Should You Pull? Festival: Froggy Faith (A10 Prayer)

Maybe, with a small veer toward Yes. This prayer acts as a continuation of the previous A-Type Festival, Festival: Librarian of the Scarlet Night, in which rather than featuring one new A-Type Friend, multiple Friends from the same universe join a new Friends’ debut! This time around, A10 Suwako Moriya will be able to be prayed for along for her Moriya friends(?), A10 Sanae Kochiya and A10 Kanako Yasaka. 

The Moriya Shrine members aren’t only relying on collecting faith as playable Friends, as they are coming with 2 5* story cards as well! Along with the story card from last month, Great Suwa War, there is the newcomer Defied Human of the Wind. While it is a good card for raising the party’s defenses (as long as a Heal-type Friend uses it), the partywide barrier restoration easily puts it above any other story card that restores Barrier.

This prayer has to compete with the previously mentioned prayer that features A6 Patchouli Knowledge and her A6 Friends, which can be a hard call due to the greater variety of useful Friends featured on that prayer, along with the similar deal with more Friends (5 instead of 3). Even when it outlasts that prayer, as this prayer ends on August 8th, it still has to co-run with A11 Koishi Komeiji, who is another great and limited A-Type Friend. Having the chance to pull or spark any A10 Friend can make this prayer feel safer to pull on. But of course, L80 Remilia Scarlet is still alive and kicking, being the best meta pick and only leaving when there are a few days left for this prayer.

All of the featured Friends are Festival Friends, meaning all of them cost 150 Exchange Points to spark. Both story cards are 5* as well, making them 50 Exchange Points for a copy of a card. There is Descending God Crystal Step-UP for this prayer, providing free 10-pulls that still provide Fortune Dust as you go through the steps.

+ Good damage potential with her Last Word
+ Able to spam out barrier breaks with her Spell Cards and skills generating power.
+ Okay utility
- Weaker farming potential
- High DMG variance

+ All-target 0P Star on Spread Shot
+ High Yang ATK
+ Lots of Barrier restore for longer fights
+ Good Slice Scalings
- Squishy without Barrier
- Unfocused team support, with only a couple levels of Party's Agility, Evasion and Yang ATK UP throughout skills

+ Very strong nuker in general, and especially in challenge content
+ Various and strong CRIT and Yin ATK buffs
+ Has some decent team support
+ Viable breaks, especially Metal
- Not many known story card farming she can currently do

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

• When used by Defense Class Friend, Focus 2 [3] levels UP (3T)
• Restore 1 layer of party's Barrier 
• DMG from gods 15% [25%] DOWN (3T)
• Yang DEF +32 [+102]
• Yin DEF +28 [+78]

Defied Human of the Wind

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

• When used by Heal Class Friend, party’s Yin DEF 1 [2] level(s) UP (3T)
• When used by Heal Class Friend, party’s Yang DEF 1 [2] level(s) UP (3T)
• Party’s Barrier restored by 1 layer
• HP +200  [+550]
• Yang DEF +20 [+70]

Sanae Kochiya (Stage 5 Midboss/Boss)

Sanae Kochiya made her first appearance as the penultimate boss battle before Reimu Hakurei or Marisa Kirisame made it to the top of Youkai Mountain. She serves as the rival shrine maiden to Hakurei, protecting the new Moriya Shrine. Originally a human, she, along with the whole shrine, found her way into Gensokyo and began to collect more faith than Hakurei Shrine (which, while isn’t a hard thing to do, is still a threat.). She eventually gained god-like powers and the ability to perform miracles thanks to the gods contained in her shrine. Not only do they plan to crush their Hakurei competition, but they plan to challenge the balance of Gensokyo by taking over Youkai Mountain as a whole, which the incident resolvers obviously cannot allow. After learning her lesson once the incident is resolved, Sanae becomes more of a traditional rival of Reimu and begins to resolve incidents like a normal shrine maiden.

When it comes to the way her A10 self battles, she takes her moves from the incident of the mountain gods rather than her future incident-resolving appearances. Filled with attacks that rely on prayers and miracles, Sanae targets youkai and incident resolvers alike with Killer bullets. Her Last Word, Grand Moriya Summon - Wind of Faith, calls upon the support of the mountain gods while doing what she does best: Slice-based scaling to take advantage of her Agility buffs, Yang ATK buffs, and even a decent mix of Star breaks. She may be pretty selfish, mainly buffing herself to achieve her own miracles, but she does share some Yang ATK UP with her third skill. She only shares a few buffs, as the Barrier and HP restores are only for herself.

Kanako Yasaka (Stage 6 Boss, Extra Stage Midboss)

Kanako Yasaka is the final battle Reimu and Marisa face during the first incident on the Youkai Mountain. The incident resolves may have fought a lot of gods to get to the top of the mountain, but Kanako quickly distinguishes herself as the mastermind through her motivations to obtain and maintain faith. She is determined to take down the humans that have no faith in her, to the point of offering to become the Hakurei Shrine’s god so that she can bring followers there instead of Reimu. It doesn’t take long for the resolvers to begin fighting the mountain god, determined to prevent her from taking over the entire mountain.

As expected of an arrogant god, A10 Kanako heavily focuses on her own power. This does not mean she entirely ignores her devotees, as her third skill is a good offense-based support via partywide Yin ATK and CRIT ATK. Combined with the CRIT DEF debuff from her first skill, Kanako sets up her team to do great damage with critical hits, which she can do as well from her Human-Killer bullets on her Last Word, Suwa’s Dragon Faith. Otherwise, Kanako is also good at Metal breaking, having a good amount of Metal breaks on her spells as well as access to a 0P All-target Metal break on her Focus shot, Satobiki. She might only be around for the offensive nuking, but her damage numbers will surely suit her godly status.

Suwako Moriya (Extra Stage Boss)

Suwako Moriya is found after the main incident of Mountain of Faith is resolved. After hearing about a second god around the Moriya Shrine, Reimu and Marisa discover Suwako. Moriya Shrine initially belonged to Suwako (hence “Suwako Moriya”), only to have been taken by Kanako after defeating her in battle ages ago. She still works hard on the shrine, but Kanako is the god that mainly gets all of the attention and handles the shrine’s relations with outsiders. That says nothing about her actual strength though, as she still puts up an incredible danmaku fight with either human.

The first thing about A10 Suwako’s kit, besides her cute froggy attacks, will be her incredible Spirit Power gain. Both of her spells produce 1.70 Spirit Power after being unleashed, and her first and third skills provide 0.70 more Spirit Power on top of that. This makes Suwako a very easy Friend to gain access to Boosted attacks without even needing to rely on story cards. This comes into play greatly with her Last Word, Mishakuja Faith, with an astounding 6/6 Metal breaks and good setup damage. Lastly, Suwako proves herself as a thankful god like Kanako, able to buff the team’s Yang ATK and CRIT ATK via her second and third skills respectively. CRIT Accuracy is even provided to the party everytime Suwako Boosts, which is something you will see often thanks to her easy Spirit Power gain. 

A quick fun fact, both A10 Kanako and A10 Suwako have a paralleled passive, specifically their third ones. Both Seizing Faith for Kanako and Home Soil Generator for Suwako can provide 1.00 Spirit Power at the start of a turn at a 30% chance. They may be rival gods, but at the end of the day they seem to be cut from similar cloth. Not to mention their devotion to protect the current shrine maiden, Sanae Kochiya…