Introduction

Devil May Cry was always infamous for never coming to PAD despite an announcement confirming the collab during the JP 7th Anniversary Stream in 2019. I was actually shocked when it finally arrived, partly because the status quo was that DMC would never actually come. Perhaps due in part to the long gap between the initial announcement and final release of the collab, Devil May Cry has joined Yu-Gi-Oh and Sacred Relic Dragon Saga in further reinforcing this transformation age of PAD, where the transform mechanic (in which a weaker card transforms into a much stronger one upon using its active skill) is dominant among leaders.

Unfortunately, Devil May Cry has ended up being perhaps one of the most top-heavy machines in all of PAD, with only four golds at a staggering 21% compared to five diamonds at a minuscule 2.5% and an orb skin card at 3.5%; thus, rolling duplicates of the bottom rarity cards is extremely likely. To avoid this, some people will utilize the monster exchange to obtain whatever top rarity cards they desire most from this event to avoid the horrible percentages.

This review will provide an overview of each top rarity card in DMC and attempt to inform one’s decision of which card would be the best for them to trade for. All five of the diamonds have very strong applications across their various forms, although some are still debatably better than others.

Dante

Originally, I thought Dante was the weakest diamond because I was rather unimpressed by his lack of VDP, which meant that he would only really be able to flex his massive personal damage against strong devils without damage void shields (like Yog in AA3).

However, after taking a closer look, Dante is a very strong monocolor leader who can finally take advantage of an untapped pool of strong subs mainly due to the release of Remu . Remu and Dante pair exceptionally well due to their strong synergy; Dante provides extra combos (which mitigates the natural lack of combos that is characteristic of the blob playstyle), Remu provides an automatic follow-up attack effect (which removes the extreme difficulty in forming a FUA or SFUA to deal with resolve spawns). Both effects combine to counter some major weaknesses of this pairing’s blob playstyle. In addition, Dante’s post-transformation active provides fast orb generation, which further alleviates this pairing’s weakness of orb-hungriness.

While Fire does not boast as many SB sticks as Water or Light, there is still a plethora of options, including Suou from DBDC, Nakoruru from Samurai Shodown, Mega Awoken Dantalion , Grandis , and Super Reincarnated Horus . Duval and Polowne from Sacred Relic Dragon Saga also work well, as their active skills indirectly aid a quick transformation via delays and haste respectively. Additionally, Dante’s initial two skill boosts substantially eases the team building requirement of 18 SB (for both leaders to transform on Floor 1).

Dante’s immense personal damage versus unshielded devil-type spawns means that he will always retain value as a specialized damage tech option, but his triple Enhanced Combos, Super Jammer Resist, and powerful post-transformation active make Dante a formidable sub option for any monocolor team.

While this weapon assist has an niche combination of awakenings and a powerful active that enhances the skyfall of Fire Orbs for the entire duration of any dungeon, it is extremely difficult to justify making a singular copy into this form, as Dante is currently projected to be one of the most powerful leaders in the game when paired together with Remu.

Even if the prospect of leading Dante is distasteful for whatever reason, his sub potential probably outweighs the utility of the equip. The inherited active is really only valuable in arena-style content and can be removed via player buff dispels, while the awakenings are separately available on farmable equips such as Typhon Card from GungHo Collab for SFUA and Report Card from PAD Academy, Onmyoji Seimei Card from GungHo Collab, or Achilles’s Shield for Tape Resist. The lack of practical application for the unique awoken skill combination means that having this equip is ultimately a luxury.

However, with multiple copies of Dante, making an equip becomes a much more pleasant prospect, as transform cards usually have low value in dupes.

Vergil

Vergil immediately stood out to me upon his reveal, primarily because of the ridiculous active skill he gains after transforming. Having a board that unlocks along with a burst and RCV boost with only a 6 turn cooldown is incredible value, and can see a multitude of different uses. It benefits Vergil himself as a leader, making up for his fairly low RCV multiplier, and it can even help other water teams with healing, damage, or just a very fast cycling board to use for activation.

When looking at Vergil as a leader, it’s clear that he needs skill boost support to transform as quickly as possible. There are several subs that can help with this, many of which are not extremely rare either. Strong skill boost subs for Vergil can include Super Reincarnated Karin , Mega Awoken Ameno , and Reincarnated Neptune Dragon , who can all provide upwards of four skill boosts each in solo. Another consideration would be equipping Karin’s weapon assist onto herself, providing you with an extra skill boost, and also the ability to take a super awakening other than bind immunity, allowing for Karin to become an effective 6 skill boost sub once factoring the haste in her active skill. Vergil’s autofua in their leader skill means you can use a board without hearts like Ameno or Karin, and still be able to kill resolve spawns just fine, which provides a lot more flexibility in active skills than most other water oriented teams typically have.

Vergil’s massive personal damage against devil type spawns is very impressive, but it can highlight one issue of leading with him. Most of Vergil’s best subs rely on VDP oriented damage, including Vergil himself, and on a 6×5 board, this can lead to potential problems with combo shields, as a VDP takes up so much of your board. There are a few solutions to this, such as using combo actives, pairing Vergil with a strong 7×6 leader such as Minaka or Fasca , or pairing with a leader who adds combos for water cards, such as Hermes . If dual leading Vergil, one must also consider his lack of Skill Bind Resist, as it must be made up somewhere else on the team to reach 100%.

Yamato (Assist Evo)

Similar to Dante’s weapon assist, this is a nice, but very luxury weapon assist, that should only be made if you somehow end up with multiple copies of Vergil. Vergil has the most powerful VDP damage against devil type spawns in the game, making him extremely valuable to have around if GungHo ever releases more dangerous devil typed spawns as they did in Arena 5 and Alt. Arena 3 .

Skill boost weapons are fairly common now, with us having many common options that have been released over the past year, including several farmable ones . The active skill on this assist is fairly nice, although the three turn Fujin skill is completely wasted, as there are no places in the game with three back to back spawns that have damage absorb. The secondary component does give this weapon a lot more value, however, as it allows you to have both a Fujin and unmatchable clear on the same active skill for floor 19 of Arena 6 and Alt. Arena 4 for Neptune Dragon and Odin Dragon respectively.

Nero (Before/After Transform)

Nero is a perfect example of a card who is likely to be overlooked, simply because he doesn’t fit with the current meta of PAD. Spoiler alert, a card doesn’t need to have autofua in its leader skill to be usable in this day and age. This is the reason that the bonus attack awakening still exists, even though some people seem to not understand this, and often discredit completely viable leaders based on them not having this one leader skill component. Not every leader is going to be the exact same as your Yugi team that uses the same four basic subs , as some people actually prefer variety in a game like this.

With my small rant out of the way, Nero is a very strong wood leader, who can pair with a variety of strong wood leaders such as Chakeol , Reincarnated Yoh , Freyja , or Astaroth . All of these lead pairings help to both alleviate the need for skill boosts, as well as provide an additional benefit such as a strong shield, fixed movetime, additional rcv, or even autofua (albeit needing specific team composition). Wood is also littered with many relatively common skill boost subs, such as Tengu, Susano, Freyja, Astaroth, and Green Odin, meaning that it’s fairly easy to get to 18 total skill boosts.

Nero’s active skill and awakenings after transforming are fantastic, as 100% poison resist and L-unlock make for great utility, and triple VDP awakenings give him great personal damage. While many cards that have multiple VDP awakenings may usually only get to take advantage of their personal damage on very specific floors, due to how orb hungry making a VDP can be, Nero providing a constant 2 wood orb generation every turn means that you can make a VDP much more often. This constant 2 orb generation also goes along with his leader skill fantastically, as you can almost always ensure you have the needed 5 wood orbs for his activation by clearing the board every turn, and then using his active skill. Lastly, Nero’s awakening unbind component of their active skill can be very useful against spawns who recast awoken binds very quickly, such as Despharion .

Red Queen & Blue Rose (Assist Evo)

A very unimpressive weapon assist in my opinion. While the need for extra Skill Bind Resist awakenings has been increasing, due to many transform teams having difficulty fitting five across their various sub slots, wood teams have not had this issue as of yet, as this issue mainly applies to Tsukuyomi and Yugi teams, both of whom typically don’t need the combo orb, team hp, or active skill that this weapon provides. While some wood teams may appreciate the active skill on this weapon assist, this is ultimately just another luxury assist that people should avoid making unless they somehow end up with multiple duplicates of Nero.

V + Shadow + Griffon (Base)

V is the only six star in this REM that doesn’t transform, so unlike the other four, he actually has a traditional base and uvo form, each with their own applications.

V’s base form has a fairly unimpressive set of awakenings at first glance, with only rows as a form of personal damage, and 100% jammer resist probably being the stand out awakening on him. When looking closer, however, is when V’s true potential begins to shine through. V is able to take up to 4 natural skill boosts from his super awakenings, and with his active skill providing a turn of haste, that gets bumped up to an effective 5 skill boosts. V just so happens to be devil type, making him an amazing fit for Yugi teams as a sub, as 5 skill boosts can help ensure that you can be transformed right away, and his active can see use all throughout a dungeon due to it making a row or dark orbs.

V’s potential doesn’t just stop there, however, as he also is a very powerful leader in this form. While at a glance, fixing your movetime at only 8 seconds may seem silly, there are actually quite a few benefits to doing this. Having your orb movetime fixed at a specific amount means that enemy time debuffs will no longer lower your movetime, but as a result, you cannot use actives or TE awakenings to raise your max movetime either, it will always be 8 seconds. To help alleviate only having a modest amount of orb movetime, V is able to provide +2 combos when matching 6+ connected dark orbs, meaning that it applies when making both a row and VDP. In general the strongest dark row oriented leader in the game right now is widely agreed to be Yugi from the Yugioh collab, due to his impressive bulk, powerful active skill, insane vdp damage, and the luxury of having poison immunity and autofua. Now, if you were to pair base V with Yugi, you would get your orb time fixed at 8 seconds, as well as have +2 combos for making a dark row, making the pairing extremely synergystic, as your Yugi team would have an easier time overcoming combo shields, and become immune to enemy time debuffs, such as those often seen throughout Incarnation of Worlds .

There are a few things to note with this pairing, however, and that’s mainly that you lose out on a significant amount of VDP damage compared to what you would have by running either Dual Yugi , or Nelle paired with Yugi . One Yugi is probably enough to hit most damage thresholds in a dungeon by itself when making a VDP, but there are some very beefy spawns in endgame dungeons where it may not be sufficient.

V + Nightmare (Uvo)

The uvo form of V keeps the same fixed movetime component as the base form, but swaps needing 6 connexted dark orbs for needing 2 dark combos, and the plus combo for 1 autofua. The multiplier is still the same as the base form however, so this could open up different leader pairings than the base form, although dark doesn’t have a ton of traditional combo leaders to take advantage of at the moment besides possibly Halloween Bastet .

While the leader skill is still solid, the sub potential is where this form really differs from the base one. Instead of rows for personal damage, this form of V has a much more widely applicable set of awakenings, such as L unlock, 7 combo, and VDP, while also keeping his ability to have up to 4 natural skill boosts. While these awakenings are very nice, the active skill does change considerably in this form, and may not be for everyone.

While at first, the idea of 1,500,000 fixed damage to a target may not sound like it’s very special, it does have a few strong applications, especially when factoring how the damage is dealt across three different animations. This active skill is capable of completely buttoning Aten and the Latent Tamadras in Incarnation of Worlds and its harder variant, Alt. Incarnation of Worlds. These two spawns can often present teambuilding issues for many, as they have ridiculously high defense, but low actual HP. While the tamadras are able to be dealt with using things like a defense break or poison, Aten is more troublesome, as he has a super resolve at 10% hp that prevents him from being one shot with a defense break or poison active, as he puts up a status shield once this threshold is hit, and then immediately executes you on the next turn. V’s active is able to solve this, as he will deal damage to Aten three times, with the second hit activating the super resolve, and then the final attack killing the spawn, with no issues whatsoever. This same idea can be applied to any spawn with low base hp but high defense, or spawns who have a super resolve at a very low HP threshold, and can then be finished off with a button active, such as the future Alcyone in Shura Realm.

Overall, V is an extremely versatile card who can act as a swiss army knife of utility for many different teams across his different forms.

V’s Book & Cane (Assist Evo)

While this is the best of the DMC weapon assists in my opinion, it’s definitely still something you should only make with duplicates, especially since unlike the other six stars, V actually has three different forms. This weapon assist has a powerful active, especially when used on transform teams, as the +2 haste can act as an effective 2 skill boosts. The 50% healing component can also be very nice, as it may allow you to live for an additional turn if you are unable to get enough heart orbs to heal from a large attack.

The main issue with this weapon in my opinion, besides it being a luxury, is that many transform teams already run Fagan Rai’s weapon assist , which provides a skill boost and cloud resist, making this weapon a bit redundant in many cases unless the TE is a selling point, especially due to the fact that Fagan Rai was technically free last year via the gfe medal for him.

Lucia (Before/After Transform)

Finally, we have Lucia, who is definitely the most interesting of the 6 stars. While the other five six stars primarily cater to a mono color playstyle, Lucia instead caters to the rainbow playstyle. Boosting devil type cards means that Lucia is able to pair with Aljae very well, for both her autofua, as well as her very fast void bypass active. Having poison immunity is also a very nice bonus, as it means you can forgo the poison surge latent and poison resist from teambuilding if you want to. Since using Aljae and Lucia as leaders mean that you already have very strong personal damage, and also already cover 4 out of the 5 main colors, you can dedicate the rest of the team to be practically anything you want. Examples of skill boost solutions for Lucia include cards like Tengu , Chakeol , Diaochan , Horus , Ra , and Reeche , who all provide at least three. The main issue with teambuilding around devil typing is orb generation, as many of the high skill boost subs do not create orbs in a way that benefits rainbow teams, meaning you’ll likely need to primarily rely on Aljae for your main board changer, although her 5 turn cooldown does make that somewhat acceptable.

As a sub, Lucia provides utility from cloud resist, and very strong personal damage if you can hit 10 combos, which is mainly done from either 7×6 teams or leaders that add combos, such as Valentine Ideal . Lucia also has an amazing active skill once transformed, as unmatchable orbs has been becoming a larger and larger problem in endgame dungeons with spawns like Odin Dragon , so having one on such a short cooldown is very nice.

Cutlaseer (Assist Evo)

A very odd weapon assist, this is one of only two active skills that can convert an enemy to light attribute in the game, with the other being Christmas Grida . While this was fairly niche before, with the release of the Zeus AvaTAMA weapon assist in JP that provide two light resists each, this weapon assist can be very nice for cheesing dungeons, such as the recent Shura Realm.

If you aren’t super into cheesing, however, I would highly advise against making this weapon, as there exist many better multi boost weapons already, such as the recent Tamadra Wedding Cake .

Concluding Thoughts

Devil May Cry perhaps has some of the highest incentive to trade of any collab we’ve had in PAD, due to the fact that the rolling rates are so abysmal, and that virtually every single one of the six stars can have a valuable application in the current meta. One fact that is worth considering, however, is that basically all of the six stars are best paired with another card, and not with themself, with the primary exception of Vergil. With that being said, if you are considering getting any of these cards specifically to lead with, consider if you own any of their respective pairings first. For example, I would get a lot less value from trading for V, as even though he has immense utility and can be a strong leader, I already own Yugi, and can just pair with somebody else’s.

With that being said, if I were going to rate the way that I feel about the overall value of the six stars in this rem, I would probably place them like this:

1. Dante
2. V
3. Vergil
4. Nero
5. Lucia

Even though this is a completely subjective ranking of these cards, it’s extremely important to note that all five of them have incredible value behind them, and Nero and Lucia could both easily improve given the release of more cards that further expand their uses as a leader and sub respectively (It also doesn’t help that they both have weaker weapon assists, in my opinion).

I really hope that this review was helpful in providing information on what each of the six stars in Devil May Cry can offer, and that it can help you come to a decision on if trading is worth it to you or not.