Should You Pull? Festival: Gods of Poverty & Pestilence

If you’re looking for a powerful debuffer who can allow you to skip Full Breaking harder fights with potent DEF DOWN, there aren’t many who do it as well as or better than Shion Yorigami. She’s also a fantastic farmer for Solo stages, due to her devastatingly strong Last Word. Joon Yorigami meanwhile is just kind of average, and you’re only rolling for her if you really like Joon - which is perfectly valid, she’ll still do fine, just not quite as much of a power pick. Do keep in mind Joon will get a considerable buff on the 20th, when Chapter 3 Act 2 comes out alongside its 50% Heavy DMG UP Story Card, though this mostly just upgrades her to ‘above average.’ 

+Extremely potent DEF DOWN support, especially for Yin attackers
+2 layers of Burn to all enemies, on a skill to boot
+Extremely strong, front-loaded Last Word useful for harder fights and farming alike

-Only has Fire Breaks

+Provides team-wide buffs using her second Spell Card
+Can be used as a Metal Breaker

-Average damage overall
-Both offensive Spell Cards are Solo

Shion Yorigami is a poverty god. That sounds impressive, but in eastern mythology the concept of a ‘god’ is much more loose and fast than in western religion. You don’t have to be an omnipotent deity, or a force of creation to be a god - even an object could become a god, if people believe in it to be one. They still have the former, of course - you can look to Kanako Yasaka for a more immediate example of a high and mighty god demanding worship, and if you’re looking for a creator myth, there’s gods like Amateratsu or Iizanami. But Shion falls firmly into the latter camp - more a force of nature that’s believed in by humans than any sort of mighty force of creation. 

For the longest time, she and her sister, Joon Yorigami, embarked on a litany of petty schemes to make wealth fast. Unfortunately, in spite of being a misfortune goddess capable of spreading bad luck herself, Shion wasn’t immune to her powers - if anything she was far more unlucky than the average being, to the point where she’d build up explosions of bad luck to herself and those around her. For a time, she was complacent with this life, not really caring about anything (why bother when she lost any wealth she got her hands on?), until one day she and her sister hatched a scheme to steal from a Prismriver concert. This led to the events of Antimony of Common flowers, and then Shion met Tenshi Hinanawi, a celestial who was blessed with unending luck. Luck that directly counteracted Shion’s misfortune, and the two became fast friends, leading to Shion beginning to slowly take a more positive outlook on life and becoming more independent.

In LostWord, Shion is a fantastic debuffer and devastating attacker all at once. The highlight of her kit is definitely her extremely powerful skills: Hi no Kuruma applies 2 layers of the potent Burn Barrier Status to all foes for 2 turns, Default on Debt shackles them them with 2 levels of Yang DEF & Yin DEF DOWN for 2 turns, and then Aura of Bad Luck bankrupts your enemies with 2 levels of Evasion DOWN for 2 turns (plus another 2 levels to the primary target!). Combined, these debuffs allow you to completely skip going for a Full Break in many cases, especially if you field Yin attackers. 

That’s not all she has on offer, as all of her Spell Cards are highly valuable too. Poor Sign: Super Poverty Bomb gives her a whopping 1 Spirit Power UP as well as a slightly above average 1/1/3 Solo targeting Fire Breaks for 0/1/2 Spirit Power. Then, Mischance Scatter can apply 2 levels of Evasion DOWN for 2 turns (as well as 2 levels of Accuracy DOWN if you like defensive strats), plus a slightly above average 1/1/3 Fire Breaks for 0/1/2 Spirit Power. Finally, if they still have any health (or cash) left, her Solo targeting Last Word, The Lost 20 Years, will completely obliterate a single target. This is due to a combination of the Yin DEF DOWN & Burn from her skills, alongside the 3 further levels of Yin DEF DOWN the Last Word applies. It doesn’t even matter if they resist Fire, since her Character Ability, Capable of making people unlucky, including herself, makes her do another 40% damage to resistances. This makes her fantastic both for farming as well as assassinating a priority target with a devastating burst that doesn’t even need setup time, although using it immediately does mean sacrificing the Breaks and utility from her Spell Cards. 

Overall, perhaps the worst you could say about Shion is that Solo targeting Last Words are more niche than All targeting Last Words. She’s fantastic in just about every other field, and more than pulls her weight even on fights with multiple targets, even if sometimes all you’ll do is use her skills then tag her out for someone else.

Joon Yorigami, the mischievous pestilence god fixated on stealing from any innocent resident of Gensokyo unfortunate enough to cross her. Joon flaunts her wealth by spending it frivolously, spontaneously, and even throwing it at her enemies in some of her attacks. Together with her older sister, Shion, Joon causes poverty and misfortune to those around them. Despite being sisters Joon isn’t exactly the nicest to Shion, though, and belittles her for her poor state constantly.

In terms of personality, Joon Yorigami is rather chaotic and arrogant. Much like she flaunts her wealth, Joon flaunts her large ego and makes sure that everyone knows who she is and what she is there for. Though when she was eventually taken down by Reimu Hakurei and Yukari Yakumo, we see a rare humble Joon Yorigami, which at least shows that she is capable of more normalized emotions.

Joon is a bit of a mixed bag as a unit in Touhou LostWord. She has some nice team-wide utility using her second Spell Card and is able deal a decent amount of damage. That said, Joon is relatively outclassed in every category that she puts a piece of herself in, though that isn’t to say it's not possible for her to see use in your box.

For starters, Joon is a selfish attacker. All of her skills provide buffs to herself and only herself. This is reflected in skills such as Shakedown, which provides Joon herself 2 levels of Yang Attack UP and Quick at an 80% chance when leveled up to level 9+. Free Spending Spree behaves nearly the exact same way as Shakedown with the only difference being the Charge buff instead of a Quick buff (do note that these skills shouldn’t be used on the same turn as the Quick and Charge would only end up canceling each other out). Her third skill, Shamelessness, provides Joon 1 Spirit Power UP, 2 levels of Focus DOWN, and dispels any stat debuff or Bind placed on Joon. While using her second Spell Card to upgrade her accuracy, whilst buffing herself with the aforementioned skills, Joon is able to ramp up her damage to a considerable level though its still nothing special.

In terms of support, Joon Yorigami is able to provide the following buffs to herself and her team: Own Focus, Party’s Agility, CRIT Attack, and Accuracy UP. These buffs are certainly nothing to overlook though they aren’t able to push Joon up any further than she already is and the Focus boost is more of a debuff if anything, due to how squishy she is as a unit. She can also be used as a Metal Breaker, given her solid amount of Metal Break across her kit.

Overall Joon Yorigami has a couple interesting tricks up her sleeve. Her average potential damage with all of her self-buffs using her skills and supportive capabilities makes her a unit that is always nice to have around should you need her utility - just make sure that she’s nowhere near your bank account.