Should You Pull? Festival: Librarian of the Scarlet Night (A6 Prayer)

Probably. This prayer is a lot more special than just being A6 Patchouli Knowledge’s debut prayer. Along with her, the entire selection of A6 Friends are back and able to be pulled for a limited time! For those out of the loop, this includes A6 Reimu Hakurei, A6 Marisa Kirisame, A6 Sakuya Izayoi, and A6 Cirno. Not only are A-Type Festival Friends less common to be rerun compared to normal Festival Friends, but they are usually stronger to boot! 

Do note that Patchouli has an increased rate-up of 0.5% compared to Reimu, Marisa, Sakuya, and Cirno’s increased rate-up of 0.2%. This is present so that getting the new Friend is actually more likely instead of people being more likely to possibly collect a Friend they already have. This does not affect the fact that every featured Festival Friend here can be exchanged for 150 Exchange Points, making this a great banner to snag any missing A6-Universe Friend.

Along with the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil-based Friends comes a new 4* story card, The Lady and I. Not only does it fit the theme of the Scarlet Mist Incident, featuring the scarlet mistress herself, but the card serves as a good Yin DEF debuff on singular targets, which can help both the user of the story card as well as the rest of the team. As with any other 4* story cards featured on prayers, this card can be exchanged for 30 Exchange Points.

The competition that this prayer co-runs with is pretty rough, especially considering how strong Friends such as L80 Remilia Scarlet and B2 Junko are. Both A6 Reimu and A6 Marisa stand tall in viability, but still do not really compare to those Friends of higher Unit Types. However, this prayer will last until August 1st, which is well after when B2 Junko as well as Misumaru Tamatsukuri and Takane Yamashiro leave (which is on July 22nd). 

This prayer will run with a descending God Crystal Step-UP. It has been a long time since this was done, so here is a quick refresher on how it works. It costs 600 God Crystals for the first 10-pull, just like a normal God Crystal pull. The rate drops to 400 God Crystals on the third step and 200 God Crystals on the fifth step. As for the second and fourth steps, they are completely free of charge! You still obtain Fortune Dust from the free steps, which practically gives you 20 Fortune Dust for only 600 God Crystals!

+ 0P All-target Water on Focus shot
+ Heavy-damage capability with her Last Word at 3P
+ Teamwide Accuracy and Yang ATK support
+ Practical anomaly inflictions and breaks on spells
- The rest of her elemental access is very mixed
- Backloaded Last Word means she needs 3P to do great damage
- Rather long cooldown on skills

+ Very high damage, in farming and hard fights alike
+ Solid Breaks, including P0 Solo-targeting Wood on her Spread Shot
+ Provides Accuracy support
- Doesn’t have quite the scaling of other top tier units for harder fights

+ Extremely damaging and frontloaded All targeting Last Word
+ Fantastic CRIT and Killer Support
+ P0 Fire on a Basic Shot
- Doesn’t quite hit the damage levels of other meta units

+ Every spell card bullet is elemental; plentiful Fire, Metal, or Moon breaks
+ P0 All-target Metal break on Spread and Focus shot
+ Support through Yin ATK buffs and Yin DEF/Evasion debuffs
+ Powerful Yin/Fire-only Last Word
- Solo LW Damage does reach a ceiling in comparison to other strong units

+ 0P All-target Water on spread shot
+ 4 to 5 easy Freeze anomalies in a single turn
+ A good amount of debuffs: Yin DEF, CRIT DEF, and Evasion
+ Self-Quick makes her a reliable debuffer before the attack-focused Friends h
- Freeze anomaly break locked at 3P of a Solo spell card
- Needs a lot of Spirit Power to function and just cannot make that herself
- Damage is underwhelming in general
- Last Word and Skill 3 debuffs lasting 1 turn can be annoying

The Lady and I

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

• Target’s Yin DEF 1 [2] level(s) DOWN (3T)
• DMG from vampires 15% [25%] DOWN (2T)
• Yang ATK +15 [+55]
• Yin ATK +25 [+85]

Reimu Hakurei (Primary Protagonist)

Reimu Hakurei is the primary protagonist; an incident resolver who is playable in every mainline Touhou game. As the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, it is up to her to resolve any incident (the term used for any major problem that shakes all of Gensokyo) caused by youkai. With her variety of homing amulets, anti-youkai needles, and her yin-yang orbs, she immediately sets off to end the scarlet mist pouring out of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and covering the skies of Gensokyo.

Just like the danmaku (bullet hell) games she is from, A6 Reimu is all about offense. Almost all of her kit is focused on buffing, from self-buffs for her Spirit Power and Yang ATK to teamwide buffs for their CRIT ATK and Yang DEF. Her Yang DEF buffs bounce back to dealing damage as well due to the Hard scaling on her Last Word, Experimental Fantasy Nature. The higher her Yang DEF is, the more damage the attack will do. If she’s not dishing out damage, she is locking down foes’ movements with her second spell, Dream Sign: Experimental Sealing Circle, which lowers all enemies’ Evasion and CRIT Evasion. All of A6 Reimu’s kit has a purpose toward winning hard battles, making her a very strong Friend for any team.

Marisa Kirisame (Secondary Protagonist)

Marisa Kirisame can be seen as the “secondary” protagonist to Reimu, but she is playable in every mainline Touhou game as well (at least, on Windows…)! Although she also cares about the safety of Gensokyo most of the time, the rest of the time this sneaky magician is usually looking for an easy way to expand her magical collection. She already knows that Reimu will do something about the scarlet mist, but why not take the chance to ste - explore the origin point of the mist? Even if they get into petty arguments or even danmaku battles from time to time, she is still a good friend of Reimu’s.

In Touhou 6 (or Embodiment of Scarlet Devil), Marisa was the more offensive, reckless alternative to Reimu’s safer playstyle. Her movement speed was faster than Reimu and she could deal more damage when shooting straight. Her faster style is reflected in A6 Marisa’s Slice scaling, which increases her spells’ power based on how high her Agility stat is. You can bet that Marisa’s Last Word, Prototype - Blazing Star, takes full advantage of this and deals even more damage thanks to Youkai-Killer bullets, an effect that ensures critical hits on Youkai opponents. This focus on CRIT is also shown in A6 Marisa’s normal spells, which decrease the targets’ CRIT Evasion or CRIT DEF based on the spell. She may buff her Agility so high that she leaves others in the dust, but at the very least her skills include partywide Agility UP so that they can keep up or buff their own Slice scalings. Marisa famously claims that danmaku is all about firepower, and this alternative form clearly agrees.

Cirno (Stage 2 Boss)

Cirno is the second major roadblock that Reimu or Marisa run into while resolving the Scarlet Mist Incident. Claiming the Misty Lake as her own territory, Cirno can often be found hanging out around the area with Daiyousei. She is clearly angry about trespassers such as the humans, immediately threatening to freeze them with some English Beef. Unfortunately, fairies are not entirely known for being smart. Not to say that they are dumb, but…Cirno really jumps to fighting almost immediately. Then again, it wasn’t like Reimu or Marisa were trying to not egg her on either.

A6 Cirno is a lot more focused on debuffs, decreasing foes’ Yin DEF, Evasion, CRIT DEF, and CRIT Evasion throughout her spells and skills. Her most significant debuff, however, has to be the Freeze anomalies she can apply via her first skill and second spell, Snow Sign: Diamond Blizzard. While these anomalies on their own merely decrease Agility and potentially delay opponents’ movements, her first spell, Hail Sign: Hailstorm, has the capability of breaking any barriers inflicted by Freeze. This is potentially a reference to one of Cirno’s attacks from Touhou 6, Freeze Sign “Perfect Freeze,” which has Cirno freeze bullets in place, only to break their freeze after a few seconds. While she can only target one foe at a time with Hail Sign: Hailstorm, the ability to break many barriers at once without relying on elements is very useful. Her other debuffs can be practical for many teams as well, especially those that rely on critical hits to deal higher damage.

Patchouli Knowledge (Stage 4 Boss)

Patchouli Knowledge is the fourth main boss fought by Reimu and Marisa during the events of the Scarlet Mist Incident. After taking down the sleepy gatekeeper, the incident resolvers enter the mansion through the library, which isn’t shy with greeting the guests with magical bullet storms and evil books. Patchouli comes in after her unnamed big devil assistant is defeated, attempting to stop the invaders before they reach the mansion’s owner. Something special about Patchouli is that her spell cards will differ when fighting Reimu or Marisa. This is something that many of the early Windows mainline Touhou games did with their Stage 4 bosses. However, on Lunatic (the highest difficulty), Patchouli will just attack with all of her might…or at least as much as her asthma will allow for.

Similar to her danmaku appearance, A6 Patchouli boasts a very wide variety of elemental bullets on her spell cards. While this may seem appealing at first, too many kinds of elements can actually make it hard to consistently elementally break with a Friend if the foe is only weak to a few elements. Fortunately, Patchouli’s mastery over fire and metal has allowed her to Burn foes with her first spell, Wood & Fire Sign: Forest Blaze, and Poison one foe with her second spell, Metal & Water Sign: Mercury Poison. Both spells have anomaly breaks for the respective anomaly they inflict as well, making Patchouli very good at quickly breaking 2 types of anomalies. On top of that, her Last Word, Prototype Ruby Elixir, can pack a very heavy punch with enough setup time for 3P and CRIT ATK and CRIT Accuracy buffs, both of which the magician provides for herself. She is well-suited to ward off any intruder planning to steal her books…but what if they just wanted to borrow them?

Sakuya Izayoi (Stage 5 Midboss, Boss, and Stage 6 Midboss!)

Sakuya Izayoi is the fifth major hurdle between Reimu or Marisa and resolving the Scarlet Mist Incident. Stage 5 bosses are known for being very tricky, insisting to do whatever is necessary to block the incident resolvers’ progress and stop them from reaching the final stage. Sakuya is no different, holding a bloody devotion to Remilia Scarlet and abusing her power to stop time to cover the battlefield with knives that the humans have little time to avoid. Speaking of that, Sakuya appears to be human as well and not a youkai…what is she doing in a household full of youkai?!

A6 Sakuya is all about knife-throwing as well, adding in a spicy hot variety in her Last Word, Deflation World - Carmine. The attack is made up of only Fire-element bullets and has Killers that are meant to snuff out any chance of the Touhou 6 protagonists of surviving (including Human-Killer, Shrine Maiden-Killer, Magician-Killer, and Incident Resolver-KIller). The attack hits even harder thanks to her skills that highly boost her Yin ATK, the stat that Deflation World - Carmine utilizes. She can even give herself 1.00 Spirit Power with her second skill and heavily cripple all foes’ Evasion with her second spell, Maid Secret Skill: Manipulating Doll. She may not be protecting the Scarlet Devil Mansion anymore, but A6 Sakuya is still as determined as ever to take down any opponent that stands in her path.