Should You Pull? Festival: Imperishable Sage & Night Sparrow

Maybe. Another return to the A-Type Festival and General Friend combo, but this time both of the Friends were introduced in the same game: Touhou Eiyashou: Imperishable Night! This is not the only similarity they share, as both Friends featured here can inflict and break Blind anomalies, a slight nod to the darkness that comes with an endless night.

A8 Eirin Yagokoro is the more all-out offensive Friend, buffing both offense and defense to maximize how much damage she inflicts with Killer bullets. She may have given up her support medicine, but she can still apply Poison and Blind anomalies for easy breaks via her Last Word.

Mystia Lorelei may be a more simple youkai, but she rises above many other Friends thanks to being very good at Solo-target Blind anomaly breaks thanks to her second spell. Combined with all of her skills, this spell is capable of breaking 5 barriers at once, as long as the foe isn’t immune to Blind! Otherwise, she can also provide various debuffs, most importantly a Yin DEF debuff, meaning she does well with other Yin allies.

Along with the Friends is another featured 4* story card, Physician Assistants, which features more Imperishable Night characters. The card is an offensive stat stick with the special effect of debuffing all targets’ Yang DEF…as long as it is equipped by a Debuff Class Friend. Fortunately, good Debuff Friends aren’t that hard to come by (and one feathered one is featured right now!), so this limitation does not hurt this card’s practicality that much.

In terms of competition, this Prayer has the main benefit of not having much. A10 Kanako Yasaka and Kogasa Tatara will be leaving very shortly, F1 Reimu Hakurei may trump both Friends in viability but is much more risky to pull for, and the only remaining Prayer is Story Card Collection. Other Prayers may pop up shortly, but since this prayer lasts until July 15th, you have a good amount of time to form a judgment.

As expected with these types of prayers, there is Ascending God Crystal Step-UP for each and cheap pulls if you want to only slightly dip in. Physician Assistants will cost 30 Exchange Points, Mystia Lorelei 100, and A8 Eirin Yagokoro 150.

+ 0P All-target Moon on Focus shot
+ Good Yin nuking potential on Last Word thanks to Killers
+ Niche in Poison and Blind anomaly breaks
+ Slight CRIT and Yin support
- Limited Hard scaling and mixed bullets makes her difficult to optimize
- Elemental breaking on spells is a mixed bag
- Team utility she provides is still on the lower end

+ 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

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

• When used by Debuff Class Friend, all targets’ Yang DEF 1 [2] level(s) DOWN (2T)
• No-Element Power 15% [25%] UP (1T)
• Yang ATK +20 [+80]
• Yin ATK +20 [+60]

Eirin Yagokoro is known as the Brain of the Moon due to her immense wisdom regarding Lunarian technology, thanks to her being one of the founders of Lunarian society. The history of her life is immensely long, but the main inciting incident was when she told Kaguya to create and drink the Hourai Elixir, a crime fit for exile to the Lunarians. The princess’ exile on Earth eventually ended, but when Eirin was assigned with other rabbit emissaries to bring Kaguya back to the Moon, she killed the rabbits and escaped back to Earth with Kaguya. Even in the timeless mansion of Eientei, having the runaway moon rabbit, Reisen Udongein Inaba, be able to find the place made Eirin paranoid of being discovered. To ensure no Lunarians found the exiles, Eirin cast a spell to replace the real Moon with a fake one to prevent Lunarains from entering Gensokyo. The incident resolvers and youkai of Gensokyo quickly took notice of the fake Moon and began to attempt to take down the lunar sage. After the Eternal Night Incident was resolved, Kaguya wanted to open Eientei to the rest of Gensokyo, and Eirin eventually grew to bond with both youkai and humans alike. Unfortunately for the enemies facing A8 Eirin Yagokoro, the incident still looms large in her world, and hence she does not know the meaning of mercy.

This lack of restraint easily translates to all of Eirin’s attacks with a quick look at her Killer Bullets. She gets guaranteed crits on Lunarian threats on her first spell, Forbidden Medicine: Hourai Elixir, the incident resolvers and youkai on both her second spell, Medicine Sign: Great Galaxy in a Jar, and her basic shots. Her Last Word, Heaven Spider’s Butterfly - Capturing Web - False Moon, definitely makes good use of the Killers, as it starts off with the most popular ones for enemies to have with Human-Killer and Youkai-Killer. These Killers especially helps Eirin optimize her damage, along with her self-Poison inflictions via activating Forbidden Medicine: Hourai Elixir, since each Poison anomaly she has increases her defenses, allowing her to do more damage via Hard scaling. Medicine Sign: Great Galaxy in a Jar is great for herself and allies due to decreasing all foes’ CRIT DEF by 2 levels (3T), something great for her own Killers as well as any others her allies have. For additional utility, LW also breaks Poison anomalies at 1P and Blind anomalies at 3P, the latter of which she can take great advantage of due the pre-ATK Effect applying 2 layers of Blind to all foes. Eirin is not ready to give up her mansion to any invader, and her ferocity in her attacks only go to prove that.

As for Eirin’s skills, instead of being supportive like her L1 version, she keeps her aggression. Her first skill, Drachenblut, grants more Poison and Blind anomalies on herself for increased defenses. Eirin may not have anything on her kit that usual tanks have, like healing or Barrier restoration, but she tries her best to defend her Friends from danger. Her second skill, Sura With Soda, turns these anomalies onto a singular target along with their Yin DEF by 2 levels (2T). If not fully broken, the Poison anomalies are a decent Yang DEF debuff, meaning Eirin can be used as support for either offensive type. Last but not least, her third skill, Five Minerals Powder, is more offensive through 1.00 Spirit Power restoration and teamwide buffs in the form of 2 levels of Yin ATK UP (2T) and 2 levels of Accuracy UP (1T). Having Accuracy boosts for only 1 turn does stink, but this skill at least has a lower cooldown at 4 turns instead of 5. 

Outside of her attacks and skills, Eirin can be a somewhat decent Moon breaker, mainly thanks to her 0P All-target Moon break on her Focus shot, Lunar Thinking, giving her an easy Moon spam option. While she has only elemental bullets on her spells, most of them are a heavy mix of Moon, Sun, and Star and are difficult to focus on elementally breaking foes with only one of these weaknesses. Still, thanks to her other anomaly breaks and raw strength in general, this lunar sage is definitely a must-have for any battle that requires good power. She may not be able to patch you up mid-battle…but that’s what the infirmary is for!

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?