Tips on Getting the Older 4 Star Cards

TimGunn

So you've champed all/nearly all 3 stars and are ready to move onto 4 stars! Congratulations! Hopefully you have a good base of recruited 4 stars with a good number who are already fully covered/champed.

But you likely have several 4 star chars who are not fully covered. This post will attempt to lay out your best strategies to get those final covers.

First, identify the key four stars you want to pursue. Dauthi has a forum guide on the best 4 stars. It is under construction.

When I was going through this process, my top priorities were Hulkbuster, Jean Grey, X-Pool, Iceman, Cyclops, and Red Hulk. Might also include Cho and Starlord after their re-works. Thora is also popular for 3-star teams because of her great synergy with IM40. And Nova is a good pair with OML (if you have him).

Second, now that you know who your targets are, you just need to get their covers! Here are the current ways you can get an older 4 star cover:

• PVP Progression - Reach 900 on each PVP. This will get easier as you get more and more 4 star champs. Currently, game takes approximately 4 months to cycle through all 4 stars for PVP rewards, which will be longer and longer as more 4 stars are introduced. The order of rewards is ABC. Devs used to be good about rotating the color for this prize, but appear to just be repeating the color every time now. When your target comes up, go hard and get the prize!
• PVP Placement - I literally have never placed high enough in PVP to receive a 4 star card. But if you can, God bless! The chars and colors rotate the same as described above.
• PVE Progression - Even casual players can achieve this! The progression reward is always the 4 star char who is required for the PVE event. Currently 4 star char rewards rotate in PVE every 6-7 months (will be longer as more 4 stars are introduced). There is no set order to this rotation.
• PVE Placement - Anyone can get top 10 in PVE, you just have to put in the work. (generally, 4 clears when sub opens; 3 clears an hour before sub closes). The rotation of chars is the same as described above. When you see your target char come up, go hard!
• Bonus Hero - Set 1 (or more) of your target chars as your fave. Pretty unlikely to pull this when pulling heroics, but not terrible odds if opening a bunch of legendaries.
• Taco Vaults - Save all your taco tokens until your target is in the vault. Then go on a taco binge! Taco vaults flip every 5 days and contain 2 cards for 4 stars. One will be random, so make sure to check each vault to see if your target is there. The other will be a card for the required character on the Kraken fight, which cycles through all 4 stars every 6 months (currently, will be longer as more chars are introduced). The order for the Kraken chars is ABC based on the secondary name of each char (i.e., X-23 (All New Wolverine) is one of the first in the order).
• Limited Vaults - Save and use HP to clean out this limited vault when it has your target char. These vaults flip every week.
• Other Vaults - These usually have the PVE required 4 star char and 2 random 4 star chars. Open as many tokens as you can when your target comes up. Best way to get these tokens is to place well in each PVE sub (personal and alliance). You can also hoard these tokens. So for example, if your Venom Heroic vault has 3 meh 4 star cards, don't open any you get from that event. The next time there is a Venom Heroic vault, if it has a good 4 star, you can open your saved tokens plus the ones you earn in the new event.
• Champ Rewards from 3 Stars - You receive a 4 star card as a champ reward from 3 stars at level 183, 223 and 265. Figure out which 3 star char will give you your target cards (list here). Then go after those 3 stars hard (pve and pvp) and set them as your bonus hero.
• Daily Resupply - You get char cards every 15 days or so. First time you get a 4 star card is day 149, and 3 star cards stop at day 715. Full list is here.
• Purchase for 120 CPs - Have to have at least 1 of the card already to do this. I don't endorse this method, but everyone has to make up her own mind.

One note, the strategies that involve hoarding tokens, this will delay your ISO production. So you'll have to decide whether increasing your chance at the target cards is worth it.

As noted above, there is an order to when each char's card comes up in the places above (at least some of them!). Here are some resources to help you predict when your target may appear:

• Brigby's Sneak Peak for events about 1 week out.
• My predictions for PVE/PVE rewards about a month out.
• Links to all PVP Event Pages (including rewards)
• Links to all PVE Event Pages (including rewards)

Finally, get enough ISO to champ your fully covered targets. But that is a different guide/problem.

Updated March 5, 2017 to include daily resupply, purchase by CP and resource links

Black Duke

First of all I want to say that you did a great job! You've nearly mentioned everything but there's one thing I would like to add: Spend 120 CP for the last cover. If you aren't blessed to get the right covers for your character or you're sick and tired to be stuck at a 5/5/2 build, that's the last option to max your characters (I've recently done that to champion Nova & Red Hulk). And 120 CP aren't a big amount when you're playing PVE & PVP properly.

WalrusBrigade

First, these are good ideas and I am glad they are here, but let me add some notes from a 4* transitioner.

TimGunn wrote:

• PVP Progression - This is harder than it seems. Getting up to 900 is tough unless I work to snipe the right bracket
• PVP Placement - ditto
• PVE Progression - This is the easiest. While the number of required clears can vary, this is at least consistent and non-competitive. You also end up with many rewards en route to this. Hands down my preferred method.
• PVE Placement - Again, super hard. Once you clear a threshold (t10 or so depending on bracket) it is a slog that can utterly fail. I did a lot of grinding last PvE to finish #115 and miss out on Agent Coulson.
• Bonus Hero - This is a great idea because it is happening already. Control your choices so that when the RNG gives you a bonus hero it is something you want. Avoid characters with 5 covers that aren't champed. You don't want to pull useless covers from a bonus hero.
• Taco Vaults - reasonable, but very up to chance. You have to get a ton of taco tokens to feel confident you will get what you want. Make sure tokens are spent on vaults that have other desirable things, and preferably that you have bought out already using the daily deal.
• Limited Vaults - Guaranteed for enough HP, but not an efficient way to go about these things since it is only one cover
• Other Vaults - Same token strategy applies
• Champ Rewards from 3 Stars - Slow, but consistent. This is why you have a 3* farm going, after all.

Another poster mentioned buying covers for 120 CP. It may seem crazy, but there comes a time when it is worth it rather than buying a LP and watching it turn to 1000 ISO.

Again, thanks to the OP for starting this thread.

Alsmir

Thanks for the guide but:

PVP Progression - Simply impossible for someone with 3* rooster. I'm a pinata for 4* teams.
PVP Placement - even worse. Out of curiosity I wandered as far as SCL 5 (that only rewards 3* covers for top placement) and I still met players with 4* champs at top places.
PVE Progression - simple and easy, but that's just 1 cover per event (or 2 covers per 7-day events).

PVE Placement - nope, impossible because of rl obligations + Steam version (can only play at home)

Bonus Hero - 5% chance and I'm forced to draw latest 12 characters, no matter how bad they are
Taco Vaults - ~3 months of saving to get 2 specific covers?
Limited Vaults - with the current rate of new character per 2 weeks and considering I don't have every 4* rostered yet, impossible to gather enough hp for extra slots and have any leftovers
Other Vaults - same as above
Champ Rewards from 3 Stars - rewards cut in half after last update, I'm forced to juggle favourite 3* to grab covers for the guys, that got booted out of tokens

When I don't have any 4* champ, and I'm dreaming about Ice Man, Cyclops, Jean, HB, Rulk, Punisher covers I'm in a really bad spot right now. For the first time since I started playing, I'm thinking about hoarding tokens.

astrp3

Great summary. I would personally love to see this expanded, but I suppose then it would be a PvP/PvE/DDQ guide, and we already have those (though some are out of date, particularly the PvE guide). I am not experienced enough to do it myself.

A few things you could add:

* SHIELD resupply: You eventually start getting 4* covers here (I'm about 5 weeks away from my first) - though there's nothing you need do to get them or speed it up (other than making sure to play every day).

* limited character vaults: Maybe it was too obvious to include, but if you only want the 4*, you're better off buying 5 per day rather than all 20 at once (I believe the vault lasts long enough to do so) - expected price is 2500 HP vs 3600.

* again, I know this isn't a PvP/PvE guide, but if you are only interested in placement, you could try the late entry strategy. I've never done it, but have heard of Alliance mates entering an event late, playing for half an hour, and getting top 5 placement. I think it's a crapshoot whether you get a short bracket, however (though you can monitor the threads and I'd guess that some players use line rooms to track bracket size) and if you don't, you'll miss out on a lot of loot.

* Alliance events: you can get 6 4* covers in these if you are in a good alliance so you might want to post some quick tips on how to find one (I found one by searching for names that included "PvE" - though you can also click on top-placing alliances in the results list, trying to find a public one with open slots. Of course, if they start limiting the covers in these events to the 12 currently in the stores, this will do you no good.

TimGunn

thanks everyone, i updated the guide to include 120 CPs purchase and daily resupply