Mage's Association Uniform

The Mage's Association Uniform is a staple among farming teams regardless of card type.

Especially valuable for Masters without any Servants that can charge NP Gauges, the on-demand NP Gauge boost is ideal for topping off Servants in 3-turn farming compositions or during Event quests where CE choices are very restricted. In addition, its signature ability to reset command cards for a more favorable draw is highly potent. Not only can Masters try to draw a more damaging Command Card chain, they could also re-draw to gather more Quick or Arts cards to set up future turns or NPs. 

Although it isn’t bad in tough boss fights, Masters tend to prefer the more tactically flexible Chaldea Combat Uniform and utility-heavy Atlas Academy Uniform instead.

Skills Explanation

• Cure-All is a sizable party-wide heal.  However, although 10 turns cooldown at max makes it slightly less flexible than First Aid from Mystic Code Chaldea, the net total healing value makes it comparable in value or even stronger.

• Spiritron Transfer is an instant 20% NP charge to one Servant. This easily enables both turn-1 Noble Phantasms, and topping off NP gauge for a crucial NP mid-battle.

• Command Shuffle resets your hand and gives you 5 new cards.  Although possibly inconsistent, the sheer possibilities make this a strong ability for farming, or for manipulating and cutting the chaff from a current drawing cycle. 

Notable Strategies and Users:

Most powerful farming Servants can use starting NP Craft Essences like Kaleidoscope, Imaginary Element or any hybrid Starting NP Gauge CE combined with the Mystic Code NP gauge for early Noble Phantasms. Servants with NP charge skills like Francis Drake or Nikola Tesla can even focus on CEs more geared towards Card Performance or Attack buffs without losing their farming capacity.

Servants who rely on specific Brave Chains to deal more damage, generate critical stars or generate NP benefit the most from Command Shuffle. Servants like Scathach and Jeanne (Alter) are some of the more notable examples, as their Brave Chain card combinations have a huge effect on their performance.

Lastly, Masters can reset a drawing cycle. For teams with 3 Servants, 15 Command Cards are always distributed across the next 3 turns starting on turn 1, and every 3 turns thereafter (turn 1, 4, 7, 10, etc.). Masters can look at their current draw and predict what kind of Command Cards turn 2 will have, and if they counted well on both turn 1 and 2, they can predict with 100% accuracy what will be drawn on turn 3. This process starts anew on turn 4, which will always be completely random.

(Note: a Servant that dies will also reset the drawing cycle, so be careful!).

Thus, Masters that drew an amazing hand on turn 1 can opt to use Command Shuffle on turn 2 when they know both turn 2 and 3 will have a bad draw. Indirectly, (for strategies that don't rely on NPs), this may shave of a turn or 2 from farming, or avoid some bad turns during Challenge Quests. However, Command Shuffle will always be random - so the pendulum may also swing in the enemy's favor!

Leveling Value:

Given that only one skill effect increases with level,  there is an extremely high EXP cap for this Mystic Code, and the typical usage case of farming where cooldowns don’t matter much, there is not too much marginal benefit to be gained from leveling this uniform. Still, a bit of extra healing is never bad!