If you enjoy the game play of Library of Ruina but you kinda hate building decks, then this is the guide for you. I started a brand New Game to go through it and I’ll be sharing the decks I used to win.
I’ll be making guides for each tier, starting with this one to cover Urban Legend. I thought about making a section for Canard and Urban Myth, but I find that to be the tutorial and thus important to play for yourself to learn the game well.
Before we start
Keep in mind I’m going to assume you have gotten all the key pages and combat pages, this includes general invites. General invites don’t matter so much up to this point, but they certainly will later.
Note: If you hate the grind, then no worries! There is a mod called “NoGrind” that will completely eliminate any grinding the game contains. You can grab it, enable it (go to your library page, hit the big “Play” button and an option should pop up with the middle one being “LOR with Mods.” Enable No Grind, load your game, burn the books to get all the key and combat pages needed and then you can close the game and reload without mods but you keep your pages. Or just grab another mod called “Achievements Enabler” and just keep going just fine.
Listen, you play games for your enjoyment and this is a single player game. If grinding is sucking the enjoyment out of the game, then there’s no shame in getting rid of it. I may not have used it, but that doesn’t matter because I enjoyed the grind. My first run of the game clocked in 200 hours. I have a bit of OCD where I want at least 5 books left over… juuuuust in case. I’m still doing it now:
Just to verify: you don’t need to do this. In fact, the only books you need to hold onto are the ones you clearly see needed for then next reception. I’d hold onto two copies, just in case something goes wrong. You can burn all the rest, no problem.
Fun fact: you can quit the game to redo the fight without losing the books, so that’s also an option.
Heart of Aspiration
Welcome to Urban Legend! The first thing we have is an abnormality fight for Keter.
Up until this point, the game has been taking it easy on you, since it is the tutorial. So I really haven’t been putting much thought in my decks. One thing for sure, if you don’t have Mars’ key page, then you certainly should go back and get it. Not only does it have the “Speed” passive, but it also has some amazing resistances. The other key page I’m using is Lulu. Seems fitting.
Lulu is weak to slash, but that’s okay in Keter because the “Scars” abnormality page is more than enough to make it not a problem.
Zwei I
Well, the strongest floor is Keter right now because you get three people, so I just dressed up third and newest librarian and ran in.
Fragment of the Universe
Time for Netzach to solo an abnormality. I’m just going to give him Mars’ key page, unchanged.
Zwei II
Well, minor updates to the decks. I’m still going to use Keter as it is my strongest floor. Also, yes; I am quite biased to Commandeering. If you want to replace it with another 3 cost, that’s up to you. This guide is here to straight up present the decks I used.
It’s mostly putting Retaliate in. Also, a “Your Shield” for the third one.
If you’re wondering why Roland has +4 HP and +1 Stagger Resist, It’s because I got him Hotblooded Brawler and Backstreets Researcher in Urban Myth. It won’t be a big deal if you ignore combat symbols, but there are useful ones, specifically the ones that increase your max HP and Stagger Resist.
The trick to this abnormality is to not clash with it. A clash is any instance where your dice and its dice are fighting, even if its pooled/leftover defensive dice from “Timid Endearment.” (just tested it)
Zwei III
You can use either Keter or Malkuth for this, as both of them have three librarians. Personally, I’m going to use Keter. Can’t go wrong with Fervent Beats (abnormality page).
While Mars and Lulu are unchanged, I did change Taein out to San. San has about the same weaknesses, specifically against blunt, but more health.
While fighting the earlier Zwei, I grabbed Pulsation (the abnormality page) which is high risk/high reward (later on, it becomes lower risk). The reason I bring that up is that the penalty can’t kill you, but it does drop your HP down to 1; and if you live, you’ll definitely get Hotblooded Brawler.