A new format in Wixoss is rolling in, and with it are the first two new starter decks for Diva format (Ancient Surprise and Nijisanji ver. Sanbaka). Unlike my previous reviews, this will be less about the specific game plans and strengths & weaknesses of the decks, and more about what they mean for the new format, and Wixoss as a game in general.
Major changes
Like Key format introduced 0-grow-cost level 4 LRIGs and extended to coin support to all LRIG types, Diva makes some pretty major changes to how Wixoss plays. First up, Diva LRIGs stop their normal growth at level 3, not level 4. To match this, level 3 LRIGs now have more abilities. Instead of ARTs we now have Support LRIGs and Pieces. Support LRIGs work similar to ARTs, as they don't attack, don't affect LRIG-type restrictions, their effects are on-play only, and they have various grow timings (Main Phase, Attack Phase, Spell Cut-in maybe?). Except Support LRIGs can increase your main LRIG's limit, you can only play cards that match the colour of one of your 3 LRIGs, and they grow following their LRIG trype. For example: Umr-Down is similar to Don't Move, in that it downs 2 SIGNI for 3 ener at Attack Phase timing, but since it's a level 2, you need to grow into it from a level 1 Umr support LRIG. To make this work, players are able to add 2 additional level 0 LRIGs into their LRIG decks, above and beyond the usual limit of 10 cards. Finally, there are Pieces, which are similar to ARTs but require a specific team of LRIGs, either by team name, or by LRIG colours. On the SIGNI front, power numbers are up across the board, with the average level 3 SIGNI sitting at 10 000 - 12 000 power, which had previously been standard level 4 power. Also, life bursts are slightly more powerful.
Balance
This sounds like a lot. When these changes were introduced, there was the usual gnashing of teeth that this would unbalance the game, especially in All-Star format where the new cards would be played alongside older cards. I can happily report that these changes are not as severe as they seem, and in many ways are actually a reduction in overall power level. Yes, all Diva LRIGs are essentially 3-stops, which means they hit faster than the usual level 4 decks. But the level 3 Diva LRIGs are all quite a lot weaker than the average level 4, and are actually not far off the 6-limit level 3 LRIGs of the Key era, which draw a card and provide a coin. The power of Support LRIGs is right in line with the average ART, except they follow a specific grow order which could force you to play a suboptimal level 1 to access a useful level 2. So you might have to play Draw Two (Umr-Draw) if you want Don't Move (Umr-Down), whereas with ARTs, you could just play Don't Move and another powerful ART, and leave Draw Two in your binder. And Pieces are bizarrely weak. They're expensive, and are mostly Main Phase only. The only Attack Phase timing Piece we've seen so far is laughable. Nothing in Diva comes close to the power and versatility of Keys. As far as the SIGNI, the Life Bursts aren't dramatically different from the established standard (although we do see a bit more powerful effects on lower-level SIGNI, beyond the usual 'draw a card' or 'enercharge 1'), and while the power changes can throw off a lot of older effects aimed at sniping low-level SIGNI, the abilities are close to what you'd expect from level 3s (ie: still not as powerful as level 4s).
Importantly, these two decks are well balanced against each other - unlike the previous, overpowered Nijisanji collaboration deck from the Key era you don't need to worry about any overly one-sided games here. The only major difference is that this Nijisanji deck lets you choose any of the three LRIGs to be your main LRIG (leaving the other two as supports), while the Ancient Surprise deck can only use At as its main LRIG (leaving Umr and Tawil as supports).
They're less well balanced against other, older starter decks, though. These decks both have 11 LRIG deck cards, which sounds weird, but if you ignore the extra two level-0 LRIGs, functionally, these decks are running 9-card LRIG decks, or 1 shy of the limit. This can make playing these against older starter decks a bit tricky. They're more powerful than the original starter decks (which generally only had 8 cards in their LRIG decks), but noticeably weaker than the Key format starters (which had full 10-card LRIG decks). My feeling is that even going up to a full 10 (actually 12) card LRIG deck, these decks will be roughly in line with early Key format decks, like Blue Catharsis or Black Direct, or even a little weaker. There's less Attack Phase interaction, and Pieces so far are all weaker than even generic ARTs like Phantom Garden or Victim Defense, to say nothing of Rays of Edge.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, these decks are a step down from Key. Going back to an incomplete LRIG deck after the full 10-card decks in Key is unfortunate, but the lack of Attack Phase interaction is outright frustrating. Ancient Surprise has 1 Attack Phase effect (Umr-Down). Depending on your LRIG configuration, you can end up with no Attack Phase effects at all in the Nijisanji deck. Further, there's currently only 1 Guard legal in Diva to stop LRIG attacks. This leaves games feeling a lot less interactive, and really knocks the experience down several pegs from what we were used to in Key, where decks had an average of 3 options in the attack phase. The level 3 LRIGs also feel less individual - they have a decent variety of effects, but since they're only level 3, and the effects are therefore weaker, their presence on the battlefield doesn't feel as important or impactful as we're used to with level 4s. That being said, these decks are cheaper than previous starters (like, $5, less than half the usual price - which was already well below the average charged by other tcgs), so buying a booster or two to improve them (or a few singles) means the price remains roughly the same, and it's super affordable for anyone who just wants to give the game a trial run.
Most importantly, looking at the format as a whole, it balances well with the previous iterations of Wixoss, which is impressive given how much they've changed. It's a huge credit to Wixoss that they're wiling to make these big changes if they believe there's a part of the game that could benefit from it - in Key they freed up more ener at level 4 by reducing grow costs and adding ener-free Keys, and now in Diva they're making level 3 a lot more impactful. Power-creep is a constant pressure on tcgs. One of the things MTG has aimed for in the past is power-shift, or moving power between spells and creatures, so that as one part of the game gets more power, the other moves to a lower-powered baseline. It's a technique that still lets you print powerful and exciting cards, without going full yugioh and power-creeping constantly. In my eyes, Wixoss has been a master class in doing power-shift properly, more so than any other tcg I follow (and certainly better than MTG recently), which after nearly 7 years is a pretty solid accomplishment for a tcg. What we've seen of Diva so far reinforces my confidence in the ability of Wixoss to continue its history of solid design into the future. I just hope they print some decent Attack Phase Pieces...
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