hopefully 'what'

Points based. You can earn, albeit al ton of points, from the expected "buy resources" types of in game offers to adding a few points at a time by way of logging in and staying in. Of course tornaments and special events look prime as well.  Nothing on the horizon indicates this will be a fusion unless they hybrid a mini fusion into shards or something.

For now, don't expect to see this champion regularly for a while.

Yes this is a fusion champion. The way it works is, you fuse your wealth into theirs, then you get the champion

Haha, seems like it !  😁