“Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam” – Space Jam, Quad City DJ’s
Have you ever been mocked by your friends and loved ones for being either too skinny or a bit oversized? Do you want to turn those arms and legs of yours into living weapons made of raw muscular energy? If your answer is yes, welcome to Masato’s muscle gym. Through vigorous exercises and persistent training, you too can achieve physical perfection, have your opponent swoon over you, and straight up blind your opponent’s cards in a ray of physical excellence.
Here at the gym, everyone builds muscles (whether they want to or not). Our gym leader himself, Masato, is a large beater who gains power for every other friend of his with the Muscle (筋肉) trait. Furthermore, he can damage his opponent upon reverse and paying costs while having a surveil effect if anyone dares to front him. To help compliment his effect, Masato in his training uniform on the right turns anyone in front of him into a muscle maniac.
No offense intended against anyone, but this deck is meant to be centered around Masato and the boys. Furthermore, Kyousuke and Riki in particular are essential to the deck in many ways. The early advantage combo for the deck shown above only allows one to salvage a traitless or Anniversary (Anniversary) character based on the number of colours milled. This essentially only applies to that of Riki or Kyousuke whom carry no traits.
Riki is the above healer if any is opted at all. His combo interestingly has multiple different versions depending on which one you’d like to opt for in your deck. Riki spawns a character from your clock that is level 2 or lower, effectively healing from your clock and giving you field for one hand, with his climax combo. All four versions of the climax are shown below. Take your pick as you’d like. Better yet, run all four versions.
To the uncultured, our muscle boy is simple and just pure power orientated, but that is not the case. Our boy comes with a plethora of hand gaining effects that work off the power of friendship. Masato knows muscle building is beyond simple power levels. The bond of allies and friends empower him which in return creates mutual love and respect, resulting in physical gains.
In actual card effect terms, the Masato to the left gives a cheap one stock salvage to a character on swing if you fulfill his conditions of having another character that’s yellow and green on the field. The Masato to the right gains power if you meet his conditions and searches your deck upon reverse and resting another Muscle or Sports (スポーツ) character on your stage for those same traits from the deck.
LB/W21-007U 棗×直枝 (center)
LB/W02-E04C “兄貴分”恭介 (right)
As the main level one combo checks and adds solely characters without trait or Anniversary specifically, the deck should be loaded with several characters that are of either condition. The trait-less bit can be covered by our boys, best girl Riki and Kyousuke. All three cards above come in benefits of their own while appealing to a certain fandom.
Cards that create advantage or push for damage like the wedding dress Riki (this card should only exist in this deck in foil or signed) and the 1/0 Kyousuke are highly recommended.
Speaking of which, our guitar wielding hero above is the other mainstay finisher boasting a nice Musashi effect. On top of that, Kyousuke adds pressure by having the capability to be played early should his condition be fulfilled.
Furthermore, the powerful backup above is highly recommended as a powerful handfix that searches for either a card with the names of the following: Natsume, Kyousuke, Naoe, and Riki. Being an event allows its ability to be used cross-turn, hopefully giving your deck a reshuffle and thinning out the deck to allow for cancels or to grab pieces that you need.
Sometimes boys also need protection, especially when doing strenuous exercise. As such, the above backups are highly recommended. Masato’s backup provides the muscle trait to all your characters which can be helpful in certain situations. Kyousuke’s backup powers up one of your characters by a level, potentially helping save a character from a level reversing effect.
There’s one other final card I would like to mention, but due to poor image quality, I’ve opted to list the card here instead (Kyousuke brainstorm). The card is green which is important for triggering multiple colour on field effects, especially that of Masato’s salvage ability. There’s quite a number of options, depending on how you want to do reps and cardio through Masato’s muscle gym.
Do your best and dominate your opponent. Flex their muscles, break those tissues, and rebuild. Amass protein and finish off your opponent with a beautiful display of physical prowess.