After an hours-long grinding session fueled by frustration and spite, I’ve finally managed to obtain every Favor Level reward with my Masked Marth:
After dealing with queue times as long as three minutes, I eventually gave up and turned off all restrictions. This meant regular encounters with Saviors, Pathfinders, and Canto users, sometimes all on the same team.
For reference, this is the team I used
Are these units/builds optimal, or even all that good for SD?
No. But these are the best that I have.
These were almost never fair fights. Of the final 20 games I played, I won only 7 of them. I had several rounds in which none of my units could score a single kill, effectively stopping my progress. And in almost every game, I had to watch one of my favorite characters get stomped on by a powercrept unit that was designed to be better than them for no reason at all.
And yet, paradoxically, the unfairness of every fight made even minor victories feel all the more satisfying. When I started rounds expecting to lose completely, taking out even one opponent became a pleasant surprise. Taking down two or three felt like a genuine achievement, and the moments where I managed to wipe out an entire team felt like powercreep was a person that I’d just slapped in the face.
In a weird, roundabout sort of way, Summoner Duels was fun for me. But it was fun for all of the wrong reasons, and every victory I had came at the expense of another human being (who probably wasn’t expecting a Masked Marth or a Cecilia). I really can’t blame anyone who quit before getting even a single character to 2400 Favor Level. And without any more rewards, I don’t think I’ll ever want to go through this grind a second time.
That Julia is scary, she would likely kill my Nagi.