How do Free to Play players get Alcar shard?

My question is basically the title - how do completely free to play players get Alcar shards in gen 4? I know that he should be leveled with general shards, but you still need 10 of his shards to unlock him.

From what I've seen the options to getting him are:

- Daily deals: obviously not an option for F2P

- Event reward for Strongest Governor and KvK: it is not a guarantee that a free to play will do well enough in these events to get his shards

- Possibly swordland shop: seems like the only certain way for free to play players to get him. It's expensive though so you're not getting anything else from the shop for a while.

Context: we just got gen 3 and I'm writing up recommendations for building heros in that gen for my alliance. I know that everyone says to skip Eric to get Alcar, but I'm having trouble recommending that if my free to play players won't even be able to get Alcar in gen 4, so I'd like to know what that will look like for them.