Overall Impressions

Kamen Rider Collab was a bit of an unexpected drop into NA that combines the Kamen Rider JP event from 1 year+ ago with one that happened more recently at the beginning of December 2019 for Japan. We are getting this event with a 1-month delay which makes it relatively fresh.

Overall, I think this event comes with some decent cards, but nothing groundbreaking that rises to a chase card. Given the current meta and without taking into consideration your individual boxes, Faiz is probably the best prize in the entire event as he opens up a lot of team building options for Ina/Phenom teams in his sub forms through his 2-turn Fujin active while conferring the same benefits via a great equip evo to other teams. Super-1 does not seem to be a meta lead, but seems to be a fun leader to play for the purposes of trying a new style. While less obvious, the Muteki equip is actually amazing as well for having great offensive + utility awakening on top of a strong active.

Several of the 5-star cards have their own niche uses as well, with Fourze being a standout for having uses as a sub and an equip for water teams, particularly Chidori (who is rising in popularity). Unfortunately, the 5-stars that drop with a 12% rate are plagued by weak stats and have marginal use as subs, although most are redeemed by their equip forms.

Should you roll?

As with most things, the answer is “it depends”. Yugioh collab has not been officially announced yet, but that comes with several top tier prizes such as Yugi himself and Seto Kaiba. That seems to be an event worth waiting and saving for, which argues for passing on this event if you believe the odds are good that it’ll come to NA. Gungho collab and DBDC should also be making a comeback, but those are repeat events so veterans are less likely to get good value there. 

At 6-stones, I think this is a good value event and I think a total of 3-5 rolls is totally justified, particularly if you are in “mid” game where a few key equips will make the difference to clear the next hurdle. I did a few on both my accounts and felt like I got good value out of those stones, but don’t plan to do more despite not getting some cards I wanted. For calibration purposes, I did not pull at all for the Christmas event (other than free ones), went hard for Fujimi, and did about 8 pulls for Draconic Orchestra. As for the future, I may do a few pulls for Gungho collab but it’s unlikely that I will do any for DBDC since I’ve pulled a lot on those events already. I imagine many players are in a similar situation given the events from 2018.

6-star monsters

Kamen Rider 1 (base form) – C

I personally don’t see a lot of value in the base form as either a sub or a lead as he is outperformed by other cards, including his own evolved form. His awakenings are too spread out and he doesn’t specialize in doing anything. His leader skill is only a 4/81/0 which is not serviceable, and the active skill doesn’t have any obvious uses to me including cheesing. Might have high nostalgic value for being the original Kamen Rider.

Kamen Rider 1 & Kamen Rider 2 (uevo form) – B

The uevo form makes his card a TPA monster and grants personal damage of up to ~15 with 7c + TPA (including SA). Unfortunately, a lack of VDP and being bindable (if you opt for the TPA SA) means that again he’s going to be far from ideal on harder dungeons. As a leader, he grants 4/225/0 which is not awful but I think there are plenty of other leads that are better.

Rider Belt Typhoon (equip form) – A

It’s always nice to have more equip forms with unbindable awakening. As far as I know this and Zela equip are the only wood cards that provide bind resist so it’s a nice option if you want the on-color stat bonus + the team HP buff to get over certain HP requirements. You’re still stuck with the weird reshuffle active but at least it takes 19 turns for the skill to be ready. Personally I’d rather run off-color equips that give better utility awakenings.

Kamen Rider EX-AID (base form) – C

EX-AID has an ok active that creates 2 columns of lights on both sides of the board. While it makes for easy Tifa team activation, guaranteed rows are generally preferred so I don’t see too much value in the skill. 3 enhanced heart awakenings would be nice for other colors, but Tifa teams heal fine so those awakenings go to waste. There are no shortage of good light subs and he simply doesn’t make the cut on any team. 

Kamen Rider EX-AID Muteki Gamer (uevo form) – B

The uevo form is the much better version in my opinion and forms a serviceable light sub that can have 7.5x personal damage with just L awakening if you unlock the 5th one via SA. With a dupe, you can take this to the extreme and get 11.4x personal damage if you give him his own equip. Unfortunately, he adds very little utility beyond damage via L awakening and does not come with a VDP for some of the more challenging bosses in AA3. As a leader, 1/256/1 with a ~70% shield is totally outclassed given the relatively high activation requirements.

Game Driver & Might Action X Gachat (equip form) – S

This is a pretty awesome equip that adds a mix of utility and damage. Tape resist is very hard to come by on an equip and the awakenings on this one are better than the other two NA ones (Yuna and Seregios). This is really useful for teams that want to use HCotton and struggle between having tape resist or bind resist. The L-awakening is slightly redundant if you have Diao Chan but if not, this equip covers a lot of bases. Unless you’re really short on light subs, I would highly recommend choosing this form over the uevo.

Kamen Rider Den-O (base form) – B

Den-O comes with decent awakenings including a coveted cloud resist on a non-SA, non-equip, non-crap card. Double 7c helps him contribute damage, but he’ll mostly be wanted for the various utility he can bring to the team including a rainbow board change + full awoken bind awakening (thanks u/DeadlyLynx). Overall a decent sub but the rainbow component of the active puts him a bit out of meta, although being one of few fire monsters with full bind clear makes him somewhat unique

Kamen Rider Den-O CLIMAX Form (uevo form) – B

I really wanted to give this guy a better rating based on his name, but unfortunately he suffers a similar fate as the base form in that as both a sub and a leader, he’s currently out of meta. Once upon a time, 2x bind resist and 3x 7c awakening formed the unholy pentagon of awakenings that put everything into S-tier. Since then, hazard mechanics and damage void have made those cards slightly obsolete. CLIMAX Form comes with a lot of nice utility, but given that he doesn’t fit well in today’s meta (maybe Ed, Diablos, or Super-1), he comes up a bit short despite being good on paper.

Den-O Belt & Rider Pass (equip form) – B

Like many Kamen Riders, Den-O’s best form is in his equip form where he provides 2x jammer resists, some offensive buffs, and 1 TE. Half of the active skill is situationally useful if it’s your only means of getting a awakening bind clear, but for most teams yellow ranger equip will be a better choice for having better hazard resists (I’d take 1 poison over 2 jammers) and creating an on-color board for teams that typically use her. Regardless, it’s always nice to have a full bind clear option with bonuses stacked on top, but better options exist which.

Kamen Raider Faiz (base form) – A

Faiz in my opinion is one of the better cards in the collab. In base form, he has some situational use for having double devil killers with VDP SA while also having the option to equip latent devil killer as well. His active is amazing as it grants 2 turns of a Fujin-style active along with a useful secondary function of enhancing all orbs for some sweet bonus damage. This is really useful in AA3 where you can have a potential spawn of MAthena and Durga back-to-back. Bride Panera, Dark Raizer, and Rehven are the only other cards that come with a 2-turn Fujin style active.

Kamen Raider Faiz Accel Form (uevo form) – A

The uevo form is the more generalized version of Faiz, trading in the devil killers for double 7c and skill charge on top of that. While rainbow teams are on the decline, it’s relatively easy for Ina/phenom teams to have all 5 elements if the team runs Nergigante and/or Eir, making Faiz a pretty direct upgrade to other void damage absorb options such as Thranced (thanks u/StateChemist). Lastly, as a leader he has a rare ability to perform an awoken bind recovery with 20k+ healing, which is ironically pretty difficult given that he has no rcv multipliers and heart awakening won’t work.

Faiz Gear (equip form) – S 

In my opinion this is one of the best fujin-style active equips and on par with light Cecil (depending on whether you need bind resist). Two poison resist awakenings gives a lot more flexibility for team building, and you get a bit of bonus damage and move time to boot! Again, the active here lasts for 2 turns and is the only equip form we have in NA with that duration. Keeping in mind that there are only 5 other equip forms with damage void (4 of which are limited and the last one is Reeche’s 30 turn cooldown skill), this is one of the chase cards for the event.

Kamen Rider Zero-One (base form) – B

Zero-One is a middle-of-the-pack sub that can add a decent amount of damage with 4 light row awakenings as well as 3SBs to get actives ready for certain farming content. As a lead in base form, he can also function as kind of a poor man’s Haohmaru with an 18x multiplier for linking 6+ orbs, but the 5s movement time really limits his potential in harder content. Note that the PadX leader skill description is incorrect for both the base and evolved forms – the base multipliers apply to light & dark, not “god type”.

Kamen Rider Zero-One Shining Hopper (uevo form) – A

Shining Hopper is a solid damage sub who has the unfortunate fate of having to compete with the likes of Goury (so sad I didn’t pull him), BZela, HCotton, and Bradamante for a spot on a Tifa team. His active is somewhat underwhelming given that a team will have an average of ~10 SBs, but at a 7 turn CD it’s easy to inherit something over it. His mechanic as a leader also requires him to match 6+ light orbs for 18x damage, but he trades the 50k fixed damage +2 combos. Paired with himself, he can make a decent light flash farming leader.

Hiden Zero Driver + Progrise Key (equip form) – B

The killer awakenings are useful for TA2 where many of the enemies are healer or attacker type. Remember that killer awakenings stack multiplicatively so having that 3rd or 4th one will really add a ton of damage. That being said, Blade Braves series also gives attacker or healer killer equip, so I’d consider this a luxury item (unless there is a difficult healer/attack enemy that I am forgetting where this equip would be immensely useful).

Kamen Rider Black (base form) – C

The base form of Kamen Rider Black is pretty mediocre in my opinion and doesn’t have much utility beyond having a few rows + VDP. Very few teams now need to utilize a tri-color board + hearts, so it’s hard to justify using him over any other forms that he can take.

Kamen Rider Black RX (uevo form) – A

Black RX made it to NA a little too late to be a top-tier meta leader, but he has a respectable 2.25/248/2.25 leader multiplier with a 43.75% shield assuming full activation. Off the top of my head, a few viable subs with 1-turn actives include Aerith, Lutina, and Tardis. Black RX himself also boasts pretty impressive personal damage, being able to hit almost 32x with a TPA + VDP. That being said, being able to hit VDP + TPA is probably not going to happen without a board change active. I personally feel he’s a tankier but slower version of Zela Kitty who was the premier NA wood lead for a good part of 2019. 

Prince of Sadness, Robo Rider (uevo form) – B

As much as I love the YOLO playstyle of <50% atk boost, as far as I know there are no decent light teams that utilize this kind of playstyle. Robo Rider himself has no suicide skill to proc his awakenings or leader skill, which puts him in a pretty weird position. Tifa teams also dominate light and those teams have very high RCV, typically staying at near full HP after each turn. Prince of Sadness remains sad as he has no place in the world to belong for the foreseeable future.

Prince of Anger, Bio Rider (uevo form) – A

As far as mixed killers go, Bio Rider’s combination is actually not too bad as it covers several difficult spawns in AA3, especially if you include the SA devil killer (every floor after 16 will be of at least 1 of the types he has killers for). For those who don’t have Minaka or Velkhana, Bio Rider is also a decent pairing, giving 18x ATK and 50% shield provided you can stay above 80% hp. His active synergizes with his leader skill and will hopefully give an easier setup to perform a VDP. I would argue that this is the best form for Kamen Rider Black unless you have a fully populated Minaka team.

Rider Belt: Vital Charger – A

While not quite as nice as EX-AID or Faiz equip, Vital Charger is a pretty nifty cloud equip resist that also gives an extra poison resist awakening. For dark teams including Ina/Phenom, you also get 3 bonus row awakenings and have the additional luxury of Phenom’s VDP SA instead of cloud resist. I only wish that the active was a little better as you’re statistically not likely to get enough dark orbs for a VDP and there’s a chance you can get screwed with less than 6 dark orbs. One huge disadvantage is that you lose the ability to switch between the other forms with this upgrade, so be certain you don’t need the (or have a dupe) before committing.

Kamen Rider Super-1 – A

Saving the most complicated for last, so here goes. Kamen Rider Super-1 follows in the footsteps of Fagan Rai in that he is able to transform into a more powerful form through the use of his active. While Fagan Rai goes straight from normal Saiyan to Super Saiyan God in 22 turns, Super-1 takes a more linear approach, using a 12+3+3+3 approach before reaching his super saiyan 4 “Power Hands” form. For better or worse, his leader skill does not change beyond the initial “Elec Hands” transformation, so we can effectively treat him as a 4/324/1 lead with a 43.75% shield for attacker types (non-attackers still get the full attack multiplier, but no HP bonus, thanks u/Squidzkrieg) if you match 8 combos and 5+ non fire orbs of any type, including hazards. This hits pretty hard when you also take into consideration that the entire team is stacked with Attacker types and his active in the final form a 1-turn 7x multiplier. His main drawback is that most of his actives during the transformation are situational, so unless you need it at that exact turn, you’re forced to either stall until it’s appropriate to use, or waste the non-transforming component of the skill. Overall he feels like a pretty fun leader to use, and it looks like this Gungho is planning to continue with this new transforming character design which makes a lot of sense if the source collab material is anime.

Rider Belt Cyclone – A

While the active component of this equip has a nice 25% true gravity + 2 turn damage void (100% damage reduction), it should be discounted almost entirely given it takes 40 turns to prep. What we are left with is an OK fire OE equip that also provides 1 SB. I can see this having some use for certain teams like that might need the SB along with the boosted damage (for farming or ranking), but other options such as Rathalos Flamesword and RSonia equip (for rows) exist for better damage output. I am reluctantly giving it an A because it’s a unique combination that will probably have some niche application.

Special 5-star monsters

I’m giving Fourze and Rider W their own special section as they have their own unique drop rate of 3% + a bonus orb skin. Personally I am more excited for waifu orb skins but both designs here look nice with bold distinguishing features between colors (random fact: I have trouble using Valkyrie orb skin because of its more pastel shading).

Kamen Rider Fourze (base form) – A

I thought about Fourze’s ranking for a really long time and ultimately settled on an A which makes him comparable to B. Cotton for popular water teams like Minaka, Chidori, or B. Veroah. Having a VDP SA along with double 7c helps gives him a respectable 10x personal damage with the obvious benefit of having VDP compared to Cotton. Cotton has a quicker CD active that mitigates orb trolling and makes it an easier inherit base, while Fourze’s active helps to set up a guarantee kill board that gives options of VDP + FUA or sFUA at the expense of a longer cooldown. Cotton has other utility awakenings such as FUA and bind clear which Fourze does not have, but I think Fourze is a pretty attractive blue sub to consider, especially for Chidori teams to set up a kill board with FUA.

Fourze Driver + Astro Switch (equip form) – A

I highly value Fourze’s active so I think this is a great equip to have and maybe an alternative to using Fourze himself on the team if you have a deep blue sub pool. Jammer resists are not as coveted as other hazards, but it’s still nice to block out the occasional bomb/jammer spawn, and the single L-unlock is big value since the typical subs used for blue teams don’t come with one naturally with the exception of DZeta if you happen to have one. If you run a Tifa team and really lacking in equips that provide orb change, Fourze Driver can help you out as well. Overall this is a great equip, and it comes down to your box to decide which version of Fourze is most suited for your team.

Kamen Rider W (base form) – B

I almost completely wrote off the base form of Kamen Rider W, but he actually has a nice 18x atk multiplier as a leader when below 50% hp which is at least numerically equivalent to DOmega and Veroah. With a single Zaerog core and the appropriate helper pairing, you can form a budget flash farming team or potential ranking team utilizing TPAs and/or <50% attack bonus awakening. He won’t help you clear hard dungeons or earn a crown, but he’s still worth considering as a lead if you are in need of flash farming options.

Double Driver + Cyclone and Rider (equip form) – B

This equip is an alternative to Carat, granting 3 turns instead of 2 turns of 1+0.3*SB bonus damage with a 20 turn cd instead of 14. It’s hard to imagine a team with less than 5 SB so this grants at least a 2.5x damage bonus. To me, the best use of this equip is in the grind that is AA2 where you face a series of relatively challenging enemies from dungeons 21 and onward. The 3-turn duration of this active might let you get by with some less-than-ideal board solves (obviously will still need to account for resolve/combo shield/void damage) so you can save the big board setup active for Norns. Having said that, teams don’t have too much trouble with damage these days so I’d value other utility equips over it.

Basic 5-star monsters

Let me preface this section by pointing out that while several of the 5-stars here have decent awakening and/or actives, their weighted stats at level 99 without +points is only ~700 which is pretty low. While it’s not a direct comparison given the different costs, low-tier rolls in Fujimi Collab (7-stone) and Power Rangers (10-stone) have weight stats of ~900 and ~1000, respectively, while reincarnated pantheons have ~1000 as well. This lowers the overall value of the 5-star pool as subs, but fortunately most of them come with nice equip forms that add decent utility. Anyway, onward with the review.

Kamen Rider Ryuki (base form) – B

Ryuki packs up to 7 fire row awakenings and will be used to boost the damage output for fire farming teams such as Christmas Saline, Christmas Uriel, row-based DOmega teams, or even himself (as a budget option). Ryuki is balanced type so he can equip any latent killers, but that’s offset by the fact that his atk stat is pretty poor. He is most comparable to Ralg from Gungho collab who is a 7-star, 7-stone monster with up to 7 row awakenings through SA. 

V Buckle (equip form) – A

Equip cards that give both offensive awakenings and utility are always high value and it’s especially nice to see that packaged in a 5-star roll. V Buckle grants 2 rows and 2 poison resist awakenings which are useful for both the aforementioned farming teams as well as Raoh teams. There’s a shortage of accessible poison resist options for fire based teams, particularly in equip form (all come from collabs, most from higher rarity), so this is a really nice equip to have.

Kamen Rider Amazon (base form) – C

I’m not sure in what situation you would choose to use Amazon over other potential blue subs or leads you may have, so I think it’s pretty safe to stay away from him unless you really have no other options for tape resist, or you have other really high HP subs on your team who can benefit from the double Team HP+ awakenings. On a random note, there is a show on Amazon Prime called Amazon Riders which I find to be mildly entertaining. When the characters transform into Rider mode, they literally say “AMAZON!” which I think is the main reason Amazon Prime decided to pick the show up.

Rider Belt Condorer (equip form) – A

There’s a slight chance I’m overvaluing this equip, but a blue orb change active with cloud resist didn’t exist until now and it opens up much better SA options for water teams (which has relied on either SA or equips with awkward active for cloud resist). In particular, BVeroah can now get access to 7c SA and double her damage. For reference, the other blue equips with cloud resits are Velkana and Jhoira (MTG Collab), neither of which are currently available.

Kamen Rider Build (base form) – B

Speaking of cloud resists, Rider Build is a budget sub that can fulfill the role of cloud resist + FUA with the option to add tape resist through SA. That’s a lot of utility wrapped in a nice package along with with a reasonably useful but slow active. Despite having 3 SBs on top of that, I imagine most people will have better sub options given his weak stats and 3 TPAs which are kind of wasted. I actually feel like 3 is the worst number of TPAs to have as it takes up 3 slots but doesn’t quite scale as well having the 4th or 5th one.

Build Drive & Rabbit + Tank Fullbottle (equip form) – B  

Double Awakening killers are useful for TA2 against those pesky latent awakening floors as well as having potential use in certain ranking dungeons. The existence of Samurai Zaerog equip somewhat devalues this card, but Build Drive does its job when you need it to.

Kamen Rider V3 (base form) – C

I was initially excited for V3 given his awakenings, but the more I thought about it during the process of writing the review, the less bullish I became of his potential. For harder content such as AA3 or even A5, it’s difficult for teams to get a board that has row + VDP + FUA/SFUA (need a 7×6 board or auto FUA), so while the awakenings are nice on paper, I just don’t see a lot of practical value in it. Unlike Ryuki which has a purpose as a farming sub, TA1/2 teams typically don’t use wood leads, leaving him orphaned with no good home to belong to. Even when SRevo Freyja comes out I don’t see rows being the way to build the team. On the plus side, I recall someone using double SFUA to cheese one of the C9s, but I’m not sure how likely that gimmick will be needed again in the near future. His active also provides a decent orb change along with a bonus damage multiplier, but still can’t justify fielding him unless you have really limited options.

Rider Belt: Double Typhoon (equip form) – B

Wood rows are again nice to have but for the problems I described above, it’s just not as attractive as rows of other elements at this moment. For the purposes of blind resist, I think even several other off-colored options are better in this case. If you feel more strongly than I do about wood row awakenings, than you should give it your own personal A rank for this equipment.

Kamen Rider Kuuga (base form) – C

Kuuga’s most standout feature is his personal 9x attack with TPA + 7c, but 9x a low base atk is still pretty weak. His active gives 1.5x attack which is really low by current standards, but 3-turn CD means it’s at least spammable in case you needed it for some leader skill activation. Given his lack of utility in other areas of his awakening or active, it’s pretty safe to ignore him unless you absolutely need a cloud awakening option. 

Rider Belt Arcle (equip form) – B

Rider Belt Arcle has good awakenings for physical killer, but I think that the low CD for the terrible active is a huge liability that devalues the card. Claymore and Kopis from Brave Blades are also relatively accessible equips but come with longer cooldowns if you just wanted to have a bonus physical killer. Equips with killers tend to be highly situational anyway, so just take it on and off as needed and try to account for the timing of the equip active overwriting that of the base monster.

Kamen Rider Poppy (base form) – B

There was a point in PAD when OdinDra was the only full bind + awoken bind clear in the game and that alone made him invaluable in almost every team. More options exist now for bind + awoken bind clear, but there are still only a handful that will provide a full bind clear and Rider Poppy happens to be one of them. In that sense, Rider Poppy is not bad as she provides everything you’d want in a cleric (namely, the ability to unbind your team while being unbindable herself) and also comes with an offensive component to her active at the expense of a longer cooldown (14 turns vs. 9 turns for OdinDra). The bonus damage from her active should be at least a 2.5x damage multiplier given that everyone should have at least 5 SBRs on the team (unless you are playing multiplayer 3P, in which case that number is zero). Being naturally unbindable and then having the option for tape or cloud resist makes Rider Poppy a nice little package for a support card if you lack other options. Her main downside is that the character design looks quite horrible. 

Buggle Driver II + Tokimeki Crisis Gashat (equip form) – B

The awakenings on this equip don’t really move the needle for me and you use this exclusively for the active. The awakenings are so marginal that unless your team is really living on the edge and you need the 0.25s movement time + healing bonuses, I would actually keep the base card until you’re positive that you’ll never need her again. Another issue to think about is that the 14-turn CD is acceptable as a sub, but can be quite long depending on the base monster you are equipping it to.

About Me

I am caliwong and I have been playing PAD for over 2200 days. I’m not very good but thanks to power creep, I’ve cleared almost all content in the game using my main account with the exception of TA2, which I’ll get to when I find a stable Veroah partner. My favorite lead of all time is probably Aizen-sama in his prime.

Main (Rank 765) 308.383.245

Slot 1 – R/L Kenshin (for nostalgia reasons)

Slot 2 – Tifa with TE+ and Cloud resist

Other leads: Minaka, B. Veroah, UEvo Veroah, ZKitty, Chidori

Alt (Rank 500) 395.280.232

Slot 1- D/D Orphen

Slot 2 – DOmega

Other leads: Akine, Nakoruru, Lina Inverse, DKarin, Zaerog Core

Like all rankings, these are highly subjective and I’m not claiming to be the most knowledgeable PAD expert out there. I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting Mantastic and Pancake in person, so I’ve accumulated some of their in-game knowledge via osmosis. To help calibrate, here is how I define my rankings and some examples. There is a bias towards clearing AA3 / A5 content.

Rank	Definition	Lead Example	Sub Example	Equip Example
SS	Best in meta, use if you can (given appropriate team)	Tifa, Minaka	Zaerog Core, Goury, Diao Chan	Halloween equip, Rimururu equip
S	Excellent in meta, can’t go wrong using it	Ina, Phenom, Chidori	HCotton, BZela, Saber	Brachydios, Akantor, LCecil
A	Good for certain roles and in certain conditions	BVeroah, D/D Orphen, Akine, Fagan solo	Normal Cottons, Mel	Rathian, Trojan Horse, Pink Ranger
B	Almost always a better option, avoid unless you need a specific role filled	Too many to list
C	Pass unless absolutely necessary