Disagree.
Work it out. White Animals may possibly be your best bet.
Consider the 'White Animals' to be akin to the 'Lazy Player' of the previous Forge Bowl.
I used lazy boy exclusively.
Got 16 full scale Colossi.
Finished w/11 Bronze Standings and 5 Silver Standings.
Again, work it out. White Animals may be the best answer for full scale Pagoda.
. . . mk
White animals are the
worst distance/lantern ratio.
Unlike previous events, this one is really, really simple if you're aim is to maximise distance ONLY. (ie: ignoring ALL secondary prizes + daily special efficiency)
Gold/Silver animals in order of efficiency; Swan (silver) -> Stag (gold) -> Racoon (silver) -> Giraffe (gold) -> Elephant (silver) -> Lion (gold)
The 'worst' animal here being the Lion, is a lantern/distance cost of only 39.50 lanterns/lily pad jumped
Conversely, the
cheapest lantern/distance bronze/white animal is the Cat @42.50 lanterns/pad jumped.
And ALL bronze animals are more efficient in distance vs. white animals. (cheapest white animal is a whopping 55 lanterns/pad jumped!:O)
Because you cannot have left over distance in this event, (unlike in the Forge Bowl), the only time to ever choose the bronze/white animals is when you're down to the final 1-2 lily pads distance to finish a pond crossing. (each pond = 25 lily pads distance)
If you only ever choose the bronze/white animals (because they have the 'best' cost/DS% ratio), then you'll need to finish the full quest line + gain all daily log-ins to be guaranteed the Lv.7 Pagoda house.
(ie: 5 ponds crossed = 63.20 landerns/pad jumped)
You will however likely finish out of Silver league though, since it is readily doable with just the 'free' lanterns + efficient spending to cross at least 7 ponds, or if you're lucky with the incident trees, even 8 ponds w/out spending any diamonds.