JP Aggregate Leader List
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Disclaimer: The aggregate list is basically a compilation of the leader tier lists from three JP PAD sites: Game8, GameWith and AppMedia. The idea is that while a single tier list can have many points of contention, hopefully an aggregate can kind of smooth things over (it doesn’t, really, but it helps a bit). I try to keep my hands off the results as much as possible; the extent of my involvement is setting the algorithm to aggregate the results. I wish I could be fully hands off, but as none of the lists have 1:1 correlation in their grades, I have to have that much involvement. Don’t take these ratings as fact; I encourage you to simply take them as a starting point for discussion to figure out which leads are actually the best for your specific situation.
Sorry for the delay, busy holiday weekend and all. However, it turns out that the wait was somewhat of a good thing as now I’m able to incorporate GameWith’s latest changes, namely the addition of an SSS-tier (sigh). It’s actually problematic when a site adds a new, top tier. The main reason is that I weighted cards in their old top tier as a 1 out of 1, but now that there’s a new top tier, how much do I devalue those cards? For now, I think the new weights I chose work, but there may be some transition in the future as I try to balance things out.
JP Aggregate Leader List Changes of Note
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Change: 1➞2
Xiang Mei represents all the old tier-1 cards (Ra Dragon, Sherias Roots) that got bumped down due to GameWith’s new SSS-tier. There’s little doubt in my mind that Kaede is the undisputed best lead in the game, with only maybe Gremory able to occupy the same space. It’s always sad to see old leaders drop, especially when they’re still amazing, but that’s just the way tier lists work. |
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Change: Added to 2
No surprise here. |
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Change: Added to 3
This placement in tier-3 seems correct as Robin Hood is extremely powerful, but not quite up to Nobunaga’s level. |
New Card Holding Tank
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Compared to fellow heart-crosser Kaede, Gremory losses some defensive power (58% vs. 75%), but gains much in return, namely a 144x multiplier and bind immunity. True, her leader skill restricts her sub pool, but dark has no problems supplying quality devils and the inclusion of balanced types adds cards like Xin Hua and Typhon to the mix. Her major downside compared to Kaede is her active skill’s lack of haste, meaning there’s no possibility of a “system”; systems are generally overrated, but in the case of things like the heart-crossers and Xiang Mei, the consistency brings near-invulnerability with it. Game8 and AppMedia seem to agree that she’s on Kaede’s level, but GameWith doesn’t; I’m curious to see where she ends up when her time in the holding tank is up. |
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Ronove may not be as good as Kaede or Gremory, but it’s likely he’s being underrated, just like Sumire (and Miru before her). I initially thought his active skill was complete trash beyond serving as a base for skill inheritance. However, after watching this video by Paprika, it becomes apparent that it’s quite strong, especially when used in conjunction with Ragnarok Dragon and Kaede, and only gets better the more hazard orbs a dungeon spawns. Of course, a player of Paprika’s skill level would make any leader seem amazing, but even though the color requirement on top of the heart-cross seems like a steep slope to climb for most players, it’s hard to deny that Ronove is quite strong. |
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Ranked Sites: Game8 (A), Game8 Co-op (S)
Game8 must be out of their minds. First, yes, Cao Cao is a strong leader. However, tier lists only care about the strongest cards and their relative placement. In this regard, can Cao Cao really be compared to the likes of Sumire, You Yu and Nobunaga? And I don’t know, but Ronove looks pretty damned strong, too. There’s always a chance that I’m underrating Cao Cao — I did the same thing with his split uevo about a year ago and look how good he turned out being — but I just don’t think he’s up to snuff with the other leaders in the same tier. So far Game8 is the only site that rated him, but we’ll see where he winds up once he’s released from the tank. |
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Ranked Sites: GameWith (B)
Sarasvati is no You Yu, but the fact that a uuevo can even be compared to an MP card means it’s pretty impressive. I don’t expect the other sites to follow suit with GameWith — the bar to make these lists is so high at this point — but it’d be nice to see her sneak into the lower tiers. I’m personally a big Sarasvati fan and plan on using her in the future. |
Jump to: Game8 | Game8 Co-op | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
Game8
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I addressed Cao Cao already. Other than that I’m pretty happy with Game8’s list.
Game8 Changes of Note
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Jump to: Game8 | Game8 Co-op | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
Game8 Co-op
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Game8 Co-op Changes of Note
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Change: Added to S
I actually think this rating is fine for Cao Cao. After all, when it comes to co-op, it’s basically MZeus on top, MHera and Liu Bei for certain things and then everything else under them. I don’t think the relative placement of the rabble actually matters too much and, at the very least, co-op makes it much easier to feed actives into his leader skill. |
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Change: Added to A
This seemed like a strange addition, but then I realized that she got upgrades with the recent return of Shinrabansho to JP. I’m relying on Google translate here, but it looks like in addition to the standard 3x ATK and 1.35x HP for gods, she also gets a heart-cross which gives 50% damage reduction and 2x ATK. |
Jump to: Game8 | Game8 Co-op | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
GameWith
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When will it stop? SSSSSSSSSSSSS+++++? Increased granularity is generally good, but is that so for tier lists? There’s a point where you might as well just do a straight ranking list.
Also, if they’re intent on incorporating co-op into the list, shouldn’t MZeus also be SSS?
GameWith Changes of Note
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Change: SS➞SSS
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Change: S➞SS
The Kaede promotion also gave room for Miru to climb the ranks which is something I agree with. She’s definitely on Xiang Mei’s level and, at the very least, looks a lot more fun to play. |
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Change: SS➞S
There’s no other MP card in the game that gave its buyer so much mileage out of 300k MP (maybe Shiva Dragon for hardcore farmers). While he isn’t considered an elite leader anymore, no one can deny his power and I’d expect him to hang around these tier lists for quite some time. |
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Change: Added to S
I’m a bit surprised Gremory is rated so low, but GameWith has always been conservative with their grades. This is what the holding tank is for, though; from what I’ve seen, GameWith is wrong, but let’s give this time to marinate. |
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Change: Added to B
Similar to Gremory, I think Ronove is underrated. |
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Change: Removed from B
RIP Norsebounds. GameWith was the last list they were on. If Ra Dragon was a great deal for 300k MP, I&I and Thor were perhaps one of the best pantheon values ever. From brand new player to veteran, these teams where easy to use, forgiving, extremely powerful at all stages of the game, and also great subs. It’s sad to seem them fall off, but such is the way of PAD. |
Jump to: Game8 | Game8 Co-op | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
GameWith Farming
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Jump to: Game8 | Game8 Co-op | GameWith | GameWith Farming | AppMedia | Pad-Plus
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For details on the aggregation method or each Japanese site used, refer to this page (link someday).
Setsu's PAD Blog 
I bought two packs to whale for Gremory on Jp pad and got her on my third roll. Not too bad. She is awesome and fun to play. She is glitched because the 36x actives randomly without matching hearts which is good sometime but hurts when stalling for skills is needed. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else but it happens about 15% of the time. Just think, she may not be a Kaede now, but she’s got more ultimates in her future. Thanks for the time you take to make this forum.
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The 36x thing is from matching a cross in the previous turn. It doesnt go away the next turn if there is no preemptive and if you cleared the previous turn on the turn you matched the cross. Im pretty sure. Sorry if my wording is wierd.
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I tested it out. My first heart cross lead. You are correct. I just went through 5 levels in a row with only my first with a heart cross. I thought she was awesome before I realized she will be this easy to use. This heart cross thing is so broken. Thanks again
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Now that Miru is finally recognized as a top tier waifu that she is.. its time for Reco to play another waifu and give her some recognition too haha
The Kaede vs Gremory is so insane.. the power creep..
essentially Kaede is 64x with Indra active constantly vs Gremory is 144x (ra dragon power) with Susano Active constantly lol…
I figured that bind recovery with Grem would be valuable but I guess you are right in that haste is even more powerful with these types of heartcross leads
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Gremory was an instant want from the moment I laid eyes on her. Figures she’d be a base 6*. Hope I’m as lucky with pulling her as I was Kaede.
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Kaede got 3 tpas, she hits like a truck with “only” X64, and the fact badge system can make your leaders unbindable can help her keep the top ranking against gremory too IMO
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I don’t think there was ever any contention in that regard. In my opinion any comparisons are silly anyways as Gremory’s reduced amount of movement time compared to Kaede or Miru makes her less practical for almost all players.
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How much power does Kaede lose if you can’t system her active?
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About the same amount as if you removed any critical sub from any other team.
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Out of curiosity, I checked the Game8 tier list from just under a year ago. The only leaders to survive the test of time and powercreep? Awoken Parvati and Lakshmi. Granted, they’ve been buffed several times since, but who would’ve guessed.
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Hello Setsu, what do you think about Kaede without duplicates? Still best team worthy?
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I believe it falls under the same logic as the1vs3 Xiang Mei discussion. One Kaede is definitely powerful but as you add dupes to the team the survivability is greatly increased Becasue of the hasten they provide. One is still very powerful though.
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Pretty much this.
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This isn’t a good way to look at things. Like did you judge Ra Dragon as if he only had 0 or 1 DKali or Yomi Dragon without Eschamali? Sure, if you don’t have the subs you need to reevaluate for your own situation, but that’s not what tier lists are about. After all, a leader is really only good if it also has good subs (see: Xin Hua).
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Anubis may not be on the tier lists anymore, but I’m glad to see him appear consecutively as a popular monster on pad-plus.
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I like Gremory a lot, and think that she (he) is a very powerful leader. I’m not convinced that they’re on the same level as Kaede however. Kaede’s damage destroys everything already, so more isn’t really necessary, and the extra tankiness can be REALLY helpful, especially with Radar dragons hitting 60K damage+ for normal attacks. The end game isn’t likely to get any easier than that, so I argue that more tankiness outranks more damage.
As for Ronove, I think that the number 1 thing holding them back is difficulty to use. Now, IDK for sure, but it seems to me that raimbows plus heart crosses will be pretty hard to play. Regardless, the power is there, as you get RaDra levels of damage, PLUS effectively 2x HP and rcv, so yea. Seeing as he’s (?) 5* base, I look forward to eventually rolling him on my quest to get Gremory, as hard or not, the playstyle is unique, and that’s the main reason I play teams. 😀
Sarasvati, causing so much debate between people who bought You Yu, and people who did not. 😛
I’m passing on YY since I;m out of MP, but now I think I won’t be getting him at all. The playstyles are similar (Though Sara’s allows you to do rows, and I like rows), and Sara’s damage is close enough for me, so yeah, kinda funny timing releasing the info about the uvo a few days before YY dropped in NA… 😛
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Kaede is almost certainly better than Gremory, but I think they still belong in the same tier. This isn’t a ranking list and Gremory is still better than anything in the lower tiers and I don’t think the difference is great enough for them to be separated.
Paprika’s video really opened my eyes about Ronove. Very difficult to play, but like you said, it should be fun to try out the playstyle.
I wasn’t going to buy You Yu, but I ended up caving in to use him in the ranking dungeon and maybe his high ATK will be useful on a button team in the future. Like you, though, I prefer rows and plan on using Sarasvati when she hits NA, if only for fun.
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Hm. That’s fair I suppose. I’m not convinced that Gremory is a tier better than Orchid though… but IDC. They’re both powerful, and if I roll Gremory, Orchid will end up on the back burner for a bit… Might even have to actually buy a Plum… 😛
Yeah, Ronove looks fun, but I’ll have to find a team for him that doesn’t use 2 6* GFEs and an MP dragon… 😉
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I’d definitely like to hear your thoughts on team building for the heart cross leaders (Kaede/Miru/Sumire/Gremory?). Are you planning on writing an article for one?
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(To expand a bit)
I’m wondering if you think the leader rankings still stand out of non-system teams for Kaede/Sumire
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I seem to be getting this question a lot and I don’t understand the fascination. Tier lists only care about teams with top subs, there’d be no point to doing them otherwise so there’s no point in speculating. If you’re trying to gauge whether a leader is good for your own specific situation, then you need to evaluate that separately from what a tier list may or may not think.
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Maybe. Depends how much free time I have (I don’t have much) and how long it takes for them to make it to NA.
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Setsu you still making Satan ranking guide?
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Nope.
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What happened to the top subs tier list?
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Where have you been for like half a year?
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For this site, they were discontinued back in February.
As for Game8, they changed their sub tier list format to a top 5 overall (something like DKali, Isis, Orochi, Susano, and Indra), and top 3 for each attribute. This was back in late February or March. The list was pretty static–I only recall seeing two changes since its inception, and it seems that it was short-lived, as they got rid of it not long after.
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Quick question about nobunaga – he’s the only lead that’s at least tier 2 without either an hp multiplier/heart cross. Hope I’m not missing something obvious, but is it due to coop being more friendly to glass cannons, or is hypermaxing along with the rcv multiplier generally enough for stalling solo?
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Edit: I meant to say either an hp multiplier/heart cross or a massive hp pool
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If you’re referring to his individual HP, yes, it’s lower, but what difference does that actually make? Teams have weaknesses and this one you pointed out is fairly minor, all things considered.
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Sherias Roots and Ra Dragon also don’t have HP boosts.
Yes, an RCV boost is generally more useful due to the HP bonus you get from co-op. I can’t really say exactly how that affects a card’s placement, though. I’d tend to say Game8 doesn’t factor it (as much) because they have a separate co-op list, but GameWith probably factors it (more) as their list is for both play modes.
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IIRC liu bei doesn’t have a team for this. Also Cao Cao just has so much more utility as demonstrated in this video. Delay with poison clear is so much better than bind clear. Add on how he also has SBR, as a leader he seems quite good and underrated compared to liu bei.
However since game8 doesn’t factor co-op into their tier list, I can only speculate as to how he is so good.
My first guess is the sub pool. He has great access to skill boosts, something that I feel could be gimping other leads. also, since he does have the SBR, it does not limit any of them.
My second guess is bind immune leaders. Other leaders have this problem (kaede for example) and so being able to address this is a huge bonus.
If I were to guess, if a.liu bei was given a SBR he would also be ranked in the tier lists. we’ll never know though.
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Trying to compare Cao Cao and Liu Bei by their own merits in the context of co-op is fairly irrelevant. In fact a co-op tier list is pretty irrelevant. Co-op is all about having specialized teams for easy farming so a teams “full capabilities” don’t actually matter (outside Arena 3, I guess). Liu Bei happens to have one of the easiest teams to build and play on top of having very few inheritance requirements, making the hype quite justified. That is a nice video, though (although Yuki’s MZeus team is a lot easier to build).
You’re missing the biggest point about tier lists: does Cao Cao compare favorably to the cards in the same tier? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding no. If you’re trying to find a reason why Cao Cao is there, you’re better off arguing how he could possibly compare to the likes of Sumire, You Yu, Nobunaga, etc. It’s a hard sell.
Also, I would not get hung up on SBR. I feel like I have to keep repeating myself, but there aren’t many recent dungeons outside Arena and MHera that have preemptive skill binds. Then, of course, there are other things like more quality 2x SBR subs being released, co-op SBRs stacking (this is a solo discussion, but still) and the SBR badge (but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there).
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Well then let’s compare:
Sumire
Pros: 75 shield
Cons: bind immunity, skill boosts (optimal team does not have skuld up turn 1, though it can be hasted out)
You Yu
Pros: insane damage
Cons: bind immunity, poison removal (a lot harder to remove unlike sumire who can spam abilities or cao cao who uses 1 skill)
Oda Nobunaga
Pros: CONSTANT RCV boost, easier damage activation
Cons: poison removal, delay, less damage control
Going over this again, I think that it is hard to justify Cao Cao into this tier. However, the amount of utility he brings is undeniable. add on his crazy yet controllable damage, that might just be enough. Hard to say. Personally though, I don’t see him on that level, but that might just be because I don’t have him 😦
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Yeah, no doubt Cao Cao is very good, it’s just unfortunate that so many other good things have come out at the same time (i.e. the busted cross mechanics). I feel like there are enough good leaders that the lists should consider expanding their tiers downwards instead of upwards (like, was SSS really necessary?).
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hi setsu are there any or will there be any farmable full dark board changers
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No and doubtful, dark is already good enough.
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ok thanks dog
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