If you stick around and watch for events you get 5* thrown at you basically.

Played since day 1 and have a lot of 5* by now and more to come.
- Three 5* from Daily gachas and that 3 maga discount gacha.
- One 5* from Christmas guranteed gacha.
- Two 5* from New Years guranteed gacha.
- All players got Oda 5* from campaign normal event
- One or Two more 5* will be given out on 31st for campaign hard event
- One 5* Tenkai from crossover event with X-Over
- One 5* Yodo from current event
- One 5* every month from logging in every day (this month it's Oda)
- Two 5* from guild wars, which are not pay to win at all, but you need to be active to get into a good guild

Also they throw enough free maga at you from campaigns, events, daily rewards (and at some point 3 more per day for clearing total war map) so that you can realistically expect two more 5* per month.

So contrary to the rumours, it is actually fairly free to play friendly by now, if you stay active and don't get disencouraged as a new player just starting out.