Five-second answer: If you are a beginner who does not want to calculate, memorize long game states, or wait for the metagame to settle, do not choose a deck by Tier alone. Choose one with few decisions per turn. Rally Royal, ramp-oriented Dragon, and Aggro Nightmare fit that goal well. Combo Elf can be extremely strong but charges a sequencing tax. Artifact (AF) Nemesis charges a memory tax. Cutthroat himself looks absurdly powerful, but the Highlander shell built around him is a different kind of difficult.
1. Ten-minute gyoza, Pack 9, and 950 simulated games
Pack 9, “Revenants of Azvaldt,” released on August 27, 2026. Release day is chaos: read cards, test decks, stare at your Red Ether, realize you only have enough for a ten-pull, and discover that probability has once again declined to become your friend.
Meanwhile, takeout gyoza can be ready about ten minutes after a phone order. You arrive, the food is already cooked, and real-world waiting time has been deleted. At the same time, a simulator may already have run roughly 950 games.
The important distinction is this: sample size and model accuracy are not the same thing. More games reduce random sampling noise. They do not repair bad AI decisions. If the simulator pilots a deck incorrectly, 950 games can produce a very stable estimate of the wrong thing. Release-day Tier lists also shift by site and update time, so separate data, actual play feel, and operating difficulty.
2. The real beginner boss is working-memory load
A card game asks you to track counts, conditions, saved pieces, Evolution targets, face-versus-board decisions, and possible responses. A deck can have theoretical power 100 and practical beginner output 60.
A useful unofficial metric is a working-memory tax:
- Low: the current board tells you most of what you need.
- Medium: remember one or two conditions.
- High: track counts, types, sequencing, and saved pieces.
- Hell: every turn begins with “wait, how many different things have I played?”
A great beginner deck often passes the three-second turn test: you can usually identify a reasonable play very quickly.
3. Release-day ranking for “strong without thinking too much”
| Deck | Raw power | Mental load | Draw variance | Tolerance for sloppy play | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rally Royal | High | Low | Low–Medium | Very high | Develop followers, Rally counts itself, play payoffs |
| Ramp Dragon | High | Low | Medium | High | Gain max PP, deploy large threats |
| Aggro Nightmare | High | Low | Medium–High | High | Attack before the opponent finishes planning |
| Combo Elf | Potentially very high | Medium–High | Medium | Medium | Powerful, but sequencing and Combo count matter |
| Experiment Witch | Potentially very high | Medium | Medium | Medium | Strong engine with a planned payoff |
| AF Nemesis | Very high | High | Medium | Low | Artifact-type tracking adds constant state |
| Cutthroat Highlander | Explosive card, complex shell | High | Build-dependent | Low–Medium | Free evolution is wild; Highlander improvisation is not simple |
Early August 27 ranking pages did not fully agree with one another. That is normal on day one. The useful question is not “which exact deck is #1?” but “which deck keeps most of its power when played imperfectly?”
4. Rally Royal: the game remembers the count for you
Rally Royal is friendly because its core progress is tracked by the game. You play followers. Rally rises. Conditional payoffs switch on. You do not have to reconstruct every previous turn in your head.
In lower ranks, repeated board development also transfers cognitive work to the opponent. You perform the simple action: develop. The opponent must decide what to remove, where to spend Evolution, and how much damage can be accepted. A deck that outsources the difficult exam to the opponent is excellent engineering.
5. Dragon and Aggro Nightmare: one-sentence game plans
Dragon
Increase maximum PP. Play bigger cards earlier than the opponent.
“Resplendent Gold and Silver, Lumiore & Argente” can accelerate maximum PP early, while its full form discards two cards and deals 4 damage to all enemy followers and the enemy leader. Early ramp, late board clear and burn: one card with two jobs.
“Forte, Sovereign Dragonwing” is a 6-cost 5/2 Storm follower. Super-Evolution makes its attack 8. The art says “I am here to fight,” and the card does exactly that.
Aggro Nightmare
End the game before the opponent starts doing complicated things.
Cheap followers, Storm, burn, leader pressure. Lower-rank opponents often over-trade, save Evolution too long, or miss lethal pressure. Aggro punishes those mistakes immediately. A Midrange Nightmare trial deck feeling weak does not automatically mean Aggro Nightmare is weak; they are different plans.
6. Combo Elf: strong and easy are not synonyms
Combo counts cards played during the current turn. Combined with buffs, cheap pieces can become absurdly efficient later. If even an NPC-controlled buff-oriented Elf feels oppressive, that is evidence that the baseline card power may be real.
The human problem is the interface: which card number is this, what order is correct, do I spend this now or wait for a buff, and how much Storm damage do I have? For someone trying to avoid calculation, that is not free power. It is a tax.
7. AF Nemesis: the relaxed-looking girl suddenly attacks for six
“Relentless Pursuer Miu” costs 4 and starts at 3/5. Whenever one of your Artifact followers enters play, she deals 3 damage to a random enemy follower. On Evolution she creates an Ancient Artifact. On Super-Evolution, if at least three different Artifact follower types have entered play during the battle, she gains Storm.
Super-Evolution adds +3/+3, so the apparently relaxed character can become a 6-attack Storm threat while the Artifact engine throws damage around the board.
Forte, the visibly battle-hardened dragon woman, attacks for 5 normally and 8 after Super-Evolution.
Forte: “That will hurt.” Correct. Miu: “She looks chill.” Why is she also trying to remove my life total?
The real difficulty is not the damage. It is tracking how many different Artifact types have appeared. That persistent state is exactly what a low-memory-load player may want to avoid.
8. Cutthroat: “Sushiro sale!” except it is actually a free-evolution engine
Pack 9’s “Cutthroat, Convict of Blades” is a 2-cost 2/2 with Bane. When evolved, it removes the remaining Cutthroats from your deck. If the deck then contains no duplicate cards, you gain the Cutthroat Crest.
That Crest evolves the first follower you play each turn. Of course that looks powerful. “Play a follower; it evolves for free” is not subtle.
The catch is the shell. A dedicated Highlander build uses mostly singletons, which means each hand is different. Current guide evaluations explicitly describe the deck as difficult and requiring improvisation.
Cutthroat the card: obviously powerful. Cutthroat Highlander: an improv examination disguised as a card deck.
You entered expecting conveyor-belt sushi and the chef handed you forty different ingredients.
9. Experiment Witch: an Ado-like laboratory staffed by Kaiki’s voice
“Devoted Researcher” is a 4-cost 1/1 that summons two “Immersed Experiment” followers. At Enhance 8 it summons three and gives them Ward. Its Evolution can give one Experiment Bane.
The voice actor is Shin-ichiro Miki. Kaiki Deishuu from the Monogatari series is also voiced by Shin-ichiro Miki. Recognizing that by ear from a card voice line is genuinely good voice recognition.
The dark blue-black laboratory aesthetic also makes Ado’s “Kokoro to Iu Na no Fukakai” an easy association. The song, used as the theme for the medical drama “Doctor White,” leans heavily on medical imagery.
An Ado-like laboratory contains a researcher with Kaiki’s voice who mass-produces experimental subjects. Perfectly normal card game.
10. The Red Ether trap: one ten-pull, but old cards cannot all be liquidated
Official rules only allow dismantling a card when you own four or more copies, and only until three copies remain.
- Own 1: cannot dismantle it.
- Own 2: cannot dismantle them.
- Own 3: cannot dismantle them.
- Own 4: dismantle 1.
Even if a card rotated out and you never intend to play Unlimited, you cannot simply convert the full playset into Pack 9 resources.
Rotation officially uses the latest six card packs plus Basic cards. Unlimited uses all card packs plus Basic cards. After Pack 9 enters, Packs 1–3 are outside Rotation, while Packs 4–9 plus Basic are in Rotation. Basic does not rotate.
Filtering “Unlimited” therefore does not mean “show only rotated cards.” To isolate Rotation-ineligible cards, filtering Packs 1–3 directly is clearer. Then the game says: “Nice old collection. Three copies stay in the museum.”
11. Super-Evolution versus Bane
Super-Evolution gives +3/+3 and, during your own turn, the follower takes 0 damage and cannot be destroyed by abilities. Bane destroys an opposing follower after combat damage. Bane can trigger even if damage is reduced to zero, but the Super-Evolved follower still has “cannot be destroyed by abilities” during its controller’s turn.
Therefore, your Super-Evolved follower can attack an enemy Bane follower during your own turn without dying to Bane. The protection is not permanent; the “during your turn” restriction matters.
12. How to use a 950-game simulator correctly
Nine hundred fifty games are useful. Just do not treat them as prophecy.
- Eliminate obviously weak candidates.
- Identify decks that perform consistently even under imperfect AI.
- Find severe matchup weaknesses.
- Discount decks whose power requires precise sequencing.
- Play a few real games and ask: “Does this deck make my brain tired?”
In lower ranks, simpler choice trees often reduce the number of possible mistakes. A slightly weaker deck whose strength a beginner can reproduce can outperform a harder deck with a higher expert ceiling.
13. Conclusion: if you may be bored later, having fun now has value
“Wait until the metagame settles before crafting” is rational when long-term resource efficiency is the main objective. If the real objective is “I want to play the new pack today,” waiting has an opportunity cost. You can preserve Ether perfectly and discover that, when the Tier list finally settles, you no longer care.
First choice: Rally Royal. Low memory load and game-tracked progress.
Second: Ramp/Storm Dragon. Ramp PP and play individually powerful cards.
Third: Aggro Nightmare. Short games and a direct plan.
Powerful but taxed: Combo Elf. Sequencing and damage arithmetic matter.
Powerful but skippable for this goal: AF Nemesis. Persistent type tracking.
Cutthroat: strong card; the dedicated deck is a different sport.
And the highest-tempo play of the entire release day:
Phone-order the gyoza first.
