After nearly 9 months since the release of Mesopotamians, we finally received a new Pantheon in Samurai 3. They are notable for being the first 7★ base pantheon cards in the game, but do they live up to their rarity?

Leader Skill

All five cards in the pantheon have a similar leader skill, with the only difference being activation color. A 36x ATK and 43.25% on matching 2 colors is fairly mediocre, but the most interesting thing is the 2.25x rank EXP bonus, usually found only on leads with little or no attack multiplier at all. There’s no real practical application for this though, since the most effective rank EXP farming teams uses leader swapping to obtain both the EXP bonus and the multiplier, so the highest EXP multiplier lead(base Saline at the moment ) is the best EXP lead. Should you lack an inheritable leader swap active, you may find the built-in attack multiplier useful. Even then it’s difficult to build swipe teams as they activate on 2 colors.

The rest of this article will focus more on their value as subs and inherits.

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Takeda Shingen

Stat Lv.99 +297 HP 6003 6993 ATK 1998 2493 RCV 13 310 Fierce Tiger General God, Takeda Shingen

猛烈の虎将神・武田信玄

God / Physical [4846] Active Skill: Change all orbs to Fire, Wood, and Heal orbs; Lock all Fire, Wood, Heal orbs

(14 ➧ 9) Leader Skill: 1.5x Rank EXP; 6x ATK and reduce damage taken by 25% when matching Fire+Wood

[1/36/1, 43.75%]

Although their use cases are completely different, Takeda reminded me of Awoken Hestia as both are red FUA subs that focus on support over offense. Shigen beefs up a team’s HP through both his high base HP and his triple team HP in exchange for low base RCV and lack of any offensive awakenings, personal or otherwise. Leaders with high RCV and 1x HP will appreciate Shingen’s HP stick capabilities, and high HP leads utilizing autoheal systems benefits from HP stacking as well.

Takeda’s active creates the same R/G/H tricolor board as Verdandi at the same 9 turn cooldown, but Takeda also locks the whole board. This secondary effect is useful against spinners but prevents you from comboing Takeda’s active with another orb changer to fix bad boards (unless the orb changer has unlock of course). Leaving behind any locked orbs can be troublesome, as a preemptive hazard change on the next floor can leave you with 1-2 hazard orbs. This issue can be averted by using L Attack in conjunction with the board.

While there’s a lot to like about a FUA sub that doubles as a HP stick, finding a spot for Takeda is difficult given the scarcity of Red/Green leads (though there are some options ). He can find a place on various of red leaders with a higher RCV multiplier than HP, as Takeda is able to patch up any HP issues while the leader skill smooth over Takeda’s low base RCV in turn.

Uesugi Kenshin

Stat Lv.99 +297 HP 5115 6105 ATK 2415 2910 RCV 28 325 Patriotic Dragon General God, Uesugi Kenshin

大義の龍将神・上杉謙信

God / Dragon [4848] Active Skill: Reduce HP to 1; Deal 200x Water damage to an enemy; For 1 turn, void damage absorb shield effects

(20 ➧ 15) Leader Skill: 1.5x Rank EXP; 6x ATK and reduce damage taken by 25% when matching Water+Fire

[1/36/1, 43.75%]

Uesugi’s inability to take latent god killers doesn’t stop him from being the strongest blue god killer (though Barbara & Julie’s other killers makes them situationally stronger) and his 3 skill boosts are great for farming too. While his prowness against gods is undeniable his damage against everything else is middling and he is likely to be voided when fighting any god type spawns with damage null.

At only 15 CD, Uesugi’s damage absorb void active has the shortest cooldown in the game. The trade off is in the 1 HP suicide: for high HP low RCV teams, the suicide is annoying at best and fatal at worst, especially in situations like Alt Arena’s F12 Sopdet damage absorb followed by F13 Goemon 145k preemptive. Aside from damage absorb void, Uesugi is a 200x 1 target water nuke and a great button for red spawns. Suicide itself is also useful in farming for getting max damage from HP based nukes like Grimmjow and to activate ≤50% attack boost and low HP leader skills . However there is a questionable design choice in the fact that the nuke takes place before the damage absorb void, thus you cannot button damage absorb spawns with this active.

Compared to other blue damage absorb void subs , Uesugi is able to have the active up much faster and deal far greater damage to god types in exchange for a risky side effect and lack of damage output vs non-gods types. As such, he isn’t the type of sub that one can just throw onto any team but a powerful option when used correctly.

Date Masamune

Stat Lv.99 +297 HP 3410 4400 ATK 2753 3248 RCV 335 632 Virtuous One-Eyed God, Date Masamune

五常の独眼神・伊達政宗

God / Attacker [4850] Active Skill: Reduce HP by 50%; Deal 100x Wood damage to an enemy; For 1 turn, increase combo count by 2

(13 ➧ 8) Leader Skill: 1.5x Rank EXP; 6x ATK and reduce damage taken by 25% when matching Wood+Dark

[1/36/1, 43.75%]

Date has excellent offensive power through his high ATK and triple ≤50% attack boost , though his killer selection is rather limited. Aside from being a damage stick, Date’s double SBR comes in handy for solo/3p team building, and for dealing with spawns that can bind and skill bind at the same time, like light Izanami.

While his active CD is average as far as 50% suicides go, Date does have the lowest CD of all +2c actives. When used as a sub, Date’s active can be reused throughout a dungeon to meet combo requirements against high combo shields and for VDP purposes, lowering HP for conditional leader skills at the same time. The green nuke attached to the suicide is only 100x and single target, largely irrelevant for buttoning purposes.

Overall Date is a very straight forward damage stick appreciated by various low HP conditional leads and brings some utility in double SBR and +2c. Outside of low HP conditional teams Date’s damage will be rather inconsitent, so it’s advisable to use him only when he fits.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi

Stat Lv.99 +297 HP 4675 5665 ATK 1840 2335 RCV 503 800 Determined Ruling God, Toyotomi Hideyoshi

立志の天下神・豊臣秀吉

God / Balanced [4852] Active Skill: Change all orbs to Water, and Light orbs; Lock all Water, Light orbs

(17 ➧ 12) Leader Skill: 1.5x Rank EXP; 6x ATK and reduce damage taken by 25% when matching Light+Water

[1/36/1, 43.75%]

Toyotomi is yet another strong light combo sub™ with triple 7c and balanced typing for killer latent flexibility. Compared to HCotton, the other balanced type triple 7c, Toyotomi has better stats and unbindability while Cotton has higher damage with TPAs and FUA . Like Date, Toyotomi has utility in being an unbindable double SBR sub, useful for solo, 3p, and against spawns that do both binds and skill binds.

His active skill is a bicolor light/blue board and board lock at 12 CD, same as any bicolor without additional effects. He is perhaps the best one active solution for VDP spawns who also creates spinners like Keela, but outside of those situations the locks are mainly an annoyance as you cannot fix the board other actives and you may end up with leftover locked orbs.

Toyotomi provides niche utility here and there but overall his role is a damage stick. His colors and active makes him a perfect fit on Yusuke but for other light teams he can’t quite measure up to the amount of stats provided by LIdeal . A good sub overall, but nothing we haven’t seen before.

Tokugawa Ieyasu

Stat Lv.99 +297 HP 4885 5875 ATK 1808 2303 RCV 460 757 Unifying Great General God, Tokugawa Ieyasu

平定の大将神・徳川家康

God / Balanced [4854] Active Skill: For 3 turns, no skyfall; Poison all enemies (50x ATK)

(8 ➧ 3) Leader Skill: 1.5x Rank EXP; 6x ATK and reduce damage taken by 25% when matching Dark+Light

[1/36/1, 43.75%]

If Tokugawa seems familiar, it’s because he is quite similar to Suou , sharing 7 awakenings and balanced typing. Tokugawa has 300 less weighted stats, but in exchange he has TE/SBR and an incredible 3 CD active. Triple VDP gives the VDP match a 15.625x multiplier and makes Tokugawa usable as a damage stick even without VDP spawns, but as it requires 9 orbs it is not feasible to expect consistently high damage from him, compared to easier damage awakenings .

The active skill is unusually strong for the cooldown, as the cooldown of other poison actives with 50x or more multiplier are much longer. Tokugawa’s low cooldown is justified by 3 turns no skyfall counting as a negative effect, but no skyfall is actually useful for damage control and for getting around color absorbs. By subbing Tokugawa directly, one can use his inherit then reuse the base active for poisoning a resolve or for no skyfall. For example in A3, you can us a fujin active inherited on him first, then have use no skyfall + an appropriate board/orb change for Noahdra’s absorbs. Tokugawa can also give a team permanent no skyfall in solo by using his active every 3 turns, which has farming applications for players without no skyfall badge. While this active is most powerful when Tokugawa is used as a sub, there are situations where inheriting him is needed since Tokugawa is one of two 3 turn no skyfall actives available (the other one is Kanan ), useful for certain farming builds.

Tokugawa is my favorite card in the pantheon due to his unique active and usefulness as a VDP sub. Even if the active effect isn’t useful for your specific team or dungeon, the low cooldown combined with 3 SB allows just about any active to be inherited and come up on reasonable time. His weakness is his low damage output when not doing a VDP, which must be taken into consideration.

Verdict

The rarity creep of new cards in the REM is a worrying trend, but overall the Samurai 3 pantheon are worthy of their 7★ status. Each of them have a niche unique to them and can find use on a variety of teams. My only complaint is their shared weak leaderskill that regulates them to sub roles. That said, the metrics of a “good leader” changes much faster than that of subs, such that being sub oriented may be better in the long run.