Every pull you make in the Atlantis portal goes toward a chest. Once you make ten pulls, you get a guaranteed ascension material. Finishing every level on the season two map for the first time gives you Atlantis coins, which you can then use to summon and add points to your Atlantis chest. Or, when the portal opens again, you can spend money and do pulls to earn points toward it too. That is just one available option.
Another is skipping chests. After you’ve filled your monster/raid chests for the day, you can skip it for 20 gems or less to have it reappear in order to fill it again and claim another reward. Usually you don’t get much, but the more you fill them, the more opportunities you give yourself for a mat or an elemental chest.
If you do start skipping, wait til it’s 10 gems or less and all of your energy is replenished, as to not waste gems on something you can’t complete with the energy you have.
As for going to loot tier IX, your options are to either find a stronger alliance, or be patient and wait for your alliance to grow a little more. 9* Titans are ideal, because you can get a C grade and still get 3 loot rolls. Although, you can get loot tier IX from 6* as well. At 8*, you would need to get a B grade. 7*: A. 6*: A+.
Now, being loot tier VII is still good, it’s just one less loot roll for mats than IX. IX is ideal for the maximum bang for your buck, so to speak, so eventually you’ll want to make it there.
At the beginning, it’s usually rough going since you’re still working on building your main team. Maxing a hero feels awesome, but there are things you can do while you wait that will help to improve your gameplay, and having enough heroes for war, color-stacking and events is one. While you wait on mats for your first set of heroes, I would start working on a new hero in each color (if you have any). You’ll want 30 heroes for war, so might as well get them ready while you wait.
At least, that’s what I do while waiting for mats. It can be fun working on new heroes, and having a bunch of different heroes to use for various things. & It helps you learn so much more about the game and other ways to play. Idk, just a suggestion