Azur Lane – Drake and Purse (Y) [03/14/2023]

If there’s one thing the British have historically succeeded at holding supremacy at, it would be their navy. Armed with modern weapons and innovative designs, the British Royal Fleet dominated the seas with both enemies and allies looking at them with both awe and jealousy. It was undeniable that the British were the face of the high seas, taming the dangerous unknown waters, charting new territories, and maintaining the dominance of the queen from all sides of the globe.

As one of the world’s leading nations in terms of economy, the British happily throws away capital at its problems as demonstrated in our finishers above. The famous “Drake”, terror of the seas, descendent of the mighty dragons, is the main finisher of our deck. Upon meeting her large experience condition, she gains an enormous amount of power and the ability to pay a heavy cost to blow a large chunk of damage to your opponent’s clock upon reversing her opponent. Purse is the second key piece of our deck with the ability to pay a heavy cost to rest herself to deal a bit of damage while also healing the top card of your clock. Keep in mind that neither of these abilities requires a climax, and in the case of Drake, since she is an on-reverse ability, she can activate her damage ability during your opponent’s turn as well.

Ideally, our advantage combos should be costless and help with generating extra stock. Sirius, who is ever so “serious”, is perfect for this deck and saving the British economy over its wartime spending. Sirius is a burst power Yunyun profile. However, unlike Yunyun, after generating stock from the top of your deck, Sirius’ reveal targets and adds characters to hand, regardless of level.

As for our other combo, since we aren’t running a level 3 finisher combo, we could run more ways to gain extra advantage. Sirius is the best combo simply because she generates additional stock, but any of the level 1 combos that grab costless advantage are great too. Dido is suggested here because she provides potentially two hand as a reverse combo and can also net you the Royal Navy event, a very powerful way to generate mass amounts of hand.

Ark Royal is nice for a more powerful selective choice on her reverse salvage combo. Belfast is decent as well as a way to generate hand without reverse while also being an Oboro effect during your opponent’s turn that can also bounce another character back to hand for a cost. Pick whichever combo you’d like.

Given that our entire deck is filled with choice triggers, Ajax is an excellent option to help pay them out while maintaining stock advantage. Furthermore, on the off-chance she does trigger a choice trigger, that’s a free salvage. Cygnet has the annoying ability to disrupt your opponent’s first turn field play while also potentially bouncing back to your hand during your opponent’s draw phase if you reveal a level 1 or higher card from the top of your deck. Given the heavy experience requirements for the deck, Cygnet has a high potential chance to hop back to your hand and provide free additional hand value.

Neptune can be considered another free way to generate our combo pieces. As long as you meet her experience requirement, you can discard a character on play to spawn any costless character from your waiting room, meaning you can freely revive Sirius or other advantage combos. Both Aurora and Hood are double ups of the same effect, pumping power to one of your characters. There are plenty of power pumps effect in the Royal Navy (ロイヤル), but the main use of Aurora and Hood are thanks to their utility as level 1 or higher pieces, helping proc effects for cards such as Cygnet. Hood additionally grants additional power for the turn if you play a climax with a choice trigger.

No one trumps Queen Elizabeth when it comes to granting power to her fellow comrades. As a global level assist, she ensures that your Drakes and others have plenty of support to vanquish their opponents while providing even more buffs should you play a climax with a choice trigger. Swiftsure is a powerful beater that acts as a pseudo-combo on reverse to help with filtering your hand with any choice climax in play. Lastly, Howe is an early-play that comes out early if your opponent possesses any level 3s. She gains power during your turn and can level down your opponent’s cards twice.

Speaking of which, the event that was mentioned in Dido’s effect text is listed above here. Royal Navy is a very powerful event that lets you potentially add up to four characters to hand from the top of your deck. By the Queen’s decree and her signature lion stamp, at the use of this event, you must sacrifice a character and then reveal the top four cards of your deck, sending any Royal Navy characters to your hand with the rest sent to the waiting room.

The last card to mention before we wrap up this post is Unicorn above. She’s a sneaky little brainstorm with an alternative ability to send a small blow to your opponent from the backrow. Given how many resources we generate with this deck, it won’t be too uncommon of a feat for Unicorn to stick a fourth additional attack to your opponent while also giving you a light heal, potentially even giving your opponent their final blow when they least expect it.

Backups are fairly decent options for the deck considering that Drake’s ability is cross-turn. Given support from Queen Elizabeth, Drake can hit enormous numbers on both turns, making her a menacing threat that can even kill your opponent during their turn. Black Prince is an Adachi profile on top of a backup. Centaur is essentially a free backup that refreshes its stock cost from the top of your deck as long as all your characters are Ships (艦船), which every character in this set is.

Warspite is an interesting tech option that can fetch a climax from your deck on-play. That being said, a level 2 option in Monarch is available as well that can add to your experience count. Sheffield is a Kazuma profile on-play while also letting you discard a character to draw one. Erebus is an interesting backrow card that can buff up your characters cross-turn, particularly great for empowering Drake in the late game. Eskimo pairs very well with any add from top effects like Sheffield or Ajax, while also acting as an on-play power boost to your other cards and potentially hopping back to hand when you cancel damage. Victorious is another level three that has her own finishing ability on top of a free tutoring effect to help you grab a character from the deck on-play.

Make sure to keep in mind the heavy experience costs required for many of the level 3’s effects. You’ll always want at least two experience at level 1 for abilities such as Neptune or Warspite.