We wanted to share a list we compiled of less popular tips for beginner players who are just starting out this year with Marvel’s Contest of Champions! We’ve found a lot of really great guides on the web and youtube, but noticed that many recent ones are often geared at more veteran players who are at the later stages of the game. For context, we’re a 100% free to play noobs that started playing a new account this January, and jotted down a lot of these as just notes for ourself. Remembering many of these helped us get to uncollected this week on day 100, so hopefully this might be helpful for anyone just starting out in 2020!

Marvel Contest of Champions – Top Tips for New Players 2020

1. Do your dailies!

Here’s a handy visual guide:

• If you’re short on time, try doing one daily login in the afternoon after reset (12p PST)
• Use up your energy to get some minimum xp/gold for the day (speed through a daily quest on the highest energy use for some catalysts, or a lower level event quest you can put on auto)
• Check the GLORY and POTIONS shop (details on what to buy in point 2 and 3)
• Check the daily events/objectives lists (more in point 4)

2. Shop wisely— Plan for what you’ll need, and spend in the right places

• Save Units for masteries/emergency revives/health stash (you’ll need them in Acts 4-6)
• Save Glory for T4 catalysts/T1 & T2 alphas (you can get materials like T3s through daily quests/crystals, while these will be bottlenecks, so save up!)
• Save Loyalty for alliance revives/health from the potions shop
• Buy crystals with shards, not units! (you will get many from events/arena, more in point 6), and buy energy recharges if you desperately need gold (cheaper than gold crystals, plus you get xp/iso/comparable gold)
• Check the store for any promos or event shops to see what you can stock up on for the future! (ie. black iso market from the summoner sigil free trial, squirrel store from January event)

3. Stock up! Especially from the Glory store

• The game gets exponentially harder to progress as you move forward— so you want to start getting supplies for when you need them later. The biggest blocker is rank up materials, especially catalysts. Do hard/expert daily quests once you are able to, and check the glory store every day to stock up on T4 CLASS catalyst fragments (resets daily), and 1-2 T4 basic catalysts (resets weekly). **There is a limited amount you can buy, and the price increases after each purchase, so you don’t want to be stuck buying everything at once!
• Feel free to leave crystals unopened (even though that little tag can get annoying!) especially arena boost crystals which expire rather quickly in your cache. Save free daily crystals for an unexpiring health stash, and boosts for when you decide to grind in arena for a champion!

4. Check the cycling events/objectives lists (bottom right) and get free bonuses!

• You can get so many more bonuses (gold, signature stones, UNITS) from simply waiting for the right time to rank up your champions or grind in arena. We think rewards from the Level Up event (includes units plus revive) are better than the Class Advancement events, so we try to rank up during class advancement just enough to get class ISO’s, but leave champs at lower levels until Level Up events. Wait until Hero Use/Arena Wins/Class Combat events to grind arena. Also, make sure to complete the objectives for event quest bonuses (January’s acorn event is the only reason we were able to get a 5-star in our first two weeks!)

5. READ THE NODES [AKA read EVERYTHING]

• One of the worst feelings in this game is finding out you’re on an Aegis or Caltrops node mid-fight. Take it from an experienced non-reader– save yourself some potions.
• Read everything– champion abilities, opponent abilities, reddit guides— for a game, MCOC actually involves a LOT of studying.

6. Don’t miss out on rewards from event quests in other difficulties

• Another way to gain materials is to run completion through the event quests on easier modes. This is easy to do with auto-mode especially if you’re looking for a quick way to use up your energy. The same thing applies to getting exploration rewards for the first chapter in a higher difficulty (often 4 or 5 star shards),

7. Do bare minimum arena each round to get shards and units, and take advantage of the baby brackets!

• Depending on your roster, you can reach these milestones using only 1-2 hours over the 3-day period; start from your lowest champs until you get to 3x multiplier, and then use higher rating champs to get the most out of your streak (pro tip: try mixing 2 high rating champs with 1 super low rating champ as it gets harder!)
• summoner trials arena: (tiers: 2.5k, 5k, 30k) = 1.5k ph shards, 16 units
• 3star arena: (tiers: 7.5k, 15k) = 1k ph shards, 10 units
• 4star basic arena: (tiers: 17k, 35k, *150k if you can) = 2-3.6k ph shards, 15-30 units
• 4star featured arena: (tier 75k) = 1.2k ph shards, 5 units
• Total you can get about 6-8k shards each period/6-8 crystals per week from arena alone
• If you do decide to grind for the basic or featured heroes— do them in your first 30 days! We were lucky enough to get a basic (cable) and featured (longshot) at ~1.6m points, but can’t imagine grinding any more than we did without going crazy, so definitely try to do that while you’re still in the baby (0-30 days), or intermediate (30-60 days) bracket!

8. Make friends! AKA join an alliance asap, and eventually find one you like

• As shitty as the global chat seems, there are still some really nice people in the community. We actually randomly found a great dungeons partner through global chat, and ended up joining his alliance (shout out to SoWx!) which turned out to be 10x better than where we were.
• Incursions/dungeons is much better with someone you know, because there’s less of a chance they’ll bail on you (also please don’t be that guy), and you’ll receive friendship bonuses, so make sure to add alliance buddies before you play!
• **A good alliance is the fastest way you will get rank up materials (glory from AQ) and new heroes (shards from AW)

9. Invest in the champions that are right for you!

• Remember, everyone’s playing style is different so there is no ONE right champion for everyone— use the tier lists as guides, but invest in who you’re playing well with especially in the beginning. (Even though we lucked out with an awakened Aegon, we were so shitty at learning to keep a combo, that it was ultimately better to invest in our other skill champions) Do what is most efficient, and don’t start worrying too much about champion tiers until you finish Act 3/start needing T4 catalysts. Once you start establishing a solid team, save your rank up materials (catalysts/isos) to upgrade those few champs, instead of spreading your resources thin to many of them at once.

10. Enjoy the game and quit as many times as you need to

• Sometimes, the way you start a fight will determine the entire outcome of it. Don’t panic or get angry— it’s the easiest way to keep losing fights or spend all of your units in a rage. Don’t worry about the sunk cost if you need to quit— you’ll get it back, whether it’s energy or units. Take your time, and keep trying!

**Finally, be extremely lucky

• Honestly, a lot of this game comes down to your crystal luck! while there’s a ton of skill involved, I’m not going to sit here and act like you’re going to have the same experience as someone who gets a way better champ earlier on in the game! So remember not to compare your progress to others in the game— they might have had completely different luck than you, or wish they had your luck!

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We guess most of this comes down to: 1) Be patient, 2) Read the fine print, and 3) Have a good time!

Thanks and credit to user cryptoxima for help creating this guide.

Don’t miss our other Marvel’s Contest of Champions Guides:

• 3 New Mastery Builds – Marvel’s Contest of Champions
• Masteries Guide – Marvel’s Contest of Champions