The Legendary Hoard: A Journey Begins

Marvel Puzzle Quest MPQ General Discussion
1

EDIT: Hoard opened 11/9 after saving up 50 LTs, and 2605 CP, details below…
Results
Follow-up as Bolt is leaving Latest pool

TL;DR - I’m saving all LTs and CP for ~10 months starting at the beginning of Season XXXI. If others wish to do the same feel free to come here for support and encouragement.

What? Why???
The 5* transition is a long one - best measured in months or even years for the casual player. The 5* release rate outpaces the LT/CP earn rate for the F2P player (and even most spenders), meaning that over time you will never max all the 5s since they will continue to dilute the classic pool. The latest pool, however, keeps just three characters at a 5% draw rate for each one. So the best chance to max a 5 is to be able to pull all 13 covers for them from the latest pool before they are moved to the classic pool and their draw rate is substantially reduced. This requires either a lot of money or hoarding.

Yeah, but…WHY??? Won’t you miss out on progressing the classic 5 characters?*
With three champed 5s (really just having OML/Phx champed) my roster really doesn’t get that much more competitive by adding a handful of 5 covers here and there. But if I were to be able to “whale” the three latest 5*s as soon as the last one is released it gives me a bit of a competitive advantage as others are slow to catch up. Since I can’t afford to spend that kind of money, my only other option is time.

OK, but how much time?
Great question (spoiler alert, I already told you it will take about 10 months, but here is the math…) I hit max progression in every PvP, and nearly every PvE (Heroics often get skipped, and sometimes life gets in the way). I have completed every single DDQ4 battle to date. I often place T10 PvP, and always get all CP rewards from PvE nodes. So between that and my VIP I earn about 8.6 LTs and 521 CP/season. At a 5% draw rate it will take an average of 260 LT pulls (13/0.05) to cover max a Latest character from the 5* pool. Theoretically all 3 characters from that pool would be champed together since you get the same 5% draw rate for all of them. This assumes an average distribution of covers across characters and colors which I must admit is a poor assumption. After 10 seasons I should have about 86 LTs saved and over 5k CP not counting any spending me or my alliance does, or any rewards from championing characters which will be good for 300 pulls. That gives me the 260 I need, plus 40 bonus pulls to help with poor RNG/streaks.

The other side is ISO. It will take something like 1.6 million ISO to take three 5s from 255 to champion, but I make anywhere from 20-30k ISO/day. Over the 280 day hoard I should bring in between 5.6 and 8.4 million ISO. That’s a ton. As I’m pulling all these 4 characters I will keep some stash of ISO on hand to champ 4* characters as well to make use of their covers and their champion rewards which will bring in additional LTs and also help make up for any bad luck I get (hopefully).

Prologue:
Relevant roster at start.
Other 5*s for reference.

I’m on day 683 as of the start of Season XXXI tomorrow, and this will mark the beginning of my Legendary Hoard. As you can see I have the first three 5s champed, and currently have no LTs saved up, and less than 20 CP. This is my starting point. I have 10 champed 4s, and all 3*s champed except for Beast.

Chapter 1: Season XXXI
My plan for Season XXXI is to first champ Beast (the only 3* I don’t have champed), and then champ all my 2s. I think I’m finally to the point where I can really start recycling the 2s now so those covers don’t go to waste. I don’t yet have the willpower to hoard ALL my tokens for the season as I know many like to do so hopefully by the end of the season I’ve got a nice stash of LTs and CP saved up with my 2* recycling factory up and running as well.

I recognize the timing of this is kind of terrible with SHIELD Ranks being unveiled and likely changing everything, but the basic concept I think will remain. Even if the SHIELD Ranks increase my earn rate, it will still make sense to hoard until I can pull ~300 Latest LTs at the same time, which is the ultimate goal. If I get there in less than 10 months I’ll end the hoarding early (and if it goes well start a new one). If it takes longer then I’ll wait. I have no interest in having 3 more 5*s at 7-10 covers each, that doesn’t help. Depending on how things are going I might wait even longer to build up a 1440 CP reserve to buy covers outright should RNGesus really bend me over.

I’ll do what I can to log my progress in here at the very least at the end of every season, or maybe I’ll update this post as each event ends or something like that. I’ve never made an opening video, but if there is interest I might try to get that set up for the final opening (or not, most of the ones I have watched have been pretty boring - so there would have to be a lot of interest.)

Happy hunting and good luck to all the other hoarders out there!!!

Current Hoard as of 11/9/16:


50


2605

[spoiler]Going to try to keep track of each event as best I can…I fear this section might get deleted due to lack of effort in keeping it up to date, but let’s start this thing full of ambition…

Season XXXI - 10k+
Fowl Play: Max Progression, T5
Venom Bomb: Max Progression, T10 x3
Magnetic Mayhem: Max Progression, T5
Oscorp: Heroic: Pretty much skipped this one, got maybe 5 CP out of the entire event.
Fly-Fight-Win:Max Progression, T25
Civil War 3.0:Max Progression on both sides!, I think I probably got close to 20 CP hitting both boss nodes from rd 4-8
Welcome to my Parlor:Max Progression, T100
Eye for an Eye:Max Progression, T5
Hot Shot:Max Progression, T100
ISO-8 Brotherhood: Missed max progression by less than 3k, but got all the node CP rewards.
God of Lies: Max Progression, T5
The Gauntlet: I gave up. With Deadpool v. MPQ opening 2d before Gauntlet end it just wasn’t worth the effort.
Unholy Outlaw:T10
Lord of Thunder:Max Progression, T25
Krakadoom!:Max Progression, T5
Deadpool vs. MPQ:Max Progression

Season XXXII (short pre-anniversary) - 4k+
Fist Bump: Max Progression, T5
Meet Rocket & Groot: Max Progression
Sticks & Stones: Max Progression, T5
Juggernaut: Heroic: Not really playing.
Fresh Cut: Max Progression, T25
Thick as Thieves: Max Progression, T5 x 3
Cage Match: Max Progression, T5

Anniversary (short) - 4k+
Simulator: Max Progression, T10
Best Friends Forever: Max Progression
RRRRAAAWWWR: Max Progression, T10
Venom Bomb: Max Progression
Class of 2016: Max Progression, T10
Boss Rush: I don’t want to talk about it.
I Choose You: Max Progression, T10

Power Gem Season
Fatal Attraction: Max Progression, T5
The Hunt: Max Progression
Doctor’s Orders: Max Progression, T5
Venom: Heroic: Max Progression
Teenage Riot: Max Progression, T1!!!

Color code:
PvP, PvE, Boss Fights, Top CP rewards, Mid CP rewards.[/spoiler]

2

There will be 6* that you will pull with those CPoints icon_lol.gif

3

I’ve been saving command points for 3 seasons now (and 6 seasons before that too), but I’ve been opening latest tokens as I get them. Too hard to resist hulk, black bolt and im46.

I don’t have a goal date set yet, just slowly finishing off my 3* champions before I move into the 4*.

4

I started saving as well - in particular I got tired of wasting 4*'s (maxed all my 3*'s a couple seasons back after I got tired of wasting those as well).

So my theory is “Save lots of CP, get enough ISO to max a couple of 4*'s if I pull tons of covers so I don’t waste so many”.

But then I keep getting tons of covers in queue just from heroic occasional 4*'s and from PVP rewards - so I haven’t found a way to hoard the ISO yet! I was planning on getting up to ~600K to max two from 172 (where I camp them for DDQ) - but the release rate is so fast it’s hard to even keep up putting in the 60K needed to go from 70->172 as often as I need to! I’ve just accepted there will never be a time where I won’t be throwing 4*'s away at a paltry 1,000 ISO each.

The ISO drought is real, and it hurts.

Good luck when you finally draw OP, I hope they implement streak-breaker by the time you do so you can’t hit any tremendous pain while you pull!

5

I am hoarding as well, just started, I have 7 more 3*'s to champion and 3 2*'s to rechampion. When that is done, I will put ISO in all my 4*'s til they are 170 or higher. Hate wasting covers. My personal target goal is 1k standard tokens, when I hit that, I will start opening til I get something I need to up ISO in. I have just over 120 standards at the moment.

6

172 is high, I park most of mine at 111-135, only a few are at 170.

7

And that right there is the reason for your “ISO drought”.

Stop wasting 60K ISO on trash tier 4*s like Cho and anyone else - I’ve beaten most of the last batch of the crashes with level 120 chars.

Save that ISO and put it into people you really want to use and you’ll have much less of an ISO hole.

There is ISO drought for sure, but yours is mostly one of your own making.

8

I started at the beginning of season XXX. As of this morning, the start of season XXXI, I have 9 LT’s and 357 CP. My plan is to save up only during the season and cash in at the beginning of the next season when the newly released 4* character is added to the pool (in this case, Wasp). I will wait until tomorrow to cash them all in because my Daily Resupply reward tomorrow is another 15 CP.

At this point, I have two champed 4s - Hulkbuster and Cyclops (waiting for that first cover after champing to get another LT) and working on leveling 4Thor (230), Jean Grey (220) and X-23 (209). Also working on 3 Spidey (only because I have a cover that will expire in about 12 days) then will look at the other 3*s I have to level up.

9

I am in similar situation. All 3* championed and 9 4*, several 4* max covered.
I don’t like trash 4* covers so i have hoarding mode on too:) Save 921 CP now.

I am tracking all my 4* covers and can give you some stats. I started hoarding 10. june.

Total 4* covers 1. april - 9. june - 122, trashed 46 - 38%.
Total 4* covers 10. june - 25. august - 43, trashed 11 - 26%.

This mean saved by hoarding about 1/3 covers.

10

That’s a pretty nice haul for the season. What is your play like? How often do you hit max progression in PvP/PvE?

11

These things^

I think Mr. F, Flaptain, and Star-Lord were the only ones I took higher than 120 for their Crash. Even Chulk’s was easy enough at 94.

Better to spend a couple more health packs on a tougher fight than lose that ISO forever.

12

I wholeheartedly support this plan, especially given your roster…although 10mos is a LONG time. Definitely give it a shot and maybe the SHIELD changes will speed things up, or maybe the Devs will realize how futile chasing characters in the Classics will be with dilution and change the accumulation method (3 types of LTs?).

I just ended a similar journey, so let me share my experience. My hoard peaked around 225 LTs (instead of your 300 goal) and I hadn’t actually planned on just doing Latest LTs. I opened 75 Latests, pulled 12 5s, then moved on to the Classics. After about 50 pulls resulting in zero PHX and zero BSSM (the 2 I was chasing), I decided it was futile and went back to Latests. That was about 2 weeks ago. My current strategy is to open as many Latest LTs per day as it takes to get 1 5 and then I wait until the next day. It gives me a way to keep spending my hoard and getting enjoyment everyday w/o having to go all the way back to zero! Still around 1400 CP and I’m sitting on a 3/2/1 Hulk, 2/5/2 Bolt, and 5/4/3 IM46. Hopefully I don’t pull any BB blacks or IM46 reds. And, more importantly, hopefully I can finish IM46 before he moves out of Latest LTs. Once that happens, I’ll hoard until the next 5* and then focus on finishing Bolt.

Good luck in your journey and keep us updated!

13

I wish you luck, but just to be realistic (aka toss cold water on you), your “poor assumption” really is a poor assumption. When you first brought up this idea in Line, I ran a sim, and if I remember right, on average, it’d take around 8,000 cp to cover max all three, not 5,000.

And what if in 10 months from now, the draw rates are totally different? They can’t keep cramming 5*s into classics without making a change somewhere. Maybe that 5% draw rate you’re banking on will go away.

And what if you don’t really want those 5*s? Taking the current set for example, yes, IM5 looks great, but would you really want Banner and Bolt? I’d much rather be taking shots on BSS and GG.

14

All very good points. Honestly one of the best things that can happen here is I save for 10 months and the Latest pool has characters of a similar caliber to SS, 5Cap, and Banner, and so instead of deciding to cash in for those 3, I wait for the next 3 to come along and continue to hoard on up to 400+ pulls. If I can keep a stash of 400 pulls I can start opening classics again at some point as well if that seems to be worthwhile.

Just like berk said - it’s a LONG time. And the devs has shown us that they have no problems ruining these types of long term plans without so much as a days notice, but that’s all just part of the game. Whatever changes are made, I’m fairly confident that my best shot at substantially improving the competitiveness of my roster is to gather enough resources to be able to acquire the next game breaking OML-esque character as soon as he is available. And the most effective way to do that is to hoard…for a LONG time.

15

Yeah, that part makes way more sense than setting an artificial target. Just wait until the meta shifts, and then let loose…

16

Thanks! Your opening thread was great, lots of lessons learned in there too that I’ll be sure to go back and read again when the time comes.

A big part of my desire to do this has been the realization throughout this past season that my roster is good enough to compete against those guys who are at the tip of the spear. I looked at what I would get if I instead used all that CP on classics over the next 10 months and I would expect to have about 3 more covers of each of the current classics, a couple IMs, banners, bolts, and 1 cover of whatever new 5*s are released by then. That doesn’t make me much better. So I figure I’m good enough for now - good enough to last me for hopefully 10+ months, and when the time does come maybe I can be a pioneer of a new meta.

17

i’m glad someone else is doing the same. I am not in as good of shape as OP. i’m a poor-man’s OP as it were. one 4* champed, all but a couple 3* champed. cycling some 2*.

I’ve been saving LTs and CPs for a little while (less than a month I think?) and I now have 10 LT and 207 CP. i am still opening all other tokens, and thusly i have acquired a handful of 4*. but i’m fine with that.

my only motivation is cutting into my ISO deficit. I realized that continually opening LT and spending CP only widened the ISO gap. i was continually over $2M behind, always no matter what. i have now cut that down some to just over $1.5M. I do not count 5* costs, as I am not yet to the point where i want to do that.

I understand i’m missing out on, but once I get caught up, i can hopefully control how many covers flood my roster and then my ISO earned will hopefully match what is needed by getting new 4* covers.

my main targets as of now to level:
5/4/3 Rulk, currently 214, needs 122,034
4/1/5 Jean, currently 192, needs 58,104
5/4/1 X-23, currently 179, needs 85,166
5/1/2 Xpool, currently 152, needs 23,364
1/4/3 Nova, currently 70, needs 65,613
3/3/5 XFW, currently 111, needs 202,326
4/3/4 Elektra, currently 188, needs 118,029

to a lesser extent
4/4/5 IW, currently 111, needs 355,666
(i know, i know, but she is max covered and i don’t like any covers going to waste)

levelling the above characters has become slowed, as i am also levelling 4* to complete DDQ challenges (I’ve spent a good deal on Cyc, Iceman, GR, x23, Elektra, and yes, even some on starlord and TAH).

i have a number of other lower covered 4*s that require up to 30,000 ISO, but I think i can work on those gradually while slowly open the hoard.

18

I’ve been hoarding for two seasons. I have 30 Lts and 1600 cp and approx 300 non standard tokens. Waiting till i have the rest of my 3’s champed and 2’s rechamped to open

19

Updated OP with a running tally, and will try to keep track of individual events as well.

LT came from VIP. I picked up a 10-pack almost every day of Fowl Play earning me 4 or 5 additional Howard covers, and quite a few champ levels on 3*s. I’m also incredibly fortunate to have an alliance that has been raining CP recently. So major thanks to those guys as well!!!

20

I play every day. Depending on the PvE event, most of the time will just do my 4 clears which always gets me the max progression. Just finished 67th in Venom Bomb to get the Jessica Drew cover. Could have gotten higher but didn’t grind out all the subs. I have never made max progression in PvP. Have hit 1000, a few times for covers I really wanted but just keep getting slapped down after hitting the 1,000 mark. I have been getting lucky on the Crash of the Titans so that accounts for about half of the LT’s. Couple came from vault draws.

That being said, I got my 15 CP from the daily resupply on Saturday and opened them all - 9 LT’s and 360 CP. Here’s what I got:

token_legendary.png
icon_ironman.png
blueflag.png
(now 1/1/1 - yay!)
icon_deadpool.png
purpleflag.png
x2
icon_ghostrider.png
greenflag.png
, blackflag.png

icon_nova.png
redflag.png
, blackflag.png

icon_elektra.png
purpleflag.png
(sold - already maxxed that color)
icon_quake.png
yellowflag.png

icon_blackbolt.png
yellowflag.png

icon_invisiblewoman.png
yellowflag.png
(respec’ed to 5/3/5)
icon_thor.png
redflag.png

icon_kingpin.png
purpleflag.png

icon_venom.png
yellowflag.png

icon_redhulk.png
greenflag.png

icon_peggycarter.png
redflag.png
, yellowflag.png

icon_iceman.png
blueflag.png
, greenflag.png

icon_drax.png
redflag.png

icon_thing.png
redflag.png
, yellowflag.png
(that gave me the 12th and 13th covers)
icon_punisher.png
blackflag.png

icon_greengoblin.png
yellowflag.png
x2
wasp_icon.png
yellowflag.png

icon_warmachine.png
blueflag.png

So 4 5*'s out of 27 tokens puts me right at the 15% average.