So with more than half a month having passed since WXK03 Utopia has been released, the meta has settled down, with certain LRIGs showing more dominance in the tournament scene than others. With that we shall look at all 9 LRIGs and how Utopia has since changed their decks.
Allos Piruluk
One of the few LRIGs that received strong support in this set. With the introduction of Piruluk TELOS, Piruluk now has a strong LRIG to sit on as compared to before when she only had a near vanila TETRA. Despite needing 2 blue to grow to 5, having 11 limit and no form of defensive add-on, TELOS comes with 2 strong effects:
Her Constant allows her to take no damage from LRIGs when her hand is zero. This effect not only rewards the player for playing in line with her SIGNI's specialty (Discarding to trigger effects), it also blocks many other threats like Layla's double doping, Guzuko's Direct and even Catharsis from mirror matchup TELOS.
Her 1 per turn Action - Peeping Analysis is another deadly skill under the correct circumstances. It not only allows you to see your opponent's hand, it also lets you discard 1 of your opponent's hand, giving you the option to drop important cards in his hand. Allowing you to deny your opponent of any combo pieces, guards or even strong offensive SIGNIs that could threaten you next turn.
 |
| Catharsis is garbage, you will rarely use it. |
With the introduction of new SIGNIs such as Crocell and Shahraza, Piruluk's offense have also improved. Crocell and Shahraza can be combo with Manomin or Leviathan, disrupting your opponent's hand while maintaining an offensive board as early as turn 2. Most topping decklist play 4 Shahraza in addition to either 2 Shutendo and 4 Captain hook or 4 Shutendo and 2 Captain Hook.
Released along with Utopia, the blu-ray Promotional Card Grave Blue has also helped Allos Piruluk become more stable, allowing you to maintain your field, let you discard your hand during attack phase to trigger TELOS's Constant ability and open SIGNI zones up by spawning Shahraza and discarding more than 2 cards. Hence giving Allos both defensive and offensive power in one single ARTS.
Guzuko
Already having a strong level 4 LRIG and SIGNI, the introduction of Moriarty allowed Guzuko to be even stronger than before. Due to Moriarty's strong set of effects, Even-leveled Guzuko decks saw a rise in popularity again, overshadowing the then popular Odd-leveled builds.
Her constant effect forces your opponent to either clear your Moriarty or board even leveled SIGNIs, which lets your J ripper have a target for her on-play when you play her.
Her auto effect also allows you to -3k to an opponent SIGNIs by simply doing what you normally do in the first place: calling even-leveled SIGNIs. With such an easy to trigger effect, Guzuko players have an easy time banishing SIGNIs and creating open SIGNI zones for their attacks to hit.
Her on-play finally allows you to call the top card of your deck if its an even-leveled SIGNI for just a single black ener. Being cost effective while allowing you to -3k twice (Moriarty and the newly called SIGNI) makes this a very strong skill. This on-play can also be ensured to never fail with Cheering Guzuko's action ability, allowing you to set another Moriarty or J ripper to increase your offense.
With Grave Awake and Ulith Key, Moriarty can be further abused by calling out as a defensive response or making your opponent's SIGNI change their parity to prevent them from attacking respectively.
As Guzuko's field will mostly be even-leveled, Humpty Dumpty is beginning to see play in Guzuko decks. With only a level 2-2-2 field or level 2-2-1 field possible early game, Delusion Guzuko is also being used to get a free draw.
Midoriko
Nemurihime is a beast. Her first constant shuts downs any form or minus power effects. Effects such as Umr key or Shahraza cannot touch her, making decks that response or attacks using minus power useless against her.
Her second constant and third constant, while it seems hard to achieve at first glance, Utopia came with many shifting SIGNIs such as Momozaru and Sylph, combo it with Leshy and Thorny maze, a +8k and 3 ARTS usage requirement becomes easy. Making Nemurihime a very threatening attacker that cannot be stopped by banishing or minus power, both of which is a common defensive response in key format.
For those crazy enough, you can instead choose to use Thorny maze on your opponent's turn 3 times to make Nemurihime immune against on-attack banish SIGNIs. Turning her into a defensive wall.
 |
| The definition of 'Hard work pays off' |
Despite that, some people may find it a trouble to obtain the +8k consistenly, so they may instead opt to play either Peter or Momotaro to further add offense capabilities into Midoriko.
Even though Midoriko's main way of opening SIGNI zone is still Ibarahime, with the addition of Nemurihime and to a lesser extend, Momotaro, Midoriko's aggro has become better, removing the need of relying on Gamma Burst anymore, freeing up their LRIG Deck Slot for a defensive response.
Layla
Layla got some good support this set. Bucket WE not only lets layla get a net draw 1 when rode, it also allows layla to Pseudo-ride 2 SIGNI. If your opponent does not response to it, you can ride a second SIGNI while if your opponent makes Bucket WE get banished, you can ride another SIGNI.
While this can be avoided by downing the ridden SIGNI normally, Tankrolly ensures that this cannot be done, forcing your opponent to open responses such as bounce or giving it "Cannot attack", uncommon in Key format. Tankrolly also ensures that opponents can't down your ridden SIGNI, instead forcing them to clear it which allows you to be un-ridden, making them deal with a LRIG attack that they could have avoided by downing.
Layla's strongest support did not come in Utopia however. Instead it came in the blu-ray, Infinite Variety of Explosion. Doping is already one of the scariest coin ability in the game, if one isn't prepared to deal with it, one can just lose to game at 0 damage. Now with this new ARTS, not only does the player have the option of responding to the opponent's field efficiently (2 ener per banish? That's value!) and according to how much ener they can commit, it changes Layla's once per game effect to 2 per game, even making the next use requiring only a single coin. This means she still has 2 coins which you can use for opening a key, while going for a second doping incase the first one is stopped by a response such as Crazy Hand or Eternal key.
 |
| Layla players seeking to win should ensure that they have this. |
Ril
Lets be honest, Ril didn't get much. EXcaliburn's and Ruyi's effect are so hard to activate consistently that it rarely sees play, Jowai and Ena while having strong banish effect, it only works on low powered SIGNIs, often seeing no play beyond turn 3.
However what makes Ril very strong still is Requiem. Already having a strong foundation support from Full Scratch and her Trial deck, requiem adds on to Ril's aggro and defense. For a extremely cheap cost of 3 ener, Ril is able to stop 2 SIGNIs easily, while opening SIGNI zones for her to aggro next turn, something which no other Key format ARTS can pull off.
Requiem also allows her to gain an extra life cloth, saving her from situations such as Layla's doping or in the event of not drawing into a Guard.
 |
The original WX17 artwork can also be used in key format, you don't have
to purchase the new one if you have it already.
(You CANNOT use the craft requiem in Ril however) |
Tama
Like Ril, most of her SIGNI support this set are rarely used. Though White Pearl Hope can help trigger Yomifuda effect easier, its 2 ener cost is too steep to be used early game, the most optimal time to trigger Yomifuda's effect. However despite how bad Tama's SIGNI in this set are, she still got good support to stay relevant in the tournament scene - in the form of Eldora key.
With the use of Eldora key, it not only frees up Tama's coin usage (allowing her to use innocence, run ARTS such as Don't Leave Me or Circle while playing stronger but higher cost keys like Hanayo or Donna), it also allows players to rig their life cloth, arranging them perfectly to ensure maximum burst usage while changing a useless cloth with the top of their deck.
With Snowsled and Spring, the top deck can be manipulated to ensure the newly added life is a strong life burst that can stop SIGNI attacks or salvage guards.
Eldora key also lets the player draw 1 (per turn) whenever their life cloth gets crushed, allowing the Tama player to quickly draw into their combo pieces which can let them set up a deadly Pricas Combo easily from turn 4, destroying their opponent with multiple attacks.
Remember
The LRIG that got the worst support this set. This set did not give what Remember needed the most: more aggro options.
Sure they did get Bubbly which allows them to rig their life cloth, but it takes too much and not consistent enough to set up a good burst while it decreases the number of offensive SIGNIs they can board on field (Since these SIGNIs are usually the one with such strong burst).
It got to the point that most decks run FROZEN FINGER, a card that minuses 2 hand (the spell itself and the SIGNI to be trashed) just for the sake of becoming more aggresive.
Probably the only useful card this set is her own key. With a useful Auto ability, it improves her consistency of freezing opponent, allowing many of her SIGNI's ability to activate consistently.
Crowfun, a SIGNI obtainable in this and next month's WIXOSS PARTY, is also used to improve her bottom deck stacking, allowing her to better control the level underneath her deck and trigger Air cannon and Nobel easier.
Carnival
Probably the strongest LRIG in Key format still. With the introduction of Fallen MAIS, it not only allows the player to lock down one of your opponent's SIGNI by turning it into Servant Zero, it also gives Carnival a free Requiem ARTS with a cost of 2 black and 1 colorless instead. All for a cheap grow cost of 1 coin. This means that you can play a LRIG with bigger limit and strong lockdown, while still having 5 defensive response, making Carnival a demon spawned from hell.
Because of her on-play effect, most decks that rely on a single SIGNI to aggro will be forced to add alternatives or faced their entire deck shutdown. (This is especially prominent in All Stars format with decks like Guzuko5 - Blackjack and Mel5 - Wedding)
 |
| Voted No.1 hated LRIG by players of both formats |
Umr key, a promotional card that came as box topper for Singapore's Utopia boxes, also synergies with MAIS extremely well. Having 5 exceeds on level 5, one can use both the key's exceed2 skill and the key's exceed1 skill either twice of once, giving carnival a potential "stop 5 SIGNI" response using a single LRIG Deck slot, something no other ARTS or Key does at the moment, maximizing her defensive capabilities (which can help her aggro since it banishes SIGNIs).
Although it comes with a steep cost of 2 coin and 3 colorless ener, Carnival can bypass the cost by getting the key out using her joker coin ability. After using finish your exceed, you can even trash the key to retrieve a SIGNI from trash, making this key stupidly strong with Carnival.
As Umr key's exceed 2 forces you to mill 9, you may easily deck out due to over-milling, trashing your life cloth due to deckouts. Hence Mail Stream now sees play, some decks even running up to 4 copy in order to prevent deckout. Some decks also play Brutus or Semiramis in order to quickly get their trash back while maintaining high SIGNI power board against Nanashi key.
Hanzo is also a nice addition to the main deck. Whenever you mill 3 or more cards by one effect, something the deck does normally already, you get to minus 5k to a SIGNI. By stacking up mills, one can clear SIGNIs with relative ease using hanzo. Banishing a SIGNI would also allow you to mill 3, which in turn can trigger its second auto effect again, allowing you to chain decrease your opponent SIGNI's power.
As there is no turn restriction, if your opponent does not clear hanzo, you can combo it with Umr key's exceed2, letting you minus your opponent a huge total of 23k.
Eternal
Even though she is the final boss for the anime series, her in-game counterpart doesn't give off that "final boss" feel. The main issue with Eternal decks are their ener consumption.
Due to the Unique way of growing, she would consume 2 extra ener more compared to a normal LRIG deck. This coupled with the fact that Servant F hefty discard cost makes it not a very strong deck to play.
As most colorless cards have little effect, Eternal would use other classes SIGNI to make up for their lack of offense (the most popular being trick SIGNIs). However most generic SIGNI such as Yamigane or Balmung require ener in order to open SIGNI zones, further adding to the ener problem Eternal has already.
Mel key and Soui key are often played in other to increase their resources, but with how fast the SIGNIs are spending them, it may not be enough to maintain your resource throughout the game, eventually killing you due to lack of ener or hand.
Some decks even choose to forego Eternal's Exceed4 and use an attack phase exceed key in order to abuse Fractal's auto ability, allowing the player to spawn a Servant F to block a hole and retrieve a guard during the opponent's turn.
One interesting ARTS that most Eternal decks run is Dead gate. As Eternal has an unique way of growing, her level for part of the game will be lower than the opponent's LRIG during their turn, allowing Eternal to abuse Dead gate's trash effect consistently.
Conclusion
With the exception of Eternal and Remember, most LRIGs have gotten decent support that allowed them to still be competitive viable. If one wants a Meta list, it would probably look like this:
1st Tier: Carnival
2nd Tier: Ril, Tama, Piruluk, Midoriko, Guzuko, Layla
3rd Tier: Remember, Eternal
Even though Carnival may seem to be the strongest among all, it is by no means unbeatable as seen by the many different decks that have top WIXOSS PARTYs. Overall, just play whichever LRIG you like and enjoy the game. With that this analysis article is finished, see you next time!
