Maki Nishikino is known for her immaculate beauty and impeccable intelligence. As the daughter of the high-class Nishikinos, Maki is well-trained in the art of musical theatre, learning ballet and piano from a young age. Despite her more tsundere-like personality, Maki warms up close to her friends from µ’s as she works with them to win the Love Live!
This deck was built for the Love Live! winner of the Love Live! SIF Anniversary poll in 2023.
Showing her brilliant smile, Maki shines as the star idol. Maki sends your opponents off with her signature gesture, blowing them off the stage with her majestic song and dance. If you have a full stage and Maki’s climax in play, she grants one of your other characters the ability to discard a card when they reverse their opponent to deal three damage.
For our early advantage, Maki’s displays of affection take the stage as a Minami combo that grants a bit of cross-turn power to a character until the end of your opponent’s next turn. To empower herself, she can tap down her fellow Music (音楽) characters to boost herself by 1000 power for the turn.
LL/WE39-048SP-SP 紅の魅力 西木野 真姫 (center)
LL/W68-074S-SR “いっつも一緒♪”西木野 真姫 (right)
The lovely tomato queen may not have a card advantage gaining brainstorm of her own, but she more than makes up for it with her plethora of hand-fixing and hand-gaining options. Maki to the left is a global support with a pseudo brainstorm ability to pay a cost and tap herself to check the top three cards of your deck and add a character with Maki [真姫] in its name to your hand. The center Maki is an Akatsuki profile for blue characters. Lastly, the Maki on the right is an oversized beater with the ability to accelerate at the start of your climax phase to salvage a copy of itself or your level 3 Maki finisher.
In addition to our Maki finisher, we have a couple copies of Maki in her capricious kimono on the left. This Maki is great for the deck as she searches up a character on-play, helping grab our finisher for the combo. Furthermore, once per turn, if you have her Happy Maker friend on the right, she lets you pay a cost on reverse and heal the top card of your clock. Maki on the right is a healer on-play with defensive power during your opponent’s turn.
LL/W24-081S-SR 音ノ木坂学院１年生 真姫 (center)
LL/W68-087U “本格的な劇には”西木野 真姫 (right)
Sunny Day Song Maki bursts onto the stage, being a formidable threat to any costless characters. Furthermore, with her sticky clock encore ability, she’ll be sure to stay on stage for quite some time if needed. 3/2 Maki is an early play if you fulfill her condition, being both a large powered wall and also a way to fix your hand with her draw and discard ability on-play. Lastly, Maki on the right is an on-play hand-fix and a bottom deck Adachi.
On top of everything, Maki also has her beautiful wink above as if she was inviting you over to party at her place. When you use Maki’s invitation here, you place the top card of your deck into your clock and if that card is a character with Maki in its name, you draw three cards and discard a card while pumping a character on your field by 2000 power for the turn. This is great in conjunction with your Minami combo to help with the first reverse or even late into the game to secure power for your level 3 finishing combo. The draw ability can even net you a climax to your hand in a pinch.
Maki has quite a number of cards with power during your opponent’s turn. A counter or two can turn the tide against your opponent and potentially sneak a couple reverses. Furthermore, given that Maki in her kimono’s ability works both turns, a reverse can be used as a sneaky heal to surprise your opponent as well.
Maki on the left here is essentially a free counter that replaces its own stock with the top of your deck if all your characters are named Maki. The Maki on the right is a rare level 0 counter that gains an additional soul on stage if you have a level 3 character on the stage as well. In a pinch, this counter can be used as a nice two-soul beater in the late game.
To add to our lycopene-filled fruity wonder, there are a couple of suggestions to further express the grandness of this divine songstress. The unit BiBi promo is a great addition, although it does mess with some of our cards, mainly the Akatsuki profile, that helps with fixing our hand from the clock. Given the numerous accelerate effects in the deck, there’s a good chance that this card can snatch decent targets from our clock to our hand. Additionally, Maki has her own climax swapper at level 1, helping us exchange climaxes for the one we need dependent on our situation. This card also pumps a character with the keyword “ACCELERATE” (加速) by a big number on the turn she’s played, pairing very well with our finisher salvager.