Hello readers, Coen here.
A brief introduction for the readers that don’t know me. I am an experienced Weiss Schwarz player, currently playing for the Strictly Broken team. I have been playing the game for about five or six years now and have managed to achieve multiple big tournament winnings and multiple world championship appearances (Including tops!).
Today I’m here to write something about my favourite set in Weiss Schwarz which is SAO.
The reason why I am writing this article is related to the recent set announcement and spoilers.
The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the current meta build and what to look out for in the upcoming spoilers.
Where does the deck stand in the current meta, how does it perform.
Level 0
Alicization is a deck that definitely shines with the early tri-field possibility with the combination of the Cardinal JC and the Alice on WR salvage Riki. However, this is really all that Alicization has going for it in the early game. The level 0 line-up doesn’t have much utility to choose from, neither does it have powerful tools to generate early game advantages without being tied to clocking yourself.
Level 1
The level 1 game doesn’t get much better, as the pool of combo’s to choose from is extremely shallow. Most decks choose to play the TD “Maguro”, which has the upside with the Tiese bonder. However, only manages to peak at 6K power on attack. This means that you’ll be often finding yourself to crash your lanes against anything that is above the 6k power threshold. Moreover, the card also makes you miss out on the power to sculpt cards reliably.
Level 2
The level 2 game is where Alicization gets a little bit better. At level 2 you’ll have access to the Eugeo Early play, which is in my personal opinion extremely overloaded as it has 3 meaningful effects: On play heal, power on turn and Sacrifice itself to sculpt the Red Rose Sword CX (level 3 Combo CX).
However, due to the extremely lacklustre early game, this card will usually fail to swing the game back in to your favour versus the modern decks.
Level 3
The level 3 game is what I would consider “good”. The deck has decent firepower at a relatively low cost on top of this, it has access to the Alice 2k front & Anti Event counter Assist, which can bounce pesky assists or minus soul combo’s and make reverses a little bit more reliable, which is a passable line-up. However, it is tied on being “on-reverse” and it doesn’t heal, which makes the deck even more all in at times. Which isn’t very good when you’re playing from behind.
Conclusion.
Alicization is a set with potential, its strengths are mainly in the level 0 tri-fielding capabilities and in its efficient finishing power. The set’s weakness is the lacking early game utility and a good level 1 combo, which makes it hard for you to keep up and compete with the modern decks.
However, with the new set announcements this could definitely see change.
What I would like to see in the upcoming spoilers:
- A better level 1 combo, which we did (oops I’m already behind).
- Broader level 0 pool to choose from, perhaps more power or utility (Cleancut, Chiyuri profiles). Also a better brainstorm would be nice, as the current one is honestly just a vanilla tap self, search brainstorm.
- Lastly, I would like to see a reprint of the level 1 Early play bomb, as the modern deck all have pesky early plays and the profile seem to be very common these days.
Example good level 0 profiles:
If you were planning picking up cards before a potential price hike, I’d recommend the following cards:
SAO 10th Anniversary
Alicization:
Anyway, that’s it for today. I hope you all had a good read. I will be doing reviews on the spoilers this upcoming week on my twitter so stay tuned for that. Furthermore, I would like to mention that there will be a good chance that I will be doing a video on this set. So I’d definitely like to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback.
My Twitter can be found here: https://twitter.com/CHENGxMAN