Reimu Hakurei
Reimu is the prototypical defensive evasion character. She can be slow to get going, but builds a constantly increasing wall of evasion, trying for a lock state where she can recoup her earlier losses or even declare victory outright against an unprepared opponent. Reimu is one of the big reasons why it's smart to dedicate a couple slots in any deck to HV boosting.
Strengths: The most solid evasion game possible with a lot of direct EV boosts, access to a lot of protection and some IV boosts while building up, stable high HVs for her own mainstay spells, some good debuff support threats, a surefire tutor card, free pick of assists, and of course, one of the most fearsome lockdown potentials in the game. Reimu can easily and consistently rocket up to 7, 8, 9 or even more EV and supplement her game with a huge array of assists.
Weaknesses: Reimu's damage output is quite low, and she has no access to penetration except from assists and a big vulnerability to it herself. Her SP costs for anything beyond basic defense are very high, so she's almost always down on life early on and has to evade a lot to come back. High costs also mean her game is very telegraphed. If the opponent is prepared, there are plenty of ways to stuff her evasion, and one major knockback of an expensive spell can doom her lockdown. She has no real answer to decks with gimmicks that get around evasion completely. Her scene is so-so and often neglected in favor of generic ones. When playing against her, generally you want to do as much damage as you can early on, then deal a finishing blow with one of your anti-evasion cards... you DO have some anti-evasion, right?! And always, always watch out for Weightlessness if she has 3 SP open.
As an assist: At level 1, she brings in some defense with Duplex Barrier as a great 1SP intercept and Exorcism to slap on enemy spells. At level 2, Hakurei DBF and Demon Binding Circle are both very good spellcards, and access to improved Pattern Dodging and tutors is nothing to scoff at, but in both cases, she's more about improving and stabilizing her partner than contributing anything really new.
Marisa Kirisame
Marisa is a midgame offensive powerhouse with a specialization in events, dirty tricks and teamwork. Once known as a blitzer, it may seem like newer characters outclass her at that role, but don't be fooled - the black-white is still more than capable of ending the game quick.
Strengths: Marisa has high octane spellcards with huge damage, penetration, and great SP efficiency, without skimping too much on HV or defense. She has the best disposable spell in the game. She has enough unfocused move to get herself out of danger from more extreme blitzers. She has amazing supports, especially spell supports. Most of all, she has amazing, gamechanging events to turbo her SP pool, her hand, shut down her opponent's hand and events, add damage, and of course instant-activate spellcards to ruthlessly punish any lapse in defense. Her events are so good that the mere threat of High Speed Aria can dictate a game, even if she never actually draws it!
Weaknesses: In theory, not much, Marisa's hidden strength is her ability to cover all her vulnerabilities. In practice, her biggest real weakness is that she only has single answers to a number of problems, and there aren't enough cards in a hand or deck for her to cover everything *at once*. She's almost never an easy fight, but she always has to drop something, so if you can figure out what she doesn't have at a given time and exploit it, you can throw off her tempo and eke out wins. Fighting her is about a lot of thinking ahead. Don't leave yourself undefended against a potential HSA, and don't rely on events on intercept. She does have fairly low HVs and a high emphasis on Concentration, making her somewhat weak to the legions of unfocused movement characters, but mainly her problem is trying to put her great cards together into a good gameplan.
As an assist: It's rare to see Marisa splashed except for her teamcards or very specific purposes. At level 1 she brings in NDL and Illusion Laser, and level 2 brings most of her goodies - but they're so good that she tends to dominate split decks like this, rather than the other way around.
Sakuya Izayoi
Sakuya is hard to talk about as a character because her cards are essentially split into three distinct sets: milling, standard HP damage play, and purely assist focused cards that do nothing in her main decks. She is the cornerstone of milling decks, and one of the best assist characters in the game, concentrating on high HVs and slowing the opponent's offense.
Strengths: Her milling style is sort of gimmicky and almost self explanatory, but utterly destroys slower or unprepared decks. She's the best character in the game at beating out any sort of evasion or lock attempt, and on top of that has a great early/mid evasion game of her own that shuts down a lot of opposing options. Probably Sakuya's main selling point, though, is her wide array of synergy with other characters, which can work just as well with her in the lead.
Weaknesses: The milling deck is very vulnerable on two fronts. Obviously it can be blitzed out quite easily. Not so obviously, it also loses to the more extreme stallish or self-milling decks, as those decks tend to run Don't Worry which is an auto-loss card for mill to run into. In the non-mill game, Sakuya suffers from high SP costs, poor efficiency for those costs, and a near total lack of intercept options without assists, and these problems all compound each other. She's been one of the worst solo characters overall until the last expansion or so, and still isn't very good. An assist that gives her a good 1SP spell or better intercepts can do a lot for her, but she still struggles in a straight damage race against characters who don't bother with evasion games.
As an assist: One of the best support characters in the game, this is what Sakuya was designed for. She can easily fix HV issues, contribute to evasion, play with deck and discard abilities, has a 2SP scene for countering or acceleration, and can shut off specials. All this is in addition to her formidable array of teamcards. If you need HV fixing, Sak's your gal.
Youmu Konpaku
Fitting her character, Youmu is straightfoward and no nonsense. She puts out big solid spells, goes to work and takes the opponent's life to zero before they do the same to her, with supports and events that help her take less damage, deal more, and stop opponent's funny business.
Strengths: At 24 HP and with lots of protection, she's one of the most durable leaders. Youmu's spellcards are all very powerful with great cost to damage rates, and most can be used either on offense or defense as the situation requires. Her leader supports make them even more powerful and efficient. Simply put, she'll win most any straight up midgame slugfest, and can block interference with Half-Ghost and Belief.
Weaknesses: The evasion game, on both fronts. All those Heartbreaks and High Tension Blades and Cranberry Traps and other 2-3 HV spells can run over poor Youmu all day, removing her damage advantage, and her own spells have major issues breaking the 4-5 HV range without supports. She's ill equipped to counter opposing gameplans with anything beyond "hit more! have protection!" and can be slow to set up, especially if her draws are poor. Her whole leader support game only works on herself, so no figureheading. Her events are kind of lackluster as well, which means she can never really surprise an opponent. If you see a Youmu you know what you're up against.
As an assist: Slash of Present, 100 Yojana, Half-Ghost. One of the best level 1 packages, these cards can make almost any deck better at early offense, defense and spell stability. She has a 1SP too if you need it. Beyond that, though, she can't contribute much as the bulk of her support game only works on herself, another support heavy leader (Alice), or Yuyuko.
Yukari Yakumo
Pure slugfesting power with no flaws, some very nasty tricks, and the anti-support magic bullet. That's our Yukarin!
Strengths: Everything. Great spells. Big damage. Big HVs. Good leader stats. Some evasion. Some protection. Unstoppable lategame spellcards. Great spell buffs, including the best +AV/IV event in the game. Spiriting Away. Brutal spell nerfs and anti-chump blocking. Arguably the best lategame spellcards of any character. Good team compatability all around.
Weaknesses: Not much penetration, so-so scene support use and SP costs high enough that she has to commit to options well in advance. Yukari is one of those annoying all-rounder characters with no obvious flaws, but nothing that excellent on its own going for her, especially in the midgame. The best thing to do is establish a tempo and beat her down before she has enough SP to get into one of her all but unbeatable lategame setups. Try to play your own game, but with Spiriting Away lurking around you'd best not rely on any supports.
As an assist: Spiriting Away. That card alone is enough to make her one of the most common splashes. On top of that, you get the best 1SP spell in the game, and Ran the spell (notable as one of the only level 1 4 for 4s), Ran the support (awesome even if it only goes on Yukari spells) and Shikigami Enhancement (use on either of the above) if you want them. At level 2 you get Quad Barrier for defense and more synergy with Ransupport.
Alice Margatroid
Alice is a gimmick character focused entirely on setting up a lot of her Doll supports on herself to boost her spells and provide various extremely powerful effects. She does not play well with others; thanks to her leader gimmick, all of her spells have to be extremely weak without dolls set up, and she has almost no supports or events that do not concern either getting dolls or having dolls out. (Though she does still benefit a lot from assists herself)
Strengths: Let's not beat around the bush, if Alice gets enough dolls up without dying and completes a set or (heaven forbid) two, she's going to win the game. The exact method is nearly academic, and it's all but impossible to lock her out. It could be 12 points of burn straight to the dome, it could be +6 AV/IV on all spells, it could be kicking back and relaxing behind 9 EV and 4 Protection, or it could even be all of the above at the same time, as fast as turn 7 or 8ish with a perfect draw. She has a surprising amount of leeway in which dolls to use, and a plethora of ways to draw and tutor them out of her deck. She's a pretty sturdy leader with 21 HP/3 EV, and has easy access to protection and 3 focused movement while setting up.
Weaknesses: If Alice doesn't get enough dolls up quickly, she's probably going to die. Her spells are horribly weak, both for their SP costs and just in general, until she has at least four dolls up, and the SP costs of dolls and defense make her a sitting duck early on. You'll really never see an Alice playing early aggression except with other people's spellcards. Deck space is painfully tight for her, she can have dolls, spells, tutors, recovery and acceleration, but not all at once. Scene control in particular is a corner often cut for her. Her defenses lean heavily on the 3 movement on Maiden's Bunkaru and, later, Hourai Doll, so Normal/Guided spells have a good shot at chopping off the last bits of her life. Support destruction can really ruin her day if she doesn't have Doll Repairs, and even then, well... let's just say Yuyuko 3 vs Alice is not a pretty matchup.
As an assist: Nothing. Seriously. Alice's cards contribute nothing of notable worth to any other leader or deck when she isn't on point. When she's splashed it's for her teamcards and nothing else; all her other cards are basically unplayable, save maaaaybe Artful Sacrifice. The only thing I can even think of to mention here is gimmick builds using her as a figurehead lead and tutoring 3 Shanghais out.
Remilia Scarlet
Remilia is a fast and flighty offensive/evasion character with a focus on battle events. She's very tempo-intensive and always prefers to be the aggressor; fortunately her toolset makes this an easy position for her to maintain.
Strengths: Remi's spells cost a little and hit for a lot, throughout the game. Heartbreak is probably the #1 card all those turtly 2 EV leaders hate to see, and Scarlet Gensokyo is a reliable game ender with a madness pump that doesn't even require Remi level 4. At 3 EV and 2 BV herself, she's one of the best leaders in the game for evasion, and has a lot of movement and +EV powers to back this up, as well as Blood Sucking potential to extend her HP. Her battle events are incredibly powerful and versatile, especially Dignity and Fate Manipulation, and can completely turn a game around. She also has tons of synergy, with more teamcards than any other character in the game, plus good compatability with a ton of generic cards and other assist splashes. You can run Remi 3/ANYONE 1 (except Alice) and justify it, or load up on generic cards, and this versatility feeds back into her event game and unpredictability. Opponents can never be sure what surprises Remi might be packing.
Weaknesses: At only 18 HP, Remi will lose a standard slugfest if she can't use events or evasion to get an edge. Remi suffers from low HV across the board and a lack of penetration. Her evasion game isn't all that and a bag of chips either, it's enough to stuff other low accuracy characters but HV focused spells can still hit her pretty reliably. She has answers to these things, but they aren't cheap, and playing them will cost her tempo, which she can ill afford. Remi doesn't fight from behind very well, the only times she wants to be down on life are the beginning of the game and the turn before she's going to end it. While you can't tell what she's got, you can see when Remi is leaving SP open for an event, and if you can call her correctly and play around an event or counter with one of your own, her gameplan tends to crumble.
As an assist: Star of David is a good 1-drop, Dignity is always welcome, Heartbreak is usually worth one or two deck slots just in case, and some decks like Servant Flier a lot. Her other stuff can all be great in the right situations, particularly Fate Manipulation as an uncounterable (albeit expensive) dodge, and then of course there's her huge array of teamcards. Remi greases a lot of wheels, though it's always tempting to put her in the driver's seat of a split.
Yuyuko Saigyouji
The ghost princess is mainly known for her lifegain and stalling shenanigans, autowinning vs Alice and other support heavy decks with Gluttony, and generally being a beast to bring down and one of the most infuriating characters to fight, either alone or with one of her very potent 2/2 teamcards. She doesn't pull out <10 turn wins... she makes you see your loss inevitably coming ten turns in the future.
Strengths: Graceful Break + Border of Life + Resurrection Butterfly/Hirokawa/protection spells + maybe life from Gluttony or Bit of Spring = Yuyuko just does not die, and her good IV values make the opponent pay blood for blood as they try to grind her down. Though she's got 2 base EV, her leader power and the 3 focused on Everlasting Nap can snuff quite a bit of otherwise dangerous counterplay. Her spells are beefy in general, not the highest AVs around but good in all other departments and helped further by Forever Wandering. Loathing the Unclean World is a weird card but may be the best tutor in the game once you understand how to set up and use it. Gluttony rips apart any and all support-heavy decks, in many cases granting free wins.
Weaknesses: Fast, heavy blitz from a non-glass opponent can punch through Yuyuko's wall of life, especially if backed by support destruction; Utsuho seems to have been designed specifically to try and counter her. Her own offense is slow and not particularly threatening, except for the highly expensive Resurrection Butterfly, so her games tend to go quite long, which means the opposing deck is certain to be able to set up whatever their gameplan is. Once that happens, Gluttony and Loathing loops are her only defenses against being locked down, she has no answers to powerful spells and event cards.
As an assist: There's little reason to splash Yuyuko at level 1 except maybe for Dance of Butterfly, but level 2 opens up almost all of her concepts and options - her L3 cards are all just upgrades of what she can do at L2, except Gluttony. She also has several very powerful teamcards with obvious and nearly prebuilt setups.
Flandre Scarlet
The glass cannon blitzer of the game. Monstrous, often self-destructive firepower. One way or another, her games don't last long.
Strengths: Flan has ridiculous damage output for low SP costs, and some big equalizer bombs to seal deals. Like Remi, she can bring out a potent and fast evasion game, or she can forego this and figurehead a defensive leader like Kaguya. Many of her best spells are Normal or have Guided Bullets, shutting down enemy movement games and somewhat offsetting her HV woes. But mainly, her greatest strength is simply the ability to dish out very quick damage and end games fast, before most of the metagame's slow setup and lockdown characters can establish anything.
Weaknesses: Again like Remi, Flan suffers from very low HVs when she isn't boosting her spells. Which she can do - but her boosts, and most of her best tools, all come at steep prices in HP, SP and cards. Her leader card is the most fragile in the game, but running another lead blunts her offense and evasion considerably. She's very one dimensional, and while it's difficult to defend her assault, even slower decks can often find themselves able to change gears and blitz her back with some of their normally underused spellcards. Flan also tends to fully commit to whatever she's drawn, with no room for surprises or error, and can be put on the back foot and very behind in SP and tempo if anything at all goes wrong. Her SP curve is somewhat lopsided, with her big finish guns being a lot more expensive than her normal cards, so this often leads to situations where she has to back off or stop attacking for a turn or two in the midgame to afford playing them. Games where this happens are usually decided by how well Flan's opponent can seize this window of opportunity to take the game back before the bomb hits.
As an assist: It's rare to see Flan level 1 splashed except for teamcards, and in those cases Cranberry Trap is about all she can help with. Running Flan 2 tends to be less "Flan assisting some other gameplan" and more "Flan-like deck with another character leading", since all her cards contribute to the blitz mentality seen in her main decks.
Patchouli Knowledge
Despite how it may look at first, Patchouli is one of the game's premiere defensive leaders. Her strategies revolve around setting up a unique engine of spellcards that grant each other cumulative bonuses when active, buffing them further with supports and being able to pick the right spell for whatever situation she's in. She's actually rather similar to Youmu in style, but sacrificing power for a lot of versatility. Playing her requires a strong degree of planning ahead and SP management, moreso than perhaps any other character.
Strengths: Patchy's leader card is the best in the game, hands down. She seems fragile and tied for game worst HP, but her -1 AV leader power more than counteracts this. An easier way to think about it is that she effectively has 17 HP +1 for every time the opponent attacks her. It's usually not possible to kill her in less than about six attacks, even if she sits and does nothing, so that's the equivalent of a 23 HP leader off the bat, and the longer the game goes the more mileage she gets out of it, and of course she has a lot of access to protection to help make the game go longer! As if that wasn't good enough, she's completely immune to direct damage, which shuts down more opponents than you might think. It even stops cards like Merciless Two Hands from being legally playable at all. Her actual spellcards are all solid on their own and tailored to unique roles, and her supports and events contribute to the cause of powering up, tanking damage and having Better Spellcards Than The Other Girl.
Weaknesses: Cost. Cost, cost, cost. Patchy's spells are not cheap and leaving them active is a constant drain on her SP. Her highly specialized cards make it hard to cover specific holes with spells that weren't designed to do so, which leaves her rather vulnerable to luck and bad draws. Most of all, she's difficult to play in general, requiring a lot more forward thinking, decision making and SP management in every game than most decks. She has a lot of choices available to her by nature, which means a lot of opportunity for her player to make mistakes. No other character will leave you thinking "Damn, I could have won that game if I'd done this instead..." so many times.
As an assist: Lots. Patchy is quite commonly used as a figurehead leader to take advantage of her innate defensive properties, and her spellcard engine is easily portable to any deck that wants all or some of it. Sylphae Horn and Princess Undine in particular are always welcome additions. Anemia and Locked Girl are useful as well, if somewhat inconsistent, and Alchemy is a solid tutor.
Hong Meiling
Formerly the worst character and something of a joke, Meiling's cardset has been the recipient of more errata than any other, slowly patched and buffed into a formidable force. She's a slugfest type with balanced offense and defense, an emphasis on spell supports and some scary powerups at low HP.
Strengths: Meiling's one of those good at everything balanced characters, with good cards to attack with, good cards to intercept with, good cards to evade with (only movement though), good cards to protect and gain life with, good tutors, penetration, lots of basic abilities everywhere and big solid numbers all around. It's very hard to gimmick her out or get a life lead on her... and if she does fall behind in life, she gets BETTER, with Serene State of Mind and Last Stand making her terrifying below 5 HP.
Weaknesses: You might notice that her spell support concept isn't listed as a strength. It's not. The supports are cumbersome, taking up deck space, draw space, SP and time that she'd usually love to spend elsewhere in exchange for lukewarm buffs. They're supposed to fill niches and holes in her game, but more often than not, they're either dead draws when she doesn't need them, refuse to be drawn when she does, and even when she draws the 'right' support for a situation, it often just isn't good enough to actually solve the problem it's intended to. The power gap is clearest if you compare them to other people's cards like Half-Ghost, Wandering Forever, Orrerries System, Three Sacred Treasures, etc.... But the spell support stuff is all she's really got, so you're forced to use it or use another character. In other departments, she suffers the usual curse of the all rounder, with AVs and HVs not quite high enough to really answer lockdown situations and few tricks of her own to speak of. She has tutors but nothing to really tutor out on her own. Her low HP gimmicks are, well, gimmicky, nearly impossible to actually set up against a non-braindead opponent. Going up against another SDM leader is bad news, killing her evasion game, and SDM leaders have been and still remain quite popular in the metagame.
As an assist: Unfortunately, while she's capable on her own now, China isn't really a character you can splash to strengthen other decks. Most of her useful cards are loaded down with noncompete clauses, requiring Meiling lead, X levels of Meiling, can only work on Meiling cards that themselves have the above locks... Best to stick to her teamcards, or use her on point in a 2/2.
Kaguya Houraisan
With the highest HP leader card in the game, Kaguya is a meat wall who seeks to maintain the life lead with high IV spells, efficiently draw and sort her deck, and leverage SP drain effects to keep the opponent too poor to do anything nasty. Her solo gameplay may look somewhat lukewarm, but she has a lot of teamcards and assist synergy, and thus is often seen in widely split decks.
Strengths: 25 HP is hard for anyone to take down, especially with Kaguya's easy access to life gain. This gives her ample time to use her variety of card drawing and deck fixing abilities, and those in turn give her steady access to her SP drain cards, which when used properly should prevent opponents from building up and being able to play supports and events. Eternal Youth is one of the game's touchstone cards as far as lifegain goes. Her spellcards include several gems and good HVs. Buddha's Bowl is a Slash of Present clone, Hourai Jewel is rock solid on either offense or defense, and Red Stone of Aja is an incredibly good offensive staple. And that's just what she has on her own - Kaguya is very adaptable with other characters in the mix, with lots of teamcards and generic options to draw on.
Weaknesses: Kaguya needs every point of that HP because she's never going to evade anything, ever, and with little natural access to protection until lategame she can go down faster than you'd think. Fast offensive decks tend to chew her up, especially those that don't need to worry about her SP drains because they don't need HV fixing against her. Her spellcards that aren't really good are really bad. She's rather SP heavy herself, and the SP drain engine is too often a vague threat and a lot of dead draws against an opponent who's just tapping out every turn pelting her with spellcards, leading to a lot of games where she putzes around blowing SP on random draws and drains but never actually translating this to killing the opponent. It's hard to say too much about her on her own, though, because she's rarely played that way. Look at who else she's got with her and try to reverse engineer her build and prepare for surprises.
As an assist: Five stars, would splash from again. Want HP, or HP gain? She's got that. Want drawing, sorting and fixing? She's got that. Want some good spellcards along with that? Of course you do. Want great teamcards and access to deckbuilding options that'll keep you solid even on a wide character split? You've come to the right princess.
Eirin Yagokoro
Silly rabbits, tricks are for doctors! Oh, wait, this is the doctor. Eirin, like her princess, is usually more of a team player than an individual venture. She has a wide and quirky toolkit focusing on preventing, healing and dealing damage, particularly direct damage pings delivered with her spells, modular specials, and very high HV ratings.
Strengths: Eirin is mostly immune to evasion games, can half-ignore protection and faith games with direct damage, effectively ignores penetration with life gain and -AV/IV effects, and is generally well equipped to win straight up damage wars. Her supports are very powerful, especially Dangerous Medicine (which can be placed either on the opponent or on Eirin herself if she also has Super Genius), and she can tutor them out, then Purify her Experiment and gain life too. Or just Purify away opponent's debuffs. Despite being 2 EV, she does have enough evasion potential to stop opponents from getting away with 2-3 HV funny business. She fits very well in team setups. By which I mean she's historically been bad on her own, before she had Lunar Incense. But now that she's got that card to work with, Eirin 3+ finally looks viable!
Weaknesses: As hinted at, going Eirin 3 or 4 can be a dicey proposition, as her level 3 cards are very situational, difficult to use and overcosted, save for Lunar Incense. She runs SP-heavy, and her spellcards aren't too powerful without setup, so early aggression can put a big dent in her life. Like Sakuya, a lot of her cards, almost too many, are devoted to high HVs which are wasted against decks that don't run evasion. And, of course, her formula of low spell damage + direct burn gets completely and totally shut down by Patchouli leaders. Even if she has other characters around, Patch lead is a nearly unwinnable matchup for any deck featuring Eirin.
As an assist: Extremely potent and fluid, this is what she was designed to do. All of Eirin's bread and butter cards are available at level 2, and only Super Genius actually requires her to be in the lead, so she's perfect for 2/2 or 1/1/2 splits. Everything she can do as a "main" character she can do as a splash as well, she allows access to lots of teamcards and the Eientei generic cards, and her leader card and power are nice to have up front too if you don't need your other characters leading.
Reisen U. Inaba
In stark contrast to the other two Eientei characters, Reisen is a clear and focused evasion character who plays similar to Reimu, trying to defend until she sets up a lock and can start to exploit her big guns. She accomplishes this through HV lowering rather than EV boosting, using lots of debuff spell supports and specials.
Strengths: Like any evasion character, Reisen punishes low HVs and can easily get a lot of free damage when the opponent is unable to hit her. You know the drill, she has events, supports and spell abilities that all work towards this, a tutor to get out supports, some resilience against support destruction and a couple of ways to defend while setting up. What separates her from the rest of the EV crew is that she does this by slapping debuff supports on the enemy spells that threaten her, so if the opponent's answers to evasion are one or two specific spellcards with high HV, she can neutralize them and maintain her lockdown where another evasion deck might not. She also has a lot of synergy with the Eientei crew and can use their powerful generic cards and splashes without having to give up much. Finally, her Tele-Mesmerism spellcard needs special note, it's almost absurdly powerful and is capable of turning games around by itself even if Reisen can't get a lock going.
Weaknesses: First, all the usual weak points of a slow evasion lock, except for losing to single high HV spells. Weak earlygame, lacking in damage, vulnerable to HV boosts and other types of setup. Second, she who lives by the spell support dies by the spell support. Reisen is very, very weak to "shroud" abilities that prevent her from targeting enemy spells, and she has no support removal of her own, so her debuff spell supports can be stuffed by the enemy putting a positive spell support on their big guns before she can get to them. Half-Ghost in particular is her eternal bane. She also runs much heavier on SP compared to other evasion setups, and can sometimes be drained into inability to actually maintain her potential lock.
As an assist: At level 1, Reisen's contributions to other decks are her cheap intercept cards. At level 2 she can bring in her spell supports and a fair bit of her evasion equipment, though decks wanting the evasion will often just run Reisen on point.
Ran Yakumo
Yakumo family, part two! Ran is a robust slugfest leader focused on setting up Shikigami status on her spells for various bonuses, usually big numbers and lots of protection. She has a ton of inbuilt synergy with Chen and Yukari, and can extend some of this to other characters as well. Her gameplay is similar to characters like Youmu, a bit of setup and then go in swinging.
Strengths: 22 HP and free protection 1 (or more!) on anything with shikigami status makes for a quite durable leader. Unlike Yukari and Chen, Ran has quite a lot of ways to get Shikigami status with ease, and big numbers all around to go in on people with. Many people look at Kokkuri-san's Contract and just see a spell that you want to activate and just leave up as a buff, but in fact, they're missing that monstrous 6 AV - it's the ONLY 6 for 6 in the game, and comes with shikigami status on both itself and your intercept gratis. Or Ultimate Buddhist, 5 SP for 3 IV, protection 2, 5HV Normal type with a Chen support on, compare it to Hourai Jewel and see how much of a beast Ran is. On top of all that, she has huge scary teamups with Yukari, Chen, Kanako, Youmu, and more.
Weaknesses: Don't laze me, bro! With so much reliance on protection, penetration spells are a hot knife and Ran's hitpoints are butter. Her spells are on the expensive end no matter what, and not so strong without shikigami status, so more efficient decks can put her on the back foot with ease. There's not a whole lot else to say about Ran on her own - her game is straightforward and she lacks any real options other than combat, being better in combat, and a very small bit of deck fixing.
As an assist: Ran's synergies are mostly prebuilt with the other Yakumo family members and a couple of other characters. In those decks she's huge and contributes all sorts of things, but for most other decks, she doesn't have a whole lot to offer as a random splash. All her spellcards are balanced with her leader ability and shikigami status in mind, and almost all her events or supports involve shikigami stuff, so it's best to either go big on shikigami or go home on Ran.
Chen
Yakumo family, part three! Chen shares the same shikigami thematics as Ran and has the same prebuilt synergy with the other Yakumos, but she's mainly an evasion character and leverages them to that effect rather than direct combat efficiency. She's very heavily oriented towards unfocused movement and an offensive, rather than defensive, evasion game. As such she tends to be rather inconsistent, with results depending on whether the opponent is heavy on spread spells. With cards like Comb of Good Fortune featured in her set, Chen is the character of choice for players who like to take risks.
Strengths: Unfocused Movement. Chen does not get hit by concentration spells, straight up. Her spells are cheap and efficient, freeing up SP for her to threaten evasion events and play shikigami and other supports as appropriate. Despite being mainly offensively oriented, she has a very strong 4 SP for 3 IV spellcard. She has a decent amount of shikigami stuff to play around with, especially at level 3, and a lot of Guided Bullets to help out against opposing evasion. Her synergy with Yukari and Ran is deceptive; they can't grant shikigami status to her spells but they CAN dramatically power her up with events, and Chen is the family member best equipped to run the Village of Apparitions scene. She also has three incredibly powerful and easy prebuilt 4-level setups: Chen 4, using Cat Monster to become invincible to anything but spread, Chen 3 Ran 1, using the madness on Crusading Cherub, and Chen 2 Ran 2, using Yakumo All-Out Attack and an extremely welcome 2 focused on Large Pentagram Crest.
Weaknesses: This should be obvious by now, but spread spells with high HVs put Chen in her place pretty quickly. She also lacks penetration and doesn't have high HVs without putting a lot of work into boosts, so protection and non-movement based evasion hit her hard, similar to the vampire sisters. Chen tends to either win big or lose big... pity that high HV spread spells with protection are so common, eh?
As an assist: See Ran, mostly, though Chen's spells are somewhat better on their own than her master's. Her cheap evasion events are probably the main selling point for a splash, barring gimmick builds trying to abuse Comb or Ill Omen.
Prismriver Sisters
The Prismrivers are an interesting character(s?) that use their leader change powers and variety of spells and instrument supports to adapt to whatever they're facing. At least in theory. In practice, jack of all trades, master of none doesn't really fly in this game. Their cards are heavily overcosted and underpowered, and they've gotten very few updates, making them easily the worst character set in the game... IF you attempt to slap together a deck and play them straight up like a normal character. Making the Prismrivers actually work requires a lot of clever deckbuilding and unorthodox strategies, but for those who dig hard enough there are some very interesting rewards to be had.
Strengths: Merlin's cards have high AV and IV and penetration. Lunasa's have IV, HV, protection and normal/guided bullets. Lyrica's have AV, HV and evasion. Their general cards have a mix of all of these, and can tutor out their instrument supports, blow up instruments for direct damage, and return opposing spellcards to reserve, this last being probably their best and most unique power. While they don't have much going for them on their own, they do have the ability to pick one or two sisters, focus on them and bring in assist characters to help, which can be potent with clever builds.
Weaknesses: Everything. Their cards are extremely costly for their effects, and very subpar without both the right instruments and the right leader set up. They're versatile, but not actually powerful enough for their versatility to be useful on its own - Lyrica's evasion isn't enough to do more than annoy, Lunasa's HV isn't enough to break real evasion locks and her defenses don't stop aggressive blitzes, and Merlin's numbers aren't high enough to actually crack defensive opponents. Their best spellcards can leverage protection 2 + Lunasa Solo, or break evasion locks with Prismriver 4, but the SP costs and time to set all this up is prohibitive. Even their ultimate power of reserving spells only works on level 1 opposition.
As an assist: The Prisms do have a number of excellent teamcards, particularly parts in Spring Snow Disaster and Flower Viewing, and these are the decks they're most commonly seen in. Certain decks might dabble in instruments and Poltergeist for direct damage.
Mokou, of Clan Fujiwara
Mokou is one of the game's most unique characters, running a strong gimmick of resurrecting spellcards from her discard for immediate use and powerful buffs. She usually fits into an offensive slugfest mold, with some lifegain to stay afloat, but her true power comes from her many ways to activate spells during the replenishing phase for instantaneous surprise offense or defense.
Strengths: Resurrection, Eternal Suffering, Phoenix Tail. Surprise! Here comes a big spellcard that the opponent didn't know was coming. The discard gimmick aside, she has more threat of instant activation than any other character. And speaking of big spellcards, Mokou has solid, efficient offense across the SP curve. She has a good number of ways to get her tools into the discard where she needs them, and with 24 HP and a lot of lifegain here and there, she can live long enough to get her crazy engine going. Once she's getting 5+ SP a turn she's very hard to stop, as even most lock decks just don't have ways to prevent her from smashing them in the face. She also has a lot of openings for teamwork and versatility. Even though Mokou seems like a complicated girl, it's hard to actually go wrong playing her, as everything she has can be useful and dangerous.
Weaknesses: Mokou's intercept game is virtually nonexistent without Phoenix Tail or spells from assisting characters, and outside of the really big guns her spells are on the low side for HV and lacking in basic abilities. She can be outblitzed or outsurvived if her opponent keeps pressure on her from the earlygame and is vigilant about not letting her get any sneak attacks in. Mischief is a magic bullet aimed almost specifically at her.
As an assist: Mokou's one of those characters that you don't just splash, you run with. Her level 1 cards are not very useful, except in 1/1/1/1 splits, but at level 2 most of her offensive and buff game opens up along with Resurrection. Resurrection being a support rather than an event makes several characters able to tutor for it in 2/2 splits, which can be very powerful. She has quite a lot of synergy with other discard-using decks as well, like Orin and to some extent Komachi and Suika.
Keine Kamishirasawa
Keine is a strange sort of hybrid powerup and control character who aims to transform into her powerful EX leader mode and dominate the game by preventing opponents from playing anything in a number of ways, then beat them down with her powerful 4+ AV spells.
Strengths: Ex-Keine is an amazing leader and transforming is fairly trivial, usually done by playing her scene or Next History. All game long, she discourages opponents from playing events with her human leader power, a number of cards with shroud or other "don't target this" abilities, and discards their hands with Masking and her scene. Post-transformation, she gains a quite formidable evasion game without many of the usual evasion character flaws, and powers up significantly further when the opponent's hand is gone, becoming able to wreak havoc with Headbutts and History Eating with impunity. And independent of all that, she has a ton of solid, versatile spells, especially in the early defensive and lategame 4-5 SP range. Don't be fooled by her lack of a single clear win button, her ability to lock down a game is top notch. She also has card sifting, can steal supports, and a great spell support of her own, and amazing teamcards, and this and that and the other thing. Finally, it's worth noting that her transformation is reversible and non-mandatory, which can come in handy now and then against the likes of Sanae.
Weaknesses: Nothing is free in this game, and Keine's goodies all come at significant SP costs. Her spells are pretty good, but not really amazing without help. In particular, she has nothing over 5 base HV without using expensive buffs, making her rather weak to evasion. She's also easy to blitz down for simple decks that rely mainly on spellcards and supports that she can't steal or disable somehow. Draw engines like Nitori or Kaguya can bully through her hand destruction and virtually ignore her hand card cost penalties. Plain Asia, her scene, is very important to Keine's gameplan. She's usually at a big disadvantage if she goes for it early and the opponent immediately counterscenes it, especially if she hasn't drawn a Next History to transform manually with. (This means don't play your scene against her first, kids!)
As an assist: Utility mainly. Compilation at level 1 is useful if you really need certain cards. At level 2 you can run Alteration and all sorts of fun stuff, but it's rare to see her in the back at level 2 since you could be running her in the front and transforming instead!
Suika Ibuki
Another of the game's handful of all-out blitz characters, Suika is all about smashing people in the face with atellar offense all day every day, using excellent tools like a 2 IV spell that can't intercept and her leader power, which makes her mill herself for no benefit. Wait, what?
Strengths: Damage. Lots of damage. Suika hits hard and fast, breaks through defensive abilities and evasion with relative ease, and has some downright unfair exploits against opponents like an unexpected evasion game and a 4 SP for 5 AV spellcard. Deep Fog Labyrinth in particular can be quite hard to stop on the attack. In the "late" game, Suika can power up to extremes with her scene, Missing Power, Matchless Strengths and Little Pandemonium, the last of which is basically a win button if she's able to use it. See? Her leader ability IS useful! (I got nothin on why that spell has 2 IV though...) She supplements her offense with a good variety of utility events and some spells that -stat opposing spells, further increasing her options and limiting the opponent's.
Weaknesses: Milling herself puts Suika on an automatic timer for victory. She can (and usually does) devote deck slots to Don't Worry to save herself from an untimely sobering up, but even if she plays these and stays alive, resetting her discard pile robs her of her lategame tools. Without buffs or Missing Power, none of Suika's spells hit more than 5 HV, and her powerful ones are all spread so watch out for cards with 2 or 3 focused movement. Speaking of which, Suika can be quite luck reliant if she isn't running (or doesn't draw) her sift cards, she really needs to get out an appropriate big spell to get rolling or she can be stalled out. Even then, things that bust spellcards like Slashing Eternity or debuff supports can really wreck her unless she's got their exact answers.
As an assist: Suika's leader ability is sometimes used by Mokou and Orin to accelerate their discard games. She's a staple in 1/1/1/1 decks, featuring in three out of the four prebuilt ones and providing offensive bulk and events that are otherwise rare at L1, plus Small Oni's Breath. One-Point Focus is the finest deck sift card the game has, and goes especially well in decks that need certain events to work as those are otherwise hard to search for.
Suwako Moriya
Part one of the Moriya trio, who all have obvious synergies together, Suwako is a slippery fast character who pecks away at the opponent with bargain priced offensive spells and keeps herself safe by building up arrays of faith and protection to stop small bits of damage and "no big spells allowed!" signs to keep the big nasties away.
Strengths: Quick, solid offense coupled with a bevy of tools to keep herself safe. Suwako is nearly impossible to damage with IV, and has high enough natural HVs to be safe against evasion games. If allowed to set up her supports, she becomes nearly impossible to damage, period, gaining shroud abilities on herself and some of her spells and preventing all but a handful of cards in the entire game from being able to pierce her defenses. She has excellent combat events as well, and the game's only "destroy target spellcard" effect that doesn't require multiple characters. And, of course, her, Kanako and Sanae can mix and match effectively in any combination.
Weaknesses: Suwako has no penetration whatsoever, no spells with over 4 AV (and only her level 3s and the overcosted Red Frogs have even that much), and she has almost no ways to boost her damage. This means that she gets stalled out hard by more traditionally defensive, Protection heavy leaders, and even when she's not facing protection she takes a long time to actually kill opponents. Factor in her poor intercept options and she seems to die to blitz offense as well. Finally, support destruction makes her faith lock hard or impossible to achieve, cementing her defensive woes.
As an assist: Obligatory Moriya trio stuff aside, Suwako is a good general splash that offers some good combat events and low-cost offensive spells even at level 1, and even better ones along with a big Faith game at level 2. She has a copy of Dignity, in particular, and being able to put Long Limbs on an attack spell to get Faith 2 or Faith 1 Protection 1 is seriously good mojo.
Kanako Yasaka
Part two of the Moriya trio, Kanako is like a more moderate, midgame focused version of Suwako, losing speed and immunities but gaining stability and more versatile options. She's heavily focused on preventing opposing IV while being able to deal her own, and especially on nerfing opposing level 1 or 1 SP spells into the ground. Fittingly, then, she rounds herself out with one of the scariest level 3 spellcards in the game.
Strengths: Mountain of Faith is a PRETTY GOOD CARD, yo. Expanded Onbashira too. Kanako retains Suwako's high HVs and adds Penetration and more built-in protective abilities to her spells, allowing her to better dismantle turtling defenders and stop IV without having to worry about supports. Her combat events are heavier versions of Suwako's, and she adds some strong suppression of opposing supports and events to the mix. In total it's nearly impossible to chump block her, and she eats defensive characters all day.
Weaknesses: With great power comes great SP cost. MoF is an amazing card, sure, but at a whopping 8 SP per activation it had damn well better be! Kanako's lower spells aren't much better in the cost to efficiency department, and to add insult to injury her leader power precludes you from using 1 SP assists. Since her versatility is built into her spellcards, you're forced to pay for their power whether you actually need it or not, and most of the time you don't. While Kanako can break turtles well and defend blitzes somewhat better than Suwako can, she's still got low damage figures with no boosts in sight, and she's lost Suwako's anti-high-AV insurance policy. This means that she loses to the mid/lategame offensive powerhouses that Suwako was so good at chipping out; 2 faith 2 prot ain't gonna save her against 9 AV penetration Youmu slashes, or even the relatively modest, no setup, evenly costed Scarlet Gensokyo madness. In fact, penetration in general beats Mountain of Faith, it can't do a thing about good old Slash of Present.
As an assist: Obligatory Moriya trio great synergy blah blah you can figure that stuff out. Expanded Onbashira is a great intercept spell, Invasion works as a sort of ghetto Spiriting Away, and Dominate compares very favorably with other damage prevention/lifegain events at 3 SP for 2 HP, or even 3 for 3 with a Moriya leader. These three together all come at level 1 for a very nice splash similar to Youmu's. Don't bother going higher without a plan, her level 2 cards aren't as useful and are loaded with noncompetes.
Sanae Kochiya
Part three of the Moriya trio, Sanae is the only real Human-class leader to be added to the game since the original foursome and many of her cards are tied to this status. (No, pre-transform Keine doesn't count.) She runs a formidable mix of faith and evasion, particularly focused movement, along with strong combat events. Almost reminiscent of an alternate Remilia in some ways...
Strengths: Finally a focus-based evasion character! Sanae's evasion + event game is quite robust and offers tons of practical ways for her to get a combat edge, whether it be dodging low HVs, faithing away low damages, or just smacking down opposing spells with ability nulls or minus a lot to everything. She has high HVs, great intercept spells, a great scene, panic buttons, and an actual 5 AV finisher. Except for her level 3 spells, all of her tools are very inexpensive, and in fact some of her cards even refund their SP costs. This lets her afford said level 3s much more easily than most characters, and evasion keeping them up further justifies their cost. She can even force the opponent to intercept with something she can evade. Finally, it's worth noting the huge powerups she gets from having Kanako, Suwako or both in the back helping her out, much more than the gods get from having her assisting.
Weaknesses: Sanae can be rather inconsistent due to how easy it is to magic bullet her. Her supports don't work against other human or god leaders, and she's weak to the handful of other decks that can get Faith on their spells as well. The intro was a lie, Keine does count as she can stay in or transform back to human form at will to shut the miko down. In a reversal from most evasion leaders, she's weak to concentration spells, and using faith exclusively with no protection backup puts her on the fragile side of things. While she's able to defend herself on the cheap, her spellcards are ill suited to going on the offensive until mid to late game, so conservative opponents that just build up early on can spell trouble.
As an assist: Great cheap intercept spellcards, easy access to movement, and combat events are her offerings to most decks. Beyond that, her cards work really well if your leader is one of the other humans or goddesses, but not at all with other leads. Oh, just in case you haven't figured it out yet, the Moriya trio have insane synergy together and literally any combination of them works.
Aya Shameimaru
An offensive evasion character running lots of unfocused movement, Aya may look like a Chen clone at first. Her gameflow is more like Flandre's, though, as she forgoes support dependence and setups in favor of highly aggressive abilities that give her huge gains when opponents fail to intercept her attacks. She has events and supports that would be ridiculous on any other evasion leader, but evasion locks are rarely if ever her goal.
Strengths: Aya is the most momentum-based character in the game, her early aggression is on par with most blitz characters, and she follows up with pounding attacks from the 4 SP range. Her leader card is amazing, her evasion events are amazing, and her supports are steeply discounted compared to most characters. The surplus of SP she gains from her low costs pays for more evasion abilities and bordering, which keeps the surplus going since she doesn't have to reactivate her offense, and her spells further punish failure to hit her by dealing more damage or even nuking the opponent's hand. She has ample access to penetration and a decent amount of higher HV cards to break down attempts to defend.
Weaknesses: Aya is the most momentum-based character in the game, her early defenses are mediocre at best and they never really get better since the majority of her evasion and abilities only work on attack. More balanced opponents who are able to hit her out of her speedy assaults while counterattacking will find her an easily broken bird. While her cards are great up front, they lack depth; in particular she has no answer to support setup characters and Patchouli leads. She tends to run dry on event draws if she isn't careful about Momizi sifts and picking her battles.
As an assist: Quick aggression and evasion, synergizing well with other unfocused move spells and evasion characters, pretty much what you would expect. The strength of her offensive game and events at level 2 is sufficient to complement the loss of level 3s for quite a few other decks.
Komachi Onozuka
Komachi is a rather unique character archetype based around getting her Ghost spell supports onto the opponent's spellcards to neutralize them, then leveraging a number of effects based on having, discarding and reviving the ghosts. Don't confuse unique for gimmicky, though, as she has a little bit of everything and a lot of staying power.
Strengths: Woe betide those who would fight Komachi relying only on certain spellcards and no spell supports. The shinigami is very durable, packing high HP, lifegain, and a lot of protection and -AV/IV. Her damage output is solid, aided by ghosts and pings, and her SP costs are actually quite competitive and low for a buildup-heavy character. In the lategame, with ghosts out, her options are great all around, sort of like Alice though not quite *that* dramatic; she can break through locks with direct damage, 6 and 7 HV spells and general suffocation. She's highly resistant to support destruction, as the ghosts all take parting shots when destroyed and her discard recursion powers let her bring them back easily. Or bring whatever she wants back easily, or even sift her deck for whatever she needs using deck card costs + recursion.
Weaknesses: Woe betide Komachi when the opponent plays supports on their important spells before she can get to them. Woe betide her even more when she doesn't draw enough ghosts. If she can't get her ghosts out, Komachi is in a lot of trouble, and if she can't get them onto the right spells, she can be easily overwhelmed. Getting out any big heavy-hitting card, preventing her from ghosting it, and swinging at her until she dies is a good strategy against her. It's true that she has some undercosted cards and cheap abilities, but she perpetually runs short on SP anyway if she's trying to attack and defend and play cards all at once - which she often has to do just to stay in the game. She's one of the characters most vulnerable to luck and bad draws, not only due to needing ghosts but also because her counters to evasion, protection, etc are few and highly specialized. In particular she can be bit by evasion games, only having 3-4 HV on all but a few spells.
As an assist: The ghosts all come at level 1 and are thankfully free of any exclusivity, so if you want to debuff opposing spells Komachi's your gal. She also packs Money from Yesterday, a deceptively powerful spellcard that saves the day in the lategame more often than you might think. Level 2 Komachi grants access to her recursion game and mainstay spellcards, running more into maindeck territory, though she'll need her partner's help to cover for the holes left by lacking her L3s.
Nitori Kawashiro
Ah, Nitori. When first debuted, she was the most overpowered character the game has seen. Since then she's been nerfed harshly, but still remains one of the scariest decks to face. She is the game's card drawing engine, powering up to high values of protection and huge numbers on her spellcards by drawing a ton of cards, maintaining a huge hand size, and leveraging powerful supports and events that fetch, resurrect and tinker them.
Strengths: Card drawing in stupidly good amounts that no other deck in the game can even come close to, and all the good things that brings with it - always having spells to drop, lots of options and high chances of drawing any specific cards she needs. Her spellcards are mostly defensive, keeping her HP high until she can break out her more expensive fare and power up with hand size, Torpedos, and one of the best scenes in the game. Her supports are ridiculously good, and she can resurrect them if they're destroyed. It has to be reiterated that she has huge numbers in the lategame... it's just hard to argue with 6 SP for 5 AV 3 IV 8 HV penetration-immune debuff-support-immune protection 3.
Weaknesses: Nitori's cards are heinously expensive, except for the pair of cheap intercepts she has to rely on while setting up. She needs to play supports to have strong spells, and needs to drop spellcards to have SP, but if she plays too many cards then her hand size gets too low to trigger bonuses. She perpetually runs on a shoestring budget and often finds that the best option in her hand is to refrain from playing anything in it. Her damage is very low without her scene and bonuses up, she has no penetration except for Torpedo's full hand bonus, and her HVs are quite low without bonuses. This combination makes her susceptible to blitzes, unable to deal with other slow setups except by setting up herself, and in general EXTREMELY reliant on her supports, particularly Aerial Torpedo.
As an assist: All her events are level 1 and go well in any deck that uses supports or would like a bit of card advantage. Her level 1 spells are a decent if unspectacular lot. Her hand size bonuses only really work when Nitori herself is leading, but her level 2 spells are decent for granting some draws to a split deck.
Tenshi Hinanawi
The newest member of the turtle club, Tenshi is an extremely defensive character focused on intercepts, damage prevention and scene control. Her basic game plan is to get her scene and intercept-focused spells running ASAP, then use her defenses and positional control to keep even or ahead in life while working towards some sort of trump card. Her own set provides a support-nuking event and a really big laser as finishers, but Tenshi 2 mixes very well with other characters who can contribute a wide variety of win conditions.
Strengths: Protection and IV, mainly, and the ability to get her scene in play and keep it in play. Stone that Suppresses the Lands with her scene out (man, I'm not typing that name) is her bread and butter tactic. She can put out a bit of safe offense as well, and doesn't entirely die to penetration thanks to her scene being direct -AV and Sword of Firey Spirits being completely unstoppable damage prevention. Her HVs are high enough to neutralize any token evasion, and her superb events lure or force the opponent into making wrong moves, cementing the fact that it's very difficult to get a life lead against Tenshi. She can tutor her scene out and destroy other scenes with ease. On the high end of her cards, World Creation Press is one of the weirdest level 3 spells in the game - it's really an SP efficiency scam attempt. Earthquake is one of the best events in the game, like a targeted Gluttony, and is her primary answer to any sort of setup decks, while Scarlet Weather Rhapsody is her usual way of actually killing the opponent.
Weaknesses: Tenshi is best at dealing with small or midrange spellcards, and her defenses can be shattered by many of the big level 3 superspells or setups. She relies on baiting the opponent into making poor attacks and taking a lot of IV damage, and if they don't, she can be run out of SP by her expensive, offensively useless spells. Or the game can turn into a macro war where both sides wait to draw into their lategame win conditions - even though Earthquake is powerful, Tenshi alone is not at an advantage in these situations. Her HVs aren't really high enough to cope with serious evasion (Mysterious Miko, for example, kills her nearly for free), her damage is questionable and she doesn't have any natural buffing for her spells. She winds up being weak to her own type of defensive buildup game.
As an assist: A Tenshi splash can be surprisingly good for quick offensive decks, not for trying to defend but for her events. Keystone is a good damage +/- swing card and Sword of Hisou is a godsend for decks too busy trying to kill to set up scenes. But arguably Tenshi's best asset is her modularity at level 2 - not only does she work well in the lead with her personal scene, she can work with any scene that you feel like building a deck around.
Iku Nagae
Iku is a versatile slugfesting character focused on a variety of options and basic abilities, both having them herself and denying them to her opponent. She has a little bit of everything and a lot of modularity.
Strengths: Everything, with the right combination of cards. Iku has a spell for every situation, a way to cover every base, and usually multiple options per card which she can pick, choose, and pay for on a per need basis. Some HV here, some direct damage there, protection or faith as required, intercepts, attacks, evasion, and quite a lot of ways to undermine and -stat opposing spellcards. She's perhaps the most consistent character in the game, with no truly bad matchups or insta-losses.
Weaknesses: The usual jack of all trades master of none stuff applies. Iku can get around a lot of locks, but her fancy pings and gimmicks don't add up to efficiency when faced with an opponent who relies on big numbers rather than basic abilities. Some of her costs are optional, but in the end she has to pay SP at a steady rate to actually do damage - and that's about all she CAN do as she lacks any sort of non-combat tricks. Many of her abilities target the opponent's spellcards and get shut down by shroud abilities, like Half-Ghost supports.
As an assist: Her supports have noncompete clauses, but Wrath of the Dragon Fish is an excellent event in many decks. HV fixing if you need it, extra damage potential if you don't. Her level 1 spellcards aren't really notable without the whole Iku framework supporting them, but her level 2 spells are rock solid offense and defense that can fit with anything.
Utsuho Reiuzi
If you know anything about Okuu's character, you know how she plays in this game. All out offense, risky to the point of recklessness and self-destruction, big damage, big explosions, fast games. Similar to Flandre, but with fewer tricks and more power, Utsuho's goal is to reduce the opponent's HP to zero as fast as possible by any and every means necessary.
Strengths: Okuu has a 1 SP for 3 AV, 4 HV spellcard. That pretty much sums up the situation. She has very cheap, fast and damaging attack spells that go straight up to 4 for 4s and 5 for 5s, and then a number of similarly cheap buffs and ways to bring her damage lead home including penetration, normal type spells with HV pumps and direct damage finishers. Her supports are very cheap and give her further accelerations on damage, card draws and SP, and her scene does a great job of negating attempts to slow her down. She isn't totally weak on the defensive end either, having a robust leader card, a couple of spread spells to keep her safe and a great event (Rocket Dive) that nets her 2 or sometimes even 3 damage prevented for 2 SP. She doesn't have any way to deal with lategame locks... except the best way: kill the other girl before it gets to lategame.
Weaknesses: Okuu has to commit fully to her offense, sacrificing her own HP, hand cards, and spellcards to get the job done. If she miscalculates, or gets surprised after a big commitment, or just doesn't get the right cards and runs out of steam, she's done, there's no such thing as an Okuu comeback. Her HVs are quite low and most of her spells are Concentration, making her very weak to evasion and especially heavy unfocused movement. If she faces something like Aya, Chen or Remilia she only has a couple of cards that can even hope to hit. If they have both evasion and protection, that's even worse, as her only source of penetration is concentrated and deals damage to herself. Patchouli leads put a big damper on her fun. Utsuho is rather vulnerable to luck and bad draws, she REALLY wants that Blaze Geyser in her starting hand and if she doesn't get it, or can't get the right big spell for her midgame situation, it can be a drastic hit to her damage potential. She's also not exactly the hardest character to play against; when you see an Okuu, you should know what's coming and exactly what type of game you're in for, and be able to make decisions accordingly.
As an assist: Okuu is pretty mediocre as a splash, out of pure necessity lest her superpowered offense dominate the metagame. Her actually useful cards are almost all tied to having herself in the lead, or level 2+, or both. If you do run her at level 2, Rocket Dive, Blaze Geyser, Giga Flare and her scene are all viable under other leaders. Her lower spells aren't bad, and there are gimmick setups for her direct damage pings, but mostly Okuu is Okuu.
Orin
She doesn't like being called by her full name, so don't do it. Orin is based around the somewhat counterintuitive concept of powering up by putting her own spellcards in her discard pile. She features solid spellcards for both attack and defense, a fair amount of life gain, and some sneaky card advantage tactics.
Strengths: Orin's spellcards are great, featuring big stats and lots of protection and penetration and never lacking at any point in the game. She has a lot of ways to get spells into the discard pile to turn on her powerups, either passively from her deck card and discard "costs" or actively sacrificing spells for extra damage or life. Zombie Fairies can not only be sacrificed for free, they replace themselves with your choice of spellcard from your deck! Between them and powerful search, tutor, draw and revive effects, Orin has a high degree of search and deck fixing at her pawtips. She doesn't fall prey to 2 or 3 HV cheapshots, and is much more durable than she first appears once her lifegain powers start to kick in later in the game. Her abilities also feature a high degree of synergy with other characters, particularly those who either put or can benefit from having a lot of cards in the graveyard.
Weaknesses: If she's facing opposition with penetration and can't get her lifegain working, Orin can be exactly as fragile as she first appears. She usually has to play everything she's got at once to keep going vs fighty opponents, and this overextension drains her SP like mad, all too often leaving her in situations where she's just a little short of the SP or HP she needs to survive. Definitely a lategame gimmick powerhouse, Orin doesn't like blitz too much, and she absolutely doesn't like hand destruction that takes away the supports and events she needs to flourish. She never has deck room for everything she wants to play, either, and whatever cards she chooses to leave behind are more holes that can be exploited if her opponent correctly guesses what she doesn't have.
As an assist: Needle Mountain, a disposable penetration finisher like those Yukari and Remilia have at level 3, goes well in any deck that needs a little oomph to get past protection. Vengeful Spirit Consumption is pretty good utility too, especially since it can be coupled with a Zombie Fairy trio. Blazing Wheel is designed for Orin 2 setups running lite versions of her setups, and there are a fair number of synergies possible with her graveyard shenanigans in general.