Anime Vanguards 2nd Anniversary: Cake Slices, Pity & God Ascended

Last Verified: October 15, 2026. Banner pity, Cake Slice payouts, shop prices and unit sources come from the official Anime Vanguards update log for v15.0. Codes, event coin rewards and the God (Standless) recipe come from the official Vanguards Wiki. The official log does not say where Saint's Heart or Rib of the Saint drop.

God's pity on the Anniversary banner is 5,000 summons. At 150 Cake Slices a pull, that's 750,000 Cake Slices, or 84 clears of the best-paying stage in the event.

You probably won't save that much, and you don't need to. Four of the banner's eleven Exclusives come free from other sources, and the Saint parts for God Ascended have their own catch: one of them only drops in a mode you can't enter without True Shadow Monarch.

Update 15.0 went live on October 12, 2026.

The numbers that matter

The Gauntlet is the farm: one clear pays 18 normal stages' worth, which is enough on its own for a full Legendary pity.

Anniversary banner: what's in it and what to skip

The Secret is God. The eleven Exclusives are Lizard, Traitless, Rummie, Dot, Callasuba, Cat, Seiloshibo, Yuvi, Hellkiller, Hollowseph and Thunder.

God and the nine returning Exclusives can't be shiny from this banner. If you owned them from the original anniversary run, they show an OG tag.

Before you burn 60,000 slices on Exclusive pity: four of the eleven are free elsewhere.

The 400-summon pity guarantees an Exclusive, and the log doesn't say you get to pick which one. If your target is Yuvi, Hollowseph or Thunder, skip the banner and just log in.

Use the new Auto Summon button if you do pull. Pick a target and it keeps going until it lands, you run dry or you cancel. Turn on Shiny Only and it won't stop until it hits a shiny.

Should you chase God?

The official log gives the pity, not the rate. Sportskeeda lists God at 0.02%, which is 1 in 5,000, the same number as the pity.

If that rate is right, about 63% of players hit God before pity.

• The average cost works out to roughly 3,160 pulls, about 474,000 Cake Slices.
• That's around 53 Gauntlet clears on average, and 84 if you're unlucky.

Only chase it if you're also going for God Ascended. God by itself is an old anniversary unit, and the Vanguard evolution is the reason this banner matters.

How to get God Ascended (Anniversary)

The official log puts it in one line: evolve God (Standless) with 50,000 Gold and four Saint parts. It's Vanguard rarity and costs 4,000 Yen to place.

Step 1: God to God (Standless)

Recipe, per the Vanguards Wiki:

• 1 God's Journal
• 3 Rainbow Essence
• 20 each of Red, Pink, Purple, Yellow and Blue Essence
• 25 Green Essence
• 25,000 Gold
• 5,000 takedowns with the unit

Step 2: the four Saint parts

Shadow Trials is only open to True Shadow Monarch owners. So the Left Arm, and if Sportskeeda is right the Rib too, sit behind the update's other big grind. In practice, God Ascended is the last stop on the Monarch path.

Don't buy the Pelvis early. It's 10,000 slices, about 67 summons, and it's useless until you own God (Standless). The stock is 99, so it won't sell out on you.

Step 3: the evolution

With God (Standless), all four parts and 50,000 Gold in your inventory, evolve it. That's the whole final step.

Is it worth it?

The wiki's Unit Labs page rates God Ascended Meta as a support, Good for DPS and crowd control, and Average as a nuker. Solo DPS is listed at 1,755,000.

The team test is where it gets silly: paired with Apathetic Savior and three Crusader units, the same page lists DPS of 12,333,333,333. That figure counts the whole team, but the same page says it heavily buffs Crusader units, and that's where most of the jump comes from.

So it's a Crusader buffer that happens to hit hard. Don't run it as your carry, and if your team has no Crusaders, a lot of that value disappears.

The suggested build is Monarch for DPS, or Blitz or Ethereal for Reality Rewrite uptime. Its paired memoria is Menacing One Atop Olympus, the new Vanguard memoria.

True Shadow Monarch in one minute

True Shadow Monarch is the game's first Transcendent evolution, made from Song Jinwu and Igros through the Player Quest. Placement costs 3,000 Yen.

Put it in your first slot and it opens a 7th unit slot. It also shares its trait, stats, familiar and memoria with the rest of the team.

Its System level caps at 100. Shadow slots unlock at levels 1, 10, 25, 40, 60 and 80. Takedowns earn System EXP and System Gold.

Two things make it faster:

• The TrueShadowMonarch code gives 1 Red Key, 50,000 Gems and 500 Stat Chips.
• The Transcendent Preparations event cuts the Red Key quest to defeating the Ant King 10 times and summoning 1,000 shadows with Arise.

Once you have it, Shadow Trials opens under Event Modes. It's a real-time arena where you play the Monarch yourself, solo or with up to 3 others. Across levels 1 to 25 it pays 250 Trait Rerolls and 250 Memoria Shards, plus a Monarch's Cache of 150 of each every 7th streak day.

What else to buy in the 2nd Anniversary Shop

St. Itchas runs it, in the lobby's anniversary area. Every price is in Cake Slices.

Rainbow Essence at 100 is the cheap win. You need 3 for God (Standless), and that's 300 slices, two summons' worth.

A Trait Reroll costs 500, the same as three-plus summons. Don't buy them here. The codes and Daily Rewards below already hand out over 2,000.

The three familiars only matter if you run those units. Hellkiller is on the banner. Cha-In and Choy Jong En aren't, and Choy Jong En (Guild Leader) has its own 10% drop in the new First Commander dungeon, pity 15 runs.

Every working 2nd Anniversary code

All need Level 10. Redeem through PROFILE, then CODES.

Finally is the one to grab first. 30 Rainbow Essence covers God (Standless) ten times over.

The official log and the wiki disagree on two codes. The log lists bigger rewards for Day 6 (10,000 Gems) and Day 7 (200 of each) than the wiki does. It also lists an Arise code that isn't on the wiki's active list. Try Arise. It costs nothing.

Expiries move, so the Anime Vanguards codes page has the current list. Unit and mode basics live on the Anime Vanguards hub.

The free 7-day login track

Other changes that hit your account

• Ascensions are gone, and ascended units lose those bonuses. Any guide from before October 12 that spends materials on ascension is out of date.
• Unit damage was cut across the board, with enemy health in several modes rebalanced to match. The log says the meta should stay the same.
• Category and element buffs from familiars, memorias and units now only affect your own units. Stacking buffs across a co-op team is over.
• Battle Towers open one week after the update, so around October 19. There are 17, with 10 floors each and enemies at double health. First clear of each pays 50 Trait Rerolls.
• Evolving the new units pays Event Coins: 50 for True Shadow Monarch, 30 for God Ascended, 15 each for Yuvi and Seiloshibo. Every item in that event shop costs 1 coin.
• The wiki lists a Warfront event running until Update 15.5: 100,000 Gems per win, up to 5 wins a day.

That last one is easy to miss, and 500,000 Gems a day is more than any code pays.

FAQ

When did the Anime Vanguards 2nd Anniversary update come out?

October 12, 2026. It's Update 15.0, and the official log calls it Rise of the True Shadow Monarch.

How many Cake Slices do you need for God?

The Secret pity is 5,000 summons at 150 each, so 750,000 Cake Slices guarantees God. If the reported 0.02% rate is right, the average is about 474,000.

What's the fastest way to farm Cake Slices '26?

The Anniversary Gauntlet at 9,000 per clear. The Special Stage pays 5,000, and every other stage clear pays 500.

How do you get God Ascended (Anniversary)?

Evolve God (Standless) with 50,000 Gold and four Saint parts: Saint's Pelvis, Saint's Heart, Rib of the Saint and Left Arm of the Saint.

Where do you get the Left Arm of the Saint?

It's a 5% drop from every enemy in Shadow Trials, which needs True Shadow Monarch to enter.

Can you get Yuvi without summoning?

Yes. Yuvi is the Day 1 reward in the 2nd Anniversary Daily Rewards tab.

Sources

• Anime Vanguards official update log: 2nd Anniversary v15.0 (banner, pity, Cake Slices, shop, Saint's Pelvis and Left Arm, units, codes, balance)
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Codes (active codes, rewards, expiries)
• Official Vanguards Wiki: God (Standless) (evolution recipe)
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Unit Labs, God Ascended (Anniversary) (role ratings, DPS, build)
• Official Vanguards Wiki: Events (Event Coin rewards, Transcendent Preparations, Warfront)
• Official Vanguards Wiki: The First Commander (Choy Jong En drop)
• Sportskeeda: God Ascended (Anniversary) guide (0.02% rate, Saint's Heart and Rib sources)