Minerva Cipher Analysis (Commission for Mika)

This is a commission for Mika. Thank you for commissioning me, and hopefully you'll enjoy the post!

Minerva has two sides of the same coin, and it all depends on what format you play. In Standard, which has cards from Sets 1-4 banned, she is practically useless. But in Unlimited, which has every card in legality, she can be quite the formidable foe.

So what makes her this way? Let's find that out, shall we?

The Cards!

This is a very simple card. It's your generic flier card, but with a small change. Her skill gives her +10 whenever you have 2 or more flier allies, which is fine. However, this most likely doesn't come into play at any point, due to fliers being so squishy and easy to kill. What makes her better, though, is her being 30 . Having 30 is always good, no matter the circumstance. She is a perfectly fine non-Main Character card.

This is the card you want to use when she is your Main Character. Having 40 base is better than having 30 base. And when she is the Main Character, she often won't show up in the Area to ruin your day. Also to note is that she has the same basic skill as her other cost 1, but the difference is that she goes up to 50 instead of 40, which is always nice.

This card is quite the nice promotion. Though her base attack is rather awful, at a pathetic 50, her skills can definitely help out. In particular, her skill 2 makes for some great for any flier deck. Iote's Shield removes the biggest weakness of fliers, archers. And this applies for every single ally so long as she's on the field. So despite her not being too good by herself, she can prevent any funny business with the other fliers. She also gets +10 Atk for every single flier on your side. With enough flier stacking, she can reach very large numbers in the Attack department.

This can also lead to the omega funny with Risen decks if you try hard enough.

This is my favorite promotion to use when I try to use Minerva, as I do tend to enjoy flier spam. This Minerva both directly buffs herself from them, as well as protecting them from their biggest weakness.

This card is both bad and good. On the regular, this card is quite nice. Not as nice as the other Minerva promotion's value, but she's fine for more selfish purposes. If you have 2 or more flier allies, she becomes a base 80 unit, which we all like. She can also flip three and discard an evade to give every flier ally +30 through your opponent's turn. This skill is incredibly expensive but is quite good. But due to its cost, you likely won't use it more than once per game. She's a good game-ender, but you don't want her to last much longer than that. Because there are some scary foes out there who can easily destroy her, especially if they have archers.

Here is the only card available in Standard play. Now, she has certainly fallen from grace to become a healer. However, this doesn't mean she's useless. She can flip 1 bond to heal a wyvern card, which is always a nice ability. However, this makes her all but useless outside of wyvern decks. This is also added to by her making wyverns immune to skills that would destroy them. This makes her useful in specific circumstances, but I wouldn't exactly call her a great card.

Overall, Minerva is a mixed bag. I do think she has some great cards, but she's mixed with less than stellar ones. She's not bad, but she's not amazing. It's basically Viability Hell for her.

Up next, I have two decks for her!

The Decks

The first deck we have here is the Cipherfaire official deck. For once, I actually like this deck, since it really digs into the ally-stacking that Minerva does best. Let's look at each individual card in this deck and see what they add to the Deck.

Also, another thing to note, I didn't include all Cost 1 cards since they're relatively simple, and can easily be explained in a sentence or so.

This Deck has quite a few cards in it that deserve a mention, so let's get right into that.

Probably the single most important card in this deck is Sigrun. Sigrun's big thing is that she can mass deploy low cost fliers with the simple flipping of 2 bonds. This really gives Minerva the bonuses she needs, regardless of her form. I love this card in this deck, as it really gives the setup that's necessary. And in this deck, there's also some really good cost 1 and 2 cards.

Here's an example! Palla is a wonderful deploy for Sigrun, as she gets the exact same bonuses as Minerva. +20 for having 2 or more flier allies. This means that she can easily become a 60 Atk ally, and that makes things very nice indeed. Having with that high an attack for such a low cost can seriously help out.

Here's another good example of an easy Sigrun deploy. Plumeria can stop lategame threats right in their tracks. As well, she can destroy a non-Main Character enemy when she's deployed. This means that, as an earlygame deploy, she can range from inconvenient to devastating. She also makes for a fine lategame deploy as a way of stopping cost fives. Overall, Plumeria is very good, no doubt about that.

Last on the chopping block, we have Est. Now, she doesn't seem too special. However, her main skill turns all fliers ing her into 40 , which can lead to 70 Damage attacks in the earlygame. This is utterly ridiculous for a cost 1, and is good at pretty much any point in the game. Overall, she's a very good pick.

You can also deploy Marcia 1, but she's just a Winged Deliverer fodder, so nothing particularly unique.

We also have some other good standard deploys.

Maria is an amazing earlygame deploy, and is practically free. If you have a flier ally, which you always do in these types of decks, you can deploy her on turn 2, which is ridiculous. She also gives you a good amount of draw power, as, when a flier ally destroys an enemy, you can flip 1 to draw a card. Red is the ultimate draw power color, let me tell you.

These Caedas are amazing. Her red version draws a card whenever she destroys a non-Main Character enemy, and for literally free. Also for free, she can deploy a cost 2 or lower card from your hand. She is incredibly powerful and a great card to have on your side.

The Colorless is very good when you're creating an army. For every other flier on the field, she gets +10 Atk, which can become ridiculous amounts really fast. She can also get an unavoidable attack for the low cost of tapping two fliers. And here I thought unevadeable attacks were a thing of Unlimited, but this card comes out of Set 22, so who knows, man?

I have another Caeda card that I'll talk about down the line, too.

This Elincia here can make life miserable for your opponent. Flip 1 to give all allies +10 is incredibly strong, no doubt about it. That's really the point of her whole existence, but it works. She makes for great in that sense.

To round things out for this deck, we have Mirabilis.

She is a literally free deploy and does two things. First off, she can get rid of excess Mirabilis and Plumeria cards for a free card draw, which can be nice in certain situations. Second off, she protects your hand from any evil skills such as Hartmut's Legendary Blade. She also inadvertently has a third effect, and that is counting towards the number of fliers there are. Mirabilis is a flier, and her very existence can trigger Minerva's skill on turn one if you so please. Though her use in latergame becomes rather limited, her use in the earlier portions of the game is invaluable.

Overall, this deck really leans into Minerva creating an army of fliers. And it's really good at it, too, I would highly recommend checking it out. But this next deck changes the focus a bit, and that focus really leans into a common feature in Unlimited play...

This deck was made by your's truly, and I honestly had a lot of fun with this deck. However, note that I did have trouble with getting my army on the field, but that may have been a combination of bad luck and the Main Characters being evil. It's not perfect but I found it fun.

Here's the card of the hour. If you've played against Hana, you'll recognize this ability. Getting 40 fliers early is very nice indeed, and that is pretty much Marcia's only real purpose here. Flee to the back line and do a little bit of trolling. If you're on the receiving end of this card, you'd best pick a god and pray for self-s on your opponent's end.

I said I'd talk about another Caeda, so here she is! She honestly only serves one purpose, and that's the flip 1 for a Heal upon destroying an enemy. That's about all she does, and that's okay. However, looking back, the other Red Caeda I talked about with the last deck may have been a better choice. They both have their upsides, so in the end, it's really up to the player as to which one they field. Though having both of them never hurt!

Leanne is absolutely insane. She is the perfect early deploy, especially when against someone with a Main Character that only has 1 Range. You can basically put her in the Back Line and get a free heal for flipping 1 Bond. It is such a good card, even if she only has 10 Atk. If you can get her on the field safely, you'll be eating really well. And even if you don't, she's a cost 1, so she's basically a cost-effective distraction.

This is a flip 1, heal Main Character if she destroys an enemy card. I think you're starting to see my design philosophy with this deck.

That said, she saw little to no use in any of my test matches, so she probably isn't super helpful.

Tanith is basically Sigrun Jr. And this deck has a lot of low cost cards, so tap to deploy a cost 2 or less from your hand is huge. She's not as good as Sigrun, but since this deck isn't exactly stingy with it's Bond use, she'll be a fine alternative.

Lastly, here's Ashnard. Now, I must say that if I were to dump any card in this deck, it would be him. 0 is utter garbage and he doesn't provide a whole lot, all things considered. However, he does get easy 1-2 Range for the cost of 1 Bond, and he can add to your draw power. He also had Mantle, but that is usually kinda not useful. However, he isn't really worth the downsides to him. 0 , as I said already, is utter garbage, and I usually wouldn't recommend using a card with that amount unless they really do provide a lot to the deck. And yes, I'm mostly talking about Medeus here.

This Deck focuses on two things that Cipherfaire's does not. Firstly is quality over quantity. While Cipherfaire's deck certainly gets a lot of cards on the field, mine gets better cards out faster. That, and they become 40 , which Cipherfaire does not . Secondly, my deck focuses more on self-preservation than anything else. We have a lot of cheap Heals in this deck that aren't present in Cipherfaire's, and this can extend longevity at the cost of draw power.

Overall, though, I'm a fan of this deck. While it could use some roughing out, it can work if used well.

Conclusion

Minerva is a middle-of-the-road card. She's not bad but she's not amazingly good. However, due to being an Unlimited card, she gets access to some toys that cards in Standard play don't have, and this can twist her into a very volatile card indeed. However, her bite is non-existent in Standard, where she's relegated to little more than duty. Like I said at the start, her power is entirely dependent on the format you play.

This was, once again, a commission for Mika! Thanks again for commissioning me, and I hope you enjoyed the post.

If you are interested in Cipher, I highly recommend you Club Cipher. It is the community's home for all things related to Cipher. I hope to see you there!

Have a wonderful day!

#IzanaSees