Deck

## Basics

A deck is formed by selecting a leader and 8 others cards, with 4 cards in the attack deck and another 4 in the defence deck.

Players have a cost limit for cards in the ATK and the DEF deck which limits their card options, especially if they are just starting out. The leader's cost is counted in both the ATK and DEF cost, thus favoring a card with strong skill(s) at a low cost which are commonly gacha cards.

A deck has a calculated ATK and DEF.

For simplicity, ATK CARD and DEF CARD will be used as abbreviations to mean a card slotted in the attack deck or defence deck respectively.

The Attack value for a deck is shown above in the HUD next to BP and is calculated thought the following:

```
DECK ATK = leader ATK + ATK value of all cards in ATK deck

```

The Defense value far a deck shown in the HUD is correct in the case of arena but NOT in the case of Raid Bosse battles:

```
DECK DEF (RAID) =  leader DEF + DEF of all cards in both ATK and DEF deck

```

```
DECK DEF (ARENA) =  leader DEF + DEF value of all cards in DEF deck

```

(The defence of cards in the attack deck is counted in raid battles)

The ATK and DEF of the card chosen as Battle Partner/Assist will also be added to the deck's total ATK and DEF.

In some way Defense can be thought of as HP, reducing a boss's defense reducing the amount of damage you need to deal to kill it, which has can be good for normal bosses but will reduce the amount of points gained if used against an AR boss in raid events.

## Skills

The skill of your leader in a deck has a 100% chance to activate while other units only have 50% activation chance.
During boss battles, a card from the assist list is chosen as a Battle Partner. This card acts similarly to a normal card and its ATK and DEF value are both added to your deck. If the assist card belongs to a friend, the skill has 100% chance to activate. If it doesn't then it has a 50% chance to activate during the battle.

* Note that despite some friends being chosen as battle partners alongside some random people, friends can also be randomly shown and their card picked for the 100% friend skill activation (also known as spamming. Hop onto the official discord server to learn more about it).

### Types of Skills

There are many types of skills in the game. Some of them include:

* Flat buffer - Increases to the attack or defense of cards in your deck (e.g. +4000 attack to all allies)
* Percentage buffer -  Increases to the total attack or total defense of your deck (e.g. +30% attack to all allies)
* Debuffer - Decreases the attack or defense of the enemy by a percentage(or your opponent's deck cards in arena. e.g. Cuts damage from all enemies by 30% )
* "Flat debuffer" - Same as above but debuffs a flat value. These units are incredibly weak and have not much use for more experienced players. (e.g. Decreases DEF of enemy Demon by 600 )
* Copy cards - These are units that copy your leader's skill and the copied skill's level is based on the copy card's skill level. Therefore, it is possible to have it copy and use a level 4 skill even if your leader is at skill level 1.
* Increase ally chance of activating skills by X% - When this skills activates, it does so before other skills, increasing the chance of other cards activating

There are also a few cards that have a "double" skill. Mainly:

* Double buffers - Increases the attack and defense of all cards in your deck. These units are generally good for every type of content (raid, arena, etc. e.g. Increases ATK and DEF of all allies by 30%) and are especially good in farming decks.
* Double debuffers - Decreases the attack and defense of the boss (or your opponent's deck cards in arena) Decent in arena and great for farming and "regular" raid bosses.(e.g. Decreases ATK and DEF of all enemies by 30%)

## Restictions

Most skills are restricted in some way or another. First let's talk about skill deck restriction.
Skills can be classified as ATK or DEF skills, which limit their activation to only when the card is slotted in the correct deck.

Cards with double skill each belonging to different type of deck are excluded from this restriction and can thus activate regardless of the deck they are slotted in.

As an example, a card with only a "20% increase ATK to all allies" skill due to having only an ATK skill will never activate while placed in the defense deck.

A card with only a "20% reduced ATK of all enemies" skill due to having only a DEF skill will not activate while placed in the attack deck.

A card with both "20% increase ATK to all allies" and  "20% reduced ATK of all enemies" will see both of its effects activate regardless of which deck it's placed in.

### ATK Skills:

* Flat ATK buff
* % ATK buff
* Reduce defense by X
* Reduce/Decrease/Cut defense/DEF by X%

### DEF Skills:

* Flat DEF buff
* % DEF buff
* Reduce attack by X
* Reduce/Decrease/Cut attack/damage/ATK by X%

\*Copy cards will only activate when the leader's skill corresponds to the deck they're in. For example, a copy card that copied a leader with ATK skills but is placed in a DEF deck will not activate the skill at all.

### Card specific restrictions

Cards may have some partial or total application of it's effect.

The most common restrictions are:

* Cards which apply to only a Faction or enemy(e.g. Decrease DEF of enemy UFS by X%) -> will apply only to enemy UFS faction Boss/another player's UFS cards -> faction specific debuffer
* Cards which apply to only a subset of cards (e.g. Increase DEF of ally UFS by X%) -> will apply only to ally UFS cards -> faction Buffer
* Cards which specify an effect if there are no duplicates in the ATK and/or DEF deck -> Will not activate if there are any duplicates in the indicated deck (note if both decks are indicated as not containing duplicates this also excludes using a copy of a card on each of the decks. Copy cards are considered their own card and thus don't break this clause unless you use 2 of the same card)
* Cards with "When the ATK and/or DEF deck are arranged with only Taimanin/UFS/Demon" -> Will not activate if there are any other faction in the deck. -> Monofaction buffers

### Battle Partner card restrictions

Battle Partners are not considered as being part of a deck, therefore they do not interfere with a decks "no dups" or "monofaction" restrictions. However, their ATK and DEF stats and skill will apply to your deck.

For example the card "[Summer Haze] Ingrid" has "Increases Def of all allies by 80-100% if there are no duplicates in the ally DEF deck" as one of her skill may be placed in a deck and a second "[Summer Haze] Ingrid" may be picked as a Battle Partner without preventing either card's effect from activating, since a Battle Partner is technically not in any deck and is not counted as a duplicate.

The card "[Summer Beauty] Ingrid" which has the skill "Increases the ATK and DEF of all allies by 50-70% if the ATK and DEF deck are arranged only with Demon cards" can have its effect activate even if the taimanin card [Almighty] Asagi is chosen as a battle partner.

\*However, any restriction the partner card has must be followed by the player's deck in order for the Battle Partner's skill to activate.

Going back on the example for "[Summer Beauty] Ingrid", when chosen as a Battle partner, her skill can only activate if you deck is a mono demon deck, thus containing 9 demon cards (Although the leader's demon faction restriction isn't specified, the leader counts as being in both the ATK and DEF decks)

## Types of Decks

Depending on the current ongoing event, players should have different decks created for different types of content.

This section shows guidelines to make a deck optimal for varying types of content.

### Raid Decks

During raid events, the boss is considered as the only card in the deck. Thus, faction specific buffers/debuffers can be used against them.There is only one rule for making a raid deck, which is to prepare a deck specifically to combat the AR boss effectively. (An AR boss is shown with a danger marker and appears after every 3rd event boss is killed during fever time.)

For regular bosses, the rewards for killing these is fixed and granted as soon as the boss is killed.

For AR bosses however, the points are rewarded based on the damage dealt to the boss. It is thus very important to remember the one and only rule:

**DO NOT USE DEFENCE DOWN SKILLS AGAINST AR BOSSES**

This is the biggest mistake that can be done in a raid event. AR bosses are the main source of points during a raid event and you definitely don't need a deck that reduces the amount of points you'll gain. Reducing the boss's DEF will reduce the damage you deal the boss and thus severely reduce your points for killing it.

Apart from the above restriction everything else is fair game, reduce the boss's ATK all you like and increase your ATK and DEF as much as possible.

### Farming Decks

The most loose type of deck possible.
Farming mainly consists of killing only speed demons and Red Oni and coincidentally, both of these bosses are demon faction. Therefore, anti demon skills are usable if you have them.
There are no restrictions whatsoever when it comes to deck building. Feel free to use whichever card combinations is strongest against demons or even use double debuffers against them to soften the bosses.

### WR Decks

For world raids, there are a few restrictions
Similar to AR bosses, you are awarded points based on the damage you deal to the boss. Defence reduction does not work on the boss and attack reduction is capped at 33%. Any value greater than 33% are wasted.
Secondly, WR bosses are a tough nut to crack. They have high ATK and DEF stats, especially on later days of the event. Instead of focusing on survivability, it is better to focus on stacking more damage so that your deck can do the most amount of damage before being wiped out.
Double bufferes are the best cards to have for this type of deck.

Arena Deck
Regular Battle
A regular battle pits your leader and ATK deck against the enemy's leader + DEF deck.
Your defence is not counted in the total ATK, thus may be used to hold slayers for extra points wih no penalty.
Your leader and ATK deck should mainly consist of skills that increase your ATK or debuff the enemy DEF.
Consider attacking people with ATK skills on their leader as the skill will not proc against your and essentially making it a 5 vs 4 skill-wise.

Rank-Up battle
To win a Rank-Up battle both your DEF and ATK deck must be stronger than your opponent's. There are no real restrictions but consider the enemy is very unlikely to be using a single faction on their deck so avoid anti-faction and anti-monofaction cards unless their leader happens to be a monofaction buffer, indicating that your anti-monofaction decks will work against them and can use that against their deck.
This type of deck tends to be very similar to a farm deck with the exclusion of anti-demon cards, you may have to play around with your ATK and DEF cards to find the best fit.

\*Arena is also where debuffer cards shine the most. Especially double debuffers. Don't be afraid to play around with cards and see what works best for you.

## Comparing Skills

It's important to know skills may be compared to each other through some conversions. This should help you narrow down choices when building your deck without needing to simulate every single card
First, let's look at the formula for a Raid Boss battle
(Boss DEF) - ((Deck ATK) \* (Deck DEF) / (Boss ATK))
Now let's add here where each skill buff will be applied
(Boss DEF \* DEF Debuff) - ((Deck ATK \* ATK Buff) \* (Deck DEF \* DEF Buff) / (Boss ATK \* ATK Debuff))

We have grouped the buff and debuff into 4 categories but first, here's how each of these is calculated with some example % buffs
ATK Buff -  20% \* 50% \* 100%  = 360% (3 diferent ATK buffs, add 100% to each buff and multiply them together, subtract 10)
For debuffs, the calculation is a bit trickier.

For example, a buff of 45% and 30% ATK Cut we must first invert their values (to 55% and 70%)
ATK Debuff : 45% \* 30% = 55% \* 70% = 38.5%

We can actually convert a debuff into buff value by inverting (dividing 1 by the number) its Debuff value and thus compare it to an ATK or DEF buff.
1/38.5% = 260%, quite a larger buff than the lower numbers on the Cut skills my lead you to believe.

That was the hard part, now for the easier ones.

* ATK % vs DEF %

These are ALWAYS directly comparable for the Raid Boss scenario. even if you have 1 ATK in you deck and 99999 Defence a 100% increase to attack will always be superior to a 95% increase in defense. Lets assume the boss hits you for 100, so with 99999 HP and 1 Atk, you can hit it 1000 times. (1000 base damage) With 95% def buff, you can hit for 1950 times. (1950 damage) With 100% atk buff, you can hit for 1000 times but you do 2 attack per turn. (so 2000 damage) Of course, this isn't to say DEF buffs are useless and you should stack as many ATK buffs as possible. A mix of both can improve your deck significantly.

* ATK/DEF % vs Debuff

As mentioned above, the debuff must be inverted and then can be compared directly, thus a 50% decrease in enemy ATK = 100% increase in your deck DEF.

* Double Buffers

Notice how the values for each buff is always multiplied between themselves, seeing this, don't make the mistake of adding 2 card's skill buff and calling it a day, you have to multiply them.

For example a 40% increase in ATK and DEF is actually 140% \* 140% - 100%= 96% increase. If the % are confusing you may find it simpler to just ignore them and calculate  1.4\*1 .4 - 1= 0.96. Like debuffers, double buffers are better than they seem at first glance.

* Double Debuffers

Just like the above examples

a 30% double debuff will be 1/(0.7 \* 0.7) - 1 =  104.1% buff

a 50% double debuff will be 1/(0.5 \* 0.5)  - 1=  a whopping 300% buff

\*Although limited in terms of use, double debuffers are easily some of the strongest cards in game.

### Flat Buffs

We didn't forget these exist, but they are generally weaker.
Flat buffs are applied to the deck's base ATK and DEF calculation and thus come before the rest of the skills above. Despite this. it's easy to convert one of these skills into a regular buff % if there is only one present in your deck.

For example
A deck with 35,000 DEF has a [Tranformed] Asagi SL5, 50% att buff, 5000 flat defence buff.
How can we compare this to for example a shizuru with 60% double buff.
Lest get shizuru out of the way first,  1.7\*1.7 -1  = 189% buff, there this is the benchmark we wanna compare to

Now lets look at the T Asagi, 35 000 DEF deck \* .... this was a trick question btw, the HUD DEF is fake for everything except arena

The real defense is 35 000 + 17 500, with the 17 500 defense coming from the DEF of the cards in the ATK deck.

so 52 500 true DECK DEF. Transformed asagi will give 5000 DEF to every card, so 45000 defense in total
we only need to compare the values now
(52500 + 45000)/52500 - 1 = 85.7% buff, not bad, so in total T asagi for this deck would be a 1.857\*1.5-1=178% buff, slightly worse than Shizuru. If the deck had maybe 4000 less defence T Asagi would have been the better card (if we ignore cost and waifu power ofc)

Note how this buff will be higher the lower you deck DEF total is

* 30 000 -> (30000 + 45000)/30000 = 150% buff
* 75 000 -> (75000 + 45000)/75000 = 60% buff (this is similar to the math if you had a second [Transformed] Asagi trigger alongside the first one)

We from this conclude that

1. flat buffs are better the lower your deck total ATK or DEF is
2. flat buffs don't get along together (a second flat increase for a stat will have less impact than the first due to higher values on it and using flat buffs paired with % buffs is a better option)

We must remember other implications when comparing card such as their cost, restrictions and as a lesser detail, their base ATK and DEF. But hopefuly this section will be able to show you how to better compare cards at a glance.

## Deck strength calculator

Of course, this is not to scare away the players wanting to get into deck building. Fret not, for there is a simpler way to build an optimal deck. Thanks to the works of some talented people, you can grab yourself a copy of a deck strength calculator from the official Taimanin Asagi Battle Arena discord server. If you have further questions, ask them in the official discord server. The server is quite active and players are more than willing to help you out if you have any questions. Happy farming! :)