2x events are the best.

There are 10x events, but the name is misleading, the chance to get a legendary/epic during a 10x event is the same as normal. Only if you pull any, the chance that it's the event champ instead of any random legendary/epic is 10 times as high as normal.

Thanks!  So when do you suggest I use shards?

If you're a new player, there are two approaches you can take:

1) Use the shards you have on 2X weekends to try and get champs that will help you advance. I'm on the fence as to whether this is the right approach. On the one hand, early on, getting a decent pool of epics is pretty important to advancing. On the other hand, you don't get shards nearly as often early on, which could seriously influence your ability to complete monthly fusion/fragment summon events. Which leads me to...

2) Save your shards and only use them on 2X/10X weekends to complete the fusion/fragment champions. I think this is probably the better approach. Early on those fusion/fragment events are hard to complete because you have neither the resources nor the champions to be able to farm the higher-level dungeons.

Ultimately I think your best bet for advancing is to save all your shards and do the fusion/fragment every other month. I don't think you'll be able to complete them every month, but by saving and doing alternating months, you should have no problem, and the lego champs you get will likely be far better than anything you'd get from random summons.

Thanks!  Since I have zero epic champions I have a long way to go, lol.  So should I save all shards or only certain ones?

And can you explain fusion events?  i dont understand where to get them.

Roughly once a month, Plarium will announce an event that provides a guaranteed champion. Currently that is Opardin Clanfeather. The event will be announced in-game, and will also be posted here in the forums and pinned. You can see the details on how they work in the pinned threads, but broadly speaking, they consist of objectives that you need to complete within the tournament/events that are active while the fusion/fragment event is ongoing.

As to what shards you should save - save all of them, and decide between the two scenarios I mentioned earlier. Only use the shard type that the 2X weekend is targeting. 10X ones are a bit trickier, but since you should only be doing 10X to complete fusion/fragment objectives, try to use them in a way that minimizes "wastage". Remember that green shards can be used on 10X as well.

I personally lean 1) as making the most sense. 

However, I did kind of end up doing 2) near the start of my account to get Iron Brago. It can be tough at the start to know which champions are worth doing this for, so I'd ask around if I were OP when those opportunities arise. Certain fusion legos and even epics are going to just help a newer player blast through progression. The drawback is we're going to have to save for awhile, to be able to complete those. 

I think starting out with 1) and eventually moving to a combo of 1) and 2) is what pays off the most, long term. Others might disagree. 

OP: If you do end up going the 2x route for shards, this weekend is Void Shards (for another 14 hours or so), two weeks from now (February 4th) is Ancient Shards, and two weeks after that (February 18th) is Sacred Shards. That rotation has stayed consistent, with slight variations during them, such as 10x chances on specific champions during the 2x chances events.

Thanks again.  Being only level 27ish and only Kael as a decent champion, can I even complete fusion events?

Well - this plays into my earlier comment. You almost certainly will not be able to do *all* of them unless you spend money, and so your best bet is to try to save up resources and complete the ones that matter. For example, the current fusion champ is not that great - sure, for you as a new player it's still quite solid, but in comparison to others like Brago or Brogni, he's really unimpressive. So I'd skip him if I were you.

The game has certain events where you can get a "free" champion from time to time. Actually, you can get the legendary Barbarian Clanfather Opardin, see here.

I suggest you skip the actual event, with a brand new account you will not achieve the reward. Don't bother about Opardin, he is not a top tier champ anyway.

In the linked thread you can see the calendar of the Opardin event, from Friday 21st to Monday 24th there is a "Champion Chase". You get points for that champion chase whenever you get a champ. And this weekend is a 2x event for Void shards, so there is a champion event and a 2x event at the same time. Best time to use shards.

But to point that out, you should still save your shards. You won't get the other fragments for Opardin and don't benefit from the combination of champion event and 2x event right now. Opardin is just mediocre, good event to spare and save resources.

Thanks all!  I only have 5 ancient shards and 2 void shards so saving them for awhile is probably the best choice.   I still dont understand how these fusion/fragment events work... there's a lot to take in on this game

To understand the fusion/fragment events you first have to know about the "normal" tournaments/events in the game. I'll explain it: a lot of stuff that could be done anytime in the game has "tournaments/events", where you get special rewards for doing it.

All tournaments are limited events for 2 or 3 days. There are tournaments/events for a) artifact upgrade, b) beating dungeons, c) giving XP to your champs and increasing their ranks and d) getting champs.

For example a Dragon tournament, in the category I mentioned above that is b). You can visit the Dragon dungeon anytime you want to (and have sufficient energy). But sometimes there are Dragon tournaments, where you get, in addition to your loot from the dungeon, tournament points. The number of points for a Dragon tournament is bound to the rarity and quality of your loot, to ensure beating Dragon stage 25 gives more points on average than beating Dragon stage 10 or whatever. You get special rewards for your tournament points, the more points you have, the better the reward. So if there is Dragon Tournament and you don't know in wich place of the game you should spend your energy, Dragon dungeon would be a good choice. 

The other tournaments work in the same way. You can upgrade your artifacts anytime you want to (and have sufficient silver). But doing so while there is an artifact upgrade tournament will give you additional rewards.

Now the champion fusion/fragment events are a combination of the above mentioned, different tournaments, with the special opportunity to get a legendary champ as reward. There are a dozen or so tournaments of all different types, and you can get fragments or fusion parts of the legendary champ as reward. If you have enough fragments collected, you get the legendary.

Thanks, that makes sense.  So where do I see what the active tournaments are?

Top right-hand side of your main screen (under the mailbox/chat icons), underneath which are the active events.

You can see the tournaments actually running in game, on the right side of the screen.

For the special champion tournaments you will find calendars. I linked the calendar for the actual Opardin event in one of my above posts. Even you are not hunting for Opardin, take a look at this calendar to understand how this type of events work.

So what does the 6 mean?  when I click on it, it just lists the novice tourny thats over

i

That is your standing in the tournament, whether finished or ongoing. 

The 6 is your rank in the tournament. 

So there are no active tourneys?

That's a bit unusual - maybe because you're still new? There are two active ones right now - champion chase (you get points for getting champions) and classic arena takedown (points for winning classic arena battles).

Smoke  em  if  you  got  em  especially  since  you  have  no  epics.  Think  its  an  ancient  shard  for  2x  next  week.  Might  bo  ok  to  wait  on  those  but  youre  looking  at  4  or  5  weeks  until  void  2x  comes  again.  Im  only  6  weeks  in  and  dont  see  myself  lasting  more  than  3  months  but  i  am  playing  and  many  hours  a  day.

Youll  spend  the  next  month  leveling  up  junk  and  wasting  time.  Maybe  if  you  knew  what  you  were  doing  and  had  a  5  year  plan  for  raid.  Prepped  food  or  something.

i  had  more  than  a  few  epics  before  1  month  in.  1-2  at  least  from  ancients  and  idk  how  many  sacreds  and  voids  from  early  mission  rewards  and  campaign.  Played  easily  8  hour  days.  4-5  voids  i  did  save  for  2x  didnt  help,  still  all  rare  voids.  Before  that  i  thought  voids  were  gauranteed  epics.  Mercy  system  probably  gives  you  a  legendary  and  couple  epics  as  part  of  the  first  ones  free  thing  these  games  use.  On  top  of  alek  and  idk  if  Fayne  was  from  somewhere  since  everyone  seems  to  have  one.