Grand Master Yoda is unlocked by completing the Grand Master’s Training event, which is a 7-stage challenge that can only be completed with a full Jedi team. The first battle requires five Jedi which are 1-Star or above. Stage 2 requires five Jedi which are 2-Star or above and so on up to Stage 7 which requires five 7-Star Jedi to complete. Each stage will unlock Yoda shards, with enough shards to activate Yoda at a 5-Star level after completing stage 5. Stage 6 will earn enough shards to promote Yoda to 6-Star and Stage 7 will earn enough shards to promote Yoda to 7 stars.

The information in this guide is based upon the collective knowledge of our guild, Team iNstinct, that has dozens of members which have completed all 7 stages of the event to unlock 7* Yoda. With the second chance at completing the event right around the corner, I wrote this guide to help you complete your training and become a Grand Master! As Master Yoda says, “Do or do not, there is no try!”

Your Jedi Team

Unlocking Yoda starts out with obtaining and upgrading 5 Jedi to participate in the event. If you are a F2P or low spending player, this means that you will need to plan ahead well before the event begins to farm and upgrade your Jedi to an acceptable level. Below is a summary of all the Jedi and their value in my opinion for the event:

Best Jedi Leaders:

• Barriss Offee (Farmable in Cantina 6A, Dark Side 5C, 5E & 8A): Barriss is a key component to defeating 7* Yoda. While I know of several players who completed the event without Barriss, the 20% Max Health from her leader bonus allows you to survive and extra hit from Yoda which means a lot when Yoda is taking 2-4 turns between each of your heals. Her passive heals from her leader ability and basic attack are also valuable for keeping your Jedi topped off on health. I highly recommend farming Barriss for this event.
• Luminara Unduli (Farmable in Galactic War shipments, Light Side 3D, 6A and Dark Side 2E): Lumi is another key component to defeating 7* Yoda, and is usually used in conjunction with Barriss. Most of the players that do not beat Yoda with Barriss lead are using Luminara as their leader instead. While Barriss improves your survive-ability through extra health, Lumi increases survive-ability through her Evasion bonus. She also has a passive heal bonus on her leadership skill, the best ability heal in the game and she hits really hard for a Jedi. Plus, she is easily farmed to 7* through GW shipments and because she is such a good all-around character she should be one of the first characters that you max out anyways. The only downside to using Lumi in this event is that you will watch Yoda steal her Evasion Up bonus a lot which can be annoying but her strengths far outweigh that downside. I highly recommend having a maxed out Luminara for this event, and using her in conjunction with Barriss.
• Qui-Gon Jinn (Farmable in Cantina Shipments): QGJ is a viable Jedi leader to use in this event. I know of one player within our guild who beat 7* Yoda using QGJ as his leader, so it is possible, however you will come to find that the speed leadership bonus doesn’t do much when Yoda is two-shotting your Jedi and taking 2-3 turns in between your heals. QGJ also deals decent damage and has his very valuable Ally Assist which provides much needed burst damage when Yoda is vulnerable. Never use QGJ’s Ally Assist when Yoda has foresight, Yoda will dodge the 2nd attack 100% of the time (I believe this is a bug as the first attack should clear foresight and the second should land but it never happens). QGJ is a great character all around and is available in Cantina shipments so spending your tokens on him will not be a waste.

Best Jedi Teammates:

• Jedi Consular (Farmable in Cantina 3A, 6E, Light Side 1B, Dark Side 1D/6E): JC is another key component to completing this event. JC’s heal has a very low cooldown which is extremely valuable in these prolonged fights. I highly recommend using JC in this event, alongside of Barriss & Lumi.
• Kit Fisto (Chromium Exclusive Character): Kit Fisto is a very valuable Jedi for this event because he has a high counter attack chance and a chance to attack twice on his basic attack. This is important because every time that Yoda attacks one of your Jedi with over 50% health he will gain foresight. A counter-attack will immediately clear this foresight so that your next Jedi who takes a turn can deal damage to Yoda or Kit can clear it himself with his double attack and still deal damage.
• Plo Koon (Farmable in Cantina 4G, Dark Side 7C): I’m not sure if Plo’s dispel on his basic attack gives Yoda turn meter when resisted or not. If it does give Yoda turn meter then Plo is a bad Jedi . If it isn’t, then I can see him being a decent Jedi to use. Don’t try using Force Judgment as it will be resisted, but the Defense Up might allow your characters to take an extra hit. Plo does decent damage as well so while I haven’t seen anyone put them in their team, he would be a decent 5th Jedi. He’s pretty easy to farm in Cantina, however you’re likely already farming Barriss & Jedi Consular from Cantina so he might not be an option for you.
• Eeth Koth (Farmable in Arena shipments): EK is a garbage character… there I said it. He has an anti-droid kit which is worthless in this event and pretty much worthless in the entire game as well. Unfortunately, because he’s the only Jedi available in Arena shipments he will also be farmed by a lot of F2P players for this event. His stun will be resisted by Yoda, giving him turn meter, and he hits like bitch Windu above. So don’t use force push on Yoda and enjoy the fact that you have an extra punching bag on your team that Yoda can target while you’re other Jedi beat up on him. He also has low health for a Jedi so overall the only reason to use EK is because he’s easy to farm.
• Ahsoka Tano (Farmable in Cantina Shipments, Light Side 5D, Dark Side 4C): Snips (Ahsoka) is a really terrible character in the game right now. She is getting reworked so hopefully that will change in the future, but she just isn’t very good. She is farmed in Cantina shipments which is a very competitive shipment with a lot of good characters to choose from. That being said, this is actually the one area in the game where she kind of shines. She will receive the Barriss + Padwan health buffs to make her fairly tanky, she has a self-heal & possible group heal, and she does decent damage (if you ignore her snail like speed). She would make a good 5th Jedi if you’ve already maxed QGJ from Cantina shipments and want to sacrifice your Cantina shipment currency towards upgrading her.
• Old Ben (Chromium Exclusive Character): For the few whales who have a maxed out Old Ben, he is a decent 5th Jedi. He is tanky, has decent basic attack damage and has a built in evasion up chance to help dodge Yoda’s attacks. I also read on the forums that someone allowed Old Ben to die when Yoda was low health and used Ben’s buff to quickly burst Yoda down. But I wouldn’t recommend that strategy because if Yoda manages to steal the Old Ben buff you can say goodnight to your Jedi.
• Ima-Gun Di (Hard Mission Farms): While Ima-Gun Di is the hardest hitting Jedi in the game, he is a hard mission only farm which takes A LONG TIME TO MAX. I’ve bought over 800 Chromium data cards and have yet to get him as a full character. So if you have a 7* Ima-Gun Di wtf are you reading this guide for? Go drop your big ass whale body on that little green goblin…

Jedi NOT to Use: It needs to be mentioned that while I recommend not using these Jedi, I know of players that have beat the 7th stage of the Yoda event with nearly all of these characters, so it’s not impossible to do. In fact most of these characters are high risk / high reward, meaning that they have some really good aspects and some really bad aspects when fighting against Yoda.

• Anakin – Ani is tanky, has good basic attack damage and good speed which would make him a good candidate for the event however he is a hard mission only farm and he takes a long time to upgrade to 7-star. His biggest downside is that he has a built-in resistible debuff on his basic attack which will give Yoda a lot of turn meter. Try to use Anakin’s smite when Yoda has tenacity up.
• Mace Windu (Farmable in Cantina 4A, Light Side 2E): After his rework, Mace is a decent 5th Jedi for this event. He’s tanky and has decent damage/speed. However, his automatic expose chance is a double-edged sword because it can be resisted giving Yoda turn meter making him a liability. That being said, if his expose does land on Yoda it is the single most damaging ability in the game against Yoda and I know of two guild mates who actually won the 7th stage of the event because of a timely expose onto a low health Yoda. Because he is a Cantina farm though, I would still recommend maxing Barriss & JC before Mace.
• Aayla Secura (Chromium Exclusive Character): While Aayla’s counter-attack is very valuable for immediately clearing foresight off of Yoda and she has good damage output, Aayla has a built in resistible stun when she crits, which will likely be resisted and give him extra turn meter. For this reason I would use Kit over Aayla if you are using Chromium Exclusive characters.
• Jedi Knight Guardian (????): No…

Once you have obtained your five Jedi, you will want to upgrade their abilities to reach their power spikes (focusing on basic attacks and healing/survival abilities). You will also need to level them up to level 65+ and gear level 7+, preferably maxing each of your Jedi out. Yoda can hit for over 6k damage and takes multiple turns in between your turns, which means that you will need all of the levels and gear you can get.

Grand Master Training:

“Grand Master Training is the path to the dark side. This training leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Prepare to suffer. Yoda has 7 stages. Each stage is progressively more difficult. From the data mined information about the event, here is the progression for each stage (my interpretation in blue):

1. Your positive status effects may be used against you – Yoda can use masterstroke
2. Your squad members with less than 50% Health are easily Stunned – Yoda can use Unstoppable Force
3. Applying detrimental effects will be much more difficult – Yoda uses his Grand Master’s Guidance passive
4. Applying detrimental effects is near impossible – Yoda can use Battle Meditation
5. Contend with all of the Grand Master’s abilities – Yoda will use all of his abilities
6. Yoda gains a Turn after besting an opponent – Yoda will use all of his abilities, gains a turn when defeating an opponent, and has 2 Jedi Temple Guards to assist him.
7. Be prepared for anything! – Yoda will use all of his abilities, gains a turn when defeating an opponent, has 2 Jedi allies to assist him and does a bunch of other bullshit against you.

Basic strategy for the event is as follows:

• Heal, heal, heal – Have as many characters with heals in your team as possible and manage their cool downs so one is always available and your Jedi are never in the yellow for very long. JC’s heal should be spammed frequently and after Yoda’s AOE to top off characters. Lumi’s heal should be saved for when you have multiple low health characters. Barriss’ heal should be used for when an ally is in immediate danger of dying and can be killed by Yoda’s next attack. Try to have one heal available at all times.
• Resistible Abilities – Yoda has really high tenacity and when he resists an ability he gains turn meter. When he uses battle meditation his tenacity increases by 9,999%, effectively making him immune to all negative status effects. Because of this, most abilities that have resistible effects are double-edged swords because they will give Yoda turn meter and help him kill you faster. While some Jedi can simply avoid this by not using their abilities, some Jedi have the resistible effect built into their kit automatically. Mace Windu’s expose, Aayla’s stun chance and Anakins debuff on his basic attack are all example’s of characters which could accidentally hurt you due to their built-in resistible effects. For other Jedi with regular special abilities, try to use your resistible abilities on Yoda when he does not have his tenacity up buff active.
• Self Buff Abilities – While resistible abilities are bad news, most self-buff abilities are great for this event. For example, Lumi, Old Ben & Ahsoka’s Evasion Up allows them to dodge a lot of attacks. Dodging unstoppable force is a huge win for your team because you negate his burst damage. Unstoppable force is usually what will kill one of your Jedi, allowing Yoda to take additional turns and go on a rampage killing multiple Jedi in one sequence of events.
• Basic Attacks OP – Learn to love your basic attacks as most special abilities can be resisted and give Yoda Turn meter as outlined above. That being said, you will still want to use certain resistible abilities against Yoda if they do enough damage. For example Lumi & QGJ’s special abilities deal a lot of damage and are still worth using unless one of your characters is low on health and giving Yoda turn meter could result in their death.
• Barriss Bare Ass Strategy – I don’t know why I’m naming it the Barriss Bare Ass strategy, but that’s what I’m going with so deal with it. Yoda will have 2 Jedi as his allies in stage 7 of the event. These Jedi can be any of the Jedi that are in the game. Try to find a battle where Yoda has Barriss as one ally and a weak hitting Jedi as the other (Jedi Knight Guardian, Eeth Koth, Plo Koon, Old Ben, etc). Burn down the two allied Jedi as low as possible (ideally killing the 3rd Jedi in the process) but leaving Barriss alive. When they are low health, Barriss will use her heal, equalizing her allies health and lowering Yoda’s overall health by 20-50%. Kill the ally that is not Barriss and repeat the process again. Each time you repeat this process you take a big % of Yoda’s health away. Keep in mind the more times you try to repeat this process, the more opportunities you give Yoda to target the right characters and wipe your team, so it’s a balancing act. I think the sweet spot is 2 equalizes. The first one when both allied Jedi are targeted and the second time being after you have killed the 3rd Jedi and taken Barriss into the red.
• Wet Noodle strategy – Fighting against Yoda with Barriss as an ally is not a necessity. Another viable strategy is to beat Yoda when he has two weak hitting allies (wet noodle light sabers).  I’ve seen players finish the 7* event with a variety of enemy Jedi like Jedi Consular & Jedi Knight Guardian, Plo Koon, Eeth Koth or Old Ben.
• Lucky Ass Mofo’s – Remember how I wrote that this event is the path to suffering and the dark side? Even utilizing all of the tips above and having a maxed out team of 5 awesome Jedi, you will likely fail the 7th stage multiple times. And when I say multiple times, I literally saw some of my guild mates attempt this event hundreds of times over the course of the week before completing it, coming up with all sorts of expletive terms to describe Yoda in the process (My personal favorite is “fuck this green cheating flying muppet midget”). One thing that all the players who completed the 7th stage seemed to have in common was that they got lucky. That’s right. Regardless of how much you prepare for this event, the final ingredient necessary to completing it is luck. You need to have the right string of luck to complete the Yoda event. A dodged attack that would have otherwise killed your character, a string of lucky crits or a rare special that lands, a heal that comes up just in time or just general luck in who Yoda targets each attack. You’re going to need to repeat the event until just the right string of events happen for you to pass it.

With the right Jedi team, strategy and some luck you will prevail with a 7-star Yoda.

“the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned.” – Yoda