The accelerated Global Schedule keeps the pressure on as in the midst of the Cancer Cup, the newest Champions Meeting is already on the horizon: The Leo Cup. Scheduled for early November, the Leo Cup returns to Medium Distance much like the first ever Champion’s Meeting. But before you think that your old trainees for the Taurus Cup may still be viable, quite ab it has happened since the game’s launch that means preparing for the Leo Cup may need some extra considerations and new strategies. Whether this is your first PVP event or your third, our guide will help get you prepared for the Leo Cup and start your trek towards another hopefully solid showing in a Champions Meeting.
If you’re new to Umamusume: Pretty Derby, we’ve got a series of guides that can really help you out, whether you’re looking for help learning the game through Career Mode, how Inheritances work, what PVP even is, the value of a Support Deck and more, we’ve got guides that can support you through just about anything the game can currently throw your way. While Champions Meetings are somewhat individual challenges, a lot of the foundations set in our previous guides on the Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer cups can help you get a sense of what you should be trying to accomplish and how best to do so as you approach the Taurus Cup.
Aoharu on the Horizon: What’s Next for Umamsume?
Before we get into the Leo Cup completely, it is worth looking at what is on the horizon for Umamusume in general. If you’ve been finding yourself a little burnt out of the game from the fairly fast schedule of PVP events and the (now improved) global economy making it harder to consider who, or what, to pull for or build towards, one of the benefits is that we are looking to get the next scenario in the game, Aoharu, likely by or before the end of November. This means that there’s a new overall story arc to pursue (trainee stories don’t change between scenarios), which will also add some new gameplay features and just an overall improvement to the loop of how the game is played and what you can look forward to.
Something to note ahead of time, however, is that Aoharu has a Support Card that is considered either mandatory or very important, which is either (at minimum) an MLB R Riko Kashimoto, or ideally at least 1 or more copies of the SSR Riko Kashimoto. Riko is a friend card like Tazuna or Kiryuin, but she has specific benefits when included in your Support Deck for runs in the Aoharu scenario specifically; this becomes a standard in scenarios as they release, which is that the scenario friend card often becomes an auto-included in your deck in order to get the most benefits from your runs of Aoharu for training your runners. The biggest reason I bring this to your attention now is to help you make a decision of saving your carats for Riko, or spend them on upcoming units like Meisho Doto, Summer Maruzensky, or Eishin Flash, as well as the various Support card banners will run. Personally, I’m opting to save for Riko, but planning out your pulls in either case is mostly dependent on whether you need support cards or want more trainees; if you already have a fairly robust support deck with an MLB Kitasan Black, for example, you can likely just borrow a Riko when you need her. But if you’re a newer player or your Support Decks have been fairly anemic throughout the Champions Meetings and you would like to try and achieve better training results, pulling for Riko (and thus getting a lot of Support Cards in the process) is probably a better call. Play smart and responsibly!
The Leo Cup: Medium Distance Returns, With a Twist
Much like previous Champion’s Meetings, the first thing and best thing you can do to set yourself on the right path is to know exactly what type of challenge you’re going to deal with: The Leo Cup is a Medium Distance race at 2200m, run on Hanshin Turf in Summer with Sunny Conditions and Firm turf during Summer from the Right-hand side using the Inner posts. Like the previous races, these bolded words point to specific Green skills that you may want to pick to help your trainee with flat stat boosts and also with activating certain skills, such as Groundwork, and helping to give your runner a slight leg up. The Green skills are mostly similar to many of the previous races: Right-Handed, Summer Runner, Firm Conditions, and Sunny Days are staples of many of the previous Champions Meetings, with two new wrinkles this time: Hanshin Racecourse (where many of the previous were Tokyo or Kyoto) and Non-Standard Distance, as the race is 2200 (not divisible by 4, essentially). Although Green skills don’t always seem to be as game changing as other skills, Groundwork specifically has made them integral for Front-Runners, and thus something you will want to try and get as many of as possible on your trainees for the stat boosts and skill activation checks.
Something else that is considerably important for this course is that the final spurt takes place on an Uphill, meaning that you may want to look for the skills Highlander and/or if you’re running a Late Surger, 1,500,00 CC and recovery skills Moxie and the golden version Restless as possible track related staples, although these are less important than the others; in general, you mostly want to note the Uphill because it drains stamina, meaning that the Hanshin course is, like many Medium and Long races, about Stamina as much as it is Speed. That’s right: Swinging Maestro is back as mandatory, for better or worse.
Front Forward
Much like the Cancer Cup, a majority of the focus for the Leo Cup is on Front Runners, especially with the release of Summer Maruzensky heading into the period before this race. While early Champion’s Meetings relied on Gold Ship and End Closers to pull from behind and win, Seiun Sky’s Angling and Scheming really reshapes the meta around how the races are conducted when combined with Groundwork. In a lot of cases, Groundwork becomes more important than anything else, although Angling and Scheming itself is incredibly strong; it is mostly just that when thinking about a Front Runner, they need to get in front and stay there, and Groundwork is going to be the lynchpin of ensuring that happens early.
Groundwork, as a reminder, requires 3 skills to activate early in the race for the skill itself to activate (if you meet the Wit check, of course), and without it, a Front Runner is going to have to rely on either extremely good stats, good RNG, or other less solid skills like Early Lead to get them to the front of the pack and maintain their lead. This is also why many of the Debuffers and Blockers are also liable to take skills like Groundwork, so that they can get to the front of the race and prevent your own Front Runners from activating their skills effectively. If you’ve already started learning how to build Front Runners thanks to the Cancer Cup, you’ll have essentially the building blocks of what to do here: Get at least 3 Green Skills, Groundwork, Acceleration skills for the final spurt, and Angling and Scheming (as well as possibly inheriting skills like Mejiro McQueen’s Duty of Dignity Calls). The twist here is that you are also going to need to include Recovery skills into the mix this time, where the mile distance of Cancer required almost entirely acceleration and speed.
Medium Distance and Recovery
The Statline for Leo Cup is fairly challenging, especially since it requires a very strong balancing act of multiple stats to be effective. As usual, 1200 Speed is the goal for trying to ensure your trainee goes as fast as possible, but now you need to balance Stamina to around 900~, and Power to around 800, as well as Guts 300 and Wit around 400 (at least) for Skill activation. The 900 Stamina assumes that you will also be taking 2 Recovery Skills, so that 900 is predicated on you having recovery skills that you can activate, otherwise there is a very strong chance that your trainee will run out of steam in the final uphill and lag behind the others. Also, 900~ is going to change slightly depending on what position your trainee is running: Pace Chasers always need a little more than other positions, for example, about 10% more. It’s also possible to supplement your Stamina slightly with Guts, so if you get 900~ Stamina and over 300 Guts, that will likely be sufficient also; just remember that Guts works as sort of a secondary Stamina that kicks in when the other lags.
Because you’re going to need fairly high Stamina AND Power, you will want to consider Inheritance sparks that either split the difference (9 Star Stamina and 9 Star Power) or throw all in behind one or the other (So, Double Stamina inherit or double Power inherit) depending on what stats your Trainee naturally gains easier, or which is easier for you to train up to the level you need. It’s also important to consider how to properly manage your Support deck as Leo Cup will likely require your deck to be more varied than other races, and we’ll get into that shortly.
As some players might remember, the need fore Recovery skills means that we are once again at the mercy of Super Creek in our Support Decks; while Kitasan Black MLB is always an important card to try to include or have, Super Creek is going to be a requirement in your deck in order to get Swinging Maestro, much like she was in the previous races, as there is simply no better single recovery skill in the game at this point. The downside to this is that she is not an exceptionally great Stamina growth card, so there is a valid argument that no matter what style you are training or inheritances you are thinking, you may want to ensure you can supplement your Stamina somehow to hit your target.
Support Deck Suggestions
While you might suspect that you’ll need to dip into Power for this race, surprise, the deck compositions you’ll generally be running are going to lean primarily towards Speed, then Stamina, and either Wit or Guts. This is mostly due to the fact that Groundwork is a fairly difficult skill to achieve if it isn’t obtained from parents, and only a few cards have access to it, the most beneficial of which is SR Air Groove Guts (although frankly it is still not guaranteed to obtain). R Symboli Rudolf Wit can also work, but she doesn’t bring a lot else to your deck, so it is primarily more valuable to try and ensure Grounwork comes from either a good card (Like Air Groove) or you can simply inherit it from a parent. This also, unfortunately, speaks to the RNG nature of Umamusume Careers; in my training for the Cancer Cup, I only obtained Groundwork 1 time out of the 3 Seiun Sky runs I did during training. That isn’t saying it is a ⅓ chance to happen, just that for me, that was it.
But what about Power cards? Well… as some of you may have discovered from the Cancer Cup, Power Cards are often kind of lacking when it comes to results in terms of training without access to good, possibly MLB versions of most of those cards. Much like with the Gemini Cup, it is important to remember that Speed also trains Power, although at a smaller rate, but this can help supplement the lack of Power cards in your deck for those of Speed and Stamina. The second issue is that Stamina cards are what primarily provide Recovery skills, although some Speed cards are good sources as well (such as SSR Special Week Speed and Gourmand).
A card that I will make a special shout out to here is the free SSR Narita Brian Speed that is obtainable from watching Main Story chapters and extra copies of which can be bought with club Points. This is an excellent option for your deck in this race, and the card provides a lot of strong Medium related skills, as well as the basic recovery version of Gourmand, Hydrate, and also Right-Handed.
Selecting Your Trainees
The biggest shake up to trainees for this race is the fact that Summer Maruzensky will be released later this week and thus obtainable for the Leo Cup. Summer Maruzensky and Summer Special Week are both new and solid contenders here, but you will (and can) expect to see a lot of Summer Maruzensky’s due to her unique skill A Kiss for Courage, which states: “Increases your Speed during the second half of the race if you are positioned toward the front and have used a recovery skill”. Paired with Seiun Sky’s Angling and Scheming, Summer Maruzensky is an exceptionally strong front runner to watch out for. Summer Special Week’s Dazzlin’ Diver unique recovers stamina if she uses 2 skills in the middle of the race, which is almost a given considering how you are likely to build her, and lessens your need to hunt down a second skill compliment Swinging Maestro.
Here are some general suggestions for trainees you can use in the Leo Cup:
Starters Only: Gold Ship, Daiwa Scarlet (Front Runner)
Some Pulls: Agnes Tachyon, Grass Wonder, Nice Nature (debuff)
3 Stars: Summer Maruzensky, Maruzensky, Seiun Sky, Oguri Cap, Special Week, Summer Special Week, Wedding Mayano Top Gun
Unlike some of the other Champion’s Meetings, you may notice that Leo Cup is fairly restrictive and difficult for pure F2P players who have only the starters available; however, if you’ve done a few pulls at least and have a few 2 star racers that you have promoted to 3 star by now, this opens up a lot. I will say that if you have the Selector Ticket still and do not have Oguri Cap, now is a great time to pick her up, as Oguri’s value is only going to increase from this point on.
Parents, Sparks, and Skills for Success
As mentioned above, you are going to want to consider parents that either have 9 star Stamina or 9 Star Power Sparks. Whether you want both parents to have the same stat or split the difference is going to come down to what you have available to you, and also likely to what parent skills you are going to want. For Front Runners you’ll certainly need to look for Seiun Sky parents (unless you are training her yourself), as well as possibly Daiwa Scarlet’s Resplendent Red Ace and Maruzensky’s Red Shift/LP1211-M. If you’re training Seiun Sky, you may want to see if you can find a Summer Maruzensky to inherit her unique from, but that may be fairly difficult unless you rely on communities like the Umamusume discord to find parents (and someone who has already obtained her and gotten 9 Star sparks on).
If you’re running behind Front Runner, you can focus on inheriting parent skills like Oguri Cap’s Triumphant Pulse, Mejiro Ryan’s Let’s Pump Some Iron, and Taiki Shuttle’s Shooting for Victory!. There’s even a fairly solid argument for Symboli Rudolf’s Behold Thy Emperor’s Divine Might if you are running Late/End as your Style, since many of the racers will be in Front or Pace position and make it easier to trigger her requirement to pass 3 people. If you are training a Front Runner, you will likely also want to try and obtain a parent that has Groundwork sparks to pass on too, as the skill can be hard to obtain solely from cards, and Groundwork can truly make or break a Front Runner.
Aside from the Green Skills mentioned above to go with Groundwork (or just general stat boosts), the return of Recovery Skills means you’ll need to also compliment your skill loadout with Swinging Maestro from Super Creek at least one other gold recovery skill like Restless (for Front Runners), Gourmand (for Pace Chasers), Sleeping Lion (for End Closers), or even Breath of Fresh Air, Matikanefukukitaru’s skill Triple 7s can also be considered as a back up. The other skills are mostly speed and positional related, such as Medium Straightaways or Pace Chaser Corners, and skills like Professor of Curvature remain extremely valuable.
New Scenario on the Horizon and Future Changes
If you are finding the crush of PVP events burning your candle for Umamusume a lot, rest assured that while they’ll continue to be a major focus of the game for PVP, the new Scenario Aoharu is on the way which will change the general flow of the game on a daily basis. Also, the official account mentioned recently that Autoplay may be coming sooner than later for Global players, which is a fantastic addition that will make farming sparks and completing dailies far less tiresome. Hopefully, these changes will also come with more quality of life improvements (such as more borrows per day) to make training for PVP easier and less depressing if you have multiple bad runs in a day. As you finish up the Cancer Cup and prepare for the Leo Cup, if you have any questions, please leave us comments down below, drop by the Goonhammer Discord if you’re a Patron, or even email me at marcy@goonhammer.com! Until then, see you out on the track!
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