which rare cards cannot be bought?

[psydev]

In Shandalar, certain cards cannot be purchased or taken from wizards after you destroy their castle. Does anyone have a complete list? There are some cards that I obtained dungeons, like black lotus or moxes--can they be obtained any other way (e.g. ante, or the other way beaten opponents sometimes give you a free card after a battle)?

Some cards I've noticed I cannot buy:
regrowth (why!?)
wheel of fortune
braingeyser
copy artifact
demonic tutor
time vault (even though it is the sucky errata edition)

ancestral recall, timetwister & time walk
black lotus, moxes, sol ring...

... and I think anything you get special from a dungeon, e.g. berserk, balance, cyclopean tomb, mishra's workshop, feldon's crane, candelabra of Tawnos, ivory tower... correct me if I'm wrong on these ones.

Do you guys know of a complete list of cards that can't be obatined normally? And can some cards be obtained other than by going into dungeons and replicating them afterwards?

[stassy]

It's a long process but in order to have more rare cards you need to beat Sorceror, Elementalist, Mind Stealer, or Shapeshifter who will sometimes allow you to duplicate a card of your own as a reward of your victory.

If you want to play "not legit", you can edit all of the creature decks to include rare cards and use cards like Tempest Efreet to steal them permanently.

[Tapani]

All of the (then) restricted cards are marked "unique", and can not be bought. Same applies to some other cards, like Juzam Djinn, Serendib Efreet, Giant Badger etc.

You can win all of them as ante, or by using Bronze Tablet.

Cheating is for suckers. There is no way to ruin a game as by taking the challenge out of it.

[aww1979]

-all dungeon loot
-some astral cards (Pandora's Box, can't remember on the rest, but they aren't very good anyway)
-Juzam Djinn, Serendib Djinn, Serendib Efreet, King Suleiman, Arena, Mana Crypt, might be a couple more I missed
-Ironclaw Orcs (in the first version I had, this was a bug; it was accidentally flagged as unique :p it was worth a buttload of gold though, lol)

-in the first version I had, you could not find any of the dungeon loot in those random wilderness things, except for the 4th edition ones like Balance, Mind Twist, Ivory Tower. In the one I have now (SotA & DotP you can find ANY card in those)

-You can sometimes get a free Ivory Tower as a gift for defeating Tusk Guardian.

[jiansonz]

aww1979 has a good summary. Some additional info:

Astral cards not mentioned:
-Necropolis of Azar
-Orcish Catapult (this works as dungeon loot)
-Power Struggle
-Prismatic Dragon
-Rainbow Knights

The last three can be in an opponent´s ante.
Pandora´s Box is sometimes an extra gift from Kiska-Ra
Necropolis of Azar is sometimes an extra gift from Mandurang


In the list with Juzan Djinn, etc, add:
-Diamond Valley
-Elephant Graveyard
-Ifh-Biff Efreet
-Mijae Djinn
-Ydwen Efreet

I have won Arena and Elephant Graveyard in duels, but wilderness lairs are your best bet for the others.
On the harder difficulty levels, opponents in the Blue Castle often get a Serendib Efreet as starting advantage, which is possible to get via Bronze Tablet.


Celestial Prism and the five Mana Batteries can´t be bought either. The only foe besides Arzakon that uses any mana battery is the white wizard (Sainted One) who uses White Mana Battery. Mandurang and Dragon Lord (red wizardess) use Celestial Prism.


Then there´s the special case with some of the red summons. With Mok´s additional cards, red now has so many summons that they do not fit in the list. Since you can´t scroll here, some of the cards are not possible to get as a reward for completing a quest, or to buy in a Nomad´s Bazaar or Diamond Mine.

This goes for two of the "oldies" as well: Wall of Fire and Wall of Stone. These can be offered for sales in regular villages/cities, though.

The "newer" red summons blocked by being late in the list:
-Wall of Earth
-Wall of Heat
-Wall of Opposition
-Windseeker Centaur

(Very small nitpick: if you defeat the red wizardess and pick a summon card as reward, the list gets shorter (since you can only pick one of each card), "freeing" Wall of Earth so it can be picked as 2nd or 3rd reward.
Next in the line to be freed is Wall of Fire, but that one isn´t as exclusive a card...)