Should You Pull? Ultra Festival: Mysterious Sword Master

Yes, if you’re willing to spend the Divine Dolls. Youmu Konpaku (Mysterious Sword Master) is a great unit, featuring a ton of damage and great access to Metal, Fire, and Wood Breaks. However, as a Ultra Festival unit, she does have the caveat that she is dependent on Divine Dolls, which are in rather short supply. If you like this iteration of Youmu, she’ll do a fantastic job and won’t let you down - she’s roughly equal to Marisa Kirisame (Witch of Scarlet Dreams), with Youmu trading in utility and some Break capability for more damage. Of course, keep in mind they’re also both extremely top tier, so if you like this version of Youmu or not should be, in this writer’s mind, the primary consideration behind pulling her, as she’ll break the game’s curve in half just fine.

+ Extremely high damage, both turn 1 and turn 2
+ Fantastic Elemental Breaks, including P0 Metal on her Focus Shot
+ Spell Card 2 has Discharge, furthering her Break potential when teamed with Paralyze inflictors

-No team utility

Not much is currently known about this version of Youmu Konpaku, the Mysterious Sword Master. Outside of the clear change in wardrobe, her role in life is clearly different. Rather than living life simply as Yuyuko’s servant, her job is to ensure the Hakugyouku Arena continues to run smoothly - that the strangers sent there from other worlds are forced to fight, and that the victors are cut down to nourish the Saigyou Ayakashi’s hunger and avert the world’s destruction. Of course, without force to back that up, anyone could simply refuse to fight - and this Youmu unquestionably has the might to ensure her duty is fulfilled. They don’t call her a Swordmaster for nothing.

Almost every part of the Sword Saint’s kit is useful, so we’ll start with her skills. Ti me provides her with Yin, Yang, AND Agility UP all in the same skill, but only for 1 turn. However, Ra in buffs her Yang ATK & Agility for 3 Turns, and Ai r buffs her Yin ATK (and Dodge but that's not really important) for 3 Turns, and both have a cooldown of 3 turns at skill level 10. Essentially, what this means is her buffs are permanent in any one wave fight, allowing her to do highly above average damage with her Spell Cards as well as her Last Word. Lastly her Character Ability means she does 20% more damage to any target that resists her damage or is weak to it - which is fantastic given her Spell Cards are fully elemental. None of those skill names are typos, by the way - she cut them in half!

Her other attacks further compliment this. First of all, her Focus Shot, Dream Thrust, is notable for having a Solo targeting Metal Break at 0 Power, meaning she can spam Metal Breaks as long as she’s still alive (and it gets another Metal and a Water Break on top of that if she can pony up 1 Power). Next, her Spread Shot, Phenomena Slash, provides Agility Up - but this is ultimately redundant with her Spell Cards. Origin Mystery: Sohaya-Roukanken provides both between 1 and 2 levels of Yang ATK & Agility UP depending on the number of Boosts, alongside 3 Solo targeting Fire and Metal Breaks at 3 Power total - meaning on many targets, it will be at least 3 Breaks, and sometimes you’ll luck out and get 6 Breaks total. As well, Origin Mystery: Raikiri-Hakurouken provides between 1 and 2 levels of Yang ATK & Agility UP depending on the number of Boosts, on top of 3 All targeting Wood and 3 Metal Breaks for 3 Power - as always, this is fantastic to have on an All targeting Spell Card, due to it often being able to hit at least two targets for three Breaks each, and even more on the right fight. 

At the center of her kit is her All targeting Last Word, Combined Sword - Cherry Blossom in Full Bloom. Featuring a 1-2-2 layout alongside a ton of ATK UP and Agility UP, as well as an extremely high 80%/140%/100%/100%/120%/120% Slicing (meaning between 80 to 140% of her Agility factors into damage, depending on the bullet), it deals a huge amount of damage. It’s great not only for farming (as the tremendously high ATK UP & Agility UP in her kit means it’ll do a lot of damage in spite of the 1-2-2 nature), but when given time to set up with her Spell Cards, it’ll do a netherworldly high amount of damage. It also has 2 Fire, 2 Wood, and 2 Metal Breaks at 3 Power which is extremely good, should you choose to use it to Break instead of do damage.

Perhaps the only bad things to be said about the Sword Saint is that she simply does not have any team support, and her Break access isn’t quite as high as the other current Ultra Festival unit, Marisa Kirisame (Witch of Scarlet Dreams). She’s still an unquestionably great unit though, one of the best there is, and you won’t be disappointed by her swordsmanship, especially if you favor damage over utility or Breaks.