Archdemon Mercedes Comes to Epic 7

I’m not sure there are any fans of E7 that wouldn’t love to see Archdemon Mercedes appear as a playable character, and a good number of folks are convinced that Smilegate and Co. have already laid the ground work for that; they’re just biding their time until they reach the point of adding her.

Much of the debate is around how they will add her – a specialty change of regular Mercedes? A specialty change of Celestial Mercedes? Or an entirely new character? So, here’s a quick estimation on which way I think they could and should go.

Spec Change Celestial Mercedes

First, what about a specialty change on Celestial Mercedes? To me this is the most remote possibility. Celestial Mercedes, unlike the majority of other Moonlight Summon heroes, is not actually much connected to Mercedes at all. The story we get about Celestial Mercedes, which I think itself has rather large implications for where the E7 story can eventually go, tells us that Celestial Mercedes is actually a being known as a Celestial. Basically, she’s an alien. When she arrived on Orbis, she needed to take on the form of a native being. Mercedes, for whatever reason, was the most compatible form, so that’s who she copied. If you want to be super t4echnical, we don’t even know for sure that Celestial Mercedes is a ‘she’ or just a ‘he’ that that didn’t care about gender consistency – or even genderless. In any case, Celestial Mercedes and Mercedes are connected only by appearance – and the intangible element of compatibility.

Now, that’s not to say it is entirely impossible for her to be specialty changed into Archdemon Mercedes. This is an alien that could readily assume another’s identity. If it so chose, it could conceivably decide, that Archdemon Mercedes is an interesting form, and very powerful, and want to adopt that identity. Or that as ostensibly one of, if not the, most powerful beings on Orbis, adopting the identity of the Archdemon would let her rule the world. That being said, that would seemingly push the appearance of Archdemon Mercedes in the game that further out. At best it would appear unlikely to happen until we get a few more chapters through the current Cidonia episodes.

It could be a very interesting choice, but I don’t think it’s the most likely. There is also the fact that up to this point all specialty changes have been to otherwise relatively easily obtained 3* heroes. Celestial Mercedes is not only a 4*, but she’s also a Moonlight Summon. While that doesn’t necessarily make her super hard to get, it does make her considerably harder to get than the other spec. changes, even more than fellow mystic summon Rikoris.

Spec Change Regular Mercedes

The second option is the specialty change of regular Mercedes option. This makes a lot of sense because of the fact that this is basically what happened in the story – not by her explicit choice, but she was granted increased power and took on a new form. And from a practical aspect, “everyone has her,” since she was given to everyone as a basic part of the story. If you play the game you not only got Mercedes, clearing every chapter of Ezera World got you the item to max out her imprint too.

But, crafting that story is more complicated, and there are other considerations too. 

To begin with, the story of the specialty changes has been that the character, such as Carrot or Rikrois, wanted to get stronger for their own individual purposes. The story told through the specialty change quest is their actions in pursuing that, eventually reaching that goal. It’s supposed to be a personally positive story. It’s hard to see how you make it a positive story that Mercedes decided to turn to the dark side. I’m not saying a character pursuing power for evil isn’t a part of the spec. changes we’ve seen. That’s certainly the case for Butcher Corps Inquisitor and Chaos Sect Axe. But for them individually it was their own personal target goal being fulfilled. Everything we’ve seen of Meru tells us she only even took in the Archdemon’s power to protect everyone, especially Ras. There is not much chance she would willingly go looking to regain that power unless the main story took a dark turn – something on the level of the Vildred to Arbiter Vildred, or Corvus to Dark Corvus. That would mean something like Ras dying, which isn’t likely to happen anytime soon (would that trigger Epic 8?).

Practically speaking, there is also the problem with spec. changing a character that cannot be picked up. Meru isn’t in the gacha. You only get her at the beginning of the game, and then the items that up her imprint from clearing the Cracks in the World. At this point a large number of folks likely don’t even have her anymore, long since feeding her to Celestial Mercedes for her imprint increase. That means the devs would have to create an event to re-award her just so everyone had the chance to then go and do a specialty change on her. But, if you have to basically gift over a character just so everyone can not use her while finishing a quest to convert her into another character, what was the point? It would be different if she were in the gacha from the very beginning, but at this point reintroducing her just to allow for a specialty change quest for her doesn’t make the most sense in the world and amounts to little more than empty content. It is doable, however. This would essentially look just like the Summer event when they gave away Kikirat and Yuna, the difference there being that Kikirat was a limited character making a return, and Yuna, though obtainable via connections, is a 4* that rarely drops in the gacha. Furthermore, even as good as they are, they are not as game-breakingly good as Arch. Meru. likely will be. 

The fix here for that is fairly simple, however; just add Mercedes to the Covenant Summons. If they’re that keen on making Archdemon Meru a specialty change, then just add regular Meru to the gacha – problem solved, mostly. That way anyone who wants to keep regular Mercedes, or fed theirs to Celestial Meru, can just roll for her. She is a 3* so she won’t be super hard to get, certainly less than if she were a 4* or an ML 3*, though that will require who knows how many rolls on whatever banner anyway. 

ML 5 Archdemon Mercedes

The third option is to just make Archdemon Mercedes a brand-new hero. This to me seems like the easiest and most likely option, but is probably the least popular.

Archdemon Meru is Dark, so if she’s in a gacha she will be an ML summon. What’s more, if you adhere to the lore, it’s hard to not see her as a 5* if you’re going to start from scratch and not do a spec. change. She is the feared Archdemon, incarnate. She is the last boss of the main story for Ezera. She is supposed to be at the very least on par with A.Vil and Kayron. There is a very good case that if she isn’t the strongest character in the game at release, something went wrong.

While I’m sure Smilegate will cash in big time on the banner she debuts on, the collective rage from the rest of the community will be quite intense I imagine. Even more so if she turns out to be limited. 

But, making Arch. Meru her own hero would free up the writers to do anything they want story wise to get there without trying to shoehorn it into the established lore for spec. changes. It avoids the problems of availability of the base character for many heirs, albeit by creating a brand new one in terms of RNG on Mystic or ML summons. But, if we’re being honest here – and this is coming from a guy who thinks $10 on a gacha is a tough ask and hates the idea of spending a bunch of money on gacha – there’s not really a more fitting option here. As great as Angelic Montmorancy or Axe God or Falconer Kluri are as spec. changes, they’re not at the level of a Judge Kise or a Luna or ML Ken. Archdemon Meru needs to be a nat. 5* ML unit if they go the route of making her a new character. Everything story wise we know of her thus far says so.

Of course, this is a game written and programmed by people. They can do anything at all they want and come up with a cover story to explain how they got there. And frankly any option that isn’t her being a 5* ML summon just makes her easier to get, so people will ultimately be content – maybe not happy if the spec. change Mercedes option isn’t chosen, but more or less content. But if we play by the rules already on the table, then whenever she comes our way, Archdemon Mercedes will be needing your Mystic Medals or Galaxy Bookmarks – and your luck – however you manage to come by enough to add her to your party by rolling the Mystic and Moonlight summons. 

I think that given what we've seen of Mercedes in the latest chapter of the Cidonia story, and the ongoing theme of Ras having lost power, not to mention how currently hopeless the battle against Straze is setting itself up to be, Mercedes is going to be presented with a choice. I'm not entirely sure who, but someone will come forward with the proposition that the only way to save Ras and/or defeat Straze will be with a power like that of the Archdemon or the Goddess, and since the Goddess is gone, that will leave whatever remnants of the Archdemon's power remains. Given her having already harnessed that power once, Mercedes will make the choice to do so again for the sake of saving Ras and defeating Straze. 

If they want to go for a real twist, we'll find out that the Archdemon never really left Mercedes. It was weakened, but has had control over Mercedes this entire time, hiding out and pretending to be the real Mercedes until it could regain all its power. This encounter with Straze and the chance to get the relics of the spirits, is the Archdemon's chance to regain power now that the Goddess is gone. 

So, what do you think?