Martha Ascension Season 2026
The Martha Ascension Season is almost here, and most players will walk into it with a plan that falls apart on day twenty-six. In our previous look at Martha, we covered what her two new skills actually do. This guide, however, is about the part nobody reads: the rules of the season itself, what to prepare before it opens, and the traps that can quietly cost you the whole thing.
When Does the Martha Ascension Season Start?
Astrid and Lucas opened the Ascension Seasons on September 3rd, and these seasons arrive roughly once a month. As a result, Martha’s turn is expected in early October, most likely around the 3rd. Nexters has not confirmed that date yet, though, so treat it as a forecast rather than a promise.
Each season lasts 25 days. Keep that number in mind, because it matters more than anything else in this guide.
Who Can Take Part
To join at all, your account needs four things. If any one of them is missing, the season simply passes you by.
The 25-Day Trap: Free Skills Are a Trial
When the season opens, both of Martha’s new skills, Invigorating Herbs and Turtle Patronage, switch on at grade zero in every game mode, completely free. It feels like a gift. In reality, it is a trial.
Once those 25 days end, the skills go dark in battle unless you have unlocked them permanently. Your grade progress stays saved and visible, so nothing is deleted. Still, a skill you can see but cannot use is worth nothing in a fight.
Three Ways to Keep Martha’s New Skills
There are three routes to making the skills permanent, and each one trades a different resource.
To be fair to Nexters, they have also said more ways to unlock these skills are planned within several months after the season ends. So missing the window is not the end of the road; it just means waiting.
Rank Two vs Rank Five: Two Very Different Climbs
This gap between the two skills changes everything. Rank two is within reach for a lot of accounts. Rank five, on the other hand, is a different world entirely. Ascension five alone on Martha asks for:
- 1,925 Radiant Intelligence Crystals
- 1,925 Greater Love Insignias
- Over 80,000 Star Mana
- 38 million gold
Growing the Skills: Dust, Shards and the Special Secret Wealth Shop
Unlocking a skill and growing it are two separate problems. Grades one to three are paid for with Ascension Dust and Shards, and during Astrid and Lucas’s season, the free rewards were not enough to push the new skills to max grade. Until recently, the only way to close that gap was real money through special offers.
That changed with a special version of the Secret Wealth shop. The regular Secret Wealth shows up a few times a month, but at the end of Astrid and Lucas’s season, a different one appeared. Instead of real money, it takes emeralds, and it sells Ascension Dust and Shards alongside Choice of Radiant Crystals and Choice of Greater Insignias.
If that pattern holds, this special shop returns about once a month near the close of each season. That would put it inside the Martha Ascension Season window, before her skills lock. In other words, max grade is no longer walled off behind real money. It is walled off behind emeralds, and a lot of them.
Buying every last unit through Secret Wealth to take both skills to grade three works out to roughly 31,000 emeralds for the Dust and roughly 63,000 for the Shards, or about 94,000 emeralds in total. That is the worst case, though. Whatever you earn from the free Season Pass lowers that number, so most players will need far less. The door is open; the price at the door is just steep.
The Asgard Dilemma: A Tankier Martha
This is where the season collides with how people actually build Martha. Plenty of Martha builds exist, yet maxing her Ascension has never been one of them. Some players keep her deliberately underdeveloped for Asgard, while others simply never saw a reason to pour premium resources into her branch. Now, the free path to keeping her skills asks for exactly that.
There are side effects, too, because every rank adds health, armor and magic defense. Going from rank one to five adds around 89,000 health and more than 10,000 armor and magic defense, which is precisely the tanky Martha that Asgard players were avoiding. The Ticket skips those stats, but it costs money. So this is a real decision, and there is no universal answer.
Use the Season as a Free Test Drive
That is exactly why the season itself is your best tool. For 25 days, the skills run in every mode at no cost. Running your usual Osh and Maestro teams in the first week and comparing the damage against your normal scores will tell you far more than any theory.
Meanwhile, we will be testing Martha ourselves the moment the season opens, in Asgard and beyond, and bringing back the real numbers. That follow-up will show whether Martha is worth your crystals, your insignias or your emeralds. After all, committing before those numbers are in is the expensive way to learn.
What to Stockpile Before It Opens
If pushing her branch is in your plans, the stockpile starts now. Focus on these four resources:
- Radiant Intelligence Crystals
- Greater Love Insignias, since Martha is a healer
- Star Mana
- Gold, and a lot of it
The Ascension to Asgard event supplies much of this. For that reason, it is worth planning around it rather than burning resources on other heroes the week before.
Don’t Hoard Dust and Shards
The opposite mistake is sitting on the season currencies. Ascension Dust upgrades the rank two skill, while Ascension Shards upgrade the rank five skill, and neither carries over. When the season ends, leftovers convert into Ascension Chests at 500 Dust or 250 Shards per chest.
Anything saved for later gets flattened into chests, so their real value lives inside the season, not after it. The same logic applies to purchases as well: any Dust or Shards bought in the special Secret Wealth and left unspent when the season closes end up as chests too.
How to Farm Season Points
Farming points is simpler than it looks. The season tracks six modes, and in the first five, even a defeat earns points. Fielding Martha raises them further.
Some quests also have daily limits. Consequently, steady daily play beats one big weekend session.
How to Counter a Buffed Martha
Now flip the board. If this buff is as strong as it looks outside Asgard, you will face buffed Martha in Grand Arena, Guild War and Clash of Worlds. Fortunately, her known answers have not changed. Healing block from heroes like Celeste, Jet and Yasmine cuts into everything she does, and area damage can break her totem.
One warning, though: at max grade, the totem survives several hits. As a result, the area-damage answer gets weaker the more a Martha player has invested, whereas healing block remains the counter that stays reliable.
Also, if you have been following the hunters theory with Eva, Adam, Astrid and Lucas, this season is one more piece of that puzzle. Hunter players have every reason to watch these numbers closely.
Martha Ascension Season: The Whole Picture
To sum up, the Martha Ascension Season is a trial, not a gift. Rank two is within reach, while rank five is a mountain. Max grade, once a real-money wall, is now an emerald wall, and a steep one. Keeping the skills for free also makes Martha tankier, which cuts against the Asgard trick.
Testing first is the cheap way to decide. Dust and Shards only hold value before the season closes, and knowing how to beat her matters just as much as knowing how to build her.
So which path are you leaning toward: the branch, the Ticket, or waiting for the later unlock? Let us know on our Discord.
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