Brave Frontier Cardes in 20 Turns Guide

Brave Frontier Cardes in 20 Turns Guide by onlyhands

I’ve been a long time BF player for more than a year now, and the recent achievement system has really got me hooked on the game again after the whole servers/content fiasco a few months ago. I found that, so far, the Cardes in 20 turns or less challenge to be pretty fun in terms of team building.

You may ask “why didn’t you just 4 shot Cardes?” and the answer is I did about 4 months ago, but for some reason, I couldn’t do it again. It either doesn’t work as well now or RNG just hates me. I thought I’d share my team and thought process of handling the fight.

My team is as follows (all SBB10/UBB):
Rosetta (A) Lead – Legwand, Sol Creator
Raaga (L) Friend – Xentar, Paksuan
Andaria (B) – Legwand, Refined Gem
Feeva (G) – Malice, Heresy Orb (Fully Imped)
Kikuri (A) – Scarlet Pin, Sol Creator (Half Imped)
Shera (L) – Dandelga, Ishir’s Guise (HP, Def Imped)

Items: 3 Holy Flutes, 5 Fujins, 2 Goddess Idols, 2 Revives

It is essentially a Spark Team loosely based off of the Andaria team that MKBR used for the Lugina trial. I found it to be very safe. Rosetta and Raaga provide the spark damage to speed up the fight. Rosetta LS, along with Feeva and Kikuri SBBs provide BB sustain. Andaria serves as both paralysis/poison and status cleanse. Kikuri provides curse and more damage through her UBB. Shera provides mitigation and an ATK buff. Feeva is our passive healer.

The flutes and idols serve to reduce any RNG chances and survive Zebra. I know 2 revives may look greedy, but even after using both, I cleared this challenge on my first try with this team.

I treat the fight much like the Lugina trial: If you don’t get through the thresholds properly with Zebra (like Gravion), YOU WILL DIE. Unlike the 4 shot squad, you do not have to OTK Zebra. You can comfortably kill him in 4-5 turns depending how well you can sync the sparks (Andaria being the toughest due to her long start up animation). Pop a flute and 2 fujins on Shera and Andaria, and use both idols (Shera is a must, the other is your choice). SBB Andaria first, then Shera, then attack with the rest of the party. If you delay enough after Andaria’s SBB, you should fill a good amount of your party’s BB gauge with Rosetta’s LS.

On the next turn, you should get Zebra to a little over 50% if you SBB with Raaga > Andaria > Feeva > Kikuri > Shera > Rosetta. If you couldn’t get SBB with most of them, don’t hesitate to pop a fujin on Kikuri to get the Lilly Matah buff on your party and wait out for another turn. You do want to win in less than 20 turns, but you don’t want to screw up at this phase.

On the following turn, BB with Rosetta and SBB with everyone else and it should get him above 25% and therefore he only kills one guy assuming he hits someone without the idol buff. If you screw up and get all 3 OTKs, pray that it hits Shera, the other idol buffed member, and just kills one person anyways. You should have used BOTH idols because hoarding the other for Cardes will be pretty useless as Luther can just erase it. Don’t take chances. Revive and SBB with everyone to kill Zebra.

I found the Cardes phase pretty autopilot afterwards (since I spent a good hour today trying to OTK Zebra and just decided to say fuck it, I’ll make a real team). As described above, this team should be pretty safe as it brings all the utility we want without a huge blow in the damage department. I wasn’t even counting turns or watching thresholds for this phase. Cardes would only summon Luther and Phee 3 times before dying, and Phee would die on her first turn, Luther on the next. I finished the fight in about 10-12 turns (lost count honestly) with only Rosetta dead.

I’ll sum up this phase with a few key points:

1. Andaria and Kikuri really serve as the anchors of the fight. The moment you get your first turn in, use Andaria’s REGULAR BB to hopefully paralyze Luther (happened for me on the first of the 3), and SBB Kikuri to get that Matah BB passive up. IT REALLY HELPS IF YOU’RE SHIT AT SPARKING. Using Kikuri’s BB to curse Phee seemed pretty pointless on the first turn since she ends up dying anyways (either in one shot or a lucky poison).
2. You have passive heal from either Raaga or Feeva. I only hit the red maybe 3 or 4 times due to his Deadly End ST nuke (so thankful he didn’t decide to focus one, but that’s what our last revive is for). I survived Endless pretty comfortably too since my party was always almost topped off (Andaria had the lowest HP at 7.4K)
3. You shouldn’t have issues with BB management, but if by any chance you don’t have mitigation up, don’t hesitate to pop a fujin on Shera. You should still have 2-3 fujins left. I would prioritize them to Shera first, then Kikuri. The only time I wouldn’t use it on Shera is if both Luther and Phee are dead, you are safe from any of Cardes’ nukes, and have Kikuri’s passive BB buff up. Then I would just block with everyone and prosper at the cost of one turn. Use the remaining flutes when Luther and Phee are dead to act as a bit of a BB cushion.
4. Always SBB with Raaga first for the spark buff since this is what speeds up the fight. I personally go with Andaria next as I’m comfortable with the delay in her attack animation, then Feeva, Kikuri, Rosetta, and Shera. Usually what will happen is Andaria’s and Kikuri’s animations will line up real nice and you’ll feel a bit fuzzy inside.
5. If you have Overdrive and feel safe to UBB, do it. Personally I used mine on Kikuri because… well I didn’t read Raaga’s UBB before the fight.

If all goes well, the whole run should take well less than 20 turns. I felt pretty comfortable after surviving Zebra and Cardes isn’t as tricky as Maxwell anyways. The whole point here is to achieve a <20 turn kill as comfortably as possible with as little dependence on RNG (my Maxwell team when she came out followed a similar route with Grah and Darvenshel leads, Luther, Lancia, Zelnite, Lilly Matah, but that’s was quite a long time ago aha).

If anyone is attempting this challenge for the merit points and uses this team, please let me know how it goes. Input and constructive criticism is always welcome!