Special REM Review – PAD Island 2

To sum up this REM, there’s excellent value at silver, but there aren’t any high impact cards at gold befitting their rarity. For those only planning a small amount of rolls, this means you’ll likely get something usable with Goemon and Navi being better than most of the gold eggs. For those planning a large number of rolls, you should strongly consider reducing your budget, get the silvers you need and simply buy what you need from the MP Shop instead. If Eschamali is your target, well, good luck.

A recurring problem for seasonal REMs is that most cards are rehashes that rarely offer anything befitting their rarity. However, the nature of the problem for the Summer REM is one that is shared with a returning seasonal machine like Christmas or PAD Academy rather than a brand new one like New Year’s or June Bride. Basically, the returning cards, who make up the majority of the lineup, have long been irrelevant and the meager buffs they received did nothing to rectify that. On top of that, the few new golds are either mediocre or locked behind the notorious 8-star rarity. This makes the lineup a little different in that there’s no chase gold bellow 8-stars; New Year’s had Hanzo and Yamato (after his buffs), PAD Academy had Sasuke and June Bride had Akechi. It’s also questionable how good the new 8-stars are, both being color shifts of existing cards. So while the silvers are better than usual, everything else is worse than usual. Considering how good they are, they could have easily been golds, so skill inheritance balancing issues aside, maybe this is GungHo’s way of giving us more value. If by chance that’s the case, I think that’s the wrong way of going about things as people want to feel like they’re getting good value at all rarities. Anything is better than chibi hell, but hopefully GungHo can learn from their mistakes and give us better lineups the next time around.

So, as it goes with all seasonal REMs, roll with caution and with low expectations. Or maybe just don’t roll at all: here’s some sample data from padpadblog. At least the distributions within a given rarity look to be even, unlike the past few seasonal REMs.

8-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Claire – A
	At a Glance Machine killers are in short supply and Claire is one of the better ones. The addition of god type makes her almost always better as a sub than her standard REM counterpart. Due to the heart-cross meta, heartbreakers have never had lower value. Almost unusable as a leader; didn’t get the leader skill buffs her standard REM sisters got.
	Notes Looking at Claire before her buffs, she wasn’t in much demand, only really making a blip on the now ancient dark Sakuya meme team. With that in mind, let’s assume that any relevancy going forward, if any at all, is due to the machine killer awakening she just received. Considering that many endgame dungeons feature a machine theme — MHera, MZeus, MAthena, Seraphis, Star Justice, Liberty Geist; heck, even Myr is a machine — it would follow that a machine killer would be quite useful, assuming GungHo continues to follow that trend. If the machine killer is where the bulk of her value lies, how does she compare to other options? The only other dark machine killers NA currently has access to are Sephiroth, Lucifer, Loki, and Yomi. The most relevant comparisons, in my opinion, would be Seph and Luci. Claire is sort of the middle ground between the two, not doing as much damage as Sephiroth with a TPA and not contributing as many skill boosts as Lucifer, but would be a more than competent replacement for either of them. Her biggest advantage over both of them is a generally more useful active and being able to qualify for more teams based on type. If you already have any of these cards, I don’t think Claire distinguishes herself enough to justify the purchase, but if you don’t, she should be a strong consideration to add to your dark sub pool. Which brings us to the question: is Claire worth buying at 300k MP? In PAD, the answer to questions like this is almost always “maybe, it depends,” but considering the current state of the game, I’m more inclined to say yes rather than no. The major factors are twofold: 1) MP is easy to farm and 2) there isn’t much worth spending MP on. MP can be farmed at a rate of about 10k per hour with minimal stone usage, meaning if you dedicate about a month of farming at one hour per day, you can raise the requisite 300k MP to purchase a premium card. Seems like a pretty good deal to me. To my other point, the traditional MP purchases — the MP Dragons and Four Gentlemen — aren’t nearly as attractive as they once were as they’re all overshadowed by the co-op and heart-cross metas. This means that there’s an abundance of potential MP to spend, but nowhere good to spend it. SDRs are a legit choice, I guess. However, I’d strongly encourage at least considering the purchase of a sub focused MP card. Ragnarok Dragon is one of the best overall cards in the game and Yomi Dragon, Claire, June Gadius, and Christmas Sonia are all legit choices if they fill your needs. I guess what I’m saying is don’t hesitate to buy Claire based on the outdated notion that you should save your MP for a leader; reassess everything about your box and goals relative to how it pertains to the game today, then make your decision.

---

Myr – S
	At a Glance Turns out Myr is pretty good, even in water. Existing Lakshmi and Sumire subs can make an easy transition to Myr. Water is generally inferior to light due to elemental weaknesses.
	Notes We all know how good Myr is by now. Aside from the whole elemental weakness thing, there’s little reason why a water Myr team would be inferior to light. There are some nuances in how the different orb changers interact and the lack of a June Akechi equivalent definitely hurts, but water has more than enough quality subs to get the job done. So let’s get straight to the point: is Myr worth buying at 500k? I went over the value of MP in my Claire review and while I think you can be more liberal in what you spend it on, making the leap from 300k to 500k definitely requires you to make a stricter decision. The issue is that buying a 500k card basically prevents you from buying two 300k cards in the same period. That being said, it might be worth it as Myr is one of the premier leaders in the game and it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere soon. It’s always difficult to tell when GungHo will make the next power leap, but it’s hard to imagine a 75% shield every turn becoming irrelevant. To further cement her position, both Myrs will be receiving buffs thanks to Luka winning the PAD Cross tournament. From that standpoint, she seems like a worthwhile long-term investment. However, considering that she’s a simple reskin, I don’t think she’s an automatic pick up. If for some reason you have great water subs and no light subs, I’d strongly consider the purchase. Otherwise, I don’t see much point to her beyond one’s own satisfaction in owning her.

---

Eschamali – A+
	At a Glance Eschamali is good. She sells stones. We get it. Did we really need another one and so soon?
	Notes I feel like much of what I said about June Eschamali also applies here. There are a few nuances, though. June Eschamali didn’t have an obvious home, her best role being a stat stick to boost light Myr’s damage in more demanding dungeons. Summer Escha fulfills the same role for water Myr, but is also a good You Yu sub. Most You Yu teams already used Scheat as an assist skill since the active is so good for the team, but Summer Escha can be run as a straight sub since she doesn’t doesn’t force you to make TPAs to deal big damage. As an extension of that point, from a purely SI point of view, Summer Escha isn’t quite as valuable as her June version since the effect can be replicated by a standard REM card, albeit an extremely rare one. Long story short, there’s no terribly pressing need to acquire this version of Escha and considering the rates, rolling for her would be an extremely risky endeavor.

---

7-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Metatron – C
	At a Glance Buffs to 1.82/27.56/1 are still not enough to make Metatron relevant as a leader. Almost always inferior to Awoken Isis as a water-based bind clear.
	Notes Being the only card that received an ultimate, one can only be disappointed. Players have been clamoring for appreciable Metatron buffs for ages, but GungHo seems reluctant to give anything substantial. A flat 27.56x ATK and small HP buff would be mediocre as it is — about the same as Shiva Dragon who isn’t exactly tearing up the meta — but the fact that it’s tied to an active use is inexcusably poor.

---

Sonia – B
	At a Glance Similar to Christmas RSonia, this GSonia is best used as an assist skill. Two-turn haste is incredibly powerful. An embarrassing leader.
	Notes Considering she was a marginal leader at best last year, there’s not much reason to consider her this year as a small bump up to 14.06x ATK is almost insulting considering the Norsebounds have been out seemingly forever. As a sub, she just doesn’t fit on any of the meta wood teams, but she still has a few homes. Her newly acquired time extend would make her an attractive fit on Bastet Ace, assuming NA ever gets that card. If we’re to reach a bit deeper, we get to teams like Sylvie-Freyja or Awoken Artemis which are legit uses, but not exactly good reasons to roll for a 7-star in a seasonal REM. Perhaps her best home is on a co-op Liu Bei team, usually as an assist skill. Two-color boards are still useful in overcoming combo shields and the two-turn haste can be used to set up the reuse of short cooldown skills.

---

Pandora – B
	At a Glance The underwhelming buffs have left me in despair.
	Notes If you were following my blog around this time last year, you might remember the struggle I went through to finally acquire Pandora. I was optimistic that GungHo would give relevant buffs to one of my most prized cards, but when you compare what she received to New Year’s Yamato, I was devastated. Where Yamato is one of the best subs in the game against dragons, especially in co-op, Pandora and her healer killer are left floundering in a land full of gods, devils, dragons, and machines. There’s always a chance it could become relevant, but I have a hard time believing GungHo will suddenly start making healer-based dungeons. Welp, time to wait for next year and hope she gets an ultimate; at least I’d be able to look forward to some new art.

---

6-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Urd – B
	At a Glance A fine water sub, especially in the current heart-cross meta. Her main strengths have been precluded by skill inheritance and newer, stronger cards since her initial release.
	Notes Urd’s main selling point last year was as an Awoken Lakshmi sub. This was mainly due to her board-change combining with Andromeda to create a water and heart board, something NA previously couldn’t do without compromising sub quality. This gave Urd a small window where she was highly coveted since Lakshmi was an elite leader back then. Time has not been kind to her, though, with skill inheritance not only compromising her niche on Lakshmi teams, but other, new options making her a relatively lackluster water board-change option. By now, most veteran players have rolled her fire-main version from the standard REM and would rather use that as an assist skill than run Summer Urd straight up. Ryune and Skuld are both superior options; it’s hard to hold two 6-star GFEs against a card, but considering Urd is also fairly rare, the comparison isn’t all that unreasonable. For these reasons Urd is no longer a chase card in this REM. Even if Urd is now fairly low on the water board-change totem pole, she’s still a solid water sub. It’s just difficult to find a role where she’s stands out. Almost all water teams would welcome her as a sub, but those teams would almost always prefer other options. I guess the teams where she’d shine the most would be on Awoken Hermes and Awoken Sun Quan, enabling those teams to both attack and heal in the same turn while providing solid awakenings.

---

Chester – B-
	At a Glance In a surprise twist, Chester is now one of the more useful cards from this REM due to his four SBRs. Still Chester.
	Notes There were plenty of troll golds in last year’s Summer REM, but Chester might’ve been the most tilting as he was one of the few summer-themed cards that was useless on top of looking like a self-absorbed fuccboi. Now that the meta has changed, he might actually be one of the more useful cards in this REM (note: useful does not equate to good). As almost all the returning cards have lost their homes since last year, Chester can now boast that he has the most relevant home of all: as an SBR stick for Awoken Liu Bei teams. At least until NA gets Raguel — pls gungho — there’s no easier solution, especially if you’re lacking a Perseus. The lack of a skill boost compared to his standard REM brothers is unfortunate, but as a role player he now exceeds them. That being said, this usage is more a consolation prize than anything.

---

Meimei – B
	At a Glance NA finally gets access to this board-change (water, wood, light). Having both water and wood forms make her useful to more players. Using Christmas Haku and New Year’s Leilan as prescendents, there isn’t much reason to believe Meimei will be relevant. A board-change that doesn’t naturally produce hearts has limited uses in the heart-cross meta.
	Notes I’ll quote part of my New Year’s Leilan review to kick things off: “What’s really killing this series (I’m assuming Karin and Meimei will get theirs someday?) is the lack of a SBR, haste or something else to distinguish them from their seven-awakening originals. I mean, OEs are nice and all, but they’re far from sexy.” While the sentiment remains true today, this Meimei can claim uniqueness with the ability to change between water and wood forms and a board-change combination that’s new to NA. Sadly, it still isn’t enough. There’s a reason why the Chinese have slowly declined in popularity as of late: they don’t make hearts. It is nice to see GungHo make an attempt at making the seasonal Chinese more interesting, though. Weaknesses aside, Meimei still has some potential. While meta wood leads have little use for her, she does open some new possibilities for the element. What stands out to me the most are Awoken Artemis and, by association, Balboa where she can be used to create a burst board in conjunction with Michael. Still a somewhat janky combination, but at least there’s a decent option that doesn’t require inheritance. Water is a better home for Meimei, putting her orb enhances to better use on a team like You Yu and having better follow-on orb changers like revo Kamui, School Sasuke, Hatsume, Gabriel, and Hermes. Amusingly, she also combos well with Summer Eschamali and is even a good sub for her. Like Urd, she’s a solid card, but not worth chasing.

---

Lakshmi – B+
	At a Glance Lakshmi is a solid entry in the heart-cross meta, sporting 1/39.06/2.25 with a 57% shield. The lack of movement time compared to top-tier heart-cross leads can make her difficult to use, especially if used as a row lead.
	Notes It’s difficult to deny the feasibility of any heart-cross leads even if Lakshmi’s stats aren’t as impressive as her peers’. She’s probably most comparable to Awoken Izanagi who also provides an RCV boost on top of the heart-cross. Izanagi has larger numbers — 1/49/4 also with a 57% shield — while restricting his sub pool to balanced and gods. While there’s something to be said about sub flexibility, I think it’s safe to say that Lakshmi is at best as good as Izanagi. This places her in the great-but-not-elite category as far as leads. While this is somewhat disappointing, if we consider the treatment Ra and Bastet got for June Bride, we can’t really expect great leaders out of this rarity; the fact they made any attempt at variation is appreciated. It’s also worth comparing her to her awoken form, especially since there’s been so many upgrades in the past year that it’s easy to forget how good she is now. She now has a rather robust 56.25x ATK multiplier on top of her usual 2.25x RCV. The question becomes whether trading in about 40% damage is worth gaining the 57% shield. While I certainly see situations where the shield would be invaluable, in most cases the sacrificed firepower doesn’t seem worth it. Lakshmi has always been fairly tanky with her RCV boost and naturally high HP so it doesn’t seem like the shield gives much benefit. There’s a dilemma when it comes to something like Annihilation-tier dungeons as you’d want both the firepower and shield together, but unless the incoming damage is so ridiculous that it can’t be handled with an active, the original, awoken form is probably the better choice. One should also keep in mind how one’s own skill factors into damage as most players will find it more difficult to solve high-damage boards when a cross is involved.

---

5-Star Gold Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Fuu – C-
	At a Glance Basically useless.
	Notes I often liken horrible cards to insults issued directly from GungHo to the players. While I do this mostly in jest, the post-Mitsuki seasonal Sticker Girls have been awful and considering how much they troll people the insult comparison is apt if unintentional on their part. To quote my June Bride Ruka review: “The sticker girls haven’t been relevant for a long time, if they ever were, but unlike New Year’s Mitsuki who got some very respectable upgrades with her 5-star, seasonal REM version, Ruka and Kano barely got anything. Auto-heals have always had questionable value and while the skill boost is nice, it’s nowhere close to what Mitsuki got with her machine killer and one turn of haste.” This is still applicable to Fuu and Kurone who got the same treatment as Ruka and Kano. I guess the silver lining is that hearts are in high demand right now. In Fuu’s case, she could see marginal use on Miru and Paimon, but the double heart maker could make it difficult to form the requisite crosses.

---

Ruka – C-
	At a Glance Even more useless.
	Notes Kurone has a more difficult time finding a home than her sisters considering that most of dark’s heart-based leaders are also type-conditional. Gremory: devil. Typhon: dragon. Typhon Ana: dragon and balanced. Xin Hua: balanced. This doesn’t give her much opportunity to even be a poverty sub.

---

4-Star Silver Eggs

Grades are given relative to monsters of the same rarity.

Awilda – B
	At a Glance Still one of the better options to Challenge Mode clear the easier Arenas. Damage shields, particularly smalls ones, have fallen out of favor.
	Notes Last year, Awilda was one of the best silvers to come out of a seasonal or collab REM. Now she’s not even the best silver in her REM. Damage shields and resist awakenings have depreciated over time in large part to newer leads being so tanky, but also because of the co-op HP bonus. That basically leaves her with five water OEs which is matched or bettered by plenty of cards nowadays. She’s still quite good for a silver, but isn’t the superstar she once was. At the very least, let’s pay respects to a card that heralded the advent of quality silvers in seasonal REMs.

---

Goemon – S
	At a Glance The most useful and valuable card in the REM. The additional skill boost expands team building options.
	Notes Cards that age the best are ones that are used for farming, especially if they can be used as subs. The original Goemon is one of the best examples of this, so considering that Summer Goemon is superior, that easily makes him most valuable card in the REM. Trading a fire OE for a skill boost is all upside as enhanced orbs can’t be reliably counted on for damage in farming runs, anyways. The switch to water sub attribute is mostly meaningless with factors like water absorb shields and extra attack animations being extreme edge cases. This leaves us with a card that essentially comes with an extra skill boost at the low cost of 900 HP. Considering that the original uevo Goemon has been one of my most used cards since his release, it’s reasonable to assume one will also get quite a bit of mileage out of this version, too. A question I’ve been asked is how many Summer Goemons should one keep? To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. I’ve rarely had to use my second uevo Goemon, but there are certainly existing teams that use multiples. There’s also possible applications on a Liu Bei-Dios-esque Cao Cao team. A team running 4x Summer Goemons isn’t nearly as good and has glaring weaknesses, but considering that the team would have 18 total skill boosts in co-op to make actives available on the first turn, it’s at least worth considering it as a starting point. I’d like to think keeping two would be enough for most players, but for those into hardcore farming, having four “just in case” would be the safest way to go.

---

Armadel – B+
	At a Glance A solid silver, if unexciting. Makes for a decent skill inheritance base.
	Notes It’s a bit confusing what GungHo did with the seasonal Grimoires. Christmas Paulina was a silver, then School Theuriga was released as a gold with slightly better stats and swapping a skill boost for an SBR. Now Armadel is back to silver and retains the SBR. Anyways, the usefulness of each is largely dependent on which teams are available for their element. Theuriga had very little practical use while Paulina is a good skill inheritance base, particularly for OE-based teams like You Yu, and Armadel is now a decent option for enhancing Dios boards. Her typing is also relevant, allowing her to sub on wood-based balanced teams like Robin Hood and also on something devil-based like Awoken Astaroth.

---

Navi – S
	At a Glance One of the best water Myr subs in the game; just a great sub all-around.
	Notes Navi is easily one of the best silvers in the game, combining several desirable attributes into a single card. What stands out the most are her awakenings, seemingly a perfect fit for the predominately row-based water element. The two skill boosts are also nice in an element that lacks a good selection of subs with that feature. Multi boosts have also proven to be one of the best all-around awakenings, mainly for providing a significant ATK boost during co-op. The enhanced hearts are just a bonus at this point. Her active is also quite nice, the ability to buff heart skyfalls being rather unique and also powerful in a time where many leaders are heart-reliant. It’s also on a fairly short five-turn cooldown, meaning she can also serve as a great skill inheritance base, especially for co-op. If you’re running any water teams at all, especially heart-based ones, trying your luck to land a Navi is likely an excellent use of your stones.

---

Conclusion

Coming off the June Bride REM which might’ve been the best all-around seasonal REM we’ve gotten, the Summer REM has definitely taken a step backwards. The silvers will definitely carry this gacha, but lack of anything interesting between them and the boring 8-stars leaves a void of value that is startling for a seasonal lineup. I’ll continue to recommend rolling for silvers if you need them, but hopefully you can get out before too much damage is done.

I’m planning on buying Claire (never got one last year) and Myr, then hopefully spending no more than two packs getting the silvers I want. I’d love to get four Goemons, a couple Navis and an Armadel in seven rolls and be done with it. Anything leftover will be used to try to land a Ronove next godfest (edit: sadly this isn’t a possibility since the godfest was announced to occur beforehand). As for what would be nice to roll along the way, I don’t have any strong desires. Either of the MP cards would save me significant resources, but I’m not getting my hopes up for that. Meimei would also be nice as I could see her board change having some use in the future. I wouldn’t be adverse to a dupe GSonia or two, either.