The Efficiency Guide

By: Thriefty
So, you just started Merge Dragons and have gotten hooked on to the game. There's plenty of objects to merge, level clears to do and dragons to get. As a newcomer, you can get pretty overwhelmed with all the merge chains available. What are you supposed to do to progress, and are you doing things efficiently? Where are you supposed to spend your dragon gems? These are the questions many newcomers face when they start the game.
This guide is written to help new players progress through the game faster, and perhaps give some tips for veteran players. This guide is also written with the assumption that you already have understood the basic gameplay mechanics, and will not be explaining those.
Before I continue, here is a reminder to NOT spend your precious Dragon Gems before giving this guide a read through. Although dragon gems can help speed up your progress, many ways of using them are inefficient and wasteful.
In your Camp, your progress is measured both by the number of camp stars you have, the amount of land you have unlocked and your progress in your merge chains. Some people also use the number of Wonders of the Dragon World as their yardstick of progress. Camp stars are obtained by clearing camp quests while land is unlocked by getting higher dragon power. Progress through merge chains and wonders are obtained by merging objects.
==To obtain more Camp Stars ***==
The first step to being able to efficiently clearing camp quests is to first look up the upcoming Camp quests. They can be viewed on the Camp Quests page. *** NOTE : As of Version 10.0.0 (15th of February 2023) Camp Quests are permanently replaced by the new Star Quests goal system!
You should be looking at not just your current quests, but the upcoming 5 or so camp quests after you clear your current one. This would allow you to prepare to clear the quest, and also not fall into the trap of completing a merge chain before the camp quest requiring an item from that merge chain arrives.
Also, take note of quests that will slow your progress. Quests like "Merge any Life Flowers x500" aren't too bad as you can take action to speed through it, but "Merge any Dragons x73" requires you to actually have a large stock of dragons to merge. If you do not have that many dragons to merge, you might want to hold of merging your dragons to higher levels until this sort of quest arrives.
The 3 types of quests each have their own "road block" quests, intended to take much more time to complete than the majority of quests. Some examples are in the table below:
Type of Quest 	Description 	Goal
Creation Quest	Merge any Dragons 	>20
Creation Quest	Merge Level 4 Dragons 	1
Creation Quest	Create Zomblin's Butte 	2
Creation Quest	Merge Mystery Eggs 	>20
Creation Quest	Have Life Tree of Cosmic Dreams	1
Action Quest 	Catch Floating Seeds 	>100
Action Quest 	Tap (Fruit Tree level 8+) 	>50
Action Quest 	Tap Sapphire Mystery Nest 	>5
Action Quest 	Tap Ruby Fire Mystery Nest 	>5
Action Quest 	Tap Aged Fruit Tree for Pears 	>50
Action Quest 	Tap any Egg Nest 	>50
Action Quest 	Tap any Monster Idols 	>10
Flourish Quest	Have Healed Land 	>300
Flourish Quest	Heal more pieces of Dead Land 	>1
Flourish Quest	Open Dragon Chests 	>3
Flourish Quest	Open Dragon Nest Vault 	>3
===Creation Quest===
Creation Quests often require you to merge or have a certain level of objects from the Life Flowers, Living Stones, Hills, Magic Mushrooms, Fruit Trees and Glowing Dragon Trees merge chains. Take note of the Living Stones, Hills and Life Flowers merge chains in particular, as the final few Creation Quests want the wonders for these merge chains.
Also, take note of the difference between "Have", "Merge" and "Create"
"Have" simply needs you to have the object.
"Merge" requires you to merge Objects of the required Item ( Notice that Merging 5 count as one Merge, if you prefer, Merging 3 will speed the Process, but also not Recommend on Higher Level Items, as they will slow You down on you Merging Chain Progress ).
"Create" You need to Create the Item ( Merging 5 will add 2 to the Progress, instead of 1, as they not count the time you merge, but the Item Created on the merge ).
For missions that require you to harvest an object, you can repeatedly drop the same Dragon onto the object and move them before they finish harvesting while still progressing the quest. This is a way to complete these quests without having to wait for your Dragon's actions to replenish.
===Action Quest===
For Action Quests, there are multiple quests to tap a certain level of Fruit Trees or Magic Coin Storage or Stone Storage, so you should keep them at that level until the requisite quests come up. There is also a multitude of tap Nest quests, so you should keep some nests in your camp for when this quest appears. Keep Ruby Fire Mystery Nest and Sapphire Mystery Nest if you have them, as these nests are not easy to obtain, and are required for some quests. Finally, there are also tap Monster Idols quests, which can only be completed via usage of dragon gems. It is cheaper to skip the quest than buy the Monster Idols, but if you plan on completing the chain and want the Mystery Eggs, you can go ahead and buy them.
===Flourish Quest===
Flourish Quests are likely the type of quest you will have slowest progress on most of the time, as some of its quests requires you to either open a significant number of Dragon Chests or Dragon Nest Vaults, have a certain number of unlocked land, or heal some dead land. For the open Dragon Chest or Dragon Nest Vault quests, unless it is a non-skippable quest it is cheaper in terms of Dragon Gems to skip the quest rather than open them.
==To advance faster through merge chains==
Part of clearing Camp Quests would require you to advance through the merge chains of different objects. And to many players, working through the merge chains and obtaining all the Wonders of the Dragon World is their end goal.
The merging system in Merge Dragons requires a minimum of 3 objects of one level to obtain 1 object of the next level. This results in an exponential increase in the amount of resource needed each time we go up a level.
To understand how many resources are required, you should take a look at Wingalls13's Merging Calculator. The 18 level Life Flower chain is in its own page, due to it being too big.
Mergeling is a fantastic, easy to use merge calculator for any chain in the game. It also allows you to enter your current inventory and set your preference for 3-merges, 5-merges, or a combination, so that you can easily work out what you need to get to your goal object(s).
Do note, merging by 5 instead of 3 massively reduces the number of objects required to reach the Wonder. So, listen to Ezra!
===To get Stonehenge/To get more Stone Bricks===
You'd want every aid to work through the Merge chains faster. The biggest aid is undoubtedly Stonehenge, the wonder of the Living Stones merge chain. The Stonehenge wonder is considered the most useful wonder for two reasons.
*It is harvestable for Nightstone Bricks, a level 5 Stone Bricks that gives 250 Stones.
*It spawns Zomblins every 15-60 minutes, which can be killed for Graves. This is usually how you start the Graves chain within your camp.
The stone currency is what you want, as it can be used to purchase Buy Menu chests, which will give you Level 1 to 3 objects of a certain merge chains. Buy Menu chests significantly speed up all merge chains, thus you would want to have a good Stone Bricks farm to be able to purchase all the Chests you want. Stonehenge is the best Stone Bricks farm, thus the next part of the guide is about how to get Stonehenge quickly.
Stonehenge is part of the Living Stones merge chain, thus, you would want to work on this chain. For newcomers, there are a few ways to get your living stone merge chain going:
*Go to any stage with Living Stones, preferably a Quarry stage, get 80 Stone Bricks, then buy a Golden Chest, and get Living Stones from the Chest.
*Go to The Secret of Four secret level, and spend some dragon gems to bring back either a Marsh Grass or Lawn Grass that can be infinitely harvested for Fresh Stones. (Credit to Math the Mad Tick)
*Go to a Quarry stage in levels and spend some dragon gems bring back some living stones.
*Buy Living Stones from Kala's Shop when available using Dragon gems
*Buy Grass from Kala's Shop when available using Dragon gems
Though be aware that stones or grass from Kala's Shop are usually largely overpriced compared to bringing them back from a level. 
After you get some Living Stones, get your dragons to harvest the Living Stones for Stone Bricks, merge up Stone Bricks, collect the Stone Bricks, buy Golden Chests, merge up the Living Stones and repeat the cycle until you reach Stonehenge. You should try to 5-merge for 2 Stonehenge, as each Stonehenge can only have 2 dragons harvest it at a time. Should the Stone rick output be too low, you could go for even more Stonehenges.
Should you just need a bit of stone, and not require Stonehenge just yet, a guide on how to the Stone bricks can be found here.
===To go through the other merge chains faster===
Once you have Stonehenge, you can use buy menu chests to go faster through the merge chains. Each of the buy menu chests can help with a few merge chains. It is always recommended to merge 5 level 1 chests into 2 level 2 chests before opening them as there would be a chance of getting even higher level objects.
The following table shows the buyable chests, the capped prices and the objects the chests gives at each level.
Level 1 Chest 	Cost	Objects Given	Level 2 Chest 	Objects Given
Moon Chest 	40 	
Level 0 to 3 Fruit Trees,
Level 1 to 3 Life Flowers,
Level 0 to 2 Life Orbs,
Level 1 to 5 Treasure Chests	Phobos Chest 	
Level 1 to 4 Fruit Trees,
Level 2 to 4 Life Flowers,
Level 1 to 3 Life Orbs,
Level 2 to 6 Treasure Chests
Golden Chest 	80 	
Level 1 to 3 Living Stones,
Brambles,
Level 1 to 5 Treasure Chests	Solid Gold Chest	
Level 1 to 4 Living Stones,
Level 2 to 4 Spooky Trees,
Level 2 to 6 Treasure Chests
Occult Chest 	550 	
Level 0 to 3 Hills,
Level 1 to 3 Bushes,
Level 1 Wood,
Level 1 to 5 Treasure Chests	Summoned Chest 	
Level 0 to 4 Hills,
Level 2 to 4 Bushes,
Level 1 to 2 Wood,
Level 2 to 6 Treasure Chests
Dangerous Chest 	700 	
Level 0 to 3 Mushrooms,
Level 1 to 3 Water,
Level 1 to 3 Grass,
Level 1 to 5 Treasure Chests	Chest of Beasts 	
Level 1 to 4 Mushrooms,
Level 2 to 4 Water,
Level 2 to 4 Grass,
Level 2 to 6 Treasure Chests
Pearlescent Chest	2500	
Level 1 to 3 Prism Flowers,
Level 1 to 3 Dragon Trees	Spectral Chest 	
Level 1 to 4 Prism Flowers,
Level 1 to 4 Dragon Trees
It is recommended that you focus on completing 1 or 2 merge chains at one time. This is due to the camp having a limited amount of space. You would need enough space to hold all the Stone Bricks you have, as well as the objects from the merge chains you are working on. If you work on too many merge chains at the same time, you will find yourself running out of space quickly and having to 3-merge, slowing your progress.
==To unlock more land==
Land is unlocked by reaching certain Dragon Power thresholds. You can see how much dragon power is required for each bit of land in the Evil Fog page.
To obtain dragon power, you must get more higher level dragons. The easiest way to do so is to buy loads of coin dragons from the Buy Menu and merge them up. However, to do so, you need a good magic coin farm. You can also get free dragon eggs by collecting the Bountiful Chest you earn in each level.
===To obtain more coins===
There are multiple ways that you can farm magic coins, both in camp and out of camp.
For in-camp coin farms, the four best coin generators are:
# Harvesting level 16-17 life flowers and merge 5 level 7 life orbs, then sell your level 8 life orbs for 150 coins each
# Harvesting Fruit from Fruit Trees and merging or harvesting for Magic Coins
# Vault farm using Coin Storage
# Harvesting Golden Apples from Midas Trees and selling them for coin currency
Now that you have a steady supply of coins, focus on one type of dragon and keep buying its eggs, merging by 5 until you get your level 10 dragons. These would give a substantial boost to help with unlocking land.
To calculate the amount of coin eggs you would need to buy to create higher level dragons, you can use the Mergeling calculator or this calculator made by Wingalls13, which can also tell you the total cost of the eggs needed. 
===To obtain event dragons===
Each event usually has some dragons for rewards. The prizes usually include 3 event dragon eggs, an event dragon nest, a level 4 dragon and a level 3 dragon(of the breed from the previous event). All the dragons together would give about 240 dragon power, which is substantial for newer players.
A guide to completing each event quickly is on each events page, but a summary of the main points are below.
*You require 2 Level 10 Event Point items (or 1 Level 10 plus 2 Level 9) to gain all of the rewards from each event. (As of the Star Oasis Event(December 2020))
*An additional reward is available by completing all 10 event quests, which will require healing all the land. A lot more effort is required to heal all the land compared to simply collecting enough event points, so see if you have the time to go for this.
*To open more land, you will need high level Life Flowers. I recommend not merging Young Fruit Trees. Space them apart to let them spawn Life Flower Sprouts.
*There is no need to open all the Mystic Cloud Keys on the map.
*Merge 5 as much as possible, especially for event-only items that are in limited quantities like Autumn Leaf.
*Don't forget to collect your once-every-3-hours Bronze Capsule.
===To open Dragon Egg Chest/Nest Vaults effectively===
Every player will get plenty of Dragon Egg Chests and Dragon Nest Vaults as they play. Each one requires Dragon Gems to open. There are some Camp Quests that requires you to open Dragon Egg Chests or Dragon Nest Vaults, thus, it is important to make sure you get the most of each and every dragon chest you open. You should look at the Dragon Chests page to learn to identify each chest you get and determine which you should open.
The following dragons are the ones I recommend opening chests for, as they are generally difficult to obtain.
Dragon 	Chest Type and Source 	Chest/Vault costs	Other ways of obtaining
Pegasus 	
Wooden Chest from Dragon Trees 	
17, 51, 85, 210 	
Nest from Kala's Mystery Reward (Random)
Dragon Whelp from merging Ruby Fire Mystery Eggs (Random)
Eggs (5) from creating Spectral Lifespring
Wise Dragons 	Purple Padded Chest from Amber or Glowing Dragon Trees	12, 36, 60, 150 	
Egg and Nest from Kala's Shop (Random)
Dragon Whelp from merging Ruby Fire Mystery Eggs (Random)
Life Dragons 	Purple Padded Chest from Life Flowers 	12, 36, 60, 150 	
Egg and Dragon from Kala's Shop (Random)
Level 3 Dragon from merging Super Eggs
Midas Ducks 	Red Padded Chests from Golden Apples 	17, 51, 85, 210 	
Nest from Kala's Mystery Reward (Random)
Dragon Whelp from merging Sapphire Mystery Eggs (Random)
Tribal Dragons 	Stone Chest from Top Soil?/Dragon Trees? 	12, 36, 60, 150 	
Egg from Kala's Shop
Egg and Nest from Magic Beanstalk
Dragon Whelp from merging Sapphire Mystery Eggs (Random)
Butterfly Dragons	Purple Padded Chest from Prism Flowers 	12, 36, 60, 150 	
Egg from Kala's Shop
Egg and Nest from Trinity Dome
Dragon Whelp from merging Sapphire Mystery Eggs (Random)
Eggs (3) from creating Secret Lifespring
==To make efficient usage of your limited land, and Bubbling==
One of the most important resources in game is actually land. You get 468 tiles of land by having 140,000 Dragon Power, and can get 83 more by purchasing the 3 Premium Lands. This may not seem enough when you’re working on multiple merge chains at the same time. It is important to utilise your land effectively. One trick to do so is to Bubble objects. To bubble is to place an object in a Loot Orb, thereby causing it to not take any camp space.
There are 4 methods to bubble objects (Credit goes to Math the mad tick for the first 3, and SAAlexMD for the Marcus V technique) :-
===1) Attempt merge and exit Camp===
Drag an object to at least 2 other same objects till you can see that they are about to merge, but don't let go your finger and press the world map/exit camp button with your other finger. When you return, the object you were holding will be inside a loot orb, like the level rewards you bring home from levels.
This method only works for objects which can be merged, so do not work for Wonders or Nests. This method is recommended for bubbling coin and stone bricks you do not want to collect, dragon eggs, as well as high level objects whose merge chain you are not working on, for example Glowing Dragon Trees.
===2) Fill up the camp===
If the object you want to bubble is larger than 1x1, rearrange everything in your camp so that there is no space to fit the object you want to bubble. For instance you want to bubble your 3x3 Stonehenge, then spread out everything in your camp till there is no 3x3 space available. The moment you remove every possible space the object can move to, it will appear in a loot bubble.
This method only works for objects that are larger than 1x1 size. This method is recommended for bubbling Wonders and any other large items like higher level objects of the Hills and Water chains.
===3) Leave absolutely no space===
Harvest an object when your camp/level has the maximum number of objects it can hold. Your dragons should be saying "No space available!” or “Need more space!”. Then, make a dragon harvest something, and tap on that dragon to instantly bubble the object it is carrying.
This method is only usable for harvestable objects. It happens in levels more frequently than in camp, and is usually an accident.
=== 4) Merge Floating Seeds ===
If you merge three floating seeds (you have to do it over land tiles) while your camp is full, you will get a bubbled Life Flower Sprout. This is an effective way to make use of floating seeds you would otherwise lose, and collect the bubbled sprouts for future Life Flower quests.
=== 5) The "Marcus V" technique ===
 Note: An illustrated example of the Marcus V method can be found at Help:Bubbling/MarcusV Example
This method is new as of around September 2019, and is credited to "Marcus V" who first published this method in the old Merge Dragons Discord channel.  This method does require you to have a completely full camp, but the "magic" of this method is that you can bubble ANY single 1x1 space item / bubble any item even if it is not mergeable. It requires three 2x2 space mergeable items.
1. Have or create, three 2x2 space mergeable items.  e.g. Create 3 Golden Apples of the Cosmos, Large Pond, Wanderlust Peak, Alien Shrooms, or Bluemoss Stoneguard, etc etc.  It is easiest to create 3 Golden Apples of the Cosmos, by merging up the chain the harvested apples from Midas Trees, as most other 2x2 items are high up in their respective merge chains, and the risk of you merging three of those items is too great, it is no big loss to accidentally merge 3 Golden Apples of the Cosmos.
2. It is easiest to first line up the three 2x2 items, like you’re going to merge them together.  Although you could do steps 2 to 4 in any order.  Note : Make sure to have your settings correct to have "Require Overlap" turned on, and "Allow Chain Reactions" turned off.
3. Fill your entire camp with items until you get out of space messages from your Dragons, at that point your camp will only have 2 open spaces.  Move items around so those 2 spaces are where you can see them and close to where you are going to do the bubbling. You can fill your camp by any method, e.g. tapping and/or harvesting :- Living Stones/Life Flowers(Trees)/Fruit Trees/Cloudy Summit/Misty Mountain/Ancient Dragon Skull, etc etc.
Note : Because your camp will be full after completing your bubbling via this method, you want an easy and quick way to get your camp back in order, and while doing this method, why not make it worthwhile at the same time by filling it with items you ultimately want, that are easily mergeable, and could either help with your total Stone Bricks or Magic Coins, or help you work up a particular chain.
4. Other steps to make it easier to accomplish this method, is to then have the 2 open spaces, and the items you want to bubble, and some harvestable items, and the three 2x2 items you are going to use for this method... all close together in your camp so you can see them. And, make sure your zoom/focus in your camp is right before continuing.
5. Place two items you want to bubble directly above each other, making sure you have 2 spaces to the left of them also (e.g. not the edge of land).
6. At this point, as you have 2 spaces free, and will below "create" another 4 free spaces, you need to get your Dragons to harvest 4 times / be holding items that take up 4 squares (from the objects that have been harvested) ... such that only the final 2 spaces will become free.
(as will be explained later, subsequent attempts to do this method will only require 2 items to be harvested/spaces to be filled, but the first time requires 4)
7. This is where the actual bubbling begins.  Go to merge your three 2x2 items (e.g. Golden Apples of the Cosmos) BUT do not merge them / do not let go.  What you MUST see is the three 2x2 items "bouncing" in the space where two of them would go, i.e. so the three 2x2 items take up the space of two 2x2 items. Again ... do not merge them, just "hold" the potential merge, what you are doing is "tricking" the game/dragons because effectively more space is now available.
8.  While above merge is being "held", your Dragons will drop the items they are holding into the empty spaces.  Wait until all but 2 spaces are full / your camp is full again, by the Dragons dropping what they have harvested earlier.
9.  At this point ... move the 2x2 item / Apple (that you are holding in the merge) over to where the two items that what you want to bubble are.  In that because the Apple is a 2x2 item, two single square items on the right of where the Apple will be dropped, will be the items that will be bubbled.  i.e. the upper right, and the lower right single squares of the green bordered area the Apple makes when normally clicked on.
10.  Now is when you let go of the 2x2 item / Apple (while it is hovering over the two items you want to bubble (and the two items to the left of those).
11.  The two items or the right will be bubbled in-situ, and the other two items (on the left of those) will move to the two remaining spaces in your Camp.
(this is why it is good to have the spaces close to what you are using to bubble, and the items you want to bubble close)
12.  At this point, you can basically repeat over and over from Steps 5 to 10, but note that you only need to get your Dragons to harvest items to drop in the remaining 2 spaces in your Camp.
This technique is great for storing dragon gems, coins, bricks, single eggs, egg nests, life orbs, and objects that you don’t need now, but maybe later (great examples: single eggs, egg nests, Fruit trees, Monster Idols that you need to merge, and others)
Toasted Gamer Boutique has a video that shows this method, but note that she has already done above once (or more), so only 2 items need to be harvested.
===Other objects that appear in bubbles===
There are some other objects that will be automatically obtained in a Loot Orb. To save camp space, you can choose not to open these bubbles until you need these objects.
Situation where objects will appear in a Loot Orb:
*Object is brought back from Levels
*Object is obtained from opening Buy Menu Chests
*Object is obtained from opening Treasure Chests
*Object is obtained from Kala's Rucksack or Kala's Bonus Rucksack
*Friend gifts
*Challenge level rewards
*Event rewards
==To build more coin and stone brick storage==
Once you have a coin and stone brick farm going, your current coin and stone brick storage would seem to small and would need to be upgraded.
A guide to minimising building costs can be found here: 
https://mergedragons.fandom.com/wiki/Minimizing_building_costs
==To obtain more dragon gems==
Dragon gems are the premium currency of the game, and can help you speed through certain Camp Quests, or help get an extra copy of a certain level of object by opening a Dimensional Jar.
A guide to obtaining more dragon gems can be found here:
https://mergedragons.fandom.com/wiki/Guide%3A_Where_to_farm_Dragon_Stars_and_Cosmos_Eggs
==To use dragon gems effectively==
Dragon gems aren't exactly easy to come by, so it is important that you use them wisely. Some tips on where to use them are as follows:
*Skipping Camp quests that would be even more expensive without skipping, like skipping quests to open Dragon Egg Chests and Dragon Nest Vaults, or quests to tap Monster Idols
*Doubling up rewards for Challenge Levels when the reward is a dragon only obtainable by Gems
*Buying Sun Dragons from Kala, as they are not available anywhere else.
*Buying out Kala when you want the mystery item. (Best done when Kala is also selling Sun Dragons)
*Upgrading the Zen Temple (harvest for Hills chain) or Magnificent Artefacts (harvest for Spirit Lantern chain) merge chain.
*Opening Dimensional Jars of very high level Life Trees (preferably level 13+ onwards)
Things NOT to use your dragon gems for:
*Doubling up rewards for Challenge Levels for dragons easily obtainable using Coins
*Bringing back most level rewards (Except for Living Stones/Graves to start those chains)
*Buying high level basic objects from Kala
*Adding time to Challenge Levels
*Opening every dragon egg/nest chest
==To use real money effectively==
Some players are willing to drop a few dollars to support the developers. Here are some tips on the best ways to use your money:
*Premium lands, the extra land space that you'll get are permanent and are usually very useful for early to mid game players. You'll love them!
*The 30 day gem pack, as it gives one of the highest value for money.
*Other huge discount offers. There are occasions where the game offers you huge packs of goodies for low prices
Things NOT to use your money for:
*Alien Obelisks, as you have to purchase the most expensive gem offers to obtain one
*Boosts for an event, these offers usually provide little progress in collecting all event prizes and you can't bring back your purchased items from the event map to your camp.
Category:Tutorial