Priconne – Sarendia & Mercurius Foundation (B/G) [10/12/2022]

Saren and Akino have been close friends since their childhood days. However, in the world of Princess Connect!, both girls have formed their own individual guilds. Mama Saren tends to her orphaned children (Kurumi and Ayane) with the help of her clumsy maid, Suzume. Akino rules her merchant’s guild alongside her fellow tradeswomen: the ever-bubbly but drunk Yukari, the thieving taiyaki master Tamaki, and the ever-vigilant Mifuyu.

Tamaki, the ever sneaky nekomata, carries a special ability when played from hand to attack a selected backrow character of your opponent’s instead of her opposing target. When she reverses with her combo on the right, you get to kick the opposing character to clock and deal single point of damage to your opponent which is great in conjunction with her first ability, considering most backrows are fragile supports that are low on power.

The glamourous but humble Saren is the main advantage combo of the deck. Saren gains burst power on-play from hand and the ability to trigger twice for free with her combo.

Now unlike your traditional combos, Saren’s ability primes off of these two above, which will also be your backrow. Suzume lets you discard a card upon hitting Saren’s arc trigger to draw a card. Yukari lets you pay out any bag triggers to draw as well.

Aside from Saren’s combo, we have a few other level 1 options to help out the deck. Tamaki is a 6500 beater on swing if you have two or more other characters on stage, but more importantly, she mills the top two cards of your deck on-play and lets you discard any hand to freely salvage a character. Considering how much Saren mills and compresses your deck, Tamaki can be a nice way to easily recycle hand the following turn or to mill away climaxes to prevent them from being triggered.

Kurumi is a large wall that additionally boosts all your character’s powers by 1000 during your opponent’s turn if you have two or more characters on stage. She cannot be reversed by costless characters, making her a powerful wall in the early game.

Lastly, Suzume is a great way to make use of all your extra stock as she lets you pay her hefty stock ability on-play to salvage a character. Additionally, her first ability empowers her if you reveal a character from the top of your deck. Regardless, it’s a nice top check ability to let you know your next trigger potentially.

Saren is a nice salvage Riki profile that can fix your clock while milling your deck. Her secondary ability is icing on the top of the cake as she flies away to stock when your opponent plays a climax. Tamaki works very well in conjunction with Saren. Since Saren places a card into your clock, you can then use Tamaki to cycle your clock with your hand (keep in mind that Tamaki can only grab characters).

This deck has two early play options thanks to the advent of the second set of Priconne. Ayane is a nice early play beater that comes out if your opponent has a level three or higher on the field. She gains an additional 1500 for each of your backrow, effectively making her 11500 without boosts. Her main ability on-play is her ability to refund a stock from your waiting room (choose any character and send them there) and flicker one of your opponent’s cards in front. Keep in mind, unlike traditional flicker cards, Ayane returns them at the start of the encore step, letting you get a free direct hit in.

Saren is an early play healer that gains power like Ayane based on the number of characters in your backrow.

Akino above is the final card I would like to mention. She is a traditional level 3 or higher beater, gaining a large chunk of power on swing against those cards. Her more interesting ability is that she lets you blind stock the top of your deck if your stock on-play is less than your opponent’s, effectively making her a free level 2 on field.

Considering the low power of your field during your opponent’s turn, most backups in the early game don’t really mean much in terms of field contestation. Aoi is great for its anti-change ability. Saren is an interesting backup to protect your late game cards as she can duplicate herself by paying an additional stock to salvage another copy of herself. Yuuki (also available in green through Kokkoro) is a nice memory kick counter.

Akino offers a genuine surprise to your opponent as she can “taunt” an opposing card and force your opponent to switch their attackers around. Yukari is a sticky card for your opponent to deal with as it becomes level 1 and 4000 power base during your opponent’s turn. Try to do your best to push your opponent as close to death as possible and then close out the game with Tamaki with her clock kick ability.