So while I was in compderp land, we got the EP6 dungeon, craftable EP6, and evidently the EP5 event followers we were missing were added (requiring talentium sadly). Those followers are like the EP1 counterparts except the big change is traded abilities: Seron (Senpai Maid) and Layna trade abilities, and Lydia and Luna trade their abilities. The stats are a bit different, too: Event!Layna is a size 5 8/1/12 (and is actually Council) compared to Senpai's size 3 5/1/10 for instance.
Also, Vita Public School boss is best beaten with ability-less or one-shot followers (boss has built-in Amnesia that gives her one life for every deleted ability) and then straight buffing (Protip: Degradation). If you can use Vita to negate Curse of Mistrust that's awesome because her only other removal is Absolute Control, which is size 6 and thus much more likely to cause AIderps. I'd recommend holding onto at least one removal that can hit a low-size, because Visitor is here and trying to kill a Visitored Layna or Sita is a thing.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a DRare to craft Hi there El Mundo.
Also edit because :getdown: ~*~EX2~*~ :getdown: is coming. And is also huge, so step by step:
* First off is Structure decks. These are decks built around a certain archetype in each faction (Council, Maids, Witches, Seekers). The contents itself are underwhelming, except for three things: The character, a follower, and a spell. You probably won't be buying them unless you need transformation bait and want a couple of extra things. For reference:
** Vita: Council VP Tierria, Council Press Member (buffs your entire field at once), Double Student Council Kick (Exactly what it says: Kick using two followers)
** Academy: Maid Lesnoa, Producer Maid (goes and gets you more maids), Comfort Room (Costs life and bounces your own follower, but worth it if your field and hand are swarmed)
** Crux: Seeker Odien, Seeker Irene (usually only need one, sets up the rest of the deck for BUFFS), Shield Flash (One shot damage negation for Seekers)
** Darklore: Lightning Parfunte (Witches), Witch Baker (might be worth the purchase of multiple decks, see why later), Witch's Thinktank (Attack stealing if you can swarm with Witches)
* For characters: Each of the mains gets a character with a 5-card threshold ability that returns followers to your deck, and a +2/+2 buff. There's a third ability that is different based on the character and requires having less cards in-deck to activate. The cost is extreme, however: One transformation of each character.
* One of the biggest things about EX2 is the rise of character archetype decks. It's because of stuff like:
** Animal Suit <character>: Has an attack/defend ability that gets more powerful with more of that character on the field. Sita's is a Best Defense variant that is also immune to defense debuffing, Cinia does that debuff thing, Luthica does that buff thing, Iri does that pure Sta damage thing and is size 2. Beware of swarms of Bunny Iri.
** <character>'s Suit: By itself it's the vanilla buff spell -1 size, but there's also the part where two followers with the character in the name get another +1/+1
** Sword Girls <character>: The ability explicitly requires multiple "Sword Girls" followers in-deck, but you cycle through them while flinging around whatever mass buff that follower uses (Sita: +2/+1 Atk/Sta, Cinia: global +3 Sta /self -1 Size, Luthica: +1/+2 Def/Sta, Iri: global -1 Size/self +2 Sta)
** The "Esprit is messing around with a personality-reversing artifact" spell: Yanks two character archetype cards into your hand with an extra ability. Sita's gives -2 size to the drawn cards, Cinia's graves a follower with less Sta than the combined size of the cards (usually hitting 6 or less), Luthica's buffs two followers for Def equal to half the empty slots before the pull, and Iri's hits a follower for empty slots+1 Sta damage before the pull, with a bit of a meta bonus in the existence of a couple of "Iri" spells and a couple of Iri followers being added later.
** And, of course, there is your EP5 rare follower.
These cards have their own crafting line: Animal Suit and the Suit spell make up the base, Sword Girls and artifact spell are the next step up, and Halloween spell (spell copy+some other effect) being the end result.
(Before I move on, interesting thing to note: the card merely needs the character name to work for this archetype. The big winner from this is Sita's Friend Rosy, who does indeed get the extra +1 from Sita's Suit and can be pulled up alongside Battlefield Sita with Cheerful Girl.)
And now for some of the Fun Things everyone gets in EX2, outside of Structures and Characters:
* Vita:
** Followers: Swimsuit Layna (avoid buffing Def and she's immune to def debuffs and has Best Defense+1), Lib. Advisor (All of the factions get this "sac the other two in your deck for an uberfollower" gimmick, but if she has a decent amount of Sta you can Uni Tweak some insane Atk out of nowhere), Council Winfield (bottomdecking Celine variant, but attacking gets her ammo, another effect everyone gets), Lunia Scentriver (Is likely getting +1/+1 each swing, along with any abilities she may copy)
** Spells: Principal's Conversation (oh look, it's Sense of Belonging to the hand that hits spells and is half the size), Keepsake (DRare, but can get some use out of a near-dead large follower or be instantly cheesed with the size 7s from EP6), Halloween Minidevil (has the spellcopy all the Halloween cards have, and can easily do 6+ to the dome of some unlucky follower. Great once you're buffed), Broken Land (Two followers are immune to the next thing that swings at them, barring abilities), Hot Item (SWARM), Nightmare (combine with something with low Atk to make an opposing follower squishy and get a beatstick of your own. Later on, combine with Council Monthly to make an opposing follower dead and get a 6 Def beatstick of your own)
* Academy:
** Followers: Occult Lady Charlotte (play her with Entry Denied, and she'll tank for the turn and then kill an opposing follower), Shock Lady (can tick swarms to death), L Cinia (Negates any damage done to her on the first turn unless she dies or it's endgame), Occult Lady Rainia (effectively 6/4/8 size 2 Lady, makes using Meeting Master effectively much easier), Envy Lady (see Winfield)
** Spells: Table Manners (Only hits size 3+, but it denies the targeted size for the next turn when it does connect), Halloween Countess (Sage's Sermon on crack), Inevitable Choice (a buffing spell for Lady decks, although it's hurt a bit due to the difficulty in getting lots of strong cards on the board with a Lady deck), Everyday Discovery (if nothing else, this will get rid of that damn Over The Wall'd Layna), Meeting (Meta as all hell steal, or you can use it in mirrors to steal their CW Cinia or take an Academy character to Lig and steal all of her followers)
* Crux:
** Followers: Seeker Melissa (see Winfield again), Seeker Amethystar (size 4 10/1/11 if everything fires, bonus if you can recover abilities), Dual Blade Knight (Great if you can spam spells harder than your opponent, or if you need something to eat an opposing Amnesia ability), Crux Knight Suimi (the potential is there if the opponent isn't using a swarm deck), Indomitable Knight Pintail (big stats, and if you can deal with the self-destructive ability even better)
** Spells: Supplies Transfer (weenie first, all your other followers after that, potential +9/+9), Fellowship (swarm murderer... as long as your opponent isn't Crux), Church Meeting (does the "burn off weak followers to follow with direct shots" thing better than Curse), Relieve Post (buff variant of Push Forward), Summer Day Memory (SWARM)
* Darklore:
** Followers: Witch Einherjar (Size 2 Witch with a little defense debuffing meaning she's effectively 6/1/5 against most), GS 2nd Star (see Winfield AGAIN), Nether Conductor Charon (Lategame superstar as long as the EP2 rare followers aren't around), Irin Flina (unless you draw pure spells, it shouldn't be too hard to get constant +1/+1s), Crescent Unit Gungnir (better than Business Witch for Enigmas cheese, mostly because you can use Scardel Rites right afterwards if you discarded a follower and with proper positioning get a size 1 16/3/16 with a large follower in front to eat swaps.), Witch Baker (You need at least two of these, but if a Witch Baker attacks with another copy in your hand, it can very quickly make all of your in-hand followers size 1)
** Spells: Heart Barrier (a bunch of Sta for 1 size can help for quick patchups if you mix factions), Stakeout (aimable def kill if something gets out of hand), Halloween Wolf (hi I am playing a size 2 Luna Flina/Undertaker/Lantern Witch/whatever other high-size btw nice spell), Master of the Night (obviously not for use with Undertaker and is effectively one-shot, but that one shot can easily be above El Mundo damage), Summoning Ritual (either it slightly cheats in a one-turn meatshield for you or you get a follower with some nice stats)
* Neutral:
** Followers: 2S 18 (neutral Tailor Maid that gets you 1 life a turn), Enz Iniem (kinda gimmicky self-buffer. Works best with stuff that can reset defense or benefits from low defense), Succubus Vivace (Kinda like a neutral IKPintail), 3rd Witness Kana DKD (the booster NDR of the set, and is very simple: attack followers for 12, attack characters for 5, take forever to kill. Who needs these "abilities"?)
** Spells: Ruin's End (The ultimate in reset buttons. The NDR spell of the set, but eventually craftable for, oh, 2k of the EX2 drops), Red and White (Buff spell for mixed decks), True Vampire God (if you can somehow play a Neutral-heavy deck, this card will get you and your followers a lot of health)
