Heya everyone! Black Imu is one of our new Leaders in OP13 and has quickly left its mark on the OPTCG meta! This is a Celestial Dragon deck that uses the Five Elders as its win condition to put pressure on the opposing player.
The deck plays differently than what we’re usually used to in Black decks, focusing mainly on its own board development and aiming to get to the late game and use Five Elders to carry the game from there.
In this guide, we’ll talk about Black Imu’s deck plan, how each card works in this deck, and what we’re usually aiming to do in the late game.
Leader
Black Imu is a 4 Life card Leader with a deck-building restriction. Under the rules of playing Imu, you cannot include Events with a cost of 2 or more in your deck. Additionally, at the start of your turn, you can play up to 1 {Mary Geoise} type Stage card from your deck. This is extremely useful for this deck since we get to play a Stage like The Empty Throne or Mary Geoise without committing any Don or having to search for them. Those Stages play a crucial role in this deck, which I’ll discuss further in the guide.
As for Imu’s Activate Main effect, once per turn, you may trash 1 of your {Celestial Dragons} type Characters or 1 card from your hand to draw 1 card. This is basically a draw value engine, which we’ll usually prioritize targeting {Celestial Dragons} type Characters on the field that we don’t need, like Saint Shalria for the card draw. If there’s no target on the field, we can still use it to trash a dead card in hand to hopefully draw into something better.
Imu’s draw effect ensures we don’t run out of resources and gives the deck better consistency, helping us find the cards we need and add more cards to our trash, which will later play a vital role in activating certain effects.
Decklist
How to Play
Black Imu uses Celestial Dragon as a centerpiece of its strategy, trying to keep control of the board and preserving Life cards until you hit 10 Don. From there, you can play your 10-cost Five Elders through The Empty Throne for 3 Don and activate its effect, developing 5 different Five Elders from your trash to unleash a barrage of attacks on the upcoming turn.
Stage
The Empty Throne is usually the Stage we want to play through Imu’s effect. It costs 7 Don, so it’s a high-cost commitment that would shut off a full turn if we play it from hand, so having it in play through Leader Imu makes sure we don’t fall behind in the mid-game. However, if we’re going up against a mirror matchup, we’ll instead choose Mary Geoise over The Empty Throne since our opponent can remove The Empty Throne using Never Existed… in the First Place… Mary Geoise is also an option against aggressive decks, so we can play our characters a turn earlier.
If you have 19 cards in your trash, The Empty Throne will give your Leader a +1,000 Power boost during your turn to go for heavier attacks. However, the main reason we’re running The Empty Throne is its ability to play 1 black {Five Elders} type Character with a cost equal to or less than the number of DON!! cards on your field from your hand by resting 3 Don. This lets us play our Five Elder Characters for less Don commitment, allowing us to use the rest of the Don to go for heavier attacks or even develop an additional Character to go wider on the field.
The Empty Throne will be a key stage for our 10-cost Five Elders play, playing it for 3 Don only and having Don left to activate Five Elders’ effect on the same turn it’s played.
Mary Geoise comes as an alternative to The Empty Throne, reducing the cost of our Five Elders Characters by 1, which means we get to play Five Elders at Don 9 and activate it at the upcoming turn, or play it on Don 10 and have 1 Don left to activate it on the same turn.
Saint Mjosgard is a +2,000 Counter card with an effect that lets you play Mary Geoise from your trash. So, for whatever reason, we lose The Empty Throne, we can still go for Mary Geoise to keep our game plan alive.
Early Searchers
Saint Shalria and The Five Elders Are at Your Service!!! are 1-cost searcher cards to look at the top 3 cards of your deck and add a Celestial Dragon type card before trashing the other two cards. You’re searching for the cards you need to continue your strategy while adding cards to your trash, which will enable certain effects later in the game.
Five Elders
Ideally, we’ll use The Empty Throne to play out our Five Elders, saving us Don to attach to our attackers or developing an additional Character to go wider on the field. If you have 7 or more cards in your trash, each of your Five Elders cards cannot be removed from the field by the opponent’s effects, making board control useless and forcing them to rely on sheer attacks to control the field.
St. Jaygarcia Saturn is a searcher card letting you look at the top 5 cards of your deck and adding 1 {Five Elders} type card to your hand. He’s a great value play that remains on the field to pose an offensive threat to the opponent.
St. Topman Warcury and St. Marcus Mars can gain the Blocker keyword when you have 7 cards or more in your trash. So, you could decide whether you prefer using them offensively or defensively to protect your Life cards and buy yourself enough time until the 10-cost Five Elders carries the game.
When KO’d, St. Topman Warcury will draw you a card, adding more resources to your hand. Since he has the blocker keyword, you get to decide when you’re fine with him getting KO’d to get the additional card.
As for St. Marcus Mars, he’s more of a control option, letting you trash a card from your hand to KO a 5-cost or less Character. This is useful to slow down your opponent’s pace, buying you more time until you get your win conditions online. It’s important to note that the effect only targets Characters with a base cost of 5 or less—so even if the cost is increased or reduced by effects, only cards whose original printed cost is 5 or lower will be affected.
St. Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro is our Rush attacker, capable of attacking on the turn he’s played if you have 7 or more cards in your trash. Additionally, if you have 10 or more cards in your trash, St. Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro can reduce the Power of an opponent’s Character by 2,000 when he goes for the attack. This can be used to weaken an opponent’s Character and make it an easier target for your attackers to remove.
St. Shepherd Ju Peter is our strongest play when you go wide on the field. He’s a +2,000 Counter play, but on the field, he sets the base power of all Five Elders to 7,000. This is a +2,000 Power increase, making them tougher Characters during your turn, adding more offensive pressure to force Counter cards from the opposing player.
The Win Condition
Five Elders is how we win games, which we’re usually aiming to play on Don 10 if we’re relying on The Empty Throne. It’s a 12,000 Power Character, but we’re mostly relying on its Activate: Main effect. You have to rest 1 Don and trash a card from your hand to activate the 10-cost Five Elders play, which in turn will trash all of your cards on the field (including 10-cost Five Elders) to play 5 {Five Elders} type Characters with 5000 power and different card names from your trash. This means we’re playing St. Jaygarcia Saturn, St. Topman Warcury, St. Marcus Mars, St. Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, and St. Shepherd Ju Peter all in one turn from the trash, and with St. Shepherd Ju Peter‘s effect, they’ll become 7,000 Power attackers.
Although having a 12,000 Power Character is neat, having five 7,000 Power attackers poses a bigger threat to rush your opponent down and potentially close out the game on the upcoming turn.
The Empty Throne lets us play Five Elders for 3 Don, leaving us with 7 Don to rest one of them and activate its effect. If we’re relying on Mary Geoise, we can play Five Elders on Don 9, but since we still need to rest a Don, we’ll have to wait until our upcoming turn. If that’s the case, we can attack with Five Elders‘ 12,000 Power before activating its Main effect.
Playing Five Elders, we’ll get to make use of St. Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro‘s Rush attack + Power reduction and St. Marcus Mars KO effect.
Events
The World’s Equilibrium Cannot Be Maintained Forever lets you rest 5 Don to KO an opponent’s Character with a cost of 6 or less. However, if you have a Character on the field that isn’t a Celestial Dragon, you cannot activate this effect. The World’s Equilibrium Cannot Be Maintained Forever can also be played during your defensive turn to give your Leader a +3,000 Power boost to counter an attack.
Never Existed… in the First Place… can be used for the mirror matchup, letting you remove The Empty Throne and shut down the opponent’s strategy or slow it down. However, for any other matchup, you’re relying on Never Existed… in the First Place… for its Counter effect, giving your Leader or one of your Characters a +4,000 Power boost.
We want to play After All These Years I’m Losing My Edge!!! when we have at least 9 cards in the trash, giving our Leader or one of our Characters a +1,000 Power boost to counter an attack. We can then add a 3-cost or less black Character from our trash to hand. We can add one of our +2,000 Counter units
General Tips
- Protect your Life cards. Black Imu is a 4 Life card Leader, and we need to get to the late-game to set up our win condition. Protecting Life cards whenever possible goes a long way to push the game an extra turn or two.
- Use your Leader effect on Characters you don’t need. Your Leader effect can be used on Characters to draw additional cards. Even on your Five Elders type Character. In the late game, after you’ve attacked with one of them, you can trash the one you need the least to get a card draw to help protect yourself on the upcoming turn.
- Save Blockers to protect your Leader. Once you’ve gone wide on the field, you can choose to either attack with your two blockers or save them to block opponents’ attacks. The decision will depend on the state of the game, and if you’re worried that you might get aggroed down.
- Control the board so you don’t get overwhelmed when you plan your Five Elders. The list has a couple of cards to help you control the mid-game, preventing the opposing player from taking over the field and launching an aggressive turn.
- Make sure you have the cards you need in your trash. You want to maximize the 10-cost Five Elders effect by playing all 5 Characters from your trash, so using your Leader effect, you can ensure they’re all in the trash to go wide on the field.
Mulligan Tips
- Searcher cards, Saint Shalria, St. Jaygarcia Saturn, St. Marcus Mars.
Other Cards to Include
- Saint Charlos is a popular inclusion to the list, a 2-cost Blocker to protect you from an attack, and when played, he’ll trash the top card of your deck to add more cards to your trash.
- Saint Rosward can be added if you’re worried about low-cost blockers. You get to trash a card from your hand to KO two 3-cost or less Characters.
- Stussy is a late-game control card to remove an opponent’s win condition. By KOing one of your Characters, you get to KO one of the opponent’s Characters regardless of its cost, perfect for removing a high-cost win condition your opponent is relying on to pressure you. Stussy remains in play as a heavy attacker, posing a threat whenever she goes on the offense.
Turn-Based Gameplay
Going First
- Turn 1 (1 Don): Saint Shalria or The Five Elders Are at Your Service!!!
- Turn 2 (3 Don): Saint Shalria or The Five Elders Are at Your Service!!!
- Turn 3 (5 Don): St. Jaygarcia Saturn or St. Topman Warcury.
- Turn 4 (7 Don): St. Marcus Mars to KO a 5-cost or less Character + St. Jaygarcia Saturn or St. Topman Warcury.
- Turn 5 (9 Don): Continue developing.
- Turn 6 (10 Don): 10-cost Five Elders and activate its effect.
Going Second
- Turn 1 (2 Don): Saint Shalria or The Five Elders Are at Your Service!!!
- Turn 2 (4 Don): St. Jaygarcia Saturn or St. Topman Warcury.
- Turn 3 (6 Don): St. Marcus Mars to KO a 5-cost or less Character.
- Turn 4 (8 Don): Continue developing.
- Turn 5 (10 Don): 10-cost Five Elders and activate its effect.
Closing Words
Black Imu is one of the top performers in OP13 meta, having a consistent game plan and forcing opponents to rush them down before the Five Elders start unleashing a barrage attack. The deck balances control board, Leader protection, and a go wide strategy in one deck to make this Leader one of the best choices to play competitively.
