The hoard returns in Season XXIV

El Satanno

If you've been here a bit, you might recognize my post of this nature every season. All the tokens I earned across the entire season, opened at once. It started smaller, and as a gimmick, and now it's second nature. This season really reinforced the hoarding narrative as you will see. As a slight change this time, I've highlighted significant pulls; 4* from gold tokens, and 5* from legendary tokens. Off we go, then.

The hoard

• 156 silver tokens
• 67 mixed gold tokens
• 2 Heroic ten-packs
• 2 legendary tokens + 542 CoPs

The pulls:

Silver tokens
Hood (black)
Human Torch (black)
Daken (purple)
Captain Marvel (black)

Heroic Gold tokens (28)
Gamora (black)
Thor (red)
Mystique (black)
Rulk (green)
Carnage (red)
Sentry (green)
Luke Cage (red)
Iron Man (yellow)

Heroic 10-pack (2)
Ragnarok (green), Iron Man (yellow), Quicksilver (blue), Doctor Doom (black)
Kamala Khan (purple), Ragnarok (blue, red)

Hearts of Darkness (8)
Patch (red)
Beast (blue)
Black Widow (red)
Magneto (red)

Made Man (3)
Kamala Khan (yellow)

Real Steel (3)
Hulk (green)

Stay on Target (3)
Beast (green)
Iron Fist (black)

Most Wanted (3)
Star-Turd (red)
Rocket & Groot (green)

Heavy Metal (3)
Rocket & Groot (green)

Real McCoy (3)
Patch (green)

Eight is Enough (3)
Thor (red)

Trial by Combat (3)
Cyclops (red)

Main Stage (3)
Falcon (purple)

Oscorp: Heroic (6, vault)
Legendary token
Rocket & Groot (green)

PvP Matchmaking (4, vault)
Black Panther (yellow)

The Hulk (10, vault)
Quicksilver (green, blue)
Kamala Khan (green)
Black Panther (blue)
Doctor Doom (blue)

Meet Rocket & Groot (4, vault)
Legendary token
Luke Cage (black)

Legendary tokens (5 after rewards/pulls + 27 from CoPs)
Faptain (red, blue, yellow)
Spider-Man (blue)
Kingpin (purple, black)
Star-Turd (purple)
Elektra's useless **** (red)
Wolverine (X-Force) (yellow, green)
Thor (blue)
Manure/Cho (black)
Bag Lady (green x2)
Mr. **** (black x2)
Phoenix (red x2) !!!
Silver Surfer (red, blue x2, black) !!!
Thing (yellow)
Rulk (purple)
X-23 (purple, green)
Carnage (green)
Logan (yellow)
Cyclops (blue x2)
Deadpool (X-Force) (black)
Jean Grey (green)

The following event tokens pulled nothing significant:
Deadpool vs. MPQ (4)
Iso-8 Brotherhood (4, vault)

Total Iso from cover sales and champion rewards: 69,400

Observations and (purely subjective) conclusions:

1. EIGHT five-star pulls. EIGHT from 32 pulls. That's a 25% pull rate. Ho. Lee. Kee. Rap. I almost literally doubled my Surfer covers; from five to nine. Everything else is pretty much academic. Once I scrape together the Iso (which will almost definitely take more than the entire next season) I'll pretty much be running a five-star team. That's bonkers. That's also where absolutely all my Iso is going after I champion Rulk.
2. Ironic, however, that it wasn't the Surfer or the Phoenix covers that got me excited. Nope. It was the single Logan cover. I'd even trade all six of those for two more. You might be inclined to say that I think Logan is OP as ****. You'd be right.
3. My tokens paid out handsomely across the entire spectrum. Only two events left me hanging, and I even pulled two legendary tokens from vaults. Gadzooks!
4. I have alliance mates who lament their legendary pulls. I constantly tell them the same thing: hoard. Not a half-assed hoard, either. Gotta go big or go home. I think it's not unfair to say my haul this season more than justifies the practice. Subjective, circumstantial, and entirely based on probability, yes, but not unfair. XD
5. Sadly, I know that this will very likely be my high-water mark for the rest of the time I play this game. I really don't see a bigger jackpot coming. It's kinda sad, but at the same time I will eventually have at the very least three well-covered and leveled five-star characters to use. That's a pretty good comfort.

Done and done! Let the hoarding resume until the end of next season!

rawfsu

I'm starting to do this with tacos each week, hoard all ten and open on the last day. Though my luck hasn't repeated, I did pull 1k HP, LT, Mystique (black), and Hulk (green) for five days of patience. I may try your strategy for this season and see what happens!

Xenoberyll

Awesome luck with the 5stars there. I have a little 550 CP hoard myself that i plan to use once the new season starts and the new 4stars are in. I'd love to have half your luck with that
So far i'm at ~7%

jobob

Congrats on that sweet 5* haul!

Hendross

8/32 on 5*s? Prepare to be hated.

simonsez

Hendross wrote:

8/32 on 5*s? Prepare to be hated.

Or prepare for me point out how seemingly every batch of pulls someone posts shows some sort of cluster with a < 1% chance of happening, if the posted odds actually applied to every pull.

Eh, nevermind... I'll let malenkov handle the stat work from now on.

stochasticism

simonsez wrote:

Hendross wrote:

8/32 on 5*s? Prepare to be hated.

Or prepare for me point out how seemingly every batch of pulls someone posts shows some sort of cluster with a < 1% chance of happening, if the posted odds actually applied to every pull.

Eh, nevermind... I'll let malenkov handle the stat work from now on.

Selection bias. Nobody posts about their awesome 1/9 pulls or their super great 2/15 pulls. You better believe, though, that when someone pulls 8/32 and transforms their roster in one day that it will get posted, read, and remembered.

madok

Time to test my self control and take this challenge for the upcoming season. I may open up taco tokens for in a pinch is my only caveat.

mindsuckr

With events like Oscorp or Hulk being post-event vaults, they reset every time you pull from them, correct?
You gain the advantage of a 1/80 odds on a leg token every token, but lose the advantage of increasing odds on the leg token with each pull making the pool smaller. Do you find the pro outweighs the con?

The Viceroy Returns

mindsuckr wrote:

With events like Oscorp or Hulk being post-event vaults, they reset every time you pull from them, correct?
You gain the advantage of a 1/80 odds on a leg token every token, but lose the advantage of increasing odds on the leg token with each pull making the pool smaller. Do you find the pro outweighs the con?

It's worth waiting post event for me because so far every time in my vaults the 4 star covers that have been garbage and/or not needed by me.
So I keep resetting it until the 4 star covers are ones I need. I'll take the 1/80 odds over the set vault, The odds are small enough with a set vault anyway, and I don't need to rage that will come if I actually got one of the 4 stars only to have it be a cover I can't use.

stochasticism

mindsuckr wrote:

With events like Oscorp or Hulk being post-event vaults, they reset every time you pull from them, correct?
You gain the advantage of a 1/80 odds on a leg token every token, but lose the advantage of increasing odds on the leg token with each pull making the pool smaller. Do you find the pro outweighs the con?

You are trading a very small probability of getting multiple legendaries for a much higher number of 2* over a large number of pulls. Does that sound like a trade you want to make?

Unknown

stochasticism wrote:

mindsuckr wrote:

With events like Oscorp or Hulk being post-event vaults, they reset every time you pull from them, correct?
You gain the advantage of a 1/80 odds on a leg token every token, but lose the advantage of increasing odds on the leg token with each pull making the pool smaller. Do you find the pro outweighs the con?

You are trading a very small probability of getting multiple legendaries for a much higher number of 2* over a large number of pulls. Does that sound like a trade you want to make?

The guy had 4 tokens in his vault events. The odds of getting a Gold cover were not getting much better with only 4 tokens.

And if they're looking mainly for specific 4* covers, cycling vaults until you get one (or two, if you're greedy) that you want will give you much better odds of getting what you want compared to just going for the 1/77 Legendary odds.

dr tinykittylove

stochasticism wrote:

mindsuckr wrote:

With events like Oscorp or Hulk being post-event vaults, they reset every time you pull from them, correct?
You gain the advantage of a 1/80 odds on a leg token every token, but lose the advantage of increasing odds on the leg token with each pull making the pool smaller. Do you find the pro outweighs the con?

You are trading a very small probability of getting multiple legendaries for a much higher number of 2* over a large number of pulls. Does that sound like a trade you want to make?

Oddly enough, now that you mention it, I've had surprising luck pulling 4* rewards from inactive taco vaults for lulz. I'm fairly sure I've obtained way more by accident doing that, with far fewer tacos used, than when I save to try for a cover I wanted.

Offhand, I remember getting 1k hp, carnage, xf, and a nova.... maybe I should save up some tacos and do that again.

evil panda

Now I know who took my 5* pulls. Please come to my alliance and CP me up in compensation

Virus_Type_V

I got to open my heroic 10 pack twice since my game corrupted after real steel and reverted back 20 hrs... The second opening was exactly the same as the first opening (all 2* and a yellow inv woman ).. All extra tokens (3) earned through 2* champing, opened the same covers as well from the first time... Reel steal token, same...

Xenoberyll

Xenoberyll wrote:

Awesome luck with the 5stars there. I have a little 550 CP hoard myself that i plan to use once the new season starts and the new 4stars are in. I'd love to have half your luck with that
So far i'm at ~7%

I opened 30 legendary tokens and true to my luck i pulled 2/30 5stars (6.667%)

1x silver surfer blue
1x oml red (my 5th)

4x carnage (will champ)
1x deadpool (will champ)
4x xavier (iso)
3x nova (needed)
1x star lord (iso)
3x X-23 (1x iso)
1x invisible woman (iso)
1x kingpin (iso)
2x cyclops (champed)
1x thor (champed)
2x spidergwen (needed)
3x mr. fantastic (iso)
1x nick fury (iso)
1x red hulk (champed)

blargrx

Nice! I'm also a hoarder of tokens. Did you open all of your tokens in the order listed or jump back and forth between different vaults, events, standard and heroic tokens?

I don't really have a set hoard schedule like you do for a season, maybe I'll start that. I've hoarded until I hit 1k standard twice now. I get so used to not opening tokens that I just don't even bother looking now. Just checked my taco vault and I'm up to 200+ in each

Kevin61

I started doing the same thing. First time it was only 4 LT's but got a SS blue. Second time was 100 CP and pulled Phoenix red. Will wait until the end of the new season but so far have 2 LT's and 86 CP waiting.

simonsez

stochasticism wrote:

Selection bias.

Stop saying "selection bias" when the OP posts this every damn season regardless of what he pulls.

carrion_pigeons

simonsez wrote:

stochasticism wrote:

Selection bias.

Stop saying "selection bias" when the OP posts this every damn season regardless of what he pulls.

Well then, stop saying every post is a one-percenter when clearly not all of this guy's posts have been.

(Although this one really is pretty close to 1% in terms of 5* luck. It comes out to about .84%)

Pongie

I have a theory that the token pulls are now predetermined on the server. When? I have no idea but it's probably the solution to the reroll bug. Why do I think this? Because an alliance mate of mine just recently opened 20 legendary tokens. Then those pulls were reverted back (multiple device syncing issues). He had screenshots of all his pull (they were really good) so he decided to log a call with d3 support. The reply he got was tough, they won't be reinstating any covers pulled. What more can you do in this case? Nothing, so he proceed to open them all again. Guess what? Each was exactly the same. Same order, same character and colour. Every, single, token.

So if this is the case, there is now less benefits of hoarding tokens to open them later. Gone, are the chances of hoarding old tokens to increase the chances of pulling new release characters. The only benefit is if you want to delay having those pre determined covers. ie till you have ISO to champion them or perhaps you don't want to roster any 5* because of scaling.