Introduction

With the Sin Dragons & Key Heroes event being highly anticipated to hit NA just about now following the confirmation of the event in Korea, I figured it’s a good time to take a look at the farmables known as the Keys.

To begin, there are two sets of five keys containing one of each attribute: the Sacred Keys and the Cursed Keys. There isn’t much notable difference between them; I noticed that all the Sacred Keys have positive stat boost awakenings and are already max skill level, whereas the Cursed Keys have negative stat boost awakenings and can be skilled up/unskilled. Each base key (Sacred or Cursed ) costs 100K MP to buy from the MP Shop; however, two (one of each) keys are given out for free in the beginning and two more are available as rewards after clearing certain objectives.

Also keep in mind that the Cursed Key evolutions have REM counterparts with the exact same inheritable active, so rolling first may affect which keys you end up making; after all, if you roll ten Pride Eggs, there’s not much point to making more than one Pride Key for the unique full poison resist equip.

Art Credits to @prp_z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/prp_z/status/1301141895951740933

Sacred Keys

Warrior’s Treasure Key

Four Enhanced Attack awakenings may seem a bit underwhelming and uninteresting at first glance; after all, who cares about improving the attack stat when you can inherit rows and OE? While the most popular endgame dungeon builds don’t rely on equips like these, button builds will most definitely welcome the extra attack, as every stat point can make or break the build. Furthermore, to compare, there are only three other equips with 4+ ATK awakenings, and they are either top rarity collab cards or a rare former GFE (equips of Nemain , Genjuro Kibagami from Samurai Shodown, and Rukia Kuchiki from Bleach). Considering that this is farmable, I already see it as relatively valuable.

What many will view as the selling point of this equip is the active; it is the first 300x Fire AOE nuke in NA, and although the suicide component prevents players from spamming multiples of this button, it is undeniably strong from a button farming perspective when taking into account the combination of the active with the +400 ATK from the awakenings.

Sage’s Treasure Key

While Odysseus was once hailed as a strong farmable equip due to his then-unique set of resist awakenings, powercreep has now rendered the same set of awoken skills nearly valueless due to the number of look-alikes that have appeared everywhere (think of Makoto’s and Kotone’s Headphones from Persona, and the farmable Jabberwock’s equip ) and because of the proliferation of super resists.

The only real reason to get this is for the active, which is a full defense break on an extremely short cooldown. In fact, only fourteen other cards/forms of cards have a 100% DEF Break on <=10 CD. Unfortunately, the easily accessible Guardian Deva Card from GungHo Collab was also farmable and much more accessible, requiring nothing but TAMADRA to become fully operational.

Wind God’s Treasure Key

While the split sets of Wood and Light OE are undesirable in comparison to OE concentrated on one attribute, the true value of this equip is its groundbreaking existence as the first farmable inheritable damage absorb void active. PAD certainly has come a long way from the release of Fujin, and while many superior options exist, all are locked behind various REMs. Furthermore, only three cards currently in NA provide an inheritable damage absorb void effect on a shorter cooldown (Gilgamesh , Uesugi Kenshin , and Yu Narukami’s equip from Persona).

Blessed Treasure Key

Intended to be the ultimate recovery assist, this equip falls slightly short in comparison to other options currently available due to the short active cooldown. While the 5T CD may be useful if needing an immediate heal for farming or a fast bind/awoken bind clear, the short cooldown will generally be more of a hindrance in overwriting more valuable actives. There are six other farmable options for Heal OE equips (DMC Motorhome from DMC Collab, Aphrodite Card from GungHo Collab, Dorothy’s Shoes , Whippe’s Monster Memory , Spirit Beast Puu from YYH Collab, and Valentine’s Day Chocolates (4 Goddesses) from the Valentine’s Seasonal), with all but Aphrodite Card having longer active cooldowns than the Blessed Key. While GungHo succeeded in making this key an unbelievably powerful recovery augmentation option, I feel that they went too overboard and cramped its versatility with the short cooldown.

Angel’s Treasure Key

Similar to the Wind God’s Treasure Key, the dual sets of OE are undesirable, which means most (if not all) of this equip’s value is derived from the active. Fortunately, the active delivers tremendous value, as this key provides the first farmable inheritable multi-turn attribute absorption void active in PAD. Furthermore, most of the other options are either top rarity cards (GFE, Collab, Seasonal), which gives the key value through its accessibility. Unfortunately, Anubis’s Necklace was recently released in JP, and is the stronger option within the same niche (though it is REM, it is a pantheom/bottom rarity pull in SGF). It can also be quite annoying to use the Angel Key during farming, as it creates a random bicolor board of Light and Dark Orbs, which can screw up certain board setups and/or force another fixed orb generation active.

Cursed Keys

Lust Evil Key

Four row awakenings and an SB. While there are many SB equips now due to their immense value for transforming teams, there are only three equips currently in NA that provide three rows (Red Sonia’s Equip , Omega’s Equip from GungHo Collab, and Safi’s 1st Equip from the recent Monster Hunter Collab) and only one that provides four rows (Madoo’s Hat ). All are pretty difficult to obtain, making the Lust Evil Key quite a powerful option partly due to its accessibility. Furthermore, the combination of the rows and SB make the equip uniquely strong in its own way; while the attack debuff awakening may seem distasteful, it should not affect much in the way of teambuilding as rows are teamwide damage boost awakenings. Simply slap the equip on a support sub that doesn’t deal much damage and voila, the team gains an SB and four rows with no real drawbacks.

The active skill is also quite strong in providing a large burst and a time rebuff but mainly due to the two-turn haste effect. If the equip is placed on a card with an active on a short cooldown, that card can utilize the inherited haste effect to provide an effective 3 SB. This can make or break transforming teams, for which every SB matters. Of course, it can also be used as a large inheritable spike that also provides a two-turn haste for recharging actives, which could be potentially useful for farming.

Envy Evil Key

While this key may just seem like a mishmash of random awakenings with no synergy whatsoever, I see this key as an accessible option for enabling style points during ranking dungeons. TPA, L-Unlock, and SFUA have all been critical parts of certain rankings, and while not every ranking may need these awakenings, having access to the style points can make or break a ranking run. Though the health debuff sucks, the inherited active cooldown is immensely long, which means it can be safely assisted without fear of the inherit coming up.

Speaking of the active, it is also the first farmable version of the inheritable void damage void active, which can be immensely valuable for farming as it is difficult/expensive to incorporate fixed orb generation in a box pattern. Though the quad-color board may be slightly annoying, the void void active effect lasts for two turns.

Sloth Evil Key

The first equip ever to possess Guard Break. While it may be difficult to use in farming, rainbow teams and ranking teams can definitely utilize this despite the steep drawback of the health and recovery stat reductions. Lately, there have been some incredibly high defense spawns appearing the latest and greatest endgame dungeons, most notably Aten on F4 of A6/AA4 with a staggering two billion defense. These spawns have partly revived rainbow teams back to the top tier of the endgame meta due to their ability to deal with said spawns via an awakening, whereas monocolor teams may have to resort to more inelegant solutions such as poison actives or a dedicated killer sub. As for ranking, guard break provides an immense amount of points, and every point counts when competing for the top spots.

The active is also incredibly powerful as a full rainbow board (including hearts) along with a simultaneous awoken bind clear + unmatchable orb status removal. It not only is strong overall for rainbow teams but is also quite the counter to Odin Dragon in A6/AA4, removing all the negative pre-emptive effects but the anti-spike.

Pride Evil Key

While the full poison resist equip is unique and can be extremely convenient, the attack and recovery stat reductions relegate the assisted card to basically being a utility stick, so already existing utility sticks would be the best place to equip this key. For example, I would never use Polowne as a damage/recovery sub option, so she would be a perfect candidate to place the Pride Evil Key on, enhancing her utility-based role without too many drawbacks.

What may draw much more interest from some is the active; perfect bi-color boards paired with quad-color skyfall actives have become quite the ubiquitous strategy in recent rankings, and Pride Evil Key provides players with a farmable perfect bi-color board option that pairs perfectly with Xellos from Fujimi Fantasia Bunko Collab.

Gluttony Evil Key

Technically, this key is the first equip to possess four Team HP awakenings, but in reality, most people are not going to punt an entire sub’s damage and recovery just for the sake of Team HP in most cases; Team HP is simply not impactful enough most of the time. Instead, options like Amakozumi and Fagan-Rai Equip will usually be preferred, as they do not come with strings (stat reductions) attached and also provide additional benefits as well.

The active is a simple health cut along with a bi-color board on a relatively fast cooldown; in fact, there are no other legitimate inheritable bi-color boards that are faster than or equal to Gluttony Evil Key’s cooldown. However, most teams require much more from their inherits than a simple bi-color.

Which Keys Do I Make?

The answer is that it depends on your box, your priorities as a player, and your monster point budget. In general, making one of every key is a good idea, but not everyone needs a Gluttony Evil Key or can afford to spend 800K MP. Therefore, I will try to take a couple of relatable perspectives that you may be able to draw insight from. One assumption that I make is that most people farming the keys will most likely roll quite a bit in the machine, and since the keys have counterparts in the Sin Dragon REM with the same inheritable actives, I give awakenings more consideration than actives.

New Players

New players should rush to grab a cheap farming set of Pixel Woodsie and Zeus-Dioses, as those cards can form a relatively budget co-op farming team. Assuming that new players cannot buy any keys, the question becomes focused on which form to choose for the free keys.

The big brain solution is to farm the evolution materials and then save them until you find a pressing need for one of the key forms. That way, one can extract full value from all the hard work invested into farming the mats.

However, if you want to make a key right away after farming all the mats, then my recommendation is:

• Sacred Key  Wind God’s Treasure Key
• Cursed Key  Pride Evil Key

Budget-Restricted Players

For budget-restricted + experienced players (basically poor players), it is also good to save the mats until you actually need to make a certain key form. (Most players probably won’t fit in this perspective, because MP has been so plentiful lately.) However, if you can only buy a limited amount of keys and wish to evolve them right away, then my recommendation of priority is:

• FREE Sacred Key  Warrior’s Treasure Key
• FREE Cursed Key  Lust Evil Key
• 100K MP: Cursed Key Sloth Evil Key
• 200K MP: Sacred Key Wind God’s Treasure Key
• 300K MP: Cursed Key  Pride Evil Key
• 400K MP: Cursed Key  Envy Evil Key
• 500K MP:  Sacred Key  Angel’s Treasure Key
• 600K MP: Sacred Key  Blessed Treasure Key
• 700K MP: Sacred Key  Sage’s Treasure Key
• 800K MP: Cursed Key  Gluttony Evil Key

Farmers + Rankers + Endgame Players

At this point, you should be able to figure out exactly what you need/want. My only opinions are that it may be worth getting two Warrior’s Treasure Key for button farming (while using a heal active in between) and that it is probably best to get multiple Lust Evil Key (around 2-4).

Final Note + Most Important Requirement

While the Sin Dragons & Key Heroes event is extremely exciting, I want to say that farming the evolution materials will probably be much more arduous than most people initially think. Therefore, the most important requirement for players farming the event will probably be the resolve to keep going, day in and day out, to grind for the key evolutions. My advice is to make a schedule/daily routine; I am personally running the dungeon ten times a day after I finish work, but I am also taking a day off every week (Sundays) to rejuvenate my mental stamina.

With all that said, I wish each and every one of you the best of luck in rolling and grinding this event!