WoWS: How WG Chooses Your Santa Gift Ship, And Why You Will Probably Get Makarov

If you’ve been following the initial reports of Santa big gift results, you will probably notice something odd: a flood of Makarovs, the tier 6 Soviet Nurnberg, have graced those lucky enough to get a ship. This is not a bizarre coincidence – it is a consequence of the way Santa gifts allocate ships. It is complicated, but I am going to try my best to explain it.

Say you win a ship.

Hooray! However, is the ship you win truly random? WG explains that:

If a ship that you already have in your Port is dropped, the Santa’s Big Gift container will be replaced by a supercontainer. The latter will contain another ship from the list along with a Port slot and Commander with 10 skill points.

While confusingly worded, they do allude to the fact that, in the first instance, you do not receive a ship from the whole pool of available premium ships. Rather, you receive a ship from a select shortlist (which differs depending on box type), and you will receive it in a Santa crate box, NOT a supercontainer.

You only get a drop from the whole list of available ships if you roll a shortlisted ship which you already have in port or in a previously purchased crate. If this happens, you receive a ship from the entire pool in a supercontainer. Lower tier ships are likelier to drop from the supercontainer.

What this means is that, if I have no premium ships and buy a gift which luckily includes a vessel, I will only ever receive a ship from the shortlist. My chance of a ship not included on the shortlist is zero (unless I have at least one ship on the shortlist).

The implications of this are pretty massive: if lucky enough to secure a ship, the most likely result is that you roll the most common ship on the shortlist. If you do not have it, that’s what the container gives you. Makarov is the most common ship in the big gift shortlist, and few people have it – that is why so many (including me) received Makarov as their first gift ship! The same occurred in 2018 with Krasny Krym, and Exeter and Huanghe in 2019.

Due to the importance of the shortlist, you should really consider if you would be happy to receive the shortlisted ships before investing in gifts. If you are lucky enough to get a ship, they will be the most likely outcomes.

I do not have full data for the shortlists yet (and I could have made mistakes owing to the limited data out already), but I will keep this updated as we learn more about this year’s crates:

Gift Shortlist (WIP)

• Tier 6 British cruiser London
• Tier 6 French cruiser De Grasse (?)
• Tier 5 European battleship Viribus Unitis

Big Gift Shortlist

• Tier 6 Soviet cruiser Makarov (common)
• Tier 7 US battleship California
• Tier 8 European destroyer Orkan

Mega Shortlist

• Tier 6 Italian cruiser Duca D’aosta (common)
• Tier 7 Japanese destroyer Yuudachi (common)
• Tier 8 British battleship Vanguard
• Tier 8 Soviet cruiser Ochakov

Spend wisely!

-MarshalHaig (NUKED) EU