Once upon a time, there existed hope in the world, then came Pizza Sauce (ピザソース). Many may wonder the following: What is pizza sauce? Is there something deeper in this special marinade? Why has humanity forsaken us? The truth is the root of humanity both began and will end by the will of Pizza Sauce. Jokes aside, Pizza Sauce is a very interesting deck structure that focuses on Ayumi, Yuu’s younger sister. The main combo mills your opponent’s deck hoping to get rid of climaxes and push for heavy amounts of soul damage.
The namesake of the deck comes from the above pair of cards. The Ayumi on the left combos with the climax on the right to mill both players a total of fifteen cards from the top of their decks. The effect occurs at the start of the encore step making it really hard to manipulate the after-effects since by then, your turn is entering its finishing phase. In addition, the fifteen cards milled from both players’ decks is completely random.
Regardless, it is a very interesting combo and a unique type as well that is seldom reprinted. There are three scenarios that occur on your opponent’s side of the field following the combo’s usage.
- The fifteen cards milled contain a large amount of climaxes making the rest of their deck pretty open to susceptible damage the following turn.
- The fifteen cards milled contain very few climaxes making the rest of their deck compact and full of climaxes.
- The fifteen cards mill an average amount of climaxes making the deck state indifferent from its previous state.
Regardless of which scenario occurs, the goal in the end is to hopefully put your opponent into a frantic state. In this situation, they are then forced to commit resource and field in order to manipulate their deck into a hopefully more normalised state with a good amount of cancels remaining. As for your side of the field, you also have the same troubles as your opponent may possibly have, so the best course of action I would suggest would be to push yourself as close to refreshing as possible before pursuing the combo.
Before I delve further regarding any game plan for the deck, I’d like to add an inclusion for the deck. Since the deck heavily focuses on the level 1 combo, it is highly recommended to include four arc triggers as the other climaxes for the deck to fetch the level 1 combo. And since you’re adding the pants climax type, why not add a card that combos with it as well?
The Nao on the left helps you refill your hand when attacks by revealing and adding the top card of your deck if it is an Esper (能力者) character (pre-trigger). Her more important effect is at the start of your opponent’s attack phase, she can discard the specific climax on the right to search your deck for any Esper character and add it to hand. Additionally, the character in front of her gains the following ability: “This card cannot front attack.” Though not exactly game ending, this card hopes to stall your opponent out and reduce the amount of soul damage taken from them.
Kch/W78-069SR もう1人の少女 美砂 (center)
Kch/W78-105U 幸せな日常 高城 丈士朗 (right)
Accomplishing the goal of CHA/W40-091C is one thing, but surviving may often be an issue following the recursive effect on your own deck. The problem is there is the feared possibility that you mill out all your climaxes as well. To ensure this doesn’t happen and also push you closer to refreshing, a good chunk of your early game cards should help you mill out.
The three cards above help to maintain advantage while helping your churn through your deck early. CHA/W40-081R is an early play beater that also helps you mill out. Failing the first mandatory effect is unfortunate, but it does have encore at the very least. Kch/W78-069SR also has a milling effect, that gives you the benefit of stacking the opponent’s deck if you hit the card’s target. In addition, it’s a good filter in case you get climax flooded. The last card in the stack is Kch/W78-105U which is a mill runner. It does also come with an ACCELERATE effect that helps it beat over targets with an extra soul damage.
Now the deck has two very common directions in terms of its follow up game plan. The first of which appears on the left where the plan is to minimise their number of cancels. Then it hopes to finish them off and burn away any remaining climaxes they have using cards like CHA/W40-002RR. Alternatively, the other choice is to try and play a very stall heavy game trying to run your opponent out of resources with the anti-burn, CHA/W40-078R.
Regardless of which direction you pick, the above card is a highly recommended suggestion. The ability to stock flush your opponent following a sub-par mill from CHA/W40-091C can swing the game in your favour. Your opponent may believe they have a healthy amount of climaxes in their deck since you milled them clean and they didn’t trigger any. If you drop this card on them after and they are carrying a hefty amount of stock, they’ll be sure to feel some pain.
One thing the deck does struggle with is the ability to maintain hand. As such, you’ll likely need to run cards that allow you to gain hand with alternative conditions outside of a climax combo. Cards like the two suggested above do exactly that by offering alternative costs to gain some kind of hand.
I’ve included some more suggestions with the cards above. Good luck with the deck and may the odds be in your favour. Spread some pizza sauce and make your opponent cry.