Should You Pull? Festival: Spring Festival of Swords

An easy maybe that leans toward No. This Rerun Festival is a bit special this time, being themed around the event running alongside the Prayer: Spring Festival of Swords (they even have the same name!). The three Festival Friends featured in the event, Yuyuko Saigyouji, Watatsuki no Yorihime, and Tenshi Hinanawi are here to visit for a chance of being successfully prayed for. As this is co-running with the event, this Prayer ends April 14th at 1:59 UTC, allowing for an extended time to consider pulling on.

Unfortunately, this Prayer is still running with some tight competition. The A6 Reimu Hakurei and Marisa Kirisame Rerun might be ending shortly, but B2 Junko is already on her way to co-run with this prayer through its entire runtime to be a very tough Ultra Festival Friend to compete with. Especially for Yuyuko, who has significantly fell in viability since the launch of the game. Yorihime is not as amazing as she used to be, but herself and Tenshi are still strong picks. The Immortal Sun & Zombie?! Festival featuring Toyosatomimi no Miko and Yoshika Miyako is another co-runner joining in late, but at the very least is more reasonable to contend with compared to B2 Junko.

Every Festival Friend here will require 150 Exchange Points to obtain one duplicate. Additionally, The 5* Story Card Dropping Keystones will have Rate-UP during this Prayer and can be exchanged for 50 Exchange Points. To encourage more pulls, this Prayer has an Ascending God Crystal Step-UP, starting off at 60 God Crystals and increasing by 100 for each consecutive step (60 to 160 to 260 to 360 to 460).

As a bonus, each Friend's event-related costume will be used for each of their sections. However, just remember that the event bonus from costumes still applies even if you don't have the Friend for it, so don't feel bad if you missed out on dressing your Friend up in a bunny suit. That can always come later.

+ Incredibly powerful Last Word, dealing extremely high damage at 1 Power and scaling tremendously at 3.
+ Relatively strong event farmer
+ Self Charge on Skill 3 means she works well with any supporter
- No utility
- Only brings Wood element and lacks many elemental bullets nowadays
- Fell off hard with the introduction of many stronger Friends

+Incredible damage when properly set-up
+All Spell Cards are Yin Only, allowing her to do damage outside of her Last Word relatively better than other attackers
+Larger elemental coverage on Last Word at P3
-Weak Turn 1 damage
-Traitless Last Word until P2 and lacking elements in general

+Incredible damage output, including a All-targeting Last Word great for event farming
+P0 Earth on her Focus Shot
-Selfish attacker, brings no utility
-Breaks are otherwise varied and unimpressive

[Numbers in brackets are buffs at Max Limit Break]

• Spell Card's Earth power 15% [30%] UP (1T).
• Spell Card's Heavy bullet power 15% [30%] UP (1T).

The first true Festival Friend of Touhou LostWord Global, Yuyuko Saigyouji is the ghostly princess of the Netherworld, residing within Hakugyokurou, a Japanese mansion. In life, over a thousand years ago, Yuyuko was the mistress of the Saigyouji clan. A human girl with a terrifying ability, at first all Yuyuko could do was manipulate departed souls. As time went on, it grew more and more powerful, before she finally gained the ability to invite anyone to their own death. Terrified of her abilty, Yuyuko commited suicide, and her corpse was used to seal away a monsterous youkai tree that also invited others to their death - the Saigyou Ayakashi.

After she passed on, she was granted her current position in the Netherworld, due to the judges of the afterlife being impressed by her ability and unwillingness to hold grudges. This carefree attitude is reflected in the playful, cheery Yuyuko of today - with no memory of her past life, she carries on her death with the same gusto and enthusiasm as a hedonist might have for life. Gluttonous, and with a head seemingly full of only air, one could be forgiven for mistaking her to be a fool. But underneath it all lies a cunning and sharp mind,  and a terrifyingly powerful ghost princess who still possesses the same ability she had in life.

All this talk of power isn’t just for show. Yuyuko might not be able to instantly kill anyone in LostWord, but her All-target Last Word, Saigyouji Parinirvana, deals so much damage to most foes that you’d be forgiven for assuming it simply inflicted instant death. That’s only at 1 Power as well - at 3, which her second skill Soul Torch helps her reach by providing her with 0.75 Power, this already strong Last Word nearly doubles in power, making her highly potent in longer fights. It wasn’t always meant to be this strong, but in the original Japanese release of the game, her Last Word was bugged to do too much damage. They compensated her by giving it five levels of Yang ATK UP, which combined with her first skill Spirit Service and her ability Capable of Manipulating Death allows her to reach a jaw dropping 9 Yang ATK UP on the very first turn. And if that wasn’t enough, her third skill Under the Flowers gives her a remarkable 3 Accuracy UP for 3 turns and 1 turn of Charge, making her both self-sufficient and able to work with just about any debuffer.

Especially nowadays, Yuyuko isn’t perfect. Her 9 Yang ATK UP and 3 Accuracy UP, while extremely potent, means that it can be difficult to find a Story Card which meaningfully upgrades her damage, and that the only team support she benefits from is DEF Down. Additionally, her access to Elements very below average, having only access to 1 Solo Wood Break on both of her spell cards without spending either 2 or 3 Power for the additional Break. Whilst her Last Word also has Wood, it has the same amount as her other spells and is mainly only being used for damage in the first place.

That underlies the main issue with Yuyuko in the current state of LostWord: while her strength is still impressive, she has nothing to back herself up or compare to other strong nukes. She has no teamwide utility or buffs, making her easy to set-up damage her main selling point. The Charge she applies to herself with Under the Flowers is a good way to get some support from other debuffers, but she will do nothing to help them back. Last and most importantly, Yuyuko's raw damage output doesn't really compare to the higher tier of Friends in LostWord now, even when comparing her to the other options on this Prayer.

Still, don't let these negatives take away from the strengths Yuyuko does have. While she can't directly support the team, the rest of the team can still serve well in preparing Yuyuko a full-course meal of debuffed opponents. Keep her close, and she will definitely remind you why she was one of the most relevant Friends on the game's release.

The Moon Princess Possessed by Divine Spirits, Watatsuki no Yorihime is one of the two Lunarian princesses in charge of the Lunarian Defense Corps alongside her sister, Watasuki no Toyohime. In many ways, one could consider Yorihime the moon’s equivalent to Reimu Hakurei - as she invokes gods, defends her home, and prefers a more hands on solution to problems. Unlike Reimu, however, Yorihime prefers the sword to any sort of miko tools, and is far more adept at invoking gods. A patriot and a staunch defender of her home, Yorihime mercilessly cuts down any who would threaten the moon. She can be a harsh drill sergeant as well to the rabbits who train under her, but only to push them to be their very best. Ultimately though, even though she does have a soft side, you still don’t want to be on the other end of her blade.

In LostWord, Yorihime is a Friend with a very clear goal in mind - setting up to unleash a devastating blow from her All targeting Last Word, Yamata no Orochi Install. It is backloaded to the point of being extremely weak for farming purposes, so it’s not advised to bring her to farming content. But for harder fights, it has a lot going for it - not only is it 1-1-3, making it devastating at 3 boosts, the last 4 bullets of it also possess the extremely potent Gensokyo Killer, meaning that Yorihime will Crit more often than not. Additionally, every bullet on it is tagged with Body, with very potent options to boost it in the Story Cards Hoshiguma Dish and Eating Contest. Complimenting this further is a solid amount of Slicing, ranging from 25% on the first bullet, to 35% on the last three (and most powerful) bullets. 

The rest of her kit is built around enabling her Last Word to hit as hard as possible. Her first Spell Card, Divine Banishment: Paradise Lost gives her 2 Levels of Yin ATK UP for 3 Turns with a 60% chance for 1 more Level. Complimenting this, her second skill, Amatsumara's Aid, provides her with 2 additional Levels of Yin ATK UP for 2 turns alongside 2 Levels of Agility UP for 2 turns. Lastly, her third skill, Evil-Slaying Arrow, provides her with 2 Levels of Accuracy UP for 2 turns with a negligible 80% chance for 1 more Level, meaning she does not need any Accuracy support (alongside another 2 levels of Agility UP for 2 turns with a 80% chance for 1 more Level). All of this together means that with two turns of setup, Yorihime will be ready to fire off her Last Word with at least 8 Levels of Yin ATK UP, on top of any other buffs she might get from Story Cards or allies. 

However, Yorihime does have two major drawbacks, outside of needing time to set up. She also brings no utility to the team, and her elemental access is far below average - don't let the number of elements she has access to fool you, they're in small, awkward to get amounts. Still, Yorihime hits like a dump truck (if a dump truck were shaped like a sword), and will obliterate anything standing in her way, so these downsides hardly matter if damage is your main concern. She’s a Friend that’ll serve anyone looking for a bunch of extra firepower well. Just don't expect much else from her.

In the distant past, the Nawi family kept the land around what is now Gensokyo safe from earthquakes, with the Hinanawi family dutifully serving them. Eventually, they all perished, and were enshrined as divine spirits. As a reward for their dutiful servant, the Hinanawi family ascended to heaven as celestials - with their eldest daughter, Chiko (“Earth Child”), ascending alongside them.

Renaming herself Tenshi (“Heaven/Sky Child”), the eldest daughter lived a sheltered life of luxury. She wanted for nothing, and yet was still unsatisfied. Having grown up in paradise, the idea of paradise itself eventually grew dull to her - to say nothing of the fact that some saw the Hinanawi clan as lesser and outright bad, due to skipping the training typically required to become celestials. That disdain combined with utter boredom eventually got to Tenshi, whom looked down upon those who lived on the surface with envy, and caused her to fly down to the earth to cause an incident in the events of Scarlet Weather Rhapsody.

With the ability to cause earthquakes, Tenshi caused quite a ruckus indeed - in addition to the celestial tool she holds in her hands. Whilst at first glance it’s simply a empty pommel, a celestial such as Tenshi can cause it to manifest into scarlet energy, which can in turn strike the weakness of any opponent and, furthermore, manipulate the weather itself - between Tenshi's own abilities, and this blade, it wouldn't be a understatement to say she could control earth, heaven, and people. Thankfully for everyone involved, Tenshi isn't exactly one for training, so her natural talent and celestial grace are not as devastating as they could be.

Whilst she may be self-centered as a result of her upbringing, it would be incorrect to say that Tenshi is evil. She’s simply very sheltered and overtly pampered. The flipside of her personality is that she’s a loyal and caring friend (albeit, a rather short sighted one), and the devastation caused in her wake is more out of a lack of empathy thanks to her environment rather than malice. This can be seen by her friendship with Shion Yorigami, and in many fanworks her relations with Iku Nagae.

Befitting a selfish celestial, Tenshi’s kit is entirely centered around her own personal damage output. All of it feeds into making her All targeting Last Word, Trillion Ton Keystone Drop, hit as hard as celestially possible - and hit hard it will, thanks to a jaw dropping 110%/110%/110%/0%/0%/0% Hard scaling alongside 3 levels of Yang DEF and Accuracy UP (3T). As such, her skills are the second most important part of her kit: Firstly, Immortal Fruit provides her with 1 Spirit Power UP alongside 2 levels of Yang DEF UP (2T), abusing the 2-2-1 layout of her Last Word (although only the first 3 bullets really do damage in shorter fights). Next, Keystone Technique further boosts her Yang DEF by 2 more levels (2T), with a Barrier recovery on top of it, which may help you squeeze out some extra Breaks in a pinch. Sword of Hisou isn't quite as generally useful, being a 30% self heal and 2 levels of Accuracy UP (2T), but it is decently useful in any fight where Tenshi will be using her Spell Cards, to make sure crucial Breaks land and to tack on more damage, with some healing as a decent bonus. Finally, her Character Ability also gives her 1 level of Yang ATK UP (1T) each time she grazes, to further help her output damage. 

Likewise, Tenshi’s attacks are mostly focused around bolstering her attacking powers. Her Focus Shot, Heaven and Earth Press, provides 1 Solo targeting Earth Break at 0P - and has Sure-Hit to boot. Next, Earth Sign: Sword of Unletting Soil bolsters her with 2 levels of Yang DEF UP (2T), alongside a slightly above average 1/2/3 Solo targeting Earth Breaks for 0/1/2 Spirit Power. Her other Spell Card, Sky of Scarlet Perception of All Humankind, on the surface is great - not only does it boost her Yang ATK by 2 levels (3T), but it has a whopping 5 All targeting Breaks on it at 3 Spirit Power! Unfortunately, they're distributed evenly as 1 Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth Break - and as enemies almost always only have 2 weaknesses, this means at best it's 2 Breaks on any given target - often only 1. It can be useful, but don’t let the high number of Breaks mislead you. 

Overall, Tenshi is a tremendously powerful attacker who isn’t much of a team player. She does however bring so much damage it’s hard to care about her glory hogging tendencies. Even if she is rather boastful about it.