The Rate Up Return: Hugin and Ludovic banner opens on October 23 at 00:00 UTC and closes on October 25 at 23:59 UTC. For those three days both heroes have a boosted recruitment chance, the same way other rate up returns work in AFK Journey.

Art for the Rate Up Return: Hugin and Ludovic banner
Art for the Rate Up Return: Hugin and Ludovic banner

When the banner runs

It opens on October 23 at 00:00 UTC and closes on October 25 at 23:59 UTC. Each server has its own reset, so if you are planning around a specific hour, trust the countdown inside the game rather than your own clock.

This is a return, not a debut, and recent returns have kept this same short length. Hugin had already been the featured hero of a rate up on December 20, 2024, and again between December 12 and 14, 2025, alongside Ulmus. Ludovic was featured on July 11, 2024, came back in January 2026 with Alsa, and again from May 22 to 24, 2026, with Pandora.

What Hugin does

Hugin is a support hero from the Lightbearer faction, A-tier. He deals physical damage and has a base range of 20 tiles.

The skill that defines him is the passive Unstoppable!. Hugin plants an anvil on the tile he occupies during battle preparation, and he needs to stay close to it to attack and use skills. If something pushes him away, he walks back to it on his own. You have to think about positioning before every fight, and anything that drags him out of place costs you his uptime.

His active Gear of Might goes to the ally with the highest accumulated damage and raises that ally's attack and speed for a short time. Titan's Aegis shields the ally with the lowest health, blocking 600% of Hugin's attack for 8 seconds, according to the hero sheet we found in this research. He pairs well with a high-damage ally, because the buff and the shield are aimed at keeping that damage going.

What Ludovic does

Ludovic is a support hero too. On Sportskeeda's June 2025 tier list he sits in the A tier. We did not find a full description of his skills during this research, so open his hero page in the game and read it before you commit.

Is it worth pulling?

The rate up raises the chance of recruiting the featured heroes. It does not guarantee that you get either of them, and three days do not leave room for a slow grind.

So the call comes down to two things: how much you need a support who brings both shields and an attack buff, and which heroes you already have. If a carry in your main team keeps dying before a fight is over, Hugin's kit is pointed at that. In Ludovic's May 2026 banners the guarantee was 40 recruits, and each single recruit cost 300 Diamonds. Those numbers come from earlier banners, so check the exact values on the recruitment screen before spending.

What to prepare before

  • Save Diamonds and rate up Invite Letters before the banner opens on October 23 at 00:00 UTC. A three-day window does not give you time to build resources in the middle of it.
  • Redeem the active codes now. They give Diamonds, Epic Invite Letters and Gold, and every one you claim is a recruit you do not have to buy. One example is the code 4IYTSNBDXC, with 1000 Diamonds, 5 Epic Invite Letters and 20000 Gold.
  • To redeem, open the menu (the three lines in the bottom right corner) or tap your avatar, go into Settings, open the Other tab and tap Promotional Code. Paste the code, confirm it and collect the reward in your Mail. There is no minimum level.
  • Keep an eye on how far you still are from the guarantee. With a banner this short, running out of currency on the second day is the same as skipping it.
  • The codes we list come from afk.global, because the wiki stopped listing them.