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MMM - Menhera Maestra Mines Much like Moria, Muddling Malcontented Mummy, Meteing out Magical Malevolence (Mystery House Crafters Event)

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Rathilal's MMM - Servant Reviews for Van Gogh (Miner) and Tutankhamun
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The Modern Magus Magazine

Well, I didn’t have “FGO and OSP both cover the famous Egyptian Archeological boom within the same month” on my bingo card, but that’s certainly crossed off now.

In true Autumn event fashion, the theme and Servants both are utterly unpredictable, though in a roundabout way it’s still Halloween-like with one of the Pharaohs who birthed the concept of the Horror Mummy being added to the roster.

And, well, as for Van Gogh-chan…well I hear she lives in a world of blocks…

JP Release DateNA Release Date
11/13/202411/2026

Tutankhakmun

Savour it while you can, you are looking at one of the few actual historical Servants who should be accurately depicted as a Shota. Curses be upon any who lewd him, beware.

I have to say, it’s a bizarre paradox that, as a Brit, Tutankhamun was the first Pharaoh I learned of, but in the grander scheme of Ancient Egypt’s history he was a relatively minor king, even if he accomplished something pretty significant in his short reign and life both. Simply the fact he was the Pharaoh who was discovered with a near-intact burial chamber in the modern era elevated his public image, and that even reflects in his capabilities as a Servant.

As an SSR Archer, Tut is stacked up against a lot of competition with particularly good stat spreads, so it’s unsurprising that his anaemic ass doesn’t really match up well. With the tied 3rd lowest base Attack of any SSR Archer and the 4th highest HP in return, he has the poor combination of both having a defensive stat spread and having few points to put in those stats, regardless. He doesn’t have it as bad as some other SSR Archers on the offensive front, but when your class has a negative Attack modifier, every single point counts, and Tut is working with a gimped offence from the outset.

He does at least have some passives to help compensate, though. Magic Resistance provides a notable shield against debuffs should they come his way, and his combo of Independent Action and Divinity provides some minor damage boosts to his regular cards. On top of those, he also packs a unique passive, Boy-Pharaoh’s Curse, which increases the application rate of his Curse debuffs by 30%.

I doubt any of you are shocked to know the origin of the Mummy’s Curse in culture is very good at applying Curses, but at the very least he won’t run into any roadblocks from most Servants’s Magic Resistance with that passive.

So how does Tutankhamen shape up overall? Well on the one hand, he’s the boy wonder, bringing the thunder, shattering your heresy asunder:

  • +With both his supreme capability for self-gauge charging and the unique nature of his suicide NP, Tut manages to eke out a very notable niche as a ST damage dealer who can tag himself out of the battlefield on demand. While there aren’t that many situations where such a role comes into play, for efficient farming purposes there are plenty of cases where having him around will be handy, dealing 2 decently strong NP’s with little investment then vanishing.
  • +While it does get overshadowed by his other focus, it is possible to play Tut in a more slow fashion, only ever dropping his NP when his Guts is available, and killing his foes with a death of a thousand cuts, using his Curse-stacking capabilities to the maximum. The offensive payoff wouldn’t be fantastic, but his team gauge charge and notable tools like his continual star bombs every time he gets a Guts buff off and his strong Debuff Immunity can be useful in difficult content, so it’s worth bearing in mind there is a path where you don’t use him as a reckless offensive missile.

However, much like a bolt of lightning, he doesn’t stick around for long, and only really has an audible impact a while after:

  • -Taking the suicidal NP angle out of the equation, Tut doesn’t really have much going for him. His damage output and refund versus non-Demonic foes is pretty pathetic, and while he can theoretically play things slowly to avoid meeting an untimely end, his damage output will suffer incredibly compared to competitors, since he will have to hold back his NP until it’s safe to fire. On top of that, he’ll be stuck at 5k HP or less permanently since he’s relying on his Guts as a lifeline, when frankly you’re better off letting him die for a fresh and superior damage option, or just not spending the deployment cost on him to begin with. I’d argue it’s not just that the suicide NP is useful, but without it, he really doesn’t shine outside of his gauge charge capability, which in itself can’t go very far with the drawback on his NP.

I don’t often like to make the comparison of lore-based characteristics to a Servant’s gameplay performance, unless it’s incredibly direct like Arcueid, Kukulkan, or Angra Mainyu having the strength (or lack thereof) to match, but Tutankhamen really does feel like a holy fire burning out before you even notice it’s there.

He certainly is capable of performing a role that no other ST Servant really can, but compared to the existing king of voluntary self-implosion Arash, Tut lacks many of the perks that made his progenitor useful - he packs the hefty deployment cost of a SSR Servant, as well as the material investment of one to actually have at full performance compared to the bargain raising and using a 1* Archer is, and unlike Arash, Tutankhamen doesn’t get an increased NP damage modifier to compensate for his NP’s drawback.

You could argue his NP has a bit more meat behind it than a typical SSR NP, but a lot of this is on mechanics that functionally won’t contribute much (Curse and Instant Death), so ultimately he still takes a big hit for relatively little payoff. That damage output is the main sticking point, as he’ll barely inch over 100k damage per NP WITH class advantage if he gets no external support, which is likely the scenario if you’re looking for him to handle the ST Waves in a 90++ farming quest. It simply doesn’t cut it. Doubly so when he’s an Archer, so he only has two common classes he can score class advantage on, reducing his capability to contribute in someone’s roster. To hammer the point home, even one of the weaker Buster AOE Servants for wave 1 and 2 damage, Ishtar, still out-damages a solo Tutankhamen when she has double Koyanskaya offensive buffs, so you wouldn’t even reap a benefit from using Tutankhamen in that context, though I understand it is possible to manoeuvre a setup where Tutankhamen is deployed alongside your AOE Servant, and reaps some team buffs from a Support in the 3rd slot, but I’m highlighting his damage output is so low the payoff is incredibly slim.

It’s insane to say it when I’ve considered Servants like Chen Gong or Miss Crane spectacular for a similar utility, but even though Tutankhamen hits the same capabilities, the fact he’s depending on his individual offensive strength instead of that of your entire support roster for Chen Gong, or your best offensive Servant for Miss Crane, means he’s limited by the flaws in his own kit. And those flaws really come to bear when you start comparing numbers.

Tut has a lot to like about him, but ultimately his attempt to tap into one of the best niches available in FGO actually backfires on him, and the circumstances where his specialty is optimal, then again worth the effort, is incredibly slim, locked behind both his Class Advantage and usually his anti-Demonic effectiveness. He’s fun to toy around with, but I can’t really endorse investing in him seriously if you’re expecting a potent new offensive Servant.

Van Gogh (Miner)

I have to tell you, folks, that Fujimaru Ritsuka, he’s not like us at all - he tries to pull a Servant and it’s probably a Miner…

Let’s just ignore all the under-aged Servants in Chaldea with that in mind.

Otherwise, I have to admire Van Gogh-chan for doing the unthinkable and reversing the Law of Roblox - instead of any game being recreated in Roblox, she recreated Roblox in FGO.

With the broad array of competition in the SR Lancer pool, Van Gogh-chan manages to perform fairly well with her base stats, packing the 10th-highest Attack stat and 9th-highest HP stat, respectively. While her distribution is balanced, her parameters are fairly good relative to other Lancers, so she stands out in the lineup.

Paired with her strong base stats are some abnormal passive skills on a Lancer - Entity of the Outer Realm isn’t that surprising, letting her benefit from Foreigner-related buffs and providing some minor stargen and Debuff Resistance. On top of that are two unique passives - Redundancy provides a small boost to her Buster cards and a notably boost to their stargen, while Self-Portrait as a Sunflower improves her Mental Debuff Resistance significantly, letting her shrug off effects like Charm or Terror more often.

While a bit unconventional, all these together provide a solid baseline to work with.

So how does Van Gogh-chan’s Miner form shape up on the whole? On the one hand, she’s got the spirit of rock and stone, to the bone:

  • +For all she’s worth, Van Gogh-chan definitely manages to be an adept welfare farmer, with damage numbers that are good enough for universal farming and flexible enough setups to allow the use of more budget supports like Da Vinci Ruler, though running battlesuit swaps with her is pretty much mandatory. Considering her existing competition for AOE Lancer welfares is only Erice, who has the infamous issue of Instant Death ruining her refund, she breaks out into an untouched class niche, and has the numbers to back it up.
  • + While she may not seem like it at first glance, Van Gogh-chan Miner is also pretty solid for difficult content. Her anti-Lawful effectiveness will come into play versus many Servants, and when an enemy isn’t resistant to debuffs her Stun on NP will steal many turns from the enemy. The immense star generation from her NP and her very good regular card NP gain mean she’s far more capable of NP spam when her targets aren’t dying immediately, and she also has room for very unique support options. The original Van Gogh, for example, can provide a colossal Critical Damage buff to her Miner variant with her NP, as well as other supportive benefits, which play off well with her capabilities.

However, she’s also digging too greedily, and too deep…and why are you digging straight down? That’s a zenloss waiting to happen:

  • -Van Gogh-chan Miner might have the force of a free NP5 behind her, but when you take that off the table her overall damage would've been awful, if not for the sudden skill strengthening backing her. With a colossal critical damage buff at her fingertips, her capability for damage output in difficult content is actually fantastic, so I have to find a different flaw to complain about...uh...her refund makes farming with her a bit inconvenient at times, and her damage output may be serviceable, but it's not high enough to handle 90++ farming nodes. So there.

Kishinami Hakuno and Soujuurou, it’s relieving to have one that’s at least very conventional. With all the tools necessary handed to her and a few minor hoops to jump through, Van Gogh Miner makes for a dependable Quick farmer, and one that can pull duty as a universal farmer if need be, owing to her free NP5 and the incredibly high damage boosts Skadi Ruler provides.

But taking her outside of the farming context, she's still excellent. With her superb stargen, high potential damage versus Lawful alignment Servants and extremely good critical damage output even before supports are accounted for, Van Gogh-chan Miner can absolutely shred the more durable bosses out there. Fighting foes who don't die to a single NP is particularly in her favour, as she has superb regular card NP gain and that high critical damage to lean on, providing massive damage and charging her NP gauge back up faster than you'd manage in a farming loop.

At any rate, Van Gogh-chan’s Miner form is more than serviceable as a farmer, and she backs that up with a particularly potent performance in difficult content, packing devastating single-target damage with her crits in spite of her AOE NP suggesting otherwise. If you're capable of adding in support with her original, vanilla self, then she can really go even further beyond, but regardless she's one of the best welfares in the game. Rath™ Seal of Approval with a recommendation.

Outro

With this event out of the way, I’m afraid to share grave news with you all - that time of year is coming soon. The Padorus have breached containment, Supermarkets are selling seasonal goods the instant Halloween ends, and the radio is outputting white noise in the form of a singular song 24/7.

It’s a dangerous age, and I hope you can all bear through it.

But frankly outside of the obvious Christmas event, it’s hard to tell what’s in store for the future - we have yet another New Year’s Servant to expect, and with pretty much every single major Type-Moon heroine present in the game now, there’s no easy call for the New Year Servant. Akiha’s time to shine, maybe? But part of me feels they’d wait until the Near Side Tsukihime Remake comes out for it.

Ah well, we’ll just have to wait and see, no?

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