Back Issues #2: Mystery in the Microrealm

Once upon a time, an intrepid thief followed the trail of mysterious happenings in The Battlerealm. Little did he know this tiny curiosity would lead to some of the biggest changes in all of The Contest!

Introducing, Back Issues #2: Mystery in the Micro-Realms!

As the Contest has grown and evolved we’ve introduced many Event Quests, each with their own unique stories, and many that have expanded on the mythos of The Battlerealm and The Contest of Champions. We want to give Veteran Summoners a way to relive those moments, and newer ones that weren’t with us at the time a chance to experience the stories of the Contest that they had missed out on!

This Event Quest is available in TWO difficulties:

CLASSIC difficulty is a recreation of the original quest. While not completely 1:1, the layouts, difficulty, and dialogue are all the same as you remember. Take a stroll down memory lane and see how far you've come, or experience a quest you never got the chance to play!

VARIANT difficulty is a new spin on the quest, available for Summoners level 40 and up. This version features extreme challenge, new opponents, updated map layouts, and new combat effects for the boss fights. This quest will test even the mightiest of Summoners, so be prepared! You can find out more about the challenges you will face in Variant Difficulty in our latest Dev Diary post here: https://playcontestofchampions.com/dev-diary-added-difficulty/

The Variant Challenges!

Variant Difficulty will test not only your skills, but your knowledge of Champion abilities, immunities, resistances, and counters! Those who rely on only a few Champions will find the need to diversify.

Unlike Back Issues #1, there will not be explicit gates (like Class or Rarity), but instead we’ll be applying Global Buffs that strongly encourage the use of certain Champions. In this case, it’s XL Champions. All quests will make use of Micro-Reflect, Size Matters, and Particle Protector; effects you might remember from Evangeline Lily’s Champion Challenge last year. (But appropriately souped up.) On top of this, the new Runaway Express and Cultivating Mass Buffs will give XL Champions further advantages beyond their ability to ignore Particle Protector. Finally, Quests 1-3 through 3-3 will also feature Buffs that will benefit bringing in certain XL Champions!

Take a look at the new Buffs you’ll be combating or benefiting from:

Remember Summoners, Variant Difficulty is going to be HARD! The good news is that Back Issues are permanent content, so if you’re not able to take Variant Difficulty on right now, take all the time you need and come back to it when you feel you are better equipped!

Rewards:

For completing and mastering all of the Classic quests, you earn:

Tier 2 Basic ISO x4
Tier 3 Basic ISO x22
Tier 4 Basic ISO x6
Gold x12250
Units x225
Tier 1 Alpha Catalyst x1
Premium Hero Crystal x3
3-Star Hero Crystal x1

For completing and mastering all of the Variant quests, you earn:

5-Star Rank 2 → 3 Gem Crystal x3
5-Star Rank 3 → 4 Gem Crystal (2015 Champs Only) x3
5-Star Rank 3 → 4 Gem Crystal x1
5-Star Rank 4 → 5 Gem Crystal x1
5-Star Awakening Gem Crystal x1
5-Star Crystal x1
Tier 5 Basic Catalyst Fragments x27000
6-Star Crystal Shards x2250
5-Star Signature Stone Crystal x48
Gold x2,100,000
Units x360

This Quest will be available starting Wednesday, April 10th at 10 am PST! Remember, this is permanent content, so you can take your time completing this throwback!

Comments

Surfin_silver

I proposed this idea a long time ago but it’s clearly becoming much more prominent now.

Is there not any way you guys can add filters for certain champion classifications?

Metal, villan, avenger, spiderverse, guardian, XL, ect.

With the growing importance of teams and tags, it’d be extremely helpful to the player base to enable us to just quickly filter between them. @Kabam Miike

Rap

Once again kabam dangles carrots in the form of awakening gems and ranking tokens but we gotta strain ourselves to get them, rank who they intend for us to rank, use up supplies and goods at their whim in advance of having the things we need to raise truly playable champs? (i.e. dupes) It is becoming more and more obvious they want us ranking locked champs and not duped ones so we start running through more supplies that many of us have probably been sitting on and therefore not buying! And getting too deep in the endgame with our 4s...

unknown

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RagamugginGunner

If you insist on 2015 gems you have to make them generic. There simply aren't enough mediocre champs to leave it up to RNG again. It's just too much. I go 2 worthless gems last round and have even less 2015 options now.

Ugh, looking at the list I barely have 3 good options if they were generic.

Wakandas_Finest

CPT_Smash

For completing and mastering all of the Variant quests, you earn:

5-Star Rank 2 → 3 Gem Crystal x3
5-Star Rank 3 → 4 Gem Crystal (2015 Champs Only) x3
5-Star Rank 3 → 4 Gem Crystal x1
5-Star Rank 4 → 5 Gem Crystal x1
5-Star Awakening Gem Crystal x1
5-Star Crystal x1
Tier 5 Basic Catalyst Fragments x27000
6-Star Crystal Shards x2250
5-Star Signature Stone Crystal x48
Gold x2,100,000
Units x360

This Quest will be available starting Wednesday, April 10th at 10 am PST! Remember, this is permanent content, so you can take your time completing this throwback!

This looks fun and all, but it looks like the copy-and-paste job got a little sloppy from Variant 1.0 rewards.

If you look closely at the Rank 3 —> 4 gem, it still says “2015 Champs Only.”

No big deal; mistakes happen to the best of us! Surely it wasn’t done on purpose... your loyal players have already been forced to rank up all the terrible champs from 2015.

Y’all wouldn’t do that to us again, right?

Wakandas_Finest

Does back issue #1 have to be complete before doing back issue #2

Agent_venom

I’m pretty exited for back issues 2 to drop but like many people stated, the 2015 rank up gems are a problem. For the first variant I got 2 cosmic, used one on venom and don’t have anyone else to use the second one. Maybe you guys can include a 2015 5* crystal as well. This can help us get some of those 2015 champs we don’t have.

AlbertAB

@Kabam Miike please listen the community! 2015 gems are ok, yes but make them generic. A lot of players have 1 or more 2015 gems from variant 1 and if the RNG is bad what we are going to do with 2015 gems in the inventory. That´s a fair option.
Second option is 2016 gems crystals.
Don´t show us you are closed to the community.

winterthur

About the "Heavy Machinery" node, it describes "armor up and force field buffs".
In the case of Hulkbuster, it's fine. But Modok's force field isn't a buff, and Sentinel does not trigger any armor up buff (he just triggers a passive armor up on his sp3).

I guess the wording here is wrong. It should read "... and an armor up or force field effect is active ..."

Hoping a Mod will chime in to clarify.

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/131985/passive-buffs-debuffs-abuse#latest

Gamer

@Kabam Miike please listen the community! 2015 gems are ok, yes but make them generic. A lot of players have 1 or more 2015 gems from variant 1 and if the RNG is bad what we are going to do with 2015 gems in the inventory. That´s a fair option.
Second option is 2016 gems crystals.
Don´t show us you are closed to the community.

Fun thing is ther Sean to don’t care as much as befor

VanillaCoke

@Kabam Miike can you guys reconsider the 2015 gem? Can you bump it up to at least the 2016 champions?

Raganator

The 2015 (or whatever year) rank up materials should be generic, specific to that year, so as not to potentially lose out on rank up options if we don’t have anything in a class granted from the crystal.

It always sucks to put in hard work and not feel rewarded.

Agreed. I'm perfectly fine for them to be 2015 gems given the back issue is from 2015, but they really need to be generic at this point.

Wakandas_Finest

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff

Raganator

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff

Try Reddit.

V1PER1987

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff

Free stuff? How is this free stuff? It’s not given to us by logging in and collecting from the calendar.

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TheLegendzPlay

So will the double fury for Venom count as 2 klyntar mutation buffs or will it be a bonus?

Wakandas_Finest

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff
Free stuff? How is this free stuff? It’s not given to us by logging in and collecting from the calendar.

Free in the sense that you don’t have to spend real money on them. I suppose you have to spend time. But as the saying goes if you don’t like it don’t waste your time doing it.

Besides let’s be real no one is running these back issues for the 2015 gems. If they weren’t included people would still run them for the t5b shards 4-5 gem and 5* awakening crystal

WillieB

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff

Free? You obviously haven't explored Back Issues #1.

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Wakandas_Finest

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff
Free? You obviously haven't explored Back Issues #1.

In the process of exploring it now at my own pace and have yet to spend a dime

Austin555555

I ready to kick some ant abdomen

V1PER1987

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff
Free stuff? How is this free stuff? It’s not given to us by logging in and collecting from the calendar.
Free in the sense that you don’t have to spend real money on them. I suppose you have to spend time. But as the saying goes if you don’t like it don’t waste your time doing it.

Besides let’s be real no one is running these back issues for the 2015 gems. If they weren’t included people would still run them for the t5b shards 4-5 gem and 5* awakening crystal

In the first Variant, there actually was a reason to run the quests for the 2015 gems. There are a lot of solid champs that people would like to rank but not use their resources. Luke, Hawkeye, WS, Magik, and SL are just a few examples. The precedent has already been set already too. They can’t make Back Issues 2 less lucrative than 1. That would just be illogical. And to continue to give 2015 champ rank up gems when a lot of them aren’t even available as a 5* is silly.

simula67

Is Thanos going to be made readily available since there is a buff that specifically calls him out, or does the buff only benefit the few hundred people who actually have him?

TheLegendzPlay

Do you have to complete back issues #1 to access this?

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Cryptic_Cobra

Just want to point out there are 4 total 2015 mutant champs that are avaliable as 5*. Colossus, storm, magneto red, and Cyclopes red. Besides the fact all 4 are awful champs, this has the potential to leave someone with a rank up gem that is literally 100% not usable. For example, there are 6 gems total now, if they pull all 6 at mutant (this is very possible, and I guarantee will happen to someone) they will have 2 gems that will literally never be able to used. Or what if someone already ranked up one of these 4 champs, or 2? Point is, releasing 6 gems that can only be used on 4 champs total is just idiotic. Make them generic, problem solved.

V1PER1987

Just once I’d love to have a thread where there are not a bunch of Whiners complaining about free stuff
Free stuff? How is this free stuff? It’s not given to us by logging in and collecting from the calendar.
Free in the sense that you don’t have to spend real money on them. I suppose you have to spend time. But as the saying goes if you don’t like it don’t waste your time doing it.

Besides let’s be real no one is running these back issues for the 2015 gems. If they weren’t included people would still run them for the t5b shards 4-5 gem and 5* awakening crystal
In the first Variant, there actually was a reason to run the quests for the 2015 gems. There are a lot of solid champs that people would like to rank but not use their resources. Luke, Hawkeye, WS, Magik, and SL are just a few examples. The precedent has already been set already too. They can’t make Back Issues 2 less lucrative than 1. That would just be illogical. And to continue to give 2015 champ rank up gems when a lot of them aren’t even available as a 5* is silly.
Right every class (except mutant) had some great choices
Science (luke,spidergwen,)
Tech (starlord,ultron)
Skill (hawkeye, ws)
Cosmic (venom,Ronan)
Mystic (Magic)

But you land 2 of the same class last time this time just feels rough

I agree with you on that one.

unknown

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