Introduction

The Full Metal Alchemist Collab is one of the most highly anticipated events to come to North America as it features the game changing Edward . Unfortunately, the rest of the Collab is mediocre as a whole since most of the other cards have niche or situational value at best.

This leads to an unfortunate conundrum as one of the best cards in the game can be acquired here but you also run the large risk of rolling numerous fodder cards instead. Comparing Full Metal Alchemist to events such as Heroine, Dragon Bound & Dragon Caller, and Monster Hunter, the lack of value at the bottom (and even the top excluding Edward) may make it challenging for many players to spend their Magic Stones. Granted Full Metal Alchemist is only priced at 5 Magic Stones per roll, it may just result in you being disappointed twice as often.

As such, the decision of whether to roll or not to roll will still come down to individual preference and how much you value the cards outside of general usability.

Video commentary

—video coming soon—

Overview

Full Metal Alchemist REM
6 Star base
5 Star base

Full Metal Alchemist Collab Rankings – March 2, 2018
SS/Edward
S
A
B
C
D

Order within each tier is random and not reflective of ranking

Regardless of card’s ranking, you should always keep it if it is your very first time acquiring them

6 Star base

Edward Elric – S/SS

Edward is the most valuable card in the entire Full Metal Alchemist Collab and will be the top prize players will be aiming for. This is because he is considered one of the best leaders in the entire game which may come as a surprise if you just look at the multiplier shown.

Edward is able to lead a health conditional team that can achieve 144x ATK / 57.75% damage reduction. However, you must be above 50% HP to trigger your damage reduction/some damage and the other component for ATK comes from forming 6 or more combos. Thus, Edward is a combo-based leader who is deceptively tanky along being wonderfully easy to activate as you only need to achieve 6 combos.

Leadership potential

Edward is an amazing leader due to his ease of activation, no team building restriction, and high survivability. However, his main crutch will be the HP-clause that forces players to remain above 50% HP to enjoy his full multiplier and damage reduction component.

One interesting aspect to the HP-clause is that if you are able to heal back up above 50% while comboing, you will regain your damage reduction component to survive the next attack (you will not regain the damage boost) so this can lead to an interesting stalling strategy. This can naturally become problematic if facing a spawn that has a 1 turn timer but his active skill provides a full heal.

However, the HP-clause is not a large enough barrier for Edward teams as you are able to deliver massive amounts of damage on a consistent basis provided you can hit 7 combos every turn (which should almost always be doable).

144x ATK is not very impressive overall, but when you start factoring in multiple 7 Combo  awakenings, your damage can skyrocket. For example, Edward comes with two 7 Combos which means he will enjoy a personal 4x damage which essentially propels his effective multiplier to 576x for himself whereas an Ideal  would boast 1,152x damage. As such, building a team with numerous 7 Combo subs will lead to explosive damage while still retaining the damage reduction component.

Team building

Due to Edward’s non-restrictive leader skill, he has flexible team building options but should still try to keep the following points in mind:

• Have full colour coverage
• Utilize subs with 7 Combo awakenings
• Prioritize high HP cards
• FUA  as required

Full colour coverage is important to sustaining Edward’s health through his base active skill and his Skill Charge  awakening. By being able to successfully match all 5 colours, Edward will enjoy 1 turn of personal haste to charge his active up faster. This will naturally apply to your friend Edward as well to help ensure you can heal at a moment’s notice.

As stated above, Edward’s base multiplier is “low” but is ea sily compensated by heavy usage of 7 Combo subs. By having all cards on your team with at least one, your effective multiplier quickly ramps up to explosive levels.

In addition, by prioritizing high HP cards, you can help stay above 50% more easily. While a 1,000 HP difference between subs may not feel like a big deal, it can actually mean the difference between full multiplier and using Edward’s active. Furthermore, each point of HP you have will go even further when you factor in the damage reduction component. Thus, using a card like Amatsu  as opposed to other FUA  options is advantageous.

Speaking of FUA, this awakening has become almost a mandatory inclusion on end game teams. Furthermore, many FUA cards do come with offensive awakenings which makes it easier to include them on any given roster.

Active skill and awakenings

Edward’s active skill comes with a lengthy 20 turn cooldown but is offset by his Skill Charge  Awakening. Skill Charge enables the owning card to gain 1 turn of personal haste when you match all 5 elements. Thus, his 20 turn cooldown can be reduced down to 10 if you have a board with 5 elements each turn. This is important as it allows you to use the healing component to push yourself above 50%. While your damage reduction can be regained by healing mid combo, the damaging component only triggers if you were above 50% before moving orbs.

Due to the nature of Skill Charge causing the base card to have a longer cooldown, it diminishes Edward’s potential to be used as an inherit or sub on various teams if the rainbow clause is not met.

In terms of potency, the active does help you remove hazards while also providing more light orbs for additional damage.

Overall, Edward is one of the strongest monsters to be released and if you could pick 1 Collab card to own, Edward may be the top pick from many players.

Alphonse Elric – A

Alphonse Elric is another 6-star base card from the Full Metal Alchemist Collab and while he has reasonable potential, he will be overshadowed (like the rest of the Collab) by Edward.

Alphonse owns a Dark Kali  style active skill that comes with a 50% damage reduction component. Overall, this is a reasonable active skill as it fulfills both a board changer that produces hearts and a damage reduction component. Furthermore, Alphonse’s awakenings make him a desirable, bind immune card on a variety of teams. Many FUA  come with some offensive awakenings, but few are bind immune which can lead to potentially safer clears as one key card is able to dodge various binds. Furthermore, Alphonse comes with 2 Skill Boosts  which is somewhat rare on FUA cards.

As a leader, Alphonse has modest potential as he can also achieve 144x ATK, but must match 4/5 colours along with no HP/damage reduction component. Furthermore, his RCV aspect is tied to his 4/5 colour match which makes stalling problematic overall.

With all that being said, Alphonse’s value dramatically increases if you were fortunate enough to pull Edward as his Light/Wood typing, FUA, 7 Combo, and full bind immunity enable him to act as a stellar sub.

 Roy Mustang – C

Roy Mustang comes with a powerful double orb changer that does not remove hearts while also enhancing fire orbs on an 11 turn cooldown. This may feel appealing, but you also have to remember that mono-colour leaders have been slowly dying out due to combo-based teams enjoying far more consistency overall. Thus, it may be hard to justify Roy’s place on most meta teams as he could potentially make too many fire orbs.

With that being said, Glavenus Hunter  may find merit in his orb changing and enhancing aspect as it can provide more damage along with being able to combo with a Red Sonia  board changer.

As a leader, Roy forms a 144x ATK / 9x RCV team when matching 2 fire combos with one being 5o1e. Thus, you require 8 fire orbs to deal respectable damage which is problematic on a regular 6×5 board while also having your RCV component linked to matching two sets of fire. As a result, he will be difficult to play efficiently while also being vulnerable to binds.

King Bradley – C

King Bradley is an interesting card as he comes with a truly unique active skill as he is able to deal 150,000 True Damage to an enemy 5 times (will switch to a different target if first one dies).

This may seem strange at first as you are only dealing 750,000 total damage which falls short compared to other button options such as Grimjow  but the True Damage and staggered nature leads to interesting advantages.

True Damage means the damage is not altered by defense so you are able to deal 750,000 damage every single time. However, by having each strike only deal 150,000 damage five times enables King Bradley to sneak under various absorption shields. For example, Sopdet will absorb any hit exceeding 200,000 and by hitting for 150,000 damage prevents the absorption from occurring and can make for an easier time when facing her. This can naturally be applied to any lower threshold absorption spawn.

Sadly, with the relative abundance of Fujin  style actives, the true need for this type of damage is diminished. As such, it may be hard to justify using King Bradley as it is not a guaranteed kill. Furthermore, it will take 3 Bradley actives to kill a single Sopdet. Another interesting aspect is you can kill Parvati and dodge her Jammer making resolve but this is bordering on luxury.

Thus, one may find some merit in some Ranking Dungeons (if we ever get those again) as it can enable you to button through low health spawns but is slower compared to Grimjow due to longer animation.

As a leader, King Bradley does form a 7×6 board but is easily eclipsed by Diablos  due to Bradley’s orb hungry nature.

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5 star base

Winry Rockbell – C

Winry Rockbell has a truly interesting active skill as it provides 30% max HP heal every turn for 4 turns along with 30% damage reduction for 4 turns. Together, she does provide a unique twist on sustain, but neither option is truly amazing along with the heal occurring after you match (like autoheal awakenings). This means that HP-sensitive teams will not receive their full multiplier if they have their health pushed above afterwards but will apply for the damage reduction component Edward enjoys.

Either way, it is something to be considered in niche situations but unfortunately it is a situaltional active skill overall and hard to justify using Winry over other shielding options.

Riza Hawkeye – C

Riza Hawkeye has a middling kit as they are able to remove 3 turns of awoken binds along with dealing 40 True Damage to a single enemy three times.

The awoken bind clearing component is situationally helpful, but you probably have better options overall (such as Odin Dragon ) so their main niche will be for dealing with Dark Metatron Tamadra or fully evolved Zeal.

Both of these spawns void damage above a tiny threshold and Hawkeye is able to slip underneath bothand remove them in one go. While both spawns are able to be dealt with, the speed in which Hawkeye can clear them can open up doors for certain farming practices. Furthermore, if the initial target dies, Riza will target someone new so you can remove up to three high defense/low HP spawns.

Maes Hughes – C

Maes Hughes comes with an orb unlock and +1 combo count for 1 turn on a 6 turn cooldown. This is sadly a low value active for both the small perks and mediocre cooldown. While each component can have some merit, neither are particularly powerful and you will often have better options available.

Perhaps their 3 SBR  may have some value, but again you probably have stronger options available. With that being said, Maes has some potential on Liu Bei  teams for both the unlock, wood rows ,  and SBR coverage

Overall, Maes Hughes may feel like a Hughes waste of 5 Magic Stones.

Alex Louis Armstrong – D

Alex Louis Armstrong may workout and have more hair on his face than head, but neither can compensate for his niche kit. His active skill enables you to convert all hazards into Light orbs along with 3 turns of 50% skyfall chance for enhanced orbs.

Sadly, both these components are middling and hard to use well as you must actually have Jammer or Poison orbs present for the orb changer and having a +50% increased chance for enhanced orbs only plays well if you can capitalize on Heart orbs for the healing boost.

Scar – C

Scar is best viewed as an inheritable Anji as he can reduce all enemies’ defense to 0 along with a 50x ATK of all your team’s Dark ATK. This enables you to instantly kill a high defense floor and then have the subsequent floor defense broken as well. However, this niche button farming ability is not really needed as simply acquiring various skill up fodder for True Damage or the Dark Male Hunter  can often produce the same or better end results. Furthermore, Scar comes with a hefty 24 turn cooldown which makes it challenging to actually charge him up in time, let alone when used as an inherit.

Ling Yao – B

Ling Yao is the final card in the Full Metal Alchemist Collab and is yet another niche card to roll. He is able to provide 100% damage reduction for 1 turn along with 2x ATK for Wood and Dark cards on an 18 turn cooldown. If they had excluded the lackluster damage enhance component, the cooldown could have been a few turns shorter and thus more easily inheritable.

What keeps Ling Yao valuable is they can reduce damage from any spawn and he does not mess up your current board like Raphael . However, the actual need to run this kind of shield is quite niche unless you are playing HP-sensitive teams or need to survive a truly monstrous attack.

Conclusion

The Full Metal Alchemist Collab is a painfully top heavy event with only one real prize: Edward . However, the sheer power and potency of Edward will be enough to entice many players to heavily roll as they will gain access to what is arguably the best leader in the game.

Let me know what you think about the Full Metal Alchemist Collab and how much you plan on rolling.

Happy Puzzling!

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