Need Advice for Lunatic with Sakuya Blue

[NBlast]

Currently I do not have a lot of luck in regards of getting further than a 2nd Act boss, so I would kindly ask for some pointers.

The best result I had so far was with the Time Pulse build with double Jack the Ludo Bile. Idea was to play defensively until Time Pulse stacks reach critical levels. Unfortunately, I do get outscaled eventually, with not too good options for defense for Sakuya.

Several additional pointers I made:
- Time Stop builds seem to be far too mana-expensive for the early game runs.
- Elites on Act 1 are the death sentence so I try to avoid them. Fairies are doable if you have AOE, Orin is a HP drain and Aya is a card draw luck to have three attack cards.
- For the matter of priciples I do not intentionally spec into Throwing Knives, because I planned to get some achievements and play "into" the idea of Sakuya Blue.
- I do try to spec into Green mana. Some of the cards there seem like nice fit for the build, like Double Time Pulse one.
- Starting cards for Sakuya Blue feel horrible. Am I wrong or all those high-cost, cost-reduction-at-draw cards are simply too gimmicky to work with? You desperately need everything: defense, AOE...

Thank you for tips in advance.

[mbran031]

Sakuya Blue is garbage tier. Like straight up. Which is funny because she's the one who got hit hardest by the spellcard nerf in a previous patch. I'd say avoid her on lunatic difficulty until the devs fix her kit into something that actually scales a decent amount, and address her abysmal deck speed. Having cards that require an upgrade AND for the player to draw their deck multiple times only to produce middling gains just feels bad on normal/hard/lunatic.

Time pulse sucks because it a purely offensive tool, with zero defense/utility support cards that tie into it. By contrast, Reimu red has amazing cards like Homing amulets, Instant Dimensional Rift, and Spellcard Duel that synergies perfectly with the 'firepower' theme.

Or, they could give Sakuya blue a gimmick that allows outplay potential against her enemies, like her shining exhibit also giving an innate zero-cost 'time-blink' card that swaps your opponents intent with the next one in the que. New players would probably not care about this and go for the overpowered heroins like Green Cirno, but veteran players might be more inclined to try some Sakuya Blue runs, particularly on L7 runs where she might even be able to compete with Black Marisa's innate mana card.

[NBlast]

Quick update. I managed to get into mid-Act 3. Death by Boosted Doremy (couldn't do enough damage to not reach Layer 3)

https://steamcommunity.com/id/nblastmax/screenshot/2448342354441844541/

What did help that I managed to discover good synergy with Maid's Trick and C.Ricochet (Trick activates C.Ricochet's special condition) and double Tranquilities helped a lot with Scries that helped to avoid them, if not needed.

[SilentCaay]

What? Sakuya Blue was the most fun I've had so far. I can't speak on how well it scales for Lunatic but I've played it on Normal and Hard so far and, not only did I have great decks, I murdered the finally boss without letting her get more than 1 turn.

Not every card is going to be amazing, though. Part of a deckbuilding game is being able to judge the cards well and not take the crappy ones. Those cards that require an upgrade AND for the player to draw their deck multiple times only to produce middling gains? Yeah, they're bad cards. Don't pick them.

Sakuya Blue is all about knife generation, mana generation and drawing massive amounts of cards. You'll notice I didn't mention defense. She doesn't need any. Except for the Tengu card that gives you 3 Block every time the target takes damage. That one is pretty fantastic. You want offensive cards like Time Pulse - Jack the Ludo is awesome. She's the combo queen so you should be murdering enemies without letting them hit you. And if you save you spell cards for bosses, she's just flat out insane.

[NBlast]

Originally posted by SilentCaay:

What? Sakuya Blue was the most fun I've had so far. I can't speak on how well it scales for Lunatic but I've played it on Normal and Hard so far and, not only did I have great decks, I murdered the finally boss without letting her get more than 1 turn.

Not every card is going to be amazing, though. Part of a deckbuilding game is being able to judge the cards well and not take the crappy ones. Those cards that require an upgrade AND for the player to draw their deck multiple times only to produce middling gains? Yeah, they're bad cards. Don't pick them.

Sakuya Blue is all about knife generation, mana generation and drawing massive amounts of cards. You'll notice I didn't mention defense. She doesn't need any. Except for the Tengu card that gives you 3 Block every time the target takes damage. That one is pretty fantastic. You want offensive cards like Time Pulse - Jack the Ludo is awesome. She's the combo queen so you should be murdering enemies without letting them hit you. And if you save you spell cards for bosses, she's just flat out insane.

I do feel that there is a noticable jump in difficulty from Hard to Lunatic, so I would definitely be curious, if your strats would translate there. Having no defense sounds terrible when enemy damage numbers go very high (Each fairy of light can attack for 14 or more for example in Act 1)

The one card that I did not try yet is Great Tengu Decree you mentioned. Seemed expensive, but might try it out.

[SilentCaay]

It is a bit expensive for basic encounters but it's vital for long-lasting Elites and Bosses. You get to turn them into a pincushion with knives and generate Block with every single hit, every single turn. That one card basically gives you all the Block you need for the entire combat.

[Zeks]

It's honestly a bit anecdotal but this is literally the first run I started after checking this thread. Act 2-1. Didn't even need to spell card on boss of act 1 and went 2 elites out of 3. Saku's special watch is always a godsend

https://i.postimg.cc/cCTKVjYn/image.png

Now if we're talking l7... yeah saku b is a bit of a torture

[mbran031]

Great Tengu's Decree got hit super hard in the recent debuff balance patch. Now that the major bosses are clearing their status more often, It feels like GTD doesn't perform well enough to justify the cost. I find myself skipping GTD more often than not in favor of the new colorless defense card during rainbow/blank card runs.

[Zeks]

Welp, this was a ridiculously funny roflstomp:
https://i.postimg.cc/XNzc7Hzg/image.png

[Augus the Conqueror]

Originally posted by NBlast:

Quick update. I managed to get into mid-Act 3. Death by Boosted Doremy (couldn't do enough damage to not reach Layer 3)

https://steamcommunity.com/id/nblastmax/screenshot/2448342354441844541/

What did help that I managed to discover good synergy with Maid's Trick and C.Ricochet (Trick activates C.Ricochet's special condition) and double Tranquilities helped a lot with Scries that helped to avoid them, if not needed.

So without run contexts (pathing, boss selection, eirin bonus, card choices) lots of my assumption could be wrong here. But on first sight, deck is way too low upgrade density, which I assume that it stems from the fact that you bleed HP, so could I ask how many elites did you go for every act ?

Lots of cards really requires upgrade to be functional in your deck like SSD+( it would suck all yellow manas using for defense in act 1 without upgrade), luminous ricochet+ (it needs upgrade to cleanly solve 1-3 kedamas), Distant blade+( though it still sucks even with upgrade), tranquility+ (the upgrade improves vulrenable matchup greatly!).

Some card I wouldn't pick, like 2nd private vision(could I ask for context when was the second one picked btw?), 2nd ludo bile (way too slow scaling without many extra turn cards), trick bullet(if this card was picked after A1 boss I would definitely say skip is better), silver loom(way too late), dazzling dash(late, doesn't scale much because there's not really that much knives generation), special watch(I'll assume it's picked in act 3, there are 3 fights that it is somewhat easier trigger: yin yang balls, crows + tengu 3-1, spirits + tengu 3-2. Those encounters are not threatening enough to justify one brick), maybe lost in paradise(it desperately needs extra mana to work).

Also rare selection was weird, I would like to know what were the options when you picked maid trick(very low output sadly), loyal servant (very hard to get extra values out of it, it is very low impact for rare), time domination (another very low value card for a rare, it desperately needs Sage to work). I also interested in what were boss exhibits selections because beautiful plate and fruit basket are honestly underwhelming imo (beautiful plate requires good upgrade density. Fruit basket is low impact, even more so if you pick after A2 boss)

[Zeks]

special watch(I'll assume it's picked in act 3, there are 3 fights that it is somewhat easier trigger:

watch is pretty okay if seija whips out the pendant. I even got a second one for that

And yeah I agree about upgrade density. Like, Lost in Paradise is pretty trash unupgraded

[Augus the Conqueror]

Originally posted by Zeks:

special watch(I'll assume it's picked in act 3, there are 3 fights that it is somewhat easier trigger:

watch is pretty okay if seija whips out the pendant. I even got a second one for that

And yeah I agree about upgrade density. Like, Lost in Paradise is pretty trash unupgraded

it is indeed okey "assuming" seija rolled pendant (she has 50% chance of rolling pendant in first 2 cycles), whether rolling pendant is a big enough of a deal that's worth slotting a tech card is very depending on the deck and situation.

[Zeks]

To be honest my deck had so much cycling that I didn't notice another tech card so it was extremely cheap in my case

[Zeks]

On a side note: i never realized just how strong blank card is when picked in the later half of the run by sakuya

[NBlast]

Originally posted by Augus the Conqueror:

Originally posted by NBlast:

Quick update. I managed to get into mid-Act 3. Death by Boosted Doremy (couldn't do enough damage to not reach Layer 3)

https://steamcommunity.com/id/nblastmax/screenshot/2448342354441844541/

What did help that I managed to discover good synergy with Maid's Trick and C.Ricochet (Trick activates C.Ricochet's special condition) and double Tranquilities helped a lot with Scries that helped to avoid them, if not needed.

So without run contexts (pathing, boss selection, eirin bonus, card choices) lots of my assumption could be wrong here. But on first sight, deck is way too low upgrade density, which I assume that it stems from the fact that you bleed HP, so could I ask how many elites did you go for every act ?

Lots of cards really requires upgrade to be functional in your deck like SSD+( it would suck all yellow manas using for defense in act 1 without upgrade), luminous ricochet+ (it needs upgrade to cleanly solve 1-3 kedamas), Distant blade+( though it still sucks even with upgrade), tranquility+ (the upgrade improves vulrenable matchup greatly!).

Some card I wouldn't pick, like 2nd private vision(could I ask for context when was the second one picked btw?), 2nd ludo bile (way too slow scaling without many extra turn cards), trick bullet(if this card was picked after A1 boss I would definitely say skip is better), silver loom(way too late), dazzling dash(late, doesn't scale much because there's not really that much knives generation), special watch(I'll assume it's picked in act 3, there are 3 fights that it is somewhat easier trigger: yin yang balls, crows + tengu 3-1, spirits + tengu 3-2. Those encounters are not threatening enough to justify one brick), maybe lost in paradise(it desperately needs extra mana to work).

Also rare selection was weird, I would like to know what were the options when you picked maid trick(very low output sadly), loyal servant (very hard to get extra values out of it, it is very low impact for rare), time domination (another very low value card for a rare, it desperately needs Sage to work). I also interested in what were boss exhibits selections because beautiful plate and fruit basket are honestly underwhelming imo (beautiful plate requires good upgrade density. Fruit basket is low impact, even more so if you pick after A2 boss)

Hey. Thank you for the write up! Pretty in-depth. Gonna respond to your questions below:

Re: Upgrade Density. This was one of my ideas for the strat: it I get Pagoda Glare, Wandering Heaven and/or stealing Youmu's cake, I would be able to skip on the upgrades and focus on healing at gaps (which was a must). With those cards/exhibits you kinda get everything upgraded eventually.
Re: Elites. Max 1 per Act. I'm scared ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of Aya and Orin. Fairies and Kokoro seem winnable consistently, but other than those: nope.
Re: 2nd Private Vision. Random drop. I do personally like the card, because it can be a free >20dmg dodge and to consistently remove things you would like to discard (statuses, Ship's Phantom, Tranquility when you don't wanna use it etc. + triggering C.Ricochet)
Re: Late cards, yeah those were very late. I very much like Silver Loom, so I took it when I saw it, but I guess your point is that at certain moments some cards are simply not that useful?
Re: Maid Trick. It was a reward from Mike. I think I took Time Domination from Act 1 boss.
Re: Shining Exhibit selection: Mostly decided on by color requirements for Plate (I had tons of yellow cards) and that I wanted double time pulse from Green mana base.

[Augus the Conqueror]

Originally posted by NBlast:

Re: Upgrade Density. This was one of my ideas for the strat: it I get Pagoda Glare, Wandering Heaven and/or stealing Youmu's cake, I would be able to skip on the upgrades and focus on healing at gaps (which was a must). With those cards/exhibits you kinda get everything upgraded eventually.
Re: Elites. Max 1 per Act. I'm scared ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of Aya and Orin. Fairies and Kokoro seem winnable consistently, but other than those: nope.

Ic, that's a neat idea. However, my experience with the idea is that it is only viable with Apotheosis, when I deliberately keep my deck size and keep high draw density. The reason is straight foward: you're gonna suffer before you managed to upgrade stuffs, and it takes awhile to fully upgrade your deck without Apotheosis. In the meantime, most regular encounters would already be decided before you cycle the deck once.

Oh and given the fact that the run didn't even managed to pick Wandering heaven/Pagoda, it's probably better to re adapt the plan to fit the situation of the deck. Keeping speculative drafting plan here is not exactly rewarding in the long run.

Overall not much to say about your elites pathing, I expected you're being uber aggressive with how low upgrade density the run was, but I didn't expect that my evaluation of upgrade is radically different from your. So ig the run could be improved if the upgrade density was better

Originally posted by NBlast:

Re: 2nd Private Vision. Random drop. I do personally like the card, because it can be a free >20dmg dodge and to consistently remove things you would like to discard (statuses, Ship's Phantom, Tranquility when you don't wanna use it etc. + triggering C.Ricochet)

Well it is okey ig, I personally don't really like to pick another dup because it devalues the hand and very low impact for 1 draw.

Originally posted by NBlast:

Re: Late cards, yeah those were very late. I very much like Silver Loom, so I took it when I saw it, but I guess your point is that at certain moments some cards are simply not that useful?

Yea, I personally consider silver loom+ (silver loom- is garbage imo) to be the kedama 1-3 solve and big help in drones fights. Other than that ... it is not exactly good as it takes the most valueble draw which is turn 1 draw.
Same goes for Ludo bile, Act 1 boss solve and a misfortune the rest of remaining fights that are not boss fight.
And also Lost in paradise, you can't expect it to work in Act 1 and Act 2 when it sucks 66% of your blue, I think the pick was a little too optimistic and greedy of your (my window of picking it is like 3-3 and with atleast 2 good LiP targets).

Originally posted by NBlast:

Re: Shining Exhibit selection: Mostly decided on by color requirements for Plate (I had tons of yellow cards) and that I wanted double time pulse from Green mana base.

Without any idea about the options offered, I can't comment much. But your drafting gameplan clashes with Plate, and the deck is not building up timepulse fast enough to consider double time pulse card worth the speculation pick(I understand that LiP + quickening time is bonker and a win con of this deck, but that's assuming the act 1 LiP is a good pick to begin with).

And finally, atleast 11 cards picked in A1... It's very pessimistic draft that greatly bloats the deck, which in turn decreases the consistency and the impact of the card picks in later act.