This deck is the sixth one out of my 9 Love Live! Waifu decks. The other decks from this series can be found at the bottom of this post or in the top Menu under Deck Lists > Waifu Decks.

The deck

WS Decks link: Deepest Blues Are Maki

Level 0



4x “Summer Festival Date” Maki Nishikino

When she’s played, you can drop a card from hand to look at up to 4 cards from your deck, take one blue character from them to your hand and put the rest of the card to WR.



2x Melody Played, Maki

Frontal +500 assist.

Top-check when she’s played – either send the card to the bottom of your deck or leave it on top.



2x Powerful Pride, Maki

+500 to center slot.

Brainstorm: Pay 1 / flip 4. For each CX revealed, one of you characters gets +2000 power for the turn.



4x “Forever and Ever” Maki Nishikino

When she’s played, put two cards from the top of your deck to WR. If either of the two cards is a climax, REST her.



2x “Door to Our Dreams” Maki Nishikino

When she attacks, give one of your other Makis +1 level and +1500 power for the turn.

CLIMAX COMBO w/ Nap Time Maki: When she attacks, you may discard a card to WR and search your deck for up to 1 character.

Level 1



2x “Let’s Go Out Together♪” Maki

Frontal assist assist (500 times number of your assist characters).

When you use CHANGE, you can pay 1 and rest her to search your deck for up to 1 character.



4x “We Are a Single Light” Maki Nishikino

Rest one of your characters to give her +1000 power for the turn.

CLIMAX COMBO w/ We Are a Single Light: When she reverses a character, look at up to 4 cards from the top of your deck, take up to 1 character from among them to hand, put the rest into WR and give one of your characters +1000 power until the end of your opponent’s next turn.



4x “Sunny Day Song” Maki Nishikino

Clock encore.

If she’s facing a cost 0 character, she has +1 level and +3500 power.



2x Finest Once a Year

EVENT: Give +3000 power to one of your characters until the end of your opponent’s next turn. Send this to memory.



2x Smile! Push-ups!

EVENT & COUNTER: +3500 power to a character.



2x Invitation From Friends

Clock the top card of your deck: if it’s a Maki character, draw up to 3 cards, drop 1 to WR, and give one of your characters +2000 power until end of turn.

Level 2



2x “Snow Halation” Maki Nishikino

CHANGE: At the beginning of your climax phase, you may pay 2, drop a card to WR and put this into your WR. If you do, put a “Happy Maker!” Maki Nishikino from your WR to the slot this card was on.

Level 3



4x “Dressed Up” Maki Nishikino

When she’s played, search your deck for up to 1 character.

Once per turn, when she reverses a character, if you have a “Happy Maker!” Maki Nishikino, you pay 1 and drop a card to WR to heal 1.



2x Otonokizaka High 1st Year, Maki

If you have 6 or more climaxes in your WR, she gets -1 level in your hand.

When she’s played, draw 2 and drop 1.

She gets +500 power for each of your other characters.





4x “Happy Maker!” Maki Nishikino

When she’s played, heal 1.

During your opponent’s turn, she gets +500 power for each of your other characters.

Climaxes



4x Nap Time Maki

1k1soul, BOOK trigger



4x We Are a Single Light

1k1soul, PANTS trigger

Analysis.

Whew – this deck is really enjoyable to play! It mills fast and the control you get over your hand is incredible. Let’s get right to it: at level 0, you have a frontal assist with a top-check and a brainstormer that boosts your center slot, so naturally, your center slot is your early game’s strongest point. The top-check also helps with your 4k beater, which requires you to mill 2 and rest her if you mill a CX: it’s a bit riskier because of the extra 1000 power, but it’s still not as risky to use as some of the other 4k beaters in Weiss Schwarz *cough* Childhood Asuna *cough*. Your other level 0s are Festival Date Maki, which lets you filter your hand early on while also milling your deck, and Door to our Dreams Maki, which boosts your other Makis on attack. It also has a climax combo that’s basically a free drop- and-search effect, which comes in handy if your have no luck milling with Festival Date (it does happen eventually, I’ve gotten 3 climaxes and an event once. Wasn’t salty at all. Nope. Never salty .) 😛

Level 1 has another climax combo, this time with We Are a Single Light: it’s an on-reverse effect, so it can be countered, but that hardly makes it any less viable, especially because these Makis are easily boosted up to be able to reverse most of your opponent’s level 1s. The +1000 power boost until the end of your opponent’s next turn is also nice, since it makes it possible for this otherwise defensively frail Maki to survive a turn and then be used for the combo again. If you pull the combo off more than once in a single turn, spread those boosts around as needed or just give them all to a single character – and don’t forget that you can give it to herself as well!

The other main level 1 character is Sunny Day Song Maki, which gains 3500 power and 1 level when she’s facing a costless character. This is extremely useful in a meta where most decks focus on costless or low-cost level 1 play: what those decks can’t reverse with raw power, they usually take down with level 1 suiciders, but (at least as far as I know for EN WS) those are also always costless characters, meaning they can’t reverse Sunny Day Song. Of course, if you’re up against any kind of deck that still relies on cost 1 play at level 1 (like the yellow Haruhi time machine engine), she becomes pretty useless.

Before moving on, there’s one important thing you should try to never skip at level 1: setting up both of your assist assists. You’re only running two, but with all the draw-drop-search engines available, it’s never a problem getting them both in hand. You’re gonna need them badly in late game, since the deck is a bit more defensive than offensive in terms of power.

Maki also has 3 interesting events available at level 1 – I’ve decided to include two copies of each, since their main function in the deck is to make up for your lack of offensive (and sometimes even defensive) power and they all do that exact thing, each with its own twist. Finest Once a Year aims for lasting power, costing 1 stock to give one of your characters +3000 power for 2 turns, but she gets sent to memory afterwards. Smile! Push-ups! is an event counter with a 3.5k boost, for the same cost of 1 stock. Last but not least, the costless Invitation From Friends is probably my favorite of the three: if you happen to clock something else than a Maki, you just dealt 1 extra damage to yourself only to waste a card from hand, but it’s this risk that makes me like it. In all other cases though, this increases your hand size and filters your hand on top of boosting a character for 2k as well.

Level 2 is kept to a bare minimum with only two changers for Happy Maker. Getting that one out at an earlier level is quite beneficial though, as she gets +500 power for each of your other <Music> characters during your opponent’s turn. So you bring her out at your climax phase to reverse whatever your opponent has on stage and even if you push him to level 3 that turn, Happy Maker won’t be the easiest to take down (especially with both level 1 assists in the back).

You’ll need to be wary of anti-change though, since you also have the early play 1st Year Maki to use at level 2. Her condition of 6 or more climaxes in the waiting room is a little questionable in a deck like this one because it mills through the deck so fast: some times, I was able to use her early play without problems, but about the same amount of times, I refreshed for the first time way before even hitting level 2. She’s still more than worth running though, since she has base 11k power if you have a full field, making her your most powerful level character on the offensive.

And what’s then left for actual level 3 play? Dressed Up Maki. In case you’re lacking level 3s to put down, you’re gonna be just fine as long as you have at least 1 of these in your hand. Play it, search deck for another, play that one, then search for Happy Maker and play that so that you can now use the on-reverse heal effect twice. If you’re playing against some stronger level 3s you might have some problems reversing them, since Dressed Up has no way to boost itself: your best bet is to have her in the center slot with both level 1 assists to support her, but even if you play a climax, she’ll still only have 13k power. However, with a few of the before-mentioned events, she can quickly be brought up to 15k or 16k – and that is why those events are so vital in late game 🙂

The climaxes are 4 pants to make sure you can alway pull off your level 1 combo and 4 books to increase your chances of drawing into event cards.

Important stuff to keep in mind when playing:

All characters have “Maki” in their name

All characters are <Music>

Stock holds up well, but if you’re using change and early play with full force as soon as you hit level 2, it’s gonna wear thin faster than you’d want it. Don’t over-do level 2 unless you’re sure your opponent won’t be able to kill or anti-change your whole front row right away.

Events and assists are critical for late game offensive power.

Remember how I said that Hanayo mills hella fast? Well, Maki is faster. That gives you great opportunity to move climaxes around, but you need to move them fast. After the first refresh, you won’t have much time to get them back to WR.

Fun fact: there are only 18 cards (7 different ones) in this deck that will never, under any circumstance cause or let you remove cards out from your deck:

Level 0 frontal assist Level 1 assist assist Happy Maker‘s changer Happy Maker Finest Once a Year Smile! Push-ups! PANTS trigger climaxes

Everything else either straight up mills, searches, draws or has clock encore. As a concept, it seems rather unstable, but it actually makes game play extremely fun and fast-paced!

What can be changed if you want a different playstyle?

Ever since the DX!! 2 booster came out, many of the Makis from this set have become staples – not just in the waifu deck, but also in other mixed Love Live! decks. As such, I think Maki’s deck is the most straightforward one, but it can still be tweaked a little, mainly with the quantities of cards.

If you know you’ll be playing against decks that run cost 1 characters at level 1, I suggest you either replace Sunny Day Song with “KiRa-KiRa Sensation!” Maki Nishikino or run them as a 2/2 split, since Kira-Kira gets a power burst on the turn she’s played and will be 7k if you have a full field.

If you don’t want to run changers at level 2, an interesting alternative option to run would be “Sweets Fairy” Maki Nishikino. However, if you take out the change mechanic from the deck, your level 1 assist’s secondary search effect is now pointless, so I would also suggest the possibility of replacing that one with Food Supplies Before the live, Maki: same primary effect, but with this one, you can take out 2 BOOK climaxes and run a 2/2 split for her climax combo for extra power – the climax in question is a 2k1soul though, so proceed with caution 😉

Love Live Waifu Decks Full List