Fire Emblem Cipher – Lloyd Deck Primer

Lloyd is a very interesting Main Character choice. He, and a lot of other Black Fang cards, deal with support manipulation, which certainly isn’t special within purple, but to be more specific, they manipulate their opponent’s supports. Lloyd is one of the few Black Fang members that can be run as a main character, and is one of the only 2 that have had potential meta-relevance.

 

Lloyd’s 1-cost states that when he or an allied “Linus” is being attacked, your opponent’s support skills don’t activate. This means that if your opponent attacks into Lloyd and pulls something like a Dragon Emblem or Mage Emblem, they won’t get the effect to ramp or hand cycle. This doesn’t mean they lose the support value on the card, though. Lloyd would have seen a lot more competitive relevance if that’s how his effect worked. The way he’s printed does make him a solid choice against decks like Zephiel and Al that want to hit dragon emblem effects as early as possible (Or just any other purple-centric deck, really), but he’s a bit more of a gamble against MC options that are not as reliant on early game supports.

He has 2 end-game promotions, with his set 7 being the one you typically want to finish on. It’s a base 70 with 2 effects. Once per-turn, he refreshes himself if your opponent’s support fails. And his support cards gain the effects of his attack target’s support as long as their skills don’t share a name. The refresh ability is pretty self-explanatory: your opponent wiffs their support and then Lloyd gets back up.  Lloyd is one of the few MCs you want to attack with first on the off-chance your opponent wiffs on their very first support. There are ways to setup a support fail; but even so, random chance plays a major part in him doing well, more so than most other MC options. Also, Lloyd’s self-refresh is once per-turn, making it hard for him to pull off the same endless strings of attacks someone like Al can.

His second skill let’s his support copy any support skills from his opponent’s support as long as it doesn’t share a name with a skill already on his support card. It might seem confusing, but just it means that if Lloyd attacks and pulls a card with Mage Emblem and his opponent’s support also has Mage Emblem, he doesn’t get to draw and discard twice. Also, copying an opponent’s skill doesn’t overwrite any skill his support already has. So, you could get something like Mage Emblem and Flier Emblem on one card with his ability. This also means if your opponent attacks Lloyd and they pull a support card with a defense buff, he gets to use that skill. Once again, this works out great against other Purple decks that use supports skills that trigger on either player’s turn. The final caveat to keep in mind is that he copies the exact text of the card. So, even though Nowi has “Dragon Emblem” like Fae and Myrrh, she still requires her supported card to be a blue card…which Lloyd is not. Lloyd copies the exact text on the support card.

Lloyd’s set 13 promotion has a similar cost and stat line to his set 7, but his effects are different. Rather than refresh, he forces his opponent to discard after combat if their support fails, but only when he attacks. I kind of wish this forced a discard when supports are played, since it could lead into your opponent discarding a potential dodge, but I think that screws with the rules process a bit too much. This effect is also once-per turn, so even if you have a way to refresh Lloyd and swing again, it won’t trigger assuming you got it the first time. If I had to name one major flaw for Lloyd, it’s that the design team really tried to prevent him from being able to degenerately loop his effects, a shame since even if he lost the once per-turn clause, he’d still require a crazy amount of setup to get going reliably.

What makes set 13 Lloyd valuable is his support skill that states “your opponent’s support fails.” This means Set 7 Lloyd gets his refresh off…as long as he’s not the one currently attacking. This also sets up a lot of other Black Fang units that get benefits off support fails.

There are a couple of ways to build Lloyd, but I think just purple is good enough. He has access to strong early game attackers like Wolt, Roy, and Al, he gets two different ramp dragons along with a myriad of other unique support skills, and purple is the primary color of support manipulation, so you can set up easy fails against your opponent using Lloyd’s set 13 with cards like set 17 Nino (who forces your opponent to put a copy of their MC on top of their deck) or Set 6 Fir (Does the exact same thing as Lloyd for the cost of a bond.). A mono-deck is typically going to play more aggressive and use Lloyd’s promotion as a finisher. It’s a very gimmicky strategy, but will probably give you the safest and most solid returns. The main weakness here is a lack of recovery. A lot of effects Lloyd wants will eat up cards in his hand without replacing them. You can mitigate this with cards like Lute, Matthew, or Lilina, but their draws are all tied to support effects rather than active abilities.

As I already said, Nino is also a pretty important staple since her two promotions greatly benefit him. The set 7 is a healer, and the set 17 can set up your opponent for a guaranteed fail against their main character. Set 22 Narcian is also a very important card, since he guarantees Lloyd a reset whenever he attacks as long as your opponent’s support card has a support skill. Other than that, Lloyd is pretty free form, and you’ll just want to stick with purple staples or good support fixers.

Keep in mind when you’re picking a secondary color, you want it to either compliment or fill in some gap the original doesn’t have. With Lloyd’s gimmick being so unique, it’s a bit harder to find things that directly benefit him, and most of what you’d be splashing in anyways is already done by something in his color already. If you really want to mix around, I recommend the standard red package of Mae and Genny, since they give access to some incredibly strong draw and healing skills.

Lloyd’s peak was right after the first rotation, when purple was at full power and the preferred color of choice. He could wipe through Zephiel, Roy, and Al since he could cancel their supports and steal them, but not much else. Decks like Sanaki, Leif, and Edelgarde were problematic for him since he had less effects he could steal, and their chances of being able to clap back on him were much higher.

If you’re looking for a unique deck that messes with your opponent though, then Lloyd is worth trying out, but keep in mind that’s he’s limited against certain playstyles. “The Black Fang judges all who are wicked….” but sometimes they themselves are the ones that end up getting judged.