Anime Vanguards Game Modes: Choose Your Next Activity

Match a named activity to your current goal

Use Story for campaign progress, Legend to inspect harder stage-specific drops, Dungeons for a particular dungeon’s listed unit or shop-currency rewards, and Anniversary Dungeon when your immediate target is Cake Slices ’26. For a Saint’s Left Arm requirement, the recorded anniversary notes point to Shadow Trials instead of the anniversary shop. These are different routes and should not be treated as one general “farm harder content” instruction.

This guide is based on the October 12 anniversary interface shown by TrueShinobi and the in-game Update 15.0 log shown by AB Plays. It gives actual menu choices and recorded reward connections. It does not claim a universal unlock level, a measured best payout or that temporary anniversary content remains available after its event.

Open the mode menu and use its reward navigation

Open the lobby’s Play interface to reach Gamemodes. The anniversary menu shows Story, Legend, Raids, Dungeons, Trials, Elemental Towers, Contest of Champions, Challenges, Event Modes and Boss Events. Selecting a category opens its stages; the result depends on the specific stage and act you choose, not just the category name.

A particularly useful detail appears at 14:12 in TrueShinobi’s recording. The highlighted Legend card shows progress, Possible Rewards, and an instruction to pick a reward to navigate to its source. If your problem is a named evolution item, use that reward navigation rather than guessing from a stage’s artwork. The same card describes Legend as a harder version of story worlds with its own drops.

Treat the creator’s progress counters as that account’s history, not as your entry requirements. The recording comes from an established account. A first-time player should read the locked condition on their own stage before copying the selected act.

Story: first clears and a familiar stage to learn

In the Story category, choose an unlocked world and inspect its Acts. The recorded Planet Namak panel at 2:35 shows Act 1 · Prodigal Prince, Exp Rush, Infinite, and Sandbox. It also exposes Normal and Nightmare difficulty, a Friends Only option, Start and Quick Queue. That is a concrete current selector; it is more useful than an old route that assumes six ordinary acts on every world.

For a campaign objective, select the ordinary Act 1 entry and an available difficulty, then Start or use the displayed queue option. For learning, keep the stage and roster stable enough to observe where an attempt fails. Move to the next campaign target when the completion and access indicators show that you can. This is a suggested progression method, not a promise that every new account sees identical unlocked worlds.

Exp Rush, Infinite and Sandbox are distinct selections

Exp Rush is a separate entry inside the recorded Story stage, not another name for Act 1. It is the leveling-oriented option to inspect when XP is your immediate goal. Before repeating it as a unit farm, check the actual completion result and whether the progress is player XP, unit XP or food for feeding; we have not measured its current payout or target XP track independently.

For direct ordinary-unit leveling, use Units → selected unit → Feed with UnitFood, or Fuse with donor units you intend to consume. The leveling and evolution guide gives that inventory procedure. Having a leveling activity selected does not itself perform a feeding transaction.

Infinite is the wave-run selection: the recorded panel tracks a best wave beside it. Choose it when you want a sustained wave attempt rather than an ordinary first-clear task, then inspect the current rewards before using it for a specific resource. Sandbox is the separate practice option for comparing unit behavior. Do not assume a practice clear pays the item you need; verify rewards instead of treating every mode as a farm.

Legend: target a specific stage drop

Choose Legend when the requirement you need appears among that category’s possible rewards. Pick the relevant reward or stage, inspect the act and completion rules, then compare the selected reward with the exact material name in your evolution view. Do not queue the first accessible Legend map simply because all Legend entries share a label.

This route is particularly useful when a unit needs one named item while the rest of its materials are ready. It gives you an actionable sequence: open the recipient’s requirement, identify the missing object, locate that object in the reward navigation, then attempt the stage that actually lists it. If that stage is locked or beyond your present team, resolve the access or roster problem rather than spending runs on an unrelated material.

Dungeons: select the world and act with the reward you want

The Dungeons category contains different destinations. At 8:22, the recording shows Lunar Bridge, its floor-based act list and a Rewards panel that includes Apathetic Savior. That establishes a concrete unit-target route to inspect. It does not imply that every dungeon, or every Lunar Bridge floor, has the same reward.

After choosing a dungeon, read the selected act, the listed reward and any associated shop currency. Inspect the corresponding shop when the target is a purchased evolution item rather than the unit itself. Keep those outcomes separate: a successful dungeon run may advance a shop-currency goal without immediately producing the unit you wanted. This guide does not reproduce a drop chance or pity count from a different version.

Anniversary Dungeon: Cake Slices for banner and shop goals

For the event currency route, choose Dungeons → Anniversary Dungeon. The current recording at 13:37 shows two named acts: Act 1 · Anniversary Gauntlet and Act 2 · Anniversary Special Stage. The selected Gauntlet’s reward panel includes Cake Slices ’26, Gems and Gold. The in-game Update 15.0 notes also identify both anniversary acts as sources of the event currency.

Use that connection when your goal is an item in St. Itchas’ anniversary shop or the Anniversary ’26 banner. First decide which purchase or summon goal you are funding, then inspect the current currency cost. Ordinary stage clears are another Cake Slices source recorded in the update notes, so a weaker account need not interpret the event shop as a requirement to farm the hardest activity immediately.

Do not infer a permanent efficiency ranking from the veteran’s best-time display. We have not measured the two acts on a new roster or verified every current bonus. Choose an act you can complete, confirm that Cake Slices were awarded, and compare progress against the actual shop or banner goal.

Shadow Trials: a different Saint-part route

If God Ascended’s missing requirement is Left Arm of the Saint, the recorded update notes point to enemies in Shadow Trials. A missing Saint’s Pelvis, in contrast, points to the anniversary shop. A missing Saint’s Heart points to anniversary summons, while Rib of the Saint is associated with True Shadow Monarch ownership. Those distinctions stop you from spending Cake Slices on the assumption that every Saint part is sold in one place.

Check the complete Evolve requirement panel before selecting the route. The unit guide explains that worked example. We deliberately leave out probabilities and fixed costs here: the actionable fact is which system to inspect for the missing part, not a claimed guarantee after an invented number of runs.

Use the remaining categories when their displayed target matches

Raids, Trials, Elemental Towers, Challenges and the event categories are visible choices, but this first guide does not assign unverified universal payouts to them. For a named target, inspect that category’s rewards and stage rules, then choose it only when the connection is visible. For example, the recording shows Elemental Towers with a floor selector and its own reward display; that is a separate progression screen, not another label for the anniversary dungeon.

Finish the decision with one concrete sentence: the mode, the stage or act, and the item or progress you will check afterward. If you cannot name the result, return to your requirement panel before queuing. For team preparation use the beginner guide, or return to the Anime Vanguards hub for the dated source footage.