Guardian

The **Guardian**-medal was achieved by maintaining control of a single Portal for an extended period of time. The medal was awarded as an Agent's "Longest Portal Held" statistic reached certain thresholds.

The medal was discontinued on 02. April 2018. Agents whose "Longest Portal Held" was at 80 days at that time were retrospectively granted the 플래티넘-medal and those with 140 days were granted 오닉스; both 10 days less than the normal threshold.

The medal was discontinued due to widespread cheating for taking down Guardian portals of opposing Agents: scraping and GPS spoofing.

## Mechanics

For a Portal to count towards an Agent's Guardian-medal, the Agent had to own the Portal.

Each Portal owned by the Agent has its own "Longest Portal Held" streak, which increases every 24 hours and resets when the Agent loses ownership.

Because using an allied Flip Card grants the Agent ownership of the Portal and all of its 레저네이터 , the newly-turned Portal did count towards his or her Guardian-medal.

### Ending the Streak

If the Agent loses ownership of the Portal, such as through destruction or the use of a Flip Card, its "Longest Portal Held" counter will immediately reset. This means that friendly Agents could nullify a Guardian streak by using the enemy Flip Card. Recapturing the Portal will restart its "Longest Portal Held" streak from zero days.

## Strategy

Guardian was considered the most difficult medal to obtain, as it is the only medal which other Agents can sabotage. Earning the Guardian-medal in 플래티넘 or 오닉스 required diligent planning, tight coordination with other Agents, deep strategy, and a lot of luck.

Rigorously recharging and defending the Guardian was the core mandate of the medal. It was best if the Agent owned the Portal's 포탈 키  and distributed copies to trusted friends, so it can be recharged at any time. The Agent's notifications had to be properly configured to ensure an immediate respone to any attack. Replacing its 포탈 쉴드 after attacks was also of vital importance.

That said, recharging a Guardian-Portal too aggressively could give away its status to casual attackers. The savvy Agent would give enemy attackers a chance to move on before recharging; smart opponents would notice that the Portal is being remotely recharged and simply flip it to conserve weapons and end the streak.

The best Guardian-Portals were inconvenient to attack, but not overly so. Selecting candidates that are far from population centers reduces the chances of incidental attacks, but if the location is too obscure, enemies will notice it on the Intel map and travel to attack it. Selecting a nearly inaccessible Portal also increases the chances that an enemy Agent will use it as an anchor in a Mega-Field project, and complicates replacing its Mods.

Guardian-Portals should have been kept low-profile, to discourage enemies from traveling to them. If the Guardian-Portal did support multiple 링크 or 컨트롤 필드 Δ, enemies would attack it to earn the AP rewards. If it was a high level Portal, it would appear on the Intel map at lower zoom levels. If it was a prominent landmark or has an amusing name, enemy Agent could want its 포탈 키  as a trophy. If 희귀함 or 틀:Very rare히트 싱크  or 멀티핵 were attached to it, enemies may assume it was being farmed for resources. Any of these could result in the incidental destruction of the Portal.

Some Agents enjoy the challenge of identifying and destroying enemy Guardian-Portals and protecting a Portal from these "Guardian Killers" or "Guardian Assassins" required the highest levels of preparation. Agents were advised to avoid attaching overly rare 포탈 쉴드 to their Guardian-Portals and limit how often they recharge it since enemies would regularly scan the Intel map for outliers. Agents could thwart simple Intel Scraping tools that compare Portal and 레저네이터  ownership by capturing the Portal, allowing a teammate to upgrade the 레저네이터  and returning just before a medal threshold to redeploy a 레저네이터  and restore the counter.

More advanced scraping tools like Cerebro would detect Portals nearing Guardian thresholds and dispatch dedicated Agents to end the streak. The only countermeasure is to prepare numerous Guardian candidates across remote locations in multiple Regions three to six months before the area's most brutal weather season. While "Guardian Killer" groups were smart enough to launch attacks in advance, an Agent assigned to destroy one of the Guardian-Portals may procrastinate and later be shut out by weather or circumstance.

Since every Portal owned by the Agent counted towards his or her Guardian-medal, medal hunters were advised to prepare and maintain redundant Guardian-Portals. Any Agent of either side could flip a given Guardian-Portal incidentally or purposefully, ending the streak unless a backup Guardian-Portal was prepared contemporaneously.

zh:Guardian