Anime Expeditions Evolution Priority: Which Units to Evolve First

Most evolutions ask for a specific evolution item unique to that unit, several stacks of colored Sprites (Red, Blue, Green, Purple, Yellow, Pink), and a Gold cost, with higher-rarity evolutions demanding more of each. A Secret-rarity evolution, for example, has been seen requiring 20 of three different Sprite colors, 3 Rainbow Sprites and 10,000 Gold, well above the roughly 5 of each color and 5,000 Gold seen on an Exclusive-rarity evolution.

Colored Sprites are themselves crafted from plain Grey Sprites at a 5:1 ratio (5 Grey Sprites make 1 colored Sprite of your choice), and Rainbow Sprites, the rarest tier, cost either 30 Grey Sprites or one of every colored Sprite plus 1,000 Gold. Because Grey Sprites feed every colored Sprite, they are the real bottleneck resource behind most evolutions, not the colored Sprites themselves.

With a 125-per-color inventory cap, you cannot stockpile materials for your entire roster at once; the practical strategy is to farm toward one evolution target, spend down to a manageable buffer, then farm the next.

Evolve your confirmed main damage carry first. Whichever unit you are actually placing every stage benefits the most from an evolution's added upgrade tiers and any new passives, and it is the unit most likely to also be your Unbound trait reroll target (see the Trait Reroll Strategy guide), so the two investments compound.

Evolve a money unit early if you have one. Money-element units generate Yen passively rather than dealing damage, and several of their evolutions add or improve that income rather than combat stats, which pays for itself across the rest of your progression.

Hold off on evolving units you are not actively placing. Because Sprite materials are capped and every evolution competes for the same Grey Sprite pool, evolving a bench unit before your active five-slot team is a material cost with no immediate return.

Read a unit's evolved passives before starting its Unit Trial. Some evolutions add substantial new passives (an evolution adding two full new passive slots is worth prioritizing over one that adds none), while others are closer to a stat-only upgrade; the trial itself does not change based on this, but your material spending priority should.

An evolved unit keeps its base rarity and element, but gains additional upgrade tiers beyond its base form's cap and, on many units, new passive abilities unlocked specifically by the evolved form. Some evolutions also unlock cosmetic skins that only apply to the evolved version, not the base form, so evolving first is a prerequisite for skinning that unit later.

Evolution is separate from the Stat Potential and trait systems: evolving a unit does not reroll its trait or its rolled stats, so a poorly rolled unit stays poorly rolled after evolving unless you also spend reroll currency on it separately.