@michele-mitchell
Your initial response was a little vague because I wasn’t provided enough information (aka what hats you had). This clears up some of your confusion that I had. Thanks :)
You have to remember that bird levels are calculated using combination of 3 elements: bird hats, level cards (your base level) and the sling shot level. You can see that by clicking any bird. A bird level of 42 doesn’t mean much when I’m more concerned with your base level card (aka the same levels of which your spell cards are as if you never upgraded anything). If you completed the pirate hats sets (x4) and you have an Elder amethyst slingshot (x13) this should put you 17 levels below your maximum. So if I were to calculate, your base level should be at 25-26 (aka your spells cards)..so all your birds must be at pristine gold/ pristine azure? Pristine cards has a lotus flower as a frame. Is that right?
As you know, the game pits you with players in the arena that have similar slingshots and hats. If you’re getting people with higher flock power; that’s because their base level cards are likely higher (because they’re in pristine emerald, amethyst, it’s easy to see that the cards are a different color than yours). That’s normal if you’re in the higher streaks. Nothing you can do there except to play the game a bit more which gives you feathers: the arena (2 and 6 are rare chests which will give you loads of feathers since it’s a rare chest) , the trail levels after completing the hard levels, the daily challenge and king pig panic which gives you a lot of feathers and winning in the tower of fortune (which is not recommended at all since they deplete your gems VERY quickly)
Now if you have the whole pirate or winter hat set, to maximise your flock power, you should ONLY be equipping your birds with those since they have x4 multipler, and NOT equipping yourself with lesser hats. This will lower your powers significantly. In other words, collect the the x1,x2,x3 hats to upgrade your slingshot, but don’t wear them when you’re in the arena. If you still have knight hats and work hats to collect, by all means complete them as there is NO set level card which you need to complete them. Just so you are aware, once you get the elder diamond and master bronze slingshots, the arena matches you with players with the same slingshots.
Now if you are going to attempt to collect the legendary hats x10 (fancy, wizard, steam punk, mythic) you should wait until you’re in the epic tier card status
