MMM - Sinister Sorcerer Schemes Salacious Setups, Swordsman of Sealing Sears Satanic Savages (Mandala Story Gacha)

Table of Contents

Ashiya Douman
Watanabe no Tsuna

The Modern Magus Magazine

Greetings, one and all. Tell me, have you ever had a jester-like onmyouji to invade your gacha game filled with waifus and make you question your sexuality by posing naked in a room with a bunch of corpses?

No?

...would you like to?

Ashiya Douman

Introduction

When this dude has been clowning on Part 2’s story for an eternity, on top of having a significant role in Shimousa, it’s natural he’d show up to invade our Chaldea eventually. And...just glancing at his abilities, he’s really relishing being a villain. Now listen closely…

Servant Data

Alter Ego

QQAAB (Archer)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

5

Attribute	Earth
Alignment	Chaotic Evil

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 13,266

HP Rank

Max ATK 12,252

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,893	Base HP	1,945
Max Atk	12,252	Max HP	13,266
Grail Atk	13,412	Grail HP	14,533

Territory Creation B

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 8%.

Item Construction A

Increase your Debuff Chance Rate by 10%.

Magic Resistance A

Increase your Debuff Resist by 20%.

Core of Darkness B

Apply Damage Plus for yourself (Total Card Damage +225).
Increase own Instant Death Success Rate by 20%.

High Servant A

No effect.

Hedonism EX

Increase amount of NP Gained when attacked by 20%.

Overview

In terms of base stats, Ashiya is pretty typical for an Alter Ego. Not possessing the oddly-gimped stat totals of Meltryllis or Okita Alter (presumably, because his stats don’t suck as much as their where it matters), he sits at a very reasonable balance of both HP and Attack, being 3rd best for Attack in the class and 2nd worst for HP. Bear in mind that statistic is distorted by Kingprotea just generally being absurd. He would be in a much better position ranking-wise if that anomaly wasn’t factored in.

In the passive department, Ashiya has a lot more going on. Being very much a pseudo-Caster Alter Ego, he has both good Territory Creation and Item Creation, boosting his Arts performance and his consistency in applying debuffs (which he does a lot). Then, more specific to the man himself, Ashiya has A-rank Magic Resistance and his unique Divinity-based skill, Dark Divine Core. The two of these together provide him with strong passive debuff resistance, a small boost to regular care damage, and a small bump to the success rate of Instant Death effects, something which (spoiler) he has on his NP.

Lastly, Hedonism gives him a 20% boost to his defensive NP gain, meaning he gets roughly 5% gauge per hit he eats instead of the regular 4%. Small, but it can add up over longer fights with high hitcounts.

NP Generation

Card Hits	4	3	3	5	5
Per Hit	0.70%	0.70%	0.70%	0.70%	0.70%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.70%
NP when Attacked (%)	4%

	Star Absorption	100
Star Generation per Hit	9.7%

Servant Skills

Dmg Down

Ridicule Cat EX

Decrease ATK for all enemies (3 turns).
Decrease DEF for all enemies (3 turns).
Apply [Terror] Status to all enemies (3 turns).
(Terror: Chance to inflict Stun each turn (1 turn), the debuff dispels once the enemy is stunned.)
Apply [Confusion] Status to all enemies (3 turns).
(Confusion: 30% chance to inflict Skill Seal each turn.)
Apply Curse to all enemies (500 damage, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
ATK -	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
DEF -	20%	21%	22%	23%	24%	25%	26%	27%	28%	30%
Stun Chance +	30%	31%	32%	33%	34%	35%	36%	37%	38%	40%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

First off on active skills we have Ridicule Cat. No, I have no idea what it’s meant to mean. My first thought is that it’s some kind of Japanese-English translation pun on “Bakeneko”, but I’ll just leave it at that. It’s in Katakana, so you just have to deal with what’s handed to you.

This skill is freshly graduated from the Sessyoin school of incredibly stacked enemy team debuffs. Applying a solid Attack down, Defense down, Terror and Confusion debuff to every enemy for 3 turns, this entire skill is a treat for locking down the enemy. As a reminder, Terror is a debuff which has a chance (40% for this skill at level 10) to apply Stun to the target at the end of their turn, before disappearing, while Confusion has a chance (30% for this skill) to apply Skill Seal to the target at the end of each of their turns for the duration. While Confusion is largely situational, Terror and the straight attack / defense debuffs are excellent tools for boosting offense and protecting the team. For a skill on a typical 8-turn base cooldown, that’s pretty solid.

This skill also applies a minor 500-damage Curse, which generally on its own is never going to amount to anything worthwhile. For those looking to make Van Gogh-chan even more absurd with Curse stacking, it’s there. And just for the future, I’ll point out Van Gogh-chan is Chaotic Evil. Why does that matter? You’ll know soon.

Guts

Onyx Life A

Apply Guts to self (2 times, 5 turns).
Increase Critical Strength for all [Evil] allies (3 turns).
Further increase Critical Strength for all [Chaotic] allies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Revives with HP	1000	1200	1400	1600	1800	2000	2200	2400	2600	3000
Crit Damage + (Evil)	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
Crit Damage + (Chaotic)	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Next is Black Fate. This is a Guts skill, and so is unfortunately burdened with the hefty 9-turn base cooldown, but it more than makes up for it in power. The Guts on this thing is thankfully 2-times, making Ashiya kind of absurdly durable by default, at least for the 5 turns it’s active.

The real point of interest for this skill, however, is its’ team buff. Providing a 50% critical damage buff for all Evil trait allies on the frontline (including Ashiya himself), and an identical buff for Chaotic trait allies (totalling to 100% for Ashiya and other Chaotic Evil alignment Servants), this thing is a huge damage boost for critical-focused teams. While I can’t provide a comprehensive list of those who fall under both traits, notable Servants include most Avengers like Jalter, Nyanta Alter, Jack, Moriarty (that villainy synergy), and the aforementioned Van Gogh-chan.

It’s like a Hero Creation (at least, the crit side) potentially for the whole team for 3 turns. And even putting that aside, a 50% crit buff for a huge number of the cast is still pretty good.

Only real drawback of this skill is, naturally, the 9 turn base cooldown. Seems like absurd all-enemy debuffs aren’t the only thing Ashiya has in common with Kiara, sadly.

Start Np

Douman's Curse A++

Increase own NP Gauge.
Increase ATK for all [Evil] allies (3 turns).
Increase ATK for all [Chaotic] allies (3 turns).
Inflict Curse on all enemies (5 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
NP +	50%	53%	56%	59%	62%	65%	68%	71%	74%	80%
ATK + (Evil)	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
ATK + (Chaotic)	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
Curse Dmg +	1000	1100	1200	1300	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	2000
CD	9	9	9	9	9	8	8	8	8	7

Last for Ashiya’s skill lineup is Douman’s Curse. Hey look, it’s got his name in it.

First of all, throwing all other aspects of this thing out of the window, it’s an 80% gauge charger. Boy, has it been a hot minute since we got a gauge charger over 50% without a bunch of red tape and asterisks at the end. Since Circe, I believe. So putting aside the very significant fact Ashiya can pull a Kaleidoscope out of his trouser pocket, this thing is actually kind of a Charisma skill, providing a 20% attack buff for, you guessed it, every ally with each of the Evil and Chaotic traits.

Again, since Ashiya is a villainous SOB he gets both of them, for a very hefty 40% attack buff over 3 turns, while also possibly supporting his allies. The last area of this skill is a respectable 2000 damage Curse debuff over 5 turns. That’s 10k damage right there, provided 5 turns actually pass against the enemies you use it on. DoT’s are still pretty weak on the whole, but hey, it may count.

...and just a note for those already rearing to roll out their Van Gogh-chan+Ashiya teams...don’t have Van Gogh-chan soak up Curses after using this thing. 6k damage per turn is NOT fun on a player unit.

Lastly, it’s worth noting, as penalty for being a good gauge charger, this thing is on a 9-turn base cooldown. Score to the Kiara-like Alter Ego team, once again.

Noble Phantasm

Mad Maelstrom - Akuryou Safu B

Deal damage to all enemies.
Apply Curse to all enemies (1000 damage, 5 turns).
120% Chance to apply Instant Death.

<Overcharge>

Apply Curse Damage Up (5 turns).

Show Info/Video

Mad Maelstrom - Akuryou Safu

Kyourandotou Evil Spirit Minister

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	B	Anti-City	5

Effect	Deal damage to all enemies. Apply Curse to all enemies (1000 damage, 5 turns). 120% Chance to apply Instant Death.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Curse Damage	1000	1000	1000	1000	1000
Death %	120%	120%	120%	120%	120%

Overcharge Effect	Apply Curse Damage Up (5 turns).

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Curse Damage +	100%	125%	150%	175%	200%

Kyourandotou Akuryousafu. Man, the Japanese NP’s are never easy to say. Anyway, Ashiya’s NP is mouthy, but boils down to a Quick AOE with some bonus fun effects if the things you shower in it don’t die outright from the damage.

So let’s go over the damage, and associated NP refund, first. With all of his offensive buffs active, Ashiya’s NP does a decent 23k damage at base. Nothing too impressive, the best comparison I can give is it’s about even with Amakusa’s NP post-interlude and strengthening. With his Alter Ego class advantage, this thing will kill most trash waves, which is frankly all you can ask for.

However, it’s worth remembering all of his damage boosts to his NP are attack up / defense down effects, which don’t stack multiplicatively. If you fit in all members of the damage trinity (attack up / def down, NP power up / Super-effective dmg buffs, Card up / Card resist down), then his damage output is boosted immensely. With double Skadi buffs and a NP dmg up 50% gauge CE, his NP clocks in at a massive 76k damage, almost triple the original number. For reference, most Quick servants with the same setup get a boost amounting to a fair bit over double.

As for the refund side, unfortunately Ashiya doesn’t really have any hopes of getting a traditional 3-turn loop setup. His NP refunds 10.5% gauge at base, which is boosted to 31.5% if you throw in double Skadi and Nero Bride support. While he admittedly can get to the golden 50% refund number with Miyu CE, a certain sum of overkill and ensuring he’s fighting Riders/Casters, it’s still shaky.

Likewise, trying to make use of his abnormal gauge charger for a Black Grail setup runs into issues with his refund, and usually just ends up being a gauge-charger focused loop setup if anything.

But speaking of gauge-charger focused loop setups, he can absolutely do that. With a Kaleidoscope (not LB) and just his regular NP refund he needs 120% gauge charge to do a 3-turn loop, which can be done comfortably with 2 50% gauge charge supports and Clock Tower uniform Mystic Code. If said gauge chargers are Skadi or Casturia, the looping becomes even easier.

So yes, Ashiya hits the damage necessary to farm, and does it pretty reliably, with a good deal of CE flexibility on top of that.

But turning back to the side-effects of his NP, Ashiya actually gets a perk that helps his farming even more - it has Instant Death.

Now, I’ll be real. Back when I did Summer Kiara’s MMM, I considered the instant death on her NP a non-factor. And for challenge quests, it pretty much is. For farming, that’s far from the case, and I found it has very decent odds of killing even sub-boss enemies when farming if her damage failed to meet the benchmark for a kill (which it often didn’t, since hers only ramps up on wave 3). Past Rath was wrong. Post-damage Instant Death on a looping NP is actually very handy, and I’ve experienced it with Summer Kiara.

Summer Kiara’s NP Death chance is 100%. Ashiya’s is 120%, AND he has a passive Death chance boost, essentially making it 140%. While that may sound very major, it depends on the target as to how effective it actually is. Versus a 50% death resist enemy, Kiara’s death chance is 50%, Ashiya’s 70%. Versus 10%, 10% and 14% respectively, and so on.

Point being, most enemies you’ll expect Ashiya to proc the death on are usually around 50% death resist, making his NP pretty consistent in its chance of proccing. Not to mention you could use this trait on certain nodes to basically go full Anarchy against class advantage, relying on Ashiya’s death chance to kill off Knight class enemies, so long as he has class advantage on the last wave’s boss. Silly, and not optimal, but funny.

God, I’ve written a lot here, and I’m not even done.

Lastly, Ashiya’s NP slaps a 1k damage curse on all its targets for 5 turns, and a pretty minor 10% Curse Amplifier for the same duration. Tallying in all of Ashiya’s curse in his kit, that means he can apply a 3.5k tick to all enemies for 3 turns, then 3k for the remaining 2, amplified by 10% to 3.85k and 3.3k. That’s 18150 damage in total to every enemy he lands his skills on, provided they live for 5 turns. In comparison to something like Summer Tomoe’s absurdity, it’s not too big, but it’ll add up on drawn out challenge quests.

Conclusion

So how fantastic is Ashiya’s villainy in reality? On one hand, he truly is Number One:

My boy is durable, and is it handy. With the debuff benefits of Ridicule Cat helping him stay alive, on top of his excellent 2-time Guts ensuring he’s going to deny death often, you don’t have to worry about babysitting him if the going gets tough. This is especially handy when his support of choice, Skadi, lacks an incredibly accessible Invulnerability or Evasion buff to hand him if her NP doesn’t happen to be ready.

Ashiya is offensively pretty monstrous, at least as far as crit goes. With good star generation in his kit, and a hefty double-whammy of +100% critical damage and +40% atk up to himself for 3 turns, he can really bring to pain with his cards, even just by his own merit. Throw in Skadi’s absurd boost to Quick crits in the mix, and just yikes. And that’s not even assuming his targets are hit by Ridicule Cat, which I would treat more selectively as a defensive option.

Almost everything I said above about Ashiya’s offense can be said for a Chaotic Evil ally he supports, because team buff, baby! While Ashiya will never necessarily be an on-meta support due to his lack of more important options, he can give pretty big boosts to another ally who may be running with him on a quest. Nodes with a focus on both single target and AOE NP’s for farming are becoming more common, and Ashiya’s ability to give Moriarty or Jack a significant offensive boost can be handy. Unfortunately, only Tamamo possesses either of the traits out of the big name supports, but anyone can still benefit from Ridicule Cat’s debuffs.

Ashiya can farm, and can do it very consistently due to his huge gauge charger. Add in the freedom of team composition, solid damage provided you throw at least one Skadi at him, and the option to tackle Rider, Caster, Assassin, Berserker, and (the extremely common) Foreigner nodes, he makes a versatile farmer.

On the other hand, he’s not being careful to not make a sound:

I’m gonna be real with you all, Ashiya is probably the best an AOE Alter Ego is gonna get. I could talk about his damage never matching the regular-class equivalent for class advantage, or kind of being a poor option against half of the common class types instead of just one of them, but the way Ashiya is built as a universal farmer hardly makes that a point - most of the Servants in the game are only good against one or two classes, not the four (or technically five, if you’re really putting faith in there being Foreigner farming nodes soon) Ashiya can handle. He’s going to have a good performance in farming, he’s going to have a solid performance in challenge quests. If you’re a deep-set cynic who hates the Big Four support meta and wants to run wacky team combos, he’s great for that. If I listed something negative here, I’d probably be nitpicking.

So overall, our prancy clown man is kind of silly good? Not in the game breaking, new meta, throw your Arts farmers out the window sense, but still very strong. He lacks any meaningful drawbacks outside of forcing you to fish for Skadi supports out of a sea of Casturia, and in exchange has very easy farming setups, solid damage output for Challenge Quests on both the AOE and single target fronts, and plenty of cheese and fun team compositions to play about with. I already considered vanilla Kiara with her strengthenings and Casturia around to be the perfect AOE Alter Ego, but Ashiya kind of goes beyond her by also being a crit machine when you need him to burst down a singular boss.

Being an amazing Alter Ego is still kind of being a big fish in a small pond, but on the whole that’s a pretty sizable fish. Rath™ Seal of Approval, and if you’re still lacking a universal farmer like Dantes, Summer Kiara, or Space Ishtar, I’d recommend trying for him. He’s certainly one of the better farmers around.

Watanabe no Tsuna

Introduction

Be careful who you call ugly in high school.

I love how Tsuna goes from the geeky bowl cut kid with a katana in his basement to red Byleth in just a few ascensions. And boy, is he hot. The sword, I mean. I’m still not letting him near my grailed oni duo.

Servant Data

Saber

QAABB (Saber)

Quick Card

Arts Card

Buster Card

4

3

2

5

3

Attribute	Human
Alignment	Neutral Good

Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4

April Fool's

Max HP 11,248

HP Rank

Max ATK 10,123

ATK Rank

Base Atk	1,687	Base HP	1,799
Max Atk	10,123	Max HP	11,248
Grail Atk	12,257	Grail HP	13,638

Traits

Servant Humanoid Riding Brynhild's Beloved Weak to Enuma Elish Male Genji Hominidae

Card Hits	4	3	2	5	3
Per Hit	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%	0.60%

	NP per Hit (%)	0.60%
NP when Attacked (%)	3%

	Star Absorption	100
Star Generation per Hit	10.2%

Buster Star Gather Rate Up

Eternal Arms Mastery (Anti-Demonic) A-

Increase own Buster Card Star Gather Rate (3 turns).
Increase own Critical Strength (3 times, 3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather (Buster) +	300%	330%	360%	390%	420%	450%	480%	510%	540%	600%
Crit Damage +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

We kick off Tsuna’s skill lineup with a simple but effective banger. Eternal Arms Mastery (Anti-Demonic) is, much like other skills in the series, focused on some critical damage shenanigans. Providing a star focus boost to Tsuna’s Buster cards for 3 turns, he also gets a 3-time, 3-turn critical damage boost for the same duration, earning a neat +50% damage boost each time he crits over those 3 turns, up to 3 times.

While the strength of the critical damage buff isn’t as significant as similar skills like Sigurd’s Primordial Rune, it’s balanced by its ability to make critting while it’s active more consistent. Add in the typical base cooldown of 7 turns and it’s just a solid critical damage buff skill.

Evade

Suiten's Disciple B

Apply Evade to self (1 turn).
Increase own Arts Card Star Gather Rate (1 turn).
Increase own NP Gain (1 turn).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Star Gather (Arts) +	300%	330%	360%	390%	420%	450%	480%	510%	540%	600%
NP Gain +	30%	32%	34%	36%	38%	40%	42%	44%	46%	50%
CD	8	8	8	8	8	7	7	7	7	6

I have a strange, creeping feeling. One I’ve never felt before. I can only describe it as “Did DW just make a Servant with skills boosting two different card types without giving them a dual card booster skill?!”

Frankly, it’s shocking. Anyway, Follower of Varuna is Tsuna’s evasion skill, with all the expected durations and cooldowns. The bonus is that it’s also a “touch this to get an Arts crit” button, boosting his Arts card star weight and NP gain for the same turn. Usually you won’t be using it for this benefit, but hey, nobody can complain about easier crits and faster gauge charging, even if it has to be on the turn you’re surviving a NP.

Very basic, but basic doesn’t mean not useful.

Buster Up

Severed Arm at Ichijou Modori-bashi EX

Increase own Buster Card effectiveness (3 turns).
Apply Sure Hit to self (3 turns).
Decrease Critical Rate for all enemies (3 turns).

Show Info

Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Buster +	20%	22%	24%	26%	28%	30%	32%	34%	36%	40%
Crit Rate -	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	20%
CD	7	7	7	7	7	6	6	6	6	5

Last on the skill lineup is Slash of Ichijoumodoribashi. Now normally I’d complain about Japanese skill names being absurdly long sometimes, but Ichijoumodoribashi just flows off the tongue somehow. Ichijoumodoribashi. I did that one with my eyes closed. It’s fun to say/type.

Tomfoolery aside, this is a pretty strong SINGLE card booster skill for Tsuna. Shock and horror, I know. While providing a very strong Buster buff (for its duration), this skill also gives Tsuna a 3-turn Sure Hit buff, providing him with the almighty power to ignore all of those bosses DW seems to love lately with permanent chance-based Evasion buffs that can’t be removed via buff removal. Seriously, what is up with that?

It’s a handy perk to have around, especially when it’s tied to a skill instead of having to put all your eggs in one NP turn basket like some other Servants.

The cherry on the cake for this skill is the enemy team critical rate down debuff. Nobody likes being crit, and 20% crit rate down will pretty much stop every enemy unbuffed from critting you for its duration. Not game-changing, but certainly convenient.

All of this is tied to a relatively short (for this skill’s power) 7 turn base cooldown. On the whole, a very good skill.

Noble Phantasm

Mt. Ooe-Bodhi Oni Slayer A

Deal damage to a single enemy.
Deal 200% supereffective damage against [Oni] enemies.

<Overcharge>

Apply Special ATK [Demonic] to self (1 turn). [Activates first]

Show Info/Video

Mt. Ooe-Bodhi Oni Slayer

Ooeiyama Bodaikisatsu

	Rank	Classification	Hit-Count
	A	Anti-Demon	3

Effect	Deal damage to a single enemy. Deal 200% supereffective damage against [Oni] enemies.

Level	1	2	3	4	5
Damage +	600%	800%	900%	950%	1000%
Supereffective Damage (Oni) +	200%	200%	200%	200%	200%

Overcharge Effect	Apply Special ATK [Demonic] to self (1 turn). [Activates first]

Charge	100%	200%	300%	400%	500%
Bonus Damage (Demonic) +	20%	25%	30%	35%	40%

Ooeiyama Bodaikisatsu is the NP you’d more or less expect from the dude noted for costing Ibaraki an arm and a leg. Or at least, the former part. Being a Buster ST NP, there’s not much to discuss on the very basics of this NP, especially with the hitcount not being enough to create any notable sum of stars.

The side-effects of this NP are also pretty straightforward. Tsuna first buffs himself with a weak, but fairly common anti-Demonic super effective damage buff for a turn, then he does the damage, which has a 200% anti-Oni trait damage multiplier. So needless to say, Ibaraki will definitely get minced by this. The Oni trait itself is new, and...surprisingly not that exclusive. While names like Kijou and Shuten are no-brainers, as well as all the Oni enemy types and variants, all of the Salem villager zombies also fall under it, as well as...Suzuka and Benienma? Well, I guess Oni are meant to manage hell, but look at her - she’s adorable, and no horns to be seen.

As for Suzuka, I’m just guessing it’s something in Japanese folklore that we westerners can’t get with our tiny stubs of wikipedia articles.

Putting that aside, the damage on this NP when not hitting those traits isn’t too impressive. When it is, it hits like a brick truck due to how the effective damage buffs multiply together...except for Suzuka and Benienma. Seriously, how can they be Oni and not be Demonic? It’s outrageous, it’s unfair!

Anyway, while this NP can set up pretty devastating NP chains versus the right targets, it falls pretty flat versus common enemies. It’s not overwhelmingly weak in the grand scheme of things versus other Buster NP’s with trait bonuses, but it is a drawback to bear in mind.

Conclusion

So how is Tsuna on the whole? On one hand, he’s got his strengths lined up in a box:

Dude’s critical damage offense is fairly good. While he can only really constantly get star focus on his Buster and Arts cards, that’s the two which really matter, and both the damage boosts from Eternal Arms Mastery and Slash of Ichijoumodoribashi together make his Busters really shred when the stars are coming through. Tied in with his Sure Hit buff, Tsuna can really consistently put the pain in when the cards come up right.

Tsuna has some defensive tools. While the typical 1-turn evasion / invincible buff is on the table, his critical rate down debuff can also be useful to pull out of the bag, just allowing you to ignore unfortunate crit accidents when your party isn’t soaked in hard defensive options. Some bosses just hurt all the time, man.

When his NP trait bonuses are up, he really does hit hard. If he’s getting the 4* NP2 freebie for comparison to SSR’s, he does very close damage to Scathach versus Divine targets when Tsuna’s hitting Oni (at least, non-Suzuka/Benienma Oni). Of course, the Oni trait is much more limited than Divinity, but for this story half-chapter, those kinds of enemies are pretty common, so we know it’s always going to be useful at some point. It helps that he’s a permanent gacha summon, so anyone can get him anytime.

However, he’s also lacking the arms to make it work:

I’ll get this out the way here. Buster sucks. There, I said it. Past Rath is writhing in his proverbial grave, but it’s the truth. Buster as an archetype is more held up by the fact it’s most efficient to run Buster offense if you’re running Merlin for his abilities, rather than the inverse. If there were a Merlin clone with Arts or Quick up, even if they replaced Casturia/Skadi, Buster teams would be dead in the water. He doesn’t really do as much damage as Arts or Quick options on a NP-by-NP basis, and he can’t NP as often. This isn’t an issue exclusive to Tsuna, of course, but it does really affect him - why use Tsuna when you can use Dioscuri, Diarmuid Saber, Hajime, or whoever else?

Even putting aside card-related issues, Tsuna’s NP damage is pretty poor when he’s not hitting his trait bonuses, which will be most of the time. Putting him side-by-side with similar anti-Demonic Buster Saber Rama, he is probably better. But you start quantifying how much better? And you have to say, being a little bit better than Rama still isn’t particularly great. You can usually pick a Buster Saber like Musashi and just perform with their raw power instead. That’s the issue when you have a niche, but you’re not overwhelmingly good at it or it’s not overwhelmingly common, either.

Never did I imagine a time where I’d review a stylistic, crit-focused Saber and just feel kind of eh about the whole thing. Tsuna is far from unusable. I mean, if you just so happen to not have any devoted ST Saber in your lineup and the tools for Buster support, he’s great. But the dude as a whole is very much a drop in the ocean for the Saber class, then again the entirety of the Servant roster. It feels like when I reviewed Europa. Nothing here is necessarily bad or underwhelming, but it doesn’t strike out at all, especially when in the card type which isn’t present meta.

But he’s still SSS tier for style points. Let me skin him over Dioscuri and I’d do it any day.

Outro

That’s all of the Servants to review for Mandala...for now.

I don’t claim to be prophetic or know all of DW’s plans, but there are a lot of assets and presently enemy-only Servants in Mandala which I doubt won’t be used for a second wave of Servant releases...somewhere down the line. I’m not sure if it’ll even be this year though, with how tight it’d be for an Xmas event and New Years.

But hey, I’m having a blast running a Shuten-Ibaraki team to clear the new story chapter, close shaves with Oni-killing specialists notwithstanding. I’ll catch you all in the next gacha.

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MMM - Sinister Sorcerer Schemes Salacious Setups, Swordsman of Sealing Sears Satanic Savages (Mandala Story Gacha)

The Modern Magus Magazine

Ashiya Douman

QQAAB (Archer)

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Dmg Down

Guts

Start Np

Mad Maelstrom - Akuryou Safu

Watanabe no Tsuna

QAABB (Saber)

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Buster Star Gather Rate Up

Evade

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Mt. Ooe-Bodhi Oni Slayer

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