Banners

There are a variety of Summons in The Alchemist Code.

Summon Rarities[ | ]

Summons have different rarities, and these rarities often impact their abilities or special features. Pulling duplicates of the same unit will result in getting additional fragments of that unit, based on the unit's rarity.

The Alchemist Code has the following rarity tiers:

TIER 1 - 5★. These units come from red crystals. These are released on new banners with an increased rate of acquisition. Pulling a duplicate of one of these units gives you 25 fragments of that unit.
TIER 2 - 4★. These units come from yellow crystals. These are released on new banners with an increased rate of acquisition. Pulling a duplicate of one of these units gives you 20 fragments of that unit.
TIER 3 - 3★. These units come from blue crystals. These are the most common units and will make the bulk of most of your pulls. Most of them are not powerful, but they may have higher stats than higher tier units due to more limit breaks from duplicates. Pulling a duplicate of one of these units gives you 15 fragments of that unit.

Types of Banners[ | ]

There are many varieties of banners, splitting into 5-types of categories which are, Unit, Gear, Shard, Memento, and Gem Banners.

Unit Banners[ | ]

This is where you'll be summoning for units in the summoning pool. Unless stated there will not be any limited units in a normal unit pool (To know when a limited is featured check the banner unit, if its a limited unit on the banner then that means that unit is in the summoning pool). A normal 10x summon costs 2500 Gems with the discounted rate being 500 Gems. When you get a duplicate unit, depending on rarity it will become shards, for 5★ Rarity it is, 25 Shards, 4★ is 20 Shards and 3★ is 15 Shards.

The rates for a unit banner are:
5★ Unit - 10%
4★ Unit - 20%
3★ Unit - 70%

Unit Grand Summon[ | ]

Aside from regular banner there is another type of unit banner called Grand Summon. These types of banner are usually available during the weekend. Only Paid Gems can be used to do this kind of banner. These banners have guaranteed units with higher summoned rate of 5* units along attractive freebies. Typically, these unit banners cost between 1500 to 2500 Paid Gems depending rate of 5* summon and freebies.

Memento Banners[ | ]

This type of banner includes only Mementos and as such this is where you'll be pulling for and getting Mementos, costing around 500 Gems usually for the first step as it is a discounted rate, sometimes there won't be any discount rate which will be the usual, 2500 Gems.

The rates for a memento banner are:
5★ Memento - 6%
4★ Memento - 15%
3★ Memento - 79%

Memento Grand Summon[ | ]

Like Unit Grand summon banner there is Grand Memento summon banner as well. These banners also use between 1500 to 2500 Paid Gems. Depending on the gems requirement, the banner could be 10x summon feature 5* mementos (usually, 1 guaranteed) with increase rate for 5* or all 5* mementos. All 5* mementos banner are mostly desired as this banner considered highly gems efficient.

Gear Banners[ | ]

Unlike Unit and Memento banners, you are not actually aiming for reds, but instead yellows. This is a gear banner where you'll be summoning gear which will be used by your units. The gear banner purely only has gear in it and will generally feature Four 4★ Gears at a time in one banner, and unlike the usual, 5★ to 3★ Summons in Units and Mementos, Gear Banners features on 4★ to 3★, with 4★ with the highest rarity you can get from summons.

The rates for Gear Banners are:
4★ Gear - 10%
3★ Gear - 20%
2★ Gear - 70%

Gear Grand Summon[ | ]

Gear banners also has Grand Summon which featured some very useful 4* gears. These banners start from 900 Paid Gems.

Shard Banners[ | ]

The main purpose of these banners are to easily limit break your limited/non-farmable units or to enlighten them. Most shard banners (with the exception of free ones) are 10x Summon costing from 1000 ~ 2500 Gems. These shard banners ranges from a variety of things, but generally when a unit is featured, you are guaranteed at least 10 ~ 50 Shards of that unit, with the rest of the 9x giving out equipment, gold bars, etc. These shard banners DOES NOT contain the actual featured unit unless specified, rather their shards so it is not recommended to pull unless you have that unit. Sometimes it varies depending on the banner, so it isn't always from what was stated above. So it is highly recommended to read the banner to see what you are getting you may regret it if you don't, in some cases there is also a chance of getting the actual unit, but its extremely unlikely/rare.

Gem Return Banners[ | ]

Gems Banners give you an amount of gems higher than the gems that were used to pull. Gems Banners do not summon gems, they instead summon items like Rainbow Soul Shards and other Soul Shards, Gold Gear Shards and other items then the gems returned are sent as Shared Free Gems to Gifts with no expiration. It is not recommended to use Paid Gems (Paid Gems are more valuable than Free Gems and can be use in Grand Summon which is Paid Gems only) for gem return banners, as those also will be returned as Free Gems. These banners are extremely rare but are highly valuable to do if you have the gems available.

There are two types of gem return banner, 4 step and 7 step. The 4 step banner is the more common type, but on rare occasions we may get a 7 step.

4 Step Gem Return[ | ]

Step 1: 500 gems, returns 600 to 1,000 gems (100 to 300 profit)
Step 2: 2500 gems, returns 3,000 to 5,000 gems (500 to 2,500 profit)
Step 3: 10,000 gems, returns 11,000 to 20,000 gems (1,000 to 10,000 profit)
Step 4: 30,000 gems, returns 33,000 to 60,000 gems (3,000 to 30,000 profit)

7 Step Gem Return[ | ]

Step 1: 77 gems, returns 85 to 154 gems (8 to 77 profit)
Step 2: 777 gems, returns 850 to 1,554 gems (73 to 777 profit)
Step 3: 7,777 gems, returns 8,500 to 15,554 gems (723 to 7,777 profit)
Step 4: 17,777 gems, returns 19,000 to 35,554 gems (1,223 to 17,777 profit)
Step 5: 27,777 gems, returns 30,000 to 55,554 gems (2,223 to 27,777 profit)
Step 6: 47,777 gems, returns 50,000 to 95,554 gems (2,223 to 47,777 profit)
Step 7: 77,777 gems, returns 80,000 to 155,554 gems (2,223 to 77,777 profit)

Daily Free Summon Banner[ | ]

These banners reset everyday and you can summon for free.

Rare Summon[ | ]

You can summon Units or Character Shards in the rare daily summon banner (1/day).
The rates for a rare daily summon banner are:
5★ Unit - 10%
4★ Unit - 20%
3★ Unit - 40%
5★ Unit Shard - 10%
4★ Unit Shard - 20%

Common Summon[ | ]

You can draw 5/day to obtain 1★ ~ 2★ Units, 1★ ~ 2★ Character Shards, Equipment, etc.

Mementos Summon[ | ]

You can summon Memento in the mementos daily summon banner (1/day).

Celebration Summon[ | ]

You can obtain various items such as Elemental Soul Shards, Miscellaneous Items, Equipment, Alchemy Droplets, Alchemy Drops, etc.

Cost Efficiency[ | ]

Since banners come in a variety of types, and gems are limited, you need to pull on banners wisely.

Pact Player[ | ]

If you're a pact player (meaning you spend $6/month on the game for the pact and nothing else), you'll be getting about 1,120 gems a week, not counting arena wins or event/story milestones/rewards. You can do the first step of the 5-step banner each week for 500 gems. You could also afford the first step of the gear banner for 300 gems. Still, you're only banking 320 gems a week if you buy both, meaning you'll be saving very slowly for collaborations. If your roster is weak, you should absolutely be pulling on the first step of the 5-step banner every week. If you're confident in your roster and can clear most content pretty easily, you can afford to scale back on doing the first step for non-limited/non-collaboration banner weeks. You can also skip the gear banner most weeks unless a featured item really appeals to you, such as if there's a limited gear or a Curious Doll.

For collaborations and limited banners, the third step of the 5-step banners will be your typical go-to, assuming it includes a guaranteed featured unit. Unfortunately, if you don't get the unit you want on the third step, then you're not going to have a lot of options.

Free-to-Play[ | ]

If you're a completely free player, then you need to be very selective. You're going to be depending on the 60 gems a day you get from the daily milestones, for 420 gems a week, not counting the gems you get from arena. This isn't enough to do the 500 gem pull each week after your initial gem pool from all of the story milestones runs dry; but you should certainly do the 500 pull each week until it no longer becomes feasible, as you'll need to build your roster. As you build out your roster, you'll need to be very reliant on the units whose shards can be obtained through hard quests.

If you want to participate in collaboration gachas, then you pretty much shouldn't pull on the 500 gem pulls at all, as you'll need 2,700 gems to get to the third step of the 5-step banner (the third step usually, but not always, gives a guaranteed featured unit), and collaborations usually last about four weeks. If you're pulling on two of those weeks, that means you'll need to save for about 12 weeks. Essentially, by the time you have one collaboration banner, you're going to start needing to save for the next one. If the third step of the 5-step banner does not guarantee a featured unit, then do not pull towards it. You could still do the 500 gem pull, but your chances of getting a featured unit are only around 1%.