The anniversary is much like last year so this is a similar guide. Here I’m going to try and cover all the information you need to know to decide what you’re doing. I hope it’s helpful and best of luck in your egg hatching!
Important note:
Right now there is NO REASON to rush into spending gems on anything, so think carefully about your decisions. Just make sure you get things before they expire or leave the game.
Categories:
- Free stuff to not miss
- Neo ticket lite
- Neo ticket
- Fortune shrine
- Best eggs to hatch in
- Best shop/gem offers
1) Free stuff to not miss
The first two pages of the news during the anniversary have screens where you can claim:
- Free icon (choice of two)
- Free background (choice of two)
- Free monster (the 6* Thundring)
- Neo tickets (covered below)
Make sure you claim them before 14th November!
You also get a 21-day login bonus over a 25-day period, meaning you need to log in almost every day to claim it all. Bear in mind these gems are extremely useful at the moment for the anniversary eggs so the sooner you get them, the better.
In total you get 200 gems, 20 egg tickets and 10x 6* tickets.
Best of all, we can get LOTS of gems from the anniversary fortune shrine. The biggest of these requires 1200 gems on your account, so if you don’t have that already then you should try to save up before doing anything else. I’ve got some tips for that in the fortune shrine section below.
2) Neo ticket lite
Simply put, this lets you get a legendary of your choice from the monster shop. You get 1 ticket for free and two more are available in the limited sale shop "Anniv Sale 4". The shop to use the ticket doesn't expire until the end of this year, so you can wait as long as you like to see if you hatch any of these legendaries in the meantime. However, the extra tickets in the shop need to be bought in the next 3 weeks.
The big question is which monster to pick! The monsters available are all from the standard egg pools so none are rarer ones, that shouldn’t be a factor in your decision. Instead you should just go for the best monster for your collection. If you were around last year, the options are identical to then except for pages 1 and 9.
Thinking of PvP, the best options are (in order):
Gryphking, Bloomeluga, Motordragon, Cyclozar, Tortogeist
Each of these is viable in top level PvP and are strong in the right teams. Tortogeist gets better in high level PvP where most enemies are powerful. A few others like Wraithhost, Dracorosa, Ashterios, Oniblade, Arboribratus and Tygoron are also great.
Thinking of PvE, there are many excellent options. I think this is where you can get the biggest benefit if you are missing one of these (in order):
Aurodragon, Shivadragon, Polaboss, Wraithcaptain, Tortogeist, Leogeist, Dracorosa, Gryphking
These are mostly well known as top PvE monsters. Crescendo, cloning and revival are excellent strategies that help get you through many events. Tortogeist is great for buffed content and Dracorosa is brilliant alongside Blossomight and Sanguinymph.
My recommendation
Generally speaking, PvP now revolves around which mythics you have awakened so targeting a PvP legendary may not pay off in the long run. However, if you have PvE already covered or simply want to improve your PvP roster then go for it. Otherwise, I think targeting a PvE monster is a smarter choice.
There is one very clear choice here:
Aurodragon
Everyone will tell you this is the correct choice. It enables so many strong teams in PvE when combined with revenge monsters, sacrifice monsters and cloning monsters. It is one of the best PvE monsters in the game and can even see some play in PvP.
Beyond that, the choice gets interesting. There are three I want to mention specifically first:
Gryphking - this is universally good… no matter what stage you’re at in the game and in both PvE and PvP. It’s a brilliant support monster and stun protection.
Tortogeist - if you’re at the later stages of the game this is excellent for the hard content and is decent in top level PvP.
Dracorosa - for newer players this can unlock a very powerful setup with Blossomight and Sanguinymph. These are super epics and if you have them they’ll probably carry you through a lot of PvE content.
After considering those, next I would recommend in the order I listed them above. Shivadragon is excellent for both support and sweeping, while Polaboss is a better sweeper and Leogeist is weaker but works as stun protection too. Wraithcaptain can be tricky to play correctly but can win games by itself.
If you already have all of the monsters I’ve mentioned above or aren’t interested in them, here are the next few I’d consider (roughly in order):
Cosmodragon - great in certain PvE events
Gloreonix - great for dungeon challenge and certain other content
The Saintfeather - complex but can be used anywhere
Chronotitan - easy to pull off in PvE, great for a lot of PvE content
Shadowyrm - good with dragons in PvP (e.g. Megalodragon/Scarleguard/Cactalars)
Soulstealer - pretty strong for PvE
3) Neo ticket
Very similar to the Neo ticket lite, this lets you get a mythic of your choice from the monster shop and you can get two extra tickets from the limited sale shop "Anniv Sale 4".
I highly recommend you wait to use the Neo ticket until after doing all your anniversary hatching, in case your hatch results change your decision. You can even wait until the end of the year if you want to, just don’t forget to use it!
The options are all the standard pool mythics, even the ones added in the 10th anniversary egg pool update. However, it’s excluding the ones added to the standard egg pool during the 9th anniversary. I think they made a mistake with that here! Anyway, that means they’re all equal rarity. These are the factors you should consider when picking the monster:
- Is it the last shard to awaken the mythic (i.e. you get immediate value)
- Is this a mythic you intend to progress towards awakening by hatching for it in gold eggs (i.e. you save yourself some gems), or maybe next year with the next Neo ticket
- Is this mythic good in its second form (i.e. immediate value)
For most people, the first factor is the biggest. Awakening a mythic is a lot of fun and typically gives you a really useful boost to your collection. Getting the last shard for a standard pool mythic can take forever unless you hatch for it specifically in gold eggs where it’s featured, so this is a nice way to bypass needing to do that.
Personally, I like to focus on particular mythics so factor (2) is a big one for me. For many newer players I believe that (3) is the primary focus because they don’t have one close to awakening and they’re not at a stage where they focus on long-term goals or awakening the standard pool mythics.
Now let’s jump into which are the best choices!
Best to awaken for PvP (in order):
Yukihime, Bastia, Asmodia, Haneri, Arachnadiva, Cynthia, Huskegon
Best to awaken for PvE (in order):
Bastia, Yukihime, Kirina, Brynhildr, Excaliburdragon, Mechangelion, XYZ-999L
Good in 2nd form:
Gorgodrake, Kirina, Plumesilisk, Auraleus, Satomi, Bastia (PvE)
My recommendation
Honestly, Gorgodrake is the only one which is truly great in second form. Kirina (for PvE) and Plumesilisk (for PvP) are worth using in second form, they’re viable. You can see from my listings above that Bastia and Yukihime rate high for both PvE and PvP.
Bastia is not easy to play well unless you have a big collection and it doesn’t fit everyone’s playstyle so it’s not one you should pick without knowing what you’re doing. However, it’s an excellent counter to many strategies that people play in PvP and turns much of PvE into easy mode.
Yukihime got a buff in the last year and is an insanely controlling sweeper. Getting a turn completely warps a battle in your favour and both killing moves are far better than a standard, say, bloodfury. She’s very easy to use in any team. However, I can foresee potential for her getting a nerf in the future.
So my top recommendation is probably Yukihime, with Bastia a close second. Mechangelion is what I recommended last year and it’s a well-rounded support option to consider too. Otherwise, those others are what I recommend you consider for PvE/PvP depending on which you want to prioritise.
If you aren’t interested in them, here are the next few I’d consider (roughly in order):
Gorgodrake - great poison sweeper
Plumesilisk - great protector / stun protection for front line in PvP
Voidress - good anti-waifu for PvP
Y Ddraig Goch - great generic low TU sweeper
Lemon - sleep combo end-game that can make comebacks
Deus X - super controlling switch enemy for nasty FL setups (needs collection to support it)
Persephia - fast sweeper / entrance synergy for PvP (value higher if you have a collection to support it)
4) Fortune shrine
The fortune shrines are for: 6, 60, 600, 1200 gems. Assuming these have the same reward distribution as the normal shrine, the gems you can expect are as follows: 10.5 (+4.5), 94 (+34), 836 (+236), 1672 (+472). That means you're likely to get ~750 gems in total, or 275 gems if you can't afford the final shrine.
If you don’t have enough gems yet then you have until 13th November to save up. You won’t start missing out on egg hatching opportunities until 3rd November (UTC) so it’s safe to avoid spending gems until then.
Login bonus gives 130 gems in that time. We also have the rest of this PvP season to get some gems from that. Otherwise, the best way to make some gems is with the limited sale offers. The ones you should consider are (in order of cheapest price for the number of gems):
- Monthly section - “Gem Extravaganza”, 100 gems total at the cheapest price
- Anniv Sale 2 - “Fortune Shrine Pilgrim”, 303 gems total for ~4x the price of (1)
- Anniv Sale 2 - “Fortune Shrine Devotee”, 390 gems total for ~7x the price of (1)
- Anniv Sale 2 - “Fortune Shrine Worshipper”, 184 gems total for ~3.5x the price of (1)
Whether you spend m0ney is up to you, but if these offers allow you to reach the 1200 gem shrine they may net you a lot of gems in total and the anniversary festival eggs effectively offer you “half price mythics” when you hatch in blocks of 10x 10-packs so it’s all much more efficient than spending m0ney and hatching at other times.
5) Best eggs to hatch in
Anniversary festival eggs
In previous anniversaries there have been 2 anniversary eggs with the 10th pack guaranteed mythic. These are basically like saying the mythics are half price, with awakening in 1200 gems (30 packs) being a very good likelihood (71%). The 2 eggs overlapped, so the strategy was to wait and then pick which you wanted to go for (or both).
Since the 9th anniversary, we’ve got 12 eggs like this! The final ones start on 5th November (Wednesday), slightly after the first ones finish. So you can’t wait and make a perfect decision, but it’s still best to wait until eggs end to see if you want to hatch in a later egg more than the early ones.
Interestingly, there’s also NO REASON to hatch in the two anniversary eggs featuring the new monsters. If you’d prefer the mythics/legendaries in other eggs then go for them instead. All of them are the same deal.
Please be aware, the 10 old mythics which are being featured in these eggs were all originally released 1.5+ years ago. So they’re 10 of the 73 being featured in the paid eggs but not anything from about page 11+ in the monsterdex when you filter by mythics.
Do you continue to the next 10th after awakening the mythic?
Let’s assume you’re at pack 25. In the next 5 packs you get 1.5 mythics. Extra copies are a 7* ticket which is basically 1/3 value so this 1.5 is like 0.5 mythics. In a normal egg doing 5 packs you’d expect 0.5 mythics so it’s just the same. Therefore, this is where you break even. If you’re are 26, 27, 28 or 29 that’s where it becomes more efficient to finish going to 30 than hatch in a normal egg.
However, since we’ve got 12 anniversary eggs you will be probably better off hatching in those if you have the gems to reach 10th packs in them. It changes the equation so it’s only worth finishing going to pack “10th” if you are on the 8th or 9th pack.
Stellar ticket eggs
These cost a stellar ticket and give you 1 guaranteed mythic + 9 random hatches (any mythic in these will also be from the pool shown). They are split by element and contain all the limited mythics (ones that are not in the standard pool on all other eggs).
These are well known offers by now. You can buy one stellar ticket relatively cheaply in the shop but the others are expensive. It’s a fairly efficient way to get a mythic, particularly the cheap ticket, but the only problem is you get a random one. I personally think storm or water contains the best overall chance at a strong mythic but it’s totally up to you.
6) Best shop/gem offers
Quick breakdown...
- Double gems sales from first normal gem purchase each day, from 24th October - 5th November (12 offers total)
- 4 anniversary sections of the “Limited Sale” shop, closing on 14th November:
a) Fruit / Nectar / Omegamid / Ocarino
b) Gems / Egg ticket
c) Stellar ticket
d) Neo ticket - Standard “Limited Sale” shop offers
These are almost identical to what we got in the 9th anniversary, so what I’ve got written below is copied from last year’s guide.
The “Limited Sale” shop has created better offers than the 2x gem sale both in the standard things we see each day/week/month and in the extra anniversary sections.
Please bear in mind this is calculated using my own currency and may not be true for yours. Look carefully and make calculations yourself before making purchases.
My recommendation
If you want gems then make sure you get the best shop offers. If you want to awaken standard pool mythics then the neo ticket offers and egg ticket deals are great. If you are high hero rank then the nectar bundle is worth considering. If you are in need for omegamids and ocarinos then consider those, but definitely not otherwise.
After buying/considering all those, buying gems through the normal means for the 2x gem sale should be what you want to do if you are a spender who wants to get gems in bulk to stock up for the future or take advantage of the “half price mythics” anniversary festival eggs going on right now.
The rest of this post details all the offers and does a valuation of each, to help you figure out how they compare to each other. Take a look if you want to easily see which are the best gem offers.
Click this to see all the valuation breakdown
Let’s assume the 2x gem sale is the standard offer and compare everything to it. People generally consider this to be a good offer in the game, so I think it’s the best starting point.
In my currency, the bottom two offers are the best deals for m0ney and basically the same efficiency. They work out as 1.875 paid gems + 1.875 free gems (3.75 total) per £1.
Standard sales:
- Daily
- (Wed) Super lucky gems sale (28 paid + ~28 free, £15) = 99.6% value
- (Tues/Sun) Egg ticket deal (28 paid + 10 egg tickets, £15) = 100%+ value depending on how you value egg tickets (1 ticket = 4 gems for gold egg)
- (Tues/Sun) Big egg ticket deal, depends on your valuation of egg tickets but can also be over 100% value
- Biweekly
- Double gems sale, these can be the same or better than 100% value
- Monthly
- Gem extravaganza (28 paid + 72 free, £15) = 178% value
- Premium egg ticket deal (150 paid + 60 egg tickets, £80) = 127% value (if you count 1 ticket = 4 gems)
Anniversary sales:
- Nectar bundle (small nectar ~= 0.5 gems)
- Deal 1 (13 paid + 8 free + 20 nectar, £8) = 103% value
- Omegamid / Ocarino bundles
- Supply/Bundle plus (74 paid + 37 free + 20/16 ingredients, £40) = 74% value + ingredients
- Gem bundles (page 2)
- Fortune shrine worshipper (74 paid + 110 free, £40) = 123% value
- Fortune shrine pilgrim (119 paid + 184 free, £60) = 135% value
- Fortune shrine devotee (150 paid + 240 free, £80) = 130% value
- Anniv egg ticket deal (150 paid + 80 egg tickets, £80) = 156% value (if you count 1 ticket = 4 gems)
- Stellar ticket bundles (page 3) - let’s value stellar ticket as 133 gems (1/3 of mythic for 400 gems because assume it’s a random shard or unwanted mythic)
- Deal 1 (28 paid + 1 stellar ticket, £15) = 50% + stellar ticket = 286% value
- Deals 2-4 (150 paid + 50 + 1 stellar ticket, £80) = 67% + stellar ticket = 111% value
- Ticket bundles
- Neo ticket lite (119 paid + 1 neo ticket lite, £60) = 53% value + neo ticket lite
- Neo ticket (150 paid + 1 neo ticket, £80) = 50% value + neo ticket = 183% value (if you count 1 mythic of your choice = 400 gems)
Great Luck with the Rodeknight and Vixian…Bad luck with the Sakuralisk though 