Princess Connect! Re: Dive

Re: Dive into a Magical World

Welcome to the wonderful world of Princess Connect! Re: Dive (often abbreviated as Priconne), a slightly supernatural setting that largely focuses around the Virtual Reality MMORPG Legend of Astrum. That's right, we're dealing with a card game set about a game about a game. Since Priconne is a crossover set, its cards can be splashed into class-specific strategies or be played in a Princess Connect universe deck. I'm going to aim to highlight the set mechanics, some universe deck strategies, and some cards that splash well into greater Shadowverse: Evolve gameplay.

Set mechanics:

Union Burst

Union Burst is a follower keyword that refers to an effect that will only activate if played in a Princess Connect universe deck. In Princess Connect, Union Bursts are the ultimate ability of each character, and go off based on damage dealt and damage taken by that character. Union Bursts can be fanfares, activated abilities, strike effects, on Evolve effects, and the like, but there are also abilities that care about other Union Bursts going off, promoting the flavor of a team of characters coordinating their abilities.

Equipment

Certain followers from this set can equip their unique equipment under specific conditions, granting them extra effects. These equipment tokens are attached to the follower and are removed when the follower leaves play. Despite the moniker, there is no way to transfer these equipment, and they will never take up board space. Equipment tokens have an association with their respective followers, and when that association is broken (follower leaves the field, follower stops being a follower), the equipment is removed. Equipment tokens modify the follower, and when an equipment declares that the equipped follower has an ability, that ability can be removed by ability nullification (by , for example). However, that modification is not innately removed, for example, grants damage adjustments that cannot be removed by ability nullifiying effects.

Sample Decks

Princess Connect's card organization is kind of like that of Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, where cards have synergistic packages rather than explicit broad ranging strategies. In Legend of Astrum, player characters belong in guilds and most of these guild members tend to work well with each other (with the focal characters from the Gourmet Guild being the most notable exception). I think the best way to further explain this would be to look at some sample decks and how these synergies drive how these decks work.

Spell OTK

The Spell OTK deck uses synergy between and (and the rest of the Friendship Club) in order to push out over 20 damage once you have access to 7 play points. The core combo goes as follows:

1. Play Eris, adding a relevant combo piece, reducing the cost of the next PriConne card you play by 2pp.
2. Play Yuni for a discounted 3pp, adding and to hand, to discount them to 0.
3. Play Chloe (unless your only spells in hand are , in which case, play Chieru to keep the combo going), playing Chloe first means more damage
4. Your next spell has its cost reduced by 2pp now, so play a spell other than Aurora Healing.
5. Play your other free follower from Yuni. (3 UBs) Yuni will trigger, discounting your next spell.
6. Play a non-Aurora Healing spell.
7. Now that you've played 3 other UBs, engage Eris, giving Yuni Storm, this is another UB, so it will trigger Yuni to discount your next spell.
8. Play Aurora Healing on Eris, refreshing her.
9. Loop 7 and 8 for every Aurora Healing in your hand, giving all your non-Eris followers Storm. You can play one more discounted spell after your last activation of Eris as well.

As for damage contribution

• Eris: 3 damage from +1/+1 to each target
• Yuni: 4 attack
• Chieru: 2 attack
• Chloe: 3 attack, then at least 5 damage from her effect, 1 from Chieru, and 4 from spells.

These pieces of damage add up to at least 17 (3 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 5). Now, two of your spells have to be Aurora Healing, but for each played in this sequence, add 3 damage. This makes for at least 20 damage. This is the Eris-Yuni spell OTK.

The rest of the deck is consistency pieces and one-card stall pieces to help you survive to that part of the game. is often played as a ramp piece since it gets you directly to a Yuni the next turn, and Yuni is a powerful tempo play as well as a finisher with Eris in this deck. The Friendship Club cards often play well with their respective spells - and . Lastly, is often added to be another target for Aurora Healing, since equipping her with will convert each Aurora Healing to 3 damage and 3 healing. This intermediate push can not only push your opponent into lower health total so they succumb to a smaller second damage push but also give you a big enough health buffer to survive against aggro and the mirror alike.

The Spell Priconne deck may be the most infamous one from this set, but I wouldn't count it as the only one. There's also a lot of options for cards to help fill out the deck, as (evo, equipment), (evo, equipment), and (evo, equipment) all have their pros and cons as mid-game options for board control.

Dragon's Nest Ramp Priconne

The Dragon's Nest package gives a more explosive and less hand-dependent way to push damage. This deck aims to play on 6 play points, which immediately allows you to go into Overflow, then using her to refund 2pp. This refunded PP can be funneled into low-cost followers with UB effects to further ramp on this turn, with the goal to hit 9 this turn and 10 to start the next to set up Kaya, who, on evolve, has a number of modular combos involving searching for Homare or , but generally the latter can evolve to search for another Kaya to go again. acts as a standalone damage push card once you hit 10pp in this deck, which adds another 2 damage when combined with Kaya's effect.

A Geo Theogonia package is also played to make some powerful plays off of a single card and an abundance of play points. allows you to summon other Geo Theogonia followers from the deck, such as or , while can go for a variety of 2pp packages that include Muimi for damage pushes that clear the board.

Aggro

Let's shift gears a bit from endgame-oriented strategies and look at a much more aggressive strategy:

That's right, 19 1-drop followers make this an extremely low to the ground strategy. A lot of our non 1-drop followers also interact well with or care about 1-drops. (equip) and (equip) can both buff wide boards. There's a bit of an EX Area sub-theme with and having payoffs being placed and/or played from there, while , , , and can place followers into the EX Area with other upsides. With this low to the ground curve and focus on direct damage, this deck is here for a good time, not a long time.

Diabolos Midrange

We've covered Combo, Ramp, and Aggro, so let's look at a bit of a more midrange strategy. Diabolos comprises a cemetery-focused midrange strategy, with acting as a reanimator, and helping fill the cemetery, and and being largely focused as removal. Illya is also the main payoff card, as she consumes cards from the cemetery in order to fuel her blood-draining Vermillion Bite with a Super-Evolve that acts as more removal. is used for even more recursion (consider a chain of Violet into Akari), while , , and act as even more board control. acts as a secondary finisher for this deck, as her will give her a second attack for an additional two play points.

Splashable Cards

Because Union Burst abilities tend to be so powerful, cards that are good outside of Princess Connect Universe decks are generally going to be Spells, Amulets, or followers that function without Union Burst.

Kokkoro

Likely the most obvious card on this list, Kokkoro's UB of just healing 1 is something that isn't quite essential to her function, but her evolved form and equipment are both very strong. As a 1-drop follower, she's a reasonable inclusion in Combo Forest to fill curve, and while she doesn't push damage like does, her ability to be evolved for extra cards helps add consistency to the strategy. Lastly, since Combo Forest is a wide board strategy, Kokkoro's ability to just pump the field with Ameth Amulet is an amazing option in the strat.

Threading Snare

is a more aggressive version of and one that has an additional upside if engaged, possibly being useful alongside in Amulet Haven decks. Engaging amulets is also design space with potential, so getting removal that's a slight upgrade over an existing card is a nice option.

Christina

compares quite favorably to other Sword followers in terms of being a generic Storm with Refresh. 5pp at base may be a bit on the expensive side, but when she wields , she ends up being 7pp to hit for 8 in a vacuum, even drawing a card as an added side bonus. Until specific traits or synergies come into play, Christina is a solid generic finisher for aggressive Sword piles.

Until We Meet Again

Some Dragon decks would rather run a few copies of than cards that don't ramp them. Paying 1 more for 1 healing isn't amazing, but it's better than nothing when you need the effect, and can't be delayed like could be.

Nebbia

Forest has no shortage of bounces and is generally a worse without access to her Union Burst. Some of Nebbia's upsides though, are that she is a "bounce" to EX area, which works particularly well with tokens, and that she can "bounce" neutral cards, unlike Airbound Barrage. If Airbound Barrage isn't enough for some reason, Nebbia is the next best thing for the effect.

Sheffy

's UB is certainly nice to have, but her On Evolve, On Super-Evolve, and Equipment effects are all non-UB, and if a Dragon deck needs access to her utility, these effects do have a niche worth considering.

Conclusion

If you're a fan of the game or the show, or keep wondering what all these references other Shadowverse fans make are, this is a great set to catch up on all the references thereof. While Union Burst is unfortunately a bit of a restrictive keyword, the way Union Bursts can synergize with each other allows for some interesting modular strategies, in contrast to the more restrictive trait recognition that Idolm@ster and Vanguard sets have had. Modular packages is how I'd describe the deckbuilding philosophy that you can bring to Priconne Universe decks, and I think that opens a lot of room for creativity for play in this format.