By Lucvend. 

My referral link: coinhunt.gsc.im/ckWxf1j6Sa

I love hunting during the events as they often bring in new game mechanics, awesome new items, cubies and blueprints, and foremost they are so much fun. So when the announcement came that the Hawaii event was coming back, I immediately wanted to tickle the tickler box at the end of the quest chain. Knowing that it would be different from last year and having taken part in the previous event, I knew that lots of preparation would be needed. 

First, I did an evaluation of my situation. I started by looking at my key inventory. At that time, the Chinese New Year event had just ended. My key count was low having bought the Yellow Dragon BP in the Auction House for a red key since I did not get the drop. I assumed that the Hawaii event would have a quest chain similar to the previous events requiring 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 red. Additionally I needed to have enough keys to open lots of vaults taking into account the keybooths would disappear soon (remember this was in mid february). So I estimated I needed at least the equivalent of 2 red keys to start the event. So stacking keys will be the immediate priority.

How will I stack keys? I looked at my item inventory for what I could sell. I have lots of variety but I am hesitant in selling them because the CHW team tends to throw us a curveball and reuse the items for other stuff. Also they keep hinting at combining cubies for better stats whatever that means. So massive selling was out of the question, and hunting for keys was the only way. 

I live in a Montreal suburb with a total player count of 5 but with only 33 uservaults. Vault density is not very high so the hunt is not that efficient in vaults per hour. I have about 5 green vaults in a 7km radius and the closest yellow vault is in Old Montreal. There were about 25 key booths at a reasonable distance from my HQ, not enough to stack 2 red keys quickly. So if I want to be competitive in any way, I have to adapt my hunting strategy accordingly.

First decision was to not hit system blue vaults at all. The bonus key return is not great and often results in a negative key growth at the end of the hunt. I also decided at that time to not hit uservaults as well until my key inventory is at least 300 blue keys. For me it is a psychological level that allows flexible hunting at any time. Also I expanded my hunting to include collecting keys on my way to work where I can gather 50 more blue keys per day. As you can imagine, I reached the 300 blues within a week. 

By that time, Illusionweaver announced that the Hawaii Event would involve RNG blueprints like the Cats. I knew exactly that meant lots of green keys. The best way to get green keys without selling in the Auction House is hitting uservaults. The key hunting route had a few uservaults. I also looked at Anakura's Coinhuntmap.com to determine an optimized hunting route. The bonus key return of uservaults including a fair return of green keys would allow me to open uservaults on the new route while keeping key positive at the end. But I imposed on myself a rule: I will not forge up keys until I reach the goal of 1000 blue keys because that means I would have at least 1 red key equivalent. It did take me a few weeks to reach that goal but my stack of greens grew steadily. Obviously I did all my buddy quests. I tried to do them quickly to squeeze in as many BQ  as possible until the event. 

I reached the 1000 blue keys goal around the April 1st Hunter's Hangout. When the details of the event were made public, I realized that I was on the right track to finish the event. But 27 different Tiki Warriors?!?! I figured I needed to buy at least 50 RNG Tiki Warrior BP to have a chance of getting them all. I need at least 100 green keys. From then on, I knew I would have to open as many uservaults as possible. I also needed to forge up all the blue keys beyond my 1000 goal. I built my stack of greens to 100. At that point I also realized that I may need a few yellows to potentially hit the Montreal Yellow vault once or during the event (I didn't know at that time green and yellow vaults did not matter much in the event). So for a while I forged up any green keys above 100 greens to a number of at least 12 yellow keys. 

About 2 weeks before the start of the event, I had reached my key stack goals of 3 red key equivalents with at least 1000 blues, about 150 greens and 12 yellows. Around that time, beans started to be spilled in Discord with details about an effort based quest chain and also some hints at ressources required to print the cubies. Flowers will be important and previous Hawaii cubies will be helpful. 

Fortunately, I had bought a Hula BP a few months ago and printed one. I was set for that one. . No point in looking for the Chill as it was not returning and I suspected rightfully that it won't be useful. I started to look at buying the Surf Cubie in the Auction House. I wanted to use any keys beyond my stacking goal to accumulate resources needed for the event. However, the demand for the Surf Cubie was too high so I couldn't get it. But I did manage to buy 1000 red leis, I figured that amount would be enough to print at least the rare cubie. I did not buy hibiscus and plumeria flowers because I had a few hundreds of each in my inventory already. 

In the few days before the event, I considered taking a few days off from work to hunt to have a chance for getting the top 5 NFTs but decided against it. There was too high of a chance that that feat would be achieved quickly by the Toronto and Vancouver hunters. Obviously I was right (Lionlocks is crazy to have achieved that on the first day). 

When the event started, I was relieved to see that my assessment was right and that I had a real chance of finishing the event. I had the keys, and a fair amount of resources to kickstart me. I calculated that I needed to open at least 150 vaults per day taking into account I may have slower days. My daily hunting route had about that number. I was all set. 

I hunted everyday with my girlfriend Flyppers in our neighborhood completing the walking quests as well. I made sure to get the first 100 block unlock on the first day and print that first Tiki so that the Chief is happy.  All in all it was going well getting the vaults on the way to work. But I had decided one thing, I will not open the red key block in the quest chain before having the resources for the epic BP. So I managed to unlock the 300 vault by the 6th getting the Sneaky Seal BP. At that point I realized that I was not getting anthurium flowers quick enough. So if I printed the Seal right away, I may not have enough anthurium for the Turtle Cubie. It was then that I decided that I would print the Surf Cubie instead, thus giving me more chances to have enough anthurium. I also started to look at buying more in the Auction House, but they were not cheap. I was able to buy 145 of them, not much but it helped. I was doing well with Turtle shells having 3 drops quickly. I was confident I would get them. But I did buy one in the Auction House just in case. 

By the time it was the 8th of May, I realized that getting enough anthurium would be tight. I asked Flyppers if I could hunt hard on Tuesday after work in Montreal's Lafontaine Park area. The density of uservaults there is insane and would give me a higher vaults per hour rate. Flyppers is not hunting as hard as I am, did not prepare the event as I did and quickly realized that she would not be able to finish the quest chain. Being a 'sport' she accepted. The time spent there paid off as I was able to get the anthurium I needed to print the Turtle as I went back home. So at 10PM I pulled over at my printshop to unlock the quest chain blocks, print the Cubies and finally tickle the tickler with 2 days to spare. It gave me Warty Toads, Magical Fabric, Fire Crystals, cinnamon sticks (darn it), purple paint and the coveted Hawaii HQ Skin. Not bad. The rest of the event I continued to play casually in order to gather more resources.

All in all, I am quite satisfied with the event. It was lots of fun. I really like the quest chain with a number of vaults to open. The RNG was still brutal in getting the resources needed to unlock. I also liked having an option to use a cubie from last year instead of the new Sneaky Seal Cubie otherwise I would not have been able to finish the event without spending a huge amount of keys to buy more anthurium in the Auction House.

So here are the lessons learned:

• Events need to be planned in advance. Decide which event you want to do and play accordingly.
• Get as much information as you can on the chosen event. Small details may be a determining factor. No events are exactly the same
• Get cubies and resources from last year’s event. This will save you time and energy.
• Stack the equivalent of 3 red keys (not forged). This will provide you the flexibility needed to adapt for unexpected developments.
• If you want the top 5 NFTs, you’ll need to have all the keys and as much of the resources as possible. Then hunt HARD, VERY HARD.

Hopefully this article will help you better prepare yourself for the next event!

Happy Hunting!