Introduction
The Christmas seasonal gacha returns with some interesting new additions and changes. Most notably, all the silver rolls have been removed from the machine and added as rare invades to the dungeon instead. This turns the Christmas REM from literal excrement into something actually passable. Some of the old higher-end rolls have been given access to the upcoming Super Awakening mechanic (which grants the card an extra awakening, chosen from a small pool) in an attempt to revitalize them a bit; however, Super Awakening is a solidly late-game mechanic and most players will realistically not stand to gain much from these updates. There are several new cards as well, of varying power. The end result is that this machine isn't quite as much of a trashfest as it used to be.
Historically speaking, seasonal REMs have always been at least pretty bad. Beach REM was probably the best reversal of this trend, as the best rolls there were absolutely spectacular; the changes to this machine are a step in the same direction. Sadly, this isn't well reflected in the 5-stars, which have approximately 75% rates and are still that perfect GungHo combination of cute and forgettable. They have, though, attempted to make the higher-end rolls somewhat worthwhile in the circumstance that you somehow do get one in the midst of all your Freyjas. In our opinion, though, even the best rolls are luxuries and the rates are simply not good enough for this machine to be worthwhile for most players.
We've included some JP roll data from Skyozora in the table below, with about 3500 rolls at the time of writing. For your convenience, we'll also start including this information in the future for REMs that already have meaningful roll data.
Super Awakenings
Many of the older cards in this gacha have received the new Super Awakening mechanic, which has yet to be released in NA. If you are unfamiliar with the mechanic, click here to show/hide a quick overview. On a card's information summary, we will list Super Awakenings after the regular ones.
Super Time Extend gives 1 second of additional move time, the same as two regular Time Extends.
L-Shield gives a 5% shield per L-Shield awakening on the team when you match Hearts in an L-shape. (Yes, this one is weirdly underwhelming to us as well.)
L-Unlock gives 1.5x damage to the card and unlocks all orbs when you match an L in that card's main color.Card Ratings and Analyses
You can click on a rarity or a card's name to jump to the corresponding section of analysis. The arrow ↑ at the bottom right of each analysis will take you back up here. Please see this page for an explanation of the rating criteria.
* denotes substantial or unique (or both) farming usage.
Rarity
|
Card
|
Roll %
|
Sub
|
Lead
|
Assist
|
Overall
|
18.37%
|
C- / C+*
|
F
|
D
|
C
|
||
18.12%
|
C
|
D-
|
C
|
C-
|
||
18.80%
|
C+
|
B-
|
F
|
B-
|
||
18.52%
|
B
|
C+
|
B-
|
B
|
||
5.97%
|
B / S*
|
B-
|
B
|
A
|
||
5.15%
|
C+
|
C
|
A
|
B
|
||
5.01%
|
C+
|
C+
|
B
|
B-
|
||
1.67%
|
B
|
B-
|
B
|
B
|
||
1.7%
|
C-
|
C-
|
D+
|
C-
|
||
2.58%
|
B
|
B
|
C+
|
B
|
||
0.93%
|
C+ / A-*
|
D
|
B+
|
B+
|
||
0.91%
|
B+
|
A
|
B
|
A
|
||
0.62%
|
A-
|
B+
|
C
|
B
|
||
1.64%
|
A-
|
A
|
B+
|
A-
|
Hatsume [Sub: C- / C+ Farming | Lead: F | Assist: D | Overall: C]
 |
HP: 2389 | ATK: 1205 | RCV: 808 | WT: 749 | Healer/Devil
LS: 1.5x HP & RCV, 2x ATK for Healer Type. [2.25/4/2.25]
AS: Changes Wood Orbs to Fire Orbs. [CD: 5]
     |
Overview. Not very complicated and largely unremarkable. Mostly forgettable outside of her slightly interesting farming usage.
Sub. Two Skill Boosts and a Dragon Killer make Hatsume a (very) budget Tsubaki. She is also usable and notable for her exceptionally high RCV stat -- quite uncommon on red cards. Other than that, she is very outclassed on the whole -- especially with respect to her bad HP and terrible Attack -- and will have you looking for a better option most of the time.
Lead. It's not often anymore that you see cards whose leader skills are only slightly better than those of the starter dragons. A unique honor, but not one that warrants points.
Assist. It's kind of hard to see how this active could upgrade something else. You could assist her for the farming purpose described below, but even then you're probably just better off subbing her straight up. Uninspiring.
Farming. Christmas Hatsume does have some small usage on farming teams thanks to her low cooldown and 2 SB, which allows a farmer to use a skill inherited on her, then later use Christmas Sonia (discussed below) to haste Hatsume back up, finishing off with Hatsume's base active to create a full board of fire. Dragon Killer only makes her more desirable for this purpose. While this is quite a niche use, the extra available active does have the potential to make or break a farming build, and so she is definitely at least mildly notable if you are any kind of farmer.
Freyja [Sub: C | Lead: D- | Assist: C | Overall: C-]
 |
HP: 3035 | ATK: 1365 | RCV: 560 | WT: 763 | God/Balance
LS: 1.35x HP, 3x ATK for Wood Att. [1.82/9/1]
AS:
   |
Overview. Vaguely like Hatsume, but with a worse killer and worse... most things.
Sub. Two rows and a heart prong is kinda okay. The RCV is also not completely awful. Freyja's pros pretty much end there, though. Her use as a Devil Killer sub is massively outclassed by cards such as Mito, Shazel, and quite a few others, and she simply doesn't have that many other redeeming features. Probably don't use this as a sub outside of the early game.
Lead. Just... no. It's enough of an improvement over a starter dragon to not earn a F straight up, but not much more.
Assist. 1.5x to woods for 3 turns is so weak in today's meta. This may have use in some niche wood farming setups, but overall it's difficult to conceive of when this active would be an upgrade.
Venus [Sub: C+ | Lead : B- | Assist: F | Overall: C+]
 |
HP: 3175 | ATK: 1436 | RCV: 445 | WT: 753 | God/Balance
LS: 5x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced; reduce damage from Fire, Light & Dark Att. enemies by 50%. [1/25/1, 75% resist]
AS: Enhance Light Orbs' power; extend time to move Orbs by 2 secs for 1 turn. [CD: 4]
  |
Overview. Not as bad as the first two 5-stars, since she has some pretty clear use cases and isn't unredeemably horrible. Still, very limited in what she can accomplish.
Sub. Five OE and a mix of other useful awakenings makes Venus passable as a sub. Unbindability is great, the low cooldown is great, the color coverage is nice, and the passive damage from OE is nice. This is rarely the best possible sub for its slot, but as an inherit base on, say, RDQXQ, Light Hera Dragon, etc., you could do much, much worse. On the other hand, her stats are a big letdown for her usability beyond the mid-game, and she likely won't be finding her way onto any endgame teams due to her lack of true synergy with the dominant combo playstyle.
Lead. Actually not totally awful. 25x with a sparkle playstyle is quite poor outside of the early game, but the damage resistance makes up for a lot. Additionally, due to the existence of Light Hera Dragon, Venus has good value for newer players as a Hera Dragon pairing, yielding a 2/50/1 team with an additional 50% resistance to Fire, Light, and Dark. Though the damage is only adequate, the tankiness of the lead pair against many relevant spawns should enable newer players to break through the Arena 1 barrier with an appropriate and invested team.
That said, better and easier options are often available. She's rated C+ for a reason!
Assist. Although the GungHo NA stream back in May announced Awoken Venus as one of NA's top five most used inherits, this skill as an assist is, um, terrible. As with the previous two cards, it's difficult to see how this would ever constitute an improvement to something's base active. If you really want an inherit that enhances light orbs for whatever reason, Ana Valkyrie and Red Athena are both farmables that can accomplish this. (Note that the skill itself as a base is fine for light-based teams, mostly because it's so short -- it's just not nearly high-impact enough that you'd want to actually replace something else with it.)
Castor & Pollux [Sub: B | Lead: C+ | Assist: B- | Overall: B]
 |
HP: 3023 | ATK: 1785 | RCV: 263 | WT: 746 | Machine/God
LS:
AS:
 |
Claiomh Solais [Sub: B / S Farming | Lead: B- | Assist: B | Overall: A]
 |
HP: 2914 | ATK: 1860 | RCV: 283 | WT: 757 | Attacker
LS:
AS: Changes Water Orbs to Fire, Dark Orbs to Heal; changes own Att. to Fire for 2 turns. [CD: 7]
  |
Overview. Well, this is an interesting one. Solais is the first card in the game to have two Multi-boost awakenings, and her base weighted stats soar from an average 757 to an incredible 1707 simply by being used in multiplayer. She is capable of dealing massive damage and brings incredible tankiness to the table. Her most coveted use is as a button base. By inheriting Grimmjow on her, farmers can take advantage of her sky-high Attack stat, opening up previously impossible farming builds.
Sub. Solais makes for a big unbindable stat stick on teams that can use her, but she is otherwise not very noteworthy. She's a little awkward in that her primary attribute incentivizes usage on wood teams, but her base active will temporarily remove her wood attribute. Fortunately, it's not too long to inherit over. On the whole, though, Solais' S rating for sub potential comes from her farming usage, and she is not a substantially above average non-farming sub outside of her absurd statline.
Please don't forget that she has to be run in co-op to be not terrible. Don't run her in solo play.
Lead. Nothing really special. Solais is far too orb hungry for her to truly shine at what she does. She can still clear lots of content with the appropriate subs and team support, and you should definitely run her in co-op for reasons beyond the obvious Multi-boost. Co-op compensates somewhat for her orb hunger by providing more actives, allowing for more safety and consistency. Her teambuilding requirements are also relatively relaxed in co-op due to the combined HP pool. There is much less motivation to stack Fire/Wood or Wood/Fire cards to hit enough of HP, letting you teambuild using more or less whatever Fire cards you want.
As has been the case for several cards before, Solais' best subs make better leads than she herself does, and so some players will be further disincentivized from leading her. Enra is the best example.
Assist. Strong Heroes-style orb change, but nothing flashy. If you are running a row team, this can conveniently combo with both Haku and Urd boards to create 2/3 fire, 1/3 Hearts. Attribute change is always an interesting mechanic, and gains significant value in the late-game as a way to sneak past certain color absorbing spawns. Hera-Beorc, specifically, presents a huge annoyance with her combination of Light absorb and 6M damage void; Christmas Solais can potentially open up an opportunity to one-shot her if inherited onto something such as Pixel Cloud.
Farming. A hypermaxed and six-latented Solais reaches 5675 Attack. This lets her deal a massive 1,418,750 damage when used as a base for Grimmjow. This is approximately a 1/6 improvement over the current strongest button. Christmas Solais opens the door to a large variety of more efficient farming builds. One example is in Takeminakata Descended, where she allows a farmer to button both Floor 3 and Floor 4 with only one active each without first using a HP reset. This negates several other considerations, such as requiring a shield for Floor 4, and is a nice speed upgrade over the current fastest build.
She unfortunately still shares regular Solais' main weakness -- only one Skill Boost. Regardless, Chrismas Solais is on the whole a card that any farmer wouldn't mind finding under their tree this year.
Sub. Solais makes for a big unbindable stat stick on teams that can use her, but she is otherwise not very noteworthy. She's a little awkward in that her primary attribute incentivizes usage on wood teams, but her base active will temporarily remove her wood attribute. Fortunately, it's not too long to inherit over. On the whole, though, Solais' S rating for sub potential comes from her farming usage, and she is not a substantially above average non-farming sub outside of her absurd statline.
Please don't forget that she has to be run in co-op to be not terrible. Don't run her in solo play.
Lead. Nothing really special. Solais is far too orb hungry for her to truly shine at what she does. She can still clear lots of content with the appropriate subs and team support, and you should definitely run her in co-op for reasons beyond the obvious Multi-boost. Co-op compensates somewhat for her orb hunger by providing more actives, allowing for more safety and consistency. Her teambuilding requirements are also relatively relaxed in co-op due to the combined HP pool. There is much less motivation to stack Fire/Wood or Wood/Fire cards to hit enough of HP, letting you teambuild using more or less whatever Fire cards you want.
As has been the case for several cards before, Solais' best subs make better leads than she herself does, and so some players will be further disincentivized from leading her. Enra is the best example.
Assist. Strong Heroes-style orb change, but nothing flashy. If you are running a row team, this can conveniently combo with both Haku and Urd boards to create 2/3 fire, 1/3 Hearts. Attribute change is always an interesting mechanic, and gains significant value in the late-game as a way to sneak past certain color absorbing spawns. Hera-Beorc, specifically, presents a huge annoyance with her combination of Light absorb and 6M damage void; Christmas Solais can potentially open up an opportunity to one-shot her if inherited onto something such as Pixel Cloud.
Farming. A hypermaxed and six-latented Solais reaches 5675 Attack. This lets her deal a massive 1,418,750 damage when used as a base for Grimmjow. This is approximately a 1/6 improvement over the current strongest button. Christmas Solais opens the door to a large variety of more efficient farming builds. One example is in Takeminakata Descended, where she allows a farmer to button both Floor 3 and Floor 4 with only one active each without first using a HP reset. This negates several other considerations, such as requiring a shield for Floor 4, and is a nice speed upgrade over the current fastest build.
She unfortunately still shares regular Solais' main weakness -- only one Skill Boost. Regardless, Chrismas Solais is on the whole a card that any farmer wouldn't mind finding under their tree this year.
Genie [Sub: C+ | Lead: C | Assist: A- | Overall: B]
 |
HP: 3061 | ATK: 1407 | RCV: 478 | WT: 746 | Balance/God
LS: 1.5x HP & ATK for Balanced & God Type; 3x ATK when 5 combos, max to 5x (9+ combos). [2.25/56.25/1]
AS: All Dark damage is nullified for 3 turns; enhances Light Orbs. [CD: 10]
   |
Overview. Christmas Genie's an old card, and was originally a seasonal variant of a REM silver. Back then, both cards had their uses but were generally considered at least moderately troll. However, you can now no longer pull the original Genie from the standard REM, and the active has some legitimate usage cases, so this is no longer the worst roll ever. Still niche, like many/most seasonals, but this particular niche isn't horribly useless.
Sub. Pretty much everything we said about Christmas Venus as a sub applies to Christmas Genie as well, with the exception of being a low cooldown inherit base. Genie gets a bonus point for having two Skill Boosts instead of one, and loses a point for losing unbindability, so they end up at pretty much the same place overall. Not a great sub.
Lead. The okay-looking multiplier is a total deception. Genie's leader skill is actually pretty bad. Imagine Anubis with a typing restriction and 1/18 the multiplier, and that's basically what this is.
Assist. This is where the money is. Three turns of immunity to Dark damage can be quite valuable, since of the most obnoxious spawns in the game are Dark or partly Dark. For instance, if you are looking to break into Arena 3 but do not have Indra or Fujin, this active will allow you to tank two of Hera Dragon's hits, guaranteeing you at least five turns to take her down (and possibly more, depending on how much HP your team already has). This active can also be incorporated into farming builds as a way to tank preemptives after you've use a HP reset.
Haku [Sub: C+ | Lead: C+ | Assist: B | Overall: B-]
 |
HP: 3493 | ATK: 1491 | RCV: 309 | WT: 750 | God/Dragon
LS: 3.5x ATK when matching any 3 of Fire, Water, Dark or Heal Orbs; 2x ATK for matched Att. when erasing 5 Orbs with 1+ enhanced. [1/49/1]
AS: Changes Orbs to Dark, Fire & Water Orbs. [CD: 8]
 |
Overall. Pretty but outdated. Christmas Haku is also quite an old card; unfortunately, unlike Genie, her normal REM counterpart is stronger than ever, so she loses out substantially in comparison and is quite weak today. There are better subs for most of what she can bring to the table, though she's still usable for dark OE and a reasonably fast board change. She has an evolution that is identical in every way except color-swapped to R/D instead of D/R. Neither form is all that great and her best use is honestly as a board inherit on a team that can take advantage of it. Definitely the worst 6-star roll.
Sub. Honestly inferior to regular Haku. Unless you either don't have Haku OR can't make Awoken/Revo and really care about not having D/R Haku's killers, there aren't many reasons to use this card. That said, if either of those is true, this is an acceptable (though not thrilling) option. The stats might have been worthwhile in 2015, but sadly do not hold up today.
The red form is even more useless than the dark one. Probably don't bother.
Lead. Strong enough for the early game, as the reasonable multiplier and the high OE on this card means that new players will do enough damage for early dungeons while getting some practice in comboing. Not particularly usable past that, since the leader skill hasn't been updated in literal years.
Assist. Your typical tricolor without hearts, usable in a diversity of scenarios and teams wherever a normal Haku board would be. Nothing flashy, nothing complicated, but it gets the job done.
Liu Bei [Sub: B | Lead: B- | Assist: B | Overall: B]
 |
HP: 3375 | ATK: 1905 | RCV: 353 | WT: 821 | Dragon/Attacker
LS: 1.35x all parameters for Attacker Type; 3x ATK when 2 Fire combos, 6x when 3+ combos. [1.82/65.61/1.82]
AS: Changes Dark & Heal Orbs to Fire Orbs; recovers 30% of max HP. [CD: 10]
   |
Sub. Not terrible, not amazing. There just aren't that many non-farming red teams, and no farming team uses TPAs for damage. Once the Super Awakening comes out, he will become more on par with 7c subs and have value as an unbindable TPA card; until then, he doesn't really have a place among NA's very best. That said, he does fit quite nicely onto Enra for both his TPAs and his active skill; alternately, if you are a mid-game player using something like Krishna, this is a perfectly fine sub option.
Lead. Capable of some mid-game content, but limited. The Attacker restriction and his lack of SBR are fairly limiting and do not help teambuilding. Orb hunger is an issue as well; fire flood subs such as Ares are nice. A double SBR sub such as Horus or No. 6 is mandatory for most solo play as well. One of his best all-around subs is Red Cotton, but owning Red Cotton means that you should both be questioning your choice to make Red Cotton and leading with Red Cotton instead.
Assist. Fire has plenty of double orb changers (ex. Ares, Elgenubi, Enra, Kuvia), so the active is not unique in that sense. For farming in particular, the heal actually proves detrimental (healing reduces Grimmjow's button damage and may push you out of Dark Metatron's threshold). The best use for this skill is on an Enra team, where it gives you a ton of orbs to activate with and acts as a strong button-press heal for your HP conditional.
Sakuya [Sub: C- | Lead: C- | Assist: D+ | Overall: C-]
 |
HP: 3428 | ATK: 1470 | RCV: 654 | WT: 854 | God/Healer
LS: 1.5x all parameters for Healer Type; 5x ATK when Fire, Water, Wood & Light attack at same time. [2.25/56.25/2.25]
AS: Reduce enemies' HP by 20%. [CD: 9]
   |
Sub. Literally the only thing Christmas Sakuya is better at than her pantheon counterpart is having two TPAs with the potential for a third. She's not even unbindable, for God's sake. There aren't many conceivable scenarios in which she would actively be better or more worth using over another card. Here's to her receiving a further round of buffs next year, hopefully into usability.
Lead. Simply outdated and far too restrictive. This would have been decent back when the card was released; today it's extremely uninspiring. Pass on this one.
Assist. Kind of embarrassing. This is probably one of the worst gravity inherits in the game, if not the worst. Still usable if it's your only option, but it is extremely mediocre.
Fagan [Sub: B | Lead: B | Assist: C+ | Overall: B]
 |
HP: 4255 | ATK: 1812 | RCV: 206 | WT: 856 | God/Dragon
LS: 4x ATK for God & Dragon Type when HP is 80% or more; 4x ATK, 2x RCV when Fire, Water, Wood & Light attack at once. [1/256/4]
AS: Changes all Orbs to Fire, Water, Wood, Light & Heal Orbs; reduce enemies' HP by 20%. Recovers bind status by 3 turns, but not in NA (see below). [CD: 20]
 |
Sub. Decent enough. A strong statline combined with his excellent awakenings make him a worthwhile consideration. He also offers the very uncommon unbindable green coverage for rainbow teams, though note that his base active does not allow true rainbow teams (ex. Ra Dragon) to fully activate. This is partly offset by his Rainbow Haste awakening, which gives him (and him only) one turn of haste every time you attack with all five attributes. This makes his cooldown deceptively short (especially on a 7x6 board!) and he is not nearly as impractical an inherit base as he first appears, which is nice in context of his base active being awkwardly overloaded.
On the whole, there is relatively little contention over his sub potential: he is not top-tier, but does bring a nice mixture of things to the table.
Lead. This is the main source of contention. Is he the new OP? Is he terrible? Is he going to be the next big thing? Just how good is he?
If you are not a late-game player or interested in the late-game and simply want to know whether Fagan is good in Descends and Arenas, I'll just say here that he can do most descends and is at least usable, if not exactly fantastic, through Arena 3. If you are interested in Fagan's late game, then click here to show/hide the full leader analysis.
Assist. Bad. It is likely that whatever you're assisting this on does not have Rainbow Haste, and therefore will take a small eternity to charge up. Furthermore, you pay an insane amount of cooldown for having all three effects simultaneously on a single card, when you in practice are unlikely to ever need more than one. Even if all three effects were needed in a dungeon, it's almost certainly better to just inherit them individually than use whatever this mess is. To be totally fair, the skill itself is not that terrible and does accomplish something meaningful, so it escapes getting an absolutely abysmal rating.
It's worth noting that Rainbow Haste cards in the future will probably be released with similarly overloaded skills. The "balancing factor" for Rainbow Haste cards must be that they can't immediately and trivially haste up whatever inherit you choose to put on them. It seems that GungHo has (not unwisely) chosen to resolve this problem by giving these cards' base actives a ton of effects with a correspondingly long cooldown. Sometimes, this results in a stellar active (ex. Edward Elric from the Fullmetal Alchemist collab), sometimes a mediocre one (ex. this card). Either way, they are not typically plausible assists for general use simply because they take so freaking long to actually come up without being hasted.
Sonia [Sub: C+ / A- Farming | Lead: D+ | Assist: B+ | Overall: B+]
 |
HP: 3397 | ATK: 2175 | RCV: 165 | WT: 829 | Dragon/Devil
LS: 2x HP, 2.5x ATK for Dragon & Devil Type; 1.5x ATK when 6+ combos. [4/14.06/1]
AS: Changes all Orbs to Fire, Wood Orbs; other allies' skills charge by 2 turns. [CD: 14]
  |
Overall. Also an oldie, though more relevant than most of the others. Christmas Sonia's main usage is is on farming teams, where her double haste adds value to an already nice farming active. In an attempt to give her more relevant non-farming uses, GungHo did give her both awakenings and super awakenings, but they unfortunately are not meaningful enough to push her into common usage.
Christmas Sonia is available for purchase in the MP shop. She is definitely not worth the investment unless you are very interested in her farming usage. On the flip side, if you are interested in her farming usage, her MP availability means that you don't have to roll for an 8* in a trashy seasonal machine.
Sub. Most of her sub value comes from farming rather than usage on actual teams. Her stats are decent and awakenings (especially when Super Awakenings debut) are not bad, but her HP is poor and there's nothing she does exceptionally well on most ordinary teams. The lack of strong content-capable fire leads only compounds this problem.
Lead. Not in this day and age.
Assist. A viable assist for farming as well as a sub (active usages described below). Her board is also excellent for Acala, as on 6x5 it has a similar overall probability for triple crosses as Verdandi's board but does more damage. Aside from that, she has functionality similar to most bicolors: she makes for a nice inherit on relevant combo teams, etc. Double haste is nice, but not generally a specific consideration outside of farming.
Farming. Great as both a sub and inherit. Bicolor board and 2-haste is an extremely powerful option that adds diversity to many builds. For instance, Christmas Hatsume with Sado inherit can be used to clear early floors of a dungeon, then Christmas Sonia can be used to haste Hatsume's base active back up. This is particularly powerful because Hatsume can convert Sonia's board into 100% fire, generating an easy swipe for that floor. As another example, the combination of Christmas Sonia and Cthugha actives allows farmers to quickly, easily, and reliably break most combo shields as well as providing four turns of haste to the rest of the team. There are so many more flexible farming options for Sonia's active, either as a base sub or an inherit -- your creativity with double haste is the limit.
Remember that Super Awakenings only apply in solo play, and so you almost certainly cannot take advantage of her Under 50% HP Enhance in any meaningful farming context.
Kali [Sub: B+ | Lead: A | Assist: B | Overall: A]
 |
HP: 4025 | ATK: 2074 | RCV: 405 | WT: 952 | God/Dragon
LS:
AS: Change all Orbs to Fire, Water, Wood, Light, Dark and Heal Orbs. [CD: 7]
  |
Overall. Christmas Kali probably wins the "Most Improved" award of this REM. She was never all that awful, but she went from "moderately okay" to "a very strong endgame lead" both in context of her previous buffs and the state of the game today. She also has the potential to receive the 7c awakening from the upcoming Super Awakening mechanic, further increasing her strength all-around. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to build a strong team for her, as her best subs are rare or otherwise inaccessible. Even so, she is still one of the best all-around rolls from this machine.
Sub. Even with a 7c Super Awakening, Christmas Kali is only an okay sub. She can be used to cover normal Dark Kali's colors on a Ra Dragon team, though that can run into damage control problems on Vishnu and Parvati spawns. There aren't many places where she fits well as a sub; this is not her true power.
Lead. Christmas Kali acts as essentially a much more powerful Ra Dragon with an endgame focus. She has the same tank multipliers, a looser typing restriction, much more damage, and a base active that's both faster and more useful. Ra Dragon wins out in areas such as damage controlling Arena 3 spawns, whereas Kali gives this up for higher late-game firepower. To achieve consistency, a 7x6 leader pair is highly recommended. Diablos is powerful, comparatively easy to find a friend with, and unbindably covers a potentially tricky color.
For the hardest content, a 7x6 swap using Li is advisable. Blue Uruka is the best 7x6 lead to use for this purpose; though her multiplier is lower than Diablos', she wins out by having a much more powerful base active and being a better sub on the whole after your swap. The two other viable swaps are Diablos himself, whose True Gravity gains some value due to the tankiness of Alt. Arena spawns, and Aten, who combines an extreme damage focus with a useful and quick base active. (Sadly, Awoken Nohime, who would otherwise be a terrific, loses her God typing and ends up off-type for Christmas Kali.)
As far as subs go, any reasonably synergistic Dragon or God-type cards are fine. Several cards from the Dragonbound/Dragon Caller REM are noteworthy, including Enra, No. 6, and Ideal. Options from the standard REM include Sherias Roots in either form or Balboa for perfect unbindable color coverage. Ragnarok Dragon is expensive MP-wise but still technically farmable and an excellent sub for many other teams as well. Beach Fujin and Amatsu are very rare but incredibly good. Other options include Cotton, the future Dark Kali evo, and the farmable Azathoth. Awoken Nohime, though not able to be run directly, gains a mention as one of the best inherits possible if not running significant light damage; her combination of offense and defense is virtually unparalleled.
Please remember that this leader skill does not reach anywhere near its full potential on a 6x5 board, as it is not possible to secure the five orb types required for activation nearly as often as one might like. Additionally, the lead does not shine in dungeons such as Arena 3, where multiple Fujin actives are often needed to compensate for its lack of damage control.
Assist. A Dark Kali board. Nothing special or noteworthy here; full rainbow boards are quite standard on rainbow teams and this is the most basic option without any secondary effects.
Gremory [Sub: A | Lead: B+ | Assist: C | Overall: B+]
 |
HP: 6102 | ATK: 1801 | RCV: 750 | WT: 1220 | Devil/God/Balance
LS: 2.5x ATK for God, Devil & Balanced Type on the turn a skill is used; 6x ATK & 35% reduced damage when matching 5 Heal orbs in a cross formation. [1/225/1, 57.75% shield]
AS: 3 Fire & 3 Heal Orbs are created at random; Bind status is reduced by 2 turns. [CD: 7]
 |
Overall. This one got an actual evolution! Stop the presses!
The most apparent feature about Christmas Gremory is her huge weighted stats. Massive HP and RCV along with reasonable Attack and the ability to take any Killer latent make her a bit of a titan. Upcoming, she also gets a neat selection of Super Awakenings, including the coveted FUA. Her main problem is that she doesn't truly have a place, as her leader skill is fundamentally held back by its active clause and she can't make full use of her sub potential on most teams without FUA. Not a bad card at all.
Sub. Massive weighted and bind immunity can make nearly anything passable. Unfortunately, fire rows are currently pretty much relegated to farming, and Gremory isn't an exceptional farming sub, so those awakenings are slightly wasted. Even then, she's worth a mention on nearly any fire team, including those that don't use rows at all, for her unbindability, low cooldown base for inheritance, and raw weighted stats. She also has the potential to get FUA from the upcoming Super Awakening mechanic, which, when combined with Balance typing, will augment her sub potential even further, essentially turning her into a better rounded Glavenus. When this change rolls out, she will be an incredible FUA card and stellar sub.
(I will note that Christmas Gremory is one of the best Christmas Gremory subs imaginable. Good luck getting dupes, though.)
Lead. Not bad, but not great. Damage was never Gremory's main problem in any of her forms (active skill clause is much more limiting), so the damage buff she received a while back didn't fundamentally or meaningfully. She is still orb hungry and active reliant. This leader skill is still definitely capable of clearing most Arena-level content, but will be gated in anything higher by the its inherent weaknesses and her orb hunger. If you like crosses and are looking for a fun fire lead that isn't held back by an active skill requirement, you're best off waiting for Diara to hit NA.
Assist. A semi-plausible bind clear but very weak otherwise. Some skills are very usable as bases and almost never worth inheriting; this is definitely one of them.
Ilmina [Sub: A- | Lead: A | Assist: B+ | Overall: A-]
 |
HP: 4685 | ATK: 1405 | RCV: 804 | WT: 1017 | Devil/Healer
LS:
AS:
|
Overview. The fan favorite fluff returns in the Christmas REM to charm our wallets away. At an initial glance from Christmas Ilmina to the Heroine version, it would seem that the Heroine Ilmina is straight up better in all ways possible due to the killer based awakenings/dark resist and bicolor active. However, where the Heroine version is more usable for farming, Christmas Ilmina can find a good spot on any light/fire based team. Her mix of stats, awakenings, and active(heart generation is always welcome) gives her a place on several different team archetypes. To top it off, she is our first 7x6 Heart cross lead, which might seem slightly out of date but does unlock some interesting options outlined below.
Sub. Excels in many places. Her decent HP, sweet RCV, and ability to take God and Dragon Killer latents all more than compensate for her very middling Attack stat. She does not disappoint with her awakenings either, as they are literally all useful in one way or another. Two Team HP awakenings is especially nice. Ilmina can find a home on a diversity of teams from early to late game, including Sherias Roots, light-focused Blue Hunter, Light Hera Dragon, Ameno, and more.
Lead. Where Heroine Ilmina functions well for fire/light based leads like Kenshin, Christmas Ilmina is actually not as underwhelming as it looks! For example Ilmina is Paimon's first truly good 7x6 option. With a 7x6 board, Paimon is easily strong and tanky enough to be competitive in most the hardest content, including Alt. Arena. He is still limited in that he only really makes one color of cross, effectively capping his damage output, but this is enough damage the vast majority of the time, even for the hardest content. For viably enabling this powerful option, Ilmina's lead potential merits a good score. (The lead pair is still all right if not swapping, but quite a bit more limited.)
Assist. Not substantially better than a normal Saria board, but does have an advantage in being able to lazer the PreDRA floor in Arenas 2-3 and immediately have a FUA board available for Zeus and Hera. Definitely a luxury, since Jormungandr-Ullr is farmable and accomplishes essentially the same end (with a bit more effort), but still useful. She can also double as a button for weekday dungeons and the like. Otherwise perfectly usable but unremarkable.
Summary
This REM still isn't fantastic, as you can tell by the slew of low rankings, but it is absolutely more useful than the horrible garbage it used to be. At the very least, some significant fraction of the rolls are worth more than just pretty art now. As a general rule, seasonals should be avoided, and this one isn't truly an exception -- unless you're a hardcore farmer who really wants Solais, or are aiming for one of the more useful 5-star cards, it is probably wisest to avoid this machine.
Fireblaze will roll heavily in this machine, as he wants those Solais for button bases; irinya is more content to sit on what they have for now and bide their time until a stronger base comes around.
Regardless of whether you're rolling or not, where you are in the game, or what kind of player you are, we'd like to wish you a very happy and relaxing holiday season, and the best of luck with your free pull (and any other rolls you might or might not do). Cheers, everyone!
This REM still isn't fantastic, as you can tell by the slew of low rankings, but it is absolutely more useful than the horrible garbage it used to be. At the very least, some significant fraction of the rolls are worth more than just pretty art now. As a general rule, seasonals should be avoided, and this one isn't truly an exception -- unless you're a hardcore farmer who really wants Solais, or are aiming for one of the more useful 5-star cards, it is probably wisest to avoid this machine.
Fireblaze will roll heavily in this machine, as he wants those Solais for button bases; irinya is more content to sit on what they have for now and bide their time until a stronger base comes around.
Regardless of whether you're rolling or not, where you are in the game, or what kind of player you are, we'd like to wish you a very happy and relaxing holiday season, and the best of luck with your free pull (and any other rolls you might or might not do). Cheers, everyone!
Like the clean, readable format and layout. Is this going to be an ongoing thing?
ReplyDeleteThanks Andrew! We're going to make sure the layout of this blog stays as clean as it has been.
DeleteGreat writeup man! Like the format, hope you continue to do this!
ReplyDelete