Introduction

Awoken Izanagi  and Anima  were part of a small evolution release and I want to discuss their value and why they are significant to your monster box and gameplay.

Video commentary

New evolutions

Awoken Izanagi

God / Balance
    

Active Skill
2x ATK God & Balance type
100k Light attack to a single enemy
Reduce player HP by 50%
6 turn CD

Leader Skill
7x ATK and 50% damage reduction with heart cross. 2x RCV for God and Balance types
49x ATK / 4x RCV / 75% damage reduction

Awoken Izanagi makes a wonderful debut as yet another heart-cross leader. The heart-cross mechanic is currently the most powerful ability in the game as it allows teams to deal amazing damage while having incredible survivability as you can greatly reduce incoming damage and survive gravity based attacks. As such, Izanagi becomes a potent leader and has great leadership potential when paired with Myr .

It is favourable to pair Izanagi with Myr because he is essentially a weaker form of everyone’s favourite age-defying beauty. Myr is bind immune, generates heart orbs, and provides a significant boost to orb movement time. Heart-cross teams desperately crave time extensions as you are reliant on matching both your cross and damaging orbs (most likely in a row). This requires practice and orb acrobatics to pull off successfully with the additional time providing a much needed safety cushion. Thus, Izanagi only provides 0.5 seconds to orb movement time and pairing with Myr will provide an additional 2 seconds to help ensure you match correctly.

Another reason to pair Izanagi with Myr is the differing actives. Both cards will probably be used as bases for Skill Inheritance and there will be times where you will be required to use their original actives. Thus, having dual Izanagi is somewhat pointless as you would rarely need to bring a second damage enhance and Myr’s active will guarantee you have enough hearts to form your cross.

All of these points may sound negative and they are merited as Izanagi is essentially to inferior Myr in most cases. However, he does have some advantages over the farmable alternative. Izanagi provides 2x RCV for God and Balance types and this will become significant in higher end dungeons where you may not be able to match your heart cross and need to quickly heal up to full health. In addition, by having 1 less turn on his active, you may be able to use Izanagi’s inherited skill at a more opportune time. Furthermore, using Izanagi as a lead opens up a sub slot if you were forced to bring a damage enhance. You can inherit an orb changer onto Izanagi and use it at the beginning and then have his burst ready for the boss.

However, one significant attraction of Awoken Izanagi is the fact that he is easier to evolve/skill up. Myr has one of the most complex and tedious evolution trees and requires 15 skill ups. Thus, players will be able to quickly and easily jump on the heart-cross meta with Awoken Izanagi and begin to clear challenging content right away.

I strongly believe that a Myr + Izanagi pairing is quite powerful (provided no leader binds), especially in dungeons where you need extra burst damage as Izanagi already have a built in enhance. I strongly suggest you do not form a dual Izanagi team as thee will be few occasions where you need two burst actives along with a lack of time extends.

Players who are trying to team build Awoken Izanagi should refer to my Myr guide HERE as they share the same subs and strategies.

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Anima

Dragon / Devil
 

Active Skill
20x fire attack to 1 enemy
Heal 50% of damage dealt
2x ATK Dragon and Devil for 1 turn
13 turn CD

Leader Skill
1.35x HP / 3x ATK Dragon and Devil types. 2.5x  ATK in coop mode
1.8x HP / 56.25x ATK

Remember this guy? Probably not. He is probably lurking away in your monster box, long forgotten as the active was lackluster and had no leadership potential. However, this all changes with Anmia’s newest evolution and the massive revamp to his leader skill. You are now able to form a 1.8x HP / 56.25x team for Dragon and Devil cards. No HP restriction, no combo threshold to achieve, no active skill clause, simply a flat 56.25x ATK. This puts his leader skill close to Machine Zeus and Hera without having to worry about your current health value. Granted Anmia’s awakenings are significantly weaker, this is still a wonderful farming leader for content that does not include preemptive binds.

We have all seen the power of Awoken Cao Cao  in coop, but the active skill clause can sometimes be frustrating and could require careful planning when going into a dungeon. Anina, by comparison, is a lot more brainless and in theory faster as you can sweep floors without going through the active skill animation. Furthermore, Anima is a relatively  common 5-star roll from the REM so you may just passively acquire him during various Godfests and Fire Galas. Let’s just hope you have not sold him away for Monster Points.

Conclusion

Awoken Izanagi and Anmia are powerful new cards to be used by a wide variety of players. Awoken Izanagi makes a wonderful stepping stone for newer players for the Myr hype train while Anima becomes one of the most brainless coop farming leaders available.

Let me know how you plan on using these two new evolutions.

Happy Puzzling!