Modern Games

Introduction

When I first started playing PAD, Skill Up and Great/Super rates were a 10% chance to succeed and waiting for a 2x event was meaningful. Fast forward to today and it is essentially 100% chance for Great/Super which is fantastic overall but also means we should be mindful of how much EXP we fuse to a given card.

As such, I often try my best to never waste anything and try to fuse just enough so that a Great (which almost always happens) will fully max out the respective card.

With this in mind, I want to “math out” the EXP needed along with common EXP materials you can use to quickly and mindlessly max level a card.

I will only be using on-colour EXP material as it provides 1.5x more EXP and have adjusted the following charts to properly reflect the current EXP fusion values. Furthermore, the values

Introduction

The GungHo Collab: Another Story (Marvel Reskin) makes a debut in North America and comes with a 10 Magic Stone price tag. While this on the more expensive side, all cards feature Weapon Assists which can help offset the pain of rolling a bottom rarity.

GungHo Collab: Another Story is a Reskin of the Marvel Collab that occurred  in JP twice. While we do not have access to the newest evolutions/cards that were present during the second rerun, we did receive the awakenings and some buffs.

This puts us in an unusual place as this event will not be as meaningful compared to the debut and rerun in JP due to the delay and missing some key cards. Furthermore, the 10 Magic Stone price tag is quite hefty considering many of these cards may feel underwhelming.

With that being said, this Reskin uses GungHo IP which leads me to

A ten-year update to our first puzzle post ever.

Solve our logo puzzle online by clicking here or download this PDF to solve offline (go back to the original post for solution tracking).

—————
A few stats for our past decade of puzzles:

2,618 web puzzle posts (389 weeks of content across 10 years), from 78 different authors including our 12 main puzzlemasters;

3,800 book puzzles across 59 distinct collections (with a similarly high number of total authors but where completing that count would take a lot more time);

0 broken puzzles / mistakes in artwork that needed fixing after publication (either online, or in our books), thanks to countless hours from our testing team supporting me and Serkan — mistakes in posts was always a critique

Introduction

The Monster Exchange System is one of the greatest improvements to Puzzle and Dragons as it allows players to convert excess copies of Godfest Exclusives/Event cards for valuable Monsters. This process will consume 4-5 cards each time so it is not a decision that should be made lightly and should only be done when it will improve your current situation.

My general rule of thumb is to always keep at least 2 copies of any given card due to the fact that GungHo has been releasing numerous split evolutions and it is impossible to predict what will be released/buffed next. A great example of this is Valkyrie Ciel who went being an underwhelming card, to having two incredibly powerful evolutions where you would badly want each version.

In this article I will be outlining my thought process towards Monster Exchanging for Halloween Cotton, Elia, and Chakeol before it expires

Introduction

The Sanrio / Hello Kitty Collab returns to North America and comes with a measly 5 Magic Stone price tag. This lower cost enables players to potentially roll more liberally but the largest benefit is using 6* GFE as Trade Fodder. This is wonderful as many other events demand 7* GFE and it is possible players may be swimming in copious amounts of Trade Fodder. With that being said, players should always keep at least 2 copies of any given card as there is always the chance that GungHo will release powerful new evolutions.

While the 6 and 7-star rarity cards do not feature Weapon Assists , the bottom rarity does for almost every card. This can help offset the pain of rolling a Gold egg but at the same time, may make some of the higher rarity cards not as useful if you cannot take advantage of them

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; use tab to alternate between a composite mode for line/edge drawing and a number entry mode.)

Theme: 2×3 Boxes

Author/Opus: This is the 66th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster JinHoo Ahn.

Rules: (Hybrid of Fillomino and Snake Puzzles.) Divide the grid along the boundary lines so that every cell belongs to a snake. A snake is a one-cell-wide path at least two cells long that does not touch itself, not even diagonally. Circled cells must be at one of the ends of a snake. A snake may contain one circled cell, two circled cells, or no circled cells at all. Numbered cells must be part of a snake with a length of exactly that number of

(view directly for a larger image)

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Cross the Streams

Author/Opus: This is the 249th puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Prasanna Seshadri.

Rules: Standard Kakuro Rules. Also, some cells may remain empty but empty cells cannot share an edge with other empty cells.

Difficulty: 5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 15:30, Master = 20:00, Expert = 40:00

Solution: To be posted on our next puzzle post once live.

Note: Follow this link for other Kakuro puzzles. More Kakuro puzzles can be found in Kakuro and Variations by Serkan Yürekli and in The Art of Puzzles 2.

————
Previous Solution: “2 and 3” Parking Lot by Serkan Yürekli: PDF and solving video.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools)

Theme: Parity Lines

Author/Opus: This is the 7th puzzle from guest contributor R. Kumaresan.

Rules: Standard Sudoku rules.

Difficulty: 2.5 stars

Time Standards (highlight to view): Grandmaster = 2:15, Master = 4:30, Expert = 9:00

Solution: To be posted on our next puzzle post once live.

Note: Follow this link for other classic Sudoku. If you are new to this puzzle type, here are our easiest Sudoku to get started on. More classic Sudoku puzzles can be found in The Art of Sudoku, The Art of Sudoku 2 and in our beginner-friendly collection Intro to GMPuzzles by Serkan Yürekli.

————
Previous Solution: “Odd vs. Even” Round Trip by Ashish Kumar: PDF and solving video.

PDF

or solve online (using our beta test of Penpa-Edit tools; in default linex mode: left-click+drag draws line, right click marks X on edge)

Theme: Odd vs. Even

Author/Opus: This is the 103rd puzzle from our contributing puzzlemaster Ashish Kumar.

Rules: Draw a single loop in the grid which may cross itself orthogonally, but otherwise does not touch or retrace itself. The clue numbers to the left/right of the rows indicate the number of squares visited by the nearest section of the loop that travels horizontally in the rows. The clue numbers to the top/bottom of the columns indicate the number of squares visited by the nearest section of the loop that travels vertically in the columns.

Also, see this example:

Difficulty: 2 stars

Time Standards (highlight