, so she’s not happening.
I still have plenty of MP for DAthena, so I actually spend MP here and there on tamadras and evo mats, since I’m just like “screw it” and would rather save the time/stamina/gold.
Of all my purchases, as a guy with a solid handful of top tier teams, I’d prioritize the value of my purchases something like this:
* Yomidra
* BMyr
* Ragnarok (I don’t use Ronove often, but he’s so good there)
* You Yu
* Ra Dragon (would definitely rate way higher if I was good)
* Everything else sits around in my box.
I expect DAthena will be top 3 for sure. With the 390k, my alt will be able to pick her up, so that should be fun.
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One thing you may be overlooking about plum for Gremory is her ability to abuse her haste better than yomi d along with having more offensive awakenings. 7 turn cd with haste is a lot better than 9 turn of yomi d considering you only get 2 more orbs.
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Much like your comment about Ragnarok Dragon, since I have no real need for an optimal Gremory team (I’d rather play Aizen, RaDra, or BMyr), 300k to try an optimize a lower tier team is too indulgent for my blood.
I had very similar thoughts about splurging on a puppeteer, but the difference was that it was slightly cheaper, something I’d been considering for a long time, and added a unique utility to my box.
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Puppeteers are at least unique in what they do and provide 4x ATK when facing a boss that resists your element. Trying to better optimize a less than ideal team is def not worthwhile
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Doesn’t Ragnarok Dragon have a spot on Ronove teams? And didn’t you pull Ronoves on both accounts this last Godfest? Do you not plan on running Ronove, or did you just forget about him? Just wondering…
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He does have a spot there, but I am missing 2 Kaede and the Rozuel to make the optimal team. At that point I will be using something very unideal and he is already on the decline and has no staying power compared to the other teams I use. I may play around with him, but I do not plan to sink 300k MP into that team unless his new evolution is gamebreaking etc.
Essentially, Ragnarok is only as good as the teams that he can be used on
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Hey Mantastic,
i started to get shiva dragon some months ago wit my first 300000 MP. i was thinking wich subs would i benefit the most for arena1. i m still not able to finish the arena. what do i missing?
my team looks like:
Shiva Dra 297
Norn Urd 297
Yamato takeru 239
set 297
cao cao 180
sorry for my english, its loose^^
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That team should be more than capable of arena 1 provided it is invested in and maxed out. A single tpa should kill most floors and the only major hurdle I can see is binds (can use awoken Cao Cao as a base for inheriting a bind clear)
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After our mail MP and selling some extra skulds I’ll have enough for Dathena and two more cards. Like you, have no dkalis so radra is a No. I have Myr as my “best” lead atm. Not an iaper anymore and have been playing 1100 days.
Definitely going to get DAthena because I have the box. I’m mulling Shivadra (for the applications you mentioned above), Yomidra (for farming/endgame/gremory sub) and/or Plum (gremory). I can get two of the three…
…Or maybe I should wait and see what happens in summer.
I’m terrible at ranking dungeons, never gotten above 23%.
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I would suggest going for yomi dragon for sure as she has value essentially everywhere and can be quite successful in ranking tournaments (pretty safe 10%s). As for your second choice, I would wait and see as there is no rush. Shiva dragon may help in ranking dungeons, but yomi d is a safe 10% and you are probably not going to jump from 23% to crowns anyway.
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my thoughts/advice:
i have a 2 account system like ‘tastic but A is much more developed than B (450 v 170). A has yomidragon and will get dathena but I’m not sure what to do with B. Don’t have box for or really want Ra dragon, my goal would be dathena on both. However I’m also short on MP on B for Dathena (by about 200K, so not too much) but my B teams aren’t developed enough farm MP. So that’s my dilemma, not strong enough to farm MP for DA, or could buy yomidragon as a “placeholder” but seems like a waste. Or, I could run DA on A with reincarnated Haku (x4.5 ATK) on B team whose LS is not incongruous with athena’s. Do you think that team (DAthena x reiHaku) is solid enough to farm MP (rouges, arena1)?
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I would not buy Yomi D as a placeholder if your goal is Dark Athena
Does your alt account have Persephone? That would be the best pairing and Haku X DA is also reasonable and both should be capable of farming MP.
What teams does your alt currently have? Is there no current pairing that can farm Linthia or Z8?
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I’m so jealous of how much MP you have :’) I need to build up my fiance’s Dios army so I can start farming for MP more regularly. I farm with a guy on the forums on a spotty basis, need to do it more
Grats on the Shiva Dragon!
I’m definitely picking up Dark Athena after that I’ll have about 160,000 MP left. The red Puppeteer is a pretty core sub for doing high-end dungeons with Awoken Leilan but that would be more for fun factor and I don’t really have the time or MP to spare for building up what is ultimately a fun luxury. I’ll see though, the Reincarnated Chinese are making me REALLY excited (aside from Sakuya anyways).
Hopefully the flower series gets super ults in the next few months, if they are very good I might finally find a reason to convince myself to buy Xiu Min ❤
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Will u do a article on the upcoming evangilene collab machine?
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Should be done before Monday!
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Question: Can you bless me with some thoughts on this D. Athena Team? D.Athena/Halloween Chiyome/ D.L Satsuki/ Dark Kanna/ Grida.
Should I buy Dark Athena with this dark box of those monsters and… The dark cyberdragon wbo creates rightmost dark row, zaegrog infinity, Grisar, and virtually almost all near endgame subs. Should I switch out Halloween Chiyome with zaegrog? Or sonia gran? (Both sonia grans) Any good non zaegrog Water and dark attributed monsters? Thanks.
Also, does Paimon andd Trailokyavijawa have potential? Plus, when do you think Saria will be buffed?
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Not a huge fan of Satsuki as she removes water orbs. Chiyome, Kanna, and Grida are all great subs and its just Satsuki who is lacking overall
Paimon is a situational sub for various light teams and Trailo is a niche gravity card.
No idea when Saria will be buffed
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Much like everyone else who has commented I’m torn between yomidragon, shivadragon or just waiting since I’ll be purchasing dathena when she comes out. I’ll have enough for dathena and one more. My biggest dilemma is that I have 2 regular shivas and can reincarnate one to use as lead. Would it better to just go with yomidra and use reincarnated shiva instead of spending 300k MP on shivadragon? Or just waiting and save the 300k MP to see if they release something better in the future.
Current leads-Myr and sarasvati still
Future lead-dathena
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Do you have an ideal home/fit for Yomi Dragon? If yes, it may be wise to pick her up and take advantage of her now
If lacking an ideal home for her, perhaps hold off and wait. Shiva Dragon is nice, but somewhat of a luxury
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Thanks for responding. I have several good subs for her. 2x akechi, eschamali,2x awoken Persephone,2x awoken Haku, 2x okunushi, 2x zuoh, Durga, typhon. But I wasn’t sure if I should wait to see if we get dathena this month and hold off if I get dathena since I’ll probably use dathena in most situations over yomidra? What are your thoughts on yomidra’ usefulness if I were to have a good dathena team? I’ve noticed that most mp dragons seem to be released 2 months after JP so I’m hoping dathena comes on 3/20 since t was released 1/20 in JP
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Well you do have the 3 core Yomi Dragon subs, she is a viable purchase overall.
As for Yomi D vs DA, you also have the key subs for DA as well. DA will clear more content overall compared to YD so it may come down to your playstyle preference along with ability to farm MP
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Hey Mantastic, I’m that guy who dropped by and loved your fb page! Just wondering if you’d mind helping me look at my current pad situation on reddit:
Thanks for commenting!
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When the dust clears from the free MP, i will likely be be short of my goal for Dark Athena by at most 80k. At that point i will likely take a hard look at my box and see if there are any dupes i can get rid of to get me to that 750k plateau.
i don’t think i need 6 Sumires. I will likely hang onto 5 so i can form the full system. But i also have a Skuld and A Isis to finish that Sumire semi-system. So that might be a better option.
I also don’t think i need 3 Sherias. Or 3 Light Kalis. Each one of those is worth 15k. So while i don’t like liquidating my box, i do think i have some areas where i can freely sell some things.
I am in the same boat as you as the only MP monsters I have purchased are Yomidra and Shivdra. You however probably have the evo mats for both of them whereas I am quite far away for both. Hopefully when the evo dungeons for each of them come i can field a viable team.
So Dark Athena will likely be my next purchase. Looking forward to it too as I think i have some great subs for her.
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You can also start tackling Rogue Descends to acquire MP. We have no idea on the release date so we most likely have a fair amount of time to prep
As for your numerous dupe situation, I cannot think of any reason to have 6+ of a card
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I have the evangelion Kali but no d/f kali what is good for a monster with a fire element which has the god type for my ra dragon team ( not maxed evo yet)
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Ariel is a strong candidate
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Dark Athena has come and gone. With all of your multiplayer gaming I am sure your MP are on their way back up. I haven’t heard of any other purchasable monsters coming down the pipes; so what are you looking at doing with your MP points now? Do you think it is worthwhile to just keep saving them until you have to spend?
I am sitting at about 550 000 and was debating on either Odin Dragon(attacker variant) or Ragnarok Dragon. I feel like it should be ok to spend now as it doesn’t sound like Japan has even gotten anything new to purchase.
Have you heard any rumors of more MP monsters?
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I am simply saving them for the next “big thing” At this point in time, I would not purchase anyone unless you can absolutely benefit from Ra Dragon, Yomi Dragon, or Dark Athena. Even then, they are all starting to falter
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