Introduction

The 10-Stone Godfest Exclusive Machine is returning to NA/EU and it offers players the chance to spent 10 Magic Stones for a guaranteed GFE. This means no filler silvers or troll golds and every roll will be at least 15,000 Monster Points. As such, this is the highest per roll if you are purely chasing Monster Points along with potentially the best chance at acquiring 6-Stars.

Puzzle and Dragons has been decreasing the dependency of solely using 6-star GFE through the current top tier leaders being more forgiving and utilizing pantheon cards. However, there are many active skill that cannot be replicated any other way. Furthermore, JP has released brand new split evolutions for 7 GFE cards which dramatically improve their viability and uses.

This article will present my tier list that includes the new JP evolutions along with a small write up for each card.

Video commentary

–video coming soon—

GFE tier list

All tier lists will have a certain degree of bias whether it is accidental or by design and mine is no exception. I try my best to evaluate each card based on their value as a leader, sub, inherit, or niche applications. It also does it’s best to take into consideration the newly announced/released evolutions in JP. Thus, you should take them with a grain of salt and use them as a beginning reference point.

If a card has a split evolution, both are taken into consideration as they have different merits/strengths. Ney  is not included but will be an easy S once she does debut (really should have a tier all to herself due to the sheer power, but that is for another post).

Order within each tier is random and not reflective of power in any way.

S

The best of the best. These cards compromise a best in slot role on top tier teams. They are largely irreplaceable and tend to offer something unique that cannot be easily replicated. This mostly exists to showcase the jump in power between the rest of the cards available.

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A

All of the cards in this tier bring tremendous value to a variety of teams as either leaders, subs, or inherits that are challenging to mimic elsewhere. For example, Green Odin  remains one of the strongest bind clears and only card that can remove 5 turns of awoken skill binds (outside of Odin Dragon ). It may not be paramount to your success, but is well worth owning overall.

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B

This category indicates cards that have value, but are not as widely used/irreplaceable as the above tier(s). While they may make your life easier and still bring an additional layer of power to your team, they are far from necessary. With that being said, some of these cards could hold the key to your own teams as everyone has different tools to work with.

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C

Cards in the question mark category tend to be those that are a luxury and are often not widely used for the average player. With that being said, they may bring niche value to your monster box or provide an additional option to use. A great example of this is Red Odin  who is a premiere button farming option, but with the addition of Red Tamazo , players at least have a “farmable” poison inherit along with the implementation of Descend inherits.

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D

This category indicates the bottom of the Puzzle and Dragons barrel. These cards tend to have almost minimal value as they simply do not fit in the current meta and are badly in need of a buff or new evolution to give them viability. With that being said, you should still keep them as they technically have the most potential for improvement.

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This arrow indicates if a card has moved up since the last posting/tier list. The category/bracket they are placed in will be their new home and each arrow will show how many brackets they moved up (eg. 2 will indicate they climbed up two rankings).

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This arrow indicates if a card has moved down since the last posting/tier list. The category they are placed in will be their new home and each arrow will show how many brackets they moved down (eg. 2 will indicate they were demoted down by two rankings).

 

GFE Tier List – June 15, 2017
S	—
A
B	—
C
D

Notable changes and new evolutions review

Presently speaking, PAD has a “holy trinity” of powerful new awakenings: 7 combo , Guard Break , and Follow up Attack . All three can dramatically impact your game play and approach to challenging content. However, due to their relative youth in North America, they are somewhat rare and only a few cards possess them. As such, these cards tend to gain significantly improved viability as it is harder to find alternative at this point in time.

TPA-based combo teams are somewhat the way of the PAD future as they can make the best use of all three of these awakenings as a column of heart orbs will not fully dampen their potential unlike row teams.

As a note of caution, whenever pursuing a split evolution, make sure you check what Killer Latents they can equip as changing the typing can cause you to lose them.

 Urd – A

Urd gains a new split evolution that provides 113 more weighted stats along with a loss of her water sub attribute. However, she receives a powerful overhaul to her existing awakenings to include both Follow up Attack  and 7 combo  while retaining her single TPA. As such, Urd becomes an incredibly powerful mono-fire sub as she can fulfill both a damage and resolve killer role. However, her main downside is that fire teams do not have any premier leader that can make full use of her kit.

The buffed leader skill is an improvement but not strong enough overall as 56.25x is average nowadays.

 Skuld – A

Skuld also follows the loss of sub attribute for additional weighted stats train, but due to her 6-star rarity, she happily sits at 1,000 total weighted stats. Unfortunately, she is heavily skewed towards ATK which is the least important trait considering her offensive awakenings.

Skuld now boasts two 7 combos and follow up attack along with her single TPA. This enables her to be your hardest hitting card by far which is why I say that being so heavily skewed towards attack is redundant.

In terms of viability Skuld will naturally be at home on mono-water teams that utilize TPA and Julie  will be her best fit (can also be a budget replacement leader pairing). However, outside of this, it will be hard to fully capitalize on Skuld’s strengths and is why she is not bumped up to S as there is no ideal home.

 Verdandi – A

Verdandi a similar pattern to Urd in terms of awakenings, but she gains the now coveted Healer typing. Years ago, Healer teams were renown for their modest damage output and naturally high RCV, but that all changed with Reincarnated Kushinadahime 

Kushinadahime is able to form one of the most powerful teams in Puzzle and Dragons due to her durability, perfect damage control, amazing sub pool, and ability to equip Dragon Killer  latents as well as having access to the holy trinity of awakenings.

Presently, Haku  is the desired sub for the 1,000 weighted stats, dual TPA, beneficial active, and 7 combo awakening. Compared to Verdandi, Haku wins out in the ATK/offensive department while Verdandi offers more utility through the follow up attack and on-colour/stronger active skill.

One major hurdle facing Kushinadahime teams is the difficulty in finding heart orb generators that are relevant and by having Verdandi on your team can help solve that problem.

As such, having Verdandi on your team can be situationally beneficial depending on the dungeon.

3-Player Coop has massive damage requirements which will often make Haku the superior choice, but for content like Arena 3, having a single Verdandi may be the right choice as you can hasten up your clear times as you can easily dance around the annoying resolve bosses.

 Red Sonia – B

Red Sonia was once heralded as the queen of easy mode PAD but her star has quickly fallen from grace with the advancement of Powercreep and the wasted recover bind  awakening. However, her new evolution (like all the other Sonias) will grant her bind immunity alongside. This at least makes use of that somewhat awkward awakening as well as providing a solution to binds provided you have 6 heart orbs on the board as her base active does not produce any.

In addition, the inclusion of a 7 combo awakening helps provide another layer of offensive power to Red Sonia, but her leadership potential will remain lackluster.

Despite providing 2x HP and 7x ATK for Physical and Dragons, you must connect 7 fire orbs and having a massive amount of health does no good when you cannot heal back up afterwards. Also, the days of RoBu () are now over with the absence of Devil typing.

 Blue Sonia – A

Blue Sonia follows a similar path as Red Sonia in terms of gaining a 7 combo and bind immunity, but one major drawback is the loss of her Physical typing and 1,200 HP.

Physical typing used to be important, but most mono-water teams are simply built around the attribute, not typing, but going from one of the best HP cards in the game to about average is tough to swallow. Granted blue Sonia gains 700 RCV, you have to think of what team you are planing on using her on. For example, if you plan to use Blue Sonia on Meridionalis  teams, you may be yearning for the HP.

As such, you may or may not view this Sonia evolution as an upgrade depending on the teams you plan to run her on.

Green Sonia – B

Green Sonia is akin to Blue Sonia in terms of awakenings, but her viability still remains lower overall. Wood cards tend to be more TPA oriented so her leadership potential is marred there along with her usage as a sub being modest.

Wood has a surprising amount of strong TPA/7c cards to draw from which somewhat invalidates Green Sonia’s use as you do have more offensive options available (despite Green Sonia having 2,520 base ATK). However, if starved for bind clearing options, Green Sonia can certainly be used, but it is frustrating that she has no natural heart orb generation and a long base cooldown.

Regardless, this will be an upgrade overall and she still has synergy with Liu Bei  if button farming is your thing.

 Zuoh – C

Zuoh does still exist despite being absent from the meta for some time now. The main reason for his decline in popularity was the fall of Devil teams and most board changers being superior choices due to the inclusion of heart orbs along with no horrible base RCV.

As such, this new Zuoh evolution remedies his short comings from a leadership point of view. Split Zuoh gains 110 weighted stats along with a heavily revamped leader skill that is able to achieve 12x ATK / 2x RCV when matching either dark/dark/wood or dark/wood/wood combos. Now, the RCV component is tied to damage activation along with being somewhat orb hungry, but this can be partially offset by pairing with Romia . Romia has the same activation requirements, but will provide a 7×6 board along with 5x ATK.

Thus, you will have lower damage, but you do gain a larger board that can better make use of 7 combo awakening subs. Furthermore, you do not need to own Romia and can simply pair with a friend. However, this is still an okay leader pairing at best and really does not improve his viability in the grand scheme of things.

 Kanna &  Raijin

Kanna and Raijin move down from S to A due to the fact that they are just not as incredible as they used to be. This is partially due to the fact that Ra Dragon  has lower damage output (despite being consistent) for the newer dungeons compared to what is currently available. Furthermore, he cannot feasibly bolster his damage output as he cannot use orb changers and must rely on Dark Kali  boards that do not guarantee multiple primary colour combos.

In addition, he cannot capitalize on the “Holy Trinity” of awakenings due to the rigidity of his team building as he needs to have full rainbow coverage.

While Kanna does have 4 TPA and amazing damage output, we are starting to see cards with dual TPA and 7 combo awakenings which puts them on par along with having better stats and active skills overall.

 Dark Metatron

Dark Metatron has exceeded all my expectations for usability with her newest evolution. 2.25x HP / 81x ATK / 2.25x RCV when under 80% HP and no Skyfalls is an incredible leader skill that has relevance in 3-Player Coop and dungeon farming.

While the <80% health clause is a liability, you have a massive health pool to play around with along with a built in damage reduction. Furthermore, she is able to fully capitalize on Hakus  and 7 combo awakenings which results in massive burst damage. Perfect damage control is another shining feature as you can always deal the correct amount each turn along with never fearing a skyfall match.

Compared to Dark Athena , Dark Metatron hits significantly harder while having greater survivability overall due to the RCV component not being tied to damage or other orbs being present. In addition, her team can organically have enough Skill Boosts to have relevant actives ready while being able to pursue both rows and TPA/combos.

One point to note is that Dark Metatron requires careful planning and coordination for any kind of coop play and having no orb enhances can aid in damage control calculations.

In regards to farming content, Dark Metatron’s 9x ATK and no Skyfalls help counter out Reincarnated Liu Bei’s  light sub attribute while providing higher damage overall than dual Awoken Liu Beis. Furthermore, the no Skyfalls will help speed up your overall clear times.

 Light Metatron

Perhaps I overvalued Light Metatron’s new split form as she is certainly stronger than her previous incarnation, but still falls flat overall. Her leader skill leaves her with very little HP along with being quite orb hungry. You can view Light Metatron as a lesser Aizen , but she has worse scaling damage, more orb hungry, less team health, and a poor base active skill.

Yes Guard Break is powerful, but as more and more cards gain access to it, Light Metatron’s relevancy will fall.

Conclusion

The 10-stone GFE machine is your best chance to acquire a Godfest Exclusive; however, the rates are not created equally and you must be prepared for a modest flurry of 5-stars. Thankfully, every pull is a GFE so if you are gunning for MP, this is your best bang for your buck while retaining the chance to acquire something rare and valuable.

In addition, with the future split evolutions coming soon, many 5-stars gain additional viability.

Let me know if you plan on rolling along with your thoughts on the new split evolutions.

Happy Puzzling!

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