Should You Pull? Ultra Festival: Tiny Chef & Supernova

Yes, but potentially a Maybe. This prayer features a rerun of the first Ultra Festival Friends in LostWord (sorry, Mysterious Sword Master…), and the two of them still rightfully earn their UFES status. B3 Sagume Kishin may arguably be a more meta-based pick at the moment, but both Friends still hold high utility and their prayer will last for longer. The other A-Type Friends at the moment, A7 Youmu Konpaku and A8 Reisen Udongein Inaba, do not compare to these two tier-wise, but may seem more appealing due to being Festival Friends and not needing as many materials to fully upgrade. Otherwise, this prayer featuring R2 Yuyuko Saigyouji actually gives it relevancy for the Water EX Battle Stage, with her 0P Water Focus and fully Water Last Word giving her the same or even better utility in the stage as those featured on the Water EX Festival.

Of course, as mentioned before, these UFES Friends do take more materials to fully upgrade than usual. Some may argue the way that UFES Friends require duplicates or Divine Paper Dolls (DPDs) to Limit Break hurt their usage for free-to-play (F2P) players, but this does not consider the many DPDs that have been given from monthly logins, Scarlet Devil Tower, and other special sources. With the game’s first anniversary coming up, it is likely even more special goods, potentially including DPDs, will be given out. However, more tantalizing prayer opportunities can show up as well, so try to spend your gacha resources wisely. This is a warning that goes with practically any pre-Anniversary prayer.

As an Ultra Festival Prayer, there is no God Crystal Step-UP. Likewise, these Friends are more difficult to get and both Z1 Marisa Kirisame and R2 Yuyuko Saigyouji will take 250 Exchange Points to obtain one copy. This Prayer will last until May 5th, giving it a full 2 weeks of runtime.

+ Extremely high damage
+ Self-Charge makes her easy to support
+ Abundant access to elements - P0 Fire and Water on basic shots, and All targeting Spell Cards are loaded with a mix of Star, Earth, and Fire
+ Provides Evasion, CRIT DEF and Evasion DOWNdebuffs, along with Burn Barriers to support herself and her teammates
+ Every one of her Spell Cards and Last Word have All-targeting, making her sweep stages with no All-target Resist
- Critical hits can be occasionally inconsistent
- Potentially poor accuracy without support

Incredible damage in all fights
+ Solid access to Water Breaks, including Solo targeting P0 Water on her Focus Shot
+ Water EX Usage due to Water Breaks and 6/6 Water Lost Word
- Low team utility
- Damage suffers if she needs to use her Barriers

Marisa Kirisame, or this version of her at least, was once a normal human, until the day of the Scarlet Mist incident. A tragic fate befell her, leading to the events of Chapter 2 - Scarlet Devil Tower. Whilst Marisa has since recovered her sanity, the thousand or so years she spent in solitude upon the top of the Scarlet Devil Tower have left their mark upon the witch, leaving her as the Witch of Scarlet Dreams. As a result of this, she now sports a new set of Spell Cards and skills, modeling them off of distant, great stars. Even her skills are named after stars - the skill names are not an error, many star catalogues refer to them with designations that are a combination of numbers and letters. She brings these stars to bear to you in her search for her Reimu, providing a mixture of extremely high damage, offensive team support, and top tier Element Breaks.

To start off with, let us discuss the brightest star in Marisa’s kit - her All targeting Last Word, Garnet Star. An extremely powerful Last Word with front-loaded damage, it deals devastatingly powerful damage that dwarfs most other Last Words, even backloaded ones. It’s no slouch in longer fights either - whilst there’s not as much raw damage on the last two bullets, unlocked at 2 and 3 Power each, the extremely high base critical ratio on them more than makes up for it. 

Next, both of her Spell Cards are top notch. Red Side: Alter Spark has both All targeting and a whopping 3 Star and 3 Fire Breaks at 3 Power - making it extremely versatile, no matter how the opponents weaknesses are spread out. Additionally, it provides Marisa with a whopping 2 levels of Yin ATK Up for 2 turns, making her already explosive Last Word scorch her enemies with even more intense flames. Lastly, it also inflicts 1 (with a 50% chance of 1 more) Layer of Burn Barrier(s) to all foes for 2 turns - which compliments her own Yin-only Last Word well, and provides support to her teammates as well.

Her other Spell Card, Supergiant: Antares, is stellar in its own right. It also has All targeting and a full 6 Element Breaks at 3 Power - 3 Star, 3 Earth. Additionally, it provides her with 1 Spirit Power upon use, giving her the fuel to keep her stars blazing bright. Lastly, it also provides 1 (with a 50% chance for 1 more) Layer(s) of Burn Barriers to all foes, but for 3 turns instead of 2. Having an enormous red star dropped on your head’s gonna leave some serious burns.

To round out her attacks, both of her basic shots are outstanding. Her Spread Shot, Hakkero Fire, provides 1/1/2 Fire Breaks at 0/1/2 Power - making it highly spammable. Her Focus Shot, Cold Inferno, provides the same number of breaks but for Water instead. Combined with her Spell Cards, this entire package gives Marisa an exceptional amount of Elemental Break capabilities, perhaps the best in the game - with only Medicine Melancholy beating her out for overall Barrier Break potential.

Lastly, we have her skills. For starters, her character ability, Capable of using magic?, partially mitigates the one downside of her kit being so Elemental, leaving her suffering less from her attacks being resisted than most might. Next, her Skills 1 and 3, BD -03 353 and LTT14184, provide her with a ton of ATK Up, some Spirit Power, and self Charge - whilst somewhat held back by low turn counts, all of these buffs combined help to make her Last Word hit all the harder. Finally, HD 29139 serves two purposes - firstly, it provides both herself and her team with 2 Levels of Evasion and Crit Evasion down for 1 turn, providing herself and her team with fantastic accuracy and, for some teammates, Crit support. Additionally, it restores 1 (with a 50% chance for another) Barrier to herself - as the skill has a 5 turn cooldown, this helps you to bring Marisa to future fights in the Tower even when she’s out of Spell Cards, to make the most of her Basic Shots being a unlimited source of Barrier Breaks.

Overall, Marisa Kirisame (Witch of Scarlet Dreams) is an incredibly powerful unit. By no means is she essential - no unit in LostWord is, and whilst there is a ton to praise about her, you will not be crippled if you can’t get her. However, if you do roll for her, she’s a fantastically powerful and versatile attacker, who will serve you well for probably the entire time you play the game.

As an addendum, here are what her skill names mean. Her first skill is the star Mira, using its designation in the Bonner Durchmusterung catalogue. This star emits a great, brilliant light at its smallest size. Her second skill is the star Aldebaran, using its designation in the Henry Draper catalogue. This particular star is big and heavy - just as it weighs down her opponents' evasion and increases her own defenses. Lastly, her third skill is the star Arcturus, using its designation in the Luyten Two-Tenths catalogue. It’s one of the brightest stars there is, as bright as her Garnet Star is after using this skill.

Yuyuko Saigyouji, the Tiny Ghost Mistress, hails from a Gensokyo where the Saigyo Ayakashi has run rampant. In the Gensokyo we’re most familiar with, it was sealed away with Yuyuko’s own corpse, after she committed suicide - but in this one, it’s unclear why or how she died, or if something went terribly wrong. Whatever the case, the tree must be sated, and it is Yuyuko’s job to ensure that it’s constantly fed. To this end, she and Youmu take visitors to the realm, divide them into groups of two, and force them to fight - the winners are allowed to go free, and the losers are essentially fed to the tree.

Still, she is not merciless. A talented chef, Yuyuko uses the very spirits of animals and plants to feed the competitors what may be their last meal to perk them up, and keep their spirits high. It is a small mercy, but she does her best to grant as many of these small mercies to her guests as possible, with a smile on her face. 

Whilst she may be a master chef, Yuyuko’s kit is that of a selfish damage dealer. She still certainly has some support - Fe ast provides her entire team with 2 levels of Agility UP, albeit for only 1 turn. But that’s not why you’re bringing her - you’re bringing Yuyuko for her utterly tremendous damage. For starters, she has YIN ATK and Agility UP in spades - her character ability provides her with 1 level of Yang & Yin & CRIT ATK and CRIT ACC UP for each layer of Poison on her, as well as 1 level of Agility, Evasion, and Accuracy for every layer of Freeze on her (and yes, this also leaves her immune to the negative side effects). Additionally, it provides her with 1 level of Agility UP for 1 turn each time she Boosts. Her skills help this - as mentioned, Fe ast gives her 2 levels of Agility UP for a turn alongside 0.85 Spirit Power UP, Cor pse gives her 2 levels of Evasion and Accuracy UP for 3 turns alongside 2 layers of Freeze for 3 turns, and Flo wer grants her 3 levels of Yin ATK UP, 0.85 Spirit Power UP, and 2 layers of Poison. 

All of these ingredients form a delicious meal, in the form of an All targeting Last Word: Saigyo Making a Human Figure at Mt. Koya. Packing a wide range of Killers (including the extremely potent Youkai Killer), alongside 0%/0%/90%/100%/120%/120% Slicing and a 3-1-1 layout, this devastating spell will send even the sturdiest of foes to an early grave. It even has full Water, if for some reason you desperately need 6 All targeting Water Breaks and are willing to give up much of the damage. Her other attacks have uses as well - her focus shot, Dance of the Butterfly Dream, provides an unlimited source of Water Breaks. Her first Spell Card, Resurrection Butterfly, gives 1/2/3 Solo targeting Water Breaks for 0/1/2 Spirit Power and self-inflicts 2 layers of Freeze, perfect for additional Agility and Accuracy due to her character ability. And lastly her second Spell Card, The Purple Higan Shines Late, provides 0/0/1/3 Solo targeting Water Breaks for 0/1/2/3 Spirit Power as well as 2 layers of Poison to self - not as generally useful as Agility UP, but in cases where she’s getting multiple Killers, the Crit ATK can result in deliciously high damage.

However, much as every meal is not, and cannot be, perfect, Yuyuko has a few flaws as well. Whilst her damage is spicy, her team support potential is sour - 2 levels of Agility up for a single turn is hard to make use of, and whilst her Break potential certainly has Water to spare, it’s only somewhat above average and she lacks any other elements or anomaly Breaks. Still, overall she’s a fierce contender, both in battle and in the kitchen, and you won’t go wrong with her. 

...I wonder why her skill names are cut in half, just like Youmu’s?

Curious about why these Friends are vastly different from their original versions? Take a look at the LostWord Universe Overview!