SAO – 3San Anon (R) [02/09/2023]

Fear the wrath of the Desu-Desu Gun. Death Gun knocks at your door, his weapon at the ready to take you out of your misery with pinpoint accuracy through IP address tracking. As an internet veteran, Death Gun has prowled through the dark web, procuring various weapons of mass destruction from unrestricted forums featuring images that would require eye bleach. Armed with a pack of chips and a bottle of diet soda, Death Gun stays up late at night looking for unsuspecting victims to denounce with his mastery of boundless knowledge and prestige.

Our boy Sterben is up in the front lines. When Sterben, otherwise known as Death Gun, attacks, and all of your opponent’s characters have the Target (標的) trait, Death Gun freely deals a single point of damage to your opponent. Sterben perfectly sets up for himself assuming you can get a reverse with his combo. After reversing his opponent, Sterben can send the opposing character to the top of their deck, ensuring that your opponent takes the single point of damage from the next Sterben.

To help Death Gun accomplish his plan, the two members above are needed to force the Target trait onto our opponent’s characters. Shoichi to the left is a global support for Weapon (武器) characters and gives the Target trait to all of your opponent’s front row characters. Kyouji does the same thing as another global support for Weapon characters, but unlike Shoichi, he targets your opponent’s backrow characters. With the two on field at the same time, Death Gun’s condition is fully fulfilled as all characters on your opponent’s stage will now possess the required Target trait.

Lisbeth is our early play combo of choice as she benefits from the Weapon trait buffs from Death Gun and friends. She has a demerit of not being able to attack if you do not have two characters in your backrow, so make sure to fulfill that condition. When she swings with her climax on the right, she gives one of your characters the ability to salvage a character upon reverse.

Lisbeth rises to the occasion as an honorary member of the Death Gun squad. Lisbeth’s card to the left is a large beater with the ability to gain extra advantage on reverse with her ACCELERATE ability. You can consider her as a secondary pseudo combo alongside our level 1 combo. Lisbeth in the center is a way to potentially save hand as she can rest herself when she’s reversed if you reveal a level 2 or higher card from the top of your deck. Lastly, the Lisbeth to the right is a neat 4500-powered level 1 reverser, assuming you meet her stock requirement. Given the low costs of the deck, she can very easily reach the required stock condition she needs.

We can also make great use of Lisbeth’s ACCELERATE ability with both the level 0 reverser to the left and the ACCELERATE support to the right. Keep in mind that Lisbeth’s ACCELERATE ability can provide any Weapon character a boost of 2500 power for the turn. This is very good for Death Gun as this can help him with reversing power. The accelerate support on the right lets you pay a cheap cost to freely salvage on the use of an ACCELERATE ability while giving a tinge of a global support to all your Avatar (アバター) or Net (ネット) characters.

Silica is also essential to our squad as honorary Death Gun party member number 2. Her brainstorm allows you to fetch any Avatar, Net, or Familiar (使い魔) character from your waiting room. The Net part is super important because all of Death Gun’s main party members carry that trait. The Silica on the right is a level 0 reverser that can let you easily fix your hand for free (it can also grab Net). Unfortunately, Keiko (Silica’s real name) doesn’t carry the Weapon trait, but she is great as another level 1 reverser with a climax filter ability.

One interesting Keiko I want to mention is the Keiko above with its unique bounce back to hand on reverse if you reveal a level 0 or lower to hand. She can be another cheap way to retain hand if need be.

Some other suggestions for the deck are shown above. Asuna and Lisbeth in lingerie is great as a secondary backrow support that can give double trigger capabilities. The second ability is a static global ability that allows your characters to hand-fix upon triggering a salvage trigger. This is great considering the deck runs eight salvage climaxes. Lisbeth in the center is an answer to level 3 characters while also being a way to ACCELERATE for extra stock. Lastly, the level 3 Lisbeth performs double duty with a modal ability on-play to either stock flush your opponent or grant your field a global 4000 power boost for the turn (great for Death Gun’s reversals).

Lisbeth is the best backup of choice, being an oversized backup. Alternatively, you can also use the vanilla Silica backup if you wish. The Silica comes with the benefit of having the Weapon trait; although, as a backup, it is highly unlikely you would generally play it on field. Keep in mind that the deck’s backrow provides the deck with quite a bit of power on both turns. Sterben’s ability is also free, meaning having him around and another extra turn could lead to potentially more explosive damage, assuming you draw his climax again.

Interestingly enough, there are two climax swappers for both Lisbeth and Silica. Both are great and have two very different conditions. Run both if you wish. Early play Lisbeth is great for a stock heal. Lisbeth changing clothes is another great option not featured here as she is a large Taigei that benefits from the Weapon trait supports.

Make sure that you get both Shoichi and Kyouji onto the field by level 3. Death Gun requires that all of your opponent’s characters carry the Target trait for his free damage to be applied. Use honorary members #1 and #2, Lisbeth and Silica respectively, to set up for your late game and benefit from the Weapon trait supports. Show your opponent the true meaning of fear from the other side of the internet.