Note: I am linking to the Japanese card profiles for each individual card. Follow along with the Weiss community’s translations here! I’ll replace them with individual translations as they become available
The Macross Delta Weiss Schwarz set is finally here (In Japan, us westerners will have to wait due to a manufacturing error). All the attention is rightfully on the Hayate and Freyja finisher, so I thought I’d take a quick peek at the other big new thing from Zettai Live!!!!!! That’s right, we’re talking Yami_Q_Ray.
Some quick Yami_Q_Ray facts before we jump into the analysis. At the 2019 Macross Crossover Live, before Yami_Q_Ray were revealed, Freyja’s voice actor Minori Suzuki asked director Shoji Kawamori (in front of 15000 fans including your’s truly) why the newly revealed name Zettai Live!!!!! had six exclamation marks when Walkure only has five members. Sheepishly, Kawamori admitted there would be a sixth performer. Instead of a sixth performer, we got a dark version of each Walkure character! So much more than we bargained for! Although since the five idols from Walkure are the voices for Yami_Q_Ray, maybe Minori didn’t get the baby Walkure member she wanted.
In Zettai Live!!!!!!, Yami_Q_Ray opposes Walkure, disrupt Delta Force, and try to drag our heroes into the Abyss with them. In the Macross Delta Weiss set, we get a card for each Yami_Q_Ray member, and true to flavour they each have their own nasty effect. I’m going to rank each of them amongst themselves, discuss flavour based on their catchphrase, and tell you whether you should play them.
Yami Freyja: B Tier
Yami Freyja, the first member of Yami_Q_Ray to appear (with arguably the best design) has the most typical Weiss profile despite her catchphrase being “Music is Crazy!”. She is a level 3 with a cost of two stock, and the choice of two offense oriented on play effects: either refresh your opponent with one fewer climax or do one damage. She also has three soul. She pairs well with the Mikumo 3/2 that stacks cancel burn. With the support available to Macross, you can set her up to finish in a manner like Ilulu from Dragon Maid, but with more push due to a lower stock investment and…
Yami Reina: S Tier
Yami Reina, our Silent Hacker’s evil counterpart, is fittingly a versatile brainstorm. It can pay one and either tap self to salvage cards up to climaxes hit or tap two to burn equal to climaxes hit. So she can either support you or hack the opponent. Seems to line up well with “Music is Desire.”
Note that since it is an ACT ability it dodges some forms of anti-burn such as Kaban from Kemono Friends and Yuji from Shana. Non-interactive damage is great. Non-interactive damage that dodges anti-burn is even better. Macross Delta also features several characters that can send themselves to the waiting room to activate good effects, which makes tap 2 characters a much lower cost. You should strongly consider this card in offensive Macross Delta builds.
Reina gets bumped to S tier because Reina/Nao Toyama also happens to be my favourite member of Walkure.
Yami Makina: A Tier
Makina is not just a member of Walkure but is also a valuable mechanic for the Delta Flight. Is it any surprise that Yami Makina spreads “(Music is) Despair” by directly tinkering with your opponent’s hand? On play, Yami Makina sends a card from your opponent’s hand to memory, and they don’t get it back until the end of their turn. This might be the most powerful hand destruction we’ve seen since Akanari who is still on the ban list. On top of that you can sacrifice Yami Makina when one of your other characters is front attacked to give the defending character 2500 power. If that’s not enough it has two soul and a soul trigger. This card will fit beautifully into standby decks and offense-oriented decks using Choice triggers like Hayate/Freyja. I love this card and will try to fit two into my early builds.
Yami Kaname: B tier
The alter ego of Walkure’s leader, Yami Kaname, is no slouch either. Both of her abilities activate when a climax comes off the top of your deck, as expected of unshakable Kaname’s dark side. When Yami Kaname is played from hand, mill top two cards and if you reveal a climax send a level two or lower front row character to memory. Representing her catch phrase “Song is Delight,” she can bring value to her team by returning to hand when damage you take is cancelled. Oh, and she intrinsically has two souls on attack, allowing her to side without issue at level 1.
This is a very nice tech card into standby heavy environments. Sending your opponent’s 2/2 walls to memory prevents them from taking advantage of hand encore or using field supremacy to refill resources and transition to their end game.
Yami Mikumo: D tier
The mysterious Wind Singer’s doppleganger is, frankly, a disappointment. Yami Mikumo’s catchphrase, “Music is Darkness,” was taken very literally. Her only ability is a climax combo with the two soul “Diva in Abyss.” When you play Diva in Abyss while having another music character, all players remove all characters except for Yami Mikumo from the field, and Yami Mikumo gets the following ability “If damage done by this is cancelled, burn 3.” This sort of ability is often compared to Dark Hole in Yu-Gi-Oh.
This would have been a neat tech against suppression decks that also defend against targeted removal abilities if Diva in Abyss was included in the climax Link package. But that is not the case. Thus, this becomes a bizarre combo where you swing once for between five and seven damage and then burn for three when your opponent likely cancels. The combo might have been less silly if Diva in Abyss was a choose 1, give power, soul, and draw climax but Bushi seems to have forgotten that profile exists. Don’t play this outside of meme decks.
Wrapping up
The Yami_Q_Ray cards are for the most part great cards. They all have strong flavour, matching well to the dark idols on the cards. All but one of them are playable too. When testing out Macross Delta, I implore you to give these bad girls a spot in your list. They might rock you!
Wild Wild Weiss 
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