“Glorious Nippon steel, folded over a thousand times, plane wings sharp like katana.”
– Unknown quoter
From the far away seas arrives the Sakura Empire, a powerful nation surrounded by all sides of the ocean. With their majestic battleships and fleet footed destroyers, they swiftly navigate through the turning tide, ready to spring upon any open opportunity to outwit and outmaneuver their opponents.
The elusive Shinano rises from the mist in the depths of the night to bring down divine punishment on her foes. When she attacks, she mills the top nine cards of your deck (one for each of her nine tails) and deals one damage to your opponent x times equal to the number of climaxes milled.
The fearsome Ayanami scouts the waters as she searches through the top four cards of your deck to add a character to hand, sending the rest to the waiting room. However, as an added bonus, if you add a character who is level 3 or above, Ayanami allows you to draw and discard a card as well.
Alternatively, fire off Shimakaze’s heavy torpedo armaments and search for a character upon scuttling (reversing) her opponents while giving her a slight defensive bonus until the end of your opponent’s next turn.
AZL/S102-051U 夕立 (center)
AZL/S102-052U 北風 (right)
Regardless of which combo you choose in the early game between Ayanami or Shimakaze, the above treasure support cards will greatly benefit you through your bar triggering. Amagi is a global support that allows you to grant two characters a nice 1000 power cross-turn power bonus when a bar climax is triggered. Yuudachi provides all your characters with clock filter upon triggering a bar climax. Kitakaze is a potential way to charge extra stock on attack when a bar climax is played in the climax zone.
For even more bar trigger support, I-19 steps up to the plate as a level assist. When a climax with a bar icon is played into the climax zone, she snipes one of your opponent’s front row characters and lowers their power by 1000 power, letting you pick off pesky little low powered utility cards on stage. Furthermore, if you trigger a bar climax, she lets you draw and discard a card from hand.
As our deck here focuses primarily on milling our deck and hitting climaxes with Shinano, we want to always ensure that there is a deck full of climaxes for Shinano to work with. I-168 can guarantee a fully refreshed deck for a slightly higher cost, but in a pinch, she can also be used to quickly refresh your deck, especially in the early game.
To finish up the deck, Kasumi to the left is a hyper filter that works exclusively with bar climaxes to check through the top six cards of your deck and add a character to hand. Nagato is a nice early play healer who pumps your entire field by 2000 power if you have a full field and if she is in your front row center slot on the stage.
For counters, Kashino is great as both a discard outlet and anti early play killer, sending them to clock.
Hanazuki is a great card that can spawn a costless character onto the field (equal to your level or lower) when she’s sent to waiting room. This can help with adding consistency by bringing out your early advantage combos to beat down on some level 0 opposing cards. Yoizuki is another great bar filter while also being a cost 0 clock bomb to deal with annoying costless threats.
The trick of this deck is to mill as many climaxes as you can with Shinano while ideally making sure you can refresh by the end of the turn or within the early next turn. Chain together the multiple bar filters to help you filter depending on your situation. Yoizuki gives you a salvage filter while I-19 gives you a draw filter. You can optionally stack your triggers and decide accordingly to which you’d like for your situation. Do your best, and long reign the Sakura Empire!