Should You Pull?
Recommended if you’ve already made notable Shared Exchange Point progress.
Possibly worth considering outside of Shared Exchange Points.
Alice Margatroid variant number 6 is upon us, meaning a full team of her is now possible, and on top of that, The Witch of Scarlet Dreams is now no longer the only Z-Series Friend in the game! It’s been 2 years, but here we are with Z3 Alice, and she even has an iconic IOSYS meme song as her theme. Did Z1 Marisa steal any precious things in the Scarlet Devil Tower? Who knows, but the Star Sign Seamstress Ultra Festival Prayer serves as the final Prayer of Shared Exchange Points Season One (more on that here), meaning that if you have acquired a high enough number of Exchange Points across the last month, this is your last chance to spend them all at the 250 mark, and hoping to take advantage of that is Z3 Alice Margatroid, who does not disappoint as an Defense-Class knight in shining armor!
Z3 Alice is surprisingly competent all things considered. While the defensive side of things isn’t the most impressive thing in the world, they say that offense is the best defense. That 1850 Yin DEF and many ways to buff Yin DEF have more than a defensive use, as Hard Scaling comes into play. From a 75% Scaling on Spell Card 1 and 60% Scaling on Spell Card 2, to either 150% or 175% on her Last Word, which means her damage output will be very high, especially due to those guaranteed CRITs she will be able to land on a good chunk of enemies thanks to her respectable Killer range. Soul, Devil, Machine, Kaiju, Magician, Magical Girl, and most importantly, Youkai are all of Z3 Alice’s Killers, and is something that was missing in a lot of Ultra Festival units recently, even if some weren’t the worst in the world. If you were waiting for a Friend with strong Killers, this might just be the one for you!
For more about Z3 Alice’s offensive side, she has Skill 1’s team Yin ATK buffing, and her bullet lines have some helpful Accuracy buffs, able to make sure her attacks can hit her enemies, and she also has a little bit of CRIT ATK to work with too, mainly from her Last Word but also via Focus Shot bullet lines. She also uses her Spell Card 1 for Burn breaking on all her enemies and can break 3-4 of them at 2P and she can also break any other Burn and Freeze anomalies on her Last Word via 3P.
While Z3 Alice is by no means perfect, the downsides she does have aren’t the worst in the world compared to other Friends out there. Firstly, looking at her elements, there is actually a focus on 3 elements (Sun, Moon, Star) rather than a massive mix of them like we have seen with previous Alice variants. While this is more manageable when it comes to elemental breaking, the Sun elements don’t contribute much compared to the Moon and Star elements sadly. Leaning into more situational territory, her self-inflictions of Freeze anomalies that contribute defensive buffs aren’t set in stone and may need either allies or enemies to do that for her. And finally, being a tank, while it’s fun to be able to completely shrug off Sun, Moon and Fire elemental attacks, more damage will be taken by attacks that are Water, Wood, Earth, Metal, Star or even Non-Elemental.
Now more about this Prayer, it actually comes with 2 Story Cards, a 5 Star one that has been here since the beginning called Drunkard Territory and a new 4 Star one called Princess of Battle! But let’s be honest, the effects of these cards are not very good, as Drunkard Territory oni has a solid Yang ATK stat stick to realistically make any sort of use out of, and Princess of Battle is a weaker version of cards like Mysterious Sword Master.
Featured Story Card for "Drunkard Territory"!
Featured Story Card for "Princess of Battle"!
With how average the effects of the cards above are (and one of them not even being new too), your focus on this Prayer should really only be on Z3 Alice, which is thankfully worth spending your Seal Crystals on! And with Shared Exchange Points Season One nearly finished, thus removing any remaining Exchange Points and turning them into Spirit Points as of August 10th 2023. It’s possible that you’re at around a number like 100 Exchange Points from previous Prayers, and maybe it just makes sense for you to just go ahead and go all the way to secure Z3 Alice, assuming you have the resources to do so. This is why it is recommended to just go ahead and get to 250 if you have already made notable progress with that. If for whatever reason you are starting at 0 though, it’s much less recommended, but even then it’s still not as much of a bad idea to consider given how generally competent she is, potentially being the best Alice variant in the game (yes, maybe even better than her Relic self)! Spending 1250 Seal Crystals in a week isn’t quite as costly compared to spending 1250 Seal Crystals across the span of 4 weeks, so there is that to consider.
With the stars aligned for the Zodiac-themed puppeteer and her Prayer, the very best of luck goes to those who wish to get themselves a magical girl and her precious dolls (don’t steal them though)!
Quick Overview
Z3 Alice Margatroid is a Defense-Class Friend who resists damage from Sun, Moon and Fire, has Burn and Freeze anomaly utility and a strong damage output, both from Hard Scaling and strong Killers.
Helpful Defensive Buffs
It’s expected as a tank, but Z3 Alice does a solid job at providing defensive buffs, most notably Yin DEF and Barriers. Yin DEF can be buffed in multiple ways and can potentially be maxed out with ease, due to a mix of Skills, Spell Cards and even when Boosting. There are a few other ways to help the team defensively, such as Yang DEF, elements and HP Recovery by Skill 2.
Offense is the Best Defense
With the Yin DEF that Z3 Alice has, whether it be her 1850 base Yin DEF or her Hard Scaling, she can bring the damage onto her enemies. On top of that, she can even hit her enemies hard with CRITs frequently, thanks to her Killer range including Youkai, Soul, Devil, Magical Girl, Magician, Kaiju and Machine. She is also self-sufficient with these offensive buffs, with the team Yin ATK buffs on Skill 1, CRIT ATK and Accuracy buffs on bullet lines, and her Last Word having both CRIT ATK and Yin ATK in bullet lines.
Needs to rely on Allies for Defensive Anomaly Buffs
The only guaranteed ways for Z3 Alice to make use of her Ability to turn Freeze and Burn anomalies is either from allies inflicting them to the team, or maybe from enemies doing that instead. However, she does have some bullet lines where Freeze anomalies can be inflicted on herself, but have an 80% chance of doing so, thus making it less reliable from a consistency standpoint.
Elemental Resistance is Dependant on Enemies’ Elements
Being able to tank Sun, Moon and Fire elements as well as grant the team that resistance can be fun, but what if Z3 Alice or her allies are hit with a Water, Wood, Metal, Earth and Star element or even non-elemental attacks? Needless to say that more damage would be taken if the attacks are not Sun, Moon or Fire.
Alice in Pseudo Rainbowland (Zodiac Edition)
Surprisingly enough, this version of Alice doesn’t actually have to juggle a handful of elements like other variants of her. That said, the 3 elements she has (Sun, Moon, Star) aren’t the most consistent among each other in the world. You can get some good usage of Moon and Star, but not so much with Sun unfortunately. This isn’t the most rainbow-y set of elements though, as it seems the most we get from Z3 Alice in Rainbowland comes from her Last Word’s animation!
