I don't want to hoard, but...

Sadly once have a few useable 4* the best choice is to hoard since it sucks so much iso levelling each 4*.  If you open legends you end up burning covers.  It will continue to be the best option until they increase iso gain or stop allowing covers to expire, and 2 have another solution to the 5* dilution other than save 300 tokens and go all in on the current set of 3.

Don't want to hoard, then don't. During the frenetic vaulting period, I had 3 heros covered with covers on the vine. I kept opening tokens for the iso, and occasionally had to sell usable covers. I also sometimes got lucky with the timing of shield level increasing and max 2* so with a couple days before expiration I got the iso needed. I liked to add up the iso needed then divide by days left to see how much was needed on average.
Selling covers isn't the worst thing in the world. I think a wasted cover is not as bad as wasted iso on a not good 4*.

To me it doesn't even sound like you're in that bad of a spot. With 11 champs and only 3 covered, I feel you could keep opening without really worrying about getting that 14th cover. In your transition state you are probably more likely to pull an unusable cover rather than a 14th cover.

I hoard only long enough to champ whoever I have to champ before I can realistically pull the next cover and be able to champ the character if it's a 14th cover.

Did 2 of those in a row recently (one came from progression rewards, the other was a bonus hero - managed it by the skin of my teeth).

Then I spree and pull as much as I can until I end up back at the start of the loop OR I hit my CP "just in case" baseline. It was a fun spree. Ended up about 1/2 way to the next rank.

You don't have to. Just gotta be OK with selling a lot of covers.

I found it more rewarding to fight the temptation and only pull when I had ISO to champ. Okay, mostly. I was weak once or twice and let myself pull a dozen or so LTs. The first cover I had to sell always set me back to hoard mode, though.

Anyway, the point is that if you stick with it long enough, eventually you'll outpace new releases and can pull more or less at will. Granted, when I started there were only maybe 12 or 13 4* characters, so the timeline is a lot longer now than it was then. At this point it might make more sense to make the jump to 5* play as soon as you can, then go back to finish the 4* tier.

I really wish the ISO cost to max a fourstar could be adjusted.

A twostar costs around 70K ISO to max.

A threestar costs around 120K ISO to max, approximately twice the cost of a two-star.

A fourstar costs around 350 K ISO to max, approximately Three times the cost of a Three-star

A fivestar costs around 550K ISO to max, approximately 50% more than a fourstar.

If the cost to max a fourstar was adjusted to around 270K ISO, the jumps would be a lot smoother - each tier would cost approximately half of the one below. The costs were set when fourstars were the endgame, but now that is not the case anymore and with more and more fourstars the cost should be adjusted to allow junior players to Catch up to veterans.

Hoarding isn’t such a bad thing. It allows you to effectively control your roster as much as you are able to in this game. Before long you will have a sizable stash and you can pick and choose what to do with it. I was in much the same position as you earlier this year and I saved up. Maybe a month ago now I pulled my first half of the hoard and ended up with pp / dd and gambit covered. Then when thors special vault came out I blew another half of what I had left and luckily covered thor dr strange and banner ( well maybe not that lucky )

now im waiting for the special vault for the new 5 star to come out then I will blow the 170 odd pulls I have left on that. I may cover him and the 2 others like I was able to with thor I may not, but hoarding has allowed me to jump from a 4 star player to a minnow 5 star. This time next week ( if that’s when the vault is out )  I could have 8 fully champed 5s and it was all down to hoarding.

 

If you want control do it with the mind to being in a better position later. It works. Sometimes you need to take a step back to plan for the future

Hoarding is the smart play with 11 champs, but take heart - it gets easier.  At 1 every 10 days it'll take over a year to "catch up", but you can get there without spending money.  Every 4* you champ decreases the odds of pulling a 14th cover, which extends your ability to pull without waste.

I champed my first character in Aug 2016 and I've only got 4 classics and 3 latests unchamped now.  I pull everything immediately and haven't wasted a cover in months.  You'll get there if you don't take breaks or downshift your play.

Lets look at my account... 6300 CP, 75 LT and I even just started hoarding heroics and am already at 60+ (2 10 packs).  I could (and have) not open a token in a year and probably still have cover waste due to 900 PVP and top10 PVE. Those covers naturally come so much faster than I have the Iso to cover them and so it’s easy to hoard. For a long time Legendary tokens/CP have done little for my progression.

Case in point, between PVE/PVP I got like 5-6 Moonknight covers making him go from lowest 4 to ready to champ. So after scraping and clawing and dipping into the 2 farm I Champed him and got #2 in his PVE (he was super fun!).  In PVP I got a 14th Mockingbird for reaching 900 and I just pulled a Gambit whose champ level will give me an unusable 13th Rogue. So with no token help I Champed MK and have two more ready to champ. Kind of. I’m going to bust the heroic hoard, stockpiled event tokens, and if I have to, open some LT fishing for a useable Rogue before applying Gambits cover. But yeah all this and a I have less than 20k iso lol. Hoarding just makes sense with my cover acquisition rate. 

I have zero usable 5s (all low covers and 255), 42 4* champs, the above 2 on deck to be Champed and then 16 more left (9 Classic, 6 Latest, 1 Howard). 

Edit: And I see Mr. Fantastic is up for reward. So that’s potentially 3-4 more covers and mine is already at 13 covers. Already in a huge iso hole I’d likely have to sell them or bump Bobbi/Rogue forgoing a top tier latest character. These are the choices I’m often faced with even not opening. 

Sometimes you just have to sell covers. It happens at every stage of the game. As a 2* player, I sold off every moonstone, Daken, and bullseye cover I pulled. As a 3* player, I sold off countless rags, sentrys, and psylockes while I champed other 3s. As a 4*, it was Elektra, Mr. Fantastic, spiderwoman, and many 6th power covers. BUT while I sold off those covers, I gained covers for better characters to champ. So while people were champing Mr fantastic and Elektra as their first champs, I had Iceman, rulk, and cyclops has mine.

I've only hoarded twice in my 3 years of play and today I have 54 champed 4s in little over a year. Cover waste is just a fact of the game, but it's just a cover. They come and they go, just like any other resource.

smkspy said:

Sometimes you just have to sell covers. It happens at every stage of the game. As a 2* player, I sold off every moonstone, Daken, and bullseye cover I pulled. As a 3* player, I sold off countless rags, sentrys, and psylockes while I champed other 3s. As a 4*, it was Elektra, Mr. Fantastic, spiderwoman, and many 6th power covers. BUT while I sold off those covers, I gained covers for better characters to champ. So while people were champing Mr fantastic and Elektra as their first champs, I had Iceman, rulk, and cyclops has mine.

I've only hoarded twice in my 3 years of play and today I have 54 champed 4s in little over a year. Cover waste is just a fact of the game, but it's just a cover. They come and they go, just like any other resource.

Yep, it’s ok to sell some covers.  It’s good to minimize it, but it’s not terrible.  I only hoarded once for a month, shortly after vaulting was introduced because there was a 50% chance I’d pull a cover I couldn’t use.  After a month I let a couple weaker ones leave the latest, saved up ISO, then I was able to pull everything.

If there’s a 10% chance you’ll pull an unusable cover, oh well.  When it’s 50%, then it’s time to hoard.