Thoughts on the Tentative PCGF Voting Results (Spring 2016)

Similar to last time, NA did a great job voting. Outside maybe Yomi, I wouldn’t consider any of the top votes unworthy of selection. It’s also clear that a good portion of the voters keep track of what’s happening on JP.

However, I do wish less 6-stars made it in. Using the tentative voting results, there will be eight 6-star GFEs out of the 25 featured gods (32%). There’s also speculation that Sherias and Baldin will debut — much like Saria and Ryune last time — bringing the 6-star share to about 35%. By comparison, the typical godfest has about 29-31 featured gods with about 9-10 being 6-stars (29-32%). While the 6-star percentage is similar, the PCGF is slated to have horrible rates due to having less featured gods with the same portion of 6-stars; for those that don’t know, the more featured gods there are, it actually increases the chance of landing one of them, although it doesn’t change the chances of rolling a specific card (correct me if I’m wrong if this is no longer the case, but we’ve only had two-pantheon godfests for a while now so it would be difficult to identify a change in rates). The poor rates could have been helped if fewer 6-stars were voted in. However, if NA follows suit with JP’s last PCGF — which the top 25 limit seems to indicate — the 4x rates will make this complaint moot. Let’s hope they follow through even though it isn’t our 4-year anniversary yet; if they don’t, this PCGF will be a huge letdown. Either way, though, the fewer 6-stars there are the better the rates will be, but I doubt players’ preoccupation with them will ever change despite that. Personally, the 6-stars are great since that’s all I need, but for the average player there’s more value if there’s less of them.

Anyways, I’ll once again go over the best and worst of the voting. Which was actually pretty difficult this time since I didn’t have much issue with the results and the voting was so tight. Just remember that these are just superficial opinions and I encourage you to let me know about any differences in opinion in the comments.

Best Monster

Winner: DKali
	Unlike the previous PCGF where DKali was the undisputed best card in the game, it’s not so clear cut this time. While she’s still the overall best, uh, DKali board change in the game, the fact that there are so many other good options — such as Lightning, Ragnarok Dragon and the soon to come Sherias Roots — on top of skill inheritance, this means that she’s more easily replaceable, lowering her value. That being said, she’s still the only one for Ra Dragon, giving her an advantage over the competition and all other cards in general.
Runner Up: Akechi
	If picking the best monster was difficult, picking the runner up was even more so. Akechi is still in his prime as a sub — and will probably never leave it, especially if he gets an anticipated uevo this year — but the fact that Yomi Dragon is no longer an elite leader lowers his value compared to other top subs. However, nothing can replace his orb change + orb enhance active on the teams that need him; and there are plenty of great teams that do. The other cards that I could have chosen instead were: Raphael, Orochi, Isis, and Pandora.

Worst Monster

Winner: Yomi
	I haven’t considered Awoken Yomi much of a leader for months and is actually more useful as a sub nowadays. S/he’s in that tier of great-but-not-elite leaders along with Shiva, Ra, Bastet, Sakuya, et al., but has a lower return on investment due to poor resilience and damage output relative to the difficulty of use. It’s just a sad fact that leads like Yuna and DQXQ will do more damage with much less work. Yomi also got the short end of the awakening buff stick; killers paired with time extends would seem to be a great combination, but it’s ruined by the uselessness of the original Change the World active.
Runner Up: Gadius
	The lack of skill boosts and SBRs make him extremely difficult to utilize as a leader and his types generally preclude him from most fire teams. He’s just fortunate that he’s a perfect fit for Xiang Mei. I guess it’s a testament to the voting that something like Gadius would be considered among the “worst”.

Most Underrated

Winner: Raphael
	It’s surprising how one of the worst cards in the game suddenly became one of the best. Even after his uuevo buffs, Raphael didn’t have a true home. Then Saria-Thor started to catch on. Then the floodgates opened with leaders like Lightning, Superman, Awoken DQXQ, MZeus, and now Xiu Min, all who make great use of all of his abilities. To think that a card of this caliber is on the bubble (and could possibly fall off depending on the official results).
Runner Up: Haku
	Considering 7th and 25th were separated by nine votes, it’s fairly difficult to consider anything underrated so I’m basically just going by feel here. Considering Akechi has already been used, I’ll opt for the next best thing in Haku. Like Raphael, she’s on the bubble and in peril of not making it depending on the official results. The Chinese in general have been losing steam; similar to DKali, all of the alternatives make them less special. Haku in particular has seen her territory enchroached upon, with Armored Batman, Cecil and uevo Zuoh all presenting superior alternatives for certain situations. However, none of them have the flexibility of Haku who now has three relevant forms which are all great on a myriad of teams. She’s no longer the ace she once was, but people shouldn’t forget how good she is.

Biggest Surprise

Winner: Scheat
	I’m not necessarily surprised that Scheat made it — after all, Kaede made it last time for almost no reason at all — what surprises me is that she clocked in at #3 and pretty much stayed there the entire time. I have a hard time believing relatively difficult to acquire leads Rukia and You Yu would boost her numbers to this extent, but I guess that’s the power of hype; much to GungHo’s satisfaction, I’d assume. Personally, I’d rather have Hermes despite his significantly lower damage as he fits on a wider array of teams and is much easier to obtain.
Runner Up: Skuld
	The close voting continues to make things difficult to choose. I really wanted to deviate from picking another “cute, blue, 6-star GFE”, but nothing else really qualified as surprising to me. I guess what’s surprising is that the players would vote four total water 6-stars into the PCGF. Out of all the female water 6-stars, Skuld probably has the least overall impact, but once she gets her buffs she’ll be a solid leader and was always a great sub.

Most Overrated

Winner: Eschamali
	Eschamali is undoubtedly good, but not over-100-votes-over-DKali good. Her prime passed when farming Arena 1 with Yomi Dragon stopped being the definition of the endgame. Now her major role as a sub is on Lucifer who can function quite well without her. This feels like a bunch of Yomi Dragon owners with buyer’s remorse doubling down on their mistake.
Runner Up: ROdin
	The only reason ROdin is here instead of in the “worst monster” category is because the degree that he’s overrated eclipses how generally poor he is. ROdin has always been relegated to niche uses, mainly as one of the few decent fire poisoners and as a critical cog on push button teams (I guess he could be used as a ghetto leader, too). However, both roles will be severely diminished due to skill inheritance reaching NA soon. So what we’re left with is an extremely rare card that will troll a handful of unfortunate players and will make that one whale extremely happy.

Biggest Snub

Winner: Fire
	Picking the snubs was quite difficult as there were many possible candidates, but nothing stood out. So instead of wasting time deliberating each choice, I’m going with groups of cards instead. The most alarming thing about the voting results was that outside Shiva, no general use fire cards were voted in. ROdin is ROdin and Gadius and Uriel were voted in pretty much on the back of Xiang Mei hype. This means fire stalwarts such as Cao Cao, Yamato Takeru, Ares, and Sanada Yukimura were all left out. I guess this makes sense as Xiang Mei is really the only fire team currently recognized by the JP tier lists, but there’s much more to the game than a few websites’ opinions on clearing endgame content.
Runner Up: Greek Pantheon
	The Greek pantheon is one of the overall best in the game and it’s a shame that none of them got voted in, especially at the expense of so many 6-stars that nobody is going to roll anyways. Just going over the 6-stars that made it, I’d take Persephone over Eschamali, Hermes over Scheat, Apollo over Ilm, and Ares over ROdin just from a value standpoint. At least one of their three forms will do work for you.

P.S. W O O D S U C K S