Zombieland Saga – Junko, The Original Idol (G/Y) [07/19/2022]

Within modern Japan exists a powerful idol group, one that transcends the boundaries between life and death itself, known as Franchouchou. The members work collectively together with their meshing of distinct personalities and desires, but at the end of the day, they all carry a unifying goal to transcend the idol world. Embodying the true spirit of an idol, these girls work themselves past the point of death, often mistaken by others to be zombies of some kind what a ridiculous thought.

Junko, a young 50 year old idol from an older era, is the forefront of this deck. Shaking the stands with her powerful unique voice, Junko acts as the finisher, healing and dealing damage to your opponent. Keep in mind that her marker requirement targets the card in the center. Her damage effect does not resolve unless this marker is present, so ensure that her event is in the waiting room prior to her entering the stage. Junko’s event carries a neat little damage effect and power pump.

Junko also acts as the early advantage combo of our choice. She is a Eren/Oboro combo with an additional filtering effect. Being a bar combo, the benefit of her combo timing on swing allows you to discard bars to turn them into additional card advantage for the later turns.

A key piece of the deck which also specifies which climaxes we are running is based on the level support in front. If you do trigger any of the two climaxes, both being bars, you can discard them to gain further hand advantage while pumping up your characters.

Lily is great for the deck, increasing the odds of bringing Junko onto the field at level 1. Furthermore, Lily is great as an additional extra stock generator in the early game. Yuzuriha is an interesting filter choice. Compared to other filter cards in the deck, she can be more gimmicky given her required conditions, however, unlike the other filters, she’s an option that can potentially force the event of this deck in your hand if your opponent permits it. Furthermore, she digs a little deeper thanks to her effect. Yuugiri is an Amagi-clone, which, given the deck’s climaxes, is a very good addition to the deck to just generate more hand advantage and power pump throughout the game. Additionally, Yuugiri’s power boost also provides a level which can help Junko and friends avoid annoying level 1 reversers.

Yellow is a great splash colour for the deck. A clean cut profile on the left with Junko allows you to save resources in the early game and possibly later. Junko in the center is very good for her two abilities. She can help you set up your deck to ensure the triggers or cards on top will beneficial for your filtering effects or triggers. Furthermore, she works very well with a certain card that will be introduced in the next paragraph. She can also conveniently force grab an event to hand, helping with your finishing combo. The best pay-off for running yellow lies with the Lily to the right. She carries a bundle of beneficial effects, essentially a toolbox card that suits your situation while being an early play.

Ai is a great secondary finisher for the deck considering her nice on-play effect to potentially deal a large amount of extra soul damage. Paired with the Junko above, you can potentially ensure a soul trigger on the top during Ai’s check to push for the extra damage.

In terms of backups, Junko is a great sack anti-change to deal with cheated out characters and early plays. Lily can permanently rid your opponent of any particularly annoying card by sending them to memory on reverse.

As usual, I have placed some suggestions above for other options to play. As an eight bar deck, a climax swapper is always nice, considering that there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get bars into hand through triggering them. Ideally, you should be playing Junko’s event and then using Junko’s combo for maximum value. Don’t forget about Ai’s finishing power and use the abilities of your scrying cards to ensure/enable Ai’s large damage. Don’t forget Junko doesn’t need to reverse, so sometimes it’s best to side as well for the early game advantage.