Any tips regarding Ilya ?

[Senran]

So I've recently tried to play Ilya but have found the character to be very underwhelming up 'til now (even lower than Azar). My main issue has mostly been with how Sheathe works, as it seems both situational and unreliable given how rare discards are, plus hand consuming whenever it shows up.

With only two of his skills that can trigger discards (and even these come with conditionals), the only reliable source of discards comes from extensive vodka abuse, meaning 3 cards in deck can cause Sheathe to happen "for sure". And even those can only target top or bottom hand, meaning a potential drain on your hand with a character that offers little in terms of draw power. I haven't had the chance to get his exclusive draw skill yet on two failed runs, though sheathe synergizes fine with Hasty Counter.

And when the stars aligned and Sheathe did activate, it seemed like it barely scrapped the surface of what other DPS could achieve with less effort, less time, far more reliability, and nowhere near as card consuming.

Ilya being on the lower end for HP and 0 evade doesn't give him a lot of survivability either and even starts with a -10 Pain debuff chance to screw with frostbite. Which is a shame as I really like what frostbite could potentially bring with characters like Charon and Chain.

I'm pretty sure I'm missing something about the character as he seems to be rather popular but I don't know what, any recommandations on how to play or what I'm getting wrong ?

[Kymedorf]

Besides Vodka and the two discarding Lucy skills which you know of, there's something else. If you get Johan it all works, Hell Arrow and Tempest provide discards, there is a great synergy. HA with -1 cost vodka upgrade can be awesome, it can sheathe two cards with one move as because both discards are from a different source, both proc. This team works very well, definitely the strongest Ilya team I've found but you have to get Hell Arrow.
Discarded after 1 turn Upgrade Cube penalty is also actually a net gain for Ilya as well. It's great on the Frozen Sky skill.
Trisha works great too, but you need Mirror Image.

But yeah, those are pretty much the tools you can use. You get a good draw and Ilya performs great, you don't and he doesn't. He's very much like a riskier discard Azar for me too, but Azar with new Illusion Flash feels pretty good.

[Bearis]

Ilya is a selfish combo focused character that requires exactly two cards in hand to function. A discard activator and a discard enabler any more or any less and his combo bricks. In order to avoid this pay attention to your deck/hand and what you are replacing each turn. If you know a lot of Ilya cards are in deck still focus on playing or replacing his cards so you don't brink. You can also use the vodka enhanced cards to remove Ilya cards when you have three or more.

Now for Ilya's deck itself he has two discard activators Thunder Burst - Ascension and Thunder Skyfall - Descend, you'll want at minimum two but could go up to three based on draft. Thunder Burst is also the superior card in majority of situations it does more damage, ignores taunt, its extra cost is made up by swiftness and its sheathe effect is better. Thunder Skyfall is still good and should be taken if you still don't have two activators but given a choice pick Thunder Burst.

For discard enablers he has three that come back to hand when discarded Lightning Slash - Draw, Heavenly Thunder, and Thunderfrost Strike, You'll want exactly one of these in deck to feed discard effects. Heavenly Thunder > Lightning Slash - Draw > Thunderfrost Strike in terms of power. Due note that while Thunderfrost Strike has the weakest sheathe effect its a decent card to actually play. There's also Drunkenness and Frozen Sky, Snow-Covered Earth with good sheathe effects they just don't return to hand, I recommend 0-2 based on draft.

A good Ilya deck would look be something like two discard activators, one repeat enabler, filler cards based on what your team needs. Blizzard in a Winter Night for aoe, Gathering Thunder or tempo Sheathe cards for more single target damage, and Slice the First Snowflake as fixed card. Personally I recommend avoiding Electric Whirlwind - Flurry, it's not bad just a bit awkward for an already awkward character.

[AncientSpark]

Basically, what it boils down to Ilya is that he is not amazing as a main DPS, because the play pattern is that you probably only play 1 attack per turn to trigger Sheathes due to his best patterns only wanting two cards in hand. That combined with his targeting means that despite being a "selfish character", his strength can vary a lot depending on what you are otherwise filling your turn with. It also means you can't lean your deck very hard in his direction if he's your main DPS (no, "half the deck is basically your attacker" with Ilya). On the other hand, he works well as a synergy point to other DPSers.

If you are intending to start the game with him, you will often need to figure out how to obtain the necessary AoE and burst from the remaining recruits, as well as damage to fill in for your remaining mana. Johan was pointed out to be pretty good to fill in, but other examples like hybrid healers help here, any Basic skills that are decently spammable (Leave This to Me or Weapon Breaker or similar ideas), characters with good Ignore Taunt or AoE, etc.

Note that Ilya has more dependency on his Rare skills than a lot of other characters because out of the 3 "return to the hand" sheathe skills, 2 of them are rare. Thus, Ilya does favor being an earlier start, despite the fact that he's more of a secondary DPS than other attackers; this means that your early team construction is often very important to surviving between 3rd and 4th Recruit, due to his own weaker ability to target backrow.

[Samseng Yik]

IMO Ilya card rarely need to "actively play from hand" unless you don't have other suitable card for the situation.
I feel Ilya card that has "Sheath : Cast this card" is easiest to use

[Zales]

you need some luck to get good combo for him in that run but just simple combo from Vodka also playable too (just carefully use it on skill that you would often use them), I don't spend much to play his card but mostly use on others and trigger his card by discard them as a cost

here is some of his trigger that could be use

- Vodka, I prefer left option since it reduce cost and you'll have more choice on which card to discard
- hasty counter (Lucy): discard bottom card -> draw 3
- renovate (Lucy): discard hand -> draw 4
- module (relic): just let it discard by buff's discard at turn end, it'll trigger and you still could create card from buff effect
- downgrade: try to get your hand on upgrade cube, if you lucky you'll get downgrade "discard after 1 turn", put it on "lighting sword draw" or "lightingfrost" then you'll get most broken of his combo which trigger by itself everyturn just by keeping them on your hand

for me those discard 1 last card ain't good so I wouldn't pick them if I have other choice so I mostly pick those with discard trigger or frostbite

I'll play frostbite card sometime for dmg output purpose since openly your turn with it would be benefit if you use many debuff on that turn and some character work so well with frostbite since it'll trigger dmg from any debuff even those which seem to just put on as a mark (ex: identify), taunt also trigger it too

for defender choice if want to combo debuff then Chain but for surviving then I'll choose Lian (have to get her "protect ally so she could alway protect Ilya with it)

[Levin Saber]

Ilya easily replaced Silverstein as my go-to dps, so good.

Pick all frost skills (with a few descend/ascend if you don't get offered much), get Joey, Chain and Charon, get "spiny puffer" relic (wisdom tooth jar works too, surprisingly), roll through everything in the game. If you don't get "thunderfrost strike" as a rare pick just restart the run. (For chain get "leave this to me" as your fixed skill, it triggers frostbite 3 times reliably)

If you want to go lightning route - getting "discarded after one turn" downgrade from cube on "Lightning slash - Draw" is a must, it will recast each turn on it's own endlessly, pretty good. For other skills if possible getting one or two "flurry" mixed with descend/ascencion is the way you want to play, but the whole lightning build isn't very reliable as main dps unless you have ways to recycle multiple times to manipulate your hand, so your skills discard one another.

Heavenly Thunder is a trap card and is just not as good as thunderfrost strike, as it will block your ascend/descend cards from triggering other effects by constantly remaining in hand. (You could, in theory, build a team around it based on surviving and grinding stacks on it but I haven't tried it.)

For draw "hasty counter" is the way to go, so is "recycle" , don't go for renovate as it will only trigger one of the sheathe effects if your hand is full of Ilya's cards.

Oh, and skills buffed by vodka can breeze your through the Witch and Bomber Clown bosses with the discards.

But yeah, honestly baffles me how Solar Flame has a proc limit while being way worse than Frostbite. twins buffs when