#THIS IS A NO DIANTHA HATE ZONE!!!! WE LOVE DIANTHA!!!!!!!!

[randomminty]

haiii uhm i love ur champion art so much (especially cynthia i love cynthia!!) and i was kind of. wondering if you've drawn diantha before?? im kind of hyperfixating on her rn but with her popularity im basically dying for more content of her </3 also i love ur artstyle so so much oh my god i just wanna kiss ur art rn. maybe even take a chomp :DD

Omg ty anon wow…… i dont think ive posted diantha art before so ill change that right away

[crystalelemental]

I may be reaching my limit.

Starting with Entei, we have the more interesting sets that worked out.

SS Lusamine, NY!Lillie, Bianca As you can tell, pretty close.  SS Lusamine’s so good for Champion Stadium, but frankly I’m considering her one of the less powerful Master Fair units for this mode.  Similar issue to Anni N: spread damage does nothing here half the time.  Also her self-debuff on speed was devastating, we were so goddamn slow.

Princess Hilda, Kukui, Lana This team?  This was the single easiest fight the entire Gauntlet.  I’m not even joking.  Princess Hilda is fantastic damage, Kukui kept Entei from buffing defense and applied decent supplementary damage in the last phase, and Lana?  Lana’s outrageous.  Her healing potential was more than trap damage, and Team Fire Guard meant we barely took damage.  I think if she had Interference Immunity as a lucky skill, she’d be unkillable in this fight.  This was such a fun team to use, I loved it.

Anni Steven, SS Blue, Lisia Then there’s this asshole.  Anni Steven, I bring you in here because Entei can debuff stats, but you take too much damage.  So I bring in SS Blue to mitigate damage, but it turns out he can’t entirely save you either, so I have to bring in Lisia to flinch.  And through all of that, you still kinda struggled to pull through for me.  This poor man needs Flying Zone yesterday, my god.

Diantha, NY!Sabrina, Palentine Dawn Okay this was the last match I did for Win 22.  I used up all my best remaining tools, and...we barely won.  Like, technically, Diantha also died to burn here, but we still got the win.  Thanks to NY!Sabrina giving us the Endure effect.  I thought I was being clever, bringing Palentine’s Dawn to this fight and aiming for its weaker special defense.  Turns out it only wanted that to be thought.  Also gauge control was a huge issue, but it always is with Diantha.

And now for the exact opposite: my new most hated enemy.

Masked Royal, Hop, Drake I love Masked Royal, this one was actually super fun.  I actually tried Sidney a few times against Azelf but he didn’t stand a chance, compared to Masked Royal winning second attempt.  You’ll never guess why it wasn’t first try.  Given who’s here and my track record, you’ll never guess who failed.  It’s Hop.  He missed MPR and it got us killed when Masked Royal missed a crit.  GREAT JOB, BOZO

Renegade Cynthia, Fantina, Cheryl Absolute obliteration.  That 22k is Shadow Force, by the way.  Her sync just erased the second HP bar.  I brought Fantina and Cheryl because I figured Fantina wasn’t doing anything on her own, and Cheryl wasn’t likely to get much alternate use without grid, but I regret using Cheryl here after all.  Healing and special attack buffs are in short supply...

Champion Iris, Classic Elesa, Maylene I wanted to save this for Cobalion but literally ran out of effective teams and had to burn it here to keep going.  I’m incredibly mad about it too.  Having to use this here was my decision point of “Azelf is the hardest fight here.”  This thing is such a pain in the ass.

Lysandre, Kimono Jasmine, Marlon Probably my favorite win, by sheer shenanigans.  I want you to guess what saved us.  No, not Kimono Jasmine’s special defense buffs and regen effect.  Lysandre’s healing effect is a good guess and did play a part, but that wasn’t it either.  It was Marlon.  Marlon’s speed debuffs saved us.  Azelf was slow enough that it could charge up moves quickly in bar 3, allowing Lysandre to get two shots off to heal up and survive another hit, and also to finish the job before Azelf could sync.  It was so close, and we won because of goddamned Marlon.  Never in a million years would I have expected that statement, but here we are.  I guess I have to like Marlon now?  Unfortunate.

And finally, Cobalion.

Anni Lillie, H!Caitlin, Erika&Vileplume Azelf is a pain because it breaks down your defenses, and has pretty ridiculous mixed offenses.  It mostly spams special attacks, and sets itself up to seem like a specially offensive threat, but then its sync is physical.  So frankly, when Anni Lillie wasn’t enough to auto-win, I brought in Halloween Caitlin because I desperately just wanted to clear this.  Dude’s a pain.  I do feel this was a mistake, however, because Erika offered paralysis support.  That Lillie didn’t need.  I mostly wanted special defense debuffs but...oh well, I guess.

Anni N, SS Leaf, Torchic This took so long, and required me to 5* my Torchic and give Anni N 100 power-up tickets.  I’m mad about it.  But we won.  SS Leaf is pretty great for helping Torchic survive, Torchic takes a lot of buffing pressure off of Anni N, and Anni N can deal pretty decent numbers.  After...what is, that...six sync buffs?  He’ll get there, he’s 1/5.

Knight Diantha, Roxanne, BP Surge Okay, I expected a slam dunk here, just based on Knight Diantha.  But frankly this one was a really, really rough go.  BP Surge needed to survive long enough to apply paralysis effectively, while Roxanne helped buff Keldeo to max and keep move gauge control.  It doesn’t help that Cobalion leads with a -2 special attack debuff on the whole enemy team.  I thought I was being cute, bringing Keldeo to fight one of its masters, but oops.  At least the sync guaranteed a win once paralysis was on.

Final Thoughts The second run felt like it should be a victory lap.  I have so many good units!  Anni Lillie, Renegade Cynthia, Princess Hilda, Knight Diantha, Champion Iris, etc etc.  But oh man.  Oh man did I go in too self-confident.

I think it’s a testament to this game mode’s design being really good that you can’t just walk in with all the big flashy super units with damage output and claim win after win.  Team comps really matter, and notably your support choices really matter.  Even really good units like Knight Diantha straight-up struggled without the right supports.  Which is good!  I think that’s a really nicely designed concept for the game, and brings a lot of value to the variety of sync pairs in the game.  It draws on specific utility to clutch out a winning strategy, and led to nonsense like Marlon’s speed debuffs saving the day, something I still cannot get over.

But it also highlights a huge deficit in our roster.  We have tons of offensive units who can perform wonderfully...but too few supports to facilitate all of them.  Special attack buffers in particular seem to be in shorter supply, and the number of times I found myself wishing someone could buff speed was...high.  Really high.  This game mode really showcases that there are a lot of niches left to fill, and a lot of roles that may be filled but could use a duplicate, either for a more premium performance, or just a more easily accessible free option.  It’s impressive, really.

But all that said, I do think this may be a good indicator that Dawn/Cresselia is likely to be the first support Master Fair.  I think she’s going to be pure support, and be a major draw for players entirely because of where and what she buffs.  At a guess, I think she might be a premium special attack/speed/crit buffer, something we’re severely lacking at present, that takes place before they give Roxanne a grid and provide a more F2P friendly option for those buffs.  We’ll see if I’m right, but that seriously feels like the most likely outcome, based on my own identified support needs.  And based on Reddit posts, it seems I am not alone.