Thanks for the tags @BlackZed @sleepyhead.
Like many of you, I downloaded the game when it was still Season 1. Played for a bit, saw the gacha greed and how this game sucked royally compared to some of the other gacha games and I said hell no, and deleted it.
A few years later, one fine day, while minding my own business, contemplating what people contemplate when they are in the bathroom, the ad popped up again. As I was getting tired of another gacha greed, I was like sure, let’s visit an old frenemy. That was sometime in 2019-2020 - my recollection of that timeline is as clear as the sightings of Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster.
Anyhoo, I slowly climbed the ladder; learnt the basics of the game - like color stacking; found the forum but first I found reddit. One fine day, I posted a screenshot in reddit and someone almost had an heart attack seeing my Sharan and Layla had 20 emblems. Did I tell you I was F2P for a long time? Oh, and I still don’t have all S1 heroes - I think I got most 3s and 4s 
.
While trying to improve my roster, without spending much, I was scouring the forum and happen to come across the ubiquitous Aethers and Mats Offers thread, started by @SamMe (yeah, I too can’t get a Franz) and now maintained by @BlackZed. Both of them were posting screenshots dollars but not the same, and none of them were US dollars! I knew something needed to be done about this travesty, so I started my own thread (not linking it here as that is left as an exercise for the reader).
I tried taking a crack at this offer breakdown thing but was failing my grades miserably. @BlackZed tried to coach me patiently and that’s when I noticed @Zartanis’s calendar had those gem breakdowns which I swear I never saw before, even though I checked the calendar at least a million times. His work has so many layers, like a Scorsese/Nolan/Wachowskis movies - a true master at work.
Along the way things happened. I moved to Crew Rogues - thanks to @Math-Teacher, @ Kloster and the ever awesome leader of Rogues @Bzzinator. I met @Sir_Crapsalot who showed me the ways of the water - or rather, how marketing works and how SGG prices their offers. He likes to keep a low profile, so I don’t tag him much but it wasn’t until I collaborated with him that I was able to do my own breakdowns. We still don’t agree on the pricing of the newer mats and I respect his business acumen too much to go rogue (no pun intended lol).
Are you still with me? Great, coz this is the last episode of current season, I promise. I met mates during a war weekend - it was kinda funny rogues got matched with mates. Being in the same family, we started a war channel and that’s when I met @Skellet53, the fearless, laser wielding boss of mates and the 2 stooges - @NicoX and @Nirvana29. The first thing I noticed was how little they chat and it was then that I knew that I might have met the masters and I think the forum has witnessed their powers firsthand.
So here I am, still learning things about the game, meeting cool people along the way, navigating the forum when bored and trying to save folks some hard earned cash or get the most value out of it.
Last but not the least, I’d like to tag more awesome players but I’m sure I’m at or over the max 10 tags quota (hey mods, can we increase that a bit?) so I’ll do a follow up after this (it won’t be this long or boring, I promise).