Introduction

An amazing amount of content was released last night and it is almost overwhelming trying to keep abreast with what is hip to the hop and worth pursuing. This article will try to help provide some clarity to the new cards and which ones you should prioritize if resources are limited.

In addition, I will also be briefly touching upon the notable buffs and eventually begin work on a farmable monster tier list from an inherit and leader/sub point of view.

Video commentary

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New evolutions

If you refer to the official GungHo Facebook Page, there is an incredible amount of content to scroll through and the reincarnation process is resource intensive as each cards requires 16 million experience to level up. As such, you should resist the urge to reincarnate things you are using if you are unable to re-max level them.

Naturally, who you prioritize with your resources will be based upon your individual box needs and you should take my recommendations with a grain of salt.

 Amon & Baal

The main problem with Belial, Amon, and Baal was that they had low value actives and desperately needed this Awoken evolution to revamp them. Now, they did lose some “signature” awakenings, AKA Amon’s Machine Killer  and Baal’s Coop Boost  and bind immunity, but these were replaced with dual TPA . While Machine Killer is quite unique, it has situational value at best with the access to the new Killer latents and the fact that most water cards are Physical and thus qualify to use them (which I use on my Meridionalis  team).

On the other hand, Baal’s Coop Boost tends to be hazardous as it would cause him to hit significantly harder than the rest of the team. In addition, the loss of bind immunity is not appetizing.

For Amon, this is largely an upgrade while Baal is situational, but just keep in mind that both of them gain significantly buffed active skills that remove Jammer and Poison orbs while being easier to skill up.

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 Satsuki

Satsuki is following the trend of other Godfest Exclusives as they now possess a split evolution that tries to better define them as a leader or sub.

In all honesty, it is challenging for a 5-star GFE to keep up with other leaders and you are going to be almost always better off with the sub form  as she possesses superior awakenings and sub element. However, the leader form does have stronger weighted stats along with Dragon, Attacker, Devil typing. This may be crucial to certain teams and also makes her a stronger inheritance assist due to the higher weighted stats.

Unfortunately, Satsuki is not widely used and you may be simply better off waiting until you know where she can fit in best before making a decision.

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 Reincarnated Sakuya

Sakuya was once the fan-favourite monster due to her powerful leader skill and beauty. Sadly, her star has fallen far from grace and has mostly been demoted to a niche inheritance option. Her new reincarnated evolution does dramatically bolster her offensive capabilities, but does not address her main glaring weakness: inconsistent activation and defensive multipliers.

Granted she does cap out 400x ATK, but that requires 10 combos AND her rainbow activation. Chasing two distinct activation requirements is generally unwise as you will often times find yourself lacking one component. On a given board, you will usually be able to make 7-8 combos and this will yield 2.5-3x ATK jumps to 12.5-15x ATK for single leader with rainbow activation. Now this is wonderfully hard hitting, but you pretty much forfeit any form of damage control at this point and still require your 4 colours. Thus, Sakuya become a potent glass cannon with a high skill cap ceiling.

One last point I wish to make is that losing the water sub typing is a negative as fire was always covered by a Kali of some sorts. This places more constraints on team building options, but in all honesty, you should simply be using your highest stat cards with time extend awakenings as you are essentially a combo-ish leader. You could also try and mirror her build to Ra Dragon and simply bring more defensive utility in lieu of damage enhancers.

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 Reincarnated Haku

Puzzles and Haku is what this month of PAD should be renamed to as Haku is the most hyped and anticipated sub in the game. Simply put, if your team can support 2-3 Hakus, it will have potential for greatness and possibly be top tier. As such, it is no surprise that some of the most powerful teams in the game utilize Haku as a core sub.

The strengths may not be apparent as we are just coming out of a heart cross meta and a tri-colour board changer used to have no place. However, Haku is beautifully positioned for future releases of combo-oriented leaders as she is essentially the strongest 7 combo  awakening card available due to her dual TPA  and 1,000 weighted stats. Furthermore, a tri-colour board (even without hearts) has value as you are able to almost always guarantee 7+ combos and thus triggering the double damage from 7 combo awakening.

Even if the active skill is not perfect, higher tier teams are naturally tanky and you are able to stall out troublesome encounters to charge up your inherit. As such, Haku becomes incredible for Reincarnated Kushinadahime  and Dark Athena  as she is able to deal double damage on a consistent basis.

The only time you should consider not reincarnating Haku is if you use Aizen  and struggle for RCV due to a lack of Dark/Water cards (however, you can now use the coop boost  Zaerog Infinity  to help address this).

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 Reincarnated Hermes

Reincarnated Hermes helps readdress his lacking base HP to help bring him more inline with most water card (but is still quite low). Thus, he becomes a much more desirable sub for both the augmented stats, awakenings, and powerful active skill.

Amusingly, Hermes plus Reincarnated Sun Quan  may be the best water TPA team, but it is plagued by the active skill clause for both damage and RCV.

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 Reincarnated Persephone

Persephone finally regains her God typing and can now be successfully used on Yomi Dragon  teams once again. Furthermore, her base stats have been boosted up to 1,000 and makes for an outstanding sub on a variety of teams. While the loss of water typing harms Aizen  teams, this evolution is a large upgrade for every other team and is worth pursuing.

Reincarnated Persephone will function as a TPA-oriented Eschamali  who has a lesser active and fewer orb enhances. However, her higher weighted stats (especially RCV) are appealing and the ability to capitalize on dual TPA adds significant damage. Thus, she makes a potent Dark Athena  sub.

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 Reincarnated Izanagi

Izanagi is for the most part a lesser Myr  due to his vulnerability to binds and weaker base active skill. However, he is much easier to evolve and invest in if you do not reincarnated him (from a monster EXP point of view). As such, I mostly view him as either a stepping stone for newer players who want to jump into the heart cross meta.

One notable point of value for Izanagi when paired with Myr is being able to run the bind immune badge along with passive 2x RCV for Balance, Dragon, and God types. This can aid in stalling with only 3 heart orbs.

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 Reincarnated Astaroth

Reincarnated Astaroth was ranked quite highly on the JP tier lists, but has begun to decline and I sometimes feel that those rankings are partially based on hype and to cause arousal to get people talking/visit the site more. Regardless, Reincarnated Astaroth is still a formidable leader and her main problem was a limited sub pool and lack of popularity.

Reincarnated Astaroth boasts 1,000 weighted stats, bind immunity, a hazard removal active, and 4x HP / 64x ATK for Devil and Wood healers that can full take advantage of wood row  awakenings. This is great on paper and if you have MIchaels , Elize , Romia , or dupe Astaroth, you will be able to clear plenty of content. However, it is her lack of popularity (due to exclusive subs and not being super top tier) may have you struggling to find friends.

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 Reincarnated Loki

While the Norse Pantheon is on the decline due to the potency of the Gemstone Princesses, Loki’s star is actually on the rise due to his double SBR , double TPA , and 7 combo  awakening for Dark Athena  teams. Dark Athena lacks a Skill Bind Resist awakening on herself and if playing in solo mode, has to rely on additional coverage from one sub. Thus, you are forced to run someone who can provide 40% resistance and Loki is simply the strongest option available.

While his base active skill is somewhat lackluster, his 1,000 weighted stats and ideal awakenings help justify his usage. Despite the fact that the Norse Gods now buff damage for 3 turns, you will still elect to use a Gemstone in the vast majority of cases.

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 Reincarnated Yomi

Reincarnated Yomi is unfortunately a disappointment from a leadership point of view. Granted the massive boost in offensive capabilities is welcomed, they really needed some defensive mechanic and it was my hope that they mirrored New Year’s Yomi  with the damage mitigation aspect.

Regardless, Reincarnated Yomi becomes quite a formidable leader and they may feel like a sub-par Aizen  in that you have a flat 36x ATK for 6 combos (always doable) and quickly ramps up when matching 5o1e. While Yomi lacks bind immunity, maximum damage, and a stronger base active, they are going to be much more consistent than their previous Awoken form due to the fact that your damage starts scaling at 6 combos instead of 7. Seven combos with a 5o1e is sometimes impossible without skyfalls and this dramatically lowers the luck aspect. Finally, Reincarnated Yomi can fully capitalize on Reincarnated Haku for respectable damage via 7+ combos and no 5o1e.

Inheritable Descend Monsters

Skill Inheritance has been restricted to REM cards and a few niche farmable ones. However, with this update, 55 descend bosses will now be able to be used as assistants via Skill Inheritance.

This adds diversification to team building as players are now able to utilize a wider array of cards to better customize their team. Granted most of the qualifying cards have lackluster actives (and possibly tedious skill up requirements), you can easily use an unskilled monster as buffer for Skill Delays and to transfer a modest amount of stats if on-colour. For example, many players have been using Ras  as a free buffer against delays for their Zeus Dioses  while transfering a reasonable amount of stats.

I plan to do a farmable monster tier list for both inheritance and sub/leader potential in the very near future.

Notable cards

This does not cover all the possible cards, but simply the ones I feel will be more meaningful/impactful moving forward.

 Cauchemar

Cauchemar is a powerful farmable card due to his active being a full board changer that creates fire, wood, and dark orbs along with a 30% damage reduction shield. This is essentially an upgraded Zuoh  active on a 11-22 turn cooldown. While this does not make heart orbs, it is still worthwhile to have.

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 Ana Valkyrie

This upgraded Valkyrie may have less appealing art, but her active skill is quite powerful as it combines a heart to light orb changer and light orb enhance. Dual purpose actives allows you to conserve actives as you are able to address two obstacles at the same time. This grants you more wiggle room for team building as in this case, you probably do not need to run an enhance option. Despite the fact that this active removes heart orbs, plenty of other teams can utilize this as part of their optimal burst boards as you can combo this with Saria .

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 Linthia  &  Gainaut

Both Linthia and Gainaut are Rogue Descend bosses and have reasonable base stats and a full board changer that produces all 6 elements and either poison or jammer orbs. This results in a minimum of 7 combos and full activation for any rainbow team. This potentially opens up possibilities for Dark Kali  alternative for Ra Dragon  teams as you can now use a high-stat base (who is ideally unbindable) and inherit Gainaut over top (Linthia if wood base) as the jammers are less dangerous overall for the most part. One word of caution is that should should ideally erase all the hazard orbs, or at least leave multiples of 3 to remove on a subsequent turn.

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 Jormungandr

Jormungandr’s main value is for their ability to poison bosses to either bypass resolves on non-status void encounters or to execute a high defense-low health card. Granted the full board changer that produces jammers, and all 5 colours (no hearts) is rarely ideal, it can at least be solved if you are relying the poison to do it’s job or combo-ed with something like Australis  to forma modestly lethal board.

Presently, there are not many options for inheritable poisons and not everyone is fortunate enough to have acquired a Red Odin Tamazo .

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 Zhang Fei

Zhang Fei is an often forgotten card that has a powerful and unique active skill. He is able to change dark to wood along with providing a 1 turn delay on a 11-20 turn cooldown. There is always value in having a unique orb changer (only competes with Awoken Liu Bei )as it opens up different board changer combinations (can use Cauchemar + Zhang Fei for a wood heavy board). However, the delay component is most appealing as it can allow you to side skirt dangerous mechanics or simply take an extra turn to set up the board.

Buffs

There are an amazing number of buffs to popular cards and I encourage you to look at them on the Official Facebook Post as I will only be touching on what I feel are more important/noteworthy.

 Dantalion

Dantalion is a card I have often regarded as quite lackluster due to the fact that he dos not fit in anywhere particularly well nor is his leader skill exceptionally potent. However, he is now able to 30% damage reduction when matching 2 sets of heart combos. This translates into 51% damage reduction alongside his colour cross mechanic. Thus, with 2 fire crosses and 2 heart combos, Dantalion can achieve 1,350x ATK and 51% damage reduction. This also has a dramatic scaling component as you can elect to match a single fire cross, no hearts, 2 crosses, etc. Will this make him a top tier leader? Not yet, but certainly propels him higher and should be a reasonable leader for clearing higher end content.

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 Anubis

Anubis received a significant buff to both his leader and active skill. His leader skill will now start scaling at 8 combos (instead of 9) while retaining the same max multiplier. However, he also gained a 1.5x RCV component when using an active skill. Thus, if using something like Gunma , you will passively have 2.25x RCV every turn and simply need to worry about your HP while having a very high chance of activating your damage as an 8-combo board is modestly common. All of this dramatically improves his consistency as a leader and makes him less luck-based.

In addition to this, Anubis also received a -1 turn on his active skill cooldown. This is a dramatic improvement as it will enhance his potential as a sub on various teams. His active skill is modestly lackluster and will often have something else inherited over top. Great uses for Anubis as a sub is for dark teams as a bind clearing option or as a stat stick on teams that require time extends and a bind immune card.

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 Bastet

Bastet received a similar treatment to Anubis in that she gained -1 turn on her poor active skill and the same RCV component when using an active skill. While an upgrade, it is not as impactful as Anubis as her sub potential is quite low, but her viability as a leader has improved as she can now feasibly stall through challenging content.

In addition, Bastet now has an easier scaling multiplier that will help you achieve damage easier. This is great as it lowers the skill cap ceiling and can help better with damage control as fewer combos are required for her multiplier. Finally, Gunma is on colour  so your 1 turn sub is at least providing value.

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 Scheat

Scheat gained a significant buff to her base ATK and she is once again the hardest hitting TPA card. While people may be losing their Scheat over this, you have to remember that there is still no real home to viably use her as the premier water teams are all row-based and she offers no other beneficial awakenings.

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 Avalon Drake

Avalon Drake gained the highly coveted 4th Skill Boost  which presents another alternative to Tengu  for farming or future ranking dungeons as you will be better able to have your desired active skills ready along with a strong body/beneficial awakenings.

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     Mech Dragons

The Mech Dragons are possibly something you have rolled one to many of, but they are going to be blessed with an additional Skill Boost and row. This will mostly have applications for button farming as we gain access to stronger-unconditional row leads. This will allow you to quickly form your row, swipe the top and ideally only perform 1 combo.

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 Zaerog Infinity

Zaerog Infinity remains a staple Aizen  sub due to his water sub attribute and large health pool. Furthermore, his awakenings are beneficial, has a relevant active skill, and is farmable. However, Zaerog Infinity has been elevated even further through Coop Boost  awakening that grants him +50% to all stats when playing in coop. This is huge as you can now achieve a significantly larger health pool in coop that can prevent the need to actually use a damage mitigation active to survive an incoming attack.

While this is amazing for the most part, it only confers the benefit through coop so you will need to start making friends.

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    Valkyries

The Valkyries are some of the loveliest ladies in Puzzle and Dragons and their awakenings buff makes them even lovelier. The Valkyries gain 5% damage mitigation to their primary attribute, 7 combo  and the new Guard Break . Guard Break will eventually become 100% defense void in a future update and requires your team to have all attributes matched to proc.

This 100% defense void is amazingly powerful against PreDRAs  as it will enable you to simply match all 5 colours (requires an all attribute team) and you will sweep the floor. This has the most implications for Arena 2+ as most teams have to run a counter to their 10 million defense and being able to simply pierce through with vanilla comboing saves you an active skill slot.

This has led to the raise in popularity of Blue Valkyrie  as she becomes the best in slot for future Kushinadahime  teams as a light colour coverage (you run 3x Reincarnated Hakus as other subs). This will enable you to bypass the PreDRAs and other high defense monsters with ease while providing a short base for Skill Inheritance and another 7 combo awakening sub.

Conclusion

This content update is jam-packed with an amazing array of new evolutions and buffs to some of our favourite characters. The new evolutions add an extra dimension to your Monster Box while the ability to inherit farmable descend cards opens up new active skill usage in challenging content.

Let me know which part you are most excited about.

Happy Puzzling!

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