One of the nice things about Weiß Schwarz is that it’s pretty difficult to come up with a deck where winning is impossible. There are clearly decks that are better than others, but there’s also a lot of space for gimmicky decks. Even if they’ll lose most of their games, you can usually get fun games out of them, and it’s pretty rare to get complete wash outs. You’re not going to get one turned killed, or left staring down an insurmountable field from the get go like in other games.

With these ideas in mind, I’m going to be presenting a couple of my recent Neo Standard decks which are pretty high up on the scale for gimmicks. If you plan on actually winning often, and doing well these aren’t the decks for you. They’re good for having a laugh.

First up we’ve a deck which can be very loosely categorised as being a ‘King of Fighters’ deck, by virtue of 8 cards in the deck. In Weiß Schwarz there are a handful of PR cards which can be played in any deck. These usually feature Bushiroad’s mascot Shiyoko, or characters and people from their other properties.

The aim had originally been to build a fully PR deck, making it a Neo Standard deck which didn’t actually belong to a single title in the game. Unfortunately there are only 2 Climax cards, one of which is very hard to obtain. This left me resorting to my backup plan of combining it with King of Fighters and one of the more unusual Level 3 cards in the game.

For convenience I will link to Heart Of The Cards for translations, so you can look up the cards yourself.

Level 0

4x Assisting Shiyoko

2x Loves Card Games! Shiyoko

2x Full of Smiles, Emitsun

3x Suzuka, Childhood Friend Full of Pleasantry

4x Shizuru, Heisei Big-Breasted Girl

3x Emi Nitta as Tokoha Anjou

Chosen Warrior Takeshi

Michi, Idol of the Academy

Given the nature of the deck there isn’t much room for variety, especially since 5 of them are vanillas, and the rest are barely above vanilla in terms of usability. This makes traits and colours important in deciding exactly how many of each card to use.

Takeshi is the only Green PR card, which means he’s needed to help pull off the King of Fighters cards later on. Unfortunately I currently only have one, otherwise I’d play more to make colour fixing easier. He also comes with the very rare Hetare (approx. well meaning, but inept) trait, which is only shared with another 2 cards, from the rarely played Visual Arts and Wooser sets. It is very rare that he won’t add a trait to the stage.

Your Blue cards are all Shiyoko, with the vanilla as filler and the support a key part of the deck. They both have Card Game, which is important for your Level 1 game, and is a trait shared by most other cards in the deck. Since Loves Card Games! Shiyoko only has Card Game, she won’t be any help powering up Ash.

Assisting Shiyoko is key to powering up Ash, and having a laugh, because she can add Genki trait to a character by resting herself. This is mostly pointless, but it’s a +1000 buff to Ash once you reach Level 3. Her 2nd trait is Headband, which pretty much only exists in King of Fighters and Sengoku Basara, so you rarely need to worry about overlap.

There are a variety of Red cards on offer, adding a bunch of different traits to the deck, making them useful for Ash later on. Michi has Otaku, Emitsun has the very rare Seiyuu trait and Music, Suzuka has Swimsuit and Card Game and finally Emi Nitta has Vanguard and Card Game. All the 3000s are vanilla cards, so it doesn’t really matter which ones you use. You can just ignore the effect on Emi Nitta since you’ll never have a Neo Nectar Vanguard, since you’re playing the wrong game. Emitsun has Hand Encore, so you can keep her around easily if you need to. However, with 20 Level 0s you’ll never be short on playable cards.

Finally we have Shizuru our only Yellow card, who gains 1000 in your turn. She is probably your best Level 0, since she can actually beat cards in battle. Her Love trait can be useful, you just need to wary of this trait appearing in series like Madoka and IdolM@ster to name but a few.

Level 1

4x Shiro-Kuro Fes Shiyoko

4x Shiro-Kuro Fes Shiyoko 2014

There are only two Level 1 PRs, so you have to play both of them at max. Both are Card Game / Music, so it helps get you another trait on the stage. The 2014 version can wall up during your opponent’s turn, whilst the first Shiro-Kuro Fes Shiyoko has Clock Encore to help keep herself alive.

Level 2

Ren Suzugamori

Izumi Kitta as Misaki Tokura

2x Nanana Pal Child Actor Sora Tokui

2x Evil Army! Don-sama

4x Aichi Sendou

Both Ren and Izumi Kitta act as top checks, so you can try to avoid stocking a Climax with your Stock boost. I’m mainly just using them so I have one of each card in the deck. You can ignore Izumi Kitta’s other effect, because you’ll never have an Oracle Think Tank Vanguard.

Sora Tokui gives your deck access to a very expensive burn effect, but also let’s you see their hand. When you play her, you say a Level between 0 and 3 and if your opponent has a card of that Level in their hand they take 1 burn damage. 4 Stock overall is a pretty steep cost for this though. At least she has the Buddyfight trait to power up Ash.

Don-sama is your main attacker, as the biggest PR card in the game, and the only one with 2 Soul. Unfortunately he can’t direct attack, so your opponent can just ram cards into yours to stop him from being able to do anything. Having the Alien trait also helps with powering up Ash, unless you happen to be playing against Haruhi, or there’s a Kyubey hanging around.

The final and best Level 2 is Aichi, who has a Climax combo with Stand Up!, letting you draw a card when he attacks. He can also power himself up by resting other characters, so you might be able to beat things without spending too much stock. You’ll just have to forego giving cards Genki for a turn or two.

In the Level 2 lineup there’s quite a bit of space for changes, because aside from Aichi there aren’t really any cards you’d definitely want to play 4 of. If you want more deck manipulation you can use more Ren and Izumi Kitta, but if you want more Soul damage you can use more Don-Sama

Level 3

4x Plunderer Ash

There are no Level 3 PR cards, so instead I opted to combine the deck with King of Fighters, letting me put Ash and his +2 Soul Climax into the deck. Ash is one of the more fun Level 3s in the game, despite the underwhelming looking 3000 Power. As gains every single trait on the Stage, including your opponent’s, and for every trait he has his Power goes up by 1000. This is why Assisting Shiyoko is so useful, because adding Genki to the Stage will give him extra Power.

You can usually expect to have Card Game, Headband, Genki and Vanguard at the very least, which can often be supplemented by traits like Music, Seiyuu, Swimsuit, Buddyfight and Hetare. Unless your opponent’s deck is very mono-trait you can usually gain a good 3-4000 from their Stage too. Ash can get up to the regular 10,000 base for Level 3s and often exceed that.

Ash has a very strong Climax combo with Germinal, letting you heal from Clock to Stock, and stopping your opponent’s Backups and Events. The healing gets around anti-heal cards and gives you extra Stock for the next turn, or to just help Encore Ash during your opponent’s turn. The anti-counter effect makes sure you can defeat your opponent’s card, but also prevents annoying cards like Sayaka’s Wish or anti-damage events.

Finally he also sends his defeated opponents to Memory, so they won’t be bothering him again. Be careful with effect though, since if you have multiple copies of Ash you might be cutting their Power down by removing Traits from the Stage.

Climaxes

4x Stand Up!

4x Germinal

Stand Up! is the old fashioned Stock boost Climax, which combos with Aichi. You need to be wary that you may sometimes blind Stock a Climax when using this.

Germinal is a +2 Soul, and the combo card with Ash. You can use this to push for damage if you see an opening or fall behind in damage.

General Play

This deck is very straightforward, so there’s not really anything that needs to be explained with it. You’ll spend most of the early game playing costless cards and hoping to be able to beat something it battle. When you can’t you can use your Climaxes to help Side Attack over your opponent’s cards. You’ll want to try and hold Ash and Aichi for later in the game so you can pull off their respective Climax combos. Aichi is very useful for making sure you have enough cards in your hand to be able to make future plays, whilst Ash will surprise your opponent with his unusual healing mechanic.

All the Stock you build can be used for 3 Cost Encoring characters when you start running low on playable ones, or just as a means of Deck compression. I’ve had 17 clean Stock with this deck before, although I did then keep on drawing Climaxes.

Don’t expect to win many games, but you’ll have a good laugh with the deck. It would be better if there were more King of Fighters cards and less PRs, but that’s not really the point of the deck. You’ll see Assisting Shiyoko turn up in normal King of Fighters decks all the time, for her ability to power up Ash.

Going Full PR

The ultimate aim for the deck was to play it with just PR cards, unfortunately the “Love” Aimi Climax is expensive and hard to find, so I currently don’t have any of it. It’s a +2 Soul, just like Germinal, but it’s Red and doesn’t have a Climax combo.

Aimi is another 2/1 8000 for the deck, but she’s potentially the strongest card in the deck, since she can pump herself to 11,000. This happens if you cancel damage during a battle involving her. Your opponent will need to be wary attacking her, and may need to account for the extra 3000 boost. It may encourage your opponent to only attack her with 1 Soul characters since the damage is less likely to be cancelled. If your opponent can get their 2 Soul cards above 11-12,000 it won’t matter anyway. Her effect is too inconsistent to rely on working much.

(This article originally incorrectly stated that Aimi got Power when her damage was cancelled)

Hope you’ve enjoyed this look at one of the more gimmicky decks in the game. I’ll be back soon with another one, looking at a Blue / Yellow Girlfriend (Beta) deck.