Finally, the Phantom Thieves are here. Finally! Though … do we dare speculate how much errata will be needed?

The Deck

WS Decks link: All Out Attack

Quick stats:

Colors : 28 yellow / 20 red / 2 green

: 28 yellow / 20 red / 2 green Level 0 = 15 characters

= 15 characters Level 1 = 8 characters

= 8 characters Level 2 = 6 characters

= 6 characters Level 3 = 9 characters

= 9 characters Events = 4

= 4 Cards with triggers (excluding CX cards) = 15

Level 0



3x Protagonist: The Will of Rebellion

Once per turn, when you use an act, give one of your characters +500 power for the turn.

BRAINSTORM: Pay 1 / rest 2 / flip 4. For each CX revealed, search your deck for up to 1 character.





4x Ryuji: It’s a Deal

On play, you may discard a card to put a “Calling Card” from your WR to hand.



2x Makoto: It’s a Deal

Global +500 to all characters.

Rest her to give one of your characters the following ability until end of turn: when the battle opponent of this becomes reversed, you may put the top card of your opponent’s clock to WR – if so, put the reversed character into their clock.



4x Morgana as MONA: The Phantom Guide

Free runner.



2x Ann as PANTHER: Quiet Rage

Global +500 to all characters.

When damage from your direct attack isn’t cancelled, you may send a face-down card from your opponent’s memory to WR. If you do, you may pay 1 to salvage a character.

Level 1



2x Ryuji Sakamoto

He gets +500 power for each of your other or characters.



4x Morgana as MONA: It’s a Deal

BACKUP 1000, level 1: Drop this to WR.

When you use the BACKUP, if you have a character, give an additional +1000 power to your character in battle.



2x Protagonist (P5)

When he attacks, give one of your other characters X power for the turn, where X = 500 times the number of your other characters.



4x Calling Card

If there’s no face-down card in your opponent’s memory, they put a card from their hand face-down into their memory & draw a card.

Look at up to 4 cards from the top of your deck, choose up to 1 character from among them, put it into your hand and put the rest into WR.

You may return a cost 0 or lower character from your opponent’s center stage to their hand.

Level 2



4x Protagonist as JOKER: All-out Attack

If you have 4 or more characters, he gets -1 level in your hand.

CX COMBO w/ THE SHOW’S OVER: When his battle opponent becomes reversed, if you have 4 or more other characters, draw a card & search your deck for up to 1 level 1 or lower character.



2x Protagonist: Prisoner of Fate

During your turn, all characters in front of this get +X power, where X = 1000 times the level of that character.

All your other “Protagonist as JOKER & Arsene” get +500 power and the following ability: When the battle opponent of this becomes reversed, you may scry 1 & put it either back on top or into the WR.

Level 3



3x Protagonist as JOKER & Arsene

He gets +500 power for each of your other characters.

Heals on play.

At the beginning of your encore step, if every slot in your opponent’s front row is either empty or reversed, you may pay 3 and discard a character to WR. If you do, perform the following action for each character in your front row: “Reveal the top card of your deck, put it on the bottom of your deck and deal X damage to your opponent, where X = the level of the revealed card.” Shuffle your deck at the end.



4x Ann as PANTHER: All-out Attack

On play, draw up to 1 card and she gets +2000 power for the turn.

CX COMBO w/ omg!! We are SO awesome: When her battle opponent becomes reversed, put up to 1 character from your WR to stock & deal 1 damage to your opponent.





2x Morgana as MONA & Zorro

If you have 2 or less climaxes in your WR, she gets -1 level in hand.

Heals on play.

If you have 2 or more other characters, she gets +2000 power for the turn when she attacks.

Climaxes



4x THE SHOW’S OVER

1k1soul, WIND trigger.



4x omg!! We are SO awesome

1k1soul, GATE trigger

Analysis

I have a strong bias towards this set, because black-red is one of my favorite color combos, and Persona 5 is all about black & red. But unlike CANAAN, Black Rock Shooter some of my other Weiss obsessions, this one actually works in a competitive environment … with some unfortunate exceptions.

You’re definitely gonna run yellow in a meta P5 deck – the only other question is what you’ll put beside it. I’d say both Yellow-Red and Yellow-Blue are about equally as viable, with the latter being more defensively-focused than this build, which fully supports the idea of an all out attack. Mono Yellow or tri-color works too – I’ll get to that later on.

Side note: I’ll be referring to Protagonist as Akira to avoid confusion between the character and the actual card name.

Level 0

Your most essential level 0 card is the free runner: it forces your opponent to direct attack, bringing you to level 1 faster, and it keeps itself alive. Because of the early play condition on the 2/1 Akira, the early game board presence is absolutely vital in this deck, and in that regard, a runner is even better than it already is.

Having either of the global supports in the back isn’t really necessary from the get go, unless you feel the need to use Makoto’s effect to prevent your opponent from encoring their 0s – but screwing with encore is just as useful even if you don’t get her on board until level 1. You won’t be able to use Ann’s second effect until you use the Calling Card event for the first time either, so her utility also increases when you hit level 1.

However, depending on how many of the 2/1 Akira you have in hand, you might wanna use the brainstormer and hope to grab more copies of the early play combo if you need them. Later in the game, you’ll mostly be using the brainstorm to search for pieces of your finishing setup, since everything else is already up for grabs with the 2/1 Akira’s combo.

Last but not least, being able to continuously switch around Calling Card with the 0/0 Ryuji is pretty awesome for a consistent hand filter & deck mill. If you have the event in your opening hand, it’s actually more in your favor to discard it and hope to get the early play Akira instead, since you’ll be able to get the event back sooner or later with 4 copies of this Ryuji in the deck.

Level 1

The main star of level 1 is the 2/1 Akira’s climax combo. You want to hit level 1 before your opponent does, have 4 characters on stage and then early play this combo: you won’t always succeed in filling the whole front row with it (and even if you do, if your opponent is still at level 0, you probably wont even have 3 lanes to reverse), but getting two of him out in play as soon as you hit level 1 already gives you a nice advantage. While drawing a card might still get you flooded with climaxes if you’re unlucky, the search still thins out your deck little by little – and the “level 1 or lower” requirement for the character you’ll be searching out prevents you from setting up your end game, it does allow you to stock up on the Morgana backup.

And with that backup in hand, the frail 2/1 Akira becomes a potential problem on your opponent’s turn. It can still get reversed (mainly by SAO and AOT), but no matter what your opponent is playing, they’re gonna have to be dead close to their optimum board setup to tackle two or even three potential 9k – 10k characters (depending on what’s in your back row). And don’t forget – the backup is an ACT ability, meaning it triggers the brainstormer’s +500 effect: so you can either have one 2.5k backup, or give the 2k to one character and the +500 to another … because holy shit, denying someone two reverses with one card will never not feel great.

And if you were lucky enough to both draw into another wind climax & have your Akiras survive the turn, you can repeat the whole process again – or try to, since getting reverses on level 1s won’t be as easy (not impossible though).

The other two level 1s are more or less fillers in case you can’t pull of the early play combo, or if you need more power for it to reverse something. The 1/0 Ryuji has 6.5k with a full board or 7.5k with two globals behind him, which is always super nice for a costless character, and the trial deck Protagonist‘s on-attack boost can easily help you secure a kill even in the face of a counter.

And wrapping up the level 1 line up, we have the Calling Card event, which I love for multiple reasons:

It lets you disrupt your opponent’s setup, even if just a little. Many times, them having to replace a card in hand won’t matter as much, but towards the end of the game, when all the resources are focused on their finisher combo? Yeah, you might get some nasty looks as they choose what exactly they can risk losing from hand. Most of the time, you’ll be removing one clean damage from the top of their deck by making them draw a card, but unless they have a good poker face, you’ll know exactly when they drew a climax instead … trust me, you’ll know. 😉

Being able to mill through your deck at will is worth its weight in gold.

You might not get much of a choice from the 4 cards you can look at, but you’ll almost always get to pick up something useful – unless you mill something like three climaxes and one more event 😦

Last but not least, the bounce effect is … a little more situational. You generally want your opponent to have characters out for you to reverse, but if you’re only playing the 2/1 Akira in two lanes and something weaker in the 3rd one, feel free to bounce the character in that lane back into your opponent’s hand if you wanna push for more damage through a direct attack.

Level 2

If you can early play the Morgana healer, great – but no worries if you can’t. What you really want to do at level 2 is get at least one Prisoner of Fate in your back row: that card pretty much embodies the offensive focus of this build – you want reverses, and you want them bad. You could play other supports for your level 3s, but none of them are as aggressive as this “+1000 times level” effect, and with the 3/2 Joker’s requirement of reversing all non-empty lanes to be able to burn, you really don’t wanna risk losing to a counter.

Level 3

Speaking of the Joker … this shit ain’t no joke. No, my puns have indeed not improved. Thank you for noticing ♥. But good things come in moderation, and this card is no different: technically, nothing is stopping you from playing 3 of them and trying to burn 9 times, but that would require you to hit level 3 with 12 stock, and if you’ve somehow managed that … GG.

Every now and then, you might be able to pull the effect off twice, and even that is usually an overkill, but Panther’s combo at least helps you out a little with that, and even if you only play down one Joker and two Panthers, you’ll still get up to 5 separate instances of burn, not to mention the 2 extra stock from the combo.

The big question, however, is whether you’ll actually be able to reverse things. On a full board with one global assist and one Prisoner of Fate, the Joker can have between 12k and 15k power, and Panther can reach 12.5k or 15.5k on the turn she’s played, depending on the board placement. Add an additional +1000 form her climax and you’re good to go against a lot of things. If you have two Prisoners of Fate instead, even better.

Speaking of which, don’t forget the on-reverse scry he gives to the Joker: whenever possible, you want to attack with the Joker last so that you can get rid of a climax or a level 0 you wouldn’t want to reveal for the burn effect right after.

Climaxes

Salvage and wind triggers, the latter extremely helpful in times of crisis. I’ve had games where I knew I couldn’t reverse all lanes and just went all out with Joker to push for damage, but then came the wind trigger … and then came sweet, sweet victory.

Important stuff to keep in mind when playing:

All characters are

This deck has one main agenda and most of the time, you wanna stick to it like a blind person following a guard rail: early play the 2/1, fill your hand with backups, ensure level 3 reverses and burn, burn, burn!

As I’ve previously said, this is an extremely offense-focused build . God help protect your level 3s on defense, because even your backups might not suffice.

. God help protect your level 3s on defense, because even your backups might not suffice. Stating the obvious: you’ll do great against decks that you can reverse & decks that don’t have anti-salvage.

If you can’t get your reverses off, that’s a huge problem (so if AOT’s Eren reverses you before you reverse them … you’ll have a tough time generating enough advantage to do anything).

Besides the elusive setups like Attack on Titan is known for, your other enemy are decks with invasive board control – for example, if an Abyssal player manages to clear your back row with the Hoppo combo before you play your 2/1 Akira, it’s going to be harder for you to fulfill the early play requirement, depleting your hand size more than necessary or ultimately delaying the combo until it will no longer be as relevant.

Lucky enough, Log Horizon’s presence in the English meta is abysmal – because nothing can hurt your finishers more than anti-burn.

A match-up with sets that can prevent you from playing backups (like SAO or Monogatari) is not as crippling, but still not good at all.

All things considered, it’s a strong deck, but it has a fair share of unfavorable match-ups. However, I’d say the two which really shut you down would be Log Horizon because of the anti-burn and Attack on Titan because of how unlikely you are to reverse anything at level 1 and/or everything at level 3 (and with an Armin backing things up, not even triggering a wind pulls you out of that mess).

Possible changes & other card options

Usually, I’d hand out honorable mentions by color, but besides the level 0 Makoto global assist, green doesn’t really have a lot of interesting things to offer other than a clock-shooter level 3 that lacks power to actually reverse things and an inferior Silica clone. The green Calling Card gives the clock-shoot ability to a character of your choice, but then sends itself to memory, making the 0/0 Ryuji rather useless.

*Editing this in because it’s now hella relevant:

If you want to play Persona 5 as an AOT counter anti-meta deck, play the YGB version with the 2/1 early play Haru stock charge wall, created and explained in detail in this video by Connor Pelham. Personally, the YR build is still more fun for me to play, but that’s just my biased opinion – Haru gets the job done and I won’t lie, seeing the expression on your opponent’s face after they just can’t reverse anything is a special kind of fun too.

With that out of the way, I’d like to focus first on what can be changed within this Y/R build, and second on how a Y/B or a tri-color deck would look like.

Y/R changes

As said and proved many times before, yellow is a good color in P5. As such, it has a lot more options to offer than just what’s in this build, but some of those are more viable than others.

There’s a drop search if you want one, or a level 0 beater that mills you even more, possibly getting more Calling Cards into your WR to grab – but the runner is still much more likely to stay on board than this, so keep that in mind.

If you don’t wanna use the Calling Card combo to salvage, you can instead use it for searching your deck & filtering your hand with this level 1 Ryuji global assist.

A lot of JP Persona 5 decks run the level 1 Joker switch combo with Thief Clad in Black & Lurking in the Dark, and rightly so because it’s not a bad combo, but it banks on being able to set up whichever Joker benefits from your opponent’s colors. It works if your opponent runs green/red or yellow/blue – none of which is common in the current EN meta (seeing as the two most prominent sets at the moment, SAO and AOT run blue/green and red/yellow respectively), so it’s way too likely that your opponent will be able to deny your 3k boost no matter which one of them you bring out.

yellow/blue – none of which is common in the current EN meta (seeing as the two most prominent sets at the moment, SAO and AOT run blue/green and red/yellow respectively), so it’s way too likely that your opponent will be able to deny your 3k boost no matter which one of them you bring out. The 3/2 Ryuji isn’t a bad climax combo (better yet if you’re not playing against something that has hexproof), but while it does help clear out lanes for the Joker to trigger, the fact that it combos with a yellow stock-soul makes it less favorable than Panther’s gate. But if you happen to play against a lot of anti-salvage, by all means, do run this one instead.

Speaking of hexproof characters: the trial deck level 3 is another character you can easily play at a few copies if you want to go mono yellow.

The other red options are more or less predictable for the color in question:

A level 0 and level 1 suicider.

An on-attack hand plussing combo, which remains inferior to the 2/1 Akira despite not having to reverse anything. Unless you want to run 8 gates for some reason, in which case … well, I’m not gonna stop you.

No reason to run the salvage Calling Card when you can have the yellow Akatsuki one instead.

If you want to keep the colors and still be a little more defensive, you can add in a copy or two of the Ann level assist.

No, this is not a viable card. Yes, I am tempted to make a deck about it. Get in loser, we’re going to steal some hearts.

Before adding any red to level 1, keep in mind that the level 1 lineup has been kept yellow only (excluding the backup, which you won’t play on stage 99.99% of the time) on purpose so that even if you level up with only 1 yellow card in your level zone, you still have unobstructed chances of hitting the early play requirement for the 2/1 Akira.

Y/B build

While still using the Joker as its main finisher, this deck runs a vastly different end game, one that balances the power on your turn and on your opponent’s turn, making you less likely to get reverses, but also less likely to get all your level 3s killed instantly.

Instead of the Panther combo, you have the Futaba assist which uses a pants climax & a scry ability to prevent you from taking damage. Meanwhile, the Morgana early play is replaced by this Yusuke which can heal repeatedly while also keeping itself or any other character alive with a 4k boost during your opponent’s turn. Just as a side note: it doesn’t make sense to run the Futaba in full numbers, so you can consider adding either of the previously mentioned yellow level 3s to the mix as well.

The blue Calling Card is decent by itself, but actually becomes worth it if you run the 1/0 Yusuke to grab it instead of the 0/0 Ryuji. The downside here is that first of all, he’s extremely weak the turn you play him unless you’re already using the event that same turn, and second of all, it’s a blue level one which might result in you not having enough characters for the early play if you level up without blue. He’s fun on defense, but for a more reliable blue attacker, I’d either choose this beater or this Futaba that gets an on-play boost.

Even without level 1 cards, blue is still easily splashed at level 0 with cards like Swimsuit Futaba to combo with Calling Card and this one to avoid suiciders. Oh, and did I mention Futaba also has a level 2 free-fresh backup?

Tri-color build

A 3 color build in Persona actually isn’t far from the Y/B deck at all, because even if you’re running the Futaba level 2 backup and level 0 beater, you still really want to have the Morgana backup and the runner, and at that point you already have 6-8 red cards in there, so what’s stopping you from running a few others as well?

So if you want to play Y/R/B, try combining the above options into whatever suits your playstyle the most. Personally, I’d still try to keep level 1 mostly yellow, I’d run Futaba assist and her climax, and either the Morgana early play or the Yusuke for the remaining level 3 slots, or even both in some cases. And even if not playing the 1/0 Yusuke, I’d still possibly run at least 1 blue Calling Card.

And that’s about it for Persona 5 – I tried to be as extensive as possible, so I hope I haven’t forgotten anything! Thank you for reading 😛

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