To those who said Thrawn was impossible for F2P

"Pyrefly;c-1144008" wrote:

"OnEMesSduPKiD;c-1143854" wrote:
The argument wasn't that NO FTP players will be able to unlock him, it was the majority will not be able to, especially newer players. If you've played from the very start of the game and saved up a lot of everything (obviously that's you) then you could unlock thrawn and star him like you did. But you do not represent the majority of FTP players.

Let me repost something from a few days ago:

"Pyrefly;c-1139432" wrote:
Once again, maths:
Let's assume starting at 0 in all currency. Let's also assume that you started with 15/30 in 3* for all characters, and that you can get top 50 in Arena and finish GW every day. That's right around 235 crystals a day income between Arena, dailies, and GW.
First, Hera and Ezra: You'll need 330 shards between the two. Average drop rate in the Cantina is 33%, so every shard should take approximately 24 energy. Over the 14 days between being made farmable and the end of the event, you'll earn 165 Cantina energy every day (effectively doubled during the double-drop days), meaning that you'll get 2805 Cantina energy for free. You'll need around 7920 Cantina energy to get the 330 shards you need, so minus the free energy, you'll need 5115 energy, or about 43 Cantina refreshes.
235 crystals a day, combined with the 40 crystal login bonus on 6/12, the 250 crystals earned from tiers 1-5 of the event on 6/15, and the 60 crystal login bonus on 6/17, and factoring in double drops on the first 3 days, means that you'll get enough for the equivalent of... 43 Cantina refreshes (with a whopping 40 crystals left over!).
For Chopper: That 7965 Cantina energy spent on getting Hera/Ezra gives 12935 Cantina currency, which is enough for 160 Chopper shards (135 leftover currency), leaving him only 5 short.
For Kanan: 850 Arena tokens a day gives 11900 Arena tokens, good for 145 shards (300 tokens leftover), leaving him only 20 shards short.
For Zeb: 1200 GW tokens a day gives 16800 GW tokens, good for all 165 Zeb shards (3600 tokens leftover).
Those 3600 tokens can be turned in 9x for 45 shards of maxed out characters (or 36 ship shards) to earn 675-684 shard shop currency. 1300 Fleet tokens (top 50 in Ship Arena) x14 days is 18200 Fleet tokens, which can be used to get 45x maxed character or ship rewards for another 3375-3420 shard shop currency. And heck, while we're at it, you'll get 285 regular energy per day for 3990 total. A 33% drop rate on hard nodes means it costs about 36-48 energy per shard, which is easily enough for yet another 80-110 shards, or 1200-1650 shard shop currency.
So that's 5250-5754 shard shop currency. GW node reward shards, bronziums, and even Tarkin shards from the daily (if you have him maxed already) will probably net you another 1000-2000 shard shop currency during those 14 days.
That's enough for 30-40 extra shards for maxing out Chopper and Kanan.

So...

TL;DR: It's 100% possible, even assuming perfectly average RNG, to get Thrawn at 6* while starting with 0 shop currency.

EDIT: Had some bad maths in the shard shop currency section. Fixed with extra sources.

And the same applies if you started with 0 PS shards going after 5*. And heaven forbid you actually have even a little bit of saved shop currency of any kind, it would only make things easier.

That explanation still only applies to the very best F2P players. Top 50 arena, top 50 ships, finishing galaxy wars every day, and being online for every energy refresh and shop restart is not what the majority of F2P players are capable of. We on the forums obviously put a lot of effort into this game, and those marks may be easily attainable for most of us, but to someone who just likes Thrawn and wants to unlock him that is not viable. They're going to have to wait an undetermined amount of time now - likely at the very least 3-5 months to unlock him. That's not a pleasurable proposition to the average app-gamer or any other casual kind.

Your next point may be unlocking Thrawn the first time around is not meant for the casual games, and that's fine, you're probably right. But for EA or anyone else to sit there and say he's obtainable to everyone is dishonest. Then again, we're talking about SWGOH developers here... so that's to be expected.