I think I just like markers … | Assault Lily vol. 3 Bar/Door Deck List

Level 0 Core

The Riri brainstorm is a no-brainer (haha). It didn’t look that strong to me at first, but especially combined with the Shenlin combo that also helps you keep your stock clean, it really gets the job done. And then she also has a gig or two on the side, because if you think about it, this effect really goes beyond just throwing climaxes out for free. Sure, going second with 2 attacks and triggering a Door on the first attack feels great when you can bump it up to top of stock and pay it out for 1 stock next turn! But having this stock-clean ability available consistently every single turn means that you can just use your stock as a selective graveyard too, and I think it does improve the overall quality of the games by a small margin. My first goal is to just shove all of the chasers to bottom of the stock when I don’t need them anymore – and the more useless shit is in my stock, the less useless shit I’m drawing, so that’s great! And lastly, sometimes it’s not about a climax being stuck there, or not even a finisher piece you’d bother paying out otherwise, but if you can (for example) choose to refresh with one more soul trigger than you otherwise would by shoving a level 0 to stock for free instead, why not?

Brainstorm = goated. And she even prompts funny questions such as “You have to ditch for that?” (no) and “Aha okay, but it has a condition?” (also no).

Next, the Fumi chaser. And I’m gonna complain a little bit about this chaser, because we could have had this really cute art with her super fluffy hair but nooo, that has to be on a useless Book support that HotC haven’t even translated correctly. But oh well, I guess the chibi is fine? I just wish the fire card would also have a fire art, that’s all. And this card is 100% super good (just don’t run into Bang Dream, trust). 2k on offense isn’t much, but 3.5k level 1 chaser on defense? Sign me right the fuck up! The 5+ cards in hand condition can be a little annoying if you wanna slam the Brainstorm down early, but most of the time it’s fine if you’re not being stupid (unfortunately for me, I am often stupid). And on top of being a (potentially) plussing card that slightly annoys the opponent, she also has additional implications at level 1, which I will get to later.

As for the Riki, the keen-eyed among you may have noticed I am running 4 of the Yujia Alarm, and the new set does come with a red Riki that clocks from waiting room to bottom of clock, so … is the draw from the Kanaho Riki really that good? Yes. I love the draw-ditch profile so much, I would even consider running the set 1 blue spawn Riki that has a free draw-ditch on play if you have 2 or more other characters. But I’m not hurting for climax discard outlets that much (yet), so for now Kanaho it is.

Other 0/0 Fodder

We are pulling into Personal Preference Station (population me): here are the cards that have one or several alternatives, and I admittedly haven’t extensively tested this deck yet, so this will just be a general thought collection on why I think I wanna run these over any of the other options. I very well could be proven wrong!

First, the climax swap. We have a new one that swaps from deck, has Shift and a soul trigger. But it’s also blue, and I don’t run any other blue cards, so while the soul trigger is always nice, I think I would prefer a climax swap with an on play ability that’s at least kinda useful. And set 1 gives us the bog standard waiting room CX swap with an on play check top 2 rearrange, which is even kinda good for our level 1 combo sequencing if we’re not doing triple Shenlin (we often aren’t). Maybe I’ll end with a 1-1 split of both climax swaps, or cut it down to just 1 copy, but for now, I’m rolling with two of the old one.

Next, the Yujia Riko. Initially, I played the old chibi Yuyu Riko that also has a ditch to trigger twice ability, and while in theory, this deck could always do with more stock, in practice, I just didn’t find myself being in a position to use twindrive that often. Ability-wise, I’m not sure Yujia’s Alarm is strictly better, but it has definitely proven to be a lot more useful in my games, so I’ll take a good ability I use sometimes over a possibly better ability I almost never use. But also, it being green really helps with the color fix, because before, I would just end up leveling the stock swap or healer or even my level 1 pieces, which is obviously not ideal. And lastly, having this selective filter with the Alarm ability does free up some space in the deck for other tech I want to run. This way, I get most of the benefits of a drop salvage without actually having to pay for one, or play one to stage for that matter. The fact that it specifically needs to ditch a character for the Alarm is unfortunate, but understandable.

Anyway, speaking of other tech, I threw the yellow and red check 4s into the deck like 4 games ago, and I’m already pretty convinced this is the shit. Free mill is always good, but specifically for this deck, free attempts to get another Bar if you didn’t trigger it the turn before are a godsend. And considering our comfortable kill range, sometimes we also wanna clock ourselves up to level 3 pretty aggressively, and being able to do that for free also helps. Now I just need to remember which of these two cards does what, and for what cost. The red (Kaede, I think?) is on play clock a card to check 4 for a character, and the yellow is on play ditch character, bottom deck another character from stage, check 4 for a card. Not confusing at all, right? Oh, and I guess the yellow one being 2.5k if you have another character is kinda relevant, because 2.5k is our highest base offense power at level 0 🙂

This L0 Kaede (hey I remembered her name!) from set 1 does a similar job, but costs that pesky stock I don’t wanna use. Same for the new 5 card Amagi, which I’m still kinda keeping on my radar because one, it’s green, and two, the global +500 would make the chaser 4k on defense and maybe that’s funny in some matchups. I think the most notable card that’s not included is easily the new Kanaho on attack Akatsuki that can grab 2 characters if you ditch a second card, but that’s kinda the same story as with the Yuyu Riko: sounds great on paper, but just hasn’t served me in practice. It’s great if you open a Bar and then see two combo pieces on the Akatsuki, but I think that has happened maybe once, and most of the time even if I played her later in the game, I wasn’t using her effect, so it was basically another dead card that joined the chasers at the bottom of stock. Depending on how her two replacements above fair, I might reconsider at some point.

You were supposed to get the markers, not destroy them!

… por que no los dos?

The level 1 combo Shenlin is base 4k, but gets +3k during your turn if you have another character, so swinging for 8k with the climax. And at the end of her attack, if you have another character, you simply pay 1, check up to 5, put one character to hand and one character to top or bottom of your stock.

The Yujia is base 3k, but gets +4k during your turn with no condition. They really are messing with me here in terms of how many similar but different effects I need to remember! Anyway, at the end of her attack, you can put her under another front row Shenlin as a marker, and if you do, choose a Shenlin with a marker, until the end of your opponent’s turn, it gets +1 soul and the ability that when she goes to waiting room from stage, you can return her to your hand or send her to stock.

Guys, I just do not know where to fucking start. This combo is so good. And when you think it’s good, it gets even better.

Obviously, milling 5 is cool. Cleaning stock is cool. Triggering a Door or Bar with the Shenlin to get the plus and still pay out the blind or dirty stock? It gives me levels of serotonin I am not equipped to handle. The +1 soul opens options to side or hit hard depending on the opponent’s board and deck state, and speaking of opening options: know what the Yujia leaves behind when she markers herself? An empty front row slot. Know what you probably have in the backrow after your level 1 turn because it lived at level 0? Your 3.5k level 1 chaser 🙂 No free directs with random level 0 chumps in this house! If I remember to actually move my chaser, that is …

It also makes looping the combo much easier if you’re guaranteed to get a copy of it back to hand at the end of your opponent’s turn, which is mega value for something that’s printed with a Bar climax. And if you don’t have the climax? Well Yujia doesn’t need the CX in play to marker herself, so you’re free to swing with two 7ks anyway, including the +1 soul to the Shenlin, and then you can try again next turn. And she also doesn’t need to be standing, so crashing into something you can’t reverse also feels a lot less bad.

The ideal board is of course two Shenlin one Yujia every turn, but honestly, the deck runs just fine looping turns with just one Shenlin too. And I don’t mean that as in ‘that’s the crisis mode and we’re still fine’ – I literally mean that even with just one Shenlin per turn, the deck still feels very comfortable to me. Which is also part of why I’m running Yujia at 4 copies, because it often honestly feels worse to do double Shenlin without marker than one Shenlin with marker.

And as a final cherry on top, I will remind you yet again that the ability lets you put Shenlin to hand or stock. It’s great to be able to decide where your plus is going after the opponent has already done their turn: if you randomly get shot to level 3 when you weren’t expecting it and are one stock short of scrambling together the combo, no you’re not 🙂 Toss Shenlin in there, problem solved!

Shenlin marker package = extremely goated.

Okay so what is the 1/0 Fumi memory blink doing here?

Initially, I just tossed her in there as a semi-placeholder and red fix, thinking she would be funny against some of my webcam friends who play Uma. Turns out they don’t like it when their Dantsu brainstorms don’t have a marker, or when you blink the markered stocksoul combo they just cleancut to the back! So point one, horse bullying.

Point two, it’s very funny when Hololive’s triple Sora negsoul turns into just one measly -2 soul after two Soras take a short trip through Memory lane. I don’t think that’s a meta-relevant situation, but it did happen in casuals just a few hours ago, and I don’t think my opponent was happy.

And point three, you know who also doesn’t like losing markers? The gal who spent the past several paragraphs glazing the Shenlin marker interaction. Will I run into Assault Lily at my locals? Absolutely not. Will this deck still be legal by the time WGP quali and WSEC finals come around? I would think not. But unironically, if the opponent can blink the marker Shenlin every turn, that significantly neuters the combo, so I do wonder if Japan will just … tech against itself? Or if they play this enough for other sets to start slotting blinkers into their decks.

What’s a level 2? Something to eat?

There’s not much to say here: you’re either looping the Shenlin combo, or they got you to level 3 and you’re killing them.

So I’m just gonna make a quick case for why I’m running the set 1 Tazusa early play healer and not the new Fumi one. Unsurprisingly, it all still comes down to the same mantra of stock being the limiting factor in this deck, and so I really value the stock heal more. But also, the 4 or more character early play condition is better, so I’ll take the on turn 11k with an optional on reverse memory kick over the crossturn 10.5k with Alice heal any day.

Once I get a better feel for the deck, I will probably make space here for the 2/1 Cat Maid (which is what the cart titan profile should have been called, wasn’t this the OG one???), and/or the new green anti-change sack counter, and/or the 2/1 Mai free fresh counter.

14th Century Europe

This finisher is a plague and I am a little bit terrified of myself for playing it.

For some silly reason, the Yuyu is 11.5k if all characters are on trait. And then on attack with the Door, she gets -9 soul and ///

Quick break, I just wanna say I haven’t watched or read or played anything from the Assault Lily franchise, so I have no clue about the characters or any of the lore, but I think there were 9 girls in the main group from set 1, so my personal headcanon with this -9 soul flavor is that everyone else has already died and Yuyu and Riri are doing one last all out attack that will get the job done but also kill them both. Do not tell me if I am wrong.

/// anyway, she gets -9 soul and then end of attack pay 2 ditch 2 burn 2 burn 3 burn 4. Yeah you read that right, 2-3-4. No attack damage unless you find a universal 7 soul trigger promo somewhere, but who needs attack damage when you’re burning them for one and a quarter levels?

And the Riri grabs the Door from waiting room on play, sends it to hand or stock, and her part of the climax combo is end of attack, send her under the Yuyu as a marker, salvage 2 characters, Fumio your opponent for 2. This is why I keep saying stock is the limiting factor, not hand 🙂 But if you’re gonna play this deck, I really suggest being very loud when you read them this card, because I keep saying it’s Fumio for 2 and people don’t even seem to process it with how long we’ve been used to 1 CX Fumios only.

In theory, end of attack Fumio seems kinda clunky, but in practice, I actually think it might be better than if it was on play? You have insane reach with this combo, so a lot of the time, I’m doing my finisher turn when the opponent is around 2-3 and they’ve just milled down to one clean card in deck. Swing with the Fumio for 3, they still take refresh damage, if they don’t cancel, you’re shuffling back 6 on top of that. And if their waiting room is so low on climaxes that it’d be better to guarantee leaving out 2 CX compared to shuffling back an extra 6 clean, in many cases you can just put the Fumio in front of their early play and side for 0 before doing the effect.

But you also have flexibility in terms of attack order, because you need 1 stock at the start of attacks to do double Yuyu combo, so you can swing with a Yuyu first and go with the Riri Fumio second. However, do note that if you use the ability, the Fumio is mandatory – so you can’t just marker the Riri to salvage ditch targets for Yuyu. So it does help your flexibility a lot if you have enough hand to not need the salvage (which is the case for me most of the time tbh).

And while we’re at flexibility, you’re also pretty fucking safe to dodge counters because if you’re gonna be swinging at minus 6 soul anyway, might as well side those level 3s. Can’t locate Hololive’s rest counter? Never seen your opponent’s set before and don’t know if they are sitting on a memory kick? Just side! Sure you’re 12.5k and probably reversing their shit if you front, but they can’t use the board that lived if they’re dead this turn 🙂

Also, we already had an on attack stock swap in red to go with this bullshit, but for some reason, they also printed us a new green one that’s on play, and if you don’t need the stock swap, you can choose to draw a card and give one of your opponent’s characters no events or backups for the turn instead. I genuinely don’t know what they were thinking with this, but I’m so glad they let me be an utter menace – even if just for a couple months!

Yuyu & co. = three goats in a trench coat ♥

Closing Thoughts

I have seen goat farms with less goats.

Deck is peak. Deck is so peak. Every now and then I am having the silliest stupidest most unluckiest game and it doesn’t even matter. Don’t play this deck: it will numb all your Weiss skills, it will turn you complacent, it will whisper into your ear that you are invincible, and as you kill your opponent from 2-3 with 4 stock, you will start to believe that.