Three Methods for Three Alices

Hello, it’s Zabuton.

Last weekend was the Weiss Schwarz weekend of Bushiroad Rumble Online 2023 (BRO2023), and I hope all of you enjoyed the event, be it as a player, staff member or spectator. I had heaps of fun casting for the AO region and playing in the EU region event.

Ok maybe this one wasn’t so fun.

One thing that I noticed during my time casting/playing/watching games from the event is that players around the globe may not have been as familiar with the most efficient and consistent methods of bringing out Alices as I thought they would be.

So here’s a quick guide showing three methods to bring out (up to) three Alices, in hope that it assists SAO players around the world. The last one can guarantee triple Alice, so stay around if you’re struggling to get your maximum Alice value.

The basics

Taking a look at these cards, we can take note of a few things:

• 1/0 Alice can return 2 cards to the deck upon being played.
• Each Brainstorm checks and mills 3 cards.
• Having more than one 2/1 Alice in the same Brainstorm doesn’t provide any benefit.
• As 2/1 Alice’s combo accesses cards from the waiting room, we want to have (at least) 1 card left in the deck when we finish Brainstorming.

With this information, we can work out that the optimal deck to Brainstorm into should be 3n+1 cards, where n = the number of times you’re Brainstorming. Each card that doesn’t get checked for Brainstorming is a card that could be an Alice, and therefore minimising the number of unchecked cards increases your odds of getting more Alices online.

Additionally, the higher the value of n is, the better, as it means the likelihood of multiple Alices being checked in the same Brainstorm decreases.

If you’re not following this, don’t close the tab – the rest of the article is a lot easier to follow. I’ll show the methods with pictures and without variables.

Method 1: Start on 9 cards and 4 stock.

Required set-up:

• 4 stock
• 2 Brainstorms in hand
• 9 cards in deck

Simply shuffle back 4x 2/1 Alice into your deck, then Brainstorm 4 times.

(N.B. This method will not always give triple Alice, although it is the most likely result, followed by double Alice, then single Alice. You cannot hit 0 Alices using this method.)

This is the simplest one. It’s just 3n+1 where n=4. The reason that I’m using n=4 here is that 4 is the number of stock you will have on your 3rd turn going first, if you attack the maximum number of times each turn.

The benefit of this method is that it has the potentially to be, and often is, the most resource-efficient method. It allows for the highest deck count out of the methods shown in this article, meaning you don’t need to rely on drawing multiple of your milling 0s in the first two turns. You also don’t need to worry about fattening the deck between Brainstorms in fear of milling out.

On the other hand, this method also has fail cases, namely losing Alices by checking multiple of them in the same Brainstorm, as well as simply being unable to go into this plan as you started the turn without enough cards in the deck. Which leads us to method 2.

Method 2: Start on 4 cards and 4 stock.

Required set-up:

• 4 cards in deck
• 4 stock
• 2 Brainstorms + 1 Sortiliena in hand

Shuffle back 4 Alices (going to 4/8). Brainstorm until you meet one or more of the following conditions:

1. You have fewer than 4 cards in deck.
2. You have 2 Alices in waiting room.

Upon reaching one of these conditions, use Sortiliena to shuffle back 2 cards (putting back as many 2/1 Alice as possible), then continue Brainstorming until you go to 0 stock.

In this example we put back 4 Alices, then milled 3 in the first Brainstorm.

Use Sortiliena to shuffle back 2 Alices and salvage a Leafa.

Be cautious about what to salvage with Sortiliena here, as you may have to play the card down if you don’t land triple Alice.

Continue Brainstorming.

In this case we succeeded in landing 3 Alices.

In this case we didn’t so we had to play Leafa down.

This one lets you start on a smaller deck size, as well as fix for situations where you milled too many 2/1 Alices in one go. Note that the deck size is still technically 3n+1, as we started on 4 cards and shuffled back a total of 6, for a total of 10 cards.

The drawback of this method is that you must use an additional resource to have a chance to triple Alice (as your deck would otherwise be too thin).

Also, the Sortiliena can be replaced with a 3rd Brainstorm to save on stock, but you will go -1 in card advantage if you hit a 3rd Alice.

Method 3: Start on 2 cards and 5 stock (the guaranteed triple method).

Required set-up:

• 2 cards in deck
• 5 stock
• 1 Brainstorm + 1 Sortiliena in hand

I positioned the stock kinda badly but there’s 5 stock there.

1. Play the Brainstorm to shuffle 2 Alices into the deck, going to 2/4.

2. Brainstorm once, landing a guaranteed Alice.

We’ll say that we see the maximum number of Alices in each Brainstorm for the examples.
In this case, we milled both and brought one of them out.

3. Play and use the ACT ability of Sortiliena, putting 2 Alices into the deck and salvaging herself.

4. Play and use the ACT ability of Sortiliena again, putting back as many Alices and possible, and salvaging a Brainstorm (deck is now 3/5 Alices).

5. Brainstorm and land a guaranteed Alice.

6. Play the Brainstorm in your hand, shuffling back the maximum number of Alices (your deck is now 2/4 Alices).

7. Brainstorm once for a third guaranteed Alice.

This one’s a fantastic line to go to if you have the setup available, because nothing beats guaranteeing triple Alice. The drawback(?) is that aiming for and actually achieving the 2 deck and 5 stock threshold can be quite difficult. Nonetheless, this is a setup you should remember so you can fall back on it when the situation arises.

The big question: what to do when you don’t have 4 Alices in waiting room and/or deck?

Honestly, not much you can do about it.

My least favourite part about this deck is probably that you sometimes get hindered a lot from Alice getting buried deep into stock, or getting stuck in clock, and there is really not much you can do about it. Fortunately, you can still triple Alice even with one lost to clock around 2/3s of the time if you use the right setup, so it isn’t the end of the world.

Finishing off

I hope you learned something from this article if you made it this far. I would like to add that, simply knowing these lines is only a start to mastering the current iteration of SAO. You will need proper practice, and I can’t stress enough how much it helps to goldfish games up to the point you play out your Alices. Knowing how much you can risk and when it’s better to wait is a great skill to have when heading to tournaments.

As always, thanks for reading. If you’ve any questions, criticisms or fanmail you can contact me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/zabuton78) or Discord (Zabuton#8605). Check out my older English articles if you liked this one.