Etheria Restart Banner Priority List: Which Banners To Pull in Your First Month​

Etheria Restart throws a lot of banners at you in the first month, but most long‑term players agree you should focus almost entirely on the cheap permanent banner, delay your selector until your roster settles, and treat limited/Apex banners as traps early on. That priority keeps your pity efficient, your roster broad, and your Crystals intact.

Overall first‑month banner order

Early progression guides from sites like HellHades and community posts on r/Etheria_Restart sketch a similar first‑month flow:

• Dump most early pulls into the Permanent Summon using Anima Prototypes until you have a solid core of 3–4 SSRs plus strong SRs. The “Beginner Blueprint & Early Progression” article on HellHades explicitly calls Permanent Summon “the safest and most effective place to start” because it includes the full pool, even Light/Dark units, at the cheap 100‑Crystal rate with 80‑pull pity (HellHades Beginner Blueprint, Pocket Tactics banner explainer).
• Hold your Directed/Selective (targeted) banner tickets for later in the month, once you see what your permanent pulls gave you. A highly‑upvoted Reddit post titled “Explaining why you pull on Permanent Banner & Not Selective as a F2P” recommends roughly 200–250 permanent pulls first to avoid wasting your selector on someone you could have pulled naturally (Reddit F2P banner strategy).
• Skip or heavily limit pulls on early limited character and Extre‑Affinity (Apex) banners unless a featured unit is absolutely central to your plan; the “Free to Play Launch Guide” on HellHades bluntly calls early feature banners “currency drains” for F2P and early accounts (HellHades F2P Launch Guide).

1st priority: Permanent Summon (Anima banner)

The Permanent Summon sits at the top of almost every banner priority list for month one. Pocket Tactics’ banner overview notes that this standard banner uses Anima Prototypes (100 Hydra Crystals) and offers SR‑every‑10 and SSR‑every‑80 pity, with soft pity starting around pull 50, all while pulling from the entire pool of original SSR/SR/R animus (Pocket Tactics banner explainer). HellHades stresses that this is also where you can hit Light/Dark units without paying Apex prices, making it the best long‑term value for building a deep roster (HellHades Beginner Blueprint).

F2P‑focused creators echo this: in the “Which Banners to Pull | Day 1” and “Optimize Your Pulls!! Launch Pulling Guide” videos on YouTube, multiple content creators recommend that free and low‑spend players “go straight to Permanent Summons,” save the selector, and ignore early limited banners, because stamina and account level are more important than chasing one specific unit on day one (Launch Pulling Guide, Which Banners to Pull Day 1). A separate F2P advice video even argues that rerolling for specific limited banners costs you more in lost stamina than you gain in power, recommending permanent banner spam instead (F2P banner plan).

2nd priority: Directed / Selective (targeted) banner

The Directed (selective) banner, where you choose one SSR and are guaranteed them within 40 pulls, is your second major priority, but not at the start of the month. Pocket Tactics explains this banner uses the same 100‑Crystal Anima pulls, guarantees an SR every 10, and shuts down once you obtain your chosen SSR, making it extremely efficient in pure pity terms (Pocket Tactics banner explainer). Because of that, the risk is using it too early and picking a unit you would have pulled naturally.

Both HellHades and multiple YouTube guides (like “Day to Day Guide For Optimal Progression” and “Selective Banner – Who to Pick”) recommend waiting until you’ve done a substantial chunk of permanent pulls, often around account level 30+ or roughly 150–200 summons, before locking in the selector pick, so you can target a missing role (true healer, tank, or key debuffer) rather than duplicating what you already have (HellHades Beginner Blueprint, Day‑to‑Day Progression Guide, Selective Banner Who to Pick). An in‑depth article on Icy Veins that ranks the best selector characters likewise frames the selector as a “gap‑filling” tool, not a day‑one first pull (Icy Veins selector guide).

3rd priority: Strong standard rate‑up banners (if they share Anima pity)

After you’ve invested heavily in the Permanent Summon and used your selector intelligently, any rate‑up banners that:

• use Anima Prototypes (100 Crystals), and
• share the same 80‑pull SSR pity structure

can be considered your third priority when they feature top‑tier units you don’t have. Pocket Tactics, in its banner guide, details beta banners like Phantom Protocol that used standard Anima pulls and boosted specific SSRs while keeping the same pity rules as the permanent banner (Pocket Tactics banner explainer).

Reddit and YouTube planning content aimed at F2P, such as a “Summon / Banner Strategy for F2P/Low Spenders” thread and the “Who Should You Summon First & Why” video, suggests that once your basic roster is stable, pivoting short‑term to a strong Anima‑based rate‑up (for someone like Freya or DokiDoki, depending on patch) is fine, provided you’re ready to go all the way to pity and you know that banner’s unit fills a real need in your teams (F2P banner strategy thread, Who to Summon First, HellHades Reroll Guide for Freya priority).

Lowest priority in month one: Apex / Extre‑Affinity and early limited character banners

Extre‑Affinity (supreme/Light–Dark) banners and early limited character banners sit firmly at the bottom of your first‑month priority list, especially if they consume Apex Prototypes (300 Crystals per pull). Pocket Tactics explains that Extre‑Affinity banners only feature supreme SR/SSR units, use Apex tickets at triple the cost, and share an 80‑pull pity structure, making each pity roughly three times as expensive as an Anima banner (Pocket Tactics banner explainer). HellHades’ Free‑to‑Play Launch Guide goes as far as to call feature banners “traps” for early accounts, arguing that spending heavily here starves you of Crystals and slows progression compared to spamming the permanent and using your selector well (HellHades F2P Launch Guide).

YouTube summoning guides like “Target Banner Priorities – Don’t Waste Your Summons” and “Summon Guide! Should You Pull or Skip This” make similar points: Apex and early limited banners are designed for players with established rosters and some spare budget, not for first‑month F2P or low spenders still unlocking modes and building basic teams (Target Banner Priorities, Summon Guide – Pull or Skip). In other words, in month one your goal is not to “win” limited banners; it is to build a strong bench cheaply so that when a truly broken limited unit arrives later, you can afford to go to pity without crippling your account.

Used in this order, Permanent first, selector delayed and used surgically, then occasional standard rate‑up, with Apex and early limited banners mostly ignored, your first month of Etheria Restart summons turns into steady, efficient roster building instead of a Crystal drain that leaves you short on both units and progression.