Lust Goddess – Advanced Deck/Squad Building Guide

Advanced Guide to Deck/Squad Building

By Daa

Introduction

There is already a basic deck building guide with really good info. But some of you probably enjoy creating your own squad instead of just getting told what to build from a screenshot of all your mercs (no judgement). This guide is for you. Take it with a grain of salt and use your own judgement, especially for the examples I put – they are simply there to explain the thought process, nothing more. Other than that, the disclaimers:

• It may not apply to your current league.
• The meta/mercenaries may have changed.
• It is my subjective opinion.

Mercenary Selection

Here are some things to consider when choosing mercs for your squad:

• Their basic statline (attack and health). Many buffs are stronger on bigger base stats. Bonus: the merc is still useful after suppression.
• Their offensive/defensive modifiers (multi-attack, indirect damage, block/agility/elusive, etc.). This makes Lucretia the monster that she is.
• Can they produce a comeback (turn around or stall a losing board)? This is far more important than win-more mercs (wins harder on an already-winning board). For example, Harper is a classic comeback merc who can stall and deal direct commander damage. Compare with Sunmi, who needs to survive and have fuel added each turn to make her stronger.
• How ignorable are they? For example, Zara/Scarlett are less ignorable than Billie/Leta, even though the latter two have their niches.
• Can they trade well? Bloom is often able to make a 2 for 1 trade by killing one enemy when played and another on death.
• Do they have fatal vulnerabilities? For example, Kira, Dominica or Natasha can force you to die against Harper.
• And that leads us the final point, which deserves a whole section by itself… synergies of this merc with the rest of your squad (including commander).

Synergies

The biggest mistake I see is crafting synergies with mercs that are bad standalone, which is why I spent time writing about all the other considerations for a good merc.

A classic example is Faye: she can double the damage of your board instantly, but if your board is clear then Faye is a dead merc with really bad stats. Conversely, Victoria can stall with elusive, and leave multi-attack for other mercs even after she’s dead.

Other mercs with seemingly good synergy but falls short on the other categories: Amy, Nymeria, Natasha.

An interesting case is Skye/Kayya/Wendy who are less strong standalone mercs, but make a good deck together because they are able to slow the match down and slowly ramp up their effectiveness.

Good mercs often have multiple or whole squad synergies. Korben synergizes with any heavy melee and health buffs. Kitty protects and buffs any existing mercenaries. Salma protects your whole board.

Covering deck weakness can also be considered a form of synergy. It’s not always enough to make your own guys big – how do you stop the enemy? For example, Rachie/Roxie are very popular commanders, with their suppress arguably the strongest commander skill. But their turn 1 board clear is weak/RNG (controllable to an extent) respectively, so you will need something to help stay alive until turn 3. Board clears, agility/elusive, suppress mercs; and at worst, bodies to throw at the enemy.

Free Commanders

Note that free commanders have less HP than legendary commanders. HP is a resource that can be used to gain an advantage on the board; I will write more about this if I make a battle tactics thread.

Ethan

The good:

• Good at lower leagues
• Second and third skills combo well to reach lethal

The bad:

• Skills are extremely underwhelming
• No current peacekeeper synergy with second skill; if added, will still be outclassed by Alexa robodogs.
• Ethan is the default commander and pretty bad. Use him to get yourself out of the initial leagues, then switch to someone else.

Rachie

The good:

• First skill lets you use HP as a resource more effectively
• Suppress is arguably the best commander skill and deals with all problem mercs except immune and high statline (e.g., Korben)

The bad:

• Often struggles with survivability before turn 3
• Third skill is mostly irrelevant
• Rachie is the most popular free commander solely for her board-wide suppress. Build your deck to keep her alive to use it.

Melissa

The good:

• First skill is incredibly powerful, partly because it’s available from turn 1
• Second skill has good reach with very high damage output

The bad:

• Second skill is RNG heavy if you want to snipe or freeze a certain column
• Third skill is mostly irrelevant but can combo lightly with second
• Melissa is a close second for free commanders, and imo underrated because of Rachie. Melissa is all about when to use her first skill – survive an extra turn to win the game, or freeze a single enemy so that your merc is completely safe to set up a combo for next turn.

Ceres

The good:

• Second skill is powerful
• Third skill synergizes great with Trixie

The bad:

• First skill is irrelevant
• Second skill is slow (turn 3) and needs set-up
• Ceres has a very weak syndicate synergy which is rarely ever used, partially because there are few meta syndicate mercs. Her second skill needs set-up from an AOE merc (Trixie, Lucretia). Not much reason to use her.

Legendary Commanders

Unlike free commanders, all legendary commanders have a niche that makes them worth considering for your deck.

S0lt

The good:

• Insane survivability if she reaches turn 3
• The best ultra-late commander due to skill 3

The bad:

• No direct influence on board unless you play force shield mercs
• S0lt is an underrated commander who requires the support of a more specialized squad to make use of her second skill. Without it, she is the commander with the least influence on the board. Surviving to turn 3 is generally pretty easy, as you can heal up after.
• Against S0lt, look out for opportunities to kill her by manipulating indirect damage (Ivy poison, Harper commander snipe) to break her shield before one-hitting her.

Alexa

The good:

• Tanks up your board, great on mercs like Mitsuki or Harper
• 3rd skill is a big swing if game goes that late

The bad:

• Does not affect enemy side of the board and does not protect against indirect damage (poison, Trixie, etc)
• Alexa is an annoying commander especially at lower leagues where most of the damage output comprises physical attacks. Attack values are also lower, but scale up slightly more than her block tokens as squad power goes up. Think before using 2nd skill to play around splash from messing up your turn (killing an enemy merc too early for example).
• Against Alexa, you may need to build your deck to include a decent amount of indirect damage and effects to deal with her tankier board.

Roxie

The good:

• Suppress is arguably the best commander skill
• Boxes have good synergies with popular mercs (Trixie, poison, Mitsuki’s pierce)

The bad:

• Often struggles with survivability before turn 3
• Third skill is much weaker than S0lt and Alexa, making her useless after suppress.
• Roxie is a tankier Rachie with improved skills. Time your box uses wisely; you can somewhat estimate where the boxes will land and your chances your boxes can clear that Salma, so don’t yolo the boxes.

Gia

The good:

• First and second skill synergizes, unlike Ceres
• First skill has good synergies with popular mercs (Ivy, Lucretia, Lola)
• Third skill synergizes great with Trixie

The bad:

• Does not buff or protect your own board
• Second skill may still require set-up or a 1 turn delay if using first skill to set-up
• Gia does not help your own mercs, so use her skills aggressively to clear the opponent’s board. Poison and Lola to clear out 1 merc, 2nd skill to clear out 1 merc are all perfectly acceptable. If Lola survives, her shield proc can damage enemies on their turn, allowing you to use second skill straight away, making Lola an almost must-have combo with Gia. Second skill is sometimes better than suppress because you get rid of the merc entirely.
• Against Gia, mainly play around having too many injured mercs at once. Kitty shields are precious; time Florence well to clear poison in crucial moments – don’t throw her out on a whim.

Battle Tactics

Now that we have a squad assembled, how do we use it effectively? Here are some tips, a mix of both obvious and not-so-obvious ones.

Don’t be afraid to “waste” mercs to stay alive. Each match can be very swingy because mercenary abilities are so powerful, so never give up. Some examples:*Kitty is the most satisfying for her combo, but her minus attack on death is amazing to stall with. *Salma can be sacrificed just to buy 1 more turn by lowering their next merc’s attack to 1. *Mitsuki and Beck can form a big meatshield to protect all columns if needed.

Never forget the order of attacks and position your mercs appropriately. Attacks happen from left front to right back.

• “On attack give buff” mercs like Amy is generally best played on the left to buff the rest of the board immediately.
• “On attack give debuff” mercs like Lucretia is generally best played on the right, as it will trigger after suppress from Florence; otherwise suppress will also remove the debuff.
• “On commander attacked” mercs like Harper and Nicole are amazing on the right.
• Melee mercs can be placed in row 2 and blocked by placing another melee merc in row 1. Consider placing melee mercs (e.g., Victoria, Sharon, Regina) that are vulnerable if blocked by some tanks (e.g., Zara, Scarlett, Sharon) in row 2, so that you can stop them from attacking by putting something in front of them if needed.

Learn the order and nuances of mercenary ability triggers

“On spawn do x” of your mercenary triggers first, then enemy mercenaries’ “enemy spawns do x” triggers directly after. Very relevant for Trixie vs Kitty: If you drop Trixie, you will deal damage to enemy Kitty (or break her shield) and then she spawns a new shield. Only then will friendly module death damage from Trixie trigger, breaking Kitty’s new shield immediately. So Trixie can clear Kitty but only with a friendly module. If you have Kitty, try to ensure you have cover and/or break enemy module to play around Trixie. Same for Trixie vs Leta – do not drop Trixie to kill Leta if you have a friendly module (death gives Leta a shield to tank Trixie attack).

Suppress always applies before merc effects trigger (so Ariane will not kill row, Zara will not give multi-attack), but force shield will block the damage and the merc will not take damage. Suppress also removes debuffs. Transform (Beck) works similarly.

Death does not stop effects triggering; e.g., dying Harper will do one last instance of commander damage.

Start of turn effects trigger from left front to right back. Any instances of poison is added to that, so a Florence chamber on the left can save units that would otherwise die to poison.

Stun can be removed by Florence (if attacking Lorraine) at the end of the turn. Remember stun only stops attacks and not abilities.

Counters Part 1

No merc or combo is invincible, but some are overpowered enough that sometimes you are playing a game of chance. You can still try to maximize your chances though. Here’s a list of common threats and counters. Remember to save your more generic counters when you have a more specific counter available.

Generic counters include: Suppress, Trixie, Bloom, Ariane; applies to almost everything listed below.

More specific counters include: Beck (against melee), Lola (against ranged), Elusive/Agility, Immunity (against effects), disrespect (ignore a merc completely), face race (kill them before they kill you)

Merc specific counters

• Salma: protects herself and scales up, not allowing you to face tank and ignore her
  • Elusive, Blanche (damage steal applies after Salma effect)
  • Indirect damage (Poison, Bloom)
  • Immunity
  • Borderline: Eve lifesteal, Billie splash, especially comboed with stun (Melissa, Lorraine)
• Korben: Have to be killed in one turn; deadly with big health unit
  • If you have a merc strong enough to one-shot him, clear modules so he can’t hide (unless you have a Trixie in hand)
  • Try to keep their merc health low enough that a deployed Korben can’t surprise one-shot you
  • Lola is super effective against Korben especially with the Peacekeeper 5 pierce Alliance bonus
• Kitty: Puts the game on a knife’s edge, dealing huge damage if you’re not careful. You can try counter with your own Kitty to benefit from the shields. Either way, calculate carefully, because the game may be over in one turn unless a suppress happens.
  • Skip turn button. Sometimes you can kill her with what’s on board but not if you play a merc.
• Harper: besides using strong melee attackers or indirect damage, board position is the best way to counter her.
  • Play your units to the right to take less snipes to commander from Harper
  • Purposefully use her elusive to your advantage (e.g., play Ivy opposite her; it avoids damage and still poisons Harper)

Counters Part 2

• Lucretia
  • Lola
  • Situational: Skip turn, or put a merc that Lucretia kills with her attack damage and not with poison to control her attack/health gain (relevant if stalling for a crucial commander skill or a merc you need)
• Zara
  • Ignore until you have a good answer
  • When using Beck, make sure Zara’s attack steal is less than Beck’s base attack
• Scarlett
  • Ignore so she won’t steal damage
  • Kitty or Lola, taking advantage of her board AOE breaking your shields
  • The damage nodes on the ground aren’t that scary, you can usually play on top of them without much problem
• Regina: nightmarish if you can’t deal with her fast, or if Salma is played in combo
  • Hilda, Zara, Scarlett, Leta
  • Sometimes you have no choice but to throw bodies to kill her fast. Your chance of winning drastically drops but if you don’t kill her then your chance of winning is 0.
• Mitsuki: deadly in combo with Salma; often resilient enough to survive getting wiped completely by AOE
  • Prioritize killing left-most to reduce damage
  • Lucretia or other damage steal like Scarlett
  • Roxie boxes + Trixie, better if back row occupied (boxes more likely to spawn mid row and can kill Mitsuki)
• Lola
  • Deal with Lola before she gets a shield on her by any means necessary
  • If against s0lt too: try to calculate how many times you trigger s0lt shield: you can use Trixie to kill your own units to protect rest of board
• Trixie: Trixie’s best friend is modules or tokens. Against Kitty, Trixie needs a friendly module to snipe her shield; against Salma, Trixie needs enough modules to give her an attack boost (triggers after Salma effect). To counter enemy Trixie, remove (enemy) modules; make sure she can’t one-shot your mercs or your face with what modules are on board (also counting Ethan/Alexa/Ceres/Gia tokens).
• Bloom
  • Bloom bug feature (bottom right square is immune to splash when Bloom shoots your commander).