Aquamentis12

This is 100% true.  If you're at level 100, you can train your strength or defense (or movement) up to 200 and your hit points up to 300.   However, once you go over 2x with hit points, you can only train hit points further (up to the 3x level maximum).  No more strength or defense while you're doing this. 
I did do this, thinking I wanted it, but I was wrong.  In my humble opinion, you should increase HP to 3x at the end of your training journey not the middle!
I kept strength, defense, and hit points 2x my level up until about level 280 when I noticed for the first time that one could up the hit points to 3x the level, so I went wild and got my hit points to 840 before I realized I could not train my strength or defense until I reached level 420.  All I could do for 100+ days was to train level and nothing else. 
I have done the math (after doing all this, not before like a sensible person) and depending on where you stop training strength and defense (there's no reason to go higher than 750), it's between 11 and 14% cheaper red codestone-wise to train everything up 2x until you hit level 500 and then increase hp as much as you want. 
Realize that no matter what, you're in for finding 1200 to 1500 red codestones.  Not having to buy 200+ extra codestone is obviously cheaper and will take several weeks less to complete, but that's not why I'm warning against going 3x early.  I can tell you the sad grindy-ness of level day after day made me hate the game:
If I got to do a faerie quest that gave me 3 HP, I got mad!  You should be happy something that would cost 300K np to do cost nearly nothing, but my joy had been ground down to a nub.  In those days and days of grinding level out, I passed the Adept and Advanced levels of training, so once I reached the 2x limit, all my progress on strength and defense cost 3 red codestones.  I had to skip over the 2 codestone cost entirely.  I felt that I'd missed out on the cheaper tier even though mathematically it was only for 14%, it still made me grumble. Maybe if I'd chosen the path purposefully at the start, I wouldn't have felt that way, but all of a sudden realizing I had to level up about 200 times before I could change anything else wore on me.  And, of course, some players are going to be fine with it, but I think you're better off knowing what you're up against beforehand.
(I'm better now that my pet's levels and stuff are properly aligned)
 

@GillyTook, that sounds like a good plan!
Regarding Kitchen Quests. At least there's no penalty if you don't feel like finishing them. I recommend price checking each of the 3 or 4 items your asked for before you buy any. Lately I've been getting thrown some curve-balls when trying to do a Kitchen Quest. There'd be 2 or 3 reasonably priced items requested, 1k-2k or so, and then one that is over 10k. While it'd be worth it NP-wise to try it for a random stat point, I only need to work on my HP, so if I get a worthless item or low amount of NP back, or the stat point goes to some other stat, it's not very good. So I keep checking and hoping for a lower priced-quest. As I'm trying hard to save my NP to upgrade my battle gear.

My point is, just be wary of how much each item costs and do what you feel you can afford per quest. You can complete up to 10 on-site quests a day. Snow Faerie, Edna, Kitchen Quests, all count toward the 10. The counter resets at midnight NST. And the time to complete the quests seems to be between 2 and a half to 3 and a half hours pretty often.
Good luck!

I'll look into getting up to 250 def/str.  Depending on the start date, it could be doable.  And then work on HP for whatever time I've got left before level grinding. 
I keep hearing about the kitchen quests, but haven't done any yet.  I'll need to look into those, I think.  

I'm one of those people whose battle pet has very uneven stats: HP: 501 Strength: 348, Defence: 155, Move: 247, Intelligence: 2808 and Level: 101. I can confirm that due to my pet's insane HP I do have to up my level to 251 before I can train other things (defence). For me the rushing to 250 is a bit more tempting and necessary as I can't do anything else until then. 

Whatever you choose to do, keep an eye on those weird little rules and keep your stats fairly even as you go! 
Also, look into kitchen quests maybe. They give out stat increases which from memory are fairly decent. Some quests are expensive, but not all so it might be something you think worthwhile.

If I wait until the war starts my concern is the price of items will double. Is that what the item is called?   Freezing weapon. Sleep Ray
OK I checked JN and it says  This item has been mass-released as a weekly bonus prize for the new Quest Log system, which has brought it down into (or even below!) the price of comparable 100% freezers! I haven't received this item so I am going to buy it. They estimate it at 2M but I'll go look.  None on the TP but the Auctions are 1100000 NP's / 1025000 / 1020000 / 1021000 / I might have to think about this! Wow!  I wasn't thinking more than 1M.
       

Yes, this is what I meant. Sorry Aquamentis12. It's a nice visual aid, but I guess I like knowing exactly when something occurs.

I'm assuming they mean at the home page of the battle dome, and then again when you click on "more" but I don't know when they change color. I doubt it really means anything, it's just a visual aid to see how far away you are from the max boost.

That's great you finally got him! Congratulations Granny!

FINALLY! I GOT THE SNOW BEAST!!!! I was refreshing the page, again, I have been going to the page and refreshing at 30 minute intervals about 5 times a day. Well, this time I had been refreshing for 22 minutes and WALA! I'm really happy about this. Better late than never
                                              

I finally made it to 60 mil! I was like 1.6K off, and played all the games. Someone purchased from my shop so I'm now over 60mil! 

You're welcome Granny! I hope that you have fun with it!

That doesn't sound too hard! I will give it a try tomorrow. You might see a crazy attempt at this on here.  Thanks for the help!

This is a typical day when I battle the Giant Space Fungus.  This is why I battle him daily. On occasion I will battle the Snowager to get Frozen Neggs but normally the Snowager gives me more junk than Neggs. Today I got 10 sell able items. No Reds but that's fine since I get them often anyway.
      
                                                                
       

Oh yes. But even so, $1 per cookie isn't bad since they increased it to 9 days from 7.

Same here, I'm not willing to use the lab ray on my peophin. Peophin morphing potions are pretty pricey still, and I like his customization and such. Plus my Freezer is species specific, if he changed species, I would need to get a new freezer.
Anyway, as far as training goes. You could try for the boosts if you want, though your HP would be kind of low still then. Though, if you did Kitchen Quests, you might get some extra stat points there. I think I've gone over them in this thread before, but you can complete 10 on-site quests per day, (Kitchen, Edna, snow faerie etc.) all count towards the 10. So you can do 10 Kitchen Quests per day, if you get a stat boost, it'll be 1 point and I do believe it goes to your active pet. So, while you train your Ixi you could also try Kitchen Quests for a few extra points. I think I read somewhere that HP is one of the more common stats awarded. It can give you Strength, Defense and Agility too.
KQs can be pricey and their quest timer is pretty long, usually 2-3 hours. So if there's one you don't want to do, you end up waiting a bit for it to run out so you can try a new one. That being said, I tend to only do them if the total quest price is around 5k or so. Cheap for a stat point at my peophin's level, but the items you get sometimes are often not worth much, and sometimes you only get under 1k in NP back. So, there's that possibility too. Still, it's a relatively cheap way to try to get some extra stat points. If I were into heavy training, I'd do all 10 quests probably regardless of cost, but since I'm only casually training, it's not such a big deal to put a lower limit on the NP on each quest. I'm trying to save up for some stuff too, so there's that.

Definitely better to buy when they're on sale!  
I have the lab map on one of my sides (and need to buy pet slots since it has given me pets I like now, lol!)  I definitely like my island ixi as she is, so I am NOT willing to use it on her and take the risk.  If it's months away, I might be able to get her up to 250 str/def and get another multiplier, but I doubt I could get more than that as it's still a bit under 150 training sessions, and I tend to do them over the 4 days I'm on my home computer at 2x daily.  Of course if I got to 250, I could start using reds for shorter sessions, too, but eh.  Oh, and still would need to bump her HP up so it's not ridiculously low in comparison. . .

Although this is true around the Faerie Festival time FQC go on sale for 1/2 price. During that time I buy 25 or more cookies and they last me for quite some time. There is another time they go on sale  but I don't remember when that is. I am a bargain buyer and I think 1/2 price is a bargain!

I will post the final standings that I receive. Good or bad. If I actually rank in the top standings I'll be happy with that If I don't I know it could be because I didn't fight in one of the important battles. I took your advice a while back about fighting Snowager and I got in 1 of the fights 2 frozen neggs and in another battle, another day I got 3 in a battle but mostly if I get them it is always along with a snowflake or other cheap item. I was selling them when I got them then decided to put them in the SDB. I just recently looked and had 10 frozen neggs so I listed all at once in the shop and sold all to the same player. Happy days! I had already feed my pet as a gourmet food and stuck 1 in the gallery for my my negg collection. My plan is to save up 10 before I put them in the shop. I think I may have used 1 or 2 in the neggery to buy some neggs I didn't have in my gallery. They are fairly easy to win when you play snowager. I also learned that from you. BTW, any idea when this *plot* might start?

Here are the last day challengers


I'm not strong enough to beat him on anything higher than the 650

The 158 is the Red. Go figure another lame opponent
I won't have been confident enough to play in this contest had it not been for your help of updating weapons.
I appreciate all the help you have given to me. Still upset about that Snow Beast though! I could have knocked him down on the RED. LOL

I don't have Mutated Chia, I don't remember how it was gotten, but it's not in my list. I have the others. Sabre-X and Tax Beast are a pain because they are random events, but the Tax Beast... I don't recall HOW much NP he took from me, but I think it was around a week or more worth of gaming back then. A bit more than 100k I think. Or maybe I HAD 100k and the random event took MOST of that. It's been years since I had that r/e. I don't know if I've had it since though. Good luck NOT having either of them as a challenger tomorrow! I would imagine that they would have stronger opponents than they had today for the last day. So hopefully that will be the case. Good luck tomorrow!

2 I will never get but this is the list of what I need.  I may never get the other 2 either since they are RE's and I get a lot of RE's. I think I remember some time ago trying for the Snow Beast but not to the extent I went to today. I will randomly go and refresh that page but I won't spend hours doing it.

Awww man, that's too bad @granny63020. Hopefully the other 2 opponents you don't have will not be in the last day's mix! After the tourny is over, maybe try to get those missing 3 opponents in case you ever need to fight those opponents again. Maybe even by the next time JN has their next tournament.
Best of luck tomorrow!

Sorry I can't figure out how to delete this 1st quote
If you place in the top ?? ( not sure what the number is now they put a Trophy in your JN Trophy cabinet.
No, JN puts up 2 challengers a day. You have until midnight then that days challenge closes and another 2 are presented.  It started on the 25th and
tomorrow is the last day. JN then withing 24 hours posts your score using your Battle Dome.  You can learn more by going to JN and looking under News
Here's an update. I started refreshing again at 6:45 Neo time and it's 10:35. I never got the Snow Beast so I have no points for that challenge. It's going to cost me from placing in an upper rank most likely.  I checked and this was 1 of 3 challengers that I don't have.  Hopefully tomorrow will not include either of the other 2.  Honestly I am very disappointed  about this after spending 9+ hours pushing a refresh button. I guess I'll soon know what tomorrow brings.

The old IDB site, back when it was around and before it's leftovers merged with JN would have tournaments on occasion. Sometimes there'd be a storyline, and you'd have to fight opponents, or other players at certain points. It was like a battle plot, only NOT put on by TNT and the only things you could win were trophies for your forums account, or you could display the graphic on your petpage or something like that. Those were the OLD days, before I even knew TDN or JN existed. lol I even helped test a few peophin items back then, I was just a lender or participant though, still too new to the BD to know how things worked, but I poured over their entries trying to learn what I could about the BD. Loved that site. lol
 
Wow @granny63020, that's a LOT of Refreshing! I hope you are able to get it before time runs out! Good luck in the tourny! And congrats on beating the Slug Monster! Snow Beast has a couple brutal weapons, but I'm sure you'll be able to win once you can challenge him!

I hope you mean other than Neopets. 🙂 I don't really play anything other than Neopets! HA!

Yeah, most freezers, bombs and healers are either one use (gone forever after used) or once per battle (gone but will be back your next battle). So with those you have to predict when they would be the most useful and hope that you're right. Knowing what your opponent can use, using TDN's 1-player profiles page, which can be found here, https://thedailyneopets.com/battledome/secret-challengers under the Active Challengers heading. Can help you decide what defensive items you may want to use, depending on what weapons they can use.
In the case of Holiday Memories. You'll get the 20% heal not matter what, but whether or not you block any damage when you use it, depends on what your opponent uses and if they have those icons that can be blocked. So yeah, it's basically luck and insight.