Hello! I might have commented on it here on Reddit before, but just for clarity and consistency - the poll that ran on the website was purely an informative poll that I was using to gauge reception to Ironman inclusion during these events. I'm very aware that the poll was open to all members (so it was never going to be representative of Ironmen exclusively) so it was never going to be definitive in shaping our direction for the event. It does, however, affirm my desire to run an in-game Ironman-exclusive poll as this is part of a larger conversation!
Anyway, to answer the question - yes, Ironman players will be able to access the event after collecting shards. However, our intent was that we have toggled the buffs off by default for Ironman players. Players will now need to manually opt into the buffs themselves.
We had a lot of constructive conversations around this as a team - the previous events set a precedent that we were conscious of but at the same time feedback around buffs for Ironmen is very mixed so we've taken this (small) step to make a conscious adjustment to it, but I'm going to be working with a few of the team to build up a poll following up from this event to help us get a clearer delineation on where Ironmen stand so we have a clearer vision moving forwards.