Spend your Crystals and Credits right

The short answer: is the 800 Crystal hero worth it?

• Yes, if it is your main leader and you are stuck waiting for copies. Leader copies are the bottleneck at high levels, not Credits.
• No, if you are still choosing a main. A leader you don't play is the worst use of Crystals in the game.
• No, if you are short on Credits. Copies without Credits to spend them sit unused. Check you can afford the level up first.
• Maybe later, if the copies would only finish an early level. Low levels need few copies and fill in naturally from packs and guild donations.

What it costs to max a leader

Every leader is a Legendary card with a max level of 8. Getting one from level 1 to 8 takes 65 copies and 189,000 Credits:

Then all five perks cost another 60,700 Perk Points and 200,000 Credits, and the last perk needs level 7. A fully maxed, fully perked leader is 389,000 Credits in total. Look at the last two levels: 35 of the 65 copies go into levels 6 to 8. That is where buying copies helps most.

How to spend Crystals, best first

1. Your main leader's copies, once you are past level 5. This is where copies are scarce and buying saves weeks.
2. Extra Datacard Quest runs for your main era, once set bonuses are confirmed working. See the datacards guide.
3. Datacard storage once you hit 100 datacards, so you stop selling cards you'd want later.
4. Skipping pack timers only when every pack slot is full and you would otherwise waste a win.
5. Never: Credits for Crystals at small amounts. In the original game's exchange, small Credit packs cost the most Crystals per Credit (about 42 Credits per Crystal) and large packs the least (about 56). If you must, buy the bigger pack.

How to spend Credits, best first

1. Keep your main decks' commons and rares caught up. Low levels cost almost nothing and every unit in your deck gets stronger.
2. Level your main leader as copies come in.
3. Unlock perks 1 to 4 on your main leader. They are cheap compared to perk 5, which alone costs 136,000 Credits.
4. Save for the big jumps. Leader levels 6 and 7 cost 50,000 and 70,000 Credits. Don't spend your last Credits on side decks right before them.
5. Reroll datacards last, and only grade 4 and 5 cards you plan to keep.

Earning Crystals for free

• Character Gallery missions: 100 Crystals per mission, 800 for a full 8-character gallery. See the Gallery guide.
• Climbing past a tier threshold: 1 bonus Crystal per 10 points above it, up to 300.
• Season rewards for playing your ranked matches each week, separately for Light and Dark Side.
• Battle-count rewards and events from simply playing.

Perk Points: deconstructing spares

Perk Points come from deconstructing spare cards, up to a daily limit per rarity:

All five perks on one leader cost 60,700 Perk Points. Maxing every daily limit gives 2,600 Perk Points a day, so a full set of perks is a little over three weeks of daily deconstructing. Tips on earning them faster are in the Perk Points guide. Legendary and Unique spares give the most points by far.

A simple plan for new and returning players

1. Pick one main leader per side using the tier list and the leader guides.
2. Put everything into those two decks until the leader is level 5 and the commons and rares are caught up.
3. Spend Crystals on copies only when the leader is past 5 and copies are what's holding you back.
4. Join a guild for free card donations every 6 hours. Search JEDI in the Guild menu.