The Marquee release structure owns bones.

That's exactly it, marque characters at four star that are viable are viable to a point. On a old shard, they need to be seven starred or the lower gp alone makes you a target others may usually avoid, whereas on a newer shard, they are p2w characters cause a whale could very easily use them to get ahead of others. No matter how viable they are at four star (which still requires you paying for it) That already means you are not f2p, So what exactly are they for? Three star heroes are mostly useless even on newer shards no matter who they are. So we have this event that gives us shards for free but really is just designed entirely around paying players.

I just hope that they do something different with some new heroes, have some fun, mix things up, surprise us!