AW Deck Building 101

AWK Deck Building 101
There are 4 main deck types aside from hodgepodge decks:  blitz deck, beatdown deck, debuff deck, and passive crit decks.  The damage numbers and speed I'm posting are estimates, actual results will vary depending upon exactly what cards you are using and your elemental building development.

I'm not going to list every single card, every single play style, ect.  This is mostly to get players a basic idea.  No I'm not going to list stuff like a debuff deck with a skill unleasher, or a beatdown deck with a 350% UR element specific buffer.  This is a guide, not a comprehensive list of every possible card combination.  Also people aren't stupid, they can figure out basic stuff for themselves.  When a player sees me talk about 200% AoE buffers, they are capable of figuring out that 300% AoE UR buffers could also work.

Obtainability – Roughly 75% of the SR cards you get from AW will be the AW's SR.  This makes the current AW card's ability much easier to get, which will often be used to form the backbone of your first AWK deck.  Other reliable sources of specific cards are Limited Enemy events (when they are going on, which like 6 a year) and Goddess Worship.

Ultimately, we are all slaved to the whim of nubee and the random nature of AW chests.  If nubee has an event where the AW is a critter, collect crit cards in the hopes of making a blitz deck.  If nubee has an event where the AW is a 300% self buffer or a turn skipper, collect cards to make a beatdown deck.  If nubee has a debuffer available from Goddess Worshipping, join an active alliance and make a debuff deck.  The decks we make to kill AW will be based on what nubee makes available to us.

Just because there might not be any good easily obtainable cards at the time, doesn't mean we won't get them eventually.  Nubee makes decent cards available fairly often.

Speed - very important aspect of a deck, as killing an AW in 10 seconds versus 50 seconds can have a huge impact on the amount of return you get from the time you spend playing VC.

Overkill - how much damage over 940,500 you deal to a regular AW.  The point of this is to get more points per BP you spend.  If you deal only ~950,000 damage to an AW, you'll get ~5,000 points.  If you deal ~940,000 plus 999,999 damage to an AW, you'll get ~7,700 points per AW.  This used to be a huge issue for ranking as each BP you spent past a certain point cost you swords/time/money, however with 0 bp FAW, points aren't as important per bp as they used to be.

Debuff Deck
1 decent HSR attacker with max attack, 2 or 3 attack debuffers, 1 or 2 healers.

Attacker – Should be a 1* or higher.  20%/350% cards are okay, critters are okay and can eventually be transitioned to a blitz deck.  If the card isn't max attack, it can take 60+ turns to kill an AW, but at least you'll be able to kill the AW.  Life drain SRs such as Soul Eater, Alp, or Joker can make debuff decks using only 1 healer easier to manage.  A debuff deck can not have attack buffers, as an attack buff may trigger AW field, which removes all buffs and debuffs.

Debuffer – R debuffers exist and are fairly easy to get from FAW chests.  With 5 debuffs, witch wave (the high damage single target aw ability) deals ~7,000 damage. The AW will tap for ~400 damage.  You'll want debuffers such as Penemue, Harariel, The Poor, Oneiros, Ginger, Delphinus, Halfelf, Patrol, or The Poor (evolution accident of Millionaire).  You want 3 proc debuffers, not battle start garbage.

Healer – Healers are currently obtainable from goddess worship and are occasionally obtainable as AWs.  You can also use HR healers if you don't have any SR healers.  AoE healers are better than single target healers.  If you need 5+ heals to beat an AW, you'll want infinite proc healers.  If you only need 3 heals to beat an AW, a 3 proc max healer is fine.  If you are using only 1 healer, you'll want one with a high proc chance.

Pros:  Very easy to make.  Only need to max the attack on a single card.  Can use up to 4 HR cards.
Cons:  Slow.  Low overkill.  Has a lot of difficulty with witch brew AWs, as you have to selectively save debuffs for when the AW buffs her own attack, which trumps debuffs.  You don't make a debuff deck because it's good (it's not), you make a debuff deck because the cards needed are easy to get compared to getting good SR cards.  Can only kill FAW if you have really good cards.

Speed:  25 to 35 turns for AW, 60 to impossible turns for FAW.  These numbers based on a max attack damage dealer.
Overkill:  bad
Obtainability:  Relatively easy, R cards drop often from FAW and the attacker can just be whatever the current AW damage dealer is.

Beatdown Deck
1 300% self buffer with max attack, 0 or 1 healers, and 3 or 4 good turn skippers.

300% Self Buffer – You want the card to have at least 9,000 soldiers, so you want 1*s or higher and you'll want to max her attack.  Nubee occasionally offers easy to get self buffers as AWs, limited enemies, and AB rewards.  You can currently get an HSR Matador from the Amusement coin exchange for 72,000 coins (36,000 coins each).  Do not get her until you have enough coins for 2, because in the amount of time it takes you to get 72,000 coins, there's a decent chance nubee will have an easy to obtain self buffer.  I do not recommend using HR self buffers as they have a lower percentage buff, less soldiers, and nubee hands out 300% self buffers relatively often.  You only want 'anytime' buffers, not battle start or near defeat buffers.

Turn Skippers – R buffers are crap.  Battle start and near defeat cards are crap.  Turn skips stack.  Ideally you want skippers who skip 3 turns per proc with 2 procs each, as that gives you 6 turns per card.  With 3 such cards, that's 18 turns where the AW can't cast AW Field (which removes buffs), aw wave, or attack.  18 turns is plenty of time for your max attack self buffer to kill the AW, though obviously 24 turns is better.  You might want to save your turn skips until your self buffer procs, though this can vary from situation to situation.  Because you can have up to 24 turns where the AW can't attack, using SR turn skippers is okay, though you'll want to max the skill for all 4 of them so you have a good proc chance.  In past events, the existance of Reindeer Girl (AW) and Eir (limited enemy) made getting 4 turn skippers very easy.

Healer – A good healer can help keep your team at full health while you wait for your turn skippers and self buffer to proc.  This card is optional though, as an additional turn skipper works fine too.

19,999 attacker with +300% self buff = ~80k damage per tap

Pros – At times, these decks can be easy to make depending upon what nubee has made available.  You only need to max the attack of a single card.  Very reliable.  Faster than a debuff deck.
Cons – Poor at FAW, as 24 turns isn't enough time to deal 3.5 million damage.  It is possible for such a deck to kill a FAW, but only when you get luck when the FAW doesn't cast AW Field and doesn't use her attack abilities once your turn skips run out.

Speed:  12 to 30 turns for AW, 50 to 70 turns for FAW but you'll need luck
Overkill:  horrible
Obtainability:  300% self buffers are available from nubee fairly often, however GOOD turn skippers aren't as common.  Since this deck can use 0* SR turn skippers though, it's not too bad.

Blitz Deck
200% AoE buffers, Lilims (1000% single target buff), Critters, 30% 350% damage, 300% self buffers, 300% Single target buffers are okay but unreliable.  No Rs.  2 to 5 buffers, 0 to 3 good damage cards.  If you use Lilim or 300% Single target buffers, all of the cards on your blitz deck need to be max attack.  If you are using 200% AoE buffers, just the attack cards need to be max attack.  Because Critters are fairly easy to get from crit AWs and work well, 3 critters with 2 200% AoE buffer decks is common.

19,999 attack criter + 200% buff = 770k damage per crit
19,999 attack +300% self buffer + 200% buff = ~290k per tap
19,999 attack 350% proc with +300% buff = ~300k damage
19,999 attack 350% proc with +200% buff = ~200k damage
19,999 attack card with 1000% Lilim buff = ~220k damage per tap
19,999 attack card with 1000% Lilim buff and 200% buff = ~700k
19,999 attack card with 200% buff = ~60k per tap
19,999 attack card with 2x 200% buff = ~180k per tap

A lot of these damage numbers are for people with 2x elemental buildings.

Pros:  Kills fast.
Cons:  Difficult to make.  Can take a lot of medals.

Speed:  1 to 10 turns for AW, 1 to 19 turns for FAW.
Overkill:  Easy
Obtainability:  Very difficult.  While basic critters are fairly easy to obtain from event AWs, 200% AoE buffers and Lilims can be very very rare.  It's not uncommon for players to use 0* SRs for their AoE buffers and Lilims early on until they can gather more cards.

Passive Crit Deck
This deck idea isn't good, I'm only putting this here because I think it's interesting and that High Vampires can now be obtained from friendship summons.

3 High Vampires, who can be obtained from Friendship Summons
2 HSR Crit cards with at least 2 procs each and max attack

19,999 attack criter + 75% from 3 High Vampires = ~300k damage per crit
19,999 attack card + 75% from 3 High Vampires = ~21k damage per tap

Pros:  None
Cons:  You have to max the attack of 2 cards rather than 1 compared to decks such as Debuff and Beatdown.  The deck has horrible reliability, and just generally sucks.