“Collab” Review – PAD Academy

Following the tradition of GungHo’s prolific whale traps that are the Pink and Christmas REMs, the PAD Academy REM also features dismal rates with little reward. Like the Christmas REM, there are some powerful cards to be had, but the chance of getting what you want is so low that it’s not worth it for any sane person. Only the largest of whales will roll for a particular 7-star and even they won’t come out unscathed. This REM is worse value than the Christmas REM. Roll with caution.

Here are some pull numbers out of Japan. I can’t vouch for the accuracy so rely on them at your own risk, but they should give you a basis for how daunting this REM could be.

7-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity (although there are very few base 7-star REM eggs).

Scholarship Student, Isis – A-

Pros

• Capable endgame lead with good damage and nice HP boost
• Parallels with Santa Sakuya
• Excellent bind clearing sub
• The prize of the REM

Cons

• Outside HP boost, inferior to Awoken Isis

Notes

Don’t despair, whales. Your hard earned trophy is quite a capable leader. Just a cursory search of YouTube demonstrates she can tackle almost all end game content including Challenge Dungeons Lv10. She’ll be more useful than Bikinitron, anyways.

As a lead, Isis shares striking parallels with Santa Sakuya with both being combo leads, both giving extra bonuses to healers and, of course, coming from a special REM. After so much power creep, both have relatively unimpressive ATK multipliers, but the value their HP boosts give to healer teams can’t be denied. It also helps overcome silly hurdles like Divine Queen Hera’s preemptive. It’s difficult for me to accurately discern which of the two is better, especially since I haven’t played with either, but Isis is definitely a better sub. She’s a particularly good fit on a U&Y team, giving them bind recovery while providing a TPA and covering dark, one of the trickier colors for that team to cover.

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Discipline Committee Chair, Athena – B

Pros

• Triple dongs
• Great RCV for an attacker
• Flexibility with healer form
• Skill bind resist
• On-color row

Cons

• Just a worse Liu Bei
• Shares the same leader limitations as the original
• Orb enhance is still an orb enhance
• Low HP

Notes

The obvious comparison is to the original, light Athena. While the original still has her uses, school Athena outclasses her where it counts, the biggest advantage coming with her awakenings, particularly the triple TPAs. As a lead, her leader skill is more flexible. As a sub, she has better synergies in wood which is better suited to take advantage of both her TPAs and orb enhance. She trades about 600 HP for RCV, but in general I find RCV to be much more valuable, particularly in an element that has great HP boosting leads (including herself). This could certainly be a liability on teams without one, though.

As a lead, she suffers from the same affliction her light form does, being a poor choice to lead teams in the endgame since she has neither great damage or survivability. However, due to the flexibility of her leader skill — element is typically more flexible than type, especially for a mono-color team — there are better options to pair with to cover any weaknesses (namely RCV). She’s still a great farming lead, though. She a worse sub than Liu Bei in almost all cases, but she’s easily the best wood orb enhancer.

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Student Council President, Lucifer – C+

Pros

• A better Lucifer
• Leads perhaps the simplest Ultimate Arena team?

Cons

• He’s still Lucifer
• Poor sub

Notes

Lucifer is still a relevant endgame lead, particularly with the advent of Zeus & Hera, but is mostly looked down upon due to the (misplaced?) stigma associated with turning descendeds into hour long bejeweled sessions and the lack of skill to do so successfully. This version is marginally better, sporting a more powerful nuke and better grind damage from his TPAs and high base ATK. He has the potential to clear the hardest dungeon in the game to date, the Ultimate Arena — in Challenge Mode too, no less — so value that how you will. I personally see his value and upside, but I can’t give him a better grade since his usage is so narrow.

For the whales rolling for waifus, keep a suicide hotline number handy in case you roll dupes.

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6-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Mini Chiyome – B+

Pros

• Triple dongs

Cons

• Still balanced
• Not strictly better than the normal version
• Ninjas no longer considered universal subs
• Generally worse than R/G Cao Cao

Notes

Like with Isis and Sakuya, there is an obvious comparison with this version of Chiyome and mini Valk. The big difference is that mini Chiyome’s triple TPAs don’t present as large of an upgrade over the original that mini Valk’s did. On top of that, fire-balanced isn’t really a thing. While mini Chiyome is a strict damage upgrade for TPA teams, the value of the missing skill boost shouldn’t be overlooked. She also loses the flexibility of subbing on a row team. She’s strong, but not overwhelming and certainly not strong enough to considering rolling the REM for. Your stones are likely better spent rolling for Cao Cao.

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Mini ROdin – C

Pros

• None

Cons

• ROdin is for farming, not pretending to be a TPA sub

Notes

Unlike Chiyome, ROdin isn’t a great fit on TPA teams. The original ROdin is mainly used for speedfarming, but he could provide teams utility with his three skill boosts. Mini ROdin provides no such utility, basically being a stiff with triple TPAs.

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5-Star Gold Eggs

The 5-star slots are taken up by the Heroes pantheon and Dark Chester. They represent horrible value for those rolling for the 7-stars as they are poor as dupes and most whales likely already have multiples. If you’re in the need of the Heroes and are using their presence as a reason to justify rolling in this REM, I’d strongly advise you reconsider as you’ll likely just end up with a bunch of silver eggs you can’t do anything with. Save your stones for the next Heroes godfest; at least there you’ll have a reasonable chance to land a godfest exclusive or something else of value. Chester can be a valuable sub for his skill bind resists, but with the amount of new evos including one or two, his value has plummeted.

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4-Star Silver Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Mini Isis – A

Pros

• Quite powerful for a 4-star

Cons

• None, considering it’s a silver egg

Notes

For a throwaway silver egg in a special REM, mini Isis is quite good. She retains the full version’s bind utility while also providing a surprising water row. Obviously, her stats are lacking, but I’m surprised GungHo made her so useful. At the very least, those aiming for school Isis can use these to skill her up.

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Mini Amaterasu – B

Pros

• Skill up fodder for your real Amaterasu

Cons

• Impossible to skill up

Notes

While Amaterasu is essentially the light corollary to mini Isis, the context makes her inferior. There’s no realistic way to skill Amaterasu up. No matter how powerful, a 20 cooldown skill is almost impossible to utilize. Additionally, the light row isn’t nearly as valuable as water. I’ll be immediately feeding any I roll to the full version (too bad 2.5x will be over by then…).

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Mini Yamato Takeru – B-

Pros

• Skill up fodder
• Emergency Gadius sub
• Decent Krishna sub

Cons

• Everything else

Notes

Unlike the mini Chinese, the mini Heroes can be used as low cost leads for Gaia, making them somewhat useful. Outside of that, there is very little use for them. Orb changers are always useful, even in forms such as these, but there’s really no point in using them unless you’re particularly desperate. However, if you’re that desperate, you shouldn’t be spending your stones in this machine.

A passable Gadius sub. He’s also an easy way to reach 100% enhanced fire orbs for uevo Krishna.

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Mini Andromeda – B-

Pros

• Skill up fodder
• Emergency Lakshmi sub
• Decent Sarasvati sub

Cons

• Everything else

Notes

See notes for Yamato Takeru.

Not the worst Awoken Lakshmi sub. She’s also an easy way to reach 100% enhanced water orbs for uevo Sarasvati, but Amberjack is too and has better stats.

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Mini Perseus – B-

Pros

• Skill up fodder
• Emergency Parvati sub, kinda

Cons

• Everything else

Notes

See notes for Yamato Takeru.

A passable Awoken Parvati sub.

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Mini Sun Wukong – C

Pros

• Skill up fodder

Cons

• Everything else

Notes

See notes for Yamato Takeru.

Unlike the other mini Heroes, he has no good heart-based lead to sub for.

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Mini Pandora – B-

Pros

• Skill up fodder
• Emergency Typhon (or Juggler) sub

Cons

• Everything else

Notes

See notes for Yamato Takeru.

A Typhon sub, and Juggler if we ever get him.

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Conclusion

If not self evident, this REM is one huge trap. There are several videos out of Japan demonstrating this, with the 7-star rate being about 5% (about 1.5% for a specific 7-star egg). To compound this issue, the 6-stars are little consolation. At least the Christmas REM had a decent 6-star selection. The Heroes being the 5-star options is quite bad as they are generally poor in multiples. Mini Isis and Amaterasu are nice silver eggs, but the mini Heroes are quite poor. I would strongly advise against rolling this REM. If rolling for a 7-star, be aware that you’ll get almost no value from the rest of the machine.

That won’t stop me from dropping a few packs on it myself, though.