Uuuuummiiiii Yammiiiiiii!!!!!!!! (a.k.a. the Wonder Boys) got an ult of an ultimate evolution and still haven’t grown past puberty. Fantastic has been using  since the Players Choice Godfest around 2 years ago when they were first released. They immediately rose in popularity as there was no other 25x leader aside from Sakuya  .  has a powerful active that creates a board full of water and green orbs on a 7-turn cooldown. The newest ultimate evolution added 900 health along with a desperately needed skill lock resist  awakening. In addition, to the added bulk and defensive capabilities,  can now achieve 56.25x damage for god type when using an active skill. Overall, this makes the Wonder Boys a powerful leader capable of clearing end game content. The following video was my first recording so the audio may not be perfect. However, the gameplay and commentary should give you a relative idea of the playstyle and power  can wield.

Pros: 

• Up to 56.25x damage for god types when matching blue, green, yellow, and purple orbs.
• Active condenses the board to your 4 colours and lowers the reliance on orb changer subs
• Sub pool is more flexible with blue and green coverage from 
• High base stats that are well distributed
• Has 2 two-prong attack  and 2 enhanced water orb  awakenings
• Very high burst damage when multiple water orbs are present
• Has a  awakening
• Fun and exciting to play

Cons:

• Vulnerable to binds. This is becoming a more relevant issue with unbindable leaders becoming more common and dungeons having more preemptive binds
• Weaker versus green bosses due to 50% damage reduction from blue attacks
• No  awakenings
• Part of the leader skill’s damage requires you to activate a skill and can prevent consistent damage throughout the dungeon
• Ideal team building is quite REM heavy with a reliance on  monsters
• Challenging to play well as you must have 4 specific colours to activate your damage multiplier
• Being orb trolled through boss mechanics, RNG, or a lack of blue orbs (less than 4)
• Not a pretty girl

Overall, the playstyle and challenge of  is rewarding in terms of damage output, ability to clear content, and excitement. The newest evolution addressed their weakest points of low health and a lack of  to help them catch up to the current power creep. The Wonder Boys may not be a top tier lead, but that does not prevent them from amazing burst potential and ability to clear new content.

The broad categories of subs to bring and their respective actives are as follows:

	SUB
Offensive orb changers:
Orb/damage enhance:
Full board changers:
Bind clearing:
Damage mitigation:
Gravity:
Delay:
Skill lock Resist :

When selecting subs to take into a descend, try to bring a mixture of offensive and defensive actives.  already brings a powerful offensive active and I would encourage you to try to fill your sub roster with more defensive actives to ensure you can survive unideal boards and unpleasant boss mechanics. When playing a rainbow team, your worst enemy will be boards lacking one of your 4 colours and you need to be prepared to deal with this either through damage mitigation, delays, or board refreshes. Matching your 4 colours along with blue  will be the majority of your damage as  is most likely your hardest hitting monster. In addition, it is wise to bring at least 3 subs who have the  awakening to ensure you have 100% resistance as part of your leader skill is tied to active usage.

Even with the bonus damage to god types with the upgraded leader skill, I will still prioritize sub selection based on utility and colour requirements. You can safely build a non-god team as  will still benefit from the 36x and this should be enough damage with proper active usage and combos matched.

Offensive Orb Changers: These subs are for the most part unneeded as  already brings an offensive orb change active to the team and you may find yourself unable to use all of your actives as you cannot stack orb changers. However, certain dungeons may require additional orb changers or these subs may fulfil your colour requirements.

•  Blue Valkyrie is perhaps one of the best  subs due to the light sub attribute, double  awakening, god typing, and high base stats. The 5-turn heart to blue orb change is very powerful and can be stacked with  ‘s active or as a way to trigger the additional leader skill damage as it recharges fast. You would need to use  first to break the hearts, then following up with  to change red to blue. This may be redundant or create too many blue orbs, but is worth noting. The only major pitfall  suffers from is a lack of a  and you would need to find other subs to provide 100% resistance. Lastly,  gets bonus points for being very pretty!
•  Seigfried is the farmable alternative to  and as they both share the same active. However,   is significantly weaker due to no  , less ideal base stats (although it is very health heavy), and he is not a pretty girl.
•  The blue Marine Rider has a double orb changer similar to  , but does not remove red orbs and the net effect is that of a single orb changer. The red sub colour goes largely to waste and his lower base stats could become a problem for teams with less plus eggs. However, the awakenings are very powerful and synergetic with 2  and a  resistance. Unfortunately, his skill ups are rare and hard to come by so you may find yourself unable to use his active as often as you would like to.
•  The Wonder Boys do make strong subs for their own teams as they bring everything to the table you would want in a sub. Just be aware you need to fulfil your dark and light colours elsewhere and you cannot stack their actives on the same floor.
•  The Green Valkyrie is worth noting as she is like her blue sister, but instead converts heart orbs to green. This does directly conflict with  ‘s active as both change heart to green, but being on a 5-turn cooldown, may be able to use more liberally. Green damage should not be underestimated on  teams as the two leaders bring 4 enhanced wood orb  awakenings. In addition,  covers the dark attribute and the high base recovery can ensure you can safely heal after large attacks.

Damage enhancing (either type or orb enhance): These subs will augment your damage by either enhancing your blue orbs, boosting damage to god, healer, physical, or water type monsters. With the advent of newer dungeons featuring bosses with gigantic health pools, it is becoming more necessary to bring an extra burst to one shot them safely.

•  Awoken Yomi is a potential sub on  as their active enhances the entire board along with granting 5 bonus seconds to move the orbs. This ensures you can maximize your combo and  potential on any board. In addition, the 3 time extend  awakenings provides ample time for all your turns. A lack of  is one potential weakness   teams face and  single-handedly addresses this along with covering the dark attribute. The high weighted stats that are skewed towards health is favourable as  provides substantial bulk to your team along with a  awakening.
•  Blue Odin is a giant stat stick along with providing 3  and triple skill boost  awakenings.  His active is quite lackluster as it only enhances blue orbs and is on a very long cooldown. However, his raw stats alone provide amazingly high damage with every  match and my level 99  hits harder than my hypermaxed  . The 3  ensure nearly every active is ready by turn one and the dark type coverage is icing on the cake. Overall a powerful sub, but he lacks a  along with having just an okay active.
•  Sun Quan is one of my favourite subs as he has synergetic awakenings, favourable stats, and an active that can fulfil two roles. Usually when a monster tries to double dip with their active, it results in a higher base cooldown and a combination of two weak abilities. Thankfully,  ‘s active is powerful for both the delay and healer type enhance. Even if only himself and your 2 leaders benefit from the damage, it should still be enough to kill a boss. In addition, the damage buff lasts for 2 turns and can carry over to a second floor should you sweep the non-final boss floor. My  is hypermaxed and I rely on his burst to kill the final floors along with his passive damage from a single  awakening. Unfortunately,  does not have a  awakening.
•  Awoken I&I is one of the newer PAD cards released in North America and she is a giant powerhouse sporting 2  and double  awakenings. This allows  to deal large amounts of damage with every 4 blue match along with alleviating sub constraints for skill lock resistance. In addition to high base stats,  covers the dark attribute as well as providing 2x damage to water and dark monsters for 2 turns. The haste effect is largely wasted as you will most likely not be stacking haste actives, but the damage boost and awakenings more than compensates for the slightly longer cooldown. Overall, I find it hard to find fault in using  as a sub as she brings damage, utility, and defensive capabilities to the table. I wish I had one and would swap her onto my team in a heartbeat if I were lucky enough to pull her.
•  The new ultimate evolution of Izanagi allows for full colour coverage and opens up sub flexibility and choice. He provides 1  awakening along with a powerful active that enhances all god type monsters by 2x for 1 turn. Comparing his active to other enhancers, it may seem less flashy, but being only on an 8-turn cooldown can allow for it to be used more than once in a descend. In addition, having 2  awakenings in a non-blue sub can allow you to burst through high defence bosses who are either green (as un-resisted compared to blue damage) or dark (dealing double damage) type. Granted that may be situational, but it can come in handy when you encounter certain bosses.
•  When I first pulled Muse, I was slightly unaMUSed. Puns aside,  provides 2.5x damage for god type monsters along with a single  and  awakening. He suffers from low base stats and only 3 awakenings, but can provided the needed damage to burst down a boss. Unfortunately, he does not provide much more than a single turn of power so you may need to find another sub to fulfil this role.
•  Arcline shares the same weaknesses as  , but instead boosts healer type damage and also covers the light attribute. Overall, not the best sub, but can be used situationally to clear specific dungeons.
•  Permafrost Hera-Is is a farmable damage enhancer who has reasonable awakenings and base stats. Unfortunately, she is challenging to skill up as we need to wait for the summer collab to return and at 8 turns, is still lackluster as it only enhances blue orbs along with 10% gravity. I almost feel she is better in her less evolved form as  covers the dark attribute along with a 30% gravity (no orb enhance).
•  Paulina or her regular descend form is a viable blue orb enhancer as she also generates 2 blue orb on a 5-turn cooldown. There is a small chance you may lose your board activation, so exercise caution when activating. The awakenings form the Christmas REM are far superior than the farmable version, but both do suffer from low base stats and no  awakening.

Defensive orb changers: These subs generate heart orbs and will usually not remove your 4 colours needed for leader skill activation. In addition to providing a turn of healing, they can be combined with other subs who have the bind recovery  awakening if  the dungeon requires extra turns of bind removal. However, with bosses being able to deal lethal damage, it is usually better to bring a shield or damage mitigation instead.

•  Siren is one of the original healer girls released at the beginning of PAD and I relied heavily on her synergetic active when I first used  . The active is easy to skill up and converts red orbs to hearts on a 5-turn cooldown. This provides rapid healing along with high base recovery. Although  is being pushed out by powercreep, she is a farmable solution for your Wonder Boys.
•  Kraken Rider has 2  awakenings  along with a  in addition to randomly generating 5 heart orbs. Due to the randomness of the active, there is a chance you may not be able to activate your leader skill, so use with caution. However, because the generation is random, you can potentially remove poison or jammer orbs in addition to being guaranteed 5 hearts every time. The light attribute coverage can also be ease team building and through her awakenings, you will be dealing large amounts of damage with every two prong match.
•  Blueberry Dragon works in the same was as  by converting red orbs to heal, but also providing numerous and beneficial awakenings. Skilling them up may prove to be a challenge, but the 3  awakenings provide steady damage throughout the dungeon. I would only situationally bring a maxed out  into a descend if for some reason I was not confident I could burst through the bosses and needed the emergency heal.

Full board changers: These subs will guarantee a board that contains all of your required colours. However, their distribution is random, but you will always have at least 3 of each orb. I always like to bring on into every descend because it can also be used to remove poison and jammer orbs.

•  Famiel is most at home on a  team as her board refresh generates blue, green, light, and dark orbs. Do note you can be “orb-trolled” by only receiving 3 blue orbs (has happened numerous times) and you may fail to deal enough damage. However, the risk is more than compensated by the reward. Currently, we do not have the ultimate evolution, but it should come at some point soon. Even without the triple  awakenings,  has saved me countless times as being able to proc your leader skill is vital to success. She also covers the light attribute and is bind immune. With the bind immunity, you can safely bait out light binds and gain an extra turn. Unfortunately, it is difficult to skill up  and may be forced to use pii to do so.
•  Light Kali is arguable one of the most desirable subs in the game and can still be used on a  team to provide a board change or cover the light attribute. The 2  can be used to punch through high defence dark and green monsters as her damage will not be resisted. Furthermore, the 2  awakenings can help her active be ready on the first turn in case of a bad board. In addition, you can use  ‘s active to further condense your board by converting red orbs to blue.. The  is just icing on the cake.
•  Dark Kali is just as amazing as her light sister, but with higher base stats, unbindability,  , 2 ,  and a  awakening. Her active also generates heart orbs and can be used as a way to heal and deal damage. However, you are more likely to only spawn 3 blue orbs, but this can be corrected with  ‘s active. Being unbindable allows  to safely absorb dark binds and through the  awakening , can remove binds from your other monsters. It is hard to find fault in either of the Kalis as they both provide an amazing amount of power and utility.

Bind clearing: When deciding if you should bring a bind clearing sub, you must determine how dangerous the binds are. If the bind is preemptive and impossible to stall through, then of course you must bring bind removal. However, if the bind will only occur at certain health thresholds or specific turns, it may be best try and burst through the floor instead. Generally speaking, bind removal subs do not bring damage to the team and can feel like “dead-weight” if the binds can be avoided. Lastly, if your team has high recovery and the binding floor is not too dangerous, it may be advantageous to stall it out. In addition, all the following subs are bind immune and can be used to bait out specific binds to provide a free turn.

•  Awoken Sakuya is a new member of the bind immune, bind clearing monsters and can be successfully used on a  team. The single  contributes some damage along with covering the light attribute. Her active grants 3 turns of bind removal as well as a 20% gravity on a 10-turn cooldown. This double dipping can be useful as you can use the bind removal as a safety net and if you are able to avoid being bound, you can instead use the 20% gravity to deal damage to a powerful boss. Lastly, you should abuse her bind immunity to bait out light binds and gain an extra turn.
•  Awoken Isis provides synergetic awakenings (although no ) to your  team.  ‘s active can be skilled up to a 3-turn cooldown which is simply amazing for a 2-turn bind clear. The 15% damage reduction shield may provide useful, but the ability to use the active every 3 turns that sets her apart. You can abuse the short cooldown to trigger the 36x multiplier leader skill on floors where you would want to deal more damage, but conserve actives at the same time.
•  Light Metatron was once the queen of bind clearing, but (thankfully?) with powercreep, we have other options. As of now,  provides a large heal along with 3 turns of bind clear on a 5-turn cooldown. However, aside from one of the highest base recovery in the game, provides little other benefit aside from the 2  awakenings. Her damage output is low and she also lacks a  which forces you to alter your team composition. I go on more of a rant about my love/hate relationship with  HERE.
•  Awoken Ama provides 4 turns of bind clearing along with a substantial heal (based on your team’s maximum health). What sets her apart from  is her double  awakenings. Yes she does take longer to recharge, but you are most likely using the active for one specific floor; it is rare you would need to clear binds on 2 different floors. 2  is quite unique and allows for more sub flexibility when team building. Lastly, the  awakening and haste built into the active can provide extra utility.

Shielding / damage mitigation: These subs provide you with the ability to reduce your damage taken and the shield carries over to the next floor provided you sweep your current boss and the subsequent floor has no preemptive ability. In addition, you can use these shields to reduce damage taken from large preemptive strikes. Lastly, it is far better to reduce damage taken compared to heart generation as shields can allow you to survive hits you could generally not live through.

•  Awoken Susano has dreamy art and a very well rounded shield. He provides 50% damage reduction for 3 turns along with 1 turn of haste. 50% should be sufficient to survive any preemptive along with many execution abilities. You may only be able to use his active once per descend, but the 3 turns of safety offered should be sufficient. Furthermore, his 2 , double  , unbindability, red subtype (for all attribute dungeons), and  awakenings all make  a dream boatsub. His only weakness is a lack of  so you will need to find other subs to cover for him.
•  Dark Izanami is regarded as an S-rank tier sub and this is partially due to the availability of haste on dark teams. However, she is still amazingly powerful even without haste as she provides 35% damage reduction for 3 turns on a 6-turn cooldown. As such, the shield uptime is amazingly high and 35% reduction combined with her giant health pool should ensure you survive every hit. Low health has historically been a weak point for  and  easily compensates. Furthermore, her 1,500 HP auto heal passively adds survivability and helps compensate for her own low recovery. In addition, she is farmable and relatively easy to skill up via her descend. I wrote a descend guide for her HERE if you wish to learn some tips and tricks on how to more easily clear. Her only drawbacks are a lack of  and offensive awakenings, but she is still overall an amazing sub.
•  I like Kush and I dislike her at the same time. I like her 75% damage reduction shield, high base stats,  ,  ,  , and  awakenings. What I dislike is the fact she is bindable (but still has a  awakening), a lack of offensive awakenings, and the overall value of her shield. She provides 75% reduction for 1 turn. Only 1 turn and takes 8 to recharge. Comparing to  and  this is very bad value as 75% reduction is somewhat overkill as you will almost never need that much damage mitigation. Also lasting only 1 turn puts added pressure on her usage as you may only be able to use her once per descend. Don’t get me wrong,  is very powerful, but she is being outclassed by other shielding cards even with her newest evolution.
•  Indra also provides 75% damage reduction, but his shield lasts for 3 turns. Granted it takes 15 turns to recharge, but with ample skill boosts, he should be usable when he is needed. In addition to health heavy stats, he provides a unique double  and  awakening. Double  alleviates sub selection pressure as you can more freely take subs that help increase your damage output. Lastly,  still has room to grow as he is lacking an awoken evolution so he may jump in power and feasibility in the next few months.

Delays / menace: Even with the advent of more bosses having status void shields, delays are still valuable as you can use them to safely bypass different floors while conserving other actives or restalling for skills. In addition, it can be a way to avoid perseverance mechanics as you can bring the boss down to 1 HP and kill on the subsequent turn without being punished by their special execution abilities.

•  Oku is another dreamboat sub who provides favourable stats and awakenings. Even though he has dark as his primary attribute, the high base attack value along with double  results in reasonably high water damage. Furthermore, you can use his dark typing to pierce through high defence light and green monsters as it will be unresisted compared to the water heavy  . The delay only lasts 1 turn on an 8-turn cooldown, but even a single turn of delay should be enough to bypass a difficult boss. The only downside of  is acquiring his skill up fodder as they are a rare spawn and drop along with not having his own survey dungeon.
•  Sun Quan is one of my favourite subs as he has synergetic awakenings, favourable stats, and an active that can fulfil two roles. Usually when a monster tries to double dip with their active, it results in a higher base cooldown and a combination of two weak abilities. Thankfully,  ‘s active is powerful for both the delay and healer type enhance. Even if only himself and your 2 leaders benefit from the damage, it should still be enough to kill a boss. In addition, the damage buff lasts for 2 turns and can carry over to a second floor should you sweep the non-final boss floor. My  is hypermaxed and I rely on his burst to kill the final floors along with his passive damage from a single  awakening. Unfortunately,  does not have a  awakening.
•  Awoken Orochi can be max-skilled to 15 turns and provides an overwhelming 4 turns of delay. This is quite excessive as most things should die within 2 turns but I am sure someone will argue that 4 turns of delay is justifiable. However, as a saving grace,  has an unbelievable 4  awakenings which results in amazingly high passive damage with every two prong activation. This is where you will need to weigh the pros and cons of using an somewhat lackluster active sub who has no  awakening or light / dark typing. He may constrict your sub pool choice, but does provide a substantial burst of damage output. I have an  , but have yet to use him on my team as I cannot justify the tradeoffs. However, everyone has a different playstyle and expectations so take my own usage with a grain of salt.
•      The 5 Christmas “trash” rolls are actually quite powerful as they share the same active as Echidna  and can also fulfil your colour requirements if you pull the correct ones. Regardless, their 3 turn delays are just as valuable and it is worthwhile to pull at least once on the Christmas REM as they are a boon for newer accounts. For further reading as to why  is valuable, click HERE.

Gravity: Gravities are starting to come back into style as they can be used to push a boss into specific health percentages and is most useful to either knock them into a favourable colour or to by pass perseverance.

•  Hathor will be receiving her ultimate evolution some time soon and it will grant her a  and  awakening. Her single  awakening does contribute some damage even though she is a light based sub. The 25% gravity is substantial and at least starts at 18 turns compared to Hera-Is  and her 30 turn non skilled base form. However, until  receives her ultimate evolution, she may be too difficult to justify using as a sub due to lackluster awakenings.
•  Hera-Is is the poster girl of farmable gravities and can still be used to clear high end content. Her awakenings are not the best, but at least she contributes the dark sub colour along with a single  awakening. She still has reasonably high base stats and her largest pitfall will be her 30-turn cooldown if not skilled up. Older players should have max skilled her by now, but newer accounts have probably forgone her usage in favour of more REM or flashier things.
• Awoken Sakuya is a new member of the bind immune, bind clearing monsters and can be successfully used on a  team. The single  contributes some damage along with covering the light attribute. Her active grants 3 turns of bind removal as well as a 20% gravity on a 10-turn cooldown. This double dipping can be useful as you can use the bind removal as a safety net and if you are able to avoid being bound, you can instead use the 20% gravity to deal damage to a powerful boss. Lastly, you should abuse her bind immunity to bait out light binds and gain an extra turn.

If you feel I missed any noteworthy subs, please feel free to leave a comment and I will reply and add in accordingly =)

Team building:

Team building the Wonder Boys revolves around fulfilling your colour requirements, addressing the dungeon mechanics, and adjusting your skill lock resistance accordingly. Keeping this in mind, there is no “perfect” team that can clear all the current content and needs to be fluid and dynamic to adjust to new challenges. I do not have that many plus eggs on my Fantastic account and it somewhat constricts me into using older subs I have had for a long time and being loathe to swapping them out as it would result in a substantial drop in weighted stats. This was the case when I was debating swapping out my hypermaxed  as bind clearing was not an issue for many dungeons.

These are all teams that I have used successfully in the past few months and adjust according to the dungeon. I do have a noticeable bias towards using my hypermaxed   and  as I have built a slight dependence on their usage and the stats and utility they offer. In addition, my dark sub coverage is less than ideal for this account. I would most likely still use  as I need the burst for the harder floors and the delay can be a life saver. Double delay is usually not ideal and I have found myself reaching the final boss floor with both actives ready and thus wasting one of them. However, part of the fun of PAD is puzzling your way around your limited resources and making do with what you have.

One team that I would love to build revolves around using more offensive oriented sub and blue main attribute to keep the damage flowing.

     

The steady influx of water orbs along with  ‘s damage enhance and many two prong attacks can easily breeze through most content. In addition, this team has 100% skill lock resist along with quick bind clearing. However, a good rule to follow for team building  is to have one board refresh and a burst active. Delays can be resisted and overwhelming the boss is a safe counter. Also, high base stats will have diminishing returns when your team is more heavily plus egged. Therefore, you may “grow out” of stat sticks in favour of a stronger active as your team develops. Lastly, defensive actives are more valuable as you will need to spend turns setting up the board or removing unwanted orbs. It will be challenging to cruise through every floor and you need to be prepared to deal with bad situations.

Dungeon playstyle:

The Wonder Boys are a rainbow team, and will be susceptible to orb troll and you must have the patience to stall and survive. You should always enter endless corridors to test your damage output (with a two prong match and without) to give yourself a relative idea of how much damage you can deal. This is important because you may need to stall on a floor to acquire 4+ blue orbs to trigger your two prong attacks.  In addition, you should determine your base recovery (how much healed when matching 3 heart orbs) as each subsequent combo adds 25% healing. For example, 4000 base recovery will heal 8000 HP when matching those 3 hearts and 4 additional combos (5 in total). You will need to stall throughout the dungeon and this information helps you determine if an active is needed. Also, try to make a tentative plan and mental note of which floors you want to use actives. This provides some guideline to your usage and helps you plan out your team composition and awakenings accordingly. When determining how much skill lock resist you should try to achieve, you need to determine how dangerous having your skills locked is. Can you stall through the binding floor without actives? If the answer is yes, you may not have to alter your subs if it hinders your performance on other floors. The same can be applied to monster binds: if the bind will not result in your death, feel free to just stall it out instead of gimping your team with a bind clearing sub.

May the skyfalls be with you and happy puzzling!

If anyone wants to add me and my hypermaxed U&Y, feel free to send me an invite =D