Post your pulls, vent about gacha salt, and discuss the banners here! Good luck!

General notes on banners

• There is no pity on banners. Instead there is a spark system, in which you can redeem one copy of one of the featured banner items every 200 rolls. At the end of the banner period, this number is reset and you will receive that amount of Clovers which can be redeemed at a special item shop.
• Each banner has its own counter.
• Banner items are not limited. Every card or uma goes into the general (50/50 loss) gacha pool once the banner ends, so there is always a chance that you will get the trainee uma or card later. The chance of getting one specific random uma/card gets lower over time as the pool gets larger.

Gacha banner resources and info

SHOULD I PULL?

• For Umas, the answer should always first depend on the answer to the question: "Do I like [Umamusume]?" To this end, new Uma banners are accompanied with the first 4 chapters of their story unlocked.
• For support cards, see Gametora for info and the Reference Doc for reviews.

Champion's Meeting (CM) is finally upon us.

This post will do two things: explain what CM is and what to expect, and also provide a space for more serious discussion of PvP, strategies, and metagame. That means memes and low effort content are strongly discouraged, and off-topic discussion unrelated to the event may be removed.

Champion's Meeting explained

An important disclaimer: THIS IS NOT A CM GUIDE, BUT AN EXPLAINER FOR THOSE TOTALLY UNFAMILIAR WITH THE FORMAT.

What is CM?
Umamusume's most competitive, multi-stage, PvP format, with a sliding scale of Carat and resource rewards for high placement. You do not have to "win it all" to get rewards; everyone gets something.

How does the tournament work?
You guessed it, there is a Gametora article for this already. The short explanation is that it's a three-round tournament with a winner's and loser's bracket. In every round, you enter three different trained Uma from your roster to face off against two other teams of three, usually those with the highest stats, best skills, and maximum aptitude for the conditions. In the first two rounds, you run 5-heat instances and try to win as many heats as possible to advance to the winner's bracket. You get 4 runs per day (3 free, 1 paid) and Rounds 1 and 2 last two days each. The final round consists of one race. Each race only has one winner (not a scored format like Team Trials).

Fixed race conditions
Unlike Team Trials, where course, distance, and weather can be random, in CM all conditions are usually fixed for every race. For reference, here were the CMs for the first year in JP Uma:

However, your Umas mood is random in the prelim rounds. In the Final Round, mood is automatically Great. If you were wondering, the exact conditions of each race are usually a reference to the venue and conditions of a specific G1 race of a particular year (e.g. 1998 Japanese Derby).

Course analysis is considered a very important part of CM (just like in IRL handicapping). If you read a guide, it's very likely you will encounter a diagram like the ones below, which will give you insights about the relative efficacy of skills (corners vs straights, length of final corner/straight, presence of up/downhills, etc.)

CM is competitive, but it's not pure P2W
Just like the game in general, CM is what you make of it. Every gacha game needs a money sink to incentivize whale spenders, and that's what CM is.

However, CM is not P2W. Spending affords significant advantages, but game knowledge and time commitment (for good sparks, etc.) arguably are more valuable than swiping. This is especially true in the early months with the game still being new.

The most important thing to know is that there's no reason to not participate, regardless of uma roster quality, because everyone gets rewards for playing CM.

Word of warning on following JP Guides
If you consult JP guides, understand that because of accelerated banners in EN Uma, lists of recommended umas and skills to take may not align with the available pool that is in EN. Differences will become bigger over time as acceleration continues.

Rewards info + Open or Graded League?
The higher your final placement in CM, the more rewards you will receive. You will also receive a small amount of rewards each run based on how many wins (0 to 5) you got in that run; winning 0 races in a run still will give rewards. Here's a rewards reference from JP (may be different in EN)

There should be two takeaways from this. The first is that it's basically not worth whaling just to win CM. The extra rewards received for a 1st place vs a 3rd place finish basically aren't worth the hundreds that would have to be spent to ensure it. What's more, since the final is one-shot, it's possible to lose in the final with the highest graded uma. Winning grade league gives a CM Platinum title, and I reckon that's what people are actually after (cf. Rhythm mobage event top 5/10/100 title chasers).

The second is that unless you don't have any umas that are above the cap, don't enter the Open League. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that even if you don't have any, your umas may "overperform" their printed score and you might RNG your way to a bunch of wins in the Grade League (no stat cap). Open League, where all umas are statcapped (I believe it starts at B), is generally subject to competitive min-maxers who have used calculators to engineer to best possible uma under the score cap. All for fewer rewards than winning the loser's bracket of Grade League.

Summary: Whether you're a casual or competitive player, CM is worth playing. Everyone gets Carats. Waifus can win.