Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-15084733-20130810120531/@comment-4830404-20130810203626

I my personal opinion, if I were in your situation, I would not use gold at all. I would try my luck and just keep sending dragons, but I would not invest too much gold in the tournament, for a few reasons.

1) The opponents will get much nastier, with the three preceding the Phoenix being the absolute worst for people without Diamonds.  Unless you are willing to dedicate a huge chunk of gold to Ultimate attacks, there's no guarantee you can finish in time.

2) Some people have had their tournaments reset or other problems still.  I hope it doesn't happen to you, but the risk is there.

As you said, it really depends how much you want the Phoenix Dragon. Is it worth (up to) 300 Gold to you? Keep trying, decide your maximum price. Without a Diamond, you will likely need to spend gold on rounds 27, 28, and 29 at least (unless you get lucky, which can happen).

Anyways, good luck!