y'all i finally figured out what's going on with diluc's tcg deck
a little while ago i made this post about mond trio playing tcg, because jean and kaeya's decks make sense but diluc's doesn't - he has razor and xiangling in his deck, neither of whom synergize with him, and no healer for some reason??
then i thought about it a little bit more and now i think diluc's deck is actually an excellent representation of his character: because tcg is a game that revolves around a team and diluc is a man who is used to fighting alone
ok let me explain
^ first things first! this is the diluc card. the diluc card is a hypercarry, which means you want him on the field as much as possible. there is nothing diluc wants more than to use his skill and use it often - and for good reason! if you use his skill 3 times in one round, it deals a total of 11 damage, which is insane if you consider that each character card only has 10 health. he can basically solo a character in one round!
there's just one problem. using diluc's skill 3 times requires a total of 9 dice... and you only get 8 dice per round
there are ways to get around this, and diluc's support cards are absolutely laser-focused on making sure he can use his skill. so much so, in fact, that he doesn't even have any cards that would let him heal himself?? more on that later
the point is: diluc needs all his dice to fuel his attacks. doing literally anything other than attacking (ex. swapping off or healing) would nerf his damage output. this deck is designed for one thing and one thing only: doing as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time possible
okay now let's talk about his team comp. cause like *waves hands vaguely* what the heck is going on here, man.
^ diluc's teammates are razor (whom he's met like once in canon) and xiangling (whom he's met a grand total of zero times). most characters' tcg decks are comprised of other characters they at least vaguely know. but not diluc's
and this doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective either. razor is also a hypercarry - he likes his field time as much as diluc does. and although xiangling is a sub-dps who does off-field damage with her burst, her element is the same as diluc's which means she can't trigger reactions with him. neither of them synergize very well with diluc
and i think that's intentional, because xiangling and razor synergize very well with each other. my theory is that these two cards are meant to serve as a kind of "second line of defense" and take over when diluc falls
because the one glaringly obvious issue with diluc's deck is this: he has no way to heal
there are a couple of different healing mechanics in tcg. the most obvious one is to have a healer (which diluc doesn't). the second most obvious one is to have food cards that heal (which diluc doesn't). the third most obvious one is to have location cards that heal (which diluc, you guessed it, doesn't)
if you play diluc as an on-field hypercarry, you'd probably want at least 1 of the above mechanics to, you know, keep him alive. but diluc doesn't have any. and i think that's intentional
because i think the diluc card in this deck is meant to burn brightly but very briefly. i think he's meant to do a ton of damage with his skill, tank the enemies' attacks without healing, and then die. and then xiangling and razor come along after him and finish off the remaining enemies - if there are any left standing
which... you know...
... is not a bad encapsulation of his character overall!
so, you know what, i owe diluc an apology. i was not familiar with his game. this tcg deck is awful if you want to play tcg in the intended way, but it perfectly fits his character and approach to life - because this deck is the deck of a man who only knows how to fight alone
