Best Major Arcana Shuffle Time Cards
Shuffle Time is a mechanic that first appeared in the Persona series with the original Persona 3. It’s back again in Persona 3 Reload, but the way it works is very different from the original.
There’s always a chance to get a Shuffle Time after every non-boss battle. However, it’s more likely to occur if you Down the enemies, and is guaranteed if you end the fight with an All-Out Attack. You can earn rewards like Personas, extra EXP, money, skill cards, and free healing and buffs, but the best rewards come from the Major Arcana cards that sometimes appear. So how do you get access to them, and which cards in Persona 3 Reload will give you the most useful rewards?
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How to Get Every Major Arcana for Shuffle Time
Almost every Major Arcana card can show up in Shuffle Time by the end of the game. The exceptions are Universe (which only appears once in the entire game); Death; and Aeon, which is an alternative to Judgment and isn’t part of the standard Rider-Waite deck.
Once you choose enough Major Arcana cards, you’ll trigger an Arcana Burst. This means all the pip cards you find (Wands, Coins, Cups, Swords) are worth one more than normal, plus you get to choose from a set of four pip cards immediately. However, there are never as many Arcana Burst slots as there are Major Arcana available. Once you trigger an Arcana Burst, the Major Arcana cards will disappear from Shuffle Time. The only way to reset the Arcana Burst is to leave Tartarus and come back on another day.
Which Major Arcana cards appear is random, but there’s one exception. The first time you visit Tartarus after unlocking one or more new cards (either from an Arcana boss fight or from a Monad Passage), the new cards are much more likely to appear than any other Major Arcana. It’s possible to avoid picking these cards, but you’ll need to defeat a lot of Shadows to find the Major Arcana you actually want. If you find a card in a Monad Passage after achieving an Arcana Burst, the new card will appear more often on your next visit to Tartarus.
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Every Major Arcana
Number | Name | Where to Find | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
0 | Fool | Start | EXP boost for the rest of the day (stacks with Wands) |
1 | Magician | Start | 2 or 3 of a rare item (item value increases on higher floors) |
2 | Priestess | 5/9 boss | All-Out Attack damage boost for the day |
3 | Empress | 6/8 boss | +2 Endurance, Agility, and Luck for every Persona in stock |
4 | Emperor | 6/8 boss | +2 Strength and Magic for every Persona in stock |
5 | Hierophant | 7/7 boss | Protagonist’s active Persona gains 1 level |
6 | Lovers | 7/7 boss | Social Link bonus EXP increases for the day |
7 | Chariot | 8/6 boss | Protagonist gains 10 max HP |
8 | Justice | 8/6 boss | You can choose +1 card during Shuffle Time (stacks with Star) |
9 | Hermit | 9/5 boss | Protagonist gains 7 max SP |
10 | Fortune | 10/4 boss | All current party members gain 8 max HP |
11 | Strength | 10/4 boss | All current party members gain 5 max SP |
12 | Hanged Man | 11/3 boss | Gain 1 random Incense item |
14 | Temperance | Monad Passage on Floor 91 | Gain more Social Stat points on the first stat-boosting activity on the next day |
15 | Devil | Monad Passage on Floor 117 | Gain 2 of each item dropped by Shadows and breakable objects for the rest of the day |
16 | Tower | Monad Passage on Floor 143 | +1 to all stats for every Persona in stock |
17 | Star | Monad Passage on Floor 171 | You can choose +1 card during Shuffle Time (stacks with Justice) |
18 | Moon | Monad Passage on Floor 197 | All party members return to full HP and SP |
19 | Sun | Monad Passage on Floor 225 | You may fuse Personas with up to 5 more levels than the Protagonist for the rest of the day. |
20 | Judgement | Monad Passage on Floor 225 | The active party member with the lowest level gets one level’s worth of EXP. |
Each time you find a Major Arcana card in a Monad Passage, you will also find a Book key item that increases the number of Major Arcana cards needed to trigger an Arcana Burst. This threshold also goes up when you bring in new cards from fighting Arcana bosses. By the end of the game, your Arcana Burst threshold can be as high as 13.
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The Major Arcana Shuffle Time Rankings
S Tier
A+ Tier
- Justice and Star: What’s better than a free reward after a fight? Two or three rewards after a fight! The only downside to these cards is that you have to choose two or three cards during Shuffle Time. This can force you to pick a Major Arcana card you’d rather not use.
- Sun: Being able to fuse a Persona more powerful than the protagonist is incredibly useful, but you only get access to it near the end of the game. The card is also much less useful after you’ve completed the Persona Compendium.
A Tier
- Chariot, Hermit, Fortune, and Strength: There are very few ways to increase max HP and SP in Persona 3 Reload, and even fewer ways to increase these numbers for your party members. These cards can do just that. What makes these cards even better is that their benefits carry over into New Game Plus.
- Fool: The Fool effectively gives you a free Wands card after every battle, plus it stacks with any Wands cards you choose during Shuffle Time.
B Tier
- Priestess: A regular All-Out Attack is enough to defeat most Shadows, but this card can come in handy when fighting Guardians and Formidable Shadows.
- Empress, Emperor, and Tower: The value of these cards is very situational. If your stock is full of duplicates gathered from Shuffle Times, the stat bonuses they give will be wasted since they won’t get into the Compendium. However, if you visit Tartarus repeatedly to get these cards, you can boost every stat of up to 12 Personas by +3 each night.
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C Tier
- Magician: The items you can get from the Magician are random, but the game will tell you exactly what the reward is each time the card appears. None of the items are unique, but they only show up in chests and as one-time rewards.
- Hanged Man: Incense is always useful, especially since the ability boosts it provides carry into New Game Plus. Like the Magician, you also get to see which Incense item the Hanged Man will provide when it appears.
D Tier
- Hierophant: Personas gain levels slower than party members, so a free level can often come in handy. However, it doesn’t do anything useful, aside from saving you some time.
- Judgment: Helping a party member catch up with the protagonist is nice, but the Great Clock has a much bigger impact and is only a little more rare than a specific Major Arcana card.
- Temperance: It’s possible to max out your Social Stats by the time you get the Temperance card, plus a one-time boost doesn’t have a big overall impact.
F Tier
- Moon: You can achieve the same effect as this card by visiting the Clock on the first floor of Tartarus and spending seven Twilight Fragments. By the time you unlock this card, you should have no shortage of Fragments, plus you can always get more by quickly running through a few floors of Tartarus. A full HP/SP restore can come in handy, but there are plenty of better Major Arcana cards to choose from.
Persona 3 Reload
- Developer(s)
- P-Studio
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence