Uma Musume – Jockey Club (R) [12/09/2024]

A tradition as old as time itself, horse racing is a notorious activity that pushes competitive horses to their limits as they speed against one another. Within this sport comes a lot of money from associated gambling. As the horses run the track, fans scream in the stands, each bearing and waving their tickets in the air, praying upon the goddess of fortune to smile upon them as both their hopes and and dreams lie on their selected hero to be the first to dash past the finish line.

The star of this deck is hilariously not a horse itself but that of the elated announcer, Nana Izumo. Nana serves two purposes in this deck. Firstly, her event is a way to push additional damage as she provides two of our characters an additional soul for the turn. Secondly, and the most flashy ability, Nana grants all other copies of her event in any zone the ability to carry a salvage and standby trigger icon for the turn. This means that upon the single use of her event, any subsequent triggering of her same event will provide both a salvage and standby ability.

To make use of Nana’s event, Narita Brian dashes past all the competition. Since Narita Brian possesses a static ability on field, as long as she’s in the front row, she can provide additional power support for all your other characters. She also has a finishing ability with her climax that does not require the “inheritance” mechanic of the series, which is a bonus plus.

Swerving past her competition, Manhattan Cafe is the perfect pairing to work alongside Narita Brian. Manhattan Cafe’s is especially helpful in this deck, particularly with thinning out the deck to help us more likely trigger Nana’s event. Manhattan Cafe’s ability allows us to search out two characters from our deck and let our opponent give us one of them with the other being sent to waiting room. Now if she does have a marker, you get another additional salvage as well.

To further facilitate our chances of winning the lottery with Nana, Kitasan Black and Twin Turbo step up to the plate. Both Kitasan and Twin Turbo perform essentially the same roles with slight variances. Both of these horses can trigger twice for a cost (in the case of Kitasan) or refunding your second trigger (in the case of Twin Turbo). They can maximize our chances of triggering Nana and push our advantage on field and hand even further.

For the standby girls that take up the stage, Narita Taishin gives burst power on play and cannot be reversed by our opponent’s costless characters. Biwa Hayahide appears in both her forms. Firstly, her 1/1 is a backrow level assist that specifically grants additional power and hand encore to all of our Narita Brians. Her 2/2 variant is a large beater with hand encore that also provides global power as well. These beefy girls will maintain our field while providing additional supportive power.

Some other cute synergies to consider are that shown above. 1/0 Manhattan Cafe is a level one standard reverser, but more importantly, you may discard two cards when she is played from hand to salvage an event from your waiting room, namely Nana’s event for this deck. The second major synergy is found with Agnes Tachyon and the 0/0 Manhattan Cafe salvage brainstormer. Agnes is a wonderful card for the deck as she is an INHERITANCE [継承] target, and additionally, she gives two characters the ability to swap positions on the field, one character in the front and one in the back. Keep in mind that these characters must be alive and not reversed by the end of the turn since this happens after encore phase. Lastly, Manhattan Cafe’s brainstormer has a secondary ability as a pseudo Chiyuri profile when sent to waiting room. What this means is that you can swap her in front with Agnes or any other character and get the Chiyuri ability then after on your opponent’s turn (she can grab our events with this ability).

Before we reach the finish line, our two wonderful backups here will be sure to keep our main star running at full throttle. Agnes is an anti-change counter that sends cheated out targets to memory permanently. Manhattan Cafe is an oversized counter whose glaring eyes says straight up “no” to our opponents when they try to reverse our girls.

Kitasan Black makes another return as an off-finisher of choice that deals damage based on the level of the card revealed off the top of our deck when she attacks (keep in mind that she only checks characters). Wonder Acute is a Riki profile that performs a Chiyuri effect that can grab our events while filling our waiting room. Aston Marchen is a climax swapper that gains additional power if she is in the center slot of our front row stage. Manhattan Cafe sweating is a Kazuma profile that works both on-play and when sent to waiting room. Manhattan Cafe brewing coffee is a drop salvage profile that also gives one of your characters the ability to rearrange the top two cards of the deck on swing, milling one and keeping the other on top. Lastly, T.M. Opera rushes up to the front stage as another standby target that has large power and hand encore.

“She makes a right turn. She runs straight forward, and now she takes the lead. Number two is coming up close, but the fan favourite maintains the lead. What is this! She takes off at the speed of light as the finish line is coming right up. Number three accelerates to try and catch up, but will she make it? It’s a tight race. *camera snaps* And its over. ________ has won the championship!” – Izumo Nana (possibly)