The latest patch brought fourth 9 new ultimate evolutions and I want to explore their viability and if they will become a must have card or quickly forgotten the next day. The 9 monsters to receive new ultimate evolutions are Hathor  , Awoken Freyja  , Famiel  , Ruel  , Ariel  , Lumiel  , Uriel  , Gabriel  , Michael  , and Raphael  .

 Hathor received 2 additional enhanced light orb  awakenings to bring her total up to 4 which allows her to have an 80% chance all light orbs will fall down as enhanced. In addition,  received a skill lock resist  and time extend  awakening. All of this makes her a viable sub on rainbow teams because her 25% gravity can be used to bypass problematic resolve floors. Furthermore, the top rainbow teams are light based and the 4  awakenings and blue sub colour adds plenty of damage and sub flexibility. When used as a lead,  is still reasonably strong as she creates very tanky light based rainbow teams and should be able to push beyond 40k health and 8k base recovery. However, the damage output will still be lowish even with the countless  awakenings as the damage output receives diminishing returns beyond 5 awakenings. Overall, I like the evolution as it breathes life into her role as a sub.

 Awoken Freyja is the only new awoken evolution to be released at this time and will start to bring a shift into the mono green meta with wood row  awakenings. Historically, mono green teams have been two prong attack  reliant as Awoken Bastet  is currently their top tier lead.  brings 3  , 1  , and an amazing 2  awakenings. When paired with the newest godfest exclusive Sylvie  , you form a 2 HP/10.5 ATK/2.5 RCV team with the potential for numerous  ,  , and double damage for green and dark monsters through  ‘s active. 2/10.5/2.5 teams are becoming popular as they can easily stall and tank giant hits repeatedly when heavily invested and if your leaders are not bound. You are able to build your  /  with quite a bit of flexibility as shields are somewhat irrelevant due to a massive health pool. Due to the heavy investment many players made into their  teams,   /  will become popular once more players are able to pull  .

 Famiel received minor stat improvements along with an astounding 3  awakenings! However, your joy will most likely be replaced with disappointment due to a lack of viable teams   can be used on. Her board change is outclassed by almost everyone else except when played on a Umisachi Yamasachi  because you create your 4 needed colours for leader skill activation. As such,  will almost certainly be a staple super sub for your wonder boys (who I am very biased towards) due to unbindability, incredible burst potential, and light sub attribute. The only downsides are a lack of  and low flexibility for other teams outside of  . On a related note, I decided to hypermax my  on Fantastic as my  team is still the strongest team I can form and the synergy of another healer with 3  benefiting from Sun Quan’s  active was too hard to pass up on.

 Ruel has been somewhat forgotten until her new evolution and even a total of 3  , she is still outclassed by Vishnu  and Liu Bei  due to a less powerful active (that is currently impossible to skill-up) and lesser awakenings. Don’t get me wrong,  can still be very powerful on mono green teams; however, without a  , it will constrict sub flexibility when competing with other top tier subs. The new evolution turned the spotlight on for a brief moment, but will be quickly forgotten after you read this posting.

 Ariel also got buffed to 3  awakenings along with having her skill-up material  being released in Hel Descended. However, her viability still remains in question. The only team she makes a reasonable fit on (rainbow teams may cringe due to the randomness of the active) is Saria  / Thor  , but even then, a lack of  and no row enhance  awakenings diminish her value. Even the artwork for  is meh and leaves me wanting at least something more tempting to write about, but currently have nothing.

 Lumiel is similar to her blue cousin  in that her active is somewhat lackluster when compared to other dark board changers and only shines on one specific team, Durga  . Unfortunately,  teams are quite weak due to the leaders only having 4 awakenings and caps out at 25x damage. As such, most players choose to lead with someone else in favour of more power and stability. Therefore,  will be quickly sidelined even with the additional 3  awakenings as countless other cards fill the board refresh role better. I actually preferred the ghosts in the 6-star evolution form better as they at least made me laugh.

 Uriel received an ultimate of an ultimate evolution which added 2 fire row enhance  and 3 auto heal  awakenings. Being able to heal 2,000 HP passively every turn while providing 3  awakenings allow  to be used on Shiva Dragon  teams to great success. Even when played on an Awoken Shiva  team who is historically  based, the high base recovery and enhanced heart generation allows for easy stalling and survivability.  has now been propelled into a high end red sub and is well worth the investment

 Gabriel has a strange place in my PAD heart as he was my first REM god roll (after starting with countless 3 and 4 star monsters) and still has yet to be used. However, after receiving an ultimate of an ultimate evolution and being bolstered a total of 3 water row enhance  along with 2,000 autoheal,  may be taken off the metaphorical bench and finally see some usage. Water row based teams are starting to see a resurgence in popularity with Awoken I&I  / Ryune  being capable of clearing end game content. Furthermore,  will become a fantastic sub for Awoken Lakshimi  when her leader skill gets buffed to 39x and once again becomes a viable lead.

 Michael  also received an ulitmate of an ultimate evolution and is following the new trend of  based teams for   /  . Bringing forth 3  and 2,000 auto heal along with a  will land  a slot on the newer mono green teams as his active will most certainly heal you to full health when used. However, there is not too much to say for the viability of  based teams because of how new  /  combo is and will take time for players to heavily invest in before end game content is explored.

 Raphael is a fun loving-discoball crazy god who now has an unprecedented 5  awakenings along with a  being added into the mix. This is the first monster to receive 5 row enhance awakenings and makes me wonder if anyone else will even come close in the near future. Naturally,  will synergize wonderfully with the  row based team of   /  . Granted you will need a Valkyrie  to break the hearts to capitalize on your damage, but you are most likely bringing one anyway. Furthermore,  received a revamp of his active to now include 2 turns of 100% damage reduction (complete damage immunity!). The long cooldown should not be an issue for   /  as stalling comes easy due to high recovery and base health. Overall,  brings fresh life into  based teams and I wish I owned one.

If you feel I overlooked any monster or have any questions, feel free to post a reply and Happy Puzzling!