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MMM - Mysterious Modified Magi-Mari Makes Meeting, Mingling with Mercifully Meager Man-At-Arms-Made-Mutt (Summer 2022 Gacha Part 1)

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Article by GamepressRath
Summer2024 Part 1
Table of Contents

The Modern Magus Magazine

The time is finally upon us. With all the Servants, both those in this gacha and upcoming, revealed, all that’s left is for us to wager our wallets against the despair of the gacha gods, and for me to work myself through a hoard of Summer Servants.

But what’s this? A light in the tunnel? Nasu, in his infinite wisdom, doth decree that 3 SSR’s shall be in this year’s Summer, and as a result I only have to write 3 MMM’s for 2 Servants at a time, instead of 2 torturous slogs of 3 Servants each! A blessing from the Lord!

While that means the regular player base has 3 unreachable jewels to strive for, instead of the normal 2, I’ll take whatever wins I can get!

Summer2024 Part 1
NA Release Date: 08/2024

Lady Avalon

Introduction

Aw, how cute. They think we won’t call her Proto Merlin.

Her inclusion signals a significant victory over Arcade and its wicked, wicked machinations of inventing highly-desirable Servants to be their exclusives, but with it came a terrible price - a confirmation that outside of funky workaround exceptions like “Summer” Proto-Merlin, we won’t get Arcade exclusive Servants in normal FGO.

The pain, truly, to never experience Santa Suzuka in this lifetime. My brain trembles with sorrow.

But more importantly, where do you get off calling yourself Merlin’s little sister? You’re supposed to be an Onee-san! Big Onee-san energy, damn it!

Servant Data
Pretender
Territory Creation D

Increase your Arts Card effectiveness by 4%.

Item Construction A+

Increase your Debuff Chance Rate by 11%.

Mixed Blood EX

Increase NP Gauge each turn by 5% for yourself.

Rapid Casting (Monster) EX

Begin battle with +20% NP Gauge.

Independent Manifestation A

Increase your Critical Strength by 10%
Increase your Mental Debuff Resist by 10%.
Increase your Death Resist by 10%.

Overview

As an SSR Pretender, Lady Avalon only has one competitor in Oberon, and frankly that means a stat comparison is a little hard to make meaningful. She has less Atk and more HP than Oberon, so frankly she’s just more defensively aligned. And considering she is (shockingly) a full-blown support like Merlin, that’s simply better for her. More HP means you get to live longer, and continue supporting the team with your tools.

It’s also worth noting that as a Pretender, she also has a more useful class advantage than most supports, and certainly more attack, lacking the 0.9 Attack modifier Casters are slapped with, and possessing about 1k more Attack than most Casters have, too. Point being, she can hit pretty hard if she wants to.

For Passives, though, Lady Avalon has a lot on the table. The Caster-class staples of Territory Creation and Item Creation are here, boosting her Arts cards by a small degree and making her debuffs land rather consistently, in addition to the Merlin-class (shocking, not a thing) skill of Mixed-Blood, giving her that amazing 5% gauge each turn.

But because it’s boobie Merlin, you’ve gotta have something extra. Rapid Casting (Bewitching) is Proto-Merlin’s unique passive, and one which provides possibly the strongest passive effect seen yet (that isn’t tied into a Servant’s kit gimmick, at least) - 20% starting NP gauge. Yep, just free gauge, every battle. Naturally, it stacks with her Append Skills, so she can waltz into a battle with 40% gauge without a CE.

In combination with her 5% gauge each turn, she naturally has quite the head start on getting her NP out, something that’s very good to have. It also allows her to immediately NP on turn 1 with a lot of 50% gauge CE combinations, which is also a big plus.

NP Generation
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Conclusion

So how is Lady Avalon overall? On one hand, she’s a beauty you could only dream of:

While Lady Avalon may not have the golden 50% gauge charge capabilities that makes or breaks most supports nowadays, she compensates by being one of the most potent supports for CQ content in the game. People still frequently run Merlin+Castoria in Arts-based teams for CQ’s since Merlin covers the flaws in Castoria’s kit quite nicely, but Lady Avalon does the same, while actually supporting the same card type. If you were to value Merlin and Lady Avalon’s kits side by side, the latter would probably edge out overall, so it goes without saying she’s an amazing option to have.

The number of Pretenders in the game is currently rather limited, which in turn means the number of sources for Alter Ego class advantage is also limited. Lady Avalon, while the least offensively focused of her class so far, is still an option for tackling Alter Ego-class bosses, or can act as a durable support to supplement an offensive option in fighting them. Simply put, having a monopoly on a class is rather powerful, especially when the class you’re good against isn’t too uncommon.

However, she only lives in your dreams, nerd:

I’ll be real with you, even saying “she’s not great for farming” feels like a cop-out. For Arts farming teams Proto-Merlin still provides more than many other options, it’s simply the fact Castoria exists that means she won’t be a premier choice to set up 3-turn loops. While being amazing for both difficult content and farming is ideal, when you’re essentially Merlin 2 - Electric Boogaloo, it’s not so bad to pass on the farming side of things.

I don’t think it comes as a shock to anyone that copy-pasting Merlin and replacing every mention of “Buster Up” with “Arts Up” results in a top-tier Servant. And Lady Avalon is even better than that, having overall a better kit than the original Merlin, especially if she’s whaled for and got that juicy NP5 to destroy the concept of a NP Gauge economy with.

The way her kit is oriented essentially means she’ll be acting as the functional replacement to both Tamamo (outside of very niche cases) and Merlin in Arts teams for difficult content, while also being a very respectable supportive option even when not working with her card type. The Pretender class is functionally very good to be in with how exclusive it is, and I’m pretty certain Lady Avalon can manage some dumb solos versus Alter Ego bosses if you let her try it.

So yes, Rath™ Seal of Approval, with a recommendation. Nobody saw it coming.

Gareth (Saber)

Introduction

Do you see that adorable little blonde cinnamon roll over there? Yes, the one with the fluffy ears, expression always eager to please and the all-powerful red armament built to protect the lives of others? I really want her in my Chaldea.
No, not Gareth! The dog, of course!

Servant Data
Saber
Magic Resistance B+

Increase your Debuff Resist by 18%.

Riding B

Increase your Quick Card effectiveness by 8%.

Overview

Coming in as a 4* in the biggest class roster of the game, Gareth has many a Servant to compare herself to in her summer form. Unfortunately, she doesn’t exactly shape up well for her base stats. With the 2nd highest HP stat of her class and rarity, paired with the 3rd lowest Attack, she’s very cleanly focused on bulk, and sadly does so while also being an offensive Servant.

So she’s working with a few thousand less attack than most of her competitors will have right from the get-go. Additional bulk is naturally still nice in many situations, but most of the time the difference in HP between Gareth’s hefty 13.7k HP and a Saber with a huge attack stat and 11.5k HP won’t matter.

Yeah, it’s not exactly great. Gareth is light on the passives side of things, too - She only packs the typical skills of her class, with decently powerful Magic Resistance to shrug off debuffs, and Riding to boost her singular Quick card. Regardless, they’re not very impactful.

We can only hope things can improve for our beloved, loyal doggo. And Gareth.

NP Generation
Servant Skills
Noble Phantasm
Conclusion

So how is Gareth overall? On one hand, she’s bright as the scorching sun, and doggedly determined to be by your side:

Gareth has a handful of sweet perks to her - she has plentiful star generation in her skill kit, which paired with her number of offensive buffs to her Buster cards can enable devastating crit chains. She can provide support to a small niche of Servants with her ability to make the field Sunlight, and even has a Guts buff to fall back on defensively should the worst come to worst. With her gauge charger she’s capable of performing farming loops, albeit in a limited setup. She’s definitely got things going for her.

However, I’d rather take the retriever behind her if I’m being honest:

“SR AOE Buster Saber” is an incredibly bloated niche, and when you have to compete with not just gacha Servants who have a better kit to their name like Saber Alter, or the eternal welfare Saber Lily, both of which can run more flexible farming setups for vastly higher damage output than Gareth, she’s somewhat outclassed.

Even when focusing on her positives, Gareth doesn’t exactly do too hot. Her stargen skills are nice, but can’t amount to much when she has literally 0 critical damage-focused buffs in her kit, whether Star Focus or Critical Damage Up or otherwise. Add in that Sunlight field setting, while possibly useful, is something most Sunlight-focused Servants like Ozymandias or Gawain can do for themselves, and it’s actually not as potent as you’d think.

I’ll be blunt here, Gareth could be a welfare and even then she’d be not particularly competitive. While she has the makings of something useful in her reasonably high-power NP steroids, and access to a gauge charger, her kit ultimately doesn’t take her anywhere besides a mediocre damage output in a very limited farming setup.

Add in that she’s placed in the position of being a Summer Servant, less likely to get a skill upgrade and extremely unlikely to get a NP upgrade, and you can see where the problems compound themselves. She’s hardly great currently, and she’s not likely to improve.

It hardly helps that some of her “gimmick slots” on her skills are effects that don’t alleviate those issues. Dishing out Burn damage means nothing for most Servants, then again for one without Burn amplification in their kit, and her multitude of means to generate stars without an effective way to utilize them bar praying to the star distribution gods is frankly pitiful.

I think this dog’s staying in the shelter. Not the retriever, though, they’re coming with me.

Outro

WIth that, one gacha of three is down. It’s a long road ahead of us, plagued by shirtless Onmyouji gigolos and literal ice queens downing ice creams at every corner.

Stay safe, my friends, and keep your wallets in check.

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