Should You Pull? Bird, Beast, and Bucket?!

Maybe. The Bird, Beast & Bucket Banner's main Friends are all General Friends, which initially makes this banner feel less useful compared to ones with Festivals or higher-rated Friends. However, all of these Friends have great utility that can have a purpose in many situations. The Choujuu Gigaku duo (Mystia Lorelei and the newcomer Kyouko Kasodani) are both debuffers with Moon and Wood breaks, but they are 2 sides of a smiliar coin with Kyouko favoring Yang and Mystia honing in on the Yin side. However, the other newcomer Kisume has a bucketful of 6 Fire breaks on her All-Targeting Last Word for her own devastating uses. In addition, the 5* story card, Bonds of Blood, returns as a featured card in this prayer, with its high Fire Power UP serving well for someone like Kisume.

This being said, we can't forget who else this banner competes with, the Tropical Goddess herself, C3 Hecatia Lapislazuli who does a hell of a lot of debuffing herself, as per her role, also being a debuffer. Thankfully, the quantity of other banners is lower as of now, seeing as these are the only two banners taking centre stage. There is only a week to pull them, with the banner ending on September 9th, but that also means they won't compete with the banners starting then.

Something that will make this banner more appealing is a returning Ascending God Crystal Step-UP! Even if you aren't interested in this banner, 60 God Crystals for 10 Fortune Dust is never a crummy deal, and doing it may very bless you with one of the banner's Featured Friends. For people who want to go the extra mile and do all 5 steps, 2 Friends are ensured on the final step as well. As General Friends, the Bird, Beast and the Bucket all require 100 Exchange Points while Bonds of Blood will run you for 50 Exchange Points.

+ 0P All-target Moon on Spread shot and serviceable Moon/Wood on spells
+ Stacks up Blind anomalies for breaks on 2nd spell
+ Self-Quick allows her to break the Blind anomalies before other Friends attack
- Lacks Spirit Power restoration to quickly apply breaks to perform strongest attacks
- Very situational debuffs
- Blind break is only at 3P of a Solo-target spell

+ Easy T1 damage makes her a decent farmer
+ P skills make hitting her Moon and Wood breaks simple
+ CRIT and Accuracy support helps for setting up big damage
- Low personal synergy with anomaly setting and breaking

+ Decent CRIT support
+ Good access to Fire elements
- Lacks Accuracy
- Somewhat inconsistent damage output

[Numbers in brackets are buffs at Max Limit Break or stat sticks at Max Enhance]

• Fire Power 30% [50%] UP (1T)
• DMG from sages of Gensokyo 20% (2T)
• Yang ATK +25 [+55]
• Yin ATK +45 [+125]

Like any other common youkai, Mystia Lorelei spends most of her time attempting to terrify the locals in the human village via her song that can cause confusion. She is more nocturnal, hiding in the day and at night scaring humans through her songs as well as inflicting them with night-blindness. This does not mean she has other hobbies on the side, though, as she can also be found running a grilled lamprey stand in hopes to counter the sales of yakitori, or grilled chicken. Later on, she put her voice to more use and started the punk-rock band Choujuu Gigaku alongside Kyouko Kasodani. Her range of voice is almost as high as her range of talents, something that is rather impressive for smaller youkai. It can be hard for weak youkai to stand out in Gensokyo, especially with characters like Yukari Yakumo hogging all of the attention, but Mystia does her best to stand (and scream) out!

Mystia is a Debuff Class Friend, meaning her attacks are filled with enemy debuffs to benefit the rest of the party. Unfortunately, the best of her debuffs are definitely not on her spells. Her first spell, Vocal Sign: Hooting in the Night, debuffs Accuracy, a stat that only matters if you’re trying to evade every attack thrown at you, which is not so important in a game where you can Graze fatal damage. Her Last Word, Blind Nightbird, faces a similar issue in which debuffing Yin ATK of all foes will only matter for tanking damage, something that better defensive Friends should be fine with in the first place. Her second spell, Night-Blindness: Song of the Night Sparrow, isn’t all that bad though, applying 3 layers of Blind on one foe, which combos very well with the spell at 3P due to having a Blind anomaly break. Mystia may lack a bit of Yin ATK buffs on her kit, but Blind Nightbird can still be a great All-target Yin nuke when set up properly! Her elemental breaks are also somewhat average, but there is a fair mix of Moon and Wood, and she has a spammable 0P All-target Moon break on her Spread shot, Moth Scales, to give her some more utility.

Mystia’s skills share some of the issues with the debuffs on her attacks. Particularly, her first skill, Okuri-Suzume, debuffing Accuracy has the same issue mentioned before, and the same goes for her increasing her own Evasion. It’s just too situational to be very practical in many fights, and other Friends would just pull this niche off better. Tamoto-Suzume, Mystia’s second skill, is where things get more interesting. Self-Quick is something Debuff Class Friends like so they can apply their debuffs before their allies attack. In Mystia’s case, she can move first to break Blind anomalies with Night-Blindness: Song of the Night Sparrow and potentially Full Break the target before other Friends finish them off. This skill also has her best debuff by far, decreasing all enemies’ Yin DEF by 2 levels (3T). Her third skill, Black Butterfly, is a great offensive tool, buffing her own Yin ATK by 2 levels (2T) and applying 2 layers of Blind on all foes, something that can easily combo with Self-Quick and Night-Blindness: Song of the Night Sparrow for a fast 5 breaks! 

Sadly, the 5 Blind anomaly breaks are really the peak of her utility, with the rest of her worth being her decent elemental mix and slightly heavy hitting with her Last Word. For a debuff Friend, her debuffs are actually rather lackluster for most scenarios. Still, Mystia keeps on singing and sticking to what she knows best: inflicting night-blindness on foolish humans and foes. And in the end, isn’t that just inspiring? 

Kyouko Kasodani is a Yamabiko Youkai, embodying the echoes humans hear when sound travels through mountains and valleys. Her ability to reflect sound waves makes her a staple in the Myouren Temple with her loud and cheery voice that is sure to be heard by worshippers anywhere in the vicinity. In her spare time, she can be found dabbling in punk rock together with Mystia Lorelei as Choujuu Gigaku; a delightful group that stands toe-to-toe with the Prismriver Ensemble in their musical ability. Her diligence to her Buddhist training comes through in her sweeping duties, and she can be commonly found on the grounds working her broom and taking care of any errant trespassers looking to cause trouble. Her modest devotion translates to a less-than-modest S Tier in Touhou LostWord.

Kyouko’s ability to debuff enemy Evasion and CRIT Evasion through both her Skills and her Spell Cards makes her a great staple to any team looking to focus on building up personal damage. Her first Spell Card, Echo Sign: Mountain Echo can debuff Crit DEF by 1 level for a single enemy, while her second Spell Card, Great Voice: Charged Cry debuffs Crit EVASION for the entire enemy lineup by 1 level. This is further boosted by her Last Word, Sutra-Chanting Room - Complete Manual which reduces all enemy Yang DEF and Crit EVASION by 2 levels.

Farming wise, Kyouko will clean house with absolute efficiency, with her easy access to 2P on Turn 1 with her first skill, Cheerful Greeting, allowing her access to most of her Moon and Wood breaks on her Last Word which hits all enemies. This is bolstered by her second skill, Cooking & Challenges which reduces all enemy Evasion down by 3 levels while boosting her own Yang ATK by 2 levels. Her 3rd skill, Sweeping & Cleaning further cements this with 2 levels of Yang DEF down for a target enemy and Crit EVASION down for the entire enemy team, allowing her to hit those hard numbers consistently. Further supplementing her damage are her Killers which hit any foes from Youkai Mountain, the Garden of the Sun and the Divine Spirit Mausoleum, providing the full Crit experience to any Friends that hail from these factions.

Her ability to break barriers is on par with recent releases, with a smattering of Moon and Wood breaks on every shot she has. She can max out most of her elemental reach, with 2/6 Wood on and 3/6 Moon easily accessible on her first Spell Card and Last Word at 2P due to her P buffs. Her second Spell Card, while boasting fewer breaks, also hits all enemies with 2/6 Wood and 2/6 at 3P.

She also has some minor Stun utility on her Spread Shot and Spell Card 2, although you probably don’t want to count on it in a pinch, being locked behind 2P and 3P respectively. Finally, her Last Word can break Burn anomalies; fitting for someone whose daily job involves dealing with garbage.

Overall, Kyouko’s job is to provide an opening for other Friends to strike hard and fast into, at least if she doesn’t get it done by herself. Kyouko is loud and proud of it, and she’s not afraid to let others know about it.

For farming, Kisume is fairly average. While she can do a good deal of damage with her Last Word, Onibi Carpet Bombing, she struggles to farm the current story card stages due to a combination of factors that hold her back. Despite this, she can still do well enough to farm The Secret God of the Sky (3-6-3).

In challenging content, Kisume’s kit proves to be decent at providing CRIT support as well as putting out solid damage as a Yin nuker herself as long as she can make use of her CRITs. Her 3rd skill, Skeleton Throw, proves its worth by not only selfishly providing her with1 P, but also supporting the teamwith 2 levels of CRIT Accuracy to the party for 2 turns. Combined with her ability, Capable of dropping onibi, boosts can augment her own performance further while grazes can help make CRIT oriented teammates perform even better. Her other two skills, on the other hand, prove to be more selfish. Her 1st skill, Timidity, boosts Kisume's CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy by 2 levels for 2 turns. Her 2nd skill, Narrow Space Peace, also selfishly provides her with 3 levels of Yin ATK for 2 turns as well as Charge. With all of these skills, Kisume can output a decent amount of damage, especially if the enemy is weak to Fire.

Her 1st spell card, Horror: Tsurube-Otoshi Apparition, has the pre-effect of inflicting 3 levels of CRIT Evasion down to a target for 2 turns. With her 2nd spell card, Well Bucket: Like a Moth to a Well, Kisume provides some party utility as she raises the CRIT ATK of all allies by 2 levels for 2 turns. This spell card can also prove to do some decent damage due to it having a few lines of Youkai killers, which can boost her damage even further. Finally, her Last Word inflicts 2 levels of CRIT DEF down to all enemies as well as providing herself 2 levels of Yin ATK up for 2 turns. Overall, these skills and spell cards synergize to set up her damage whilst providing the party with some CRIT support.

For barrier breaks, Kisume has a strong emphasis on Fire with some nice access to Water. While her basic shots contain a P0 Water and Metal shot for spread and focus respectively, all her spell cards contain Fire in some shape or form. Her 1st spell card contains 2 Water, Fire, and Wood breaks which targets a single enemy. Her 2nd spell card, on the other hand, contains 2 Fire and Water breaks to all enemies. Finally, her Last Word can provide a whopping 6 Fire breaks to all enemies.

Ultimately, while she may prefer to hide in buckets due to her shyness, Kisume can help the team out in her own meaningful way. Whether it comes to CRIT support, or outputting a decent amount of damage with her CRITs, Kisume can find ways to help.