Wixoss Diva Starters 1-6 - including translated print-outs!

After playing with all 6 of the first wave of Diva starter decks, I feel like I’m starting to get a good handle on how the format plays out. They’re definitely different than Key format. The first and biggest difference is game time; Diva games are much faster than earlier Wixoss formats. This is partly a result of the lack of Servants available resulting in more LRIG damage on average, but that’s not as big an issue as it may first seem, since defensive decks tend to have plenty of ways to search or recycle these limited Guards. More important is the bias of Diva LRIG decks to aggression. Most level 1 Assist LRIGs are either aggressive or build resources (ener, SIGNI, etc), while attack-phase defensive options are restricted to level 2. Furthermore, there are no playable defensive Pieces. In practice, this means that while in Key you could have 3, 4, or even 5 defensive effects in your LRIG deck, Diva tends to cap out at 2 (your 2 level 2 Assists).

While the gameplay is narrower owing to the faster pace (although still quite good), deckbuilding is considerably more open than the relatively constrained archetypes of Key. Diva does away with LRIG-type restrictions, and while LRIGs are arranged into teams, few of the team benefits are powerful enough to completely rule out mixing and matching. On the starter deck front, however, this leads into an odd bit of tension, since the decks are balanced between solid, staple effects (red banishing, blue draw and discard, etc) and more niche strategies that may or may not be fully supported in the deck (red level 1 in No Limit, trash recursion in Nijisanji, freeze in Universe’s Beginning).

While the rest of this article is going to narrow in more specifically on the starter decks and their gameplay, it is worth pointing out a few other considerations for the Diva format. Each Assist LRIG only has 2-3 level 2 Assists, which means you can likely predict your opponent’s defensive effects more reliably than in Key as long as you know what options are available. Life Bursts are more specialized than earlier Wixoss formats; you’ll rarely have straightforward effects like ‘draw a card’ or ‘enercharge 1’, but conditional removal effects like ‘banish an upped SIGNI’ or ‘an opposing SIGNI gets -8000 power’ are more common. I’m not sure how realistic it is to play around the life bursts your opponent would likely have, but being able to do so will often be more impactful than it would be in earlier Wixoss formats, so it does bear keeping in mind.

As for the decks themselves (beside each name is a link to a printable PDF that lists all cards in the deck, and translates the names and effects - this should hopefully be a useful tool for those of us who bought a deck, but aren't confident in our ability to read japanese (like me)):


Ancient Surprise - for a printable deck translation, click here

I also covered this deck in an earlier article, but having played it against all 5 decks now, it’s quickly become one of my favourites. It’s primarily green, with red and blue splashes (along with red and blue assists). It doesn’t truly excel at any one strategy, but it’s very adaptable, and has a very good mix of different effects, from defensive to offensive to resource generation (of both cards and ener). In their LRIG deck, they have good early filtering to ensure you don’t miss on early SIGNI (both level 1 Assists), a good strong defensive effect (Umr-Down), Tawil Colours (who both pushes damage and builds resources), and a powerful but expensive Piece, Harmony Call, that not only builds a full field of SIGNI, but also gives them all damage pushing effects. For their main deck, they don’t have any especially notable low-level SIGNI, but they have a good mix of effects at level 3: card filtering which helps dig for Servants (Tobiel), a discard effect to pressure the opponent’s hand in longer games (Assylen), and an ener-sink banish effect (Atalanta). The deck’s spell, Polygenesis, is also quite good - it can return Servants from the ener zone, or any other SIGNI you may need for the late game, and the deck’s ample enercharging means you’ll have plenty to choose from. Another point in the deck’s favour is that unlike several of the other decks, there are no real misses or unsupported archetypes here. Overall, the deck generates resources efficiently, and uses these resources efficiently. It isn’t especially fast or slow, but its adaptability can overpower the fast decks and use its resource generation to pressure the slower decks.


Nijisanji Sanbaka - for a printable deck translation, click here

This deck, on the other hand, is probably the weakest of the bunch. It’s primarily white, with a strong black splash (and its LRIGs are a mix of white and black, depending on the configuration you choose). It aims to be a long-game focused deck, with plenty of ways to build cards in hand, a strong Servant recursion engine, and enough removal to consistently force through damage in the later turns. The biggest issue with the deck is that outside of Otogibara Era (who can both recur Servants for defense and remove opposing SIGNI for offense), the deck’s level 3 lineup is a mess. Shizuka Rin does nothing for the deck, and (Higuchi Kaede) is marginal at best. This deck is also the worst offender for half-supported archetypes - it seems like it wants to have a strong trash recursion engine, but it often lacks the ener to make it work (Wonder Land, Morinaka Kazaki), and it both lacks enablers (Shizuka Rin is the only one that adds to trash, and does it far too late to be meaningful) and payoffs (outside of Era, there’s not anything worth bringing back). That’s not to say the deck is without its good points: it has a strong suite of removal that doesn’t give the opponent ener (Ange’s L1 & L2 assists, Era, and their Piece), which can ener-starve the opponent and make counter-attacking very difficult. The problem is the deck tends to ener-starve itself before it can take advantage of this, and it lacks painfully in attack-phase interaction. I think this deck can be quite strong, but more than any of the others, it’ll likely need some inclusions from boosters before using it.


No Limit - for a printable deck translation, click here

No Limit is primarily Red (with Blue and White assists), and unsurprisingly is the most aggressive deck of this batch. Not only does it have a bunch of banish effects in the main deck, they’re all available at lower levels (Romail, Lancelot, Roaring Fireball, Akino*Rock), which lets you hit the ground running and force in damage before the opponent has a chance to get their engines fully firing. Rei draws extra cards at both levels, helping the deck’s overall consistency, and her random discard effect at level 2 can knock Servants or other important SIGNI out of your opponent’s hand, which you can fire off as soon as you hit level 2 thanks to her low grow cost. Akino level 2 provides a strong (if expensive) defensive option that can also be used to force through damage on offense in a pinch. Finally, the deck’s Piece and Level 3 LRIG effect all provide additional sources of damage. The deck excels at forcing through damage early, but it can stumble in the late game. Its banish effects are all limited by power, which makes it difficult to force through SIGNI attacks once your opponent starts deploying level 3 SIGNI. And its own suite of level 3s are comparatively weak: Tlet recovers level 1 SIGNI, which can help fill your field if you’re running low on cards but doesn’t help offensively. Adamasphere can sneak in damage, but her effect is random, and since it only triggers on attack, missing gives your opponent free ener. And Kagutsuchi lets you spend 2 cards in your hand to bring back a level 3 from your trash, but given the overall weakness of the deck’s level 3s, you’re rarely excited about bringing anything back. The deck also has no Servant recursion engine, which can really hurt if your opponent manages to stabilize at level 3 after your early rush. That being said, this deck wants to win around turn 4, after using its Piece on turn 3 and Hirana’s 1/game effect to hopefully close the game the turn after. The deck’s strengths and weaknesses are well lined up to accomplish this goal, and I’ve been generally impressed with the deck’s performance.


Card Jockey - for a printable deck translation, click here

Moving on from No Limit, we come to Card Jockey which is primarily white with a green splash (and red and green assists), and is on the slow side of midrange. It’s also the most luck-dependent of these first 6 starters. It has some decent offensive pressure from DJ LOVIT at level 1 and level 2, wolf L1, as well as the Piece, ENDLESS PUNCHLINE. PUNCHLINE is either one of the best cards of the deck, or one of the worst - the effect is random, and flipping a level 3 or spell and getting in 3 LRIG attacks in one turn can win you the game on the spot, while flipping a level 1 replaces the text on your Piece with “do nothing.” And the deck needs every source of damage it can get, since it lacks any main deck tools to open opposing lanes. What the main deck does have is a ton of consistency - Good Dig finds anything you need, Servants being the most important (it can also help pull out low-level SIGNI from your deck, slightly tweaking your odds on PUNCHLINE). At level 1, Code Art F Lashli helps dig for your spell, making her one of the rare level 1 SIGNI that’s strong at all stages of the game. At level 3, you have a strong resource builder in Hare Hare, who generates either ener or cards in hand on attack. You have an interesting offensive card in Code Art C Handelier, who lets you attack into opposing SIGNI without giving the opponent ener. Finally, you have Athena, a solid, if expensive, Servant recursion engine. The deck’s attack-phase interaction may seem a bit lacking, and while there’s no real difference between using Wolf L2 in the attack phase vs the main phase, she’s a bit more solid than she seems; not only does she add to your life cloth, but she increases the average number of Life Bursts the deck will see by ~1 (so if most decks average 3.5 bursts per game, this deck will usually average around 4.5). This deck has a good number of defensive burst effects, so getting another one on top of gaining another life cloth is quite strong. That being said, life bursts are already quite random, and leaning into them for your defense on top of the randomness of ENDLESS PUNCHLINE means you’ll have games where you make mistakes and win anyway, as well as games where you play perfectly and still lose. If you can make peace with that, this deck does have some neat tools and has a good balance between its resource generation and resource use. Although one or two removal effects from booster cards would go a long way.


Universe’s Beginning - for a printable deck translation, click here

Universe’s Beginning is primarily blue (with white and green assists), and features a good mix of the effects you’d expect from blue: draw, discard, and freezing. It’s another deck that’s on the slower side, but unlike Card Jockey, it has plenty of main-deck damage-pushing effects, and unlike Nijisanji, it’s better set up to manage its ener costs. Not only do you get an enercharge effect from Bang at level 1, but the deck’s Piece and two defensive L2 Assist LRIGs all have very low costs (Nova-Chopper & Bang-Repeat), freeing up ener to devote to your main deck’s offensive engines. Which is a good thing, since your LRIG deck is much more focused on resource building and efficient defense rather than pushing damage, and the main deck tools to push damage are all quite expensive - you’re going to be paying 3 ener per damage from your SIGNI (Shinpachi & Draconids). Given this high cost, the deck does tend to stall out a bit, but fortunately your opponent is going to be having a tough time getting their decks to fire properly as well, given the plentiful discard effects this deck has. The biggest weakness of the deck is its lack of Servant recursion outside of just drawing cards, which means the deck struggles to minimize LRIG damage in the long games that its ener-intensive offense requires. Unfortunately this deck falls into line with my experience with most other Wixoss blue decks: I like the mix of effects the deck offers, but it falls in the mid- to low-tier of deck strength among its peers.


Diagram - for a printable deck translation, click here

Diagram is mainly black with a green splash, and is the second-fastest of the decks. It’s not as aggressive as No Limit, but has stronger late-game tools. It’s assists are nicely balanced at level 1 between an aggressive effect, and card draw, and due to Muzica’s level 3, you’ll be able to reuse one of them (Muzika is also the deck’s only way to reuse a Servant). This, coupled with a 0-cost Piece that can be used to either push damage or draw cards from the trash, lets the deck adapt as the situation demands - which also rewards a player for correctly reading the current game state. Do you need more cards in hand to keep you running into the late game, or do you need to push damage now? The deck’s level 2 assists lean towards low-cost, efficient defensive effects, which you can often deploy at level 2 - which means you need to have a clear plan as to which level 1 you want to reuse with Muzika. I’ve used a defensive effect at level 2, only to find that the level 1 it grew over was the one I needed to reuse (and subsequently lost because of it). The deck also has some neat combos - Sanga level 2 can save you two life if your whole field is cleared, but can also defend smaller openings if you have Bear Park to move around. Due to the lack of LRIG deck banish effects, offense is mostly left to the main deck. Fortunately, the deck has plenty of low-cost power reducing and banish effects, including the spell Downer Sound and all of the deck’s level 3 SIGNI. The deck can struggle against more dedicated decks - it lacks the low-level banish effects that let No Limit push ’s early aggression, but it also lacks the long-game card advantage engines to keep up with Universe’s Beginning. However, it has the tools to give it a fighting chance against either of them, and is able to function aggressively or defensively, with high amounts of ener or low.

 

Overall, the deck you choose will depend on which one you like the look of best - there's not enough of a power difference to rule out any of them (except Nijisanji). Or, given they all cost around 500 yen, you could just buy all 6. These decks are also decently set up for future modifications - unlike Key decks, which I really enjoyed in their stock lists, there are plenty of slots to swap cards out here - weird anti-synergy or just underwhelming inclusions. Further, the play patterns of these decks tend to be flatter than Key decks - there's less synergies to master, and sequencing is less vital. The gameplay is good, but these are the most 'starter deck' of starters Wixoss has put out in a while. Which isn't a bad thing. I'll just say I'm excited to make some swaps in these decks in a way that I never really felt with Key's starter decks.

Additional notes on Diva gameplay

 (No Limit vs Ancient Surprise - No Limit had a rough start, and its banishing effects are letting Ancient Surprise play out its high-cost effects with little difficulty.)

I've played a bunch more games with the first two starter decks of Diva (Ancient Suprise and Nijisanji), and I've also gotten a few games in with No Limit, the third Diva precon (and I've looked over the next 3 preconstructed decks for the Diva format - which are currently awaiting sleeves). Like the transition from original to Key format, I've had to re-evaluate several assumptions I have about how to play these decks. I'm pretty confident with these decks now, so I figured I'd share a few of the biggest things to watch out for, either playing these decks as a new player, or as a returning player used to the decks of the Key era.

Ener management

Ener management played a heavy role in early Wixoss. Carelessly attacking would often just give your opponent the resources to hit you back harder, while attacking opposing SIGNI as little as possible could help starve your opponent of ener and leave them with nothing left to defend themselves after paying a hefty 3 ener to grow to level 4. Key format introduced two big changes that significantly reduced the pressure on ener - coins and 0-grow-cost level 4 LRIGs. Coins were a parallel resource that could often be used in place of ener - several Arts used Coins to reduce their ener costs, and Keys traded coins for powerful effects without any ener requirements at all. And with 0 grow cost, players entered level 4 with a much more robust stock of ener to immediately spend on offense or defense - you no longer had to spend a turn or two rebuilding after your final grow. Later Key decks started to reintroduce incentives for canny ener management, especially with powerful 6-cost Arts that could be game-breaking if you managed to generate enough ener to use them after covering all your other costs (Bloody Strike and friends). But these decks still generally performed at a high level with relatively meager ener budgets.

With Diva, ener management is back in a big way. While in Key there were often turns you didn't need to enercharge at all, you should be using your one enercharge at the start of the turn every turn of the game in Diva. There are several reasons for this, all attacking your ener supply at once. First, we're not really shaving costs anywhere; level 4 LRIGs cost no ener, and Assists total to about the same average cost we're used to with Arts (although more divided - level 1s are usually free and level 2s can be quite expensive). Second, there are a lot more ener sinks - in the main deck and also with Pieces. And while the cost-to-return rate on Pieces isn't great, they're still powerful effects you'll want to be able to access; they can usually push 2 damage or more while building card advantage. As for the main deck ener sinks, all decks seem to have offensive SIGNI that require 2-3 ener to clear a lane (Otogibara Era, Atalanta, Adamasphere), and both have other tools for defense that require ener as well (Otogibara Era again, Polygenesis for a Servant, etc). Figuring out when to spend your ener, and where, are very, very important to maximizing the power of your Diva precon decks.

Of the first three preconstructed decks of Diva format, No Limit is the least stressful as it's costs are quite low across the board (most importantly, the Piece costs 0). However, the deck is also less stressful for your opponent as well, due to the deck's mass of banishing effects which will give your opponent a steady supply of ener to draw from. Ancient Surprise has a lot of costly effects, but generally has the tools to keep up with them - it has several solid enercharge effects (At level 3, Tawil-Colors, and Sen no Rikyu's life burst), and can still operate a solid game plan with less ener resources due to the low grow costs of its Assist LRIGs. Nijisanji struggles quite a bit more, as not only does it lack enercharge effects (including in life bursts) and has more expensive Assist LRIGs, but the deck's core game plan centers around Era, and she is HUNGRY. She does a lot: returning guards for defense, clearing lanes for attacks, or both, and the deck can easily play out an Era each turn (no matter the configuration, this deck has tons of trash recursion). But with few effective ways of generating ener, being able to use her while using your Assist LRIGs and Piece is a struggle that requires a lot of reading of game states. Do you want to use her offensive ability, her defensive ability, both abilities, or do you want to use your ener on an Assist LRIG or Piece instead? It's heavily context dependent, and you'll rarely be able to do more than one or two of these in a given turn.

Card Advantage

If ener is in short supply, the opposite is true for card draw. There are tons of ways of adding cards to your hand, to the extent that even after enercharging every turn of the game I'll still have turns where I discard to hand size. In Ancient Surprise there is Umr-Draw, Tawil Colors, and the Piece Harmony Call that all generate cards in hand or SIGNI on the board. With Nijisanji, there are the level 3 LRIG effects, several Assist LRIGs (Lize level 1 and 2, and Toko level 1), as well as SIGNI effects from Morinaka Kazaki and Otogibara Era. And in No Limit you have Rei level 1 and 2, as well as Tlet. Since cards in hand are much more plentiful then ener, this makes it all the more important to deny your opponent ener by only attacking when you're guaranteed damage. As a side effect of having plenty of card draw available from level 1 (at least one of your level 1 Assist LRIGs will draw cards), you should make sure you deploy two level 1 SIGNI on your first turn. In older decks you could occasionally get unlucky and draw 1 or even 0 level 1 SIGNI in your starting hand and have to deal with taking an additional point of damage during the opponent's first attack, but in Diva the limited attack-phase interaction makes falling behind early even more painful. Using an early Assist LRIG to help you fill in your field at level 1 won't hurt you later in the game, given the number of ways to generate cards in these decks. 

Servants

Since the start of the game, we've been used to having 8 servants in our precons, and up to 12 options to play around with during deck customization. Diva only has one Servant so far. Fortunately, all three decks have ways to get more uses out of their limited servants, and I've still had plenty of games where LRIG attacks only manage to deal 1-2 damage over the course of the entire game. Ancient Surprise can pull the Servants from ener with Polygenesis, which turns enercharging into a kind of card draw, and also lets you use Servants that ended up in your life cloth. Nijisanji has Era, and tons of ways to return Era from your trash to use the effect turn after turn (although it takes a lot of ener). No Limit doesn't have anything, but it's aggressive enough to not care as much. It takes some getting used to, and on average you'll still end up taking more damage from LRIGs than is usual in games with Key-format decks, but it's not as miserable as it might seem, given you've cut the number of Servants in your deck in half.

Questionable inclusions and anti-synergy weirdness

What is Rin Shizuka doing in the Nijisanji deck? She adds cards from your deck to your trash, but that's not a theme the deck is really built around at all. Sure there's a few ways to bring SIGNI back from the trash, but by level 3 you'll have plenty of cards in the trash just by paying ener costs. And this deck can't even trigger her up ability, and even if it could it only helps add more cards to the trash, which again, this deck doesn't need. In a similar vein Kaede Higuchi in Niji and Assylen, Natural Stone in Ancient Surprise both don't really help: Kaede's effects don't really accomplish much, and Assylen discards on an attack, which is nice, but there's so much card advantage that one or two isolated discards makes no real difference to the game. These decks are scatterbrained in a way we've not seen in any previous Wixoss starters, and I think (charitably) the reason is they want to give a base for modifying them. Fortunately they still play fine out of the box (Wixoss's core rules and mechanics are really robust), but several of the cards that look like they should have relevant effects will be acting as vanilla, text-less SIGNI in most games. These decks already have more vanillas than usual - the two multicouloured SIGNI, and Ancient Surprise and No Limit have a vanilla SIGNI with a powerful life burst (Sen no Rikyu, Verdant General, etc) - so this leaves the gameplay at a much more basic level. In that sense they play a lot like the first wave of introductory starters way back from the start of the game (White Hope, Blue Appli, etc), so if you're coming from the more advanced Key decks, adjust your expectations accordingly. The games are still good and involve a surprising amount of important decision-making and planning, but they're not the precision machines of Key.

Diva Debut Decks - Ancient Surprise and Nijisanji ver. Sanbaka

 

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...

Wixoss Starter Deck: WXK-D16 Nijisanji WIXOSS Battle Set

The Nijisanji WIXOSS Battle Set is the Wixoss TCG’s 39th preconstructed deck, and 16th released for the “Key” format, and focuses on Machine Spirit: Electric Machine SIGNI. Unlike most other starter decks, it has 3 different LRIGs you can use, based on virtual youtubers from the Nijisanji group (your LRIGs, Key, and one of your level 4 SIGNI are the cards that change - these aren't fully individual decks like Dual decks). As part of the third wave of starter deck releases for the Key format (after the decks with Phantom Garden and the “Dual” decks), this deck has no included foils.

Mito Tsukino (white), Kaede Higuchi (red), and Rin Shizuka (blue) each have their own level 1-4 LRIG, level 4 SIGNI, and a unique key. Since only 4 SIGNI change in the main deck, and the level 1-3 LRIGs all have the same abilities, the deck only has a meaningful difference between their configurations at level 4. Even as Kaede or Rin, the deck is still primarily white.

(For a full list of contents, visit https://wixoss.fandom.com/wiki/WXK-D16_Nijisanji_WIXOSS_Battle_Set)

The LRIG deck:

The main deck:

Level 1 LRIG - Mito, Kaede, or Rin
No matter which LRIG you choose, they all have the same effect. This deck doesn’t use Coins, so you get an immediate discard / draw effect, which makes it a lot easier to judge if you want to discard for it. As usual, if you have a spell to discard, it’s usually worth it, as the starter deck spells are all quite weak.

Level 1 SIGNI
This deck contains the obligatory level 1 Servants (O and O2) and 3000 power / no effect SIGNI (in this deck, Code VL Tamaki Fumino), as well as Code VL Black Shiba. Deploy Black Shiba first if you have it, as you might get lucky, but with only 8 level 1 Electric Machine SIGNI in the deck, your chances are only around 20% to hit off the top, so expect the ability to do nothing most of the time.

Level 1 Arts
Fight Ghost does several things for this deck. It gives you a subscriber boost, which is really important as a lot of the deck’s abilities don’t work unless you have a certain amount of subscribers, and hitting those numbers off just your LRIG bonuses takes way too long. It also cancels out any bad starting hands with 1 or fewer level 1 SIGNI. Since it’s 0-cost, you want those subscribers either way, and this deck has plenty of late-game card draw, there’s not much value in holding this Art for later.


Level 2 LRIG - Mito, Kaede, or Rin
No choices to be made here, just collect your subscribers and move on. Do note that your level 2 LRIGs have a limit of 5, opposed to the usual starter deck level 2 limit of 4, so you can play out 2 level 2 SIGNI if you have them and still have limit left to play a level 1 for a full field.

Level 2 SIGNI
Wow, it’s nothing! You have your obligatory level 2 servants (D2 and D4), and Code VL Azuma Takao, who has no abilities. This deck doesn’t do much until level 4, so hold back on defense, unless you have your spell, Child Cookie, and some spare SIGNI to feed into it. Like most starter deck spells, it’s pretty weak, though, as not only does it cost 2 cards (the spell and the SIGNI you trash), letting your opponent choose what to return is usually not great, as they’ll often have a Servant or useful on-play effect SIGNI to return.

Level 2 Arts
Remember that Fight Ghost is an option if you haven’t used it yet and need some help filling in your SIGNI zones.


Level 3 LRIG - Mito, Kaede, or Rin
No choices to be made here, just collect your subscribers and move on.

Level 3 SIGNI
Level 3 continues to be quite boring. Code VL Ririmu Makaino only enercharges 1 on play, which is nice but has no effect on the board, and this deck generally doesn’t have much trouble getting the ener it needs without it. Code VL Kasumi Izumo is a little better with its pseudo-card draw, although it’s more impactful once you hit its subscriber threshold and it becomes a lot more reliable. You’re still playing a pretty simple defensive game at this point.

Level 3 Arts
Rays of Edge is a solid defensive option if your opponent is pressing an early offense. Most of your defenses only really come online past level 4, though.


Level 4 LRIGs
All the level 4 LRIGs you can choose from are quite strong, and come with an on-play, a constant that builds your subscriber count, and a powerful once per game ability that you can only use once you hit a certain subscriber threshold.

Kaede Higuchi (red) is the most offensive focused LRIG option. She banishes one SIGNI on-play, and banishes all opposing SIGNI at 800 000 subscribers with her once-per-game. She gains 100 000 subscribers at the end of your turn as long as you banished at least one SIGNI (attacking an opposing SIGNI counts), and so is trivially easy to build your subscriber count.

Mito Tsukino (white) is the most defensive option. She also gains subscribers the easiest, only requiring a LRIG attack to gain 100 000 a turn. Her on-play searches for a SIGNI, and her once-per-game searches for two SIGNI at 1 million subscribers, in addition to trashing an opposing SIGNI (the trashing a SIGNI part happens regardless of sub count, so sometimes it can be worth it to fire it off without the subscriber threshold, but usually you’ll gain subscribers quickly enough you’ll get the bonus search whether you need it or not). Both search abilities can get servants, so you can search for defense (servants) or offense (her unique level 4), depending on what you’re lacking.

Rin Shizuka (blue) is an interesting balance between offense and defense, in the vein of the original Piruluk decks - she draws cards to shore up her own defense (although not as effectively as Mito), and discards the opposing hand to force through LRIG attacks and weaken the opponent’s ability to assemble a counterattack. She draws 2 cards on-play, and discards 2 cards from your opponent as her once-per-game at 700 000 subscribers. Her +subscriber ability is the hardest to trigger, requiring you to end your turn with 4 or more cards in your hand, but between her on-play and the deck’s plentiful draw and search, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

Since the deck already has a good amount of raw search and card draw, I prefer the offensive focus of Kaede, but the power levels of these LRIGs are close enough that you might as well pick whichever one best matches your style, or whose visual design you like the most.

Level 4 Signi
The level 4 SIGNI shared by all 3 decks is Code VL Moira, which draws a card on-play if you have 800 000 or more subscribers. It’s nothing exciting, but it is quite powerful, and helps keep the deck running smoothly well into the late game. Of the unique level 4s, two of them, Code VL Himawari Honma (red) and Code VL Yuika Siina (white), have a ‘remove on attack’ ability, banishing or returning to hand, respectively. These abilities start slightly restricted, then become an unconditional banish or bounce once you hit a million subs. Much like the rest of the deck, these cards are simple, but effective, and give the main deck a solid offensive core. Code VL Saku Sasaki (blue) is a bit different, as she forces a discard on-play, upgrading to a random discard at 1 million subs. Rin is the most difficult to get to 1 million, but fortunately the main use of Saku Sasaki is emptying the opponent’s hand, making the upgrade at 1 million much less important. Since these level 4 SIGNI are the only real offensive engine in the main deck, and there’s no way of reusing them short of a refresh, it’s important to ration them. There are many other effects that can open SIGNI zones from the LRIGs, Arts, and Keys, and it’s possible to overextend your offense one turn and find yourself with no offensive options later in the game.

Level 4 Arts
Harvest Force, like Rays of Edge, has become a standard Arts inclusion in starter decks - a 6-cost remove 2 attack phase Art. It’s a powerful effect, but only useful later on in the game when you have the ener to spare. Unlike some decks, however, this deck never really struggles to get enough ener to reliably deploy it, as the deck plays a longer, more defensive game, and also has Ririmu Makaino’s enercharge on-play. Rounding out the Arts is Must Hide, which is pretty weak early on, but once you hit 1 million subs, it stops 2 SIGNI and a LRIG from attacking, effectively locking your opponent out of an entire turn of combat.

Keys
I separated the section for Keys from Arts as they are just that important. These are the cards that set this deck apart from the every other starter in the game, as despite only being useable at level 4, they are insanely powerful. They each have a powerful on-play that often opens up multiple lanes for attack, on top of building resources and subscribers. Then they have a powerful attack phase ability that trashes them, which will often blank an entire turn of combat. This double wammy of powerful effects is often enough to completely leave behind any other starter decks trying to compete. Note that these Keys do not have a coin cost, but do cost ener.

Rin and Kaede, Mito's Supporters (white)
Don’t be thrown off by the odd cost, as Mito’s constant allows you to use white ener to pay red and blue costs. Ability-wise, the on-play is super straightforward - it banishes 2, draws a card, and gives you +200 000 subs. Because of the subscriber bonus, it’s usually best to deploy this earlier, and to hold other offensive options for later turns (such as your level 4 Yuika Siina or your once-per-game LRIG effect). The attack phase action is quite costly, but because Mito is the most defensively oriented LRIG option, it shouldn’t be too much trouble to get the ener together to use it. Banishing all opposing SIGNI and drawing 3 new cards is one of the craziest effects I’ve seen on an attack phase anything, as not only does it blank an attack, but it also clears the way for a counterattack next turn.

Rin and Mito, Kaede's Supporters (red)
The only Key here that doesn’t banish on-play, but given Kaede’s LRIG abilities, she’s not feeling that left out. Choosing a card in your opponent’s hand to discard, then searching out two Electric Machines isn’t crazy, but it’s a solid bit of advantage - as before, use it early to gain the subscribers. The action effect is the only one you can fire off without ener, and downs all opposing SIGNI and LRIGs, completely shutting down an attack phase. Once again, it doesn’t banish, so you’re relying on Himawari Honma and your LRIG effects to push in damage.

Mito and Kaede, Rin's Supporters (blue)
The on-play clears two SIGNI zones (1 bounce, 1 banish), and as usual, it’s better to use it early to get the subscriber bonus online. The attack-phase effect is somehow even stronger than the first two, as it only costs 1 ener, and banishes two SIGNI and blocks the LRIG attack. Rin doesn’t have a ton of ways to poke through damage, and this Key compensates for this with a ton of field-clearing ability.

Wrap-up
Although this deck has 3 different options, it’s not super relevant which one you choose, as the Keys help offset any weaknesses the LRIGs may have (they give offensive power to Mito, extra cards to Kaede, and field removal to Rin). I’ve not noticed much difference in power between the three, but there is absolutely a huge difference in power between any of them and the rest of the starter decks this game has to offer. Your main deck is acceptable but uninteresting, and your LRIGs and Arts are solid, leaving an overall solid deck pushed well over the top by its powerful Key effects. It doesn’t really do much of anything before level 4, but once at level 4, it has so many ways of stopping damage that even a strong early lead isn’t enough to beat this deck. Rays of Edge and Harvest force are solid defensive options that also open SIGNI zones for counterattacks, you have a decent amount of extra card draw and search to help dig up Servants, and Must Hide and the Key actions will blank entire combat steps on their own. If you like Nijisanji vtubers, or just like the idea of a deck that has 3 different configurations, this is a solid deck to pick up, but be aware it’s so solid your friends might get tired of getting stomped by it rather quickly.

Wixoss Starter Deck: WXK-D17 Black Alfou

 
Black Alfou is the Wixoss TCG’s 40th preconstructed deck, and 17th released for the “Key” format, and focuses on Image Spirit: Beautiful Technique SIGNI and the Puppeteer mechanic - which lets you use your opponent’s SIGNI on your field. As part of the third wave of starter deck releases for the Key format (after the decks with Phantom Garden and the “Dual” decks), this deck has no included foils.

(For a full list of contents, visit  https://wixoss.fandom.com/wiki/WXK-D17_Black_Alfou)



Level 1 LRIG: Alfou, Danseuse of Curtain's Rise
Your level 1 is identical to the level 1s found in most other Key-format decks. In most decks this effect sets you up to use your level 2 LRIG’s ‘draw a card’ effect, but in this deck, you want to use the coin to play your Key card. Because of this, even if you have a great hand, make sure to discard to get the coin.

Level 1 SIGNI
This deck contains the obligatory level 1 Servants (O2 & O4) and 3000 power / no effect SIGNI (in this deck Aschenputtel, Dance of Fairy Tales), as well as Taubez, Dance of Fairy Tales. There will almost never be any level 1 SIGNI to puppeteer in the first few turns of the game, so don’t feel bad if you can’t make use of the effect. It’s more a bonus that keeps your level 1 useful into the late game.

Level 1 Arts, etc.
As mentioned above, you really want to deploy Haity Key, At the Ends of Love and Hate at level 1. Most LRIGs want to save the coin they get off their level 1 effect to draw a card with their level 2 LRIG effect, but this Key draws a card when you take damage, and since you almost always take damage at level 1, you don’t need to worry about missing the draw at level 2. However, you don’t get any coins at level 2, which means that if you don’t play your Key at level 1, you have to wait until level 3. Since the Key triggers off of damage, you want to play it when your life cloth is as high as possible, and waiting until level 3 will drastically cut down the effect it has on the game.



Level 2 LRIG: Alfou, Danseuse of Theatrical Blackout
Since you used your coin at level 1, this LRIG basically has no text.

Level 2 SIGNI
In addition to your level 2 Servants (D & D2), your level 2 SIGNI is Glasshoe, Dance of Fairy Tales. This is another SIGNI, like Taubez at level 1, that has an effect that’s not often relevant early on, but does help the deck’s late-game power and reliability. Glasshoe’s protection ability isn’t worth going down a card early in the game, but as the power of opposing SIGNI effects starts to scale up in level 3 and 4, it becomes quite useful. Also note that at level 4, Cinderella can bring it back from the trash for free with her on-play, so if/when Glasshoe gets banished or enercharged, it should be the first ener you use when paying a cost.

Level 2 Arts, etc.
Not much to do here.



Level 3 LRIG: Alfou, Danseuse of Intermission
You finally get some more coins. Imagine having to wait this long to play your Key!

Level 3 SIGNI
By this point, by paying ener costs, your opponent is likely to start having SIGNI you’re actually interested in puppeteering, and Rinz, Dance of Fairy Tales will let you start pulling them out of the opponent’s trash to your field. Puppeteered SIGNI is a bit weird in Wixoss; getting two SIGNI off one card is always great (ie. Rinz and the SIGNI she puppeteers), but given how synergistic and focused decks tend to be, you’ll often find you can’t use the SIGNI’s effect because your deck doesn’t have ways to make charms, or beats, or whatever. Fortunately, this deck gives you things to do with extra SIGNI, such as Curbius, Dance of Fairy Tales, which lets you trash one of your SIGNI to banish an opponent’s, and even gives you a bonus if you trashed a puppeteered SIGNI. Between Curbius and the banish effect of your Key, you should be able to keep pressuring your opponent with damage, even with the deck’s otherwise soft early game.
You also have the Spell Actor Wardrobe, which has a very familiar effect, and has all the usual side uses - not only does it let you swap out a low-level SIGNI for a more powerful one late in the game, but it can reuse an on-play effect or a once-per-turn/down action by trashing a SIGNI and bringing the same SIGNI back to your hand. Like most starter deck spells, this is one of the weakest points of the deck, but it does have its uses. Sometimes you’ll even use the enercharge mode to set up your defensive Arts in the later stages of the game, although apart from Bloody Strike this deck doesn’t use much ener, so the enercharge mode isn’t relevant all that often.

Level 3 Arts, etc.
Many of the level 1 SIGNI found in starter decks have no LRIG-type limits, but at higher levels, those limits can stop you from using the more powerful high-level SIGNI in your opponent’s trash. Pumpkin Carriage can let you get around these limits, but your level 4 LRIG’s 1/game effect gives you the opponent’s LRIG type permanently, so most games you’ll only be using Pumpkin Carriage to open up 2 opposing SIGNI zones to attack through. Also around this level, you’ll have enough spare ener to use Rays of Edge, which is a versatile Arts that can save you a point of damage by trashing an attacker in an open lane, and leaves that lane open for you to counterattack through on your next turn.



Level 4 LRIG: Alfou, Danseuse of String-Pulling
Jealousy, this LRIG’s 1/game effect, gives you the opponent’s LRIG type permanently, giving you full access to their trash when you puppeteer. You should use this ability on your first turn at level 4, even if your hand has plenty of passable plays otherwise. The auto effect that triggers once per turn when you puppeteer is useful on offense (-7000 power), defense (draw a card, hope for  a Servant), and niche cases (sometimes forcing an early refresh can be the difference between winning and losing, but 3rd effect will generally be used much less than the first 2). Because it only activates once per turn, you may want to space out your puppeteering effects to once per turn as well, as this will also help you avoid over-extending.

Level 4 SIGNI
Cinderella, Dance of Fairy Tales is a bit like Curbius, although unlike Curbius she can’t trash your own SIGNI, only puppeteered SIGNI. She also (appropriately) comes with a Glasshoe, which makes her a powerful wall against opposing counterattacks. Dingon, Dance of Fairy Tales is useful in a few ways. She can puppeteer anything, and is also a card your opponent has to prioritize removing, hopefully before combat so her auto ability doesn’t activate. Your opponent playing out SIGNI to ensure you don’t get multiple turns with Dingon in play can mess up their SIGNI placement and disrupt their plans to actually force damage through to your life cloth. Also note that Taubez and Rinz will trigger your LRIG auto effect, and give you fuel for Cinderella and Curbius, so they’re quite useful to play even if you don’t really need the puppeteered SIGNI they give you.

Level 4 Arts, etc.
O’Clock Bell is a powerful Art that can fill in 2 SIGNI zones on defense, and depending on the SIGNI your opponent has in their trash, you may even be able to use their effects to stop a third attack (by banishing, etc). However, it is near useless if your opponent’s deck is heavily slanted towards attack-phase banish effects, or their SIGNI have the Lancer or Assassin abilities. Bloody Strike is more versatile, but 6 is a lot of ener, which means that it can take some work to get your board in a situation where you can use it. Also note that you’re able to cash in Pumpkin Carriage for 2 banishes at this level (although only on your turn), and that the action of the Haity Key is a powerful last hurrah once you’re out of life cloth to fuel its other abilities. Overall this deck is more slanted to offense than defense, but your Arts should keep your opponent off-balance long enough for you to get the last blow in before they can.

Wrap-up:
    This deck has some interesting things going on with it, but it does feel like we’ve been getting a lot of black starter decks recently (Ulith, Myu, Nanashi, and now Alfou), which makes this one feel a little less interesting as a result - there’s only so many times you can look at trash recursion and Bloody Strike before it starts to feel a little too familiar. That being said, this deck does have an interesting blend of effects to help set it apart, with puppeteering giving this deck more raw card advantage than most other black decks, while still having a good number of effects that force through damage, especially the Key, which is powerful, versatile, and a nightmare for the opponent to play against. On the minus side, its defenses are a little lackluster, especially against decks where O’Clock Bell doesn’t do much. Still, all the starter decks featuring booster-version level 4 LRIGs (and the ‘Rays of Edge’ Art) are some of the strongest starter products Wixoss has put out, so if you’re looking to get into the game, or you’ve always had a soft spot for Alfou and are super excited to see her finally get level 3 and 4 cards after being stuck as a 2-stop deck for years, this is a worthwhile deck to pick up.

How to read Japanese-language cards - Wixoss

(These are some of the simple effects you should be able to figure out after reading this guide.)

It can be daunting to look at an interesting Japanese tcg and see a sea of foreign language characters, and it can be inconvenient to print out a sheet of translations that you need to constantly reference. Fortunately, tcgs tend to be very structured both in how the cards are worded, and the terms used. Even with only a very moderate understanding of Japanese, you can save a ton of time looking up effects in reference sheets and wikis by learning just a few simple words and phrases. Most of these will be broadly applicable to other tcgs, but tcgs sometimes use slightly different wording for common concepts (ie. for “opponent”, some tcgs just use 相手, while Wixoss uses 対戦相手 - battle opponent).

If you have no knowledge of the Japanese language at all, there is a bit of homework you’ll need to do from the start: it will be next to impossible to understand anything without being able to read the Japanese phonetic alphabets (katakana and hiragana). They’ll be used for everything from basic grammar (の, を), to Wixoss specific terms (ルリグ - LRIG, シグニ - Signi, バニッシュ - banish), to more general tcg terms (デッキ - deck, レベル - level, カード - card). Being able to look at ルリグ, read it as ru-ri-gu, and understand it as referring to LRIG is the baseline of competency you’ll need to be able to start using this guide (or really any guide, this is really important, foundational stuff). Fortunately, you should be able to get a solid grasp on this within a month of easy study - you can probably get away with less than a half-hour a day. If you’re more ambitious, you should be able to manage it in half that time.

Once you’ve learned katakana and hiragana, and know the basic game terms of Wixoss (or the game you’re looking to read), you’ll be able to recognize close to half the text on the average card. The other half will be kanji, which is the tricky bit, and where this guide aims to give you a helping hand. (This list is in no real order, but it generally goes from more common to less common, so the most important kanji should be near the top of the list.)

枚  (まい - mai)
A numerical classifier for flat things such as paper, plates, coins. As a classifier, it doesn’t have any meaning on its own, you’ll just see it after a number like １枚.

引く  (ひく - hiku)
To pull, to draw. In tcgs, it’s used when you draw a card, like in カードを１枚引く (Caado o ichimai hiku - Draw 1 card). Since this is a common life burst effect (along with エナチャージ # - or ener charge #), these first two kanji alone will let you quickly read a majority of your life burst effects without reference.

対戦相手  (たいせん あいて - taisen aite)
Opponent. (対戦 is taisen - or battle, and 相手 is aite - opponent, or companion.) Knowing 対戦相手 and あなた (anata - you) lets you know who is performing an effect.

終了時  (しゅうりょう じ - shuuryou ji)
When finished. Usually found with ‘end of turn’ effects (あなたのターン終了時 - at the end of your turn). ターン終了時まで is “until end of turn.”

以下  (いか - ika)
Less than, or ‘not more than’. Used after a number, it means ‘that number, or less’, for example: パワー10000以下 is power 10000 or less. Knowing this, you should be able to fully read 対戦相手のパワー10000以下のシグニ１体をバニッシュする。This is a common type of effect on red cards, especially their life bursts. This kanji can also mean “the following; the [something] below," ie. “choose 1 of the following:”.

得る  (える - eru)
To get, to gain, to obtain. Used when a card gains an effect, such as 「アタックできない。」(can’t attack), or 「バニッシュされない。」(can’t be banished).

色  (いろ - iro)
Colour. と同じ色 (onaji iro) is “same colour.”

手札  (てふだ - tefuda)
Hand (of cards).

捨て  (すて - sute)
Discard, throw away. Used when a player discards cards from their hand. 捨てさせる is used when a player is forced to discard (ie. must discard).

公開  (こうかい - koukai)
Open to the public, to exhibit. In tcgs, it means to reveal to all players.

見  (み - mi)
To see, to look at. A general-use kanji that pops up in effects like あなたのデッキの上からカードを３枚見る (look at the top 3 cards of your deck - 上 is top, 下 is bottom, 一番上 - ichiban jou - is the topmost, the one right on top), and effects like １枚見ないで選び (ichi-mai minaide erabi - choose a card without looking - used when discarding random cards from an opponent’s hand).

場  (ば - ba)
Place, or field. Your in-play zone.

加える  (くわえる - kuwaeru)
To add (ie. 手札に加える - add to your hand).

置く  (おく - oku)
Put (ie. トラッシュに置く - put into the trash).

戻す  (もどす - modosu)
Return. 手札に戻す - return to hand.


This is far from a complete list of kanji you’ll find on Wixoss cards, or japanese tcg cards in general, but this should be enough to cover most general effects and save you some time checking wikis or reference sheets. Many decks will also have archetype specific terms you should familiarize yourself with (such as 乗 - jou - drive / ドライブ状態 - doraibu joutai - drive state for Layra, or learning 偶数 - guusuu - even / 奇数 - kisuu - odd for Guzuko). Generally, you can find these easily on the wiki.
Hopefully you’ve found this useful, and if there’s any kanji I’ve missed that would be useful to include, just let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Wixoss 5th Anniversary decks - Overview

The Wixoss tcg is a terrific game, and buying a pair of the 5th anniversary starter decks is the cheapest way to start playing it, or just seeing what the game plays like if you’re curious. These decks offer distinct gameplay and strategies, and are reasonably well balanced against one another. That is not to say that they are all equal, however. The power levels are close enough that any deck can win against any of the others, but how much luck and skill are required for that win differs quite a bit. Piruluk has a much narrower margin of error than Ril. Draw too many Signi of the wrong levels at the wrong time, or mistake the optimal timing of your Arts, and Piruluk will often lose, while Ril can shrug off a bit of bad luck or minor play errors. Even still, any wins or losses will be close; often the winning deck would have lost if the opponent had survived another turn. Most importantly, though, unlike certain other tcgs, these decks don't offer a subpar gameplay experience; they contain powerful and consistent strategies that reward player skill and a strong understanding of the ins and outs of each deck. As with any tcg, these are still starter products, so you can’t just waltz into a tournament and expect to compete with the most tuned lists in the metagame, but as far as offering great gameplay when paired against other starter decks, and providing a solid base to modify with cards from booster packs, these decks do a terrific job for a crazy low price.

(In terms of where to buy these decks, there are a few options, but absent any personal preferences, you should be able to find them on amazon.jp, whose English language support and reasonable shipping costs makes these decks pretty easy to get ahold of. Search by deck code ie. WXK-D05, and you won’t need to know a word of Japanese.)

A few more detailed notes and random thoughts:

Power levels
In terms of general power, my experience would rank them as Ril > Guzuko > Tama > Carnival > Piruluk. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that the decks are problematically unbalanced, though, and the decks ranking can change depending on the matchup. Guzuko’s “Together with Aya!” key changes value quite a bit depending on the opponent. Decks like Ril and Carnival that primarily push damage with Signi attacks can dismiss it as a minor inconvenience, but for decks that rely on LRIG attacks to force through damage, it can really make life difficult for them (Piruluk lacks ways to force through Signi attacks, and relies on discarding the Guards from the opponent’s hand to force through LRIG attacks to compensate, and Tama’s double crush LRIG attack and her Key’s Guard limiting effect are important sources of damage that she relies on keep pace with opponents who have stronger defensive options). Against an open field, Guzuko is weaker than Ril, but in a meta of just these decks, Guzuko might be the strongest by virtue of how well she matches up to the opposition.

Another example is Ril’s See Through the Fiery Ambition, which can offer a way to force through an extra 1 or 2 damage against decks that rely heavily on their 12000 power level 4 for their offensive (Carnival, Guzuko, other Ril decks), but can be near useless against decks like Piruluk or Tama that tend to string together their strategies using either their Arts deck, or lower level Signi.

Piruluk is already on the weaker side of these decks, but against the other decks with Phantom Garden she really struggles. After you’ve gone through a ton of effort to empty the opponent’s hand, it’s pretty demoralizing to see them instantly rebuild it at such a low cost, especially considering Phantom Garden is pretty low-impact in other matchups. She does fare a bit better against decks without powerful draw engines in their LRIG decks, like Tama and Ril.


Playing with other starter decks
Most decks from before the ‘Key’ format (decks with the WXD code rather than the WXK code - see here) have only 8 cards in their LRIG decks, which means that they’re poorly set up to compete with the Key format starters, which have a full 10 cards in their LRIG deck. The main difference is that the Key format starters add in a Key card and a generic, colourless Arts, so you can change up these older decks to still be viable, but getting the power right with these modifications can be tricky, so it’s easier to stick to Key format starter decks (the older decks are out of print, so they’re harder to find anyway).

The decks from WXK-D01 Red Doping to WXK-D08 Dual Blast (the Dual decks each contain two decks, so they’re another nice way of trying out the game) are all roughly at the same power level as these 5th anniversary decks, so they’re easy pickups if you’re looking to extend the range of decks you can play. From WXK-D09 Blue Umr onwards, however, the starters take a noticeable jump in power level. They don’t have an alternate level 4 LRIG in boosters, and so they have overall stronger effects, and they’ve replaced the mediocre Phantom Garden or Victim Defence colourless Arts with the much more useful Rays of Edge (if you’re looking to get into deck building beyond stock lists, they also have several copies of the no-life-burst guards, which are hugely useful in deck building as they give you a lot more freedom in which cards you can include without worrying as much about the 20 life-burst, 20 non-life-burst deck building requirement). They also ditch the simple power-boost effect Signi for more focused options. The older decks are still pleasantly competitive with these newer ones, but you will notice the power difference, and it might make for a bad time if you and your friend each only have 1 deck, and one has an older Key deck and one has a newer Key deck.

There’s a few odd decks out to watch for. There were several decks before the Key format that had the full 10 LRIG deck cards, which tended to be expensive special editions. Some were pretty mediocre (the movie-version decks, and Red Promise / Blue Petition each only have 4 level 4 Signi total, as opposed to the usual 8, and therefore lack a lot of late-game power), some are pretty good (the Conflation decks), and Carnival’s Red Joker in particular is just bonkers powerful. Things are a little more steady in the Key era, but if you’re a fan of virtual youtubers, WXK-D16 Nijisanji WIXOSS Battle Set is crazy strong. It’s so strong, in fact, that it one-sidedly stomps every other starter I’ve tried to play against it, so unless you and your friend(s) plan to heavily modify your decks from their stock lists, this deck will not be much fun if you’re playing starter decks against each other.


Modification
Like any tcg, Wixoss has a ton of options to further customize these decks and dial up their power. That being said, the game is Japanese-language only, so unless you read the language fairly well, it can be a bit of work to keep the effects straight. Generally, I find that as long as I can keep the card list (with effect translations) to a single page of 8.5/11 paper, some modifications can be nice, but it can get a bit cumbersome if you need to shuffle between multiple sheets of paper to keep track of what does what. As far as modifications themselves, a lot of that will come down to how you feel about the deck: what it needs more of, and what doesn’t play any role in advancing your game plan. A few easy notes:

• Most decks have at least one Arts that is noticeably subpar (see my reviews of the individual decks), so replacing them with a more functional Arts is a quick and easy way to upgrade a deck.
• The limits on the decks level 2 and 3 LRIGs can feel a bit low (for example, at level 2 you can’t play 2 level 2 Signi without leaving your third Signi zone open). If you feel you don’t need the effects, swapping to the higher-limit non-effect versions at these levels can let you play out these levels a bit more freely (this will depend heavily on how the decks use their coins, and will also be heavily affected by any changes you make to the main deck).
• These decks all have an alternate level 4 LRIG in booster packs, which are often more powerful, so swapping them out can change up how the deck plays with only one swap.
• As for changing up your main deck, the easiest thing to swap out is some number of the spells. They range from barely decent to outright bad, and while you might want to keep a few of them in the deck, no deck wants 4 copies of them (Tama especially doesn’t want any spells). I’d start by swapping out 2 spells, and adjusting from there.
• The next easy main deck swap are the cards that only have a minor power boost as their effect. Generally, putting in effects that more directly benefit your gameplan will go quite a ways in improving the deck’s overall performance.

Just like all tcgs, modifying your decks can turn into an (expensive!) arms race, and it can also throw off the balance of the decks quite easily. Generally, I’d recommend finding an agreement with whoever you play with before going nuts and rushing off to yuyutei to order singles. Unlike certain other tcgs, the gameplay offered by these starter decks is quite good, so it’s perfectly okay to leave these decks in their stock lists.