You VS Your Deck: Constructing an Attack Lineup

Unfortunately, you can't just throw all of the best attacks in to your deck and expect ideal results. 5 and higher difficulty attacks are going to inherently be stronger than 4 and less difficulty attacks, but you can't just include every strong 5 difficulty attack on your symbol in your deck, so let's look at how to assign value and choose your attack lineup.

I have a pair of example decks to help with this point. First off, we have a Rando deck, and then we have a Vicious deck. They both have an overwhelming amount of high difficulty attacks, and for simplicity I gave them exactly the same foundation base to highlight the differences, so you can try to figure out why Rando would have much less trouble with his attack lineup than Vicious would.

This is where we have to assign value to our attacks and compare their situational value and static value. Scarlet Meteor is a strong attack, and both of these decks have it as a 4x. Both decks also have 4x True Identity and a single copy of Summer Vacation for Scarlet Meteor to reset. Giving your attack checks +1 for the turn and removing an attack from progressive difficulty have basically the same worth, it's just too bad that Summer Vacation came out before the big power creep came, so its stats are significantly worse than True Identity for nearly the same effect. Scarlet Meteor is an attack that holds its weight in most decks, so it's no surprise that it holds up here.

Gyro Attack and Gyro Blade both provide a large help to Rando that Vicious can't really compare to. These cards have synergy with Rando's ability and end up either giving him a free attack, or clears his card pool of an attack, which is essentially the same as +1 to your checks for the turn. Conversely, Vicious has cards like Cathedral Standoff and Tears of Scarlet. Tears does have the ability to clear itself, but that one is reliant on your opponent, and I generally don't like to put too much value on things that require your opponent to allow it to happen. Cathedral Standoff vs Rando's Spirit Gun is somewhat of a close fight, actually. Cathedral gives Vicious 2 cards, but Rando's Spirit Gun gives you a new attack in hand as long as you've played it after another attack, but no more than once per turn.

Vicious has Ghost Thief Funeral in the slot where Rando has Gyro Attack. Ghost Thief is a popular and strong attack, but it doesn't need to be slotted in to every single deck. It fell off in popularity not too long after its release due to its reliance on momentum, and needing more to actually hit. Consider attacks like Ghost Thief Funeral that are like traps for your decks. If you can't fuel it, or make it hit, then it is just an attack with above-average stats that isn't performing to its full potential. In this case, Ghost Thief Funeral is a card whose value is based on the situation, but Gyro Attack can be efficient on any turn for Rando.

Consider the base stat line of your attacks to see how worthwhile they are. The average stat line is about equal difficulty to damage, generally with a situational effect if it's an even stat line. Rapid Speed Slash is a good example. It has even difficulty, damage, and speed, and also a fine effect. This is a very solid attack all around. On the other hand, some attacks can really skew their value vs their difficulty, such as Nut Kracker, which is an easy 8 damage against every character released in Universus and is usually a free draw. It is an excellent package for 4 difficulty, and basically blows the value system out of the water. Macabre Skewer is conversely much more difficult to find its worth as a 5 difficulty attack. It's not a terrible attack, but it needs a good number of things to go right to be worth while. It is basically an extremely under-statted attack if you draw it before you have attacks in your discard pile, its damage is considerably lower than its difficulty just because of its ability to net you another attack, and it only becomes genuinely worth its price if you can make sure that you always grab a Weapon attack with it, pretty much meaning that you have to shape your attack lineup around it.

I generally will try to keep my 5 and higher difficulty attacks at under 50% of the size of my attack lineup, but that can also sometimes be a bit much. Your character's abilities and hand size, as well as your symbol itself, really are the best ways to determine how your attack base should look. Taki can afford to run a few more high difficulty attacks due to her affinity to card pool clearing, and this is evident with her having a 6 difficulty attack that wants to be played after something. On the other side of things, Byakko should likely not have too many high difficulty attacks. He may have the ability to set up a check once a turn, but that ability is not playable early on in the game, and as a 5 hand sizer he will likely not be building much of a foundation base on turn 1. If you pull your turn 2 hand as him and you have a hand of 5 difficulty attacks, then you may have lost that game during deck construction.

If you really like your attack lineup with huge numbers, and that's reasonable, as who doesn't love some big numbers here or there, then you can find alternate ways to make sure it works. Running 4 copies of True Identity is certainly one way to help out, but not the best solution. You could look in to discarding your attacks from your pool, ways to cheat your checks, or ways to ready your foundations throughout your attack turn.

In conclusion, try to put extra thought in to how your attacks will flow with each other, and with your foundation base. Maybe play some test games where you have a hand full of your highest attacks and nothing else, because this certainly happens! I've lost games at worlds because I drew a hand of high cost attacks on turn 2, and I've paid for it. See how your deck works within itself, and then see what needs to be changed in the attack lineup. Perhaps you just need to tweak a couple high difficulty attacks from 4x down to 2x, add a couple 4 difficulty attacks, and then you're set!