Garden Mastery Events

# Garden Championship

Garden mastery events (Garden Championships) are held once every four weeks. These are individual events in which players compete with 15 others in their tier to grow and brew desired items to win fabulous prizes. The events start on Sundays at 3PM US Central Time and end one week later at the same time. You should see a countdown in your quest menu three days before the event starts. You must be at least **level 15** and have an active placement in the league classifications to participate.

## How To Play

This event is pretty straightforward. The gardener will give you four quests, asking you to grow a certain number of plants or produce a certain brewery item. You should grow or brew this item as quickly as possible to exchange it for leaves. You do not lose the plants or brewery items once you have exchanged them for leaves. Every time you get a certain number of leaves, you level up. Whoever in your tier has the most leaves at the end of the week gets first place.

Whenever you can earn leaves, a leaf icon will pop up at the events site. You can also access the event using the leaf icon on your quest menu.

The number of leaves needed to earn a reward increases with each levelThe leaf icon appears when you can claim leaves in the event menuYou can access the garden event anytime by clicking the gardener at the event site or using the leaf icon on the quest menuClick the inventory chest to immediately be taken to that item in your aqua garden planting menuIf you have a seasonal quest to earn leaves, clicking "okay" in the championship should lead to the completion of the task.

The number of leaves required to level up to the next reward increases by 280 leaves each time until you reach 1680. After that, it increases by 350 leaves. (For example, to get to level 1, you might have to earn 560 leaves. Then, to get to level 2, you'll need 840 leaves (560+280=840). To get to level 3, you'll need 1120. ETC.)

You can skip or swap any task. During the first hour, it costs 2 water lilies to skip a task; afterward, it is free. If you click the swap button, you should see a security box popup to ask if you are sure you want to skip the task.

## Brewery Changes

During the event, you'll get an extra slot in each of your three brewing stations (mortar and pestle, cauldron, and drying sachet) which can only be used to make a brewery item the gardener is requesting. The item in this slot will start brewing immediately and stop at the allotted time, regardless of what else is brewing at that station. You can brew any other brewery items in the regular slots. If you happen to have an item the gardener already wants in the queue, you may find it helpful not to fill the extra slot since the regular slot will finish before the extra one.

When the gardener asks you to make a brewery item, a cauldron symbol will appear in the garden championship menu. Click this symbol to be immediately taken to the relevant page in your recipe book.

## Tiers

There are five tiers for this event (root, bark, branch, blossom, crown). Each tier has up to 15 players in it. Everyone starts in the root tier. At the end of the event, players are resorted for next time.

* The top five players in each tier level up (or stay in crown tier).
* The middle five stay in the same tier.
* The lowest five drop to one tier lower (or remain in root tier).

Tiers are based exclusively on performance during previous garden mastery events. Your player XP, number of garden plots, and number of plants unlocked are factored into the quests you're able to complete but do not affect your tier: you must earn your place in bark, branch, blossom, or crown.

The game scales to ensure the number of garden plots cleared does not give any player an advantage except in the case of the cloud garden. The gardener will always ask for a number of plants between 5–15% of your total cleared garden plots (e.g. if you have 100 plots cleared, expect the gardener to ask you to harvest between 5–15 plants; if you have 200 cleared, you'll need to harvest between 10–30 plants). However, unlocked plants and player level are taken into account when selecting which players you will be competing against. You will always be placed with players in the same tier who have the most similar number of plants unlocked, then closest level/garden plots cleared/XP won. It is therefore likely that you will be playing against the same players over and over, and you won't be matched with someone who has many more plants or many fewer plants unlocked.

In the case that there are not enough players to make a full tier, the game sorts players as closely as it can into sets of 5, which means you may end up in a tier with only 10 players rather than 15. In the case when a player quits the game, the tiers may become uneven, but the game makes every effort to keep uneven numbers in the lowest tiers.

If you do not click on the gardener and claim your leaves, you will not participate in the event and you will drop to a lower tier or remain in root tier during the next garden mastery event.

## Prizes and Leveling Up

Each time you level up, you get to choose a random leaf pile, which will give you a brewery item, typically an item at or one level above your highest unlocked item.

Once you've harvested enough of an item, click "okay" to receive your leavesWhen you've earned enough leaves, the reward button will sparklechoose from among these three piles of leavesThe reward is random, so it doesn't really matter which pile of leaves you choosePlayers are ranked based on how many leaves they have earned, first place being the player with the most leaves. At the end of the event, you'll automatically get your placing's special plots. The higher your tier, the more special plots you can win; additionally, each special plot offers higher yield.

Every third level, you'll receive a bonus special plot for your aqua garden.

Special plots are colored squares that increase the yield of any regular plant planted on them (note, there's no bonus for fruit trees, seasonal plants, dragon plants, or grafted plants). The amount of yield increases with each tier:

* Root tier +1 yield (blue)
* Bark tier +2 yield (teal)
* Branch tier +3 yield (green)
* Blossom tier +4 yield (purple)
* Crown tier +5 yield (gold)

These plots will be distributed at the end of the event and will remain on your field for 3 weeks, then disappear at the start of the next garden mastery event. You can check how many you've earned and how much bonus you get from each as well as your ranking in the last Garden Championship by clicking the gardener at the events site whenever there's no other event.

Note that special plots will occasionally change color for no reason or will seem to be the wrong color in a friend's garden. This appears to be a glitch, but it does not affect the bonus yield.

The blue square indicates a bonus plot in addition to your regular rewardYou'll get a bonus plot with every third level (note that you start at level 0, so you'll get a bonus plot when you finish level 2, 5, 8, etc)The bonus plots you earn every third level will be visible only to you and will appear on the leaderboard in blueNote that bonus plots only appear on cleared garden spaces and cannot appear on spaces where there are monsters (even wave or friend monsters). However, if you bring your garden to a new era (this can be done every 10 garden levels), weeds and monsters may cover existing bonus plots. If you are planning on raising your garden in this manner, it is advised you do so shortly before or during the gardening championship. Since you'll be decreasing the number of available garden plots but adding +1 yield to every garden plot, the Gardener will adjust his demands accordingly.

## Tips

* The gardener can ask for any plant you have unlocked, including plants you've just unlocked. If you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to produce 44 of a plant you've just unlocked, buy a pack of 20 from the shop or market so that you don't fall behind. Most experienced players avoid unlocking new plants during this event.
* The gardener can also ask for any brewery item you've unlocked, even those requiring plants you don't have in stock or dragon plants. If you have no dragon plants in your inventory, you can purchase them from the shop for water lilies. If you're not willing to use lilies or wait for your dragon to mature, use the "swap" button. You can skip any quest immediately with a few water lilies or wait 2 hours for a free skip. Most experienced players stock up on dragon flowers before the event.
* The number of plants the gardener asks for is based on a percentage of total garden plots you've unlocked and cleared. The event is calculated to not take more than 30% of your total garden space. If you have cleared all your garden plots, you should have about 500 available places to plant. The gardener will ask for you to harvest up to 15% (70 plants, if you have all available spaces unlocked) or as little as 5%. Increased yield from new garden eras is also factored into this calculation. Tree garden and cloud garden plots are not factored in since you cannot grow regular plants in the 106 tree garden plots and the cloud garden, with its 69 plots, is a special perk.
* Remember that all garden plots in era 1 planted with regular plants produce 2x what you planted (without bonuses), so if the gardener asks for 12 of a plant, you only need to plant 6. As you upgrade your gardens to new eras, you'll get +1 or more yield, and you'll be able to plant fewer plants to get the same yield.
* You can purchase special plots with +1 yield for your volcano garden to give yourself a little extra boost.
* When you start the event, the gardener may ask for plants that are already in your garden. For this reason, you should not clear your garden completely prior to starting the event.
* Many players strategically plant sets of 10 to 30 plants in rows in their gardens hoping that the gardener will ask for something they've already grown. For this reason, you may see friends' gardens looking more patchwork than usual during the event. Whether this strategy actually works is up for debate.
* You can skip any quest after 2 hours, which you may find useful if the gardener asks for a particularly long-growing plant or difficult brewery item. The next plant demanded is quite random, though, so it may be worth your time to try it anyway. The gardener does not ask for plants that take more than 6 hours to grow.
* You can use element points from the clan event to significantly lower the growth time of any plant, which can give you a distinct advantage since long-growing plants are worth the same number of leaves even if you've reduced their growth time with bonuses.
* This challenge can become competitive at upper levels where players are quite serious about winning. Many players in crown or blossom tiers completely stop trying to level up or unlock new plants so that they can focus solely on winning.
* By completing seasonal quests, you can earn bonus leaves toward your garden championship score. Competitive players often invest in golden tickets to get an increased boost.
* You can earn bonuses from the world tree, ancestor grove, season pass, quests, new garden eras or friends' clovers which make it possible to harvest more than 2 plants from each plot. Some of these bonuses are out of your control, but experienced players try to save up rewards from the ancestor grove or season pass to help them grow more plants in less space during the garden mastery event.
* There are always at least 2 Garden Championships per season, although it's possible for there to be 3, making season passes all the more valuable during these seasons.
* Plants harvested from grafted plants count toward the gardener's quests. If you have sufficiently high level grafted plants or if your grafted plants have bonuses, you may not need to plant as many (or any) of a plant to satisfy a quest. You don't always have control over when these plants come ripe, however, and their growth time is an average from all the plants combined plus the pyria/tulya/lulya time increase, so it's probably still worth your time to grow blue lampions or other short-timer plants normally.
* You can skip any quest immediately in exchange for water lilies. However, the cost will increase each time you use water lilies for this, always rising by +2 water lilies. This cost resets to 2 water lilies at midnight US Central Time.
* If you happen to have a brewery loop, you can queue up extra brewery items that you think the gardener may request. If you do not collect them, you can come back later if the gardener puts in a request. Try having four different items completed at each station for optimal chance at benefiting from this.
* There will always be at least one quest that takes less than an hour to complete. This might be a bit inconvenient for overnight, but it ensures you can always gather at least a few leaves fairly quickly.