User blog:Romanoff Blitzer/The News Feed Part 4

The News Feed is a place to record, archive, and discuss WIXOSS news whenever I feel like it.

June 17, 2016
Main site update. The entire contents of Selector's Pack Vol. Umr & Tawil have been revealed!

I've never been a fan of non-defensive ARTS, especially in a defensive deck like Tawil, so I'm not a fan of Soap Wave. Yes, it can be used to further your offense, and it can be used to protect your SIGNI, but Tawil should already be able to run her offense by herself, and she can already easily recover her SIGNI. Soap Wave doesn't serve any purpose Tawil needs.

Ancient Wave, on the other hand, is insane. At worst, it's a conditional and cheaper Bloody Slash, and Bloody Slash is a strong card. As the effects increase, the effects only become crazier and crazier. The only problem is that the last effect requires the player to grow to 5, and neither of Umr's level 5 LRIGs are better than Umr=Fyra, Wielder of the Key of Chaos. However, if Ancient Wave proves strong enough, it might be enough for people to start running the level 5s.

Tobiel, Sun Staff of Midsummer provides another offensive engine for Tawil, one that is easier to use than the abilities of Tawil herself. Tawil decks don't have a lot of deckspace, however, so Tobiel will probably be used as another useful 1-of Angel.

Code Anti Nyarctho (a fusion between Code Anti Nyarlatho and Code Anti Cthogha, it seems) potentially solves one of Umr's problems: it can wipe the board, but can't get around the defensive ARTS fueled by the ener your opponent gained from their board being wiped. As an on-attack banish effect, Nyarctho can avoid giving your opponents ener, allowing Umr to push for the win. Previously, Umr only had Code Anti Ropolis, which you could only have one of on the field unless you ran the vanilla level 4 (and you don't want to do that). However, as potentially useful Nyarctho is, it does fight for space with Umr's level 4s, notably Nessie and Partheno. (Yog-Sothoth is irreplaceable.) I'd try Nyarctho ahead of the other two, as the other two don't do anything Umr doesn't already have access to through other avenues.

Code Anti Hastur is a simple ener charger, and a strong one. One of Umr's other problems is her relative lack of ener, something Hastur fixes. Hastur goes beyond fixing that problem, really.

†Valkyrie†, Unforgettable Phantom Funeral is a strange card. It can be used in Tawil, but Tawil doesn't have many cards that put SIGNI onto the field by an effect. The two most prominent are Soap Summon and Wish Crisis, one of which is a spell you have to draw into. Umr can revive SIGNI easily, but Valkyrie isn't an Ancient Weapon, making her potential inclusion in Umr awkward. Valkyrie would have fit best into Tama (Sunspot or otherwise), but this Valkyrie has the most nonsensical limiting condition of all cards in the game.

⁑Mouth⁑, Holy Shield of Truth has a silly name, so I'd wager that the English word "mouth" sounds cooler to Japanese people that it does to us. More to the point, though, its bounce ability is hard to trigger with the current package of cards Anne typically runs. Marche can trigger Mouth easily, but Marche isn't very good otherwise, and Suiboku and Cellon cannot be easily triggered by you. It is possible that Mouth is better supported by cards in this set.

⁑Merli⁑, Deluge of Water Currents is almost literally Arcgain. It may single-handedly turn Anne two-stop into a thing. It might sound strange to you, but despite being the most defensive LRIG in the game, Anne has quite a few offensive options. The biggest is Destruction Spirit, which is quite close to the infamous Gathering Protection, but Laborious Work, ⁑Thinker⁑, Embodiment of Meditation, and Pure Treasured Sword are all offensive in nature as well. Combined with Mouth, and Anne may be taking a more offensive role this set.

Minimali, Thoroughness of Omission has weird art.

June 10, 2016
Main site update.

Both Flame Gained, Fire Lost and Suikaline, Natural Stone are strong cards. Suikaline is a greatly pushed version of Rin, Natural Stone, having a fairly consistent Assassin ability. (The banish prevention ability isn't that great.) Flame Gained, Fire Lost does work as a draw spell in a pinch, but it works better as a defensive ARTS, even if it creates card and ener disadvantage. More interestingly, though, Flame Gained, Fire Lost shows what the developers consider inside Red's slice of the WIXOSS color pie. Red is allowed to get effects like card draw or efficient banish, but at the cost of some uncontrollable disadvantage (Absolute Extinction, Hanayo-Four, Snow, Moon, Wind and Fire) or tribal restriction (Carnelian, Natural Stone, Fiery Spring Landscape). These effects move red away from being the monolithic aggro color, and I look forward to seeing how they expand its slice of the pie.

†Ayase Kamiyugi†, Angel Killer is a collaboration card with the Z/X TCG, its second one with WIXOSS, the first being Azumi Kagamihara. Unlike that one, which was just a boring level 0, Ayase is a lot more interesting. I could talk about its abilities, but let me geek out about Z/X first.

Long story short, Ayase lived happily in a small village with her parents until they and everyone else were brutally slaughtered by angels, after which she sought revenge. She eventually found a partner (Sieger, that's the crown-wearing panther on the left) and started killing angels indiscriminately until she had a few run-ins with a nice boy named Asuka Tennoji, after which she lessened her ruthlessness and started tracking down the angel responsible for ordering the destruction of her village. She eventually found the one responsible, Aquarius Gambiel, who's quite the psychopath. Defeated by Ayase, but not killed, Gambiel put on an evil mask and became half-demon, and Ayase is currently trying to track down and destroy the rest of the masks. It's a point of irony that the card is an Angel SIGNI while Ayase hated angels, but in a certain alternate timeline, she does become an angel.

The card itself is rather interesting. Its first and second abilities aren't terribly important: you don't want to remove your own SIGNI and open a hole in your defenses in the first ability, but it may be useful in a pinch, and the second only affects Tama and Tawil. That's why they introduced a third ability to keep the card functional, and it's quite a strong ability, removing a fairly sizable SIGNI for only one ener. Due to its color and class, it will likely only see play in Tama, Sunspot or otherwise, as Tawil typically doesn't run a black splash. With all these black Angels, that might change, though...