Musketeers, Neo Nectar:Deck Review

Since the issue has been made abundantly clear to me irl, you pronounce 'bass' in B.a.s.s. values like the instrument.

While not as outright powerful as some clans and decktypes, the Musketeers take a radically large step towards field consistency, near unprecedented in almost any other decktype except the most dedicated of the Royal Paladins. Focusing almost entirely on constantly scaling the field, the Musketeers' ability to make early game strike forces with almost no repercussions for rush power, take advantage of almost any gamestate from building out of almost anything, and even exhibiting light levels of tanking and other defensive tropes, the Musketeers represent a jack of all trades for flexibility in most if not all situations they are thrown in.

Broccolini Musketeer, Kirah

X3 Chestnut Bullet

X4 Dancing Sunflower

X1 Four Leaf Fairy

X4 Hibiscus Musketeer, Hannah

X4 Night Queen Musketeer, Daniel

X4 Lily of the Valley Musketeer, Rebecca

X4 Maiden of Blossom Rain
X2 Tulip Musketeer, Mina

X4 Water Lily Musketeer, Ruth

X4 Cherry Blossom Musketeer, Augusto

X4 Lily of the Valley Musketeer, Kaivant

X3 Tulip Musketeer, Almira

X4 Black Lily Musketeer, Hermann

X4 White Lily Musketeer, Cecilia

Out of 10 fights, generally 6 of them will result in you immediately riding into a Grade 3 you run 4 of without misriding. Kirah however, can bring this up to 7 fights, allowing the deck to play optimally just that much more. Along with helping to secure an immediate ride into Cecilia, Kirah's namesake makes it the perfect candidate for early game field scaling when you don't need its skill, and otherwise get your Musketeer shenanigans off as early as you can by always giving you fodder to work with right away. Through this, Kirah's in general role of stabilizing the deck can also act as a way to facilitate a solid way to develop a legitimate early rush on the opponent by giving you field set ups generally much faster than that the opponent can deal with.

Of course, fodder is fine up until something can actually make use of it. Lily of the Valley Musketeer, Rebecca is one of the key cards to facilitate this with its ability to retire a Musketeer unit to check the top 4 cards of your deck for a new Musketeer to call. Through this, you can trade in virtually any Musketeer out for another one which may be able to serve you even better than before, creating and generating constant auxiliary advantage to get an edge over the opponent. Including direct upgrades like changing Kirahs into Ruth, the skill also allows for far more flexible field set ups not possible in other decks. Mina's here almost completely for namesake, but Ruth takes spotlight for this deck. Not only will it almost always have its skill, turn 1, 2, or so on, but its ability take both a beater spot and a booster spot allows the field and resources                                                                even more flexibility, along with giving a much more reliable buffer to get a beater out                                                                 of any other Musketeer's cycling skill.

Moving on from the 12K beater almost everyone should know of, Kaivant plays the same key role as Rebecca in being able to trade out units to constantly tune your field setup. With over a 75% chance to pull a booster and, counting Ruth, nearly a 93% chance to get a beater, it's quite safe to say that whatever field set up you're aiming for is very tangibly in your grasp with the cyclers. While not as reliable on their own, or only trying from a single usage, the 65% chance of calling out an intercept also gives you a good defensive edge by giving you virtually no direct drawback to using your 5K intercepts early on to maintain advantage.

Moving past another 12K beater, it finally comes down to the boss card of the deck, White Lily Musketeer, Cecilia. Cecilia's secondary skill, unlike the other 2 cyclers that check 4, will check through 5 cards. The 75% chance for a booster rises to almost 83%, the 93% chance for a beater rises to almost 97%, and the 65% chance for an intercept rises to nearly 74%. In conjunction with lower-Grade cyclers, any field you aim for is well in your reach, and the ability to execute any Musketeer tactics is increased even further. The constantly maintained field is further exhibited in her Limit Break, as for only one Counter-Blast and returning five Musketeers from the drop zone to the deck, you may call out two more copies of Cecilia out from your deck. It should be noted that fattening the deck by 3 cards, and most likely just immediately trading out a card out so only by 2, has virtually little to no notable effect on you trigger potency, so please ignore anyone who even begins to mention this. Anywho, through the constant generation of 10K beaters, you'd have a near endless source of card advantage and fodder to go through, loading you with more interceptors at a steady rate and improving your defensive measures greatly through giving you another 5K shield to work with.

How the Deck Works

While it's hard to write down an exact guide on how such a malleable deck works, there are many key aspects to the deck to follow.

The Musketeers' Early Game is going to be followed through with all sorts of rush elements. Instead of having to shuffle through whatever you call, Rebecca and Kaivant work together to put your field development on overdrive. Along with immediately trading out Kirah if you don't need its skill, you can trade out weaker boosters while your field still has holes in it for higher powered beaters right away, taking advantage of the limited resources of the early game by loading you up with better offensive units to quickly gain an offensive edge over the opponent. Even if you have more Musketeers that you can trade out than you actually can afford too, there's almost no repercussions for making weaker columns thanks to Cecilia's advances later on.

By the start of the midgame, you can expect the field to nearly be full by this point. So long as it's filled with Musketeers, any poor columns are virtually meaningless through any cycling skills. Just like the early game, thanks to being able to use basically any unit you draw and turn it into any good role for your field, you'll be taking advantage of almost any limit of resources. Even if both you and your opponent may generate the same amount of card advantage, you can expect your field to be full maybe even turns ahead of them, giving you a huge advantage lead in the fight. From here, defensive measures also begin to show themselves. While you still aren't really creating any card advantage, so long as you have another Musketeer to replace them, you have every reason to use an Intercept if the moment arrives, with no drawback of say, losing out on your offensive capability. Basically put, when coupled with the advances for your offensive capabilities, the Musketeers can draw into amazing capabilities through battle, giving a good leading edge in a fight.

With all the cycling and intercepting, it shouldn't be hard to expect 5 Musketeers in the drop zone by the time the Late Game rolls around. About when the opponent begins attacking you, you have, say, 3 damage, and if you have 2 intercepts, around then is the best time to drop both intercepts on attacks, creating yet another damage buffer to help keep you in the game. With Cecilia, you can immediately replace your attack forces, meaning that buffer only served to your benefit, giving you yet another edge over the opponent. From here, ignoring Kaivant, you can generate on average some 167255/45402 or 3.7K shield turn per turn through Cecilia's skill, bolstering your defense even further. Eventually, your earlier strikes and enhanced defense will continuously wear away at your opponent until victory.