The 13th episode of Saki Achiga introduced us to two new abilities: Sumire’s [Sharpshooter] skill, which aligns her waits with a chosen victim’s predicted discards, and Takami’s [Harvest time], which lets her draw a hand composed of all her initial discards throughout the match in the very last dealing of the game.
Unlike Sumire’s ability, which is quite complex and requires the reader/viewer to make some additional assumptions about its mechanics, Takami’s ability is quite easy to replicate in real life. So how strong is it exactly? I played a few times Takami-style, giving myself 11 chances to collect discards (the same as in the Achiga match).
First attempt. With a near-guaranteed shousangen (two dragon triples and a dragon pair), and plenty of options leading to a honitsu (one color and honors), this hand should usually result in a haneman hand (12,000 points, or dealer 18,000). A daisangen yakuman (three dragon triplets) is entirely feasible under normal circumstances, but more risky.
Ugh. Trying to go for wind pairs/triplets left the hand crippled. The daisangen tiles are the same as above, but the odds of going out on this at all are very bad…
Lesson learned. The third attempt is just asking for a daisangen, with quick runs on the side.
See above, the fourth attempt can result in daisangen tenpai as fast as during the first go around. Terrifying.
To sum up, Takami’s ability:
- might sometimes result in a slow hand if the discards are not chosen carefully (but Takami probably has plenty of experience with her own ability)
- does reliably provide at least a shousangen hand almost every time, with other bonuses possible on the side
- makes the probability of a daisangen hand ridiculously high
But! (there is always a but, isn’t there?)
The make-or-break of this ability is whether your opponents know how it works. Attempt four above, which is an almost guaranteed yakuman under normal circumstances, becomes very tricky if your opponents know exactly what you have in hand. Though admittedly, going out with the hand still requires much less luck than drawing into a daisangen on your own…
There’s basically no way to see through this ability on your first try, though. Takami’s discards are almost perfectly natural even as she aims for the eventual daisangen (dropping a dragon tile before discarding non-yaku winds is slightly unusual, but not outrageous), and the contents of her final hand remain unknown to other players as per standard mahjong rules. On average, Takami has to call once to complete her daisangen triplets, but a single call on dragon tiles is something so common that nobody will think about it twice. People will grow wary after a second call, and you can’t really expect a dragon tile to come out after that, but in Takami’s case, that’s all too late.
So the main factor holding Takami back is that she cannot hide her play style and people actually check and analyze her play records, leading to Senriyama and Achiga both realizing the truth behind her ability long before the match. Shindouji does not seem to have this intel, which makes Takami’s life much, much easier in this case.
But as for anti-Takami tactics, I am with the Sera-camp in getting as many points as possible during dealer hands, regardless of the consequences in the final hand. Sure, it is hard to avoid paying up 8.000/16.000 points when Takami starts with 11+ tiles of her choice, but getting that many points or more during two dealer turns solves the problem quite nicely. And even if Takami gets in a win, it might be a ron off another player, not necessarily a tsumo.
Saying that it is fine to let your opponent win a yakuman hand sounds kind of irresponsible, but Takami apparently does not have the basic mahjong skills to make her opponents regret this approach. Usually, a yakuman win in the last hand is enough for a reversal even in quite dire circumstances, but Takami has been losing points left and right throughout the whole match. There is nothing in her ability that could make it difficult for her to take a defensive, cheap and silent hand approach outside her dealer turns (where she wants to call a lot and win quickly if cheaply), so her huge point loss is entirely the result of the difference in ability between her and Sera/Ako.
So Takami’s ability is first-rate, but her poor mahjong skills and the fact that this is an officially sanctioned tournament make it impossible for her to bring out its full potential. That sounds like a good summation of Takami’s threat level… unless she is the final dealer. The final dealer gets to repeat the last hand as many times as they can keep going out… and the very thought is terrifying. Under the right circumstances, Takami might be one of the very few people in the Sakiverse who could give Teru a run for her money in a direct matchup. But first, Takami would have to survive until the last hand…
Yaranakya 
Who wants to bet that Takami will be the last dealer for the finals? ^^
Truthfully, one of the thing that Achiga was able to do for me is to destroy the pedestal that I put Shiraitodai on. Right now, Shiraitodai is looking like a formidable team but far from invincible as they were originally hyped.
Shiraitodai might as well be a three-man team right now. I would honestly trade in Takami and Seiko’s special abilities for improving their basic mahjong skills. To begin with, the team obviously depends on Teru getting ~70k points in the first match, why the hell would they concentrate on getting a yakuman afterwards instead of defending properly >_>?
I honestly wanted to see the ever-improving Tacos put up a good fight against Teru with the other Kiyosumi members making up for the point difference bit by bit in close battles against equally fierce opponents… but without Teru demolishing Tacos completely, there’s honestly no way for Shiraitodai to be a serious threat. I agree that we’ll likely see final dealer Takami in the finals – she desperately needs her threat level upgraded, and that might be the only way.
Shiraitodai is supposed to be taking it easy right now. But, even then, I honestly can’t believe they’re this weak. I agree completely that Takami and Seiko (especially Seiko) leave much to be desired. They rely too much on their mahjong hax powers.
It got to the point that I think Kiyosumi (our supposed underdog protagonist) as a team is stronger than Shiraitodai (invincible final boss). I’m still undecided if that is a good thing or not.
Anyway, its a good thing that even if the other members of Shiraitodai is lackluster now, there is a chance that they will be ‘upgraded’ for the finals. Takami might get to be the last dealer. Sumire is might be able to find and fix her tell. Teru is so going to rampage on the vanguard match. She won’t be as limited as the semi-final match and she might benefit from the third year tenpai rate thing Funaq mentioned. As for Seiko…… err … hopefully she won’t lose more points?
Taking it easy would usually mean discarding safe tiles and playing defensively most of the time, only going for very quick and easy hands, instead of playing into every second hand your opponent has ;). Shiraitodai has a realistic chance of not getting into the finals at this rate, and that’s something which should never have happened after Teru’s winning streak in the first round.
Of course, Teru will score big in the finals. Subara/Toki/Kuro was one of the worst possible combinations Teru could face (though, if Kuro is still there for the finals, it should still be quite difficult…). But if Teru wins big, the other members will have to lose more points for dramatic effect, so Shiraitodai might end up looking even more like a Teru-Awai team.
I’ll respect them more if Teru is stopped from dominating completely, and her teammates actually have to pick up the slack and play some serious mahjong for a chance at victory.
I am not a Mahjong player, nor do I remotely attempt to understand all the moves each girl makes (Hence why I use pro wrestling analogy to make up for my lack of mahjong knowledge.) but I had a feeling Takami was simply waiting for the right moment to unleash her chaotic fury.
Takami’s problem is that she can’t choose when to use her power – it’s always the last hand played. There’s nothing wrong with getting a bonus this huge on your last hand only, but this kind of power does not (point-wise) justify sacrificing all the previous hands, so Takami’s performance in all the normal hands remains an issue.
Yup. It’s pretty much like a Snorlax using bide.
Are you calling a lady fat xD?
You know exactly what I mean…unless you have never played Pokemon.
I know exactly what you mean (that Takami’s fat ;P), but I’d recommend her to use normal attacks first and finish off with Counter instead.
The more I read Takami’s fat, the more I laugh. It’s not supposed to be funny. Anyway, like you said, Takami should attack more rather than take a beating and relying on one earth shattering counterattack.
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