COMPLETED! The race to Max Champ a 3-star: Favorites vs 2-star Feeder?

sambrookjm

sambrookjm said:

Next week will definitely move the 2-star Cap up considerably.

This was...an understatement.  I used up close to 400 Taco Tokens in pursuit of Spider-Ham covers, and the 2-star Cap was a major benefactor of the token usage.  Little Cap jumped from a 2/5/4 to a LVL 118 champ, providing two covers for Big Brother.  (For what it's worth, Spider Ham received four covers thanks to events and Taco Tokens and is now 3/3/5, although I have no idea when we'll see an event with him again.)

3-star Cap did quite well for himself this past week, becoming champed himself and going up to LVL 171.  This includes a cover from his PvP.

Finally, Bonus Hero Punisher gained seven levels this week, bringing him up to LVL 226.  That provided another cover for *his* big brother, PunMax, who is now at LVL 292.

sambrookjm

Another week (and a day), another update to the experiment.

Punisher got five more covers this past week, pushing him up to LVL 231.  The LT token that came as part of the rewards is sitting in the hoard right now.  They'll be used at some point...  On the bright side, we're starting to get into the really good rewards for the 3-star territory, which is nice.

3-star Cap was immobile this week, and remained at LVL 171.  His 2-star feeder increased a few more levels, and is up to LVL 125.  Two more covers for him, and I'll get my third feeder cover from this one.

I've also finally reached the point where I've got a good enough chunk of HP and ISO that I think I'll be able to start keeping my max-champed 3-stars, so I won't be selling 3-star Cap off until I've got my second one champed.  My next highest LVL 3-star is Black Widow, who is at 260.  Star Lord, Wolverine and Human Torch are all 250+, so in a couple of months (likely after Punisher is max-champed) I'll start up on a real 3-star farm.

sambrookjm

A two-week update, as I was out of town for most of last weekend.  Both 3-star Cap and 2-star Cap got a lot of tokens yesterday.  Hawkeye (Ronin) is one of the few remaining 4-stars that I don't have champed, so I emptied my 290 Taco Token hoard in the vault.  I pulled Hawkeye with token #85, and decided to reset the vault, thinking that I've got about a 70% chance to get the new cover in the new vault with the leftover tokens.  205 pulls later, both four stars are still sitting there, taunting me.  On the bright side, I pulled every Sentry cover in the vault!     I get 12 more chances at him, so Cap may go up another level thanks to the Taco vaults.  (For those of you that care, Hawkeye is currently sitting at LVL 188, with a cover distribution of 3/4/2.  The one in the vault is a purple, which could put him to 3/4/3 if I pull it.  I've got 12 chances in 95 tokens, so we'll see what happens there.)

Thanks to the vault, three-star Cap went up six levels, and now sits at LVL 177.  Two-star Cap became max champed (again) and the next two-star farmed one is sitting at 2/0/0, LVL 22.

Punisher also gained six covers the past two weeks, despite not being in the token vault.  He is now at LVL 237.  Two more levels, and it's another LT for the hoard.

sambrookjm

Another week-ish, another update.  I just pulled a bonus Punisher with a Heroic token, which puts him at LVL 251.  That's currently tied with both Thor and Storm in the second-time-around Three-star category, just four levels behind Human Torch.  He's also just one level behind 3-star Gambit, who has yet to be max-champed in my roster.

3-Star Cap got two covers, bringing him up to LVL 179, so another Bucky cover is coming up in four more levels.  Meanwhile, his next feeder is min-champed, sitting at LVL 94 with a 3/5/5 cover distribution.

sambrookjm

Cap is the featured 3-star in the "Spend HP to get Prof $/Prof V" event, so that's an extra three covers to add to the character.  Adding those to the three I got for progression in the previous event (Where I finished 52nd and missed the 4-star cover by about 300 points.  grumble grumble grumble) and he had a very good week and a half.  He's sitting at LVL 189 right now, so he received 10 covers in the 11 days since my last update.  That includes one cover from his LVL 108 2-star feeder.  Considering at the start of this experiment that I thought he'd be around LVL 190 when Punisher got maxed, that's pretty good!

Punisher, meanwhile, is in the home stretch now.  He hit LVL 260 thanks to a Bonus Hero cover from an Elite token, so he's only six levels away from getting max-champed and ending this experiment.  It looks like only Cap and Black Widow are going to be the only 3-stars that reach the "Max Champ x2" level prior to Punisher.

ThaRoadWarrior

Just thought I’d check in and say that I flipped Punish3r whenever that was, and haven’t yet rechamped him (he is covered, just iso poor at the moment). I was fully expecting his PVP to be horrible, but I ran up to 900 and out without too much trouble (no shields) over a few sessions yesterday. So I don’t feel that bad flipping 3s I think.

sambrookjm

sambrookjm said:

I fully expect Punisher to win the race, since he'll likely get one or two covers a week just through bonuses on Standard tokens, but I never expected to champ Cap twice in the time it took Punisher to get there once.  Likewise, I think Cap will be around level 190 when Punisher gets maxed out.

And with a bonus hero cover from a Standard Token from Venom Bomb, the experiment is completed.  Punisher reached LVL 266.  And there was much rejoicing.  The experiment started April 6, so it took about 4.5 months to get him maxed out.  He joins Cap #2 and Black Widow #2 (who reached max champ level during the experiment) as my max-champed 3-stars.  My prediction of Cap #3 being around LVL 190 was, surprisingly, very good.  He ended up at LVL 191.  Of those covers, eight were from his feeder, which is an average of about two a month.

sambrookjm said:

One PvE with Punisher as the featured 3-star makes a huge difference.  He jumped from LVL 194 all the way up to LVL 210, which moves his likely max champ date up from Halloween to somewhere close to Labor Day.

The Thursday before Labor Day counts as "somewhere close to Labor Day," right?   To be fair, my original prediction was somewhere around Halloween, but I didn't think he'd gain *that* many levels during his featured PvE.

My next 3-star Bonus Hero is going to be Thor.  He's currently sitting at LVL 258, and has a 13 cover dupe, non-champed, at LVL 166 that was generated before saved covers were a thing.  (I've also got 13 cover, non-champed dupes of Hulk, Deadpool and Scarlet Witch from the same time period.)  After him will be Hulk, who is sitting at LVL 242.  If the Punisher rates continue for these two, Thor and Hulk should be done by the end of September.