Hello! If you’re reading this, then you’re either brand new to Puzzle and Dragons, or a follower of the site who already knows exactly what PAD is; in which case you’re free to keep reading, but this article might not interest you that much as it’s going to be the first of many articles we put out that are more geared to explaining Puzzle and Dragons to newer people. Yes, we do have the Missing Manual which PDX put out last year, however we intend to take various parts from that guide and expand on them with more detail and even our own thoughts on different aspects of PAD. The official “About” page for Puzzle and Dragons can be found here!

Puzzles and Dragons…

…is a mobile based Puzzle Role Playing Game where you control a team of up to six monsters (hereby referred to as “cards”), and enter dungeons with the intent on clearing them in hopes of earning rewards ranging from other cards, in-game currency, player and card EXP, evo materials, and even event exclusive items such as Rainbow Event Medals.

Here, the player earned Coins, Rank EXP, and four cards from completing this dungeon.

Before you begin…

There are a few things you should know; the first being that Puzzle and Dragons does have premium currency (known as Magic Stones ), which are used to summon most of the games best cards. That being said, it’s not necessarily a “pay to win” game. Yes, the more you roll the more chances you get at getting powerful cards, but even with the best cards in the game, you do need the player skill to use them effectively; just because you have the “meta defining” leader to use, doesn’t meant you’ll suddenly clear the hardest dungeons. Starting out, you won’t exactly be the best player; but after some time of playing and practicing, you’ll slowly start to come into your own.

The second is that even though the game is called “Puzzle and Dragons”, it’s not at all related to “Dungeons and Dragons” (though a D&D collab would be really cool imo), and not all of the good cards are Dragon type, and you don’t need to have Dragon type cards on your team to make it good. For example, the card below is a God and Attacker type, and is also a strong card:

You can tell his typing by looking below the cards name!

It’s also important to continue working on your box and focus on expanding your library of cards. Don’t sell ANYTHING you get from the Rare Egg Machines (the machines that require to pull from). Instead, just collect cards and play around for a while. After you’ve built up a small collection, feel free to reach out to one of the various Puzzle and Dragons communities and ask for help. It can be daunting, but trust me as long as you’re willing to ask, listen, and (most importantly) learn, then the other members of the community are willing to help! Take what we say and use it to further reinforce your own thought processing of the game; doing this is key and will take you far.

How to play

As mentioned before, players form teams of monsters consisting of at least one leader and up to four other monsters (known as “subs”) that work together in an effort to clear the many dungeons that reside within the game. These subs should all work along side the leader in an effort to activate the leader’s “Leader Skill”; which provides Attack, Recovery, HP, and even Shield bonuses to your team.

The team above is put together so the subs mesh well with the leader’s “Leader Skill”; more on that in another article.

In dungeons, players are responsible for matching orbs in groups of three or more to cause their cards to attack as long as that card has an element that matches the element of the orbs that were cleared. Players can, and are encouraged to, match more than one group of orbs to make “combos”, which increase your cards damage output (There’s a lot more that goes into how much damage a card does, but that will be discussed another time~).

Here, I managed to match 8 sets of orbs to get an 8 Combo (The x240 multiplier will vary from leader to leader)

After the game performs in game calculations, my monsters total damage will display over their icon.

In short, players make teams and take on dungeons which get progressively more difficult as the game goes on; ultimately going up to complete difficult dungeons such as the Arenas, Colosseum, and One Shot Challenges…. but for now work on getting through your normal dungeons and practice honing your skills. Remember, We were all new at some point!

I hope this was helpful, and more beginner articles are coming soon!

Helpful Links

Blogging Mama Resource Page – Resources for both the NA and JP version of the game can be found here. This page has a comprehensive list of resources to make your experience with Puzzle and Dragons MUCH easier.
PDX Discord – The official discord server of PuzzleDragonX
PAD Community Discord – The largest Discord server for Puzzle and Dragons.
Reddit – The Subreddit for Puzzle and Dragons!