The Priestess of Love, War, and Draw Cancer! Sakura, Dancing in Hoshidan Bloom!

Welcome back to another fabulous Decklist Post! I've decided today isn't going to be a Budget List - instead, every third or fourth Decklist Post is going to be a List for a character I particularly like from each color, and I'm going to call them FriendList Posts because I think it sounds nice, and I'm also going to come up with names for these Decks as opposed to my Budget Lists, which shall remain nameless. This FriendList is for your(My? Our?) little sister from Hoshido, Sakura!

One of Sakura's fabulous Promotional cards. SHE'S JUST TOO CUTE ahem.

Sakura, to provide a tiny bit of background for those uneducated in the characters and plotline of Fire Emblem Fates, is the player's Avatar's little sister from the Hoshidan side of their family. She's very shy and reserved, but sincere, and while her Nohrian counterpart Elise may come off as being more friendly, Sakura still brings her own charm to the game. She's recruited as a Shrine Maiden, the equivalent of a Healer or Cleric, and can promote into either the Onmyoji or Priestess Classes, with her Parallel Seal Class Tree being that of the Sky Knight. Now for the cards!

Today's List is a somewhat shaky build based around drawing lots of Critical Evades to keep the other guy from beating up your poor "defenseless" little Main Character. Unlike Budget List posts, I'm also going to do two extra Lists that's how I would run the deck if I had to either 1) Keep only the Main Character or 2) Drop only the Main Character. Without further ado, here are the cards:

RoyBoy's FriendList: One Thousand "Cherry Blossoms" - Sakura

Flora: B06-072R x4, B06-073N x4

Felicia: B06-070R x4, B06-073N x4

How it Works

Quick Expl.: Get Sakura to her S7 4/3, use her and Kagero's combined Draw power to never run out of Evades while raining a million and fifty Crits with Shuriken Units(the "Cherry Blossoms" in the Deck Title) so her relatively poor ATK is regarded as null.

Detailed Expl.: As you may have noticed, this List carries a whopping 17 Sakura cards, for almost two-fifths of the whole Deck being Self-Supports for your Main Character. Since you'll always have at least one Sakura card on the Field, there will be a maximum of 16 Sakura cards circulating through the gameplay, with this number increasing and decreasing as you Class-Change and Crit/Evade. This does make for a lot of Self-Supports, especially if you're against someone who only ever attacks your Main Character, but it also means(assuming everything goes according to plan) that you get lots of Crits/Evades for Sakura. Sakura's S7 4/3 has a fabulous ability that one of my friends at first thought wouldn't be super great but has since turned around about. This ability is her "Dragon Vein" ability, which in Cipher means it involves turning one of your Orbs Face-Up as part of the cost of the Skill. Sakura's Dragon Vein Skill requires you to Tap her, Flip 3 Bonds, and flip an Orb Face-Up to draw 3 cards, and then if you have fewer Orbs than your opponent, she also Untaps. It sounds kind of bad, but with max. 15 Sakura overall(you'll have 2 on the Field plus however many everywhere else) you're very likely to get at least one Sakura with that Skill, often two, especially if you've got everything else set up, which means you might get that last Crit you needed to finish this or got that one game-changing Evade that means you live another round. Her other 4/3 isn't bad, but it's very situational as she's a Priestess on that card, meaning she only has a Range of 2 instead of the 1-2 Range her Onmyoji 4/3 has. Her Priestess card has perhaps the most magnificent Heal Skill in the game, healing 3 different Units for a cost of 4 Bonds, which is actually very cost-effective as most Heal Skills run either 1 Unit for 2 Bonds or 2 Units for 3 Bonds. Her Knight card is usually the one you want to have on the Field at the start of the game, as it gains 20 ATK whenever she's attacked, effectively giving her 50 ATK on your opponent's turn. However, she also has a Skill that auto-Taps her at the start of the Deployment Phase, so you're not going to be attacking with her until the turn after she Class-Changes, which is frustrating. Now for the real draw engine - Kagero. Kagero's new 3/2 is quite simple: Whenever a Shuriken Unit Crits, draw. Yup. You read that right. All the Shuriken Crits are basically free. I don't know whether or not this affects Kagero herself, my friends and I are in the middle of a dispute over that part of her effect. Also, while you have another Shuriken Unit in the Vanguard, Kagero can't be targeted for an attack. Fun, right? The rest of the List is just Shuriken Units with some use or other, to be honest. Flora and Felicia work ok as a tag-team pair, but it's tricky to keep both of them out long enough while also having the Bonds you need for their rather situational Skillset. Felicia can Flip 1 Bond to destroy an enemy character, but you have to destroy your Main Character, a rather annoying Cost and one that you probably won't be willing or able to pay during your games. However, she also gains 20 ATK when you have no Orbs left, meaning you can drop her onto the Field when you're on the ropes for a 70 ATK beatstick plus have an excuse to play Felicia if she's your waifu or whatever. Hey, guys, I try not to judge, I've got one too, though I don't have time to go sharing my preferences right now. Anyways, Flora Untaps herself whenever your Main Character is Destroyed, so you would attack with her, use Felicia's Skill to destroy an enemy and take an Orb, Untap Flora and attack with her again, or, if you're now out of Orbs thanks to Felicia, you can use Flora's second Skill - if you have no Orbs left, you can Tap her and Flip 3 Bonds to add one of your Main Character's cards from the Retreat to the Orbs, then destroy Flora. Yeah, you lose Flora as part of the effect and she has to be Untapped to use it, it's annoying, but hey, one more Orb when your opponent thought you were all out, and it's guaranteed to be a Crit/Evade, so that's good. Saizo only has one card in here because I've never really been glad to draw him but his Skill is good - He can Crit using any Shuriken card. ANY Shuriken card. He's fun, but I haven't drawn him when I could use him enough, so I only have one. Yuzu is kind of just there because I'm a relatively poor man for a US Cipher player and I may or may not think she looks cute on those new cards. I'm thinking I may switch her out for Yukimura, who allows you to draw a card whenever a Shuriken Unit is destroyed. For those of you starting to think this is just a Shuriken Deck that I added Sakura to because Waifu, you disgust me, but you're almost right - I like Sakura, but not quite on that level, I just started making a Sakura Deck based on her draw Skill, wondered what would make me have even more draw power, and bam, Shurikens. You could honestly drop Sakura and make Kagero your MC as she's so important to the draw power, but this is a Sakura post not a Kagero post so shut up and let me do my thing. Anyways, that's about it for what the Deck does, now for the alt. Lists!

So I decided I'd do two extra Decklists for each FriendList Post - one List where I keep all Characters but the Main Character, and one List where I drop all Characters except the Main Character, both to challenge my Deckbuilding skills and to give you guys some idea of what other cards might do well paired with or without the Post's featured character. Let's get the NewMC List out first, eh?

Same Deck, New MC

Total: 50 cards

So as you can see, I wouldn't add any new characters if I had to drop Sakura, instead dealing out the now-extra 17 slots among the remaining characters with focus on Kagero as the new MC, since her Draw Skill is the most important part of the Deck - you will literally just fall apart if you can't keep drawing the Crits/Evades you need during your Battle Phase. Kagero's S2 cards are nothing special - her Cost 1 needs Ryoma to work and her 3/2 only works against Archer/Shuriken decks, making it an epic tech against Eleonora or Takumi Decks as they run almost nothing but Archers as a general rule but fairly worthless elsewhere. Mostly those eight cards will be extra Crit/Evades for you because Kagero's 50 ATK is more awful for an MC than Sakura's 60 so you'll be dodging most of the time. Saizo is there because he has the Wild Card Crit Skill thingy, and his S2 card can kill the top card of your opponent's Deck. Flora's SR works as a once-a-game shield for your MC, but you need to have a Black Bond to trigger it, so be careful before Flipping those Black Bonds. Her PR card just provides a bit of support to your MC as well as gives you more Flora/Saizo Crits to play with. You're probably going to end up using her more than Felicia for your Black Bonds by the way. Felicia's SR is...something. You can Tap your MC and Flip 1 Bond to Untap her, which is alright because she has 10 more ATK than Kagero and will probably be a better use of your attacks, and you can discard a card with the same name as your MC to double her ATK for the turn - essentially using a Crit without using a Crit. Basically, this one can discard a Kagero to attack for 120+Support, Flip 1 and Tap Kagero to Untap Felicia and attack again for another 120+Support. I can't decide how many copies of her SR she merits playing, though, so I went fairly even for all her cards together. Yuzu is there because she can give a +10 buff to a Shuriken Unit when you Deploy one while gaining one herself, plus free Saizo Crits. So all in all, a straightforward Shuriken Deck - Get Kagero CC'd, start throwing Crits out like no tomorrow, maybe use a Kagero to make Felicia's SR a monster attacker for a turn if you don't have Felicia Crits on hand. Now how about that other List?

New Deck, Same MC

Total: 50 cards

With this List, I'm emphasizing the fact that this Deck never runs out of Evades, but in a different manner thanks to Mikoto, perhaps the best Heal Unit in all of Cipher at time of writing. Instead of Flipping 2 Bonds, she sends 2 Face-Down Bonds to the Retreat, allowing you to Heal with Arete or Sakura herself and immediately follow up with a Heal from Mikoto, allowing those two Bonds to go twice as far. Admittedly, your total Bond count will run a little low, but you should be just fine anyways. This also allows you to safely Bond any cards for either Sakura or Camilla, who will be your big hitters, as you can use Sakura or Lilith to Flip them, then discard them with Mikoto to put them back into circulation. Lilith doesn't do too much on her own, but she's a good supporting Unit for the S6 Camilla/S7 Sakura, as she can Flip an Orb Face-Up or -Down, allowing you to make the Orbs you'll need to Flip for Sakura/Camilla's Dragon Vein Skills last another DVS. Other than that, though, she really does almost nothing other than be a White card for Arete, who provide her own draw power with a simple Skill - Tap her, draw a card and reveal it, if it's White, keep it, if not, discard any one card from hand. This allows you to occasionally turn what could have been a Self-Support into a free Crit/Evade for later along with getting you more Mikoto, as she's imperative to the Deck's success. Emma is really only there for her 30 SV. Camilla is going to be your main heavy-hitter, with one SR going to 120 during your turn and the other partially exploding the Field with both her Skills, and she also brings the same Flier's 30 SV to the table as well. However, if you're playing with littler people or your mother/father likes to come sit and watch you play, you may want to pass her up in favor of more child-appropriate cards like say Elise.

So there you guys go, my first FriendList Post! Hopefully it wasn't too painful for you guys to struggle through. Thinking I'll do Nephenee or Holyn for my next Budget List, comment below if you have anyone you specifically want to see. SANKYU