Reason I ask is that I really like 5* Mighty Thor.

I've got 7141 CP and 173 LL right now. While I won't be ready to champ Thor for quite some time, I worry that missing out on her would be like missing out on Shang-Chi last year. But, I also know that the Anniversary Vault tends to have top-tier characters I'll want in the future.

HP is very much not a problem right now, and I've only got one 4* (Prowler? Really?) left to roster, so I'm not concerned about wasting any pulls.

I've got time to decide.

-J

Based in the last MPQ thread, it looks as though phant was posting about the anniversary pulls in 10/18.

I amnguess that the anniversary will happen about the same time.

Stuff in the anniversary vault comes around again. They wil because they're popular. Thor will be in LL for her time and then yeah, she may be in future LL stores, but who knows how long that'll be. If it were me, and I wanted her, I'd go for it.

IF you got the 2 covers from the Alliance event and the probably at least 1-2 covers from shards I would imagine that after spending your hoard you will have around 4,000 CP left over and even more if you get great pulls.

I have Quantum Realm on Melinda May and Black Widow Batons on SC. IF I can make a purple match against the character with the lowest health then that's 3 more Purple thanks to Melinda May.

Is there another support that grants Purple AP?

I'm only at 250 shards -- still SCL9 for PVE. I set Kitty Pryde as my 5* favorite based on the New Player Guide but I should probably change that to Thor or Beta Ray Bill.

I've convinced myself to hold out a little longer and see reactions to 5* She-Hulk so I can decide whether I want her or KK.

-J

I have a 4* Chimichanga on SC.
The big perks there are a 33.57% chance for 2 extra red on a red match and 38.37% for 2 extra purple on a purple match. (When the match is made by SC.)

I have a 5* Quantum Realm on 5X for a 72% chance to start a match with 6 purple AP.

I have a 4* Corvus Glaive on Onslaught for a 61.95% chance to start with 3 purple AP.

Very frequently I can fire off SC’s purple as my first move, and usually there is a match-4 or better that can be made with it, ideally in purple.

Don't make Kitty your 5* favorite. I made that mistake already. BRB is the better choice but honestly Shang-chi is better than BRB.

BRB is better because of how he interacts with Polaris and is good enough with just a single yellow cover and gets better with each cover you add to him until he is champed.

Shang-chi is a monster once he is champed. I had him at 299 until I got to the 13 covers and he was good to use but not great. He interacts real well with MElinda May and America Chavez BUT he is a glass jaw. While I can use SC for just about every node the BRB/Polaris/Thanos winfinite can still do things better though not faster.

Another important thing to remember is that there are so many characters out now that are counters to Polaris that I am willing to bet that in another year or so she will be used a lot less in PVP.

In 5* Land, you hardly see her. If you do, it's almost a gimme, since Shang-Chi, Onslaught, and Prof X will likely KO her in one 4-match.

Try and find a match without 5carlet Witch.... that's the real trick.

Well, that was craptastic….

Starting point:
Kamala - 2/1/2 - 1630 shards
Thor - 1/5/1 - 855 shards
Chasm - 0/0/0 - 455 shards
5* favorite Shang-Chi - 457 - 59 shards
4* favorite Puck - 293 - 379 shards
ISO - 12,653,419
HP - 40035
CP - 3463
LL - 143
Pulls - 280

Goal: Pull until KK is able to be champed and Chasm has been rostered.
Expectation by math: about 105 pulls if I got “expected” RNG distribution

Pulled a quick 50 and did fair, but KK was still far away.
KK - Green, Blue
Thor - Red, Red, Blue (Blue saved)
Chasm - Green, Black, Black
8 5* is slightly above expectation, but really right on target.

Pulled a second quick 50….got disheartened.
KK - no covers
Thor - Blue, Blue (both saved)
Chasm - Purple, Purple, Green, Green, Purple
7 5* this time, still the expected number, just not covers I particularly wanted.

I applied the covers I had at this point. This got me up to 47 LLs.
Pulled these one at a time. Finally completed KK right at the end.
KK - Blue, Yellow
Thor - None
Chasm - Green, Black, Purple, Black
6 in 47 is low, but actually still right in expectations.

Overall at this point (147 pulls made) with a ratio of 1:7, that is an expectation of 21 5*.
8+7+6=21, so I was bang on expectation there.
That said, I would have hoped for closer to 7 covers for each. I got 4 KK, 5 Thor (three saved), and 12 Chasm (for a nice 4/4/4 build).

At this point I was a bit miffed and made some more pulls out of spite.
7 more pulls…four 4*, a Chasm, one 4*, another Chasm.
At this point, I got my wits and stopped.

One 50 shard 5* bonus, two 50 shard 4* bonus

End result:
ISO: 10,968,303
HP: 39,620
CP: 3,489
LL: 1
Pulls: 140

KK: Champed, level 450
Thor: 3/8/1, 855 shards
Chasm: Champed, level 451
Shang-Chi: Level 468, 80 shards
Puck: Level 300, 36 shards

Looking ahead, trying to get Thor champed…..
The next rotations are
9/22 - KK leaves, She-Hulk enters
10/20 - Thor leaves, Next guy enters
11/17 - Chasm leaves, Next Next guy enters
12/15 - She-Hulk leaves, Next Next Next guy enters
I expect that we should be seeing two more PVE runs with Thor in there. I figure those out to be 325 a pop (75 from placement in one event, then 250 progression in the next). That gets me 650 more shards on her. That brings her up to 1505, so three wild card covers.
The way I figure it, that means that when KK leaves, I will need to pull for just one usable Thor cover, then by the time she leaves I will have earned enough shards to fill her in with shard covers.
Then I really don’t (hopefully) have to do a major cracking until 11/17 to work on getting She-Hulk champed. (Obviously some pulling will be made to get SH rostered before then.). That is 84 days. At a rate of 3 pulls earned per day, that is 252 more pulls than I have now, or 392 pulls saved up by then….without any spending.
Of course, I need to spend to get that one Thor cover and roster She-Hulk by then. Hopefully those don’t hit hard. (And with 4* SH feeding 5* SH, I may squeak by without having to go for her.)

Anyway, obviously things may work out vastly differently from that, but it is the rough future projection for now.
I will have to recrunch numbers when the time comes, but it looks as though I might be able to have some pulls to play with in the anniversary.

Good luck to everyone pulling today.

After my experience and reading Harpua's, I'm wondering if KK is getting the short end of the RNG stick.

End of last hoard redemption:
ISO - 7,653,914
HP - 22,175
CP - 5,408
LL - 2
Pulls - 218

Beginning resources (change from last month):
ISO - 9,169,729 (+1,515,815)
HP - 20,430 (-1,745)
CP - 6,419 (+1,011)
LL - 37 (+35)
Pulls - 293 (+75 over 28 days)

Daily Gain - 2.68 pull/day

LATEST
Kamala Khan - 3/1/1 + 1625 shards
Thor - 2/1/0 + 775 shards
Chasm - 0/0/0 + 365 shards

Favorites:
For 4* favorite, I'll be keeping Dark Beast all the way. He's getting close to 360, so I will probably need to be more careful about this next time. For my 5* favorite, I'm keeping it Shang-Chi all the way.

Pulls made: 213

Results:
Kamala Khan - 5/3/5 --> CHAMPED
Thor - 5/4/4 --> CHAMPED
Chasm - 4/5/4 --> CHAMPED

Stats:
32 of 213 pulls were 5* = 15% pull rate, (the expected 1:7 is 14.3%).
3 x 4* bonus shards
2 x 5* bonus shards

Longest drought (# of 4*s between 5*) = 21
# of back to back 5* = 3

After applying everything:
ISO - 6,519,349 (-2,650,380) [Remember, I'm champing three 5*s with this)
HP - 26,980 (+6,550)
CP - 2,512 (-3,907)
LL - 15 (-22)
Pulls - 115 (-178)

Final Analysis -
I could not stop pulling Thors. I started with 3 and then I pulled FIFTEEN more. Pull #98 was my 12th Kamala cover and it took me 40 more pulls to get #13. Between those 2, I pulled SIX Thors.

Even Chasm - who had nothing to start with - ended up champed.

Other notes - Because of 2 pulls of Dark Beast covers, he ended up at 361, so I'll be changing my 4* favorite to someone else. I also managed to champ Gorr and Spider-Corp, so only She-Hulk remains unchamped. I also maxed out 2 more 4*s in this cracking, bringing my roster of max champed 4*s to 13.

Happy cracking everyone!

3* She-Hulk is now a feeder for 4* She-Hulk. She also still feeds 4* Gwenpool.

Doesn't look like they awarded shards retroactively.

-J

Probably because it would require more complex math than just "what level are they at now." Back when Shard-topia happened, there wasn't enough time to get your 4*s champed and sold, so everyone's roster was pretty much "4*s as you have them now".

But at this point, folks have farmed and sold any number of 3* Shulks. If they did retro rewards there would be inevitable cries of unfairness.

This way, we're all treated unfairly the same.

I am using speech to text for this post, so I pre-apologize for any mishaps that happen along the way. I am curious for opinions on Boss events strategy. Here is the situation I'm looking at right now. We just had a flip at noon. My boss node opens up for me in 3 hours. We are about 185,000 points from jumping to the next level. When that happens my boss node opens up regardless of the time. I am currently at 660,000 points, so reaching personal progression isn't any kind of issue for me. My question is whether or not it is best for the alliance to jump in now and play to try and get the round to flip sooner. Or is it better for me to wait until the flip because I can definitely handle the stronger boss with my roster and can be assured of getting higher points for the alliance as a whole. I can see Arguments for it either way. On one hand somebody else in the alliance might be slightly behind in points. If I were to go ahead and try and Advance the rounds, then they could have the opportunity to earn more points per boss hit hopefully getting them to personal progression. On the other hand somebody else might not have a roster that can handle the stronger boss. They wouldn't want me to jump the thing ahead so that they can still handle the boss at the current round.

Even if they cannot handle the boss, they can still contribute to taking the boss down. Just because you don't finish the boss doesn't mean you lose your points. So I would do Whatever it is that gets the points up as soon as possible