Guide to a Deck: Ulith

Ulith is a potent deck. Having access to some of the best cards for defence, and having a vast option for gaining resource and chipping in damage, Ulith's main way of winning is outgrinding your opponent. Using cards such as Enigma Aura, Ulith can easily bring herself out of the lethal zone, since any form of field removal won't help in doing extra damage, as well as having multiple low-costed or free ways to defend herself, making killing an Ulith deck with the ideal setup extremely hard.

Due to all of these low-costed ways of defending herself and utility she has access to, Ulith stood and still stands as one of the best anti-meta decks in the game, being able to counter the key strategies of quite a number of decks. To name a few, there is Midoriko/Mel with their Retribution, Hanayo who has a limited amount of Attack Phase banishes, and so on.

Ulith, Scorching Enma

Overview

I'm still running out of things I can say in this section. I tend to put in all of the important stuff in the other sections, afterall. I could praise Ulith about being anti-meta here, of how Scorching is one of the best Uliths around, but I will probably cover those later on anyways.

How the Deck Works 

Scorching Enma is one of Ulith's best level 4 options. Not only does she provide resources, which was one of Ulith's greatest dilemma since a long time ago, she also supplies a great form of defence in her Exceed. Having 4 shots, most likely 2 shots, of defence that doesn't require Ener, and can block one attack (in most cases) is great, blocking OTKO tactics, namely Retribution. The cost is migated with Three Paths Enma  if you use her. The presence of Scorching itself limits your opponent's options, making her ideal for a deck like Ulith. Plus, her On-Play skill isn't half bad either, being able to deck thin, fetch out something that you can tutor out using Salvaging skills, or getting Elechair, Ariton, Ifirid and the likes into the trash. Scorching is flexible and versatile, making her a great LRIG.

Of course, Vermilion isn't bad either, but Vermilion can't counter a lot of Double Crush cards, nor can she gain resource like Scorching does. Especially in the ener department.

Now, to talk about the MVP of the deck; Enigma Aura. Enigma Aura is one of Ulith's bones and flesh, providing Ulith something no other deck has. Enigma Aura is an extremely powerful card. While it may not seem so at one glance, gaining more Life Cloth, no matter what amount, is a great deal. If you were at 0 Life Cloth, and your opponent had a Souryuu field, gaining that 3 Life Cloth can help a lot. Something that may have killed you at 0 Life Cloth or the likes won't be able to kill you at 3, unless they're Red. Plus, using ARTS, you can extend your life span, or even Scorching. Hell, it even synergizes with things like Crisis/Penalty Chance. The former is more common nowadays, but the latter can also work against On-Attack Banishes.

Another thing worth mentioning is Ulith's level 5, Enma of Empty Fortune. Empty Fortune herself is pretty good, turning all of your Life Cloth, which you could gain using Enigma Aura, into Life Bursts. Banishing anything is extremely good. The cost reduction and the Guard Block are good, but in a way gimmicky. The biggest reason to use Empty Fortune, however, is because she gives you access to level 5 SIGNIs, which are great. Hellboros is golden and helps in certain matchups, as well as synergizing with things such as Elechair, and the other level 5, Amonowl, is extremely troublesome, since a 15k base makes a somewhat decent wall, and she makes most things virtually immortal, as well as synergizing too well with Anna Mirage.

While Enigma is extremely good, it isn't exactly consistent. Even with 4, there are games in where you never get Enigma off due to never getting one into hand. For this, there's †ALCA† who can make Enigma Spam extremely easy. I'm not too fond of the idea, but it does certainly work.

It's worth noting however that Enigma is prone to various things, namely Pinch, Blue Punish, and ARTS that remove SIGNI in field in general. However, if you use †ALCA† enough times to bait all of those out and manage to stall the game with Scorching, Enigma will still come in handy.

Going on with the Enigma rant, Enigma Aura synergizes greatly with Daihouika. After the draws that Daihouika provides you, Enigma can remove Daihouika from the field, removing the discard effect. Daihouika, with this, is a net +2 in most cases towards your hand, and Field to Hand conversion is great, especially since Enigma eats away your resources. Daihouika also helps you chip in damage, which will eventually lead to your victory.

On the topic of chipping in damage, we have things such as Anna Mirage and Diabolos. Anna Mirage synergizes especially well with Scorching's Exceed, and Diabolos can banish at least one thing in the field, since most decks have a limit of 11, unless you use Level 5s or Vanilla LRIGs. Aside from that, Metsum and Metsumi are technically damage dealers, since they force your opponent to refresh. Those two can also help you deckout, if you only have 2 cards in your deck and Enigma is then unable to recover 3 Life Cloth.

Aside from these, Ulith has a lot of tech-ins. She has a lot of solid SIGNI, overall, mostly in level 4. Teching only 1 in works too, since you can retrieve them with your salvages, such as Three Path Enma,  Violence Jealousy and the likes. Anyways, these techs consist of things such as the pre-mentioned Anna Mirage, Diabolos and Metsum, then in addition, Luciferl, Shiva, Daewa, Astaruth, Paimon and the likes. Luciferl for it's Life Burst and On-Play that can be synergized with Scorching, Shiva for the Action, if you'll use it ever, Daewa for the synergy with Violence Jealousy and the likes, and Astaruth for the wall. All of these techs are respectfully good in their own rights, it's up to preference which to use, and to not use.

Aside from these, the noteworthy SIGNIs are the level 1s and 2s. Namely, starting off with Baal. Baal makes the perfect Scorching fodder in most cases, acting as a net +1 alone. Then we have Skanda and Ganesha  who can help you get your Violence Jealousies back from the trash, as well as synergizing with Heike. Parva is also a good card for salvaging things, turning Violence Jealousy into a free salvage.

That should be it for SIGNI options, so let's look at ARTS, and we should be done here.

Ulith is, for obvious reasons, the best LRIG for Four Color Miasma. Being able to choose 3, when 2 was already ridiculous, is great.

Aside from Miasma, Penalty is a definite staple, due to the fact that when combined with Enigma, it's a free, and I mean absolutely free ARTS that stops one deadly thing whenever you want it to. Grave Gut is great for salvaging, and good overall. There's Bloody Slash which is overall a good card as it always tends to be, and helps getting rid of cards such as Hellboros. Black Desire is a thing, but rarely seen nowadays. Demon Tomb and Devil to Devil are not worth the space. They aren't exactly bad, but are extremely situational and you have better options. Withered Tree, Living Flower isn't a bad option. It can help in getting rid of annoying threats, such as Hellboros and the likes. Next Punish is an option, being able to get rid of things and combo with others. A whole ARTS zone isn't exactly the best payoff ever, though.

Validity in the meta

Ulith is a Tier 1 deck in my opinion. With Enigma and all the other various utility Ulith has access to, Ulith can live out against most decks while doing slow damage. One flaw, however, is that Ulith's winning image consists of not dying as much as possible, rather than trying to win, but in the end that will probably lead to your victory.

Ulith Nihilism

Overview

Ulith, Enma of Nihilism is what Ulith would look like if she went full autistic. Nihilism requires you to have 3 cards with different colors to grow into, which makes you need to use a multi-colored deck to make Nihilism work. This isn't the easiest thing ever, since Ulith doesn't have any friends outside of her color. While generic all-round good colored SIGNI exist, namely Daihouika, ones that synergize especially well with Ulith isn't common, turning into an all-out jumble. However though, Nihilism does have a few benefits. Namely, her constant of letting her remove the limiting conditions on ARTS and Spells lets her do interesting things, making her hard to predict. Her skill of changing everything into Multi Ener is also good, letting Nihilism use most Multi-Colored ARTS without problems, such as Dragon Extinguishing Chain.

Overall, while Nihilism may have a few problems of having to run a number of off-colored cards, she is definitely interesting and has potential.

How the Deck Works 

The most common reason on why people use Nihilism decks seems to be because of Ancient Wave. Ancient Wave is certainly a great card. In the perfect situation, you can pull off a net +2 with this card, while banishing your opponent's SIGNI and crushing a Life Cloth. Crushing a Life Cloth is especially major, since cards that can do so are few in number. Then, when you get them low enough in Life Cloth, you can finish them off with Western Gunshot and the likes.

Some of the flaws in this case, though, is that you can't use either of Ancient Wave nor Western Gunshot until you reach level 5, which can lead to multiple problems. Ancient Wave takes up space for another ARTS that you could have used in it's place, and Western would be rendered into a dead draw most of the time. Even then, the combo may prove to be useful at times.

Another common usage of Nihilism is Snorop. Snorop is a great hassle to handle, and once you get the setup, you turn immortal against decks that can't do anything to remove all 3. Plus, her Life Burst is perfect in getting the cost to grow into Nihilism, it's basically like Snorop was made for Nihilism. Common Destiny also synergizes well with Snorop, which also synergizes well with Nihilism. Snorop in general is a potent card, albeit the fact that you need to setup into make it work.

Plus, having Snorop on top of having Enigma Aura makes it really hard for your opponent to kill you.

Anyways, to name a few all-round good cards that are off-color, we have THREE OUT, Three Swords, §Otagame§, Mikamune, Kayappa, Suzumeda, Suzubira, Daihouika, and so on. Fracturing Lust would also work, but it doesn't synergize well with Snorop. Of course, if we add in the spells that are limited, I could go on, but those are really up to preference.

Validity in the meta

Nihilism doesn't have a very high ranking in my book. She belongs in a Tier 2- rating for me. Her strategies are greatly flawed and slow in my eyes, and whether they work or not is very matchup reliant in some cases. Her unpredictability doesn't matter much since her most strategies would probably be predictable, and the other strategies aren't nearly impactful enough to make differences in most cases. That being said, she is still an extremely fun deck to play around with, and still has her benefits as Ulith and a little bit more.