Banner Structure: Seventy, Thirty, and an Exit Door on November 5
Start with the banner itself. A 6★ has only two outcomes: either you get this banner’s Talulah or Frozen River, or you go off-rate. Together the two of them make up 70% of the 6★ rate. In other words, the moment you see that golden light, there is a 70% chance it is one of these two, and only the remaining 30% counts as “something else.”
Here is something you need to burn into memory: Talulah will not enter any Standard Headhunt. After this banner ends, she will not appear in a limited pool again until October 1, 2027. That is not speculation — that is a date written into the announcement. Does that make your stomach drop a little? One year and eleven months is enough time to level an entirely new account, and enough time for “next time for sure” to quietly turn into “never saw her again.”
That remaining 30% is not as simple as it looks either. SilverAsh the Reignfrost, Exusiai the New Covenant and Lappland the Decadenza are on 5× weight-up. Per the official wording, each of these three has five times the individual drop rate of any other single 6★ operator outside Talulah and Frozen River. Note that this is not “three of them splitting the 30%” but “each of the three getting five times what any other 6★ gets” — two very different calculations, and the easiest thing to misread in the announcement. I have seen plenty of people treat that 30% as an even split, work out a completely wrong expected value, and then use that expectation to decide whether to spend.
On the 5★ side, Olga alone takes 50% of the 5★ rate. More importantly, Frozen River and Olga join and stay in the Standard Headhunt pool after 4:00 AM on November 5 — meaning neither is gone for good, so there is no rush. The only true limited here is Talulah. So would you still drain an entire patch’s budget for Frozen River? Don’t answer yet. First you need to know whether “just ten more pulls” is actually worth it, and that means pity.
Pity: After 50 Pulls, Each Pull Adds Only 2%
Pity is the part of this article you should understand first, because it directly decides whether that “just ten more pulls” is worth it — a sentence many people say at 2 AM under the covers. In every limited headhunt the base 6★ rate is 2%. If you go 50 consecutive pulls without a 6★, pull 51 raises the rate from 2% to 4%; still nothing, and it goes to 6%, and so on, +2% each time, until a 6★ is guaranteed at 100%. The official limited-headhunt notes spell this out clearly.
The key to understanding this is that the pool gives you nothing for the first 50 pulls — it stays at 2% the whole time. Compensation only starts at pull 51, and it climbs step by step rather than suddenly doubling. So “I’m 60 pulls in and still no 6★” is, probabilistically speaking, not strange at all — it is barely even bad luck.
One more thing: any 6★ in a limited headhunt resets the next rate back to 2%. The pity counter starts over every single time, no mercy. And let us be clear about something else: the Talulah you get for 300 pulls is an “extra gift.” It produces no Headhunting Data Contracts and does not affect the rate of your next 6★ on this banner. It is not your twelfth ten-pull; it is a card the game hands you separately after you are done pulling. Do not fold it into your pull results. People who mix those two lines together always end up tripping over their contract count.
Data Contracts: 300, 200, 75 — Only One Tier Is Truly Time-Limited
Contracts are the currency of a limited pool: one per pull, ten per ten-pull, usable only in the current exchange, which closes on schedule. The 300-contract tier offers Talulah, Frozen River, SilverAsh the Reignfrost, Exusiai the New Covenant, Lappland the Decadenza, Wis’adel, Virtuosa and Muelsyse. If you have already hit the 300-pull gift, Talulah is effectively in your squad anyway, so what this tier should really be for is Frozen River, or those three returning limiteds. Duplicating the same card twice is pointless — unless you want a second copy to raise, and do you really?
The 200 tier has a new face this time: Texas the Omertosa. She joins the contract exchange this banner, and her cost drops from 300 to 200 starting with this run — the same card, 100 contracts cheaper. And what is 100 contracts? A full hundred pulls, no exaggeration, and the most easily overlooked piece of limited-time pricing this banner. The announcement simply changed a number without adding an exclamation mark, and people tend to miss exactly the things without exclamation marks. The rest of the 200 tier is Specter the Unchained, Nearl the Radiant Knight, Skadi the Corrupting Heart, Rosmontis and W.
Olga sits in the 75-contract tier. The exchange stays open until 3:59 AM on November 18, three days longer than the banner, and after it closes any leftover contracts auto-convert at 1 contract to 6 Headhunting Parametric Models, which never expire. So don’t panic about the tail end — your leftover change does not vanish. But those three days are not there for you to dither; they are there so you don’t fat-finger your exchange at the last minute. The 200 tier especially: don’t let it slide past November 18. The 100 contracts you save are worth exactly nothing once they expire.
The numbers are all on the table now; what is left is how each player should use them. Same limited pool, but accounts start from different places, so the answers differ.
Pull Planning: Three Accounts, Three Answers
Below are three cases, sorted by “how far from the spark you are.” Find your row — and make sure it is the right row.
Within 50 pulls of 300, topping up is the best value. Why put the spark ahead of pulling? Because this banner’s counter resets at 3:59 AM on November 15, the 300-pull Talulah is a free limited, and 50 pulls is still a manageable cost in a limited pool. But there is one precondition: those 50 pulls must not touch next patch’s budget. If they do, don’t top up. Skipping the 50 means at worst one fewer card; raiding next patch’s budget can mean starting the next patch flat on your back. You can run that math faster than I can.
More than 100 pulls short, and forcing the spark will eat next patch’s budget. In that case, first make sure you have cleared all three stage blocks of the SideStory “Time, Move Forward!” and bought out the event shop, then come back to the banner. Event rewards are certain; gacha is not. I would keep that order fixed: take the sure thing first, gamble later. That sequence is never wrong in any patch.
The question readers of Arknights Guide 2026 ask most is “should I go for the spark?” If you are F2P or on the monthly card, ask yourself one thing first: is Talulah the piece your squad is missing? If yes, pour your resources into this banner — she will not be back for a year and eleven months, and you have no other option. If no, Frozen River enters the permanent pool on November 5, so you can afford to wait and save the spark budget for the patch where you are genuinely short. Monthly-card players have more room: pull until your first 6★, then decide about the spark based on the result. That first 6★ is the first piece of intel this banner hands you — it is telling you whether you are riding a hot streak or paying off a debt.
That is the banner. But there is another line opening at noon today — don’t miss it.
Beyond the Banner: Another Main Line Opens at Noon Today
The SideStory “Time, Move Forward!” runs its three stage blocks like this: part one, [Afterglow’s End], opens at noon on November 1; part two, [Long Winter’s First Green], at 4 PM on November 8; part three, [Spring of the Century], at 4 PM on November 15. All three close at 3:59 AM on November 22 — dates taken straight from the October 24 event preview on the official site. Watch November 15 closely: the banner closes, but part three has only just opened. Which means your sanity in those last few days has to be split between “one more pull” and “one more stage.” Plan it in advance; that beats deciding by feel when the moment arrives.
The event shop, “Buried by the Cannonade,” runs from noon on November 1 to 3:59 AM on November 29, a week longer than the event. On offer: Dominion tokens, a Palace Corner furniture piece, headhunting permits, and the outfits [Pale Gold Celebration – Myrtle] and [Path of the Distant Home – Summeroak]. Recommended purchase order: tokens → headhunting permits → outfits → substitutable resources. The 6★ event operator, Dominion, comes from the mission “Witnessed by the Dawn,” not from pulling. That mission line also hands out the Palace Corner furniture, module development materials and “Invalid Records,” which are the currency for the event shop. So the order is always: do the missions first, then buy. Charge into the shop with no currency and you will just do a lap in front of the counter empty-handed — and that feeling is no better than whiffing a pull, is it?
Arknights Gacha FAQ
Does the free Talulah from 300 pulls count toward contracts?
A: No. The official notice states that the gift produces no Headhunting Data Contracts and does not affect the rate of your next 6★ on this banner, so contracts are counted purely by pulls made — 300 pulls, 300 contracts.
Can Frozen River show up off-rate in the standard pool?
A: Yes, but not until after 04:00 on November 5. The announcement states that Frozen River and Olga join the Standard Headhunt pool permanently after 04:00 on November 5, while Talulah will not join any standard headhunt.
Do unused contracts go to waste?
A: They don’t simply vanish. After the exchange closes at 03:59 on November 18, leftover contracts auto-convert at 1 contract to 6 Headhunting Parametric Models; the models never expire and can still be spent at the Parametric Model exchange.
Arknights First-Half-of-November Action Checklist
- Finish the stages you already have before 12:00 today, and before you touch the banner, work out your available pulls and how far you are from 300.
- Decide about the spark only after your first 6★. Don’t go all-in before you have seen one.
- For contracts, look at the 200 tier first — Texas the Omertosa is 100 contracts cheaper than usual this banner, and she must be exchanged before 03:59 on November 18.
- The SideStory’s first block, [Afterglow’s End], is playable today; finish Dominion’s mission line first so you have enough currency to exchange.
- For “Buried by the Cannonade,” buy in the order tokens → headhunting permits → outfits. The outfits can wait.
The full data-check table and follow-ups for future patches will be posted in the GameHub guide section. To run the numbers for your own account, leave your available pulls, pity already built and contract count at gghubs.com, and I will break it down again with real data next time.