Getting to 30 - Getting Over the Triple Triad Beginner's Hurdle

"Why 30 cards?", you ask. When you collect 30 different Triple Triad cards, your deck capacity recieves an upgrade. You'll be able to add 2* cards to your hand in any number, meaning only 3*+ cards are restricted. While a similar extension exists at 60 cards (3* becomes unlimited), hitting 30 massively increases the strength of your hand, and will enable you to reasonably face basically every NPC opponent in the game.

Before getting this upgrade, you'll be struggling to defeat a number of your opponents, and some may be near impossible. Afterwards, however, it's all within your grasp! Hitting 30 is the first major milestone of your Triple Triad career, but it can be daunting to escape the launch pad, so to speak. So here's some things to consider!

All cards in this are listed as Name (#). The # refers to the number of stars. I am moderately certain right now that cards with higher stars are less likely to drop. This doesn't mean it's impossible to get these cards right away - but five star cards are probably not where I'd look for drops when heading to 30.

INITIAL CARDS AND STRATEGY

Get your first five cards from the tutorial at the Golden Saucer.

Your major objective is, first off, to diversify your options. While your initial deck will serve you very well in dealing with opponents that have Plus, that won't count for too many opponents. You will want to secure yourself one 3*+ card (most obtain Godbert Manderville from King Elmer, then move on from there), to serve as your real powerhouse. You'll also want alternative cards for situations where 3s and 4s just aren't going to cut it. 1* cards that have 6s or 7s - Tonberry, Chocobo, Amal'jaa, Ixal, Kobold, Tataru Taru, and Moogle. Take a look at these and try to secure them to give you some 'offensive power' against better equipped foes, even if by a bit.

There's a good explanation of various rules, including Plus, here.

PURCHASING WITH MGP

There are a total of 22 different cards that can drop from the Card Packs. The packs are relatively cheap and effective. The Bronze pack in particular is easily refreshed. Pay at the MGP counter to get up to 500 MGP; collect 20 more MGP from, well, anything - then buy a pack. Refresh your MGP back up to 500. Etc etc - this effectively makes a bronze card pack cost 5000 gil and a couple minute's effort. I would not spend forever trying to get every single Bronze pack card however, as every card there is obtainable in other ways, and generally fairly easy too.

Silver pack cards are very useful, although, again, most of them are obtainable elsewhere through one means or another; you may also score one of three 3*+ cards here which are great for starting your deck off. Finally, as you might expect, the Gold packs are where you're more likely to get cards you won't easily get your hands on pre-30 - but cost a significant chunk of MGP, and every card in them is 2*+, meaning they'll see less actual use.

While this is technically enough to get you very, very close to 30 cards from this alone, it's not realistic to expect to win some of the rarer cards from these packs. Eventually you'll put in the work for them, but for now, use these to suppliment.

Cards listed with * appear to ONLY be obtainable from the packs based on current knowledge. Everything else can be won from someone else, although not all of them are going to be easy.

Bronze: Spriggan (1), Pudding (1), Coblyn (1), Goobue (1), Scarface Bugaal Ja (2), Behemoth (3)
Silver: Amalj'aa (1), Sylph (1), Kobold (1), Tataru Taru (1), Ixal (1), Urianger (3), Minfillia (4), Lahabrea (4*)
Gold: Mother Miounne (2), Momodi Modi (2), Baderon Tenfingers (2), Gerolt (2), Ultima (4), Cid Garlond (4), Warrior of Light (5*), Zidane Tribal (5*)

There are a number of additional cards you can purchase with MGP. I do not suggest buying cards directly with MGP. Barring Nanamo Ul Namo (5) and Cloud Strife (5) - which are well outside your likely price range - all of these cards can be obtained relatively easily by winning them from opponents, and I highly suggest you do so and buy packs instead.

If (or rather when) you recieve duplicates of cards you already have, either from packs or from NPCs, you can sell them an NPC in the Card Square for MGP.

CARDS YOU CAN GET AS DROPS

Cards can drop from a variety of dungeons and trials. They are not guaranteed, however, your skill at Triple Triad (or lack thereof) and your current lack of cards in no way influence your ability to recieve these drops. Remember, lower star drops seem to be more common.

Cards with a * indicate that the only confirmed way to get these cards right now is from these dungeons/trials, so you'll want to win them eventually. Cards with a ! indicate that this card is on an opponent who is very likely to be very difficult for you right now. This doesn't mean impossible - lucky Regional Rules or simply lucky draws may make it possible. But they are from opponents you will likely only want to face once you have full 2* access.

Tonberry (1*) - Wanderer's Palace (Normal and Hard)
Morbol (1) - Aurum Vale
Ahriman (1*) - Dzemael Darkhold
Sahagin (1*) - Sastasha (Normal and Hard)
Siren (2*) - Pharos Sirius
Ultros & Typhon (2) - Dragon's Neck (Can also drop Terra's card)
Demon Wall (2*) - Amdapor Keep (Normal and Hard)
Succubus (2) - Haukke Manor (Normal and Hard)
Chimera (2*) - Cutter's Cry
Blue Dragon (2) - Stone Vigil (Normal and Hard)
Livia Sas Junius (2!) - Castrum Meridanium
Rhitahtyn sas Arvina (2!) - Cape Westwind
Gilgamesh & Enkidu (3*) - Battle on the Big Bridge
Ifrit, Titan, Garuda, Good King Moggle Mog XIII (3!) - their various Hard/Extreme trials
Odin, Ramuh, Leviathan, Shiva (4!) - their various Hard/Extreme trials
Ultima Weapon (4) - The Minstrel's Ballad: Ultima's Bane
Gaius van Baelsar (5!) - Praetorium
Onion Knight (5*) - World of Darkness
Terra Branford (5*) - Dragon's Neck (Can also drop Ultros & Typhon)
Bartz Klauser (5*) - Battle in the Big Keep

BEATING PEOPLE UP FOR THEIR STUFF

There are presently 32 NPCs throughout Eorzea you can face to obtain cards. To be frank with you, some are straight up out of your league right now. But only some.

Regional Rules are a huge assist to this. The Regional Rules of each area change every day (in real time). While I would not normally recommend facing, say, the Indolent Imperial in Mor Dhona with a 1* deck, if the Regional Rule happens to be Plus or Reverse? Go for it and win you a bunch of really nifty cards!

Note that the majority of low level drops overlap with a card pack, dungeon drop, or direct purchase, but this isn't a bad thing. It's also entirely possible that these opponents may drop more cards than have been confirmed so far. I'll try to keep this up to date.

Easy opponents
(These opponents have decks largely consisting of 1* cards, and so you can face them reasonably with your starter deck and maybe one or two additional cards)
Gold Saucer, Triple Triad Master: Spriggan (1) (You'll be going through the tutorial again each time however)
Gold Saucer, Jonas of the Three Spades: Ixal (1), Moogle (1)
Gold Saucer, Guhtwint of the Three Diamonds: Chocobo (1), Scarface Bugaal Ja (2) (Plus)
New Gridania, Maisenta: Sylph (1), Coblyn (1)
Central Thanalan, Roger: Pudding (1), Morbol (1)
Upper La Noscea, Memeroon: Amalj'aa (1), Memeroon (2*)

Mid level recommended opponents
(These opponents have hands largely consisting of 2* cards, and don't regularly have Plus. You can likely still beat them soundly if you've obtained some cards with 5/6s or have other favourable Regional Rules in effect)
New Gridania, Mother Miounne: Goobue (1), Mother Miounne (2)
Ul'dah, Wymond: Coblyn (1)
Ul'dah, Momodi: Momodi Modi (2)
Western Thanalan, Fufulupa: Thancred (3)
Central Thanalan, F'hobhas: Mutamix Bubblypots (2*)
Eastern La Noscea, Gegeruju: Y'shtola (3), Minfilia (4) (Guaranteed swap, which exchanges one of your cards with his at random and is 90% in your favour; once you have a good card of your own his weak AI is easy to beat)

Tricky recommended opponents
(These opponents have very powerful cards, but always have rules you can use to your advantage! Use your starter deck or similar cards when facing Plus and reap the benefits)
Gold Saucer, King Elmer: Godbert Manderville (3), Bahamut (5*) (Cards are strong, but Plus is active. Your initial deck can occasionally win once you understand Plus' functionality)
Limsa Lominsa, R'ashaht Rhiki: Y'shtola (3), Leviathan (4), Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn (5*) (2PM-7PM Eorzea Time only. Powerful cards, but again, Plus)
North Shroud, Sezul Totoloc: Biggs & Wedge (2), Behemoth (3), Cid Garlond (4) (May be time and Ixal reputation sensitive, nobody's 100% sure of the specifics yet. Always has Plus. Reliable victory strategy)

Remember that there are always more possible opponents depending on Regional Rules; and even without Regional Rules I was able to squeak out wins against several other NPCs before hitting 30. That doesn't mean I would farm them for cards, but it was possible, and you never know!


For a full covering of where to get every card, or what ever NPC drops, please see some of the reference materials, as they're likely more up to date than this (even though I'll try to keep this fresh!):
* FFXIVTriad.com
* Trevoni Mikh'to's spreadsheet
* A Realm Reblog's card/NPC list

Got advice? Suggestions to players? Feel free to help out!

Thank you very much for this write up. Gives me something to do now when deciding what to run when I am done with dailies. Keep it up. Possibly we can keep this going with updates to confirm / add drop locations and NPCs.

Cheers!

this site is also really good. (not mine but i use it)

http://a-realm-reblog.com/arrtt/npc-location

Ah, I knew I forgot one! Thanks. If anyone else has more links that'd be amazingly useful!

And yes, I hope to keep this relatively updated. We're still finding out quite a few drop locations afterall and there may also be some misinformation or otherwise unconfirmed reports going around, so as that all clears up hopefully this can get better and better.

Thank you for all the info on the card packs! There is a thread on beating the Ixali NPC Sezul i have posted a link it of the patterns he uses and everything so ppl can farm it :) the whole thread is filled with info!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...r-starter-deck

useful list i keep watching

So you can get both Warrior of Light and Onion Knight from WoD? I know what I need to run then

Awesome post, was kinda lost on how I would get all those 30 cards, but doesn't seem too hard anymore

Awesome guide, it will be really helpfull for a lot of people! Myself included :)

I'm also leaving a little bit of infos to help you complete the guide ;)

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Originally Posted by Garlyle

North Shroud, Sezul Totoloc: Biggs & Wedge (2), Behemoth (3), Cid Garlond (4) (Only available if you have max Ixal rank. Always has Plus. Reliable victory strategy)

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I can confirm that you do not need the maximum Ixal rank to challenge him. I'm currently at the begining of the 6th rank and I did challenge him 2 or 3 times while I was doing dailies but when I came back 40 - 45 minutes later I could not challenge him again.
My guess is that he sits on a timer and may have a minimum reputation required but you definitly don't need to have the max Ixal rank.

thank you this was seriously helpful ;)

What happens when you get a double? As it tells me I already have the card unlocked and they aren't sellable or tradeable.
Guess you can't have two of the same card in the same deck.

Great guide by the way!

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Originally Posted by Slapped_Silly

What happens when you get a double? As it tells me I already have the card unlocked and they aren't sellable or tradeable.
Guess you can't have two of the same card in the same deck.

Great guide by the way!

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You can sell extras to the NPC that sells the Bronze/Silver/Gold packs.

how is the guy in eastern la tricky? hes one of the easiest. if you have one good card, as long as he doesnt swap that one, then you end up with a better deck you started with. plus he plays like shit lol. i beat him like 90% of the time.

also just throwing it out there, but i got lahabrea, a 4 star, from a silver. i wouldnt buy golds until you have pretty much all of the low and mid level cards. im willing to bet gold gives a possible 5 star based on what silver gives, but not confirmed yet, so it might be worth it. however, since you can only use 1 5 star card, maybe its not worth the 2k gp and just buy 2 silvers instead. youll have bahamut and then squall pretty early and those are both great cards

also, the gc guy at gridania seems tough at first, but once you get 30 cards, and have some beastmen, hes really easy. with the accension rule, stock up on 2* beastmen and you should win a lot (this goes for the guy just above n than entrance leading to mor dhona, he has 4 great cards you should win somewhat easy if u have 30 cards/all beastmen and squall/bahamut). the la noscea gc guy is pretty easy bc of plus. the only tough one is uldah bc swift uses chaos and op cards and it just blows lol

I'm confused by the OP, we have to card battle Primals and the bosses of the Castrums? What? They have an ! next to the card level.

Gaius' card seems to drop from the Imperial in Mor Dhona as well. One of my FC mate got it that way. But he is Lalafell, so could be a troll... (although he does have it).

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Originally Posted by 10TailBeast

I'm confused by the OP, we have to card battle Primals and the bosses of the Castrums? What? They have an ! next to the card level.

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The card can randomly drop from fighting those primals / duties. The ! means that it is also possible to obtain the card from beating a high level TT opponent (see the websites referred to for details). The OP is saying that it is probably easiest to get the card from the primal / duty, unless you already have a powerful deck to take on the TT opponents.

This is a very helpful post, but I would like to add some input. I have already beaten 30 NPC's to get Squall and my deck has 36 cards in it as of today.


The only error I see in the OP is that the Bronze, Silver, Gold triad packs equal up to a total of 22 cards, not 24. If you notice on the tooltip description of the packs, it tells you that you can get one random card out of 8, for a silver pack. Bronze pack only has 6 possibilities, while Silver/Gold both have 8.

Also, I would add Fufulupa into the easy section (Horizon NPC). I don't remember his rule sets off the top of my head (I think it has a Swap mechanic...) but I was able to beat him with my starter deck. He can drop you a nice Thancred (3*) to give your deck a bit of oomph to beat a harder opponent.

I will also echo what Kimura wrote. Gegeruju in Costa del Sol shouldn't be in the tricky section. After you get the Thancred card I outlined, Gegeruju has a Swap mechanic so as long as the card he swaps isn't your high card, you stand a very good chance at beating him, or at the very least getting a draw. Gegeruju is also a very awesome way to stockpile some MGP (110 per win) so you can purchase Silver decks. He also drops a Y'shtola and a Minfilia card. You will likely use Minfilia all the way up to 30 unique cards unless you get real lucky with a better drop on your way there. (I didn't lol)

Everything else is pretty spot on. You definitely want to work on stockpiling the 1/2* cards first as they are the easiest to obtain. Just getting to that 30 card tier gives you a huge improvement in your decks integrity against harder opponents and allows you to win much more frequently.


Also there was a question about the WoL and Onion Knight dropping from WoD. I'm pretty sure Warrior of Light was reported as a drop only from Gold Triad tier packs....but if anyone has confirmed WoL can drop in WoD I would like to know!

Thank you for making this guide Garlyle!

I just started playing Triple Triad and am working my way through the "Easy Opponents" (I am stuck on Roger though)

I'm having a lot of fun while waiting for the Duty Finder

Am I right in thinking, with duplicate cards, there is no other option than to discard them?

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Originally Posted by Interstella

Am I right in thinking, with duplicate cards, there is no other option than to discard them?

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You can trade them for MGP. The npc who does the trade is the bunny girl just next to the Triple Triad Tutorial NPC

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Originally Posted by Larvitan

You can trade them for MGP. The npc who does the trade is the bunny girl just next to the Triple Triad Tutorial NPC

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I heard that top-end cards could trade for as much as 600gp, too.

I am not even 50 yet and I am wondering if I should spend my time playing cards or leveling haha..

I may get some of the cards from drops as I run dungeons right?

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Originally Posted by Kimura410

snip

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Ascension is godly if you can fill your roster (or half/half). Beastmen or Imperial seem to be the go-to for 2-star, I guess because you can't really have primals or scions (besides just Garuda and Tataru) until 3-star deck.

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Originally Posted by Slapped_Silly

I am not even 50 yet and I am wondering if I should spend my time playing cards or leveling haha..

I may get some of the cards from drops as I run dungeons right?

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Well to be honest, depending on what you choose to do in the end, that'll determine how much time you "should" spend. In the end, just do what you want man lol. Just think of it as side-questing in a normal FF game.

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Originally Posted by EinherjarLucian

I heard that top-end cards could trade for as much as 600gp, too.

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I can confirm that a 4 star trade in is worth 200 GP. I got my first double of Minfilia yesterday. I've only gotten one 5 star (not including Squall in this) and it was Merlwyb from the time-based NPC in the Limsa GC spot. But I've heard that a 5* trade-in can be worth as much as 1000GP? I'm not 100% on that number but I saw a post yesterday saying the person has acquired multiple Bahamuts and made "thousands of MGP" selling back the duplicates.

Whew! Thank you all for your input. I've made a number of little tweaks/corrections a few of you brought up, and am glad this has been useful to everyone.

I'll note specifically that Gegeruju was shifted into Medium mostly because I wouldn't really expect people to beat him with the starter deck alone; Medium's the tier I've used for "you'll want to get a couple upgrades elsewhere first". But yeah, he is kinda hilariously easy once you have a good 3*+ of your own to wield against him, due to Swap.

Super useful and much appreciated! I had a pretty good idea of what I intended to do, but needed the insight into NPCs, their difficulty, and their drops.

Edit; I actually farmed Gegeruju with the starter deck + Chocobo (1*) to get Minfilia

Ill see if I can get a timer on Sezul Totoloc. Just reached Sworn earlier today and before that he would say something along the lines of not having time to play games while theres work yet to be done. But if it stops playing afterwards, there may be a timer (as well, or just a timer)

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

Ill see if I can get a timer on Sezul Totoloc. Just reached Sworn earlier today and before that he would say something along the lines of not having time to play games while theres work yet to be done. But if it stops playing afterwards, there may be a timer (as well, or just a timer)

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I'm moderately certain there's a variable timer based on rank with Sezul. I have a friend who was rank 5 who was unable to duel Sezul - literally while I was standing there farming him freely. The specifics are just unknown yet because of the variables involved.

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Originally Posted by Garlyle

I'm moderately certain there's a variable timer based on rank with Sezul. I have a friend who was rank 5 who was unable to duel Sezul - literally while I was standing there farming him freely. The specifics are just unknown yet because of the variables involved.

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Ah that would make sense. Didnt have any problems farming him earlier today either, and so far (12 EZ hours later) none either. Im guessing there isnt any timer at max rep then.

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Originally Posted by Aeyis

Ah that would make sense. Didnt have any problems farming him earlier today either, and so far (12 EZ hours later) none either. Im guessing there isnt any timer at max rep then.

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It seems quite logical to not have any time when we reach max Ixal rank since the work on the ship is over. And when we can't challenge him he says something like :
- I can't play right now I'm thinking about work.

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Originally Posted by EinherjarLucian

I heard that top-end cards could trade for as much as 600gp, too.

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It's true for Bahamut at least.

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Originally Posted by Necato

It's true for Bahamut at least.

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Yeah, probably true across the board. I got a double of Merlwyb yesterday and it sold for 600gp also.

I've got Onion Knight, 5 star card from Siren at Pharos Sirius, if you want to add it to the list :)

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Originally Posted by Matty86

I've got Onion Knight, 5 star card from Siren at Pharos Sirius, if you want to add it to the list :)

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Wait, really? Onion Knight from Pharos? I've never read of anyone reporting that before (I don't check very often though).

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Originally Posted by Matty86

I've got Onion Knight, 5 star card from Siren at Pharos Sirius, if you want to add it to the list :)

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ive ran pharos 20+ times for zodiac since patch n seen only siren card drop on 4 occasions 3 out of the 4 party members dropped the card doubtful onion knight drops there without providing proof

nvm I've found it in my inventory just after killing Siren, but I've probably got it from a WoD run I did before and didn't notice...

Any clue if there's card pack functionality besides RNG?... With a 1/8 chance at each card in a gold pack, I'm wondering why after hours of grinding I've gotten 4 straight Gerolts. The odds of that happening are ridiculous if it's really 1/8. Totally done with this trash. Better off doing dungeons/trials for cards than grinding the actual game you play with them... (which makes complete sense right?..) /ugh

Anyone know if doing the EX primals has a better drop rate on their cards than HM Primals? Prolly not enough data for that.

I think the whole ranking system needs to be redone. 30 cards is a lot for a beginner who doesn't know much about triple triad. IMO the first rank should be at 20 and the others adjusted accordingly.

Here's why. A LOT of the people you play against with a very narrow range of cards to choose from have a lot stronger cards than you do. The only real way to beat a most of them is by exploiting the rule set. Even then, sometimes the odds of winning aren't that great due to RNG. When I have a 1 star deck and 1 good card and the opponent has 2 3 stars, a 4 star and a 5 star that's not very fair is it?

I think the NPC's should play by the same rules we do.

I also think that HM/Dungeon card drops should be at least 50% if not 100%. A 10% or less drop rate is crazy when you have to have a set number of cards to even be relatively competitive.

Been running like 15 WP HM / NM last 2 days and Tonberry doesnt want to drop. Is the droprate for HM and NM the same? Anyone got it or any other card from the NM? It's making me crazy

unfortunately, data on drop rates, card pack rates, etc., is something we don't have yet. Few people are properly reporting card drops to begin with (See the person who thought Onion Knight was dropped in Sirius). So we don't know if there's differences between Normal/Hard dungeon drop rates (or Hard/Extreme Primals). I suspect that card packs are not evenly weighted towards each card (ie the chance of Warrior of Light from a gold pack is likely much less than 1/8), but who knows.