#gakumas decks

[pushingupmaesies]

psd used: chocolate hearts by @canarysage! font used: pea chass rounde by yutaONE !

Wonder Scale China Deck Guide!

hi guys! it's been a hot minute but i'm finally back with my next guide as promised ^_^

as always, i can't take full credit for my game knowledge, because i wouldn't be here if it weren't for the gakumas masterdoc that i always link. it's a hefty one, but it's the best guide out there for general game knowledge. i just apply the things i learned there + some tips i've gathered from other fans when i make these guides!

all set? let's go under the cut again.

just like kamurogiku kotone, wonder scale china's deck is motivation (✊) focused. that means, luckily for you chinaPs, she is one of the easiest to get to A+/S range once you get the hang of her deck! i got her to A+ on my first attempt once i had a good grasp of what to do. (if you want tips, feel free to ask me! i'll relay anything i've learned from the gakumas fans in the official discord to y'all. :) )

let's get her personal item and skill card covered first though, shall we?

alright. china's personal item gives you an additional 3 motivation (✊) stacks the first two times a skill card gives you motivation. this lets you stack your motivation higher from earlier on, which lets you stack your shield higher from earlier on. very big for motivation decks!

her personal skill card costs 4 true stamina (meaning shields don't block the damage you take), but gives you 2 shield (growing with motivation stacks), scores for 100% of your shield before upgrading, and gives you an extra 2 stacks of motivation (before upgrade) after! it can either be a really good setup + early score card or a pretty decent late-turn card.

she's much more straightforward than kamurogiku kotone, and you don't need to worry about good impression (👍) at ALL.

that's all fine and dandy, but what about the rest of her deck?

okay, y'all probably know how this goes now. first things first...

Setup Card Time!

this time around, i've got 6 setup cards that i recommend you grab. these will help you perfect lessons all the way up to the midterm, and are good for early-mid turns on lessons after that, either for motivation stacks, shield, or a little extra score. the first card gives you 7 shield and 4 stacks of motivation, but each copy can only be used once per lesson. it's a useful card pretty much anywhere in a lesson because of the high shield count and the decent amount of motivation stacks you get from it. the second card gives you slightly less shield, but similar motivation at 2 shield 4 motivation, and it can be used multiple times in a lesson. pretty much the same usage as the first card, but slightly more consistent usage from each copy. the third card is one of my personal favorite early-mid turn score cards, because it gives you 9 shield, and scores for 40% of your current shield. not the strongest, but because it gives shield, it's good for building up shield and still scoring during lessons.

the fourth card is a solid card for almost every logic girl, giving 4 good impression stacks and 3 motivation stacks. decent early scoring from the good impression while you build up motivation stacks and shield.

the fifth card isn't really much to write home about, it's basically a worse version of the second card, but it's good to grab if you don't have anything else for a setup card. it provides 1 shield and 3 stacks of motivation!

the sixth card, however, is crucial if you want to perfect the pre-midterm special lesson, which helps you build up a ton on all three parameters! i recommend grabbing 2-3 of these. it costs 4 true stamina, but it scores for 110% of your current shield, which can be massive until you get ahold of the heart bomb card. speaking of the heart bomb card...

Score Card Time!

since china's personal item gives her a lot of motivation stacks, and her personal skill card is a decent score card, the best cards i can recommend to you for scoring, aside from the scoring cards i included in the setup section are these three:

the first card is a bit of a grind to get, since you need to be p level 44 to use it, but it's a really strong card for your last few turns because it consumes all of your shield, but scores for 160% of your shield before upgrade and 220% of your shield on upgrade. since you can only get one of these, and it consumes all of the shield that you've built up, it's best to use this as a finisher. the second card grants 6 motivation and scores for 200% of your motivation stacks, meaning it's really solid for a mid-late turn scoring without costing any true stamina while also building up motivation stacks.

and the third card, my personal favorite... the heart bomb. again, this is a staple for any motivation deck, because it only consumes half of your current shield, and scores for 130% of your shield before upgrade, and 180% of your shield on upgrade. since you can grab multiple of these, and they only consume half your shield, it's a good mid-late turn score card compared to the first one.

Support Cards: What do I recommend?

for china, i don't have a lot.

kimi to semiblue sumika's support SSR is really useful yet again, because china is another dance girl, and getting a % of your motivation as score every dance turn is super useful, especially during exams.

yellow big bang kotone's support SSR is also useful, because again, dance girl, and the item you get from the support card can provide healing that you might need since a lot of the cards in motivation decks cost true stamina!

and if you have both of those, and are looking for a rental support ssr, this mao + lilja support ssr has an item that gives 2 shield every visual turn! visual isn't exactly a main concern for china, but i try to have 2 support ssrs of each stat to balance things out a little bit. that's really all i can think of, but of course if you guys have any questions at all, my askbox is open! i love talking about this game, feel free to reach out!

[pushingupmaesies]

psd used: chainsaw by @hiddencircus! font used: kitchoscript by yutaone!

Kamurogiku Kotone Deck Guide:

to fully understand why some cards work better in this deck than others, you need to understand kotone's personal p-item and skill card, so let's start there.

have no clue what i'm saying? check out the gakumas masterdoc!

kotone's personal skill card gives you +4 good impression (👍) and +3 motivation (✊) initially, and any time you use a skill card that gives you energy/shield, you additionally gain +1 good impression. this makes her, to my knowledge, the first logic based p-ssr to use both good impression and motivation buffs at once.

her skill card directly ties into the buff her p-item gives. every 3 turns, if you have at least 6 stacks of good impression (👍), you gain 100% of your good impression stacks as additional energy/shield. this can happen up to 4 times per lesson.

ready for the deck itself? okay, let's go under the cut.

setup cards:

while this p-ssr uses both good impression (👍) and motivation (✊), they are not used equally. you should primarily focus on motivation and energy/shield. cards that give both good impression and energy/shield should be your second priority for setup cards.

some setup cards i recommend:

these four are your most valuable setup cards. the first one offers 3 energy/shield at base (increasing with each stack of motivation) and 4 stacks of good impression, triggering kotone's personal skill card's passive and giving you plenty of room to trigger her p-item's buff within the 3 allotted turns.

the second offers 2 energy/shield at base, and 4 stacks of motivation, giving you more opportunities to stack even more energy/shield later on. these first two can be used multiple times in a lesson, and you can gain several copies of each. these are good to have duplicates of, but don't flood your deck with them, or it'll be hard to get scoring skill cards off when you need to.

these bottom two can only be used once per lesson, but the first one can be duplicated. it offers you 7 energy/shield at base, and four stacks of motivation. this brings it out above the previously mentioned motivation card, but you can only use each copy of the card once per lesson, making it a less consistent play.

the second card cannot be duplicated or used more than once per lesson. it gives you 11 energy/shield at base and 5 stacks of motivation, but gives you a debuff increasing card costs for 2 turns. it has its drawbacks, but in a good run you will have plenty of energy/shield to compensate for the increased cost.

aside from these four cards, there are two other skill cards that i recommend using during setup turns:

the first card offers a permanent buff, reducing the cost of skill cards for the rest of the lesson, along with 8 energy/shield at base. the buff itself is monumental for motivation decks because of the sheer amount of cards that deal true damage (ignoring energy/shield, cutting into your stamina directly).

the second costs 2 good impression stacks, but provides you with 9 energy/shield TWICE at base. this can really round out a shield/motivation deck, and it's especially helpful on this kotone because she'll almost always have the good impression stacks to play it.

scoring cards:

now that you've got your setup, you still have plenty of room in your deck for some scoring cards, right? good. you can't score enough to pass the midterm or the final without them!

scoring cards i recommend:

the first card, which i like to call the heart bomb, is a staple in any motivation deck. you build up plenty of shield across all the turns of your lesson/exam, and you drop one of these bad boys. it cuts your current shield in half and scores for 130%(180% if you upgrade, which you should be doing) of your shield before the cut. i recommend grabbing at least 3 of these, so you too can knock out the twin towers with your silly little idol girl. you can also supplement your deck with any other cards that scale off of shield, but the heart bomb should be your main priority for score cards.

in the same vein as that, you can supplement your deck with the second card i've recommended. it provides you 8 stacks of motivation, and scores for 300% of your motivation stacks. if you have a lot of motivation, which you SHOULD, this can do some pretty heavy lifting during a round where you don't have a heart bomb available. you can't grab any duplicates of this card, so it won't be taking up too much space in the deck.

what about support cards? what should i bring?

okay, now we're really cooking. the two main support cards i recommend aside from the obvious (the support ssr running in the same banner as this kotone, very clearly built to support her) are these two:

and not just because i love lilja! that's just a bonus. the items these two support cards SERIOUSLY help out motivation decks.

the star and paper chain gives you 2 energy/shield every visual turn, and the two sodas add 50% of your motivation stacks to your parameter score every dance turn! it doesn't seem like a lot, but it compliments the deck really well.

that's all i've really got to say about this deck honestly. the rest of it is straightforward, and if you follow the masterdoc i linked above (and also provide in my navigation page) you should know where to go from here. good luck out there! hopefully you hit an S rank run!!

[pushingupmaesies]

kind of realized I haven't made an intro post yet. oops. all of this info can be found on my about page, but if you're not looking at the webpage instead of just the tumblr page it's not got everything.

so hi! i'm mae ^_^ (she/they)

i'm 20 (eek), and i'll mostly be talking here about Gakuen IdolM@ster and Baldur's Gate 3 because those are my main two interests at the moment. i'm autistic and BG3 is one of my spinterests, but GakuMas is just one of my slightly-less-casual but non-hyperfix/spinterest interests. i also really really like vampires and bats! i feel like bats are really misunderstood, especially when they're anything that isn't a flying fox. go give hammer-headed bats some love RIGHT NOW I SWEAR TO GOD

i don't have much to contribute to BG3 fandom discussions on here, I do most of that on twitter (linked in my about on the webpage).

but i DO have something i can contribute to gakumas fans on tumblr!

i've familiarized myself with the produce mode card system, and while there is a universal guide by Reza HERE, there aren't deck guides for individual girls. so i figured i'd make deck guides for individual P-SSRs (starting with the ones that i own, branching out to those i don't if i can read up on their personal card's attributes)! i'm cooking one up for kamurogiku kotone right now! keep an eye out for it :3

i'm not sure if anyone is interested in that, but i'm honestly doing it for fun so i don't mind if no one really needs it!