Shadow Mir

Actually, unlike is the case with other items, the chance for stat boosters to be generated is checked after planting. So savescumming can help in that regard (just be sure to plant right before finishing the week and check in first thing when you explore again).

How has Raphael been doing for you? Because with his lackluster performance in hard, I'm not sure I'd want to give him another chance on Maddening...

No, but it's "negates flier weaknesses" significant.

Unfortunately, it's A rank, and has only 2 might, which means you'd likely be better off just using spells instead.

Should beware of Mimicuties, because they're extremely dangerous.

Far as I know, you can only get one stat booster per gardening stint. I could be wrong, though.

Knows that we got Longcat in Pokemon now.

They're an alternative, I'll admit, just not a good one. 10 wt/4 might hand axes on a unit that's already slow to the point he's at risk of frequently getting doubled and is nowhere near durable enough to compensate for it does that unit no favours. I say it's less confirmation bias and more that I find it very, very hard to find a situation where Raphael can do his job better than the other three I mentioned because they're not being doubled constantly and he is, which isn't helped by the fact that he's not nearly durable enough to make up for it (he only has 1 HP and Defense over Hilda, 4 HP over Leonie, and 3 Hp and 1 defense over Byleth at base). And I think what advantages gauntlets have aren't enough to make up for the downsides (being good player phase weapons ain't much help when you're talking about a series where enemy phase tends to be more important, and gauntlets are horseshit on enemy phase). Sure, they're "good" if you master Brigand and such, but what about before then...? Not that that helps much when other weapon types can do the stuff gauntlets can do, but better, while gauntlets cannot do the stuff other weapons can. Some of the other stuff you mentioned (Fistfaire, Fierce Iron Fist) requires him to see a lot of use (enough to make it to Advanced classes), which is a very dicey proposition when his stat build does NOT age well.

I would say Gregor on account of better offensive modifiers. Which would be a waste of a skill slot since Lethality has a really low activation rate, and Yarne is best off being a support unit.

Now has a giant Eevee for his avatar.

Yeah, I will have to agree that marrying them to one of Libra, Ricken or Henry is best, considering that both Lissa and Maribelle's modifiers are magically inclined. In case you don't know, modifiers are added to or subtracted from the class caps to get the unit's caps. Ergo, Lissa and Maribelle have higher caps in magic and lower caps in strength and defense. Those and their husband's modifiers are applied to their children (who get +1 added to the sum of their modifiers).

Changed avatar.

The extra stats and surviability of pairup greatly increases your options of how to tank Berserkers plus with more creative build or lucky levels (as I have been considering just base kits and average stats to keep things fair) the use of support abilities like inspiration, supportive, demoiselle/gentilholm, lily poise, rallies, etc. you can push plenty of units into survivability range. That being said tanking a round alone has one huge advantage, you can then have a unit adjacent to let whomever was frozen pair with, and escape the range of the freeze staff. That sounds good in a vacuum, but when that room also has two maids with freeze staves and seven generals, in addition to Hans, who I tend to Entrap and kill with ranged weapons from the northern room (this causes two more Generals and Berserkers to spawn from the stairs. Luckily, the reinforcements with ranged weapons will try to attack from through walls unlike the units that are in the room to begin with), it sounds more like robbing a police station. Luring is also one thing Xander's good at, since he outruns them. That said, while retreating, I may try to have him kill the Tomahawk users on counters. Axebreaker is a level 15 skill, and with the AI being what it is, that just might cause them to attack someone else, which might not be what you wanted. Also, I'm fine with using pair up when I feel I need to do it, which is mostly to avoid enemy dual strikes or to help retreat, but I'm not going to field a unit that's only good for being a pair up bot. Which are rare, even in Conquest. I fail to see it - Mozu starts at level 1, and requires a Heart Seal that could've been used by a better unit, which means opportunity cost rears its ugly head. Setsuna doesn't measure up either - she has good speed, and not much else. She also joins later than he does in Revelation (chapter 16), which doesn't help when she's already worse off than he is. Nor does it that the only weapons stronger than the Fujin Yumi are silvers, which drop your strength and skill after combat, in addition to having a crit evade penalty, and the Pursuer, which requires S rank and drops your defenses, in addition to coming late. EDIT: Also, I'm not seeing everyone else gain little experience by that point unless you are playing Revelation and try to recruit her immediately after chapter 7 (personally, I find it best to wait until chapter 8 before playing her paralogue). And I still fail to see why you think growths are the be-all and end-all, because it's not like growths can be counted on to salvage a bad unit.

No. Not in terms of gameplay, at least.

Are we just in the planning phase, or have we already started playing? If the latter, I wonder what else you have planned.