The Blood Strike x Seven Deadly Sins collaboration runs April 3 to May 3, 2026 — and it's the most F2P-friendly event NetEase has run in recent memory. Complete all five task tracks and you'll walk away with 4 permanent weapon skins, 3 Playpals, 3 avatars, 2 crossover frames, and a title without spending a single Diamond. The catch: hard deadlines will permanently lock you out of specific rewards if you miss them.
Quick Overview
This is a licensed anime collab with the Seven Deadly Sins (Nanatsu no Taizai) franchise, live April 3–May 3, 2026. It introduces a new limited mode called Sin Mark Duel and brings Meliodas, Elizabeth, and Hawk into Blood Strike across free and premium reward tracks.
What's Actually Different This Time
Previous Blood Strike anime collabs — Attack on Titan, Evangelion, Bleach — used event currency or token shops. You farmed tokens, spent them in a shop, watched a meter fill. This collab eliminates that entirely. Rewards unlock when you hit specific task thresholds: log in X days, play Y matches of Sin Mark Duel, invite Z friends. No currency conversion, no grinding a meter to 100%.
The other structural change is a two-wave friend invite system with a three-day overlap window (April 17–19) that lets you advance both waves simultaneously. No previous Blood Strike collab has done this — and most guides miss the implication entirely (more on that below).
Full Cosmetic Roster
Free Track (Zero Diamonds Required)
Premium Gacha Track (Diamonds Required)
Notable absence: Ban, Escanor, Diane, King, and Merlin have no confirmed skins in this wave. If you came specifically for an Escanor skin, that content hasn't been announced.
Permanent or Temporary?
Everything you unlock — free or paid — is permanently yours once claimed. But community consensus based on Blood Strike's AoT, Evangelion, and Bleach collabs is firm: licensed collab items don't return after the event closes. Every deadline is final. Miss the April 19 cutoff for AK47-Sacred Axe Rhitta and it's almost certainly gone for good.
Sin Mark Duel: The New Mode
Sin Mark Duel is a hybrid BR mode built around Crest Stone Pillars scattered across the map. Activating a pillar grants temporary Crest Abilities — match-only buffs that don't carry over between games. Treat pillar control like zone control: routing toward them early is worth a slight looting delay.
Critically, losses still count toward participation rewards. Don't avoid the mode out of fear of losing. Play it, collect the rewards, treat Crest Abilities as a bonus.
April 2026 Patch: What Actually Changed
Straightforward answer: no weapon balance changes or meta shifts are tied to this collab. The patch introduced Sin Mark Duel, the reward tracks, gallery tasks, and the invite system — that's it. Weapon skins are purely cosmetic. Your ranked playstyle doesn't need to change.
How This Collab Compares to Previous Events
Complete F2P Guide: Maximize Every Skin
The biggest mistake players make is treating this as a passive login event. Daily login gets you one weapon skin and two cosmetics. The other three weapon skins require active participation across four separate tracks — each with its own deadline.
Day-by-Day Task Sequence
April 3 — Start immediately:
Begin daily login streak (Kar98k skin + Hawk avatar + frame accumulate over the month)
Jump into Sin Mark Duel for QBZ95 and Playpal-Oslo
Prepare your friend invite list — Wave 1 opens April 6
April 6 — Friend invites open:
Send Wave 1 invites immediately. Friends must accept AND participate before April 19
Don't wait until April 15. If invited friends are inactive, you need buffer days to find replacements
April 13 — Gallery tasks open:
This window is only 16 days (closes April 29). Start the day they open
At stake: Playpal-Second Form Guardian, Avatar-Meliodas, one crossover frame, and the collab title
Missing April 29 means permanently losing Avatar-Meliodas and the title
April 17–19 — The overlap window (most important three days):
Both invite waves are active simultaneously. Start Wave 2 invites here even if Wave 1 isn't done
Friends who are active during these three days can count toward both waves simultaneously
This is the single highest efficiency window in the entire event. Don't waste it
April 20 — Team-up tasks begin:
Complete through May 3 for Playpal-Hawk and Avatar-Elizabeth
Longest window, lowest urgency — but don't forget to start them
May 3 — Final deadline:
Manually claim everything from the event menu before the event closes
Unclaimed rewards don't carry over
Priority Order for Time-Limited Players
AK47-Sacred Axe Rhitta — Hardest deadline (Apr 19), requires friend coordination, most painful to miss
Gallery tasks — 16-day window only; Avatar-Meliodas and the title are locked here
Sin Mark Duel — Flexible timing, losses count, low friction
Daily login — Passive, just open the app
Team-up tasks — Longest window (Apr 20–May 3), lowest urgency
The Friend Invite Trap Most Guides Miss
Wave 1 runs April 6–19. Wave 2 runs April 17–May 3. They overlap for exactly three days. Most players treat these sequentially — finish Wave 1, then start Wave 2. That's wrong.
Start Wave 2 invites on April 17 even if Wave 1 isn't complete. Friends who are actively playing during April 17–19 can count toward both waves simultaneously. If you have active Blood Strike friends, coordinate with them to be online during those three days. You can potentially advance both the AK47 and M700 skin unlocks in the same session.
Miss this window and you're grinding sequentially with less time on the clock.
Gacha System: Honest Assessment
The premium cosmetics use the Seven Deadly Sins Lucky Spin and Featured Treasure systems. Official promotion states LUCIAN-Meliodas is obtainable in as few as 8 draws. That's a best-case promotional figure, not a guarantee. No public pity rates have been disclosed for this specific event.
Community experience from previous Blood Strike gacha events: actual average pull counts for featured character skins run significantly higher than the promotional minimum. Without confirmed pity mechanics, set a hard Diamond limit before you start drawing — not after.
The free track requires zero Diamonds. The gacha is entirely optional for competitive play. Complete the free track first regardless of your spending plans.
F2P vs. Spender: Is the Premium Track Worth It?
Four permanent weapon skins across four weapon classes (Kar98k, QBZ95, AK47, M700) is genuinely unusual for a Blood Strike collab. Most previous events gated weapon skins behind spending. Here, your primary weapons get collab cosmetics regardless of loadout preference — all for free.
What F2P players miss: character operator skins (LUCIAN-Meliodas Demon, EMMA-Elizabeth Goddess, LUCIAN-Meliodas), gacha weapon skins (M4A1-Demon, Galil-Elizabeth), and Playpal-Wild. All cosmetic-only. No gameplay advantage is locked behind the premium track.
For Seven Deadly Sins fans who specifically want the Meliodas character skin, the spending case is clear. For competitive players who want functional cosmetics, the free track delivers everything you need. The event pass adds gacha access — it doesn't guarantee specific skins.
Topping Up Diamonds Before May 3
If you've completed the free track and want to chase LUCIAN-Meliodas (Demon) or the gacha weapon skins, Diamond efficiency matters. The event window is fixed with no extension mechanism.
Before buying through the in-game store, check Blood Strike gold recharge best price on BitTopup — third-party top-up platforms often offer competitive rates on Blood Strike Diamonds.
A few practical points:
Don't spend before finishing the free track. Four free weapon skins reduce the cosmetic gap you're closing with Diamonds
Have your Diamond budget decided by April 17. The final two weeks give you maximum flexibility if you're ready
No confirmed pity system — set a hard limit before drawing
You can buy Blood Strike top up cheap April 2026 through BitTopup to avoid scrambling for currency as May 3 approaches.
FAQ
When does the collab end? May 3, 2026. All rewards must be manually claimed before this date — unclaimed items are lost.
How do I get the Meliodas skin for free? You can't get the character operator skin for free. LUCIAN-Meliodas (Demon) is gacha-only. You can get Avatar-Meliodas for free by completing gallery tasks between April 13–29.
Will these skins return after the event? Almost certainly not. Blood Strike's licensed anime collabs (AoT, Evangelion, Bleach) have not returned after closing. Treat every deadline as permanent.
Are the skins available on all platforms? Yes — mobile, PC, and all supported platforms with no region lock. This is an improvement over some previous collabs.
What happens to unclaimed rewards after May 3? They're lost. This event uses task-threshold unlocks rather than currency, so there's no "unspent tokens" issue — but rewards sitting unclaimed in the event menu disappear when the event ends. Claim manually as you unlock them.
Is the event pass worth buying? For Seven Deadly Sins fans targeting LUCIAN-Meliodas (Demon) or EMMA-Elizabeth (Goddess), yes. For everyone else, the free track — four permanent weapon skins, three Playpals, three avatars — is strong enough to stand alone.
I can't claim my rewards. What's wrong? Most common causes: task threshold not fully met, deadline already passed, or rewards sitting unclaimed requiring manual collection. For friend invite rewards specifically, verify that friends accepted the invite AND played matches — passive acceptance doesn't count.
Bottom Line
Mark April 19 and April 29 in your calendar right now. Those two dates are where most players permanently lose skins through inaction. Everything else fits around your schedule.
Play Sin Mark Duel from day one. Start gallery tasks the moment they open on April 13. Coordinate your friend invites during the April 17–19 overlap window. The free track is excellent — but only if you hit every deadline.