Sanaki

## Overview

Written by: Basil

Sanaki is a powerhouse of an MC- her first skill alone is draw, ramp, and tempo all on it's own, and her second boosts her consistency and gives her range. Combined with green’s amazing deploys that don’t rely on flipping bonds, the only real downside to her is that she has a very weak early game (and 1 tech card can mess her up).

## Gameplan

Your main goal in the early game is mostly just to survive. Your 1 cost doesn’t have range (though the cycle is always nice), so you want to get into a bridge ASAP (luckily she has 2, one of which is amazing). Once you’re in bridge, you mostly just want to clear the field if the opponent has deployed anything, but if they’re a but slower you can hit their MC, since you’re going to be doing that a lot later anyway.

Sanaki normally doesn’t run many 3 costs, Spring Veronica is probably the most common as a flip 1 draw 2 that doesn’t take away your ability to New World, but doing nothing on turn 3 is fairly common.

Once you’re in your main promotion, you  really start cooking. Right away you can use New World to restart your turn, allowing you to deploy a 5 cost or lower on promo turn. Usually this is something like Tormod, Soren if your opponent is slower, Micaiah if you run her, or Kurthnaga.

From there you mostly just want to use your extra ramp, draw, and deploy each turn to build up a stable board, destroy your opponent’s board, generate lots of value with free draws and cheap heals, and put the pressure on the opponent.

A key part of Sanaki’s gameplan is the Nanna cycle- ideally as Sanaki, you flip 2 bonds every turn for New World, so you will burn through your bonds very fast. One way to keep this going is to bond a Nanna, flip it face-down, then bond another Nanna and use her bond skill to pick the first one face-up. Then you just keep doing this over and over. You won’t go up in bonds as fast, but in return you can keep bonding to keep using New World.

Sanaki will usually win by dominating the board and outvaluing the opponent. She can run cards like Tenku Ike to speed up the process, but for the most part, green staples that can generate value like Tormod and Micaiah will be the key to victory.

## Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

* Incredibly potent skill 1 with draw, ramp, and tempo all in 1
* Very good promo consistency with her 1 cost cycle, b16 bridge heal, and other low cost options for drawing / healing (Spring Veronica, Leanne)
* Takes great advantage of the strong green deploys
* Lots of her deploys hit backline, and she can get range herself

Weaknesses:

* Vulnerable early game, especially on her 1 cost with no range
* Spring Veronica also turns off New World- if Sanaki is colorless, all allies aren’t Green
* Doesn’t hit 80 on her own

## Key Cards

### Tormod B16

4 copies of Tormod (plus 4 copies of his 1 cost) are in nearly every version of Sanaki. If you class change him, you go net even on cards in hand, and in return you have a ranged unit that swings for 80 and can hit the backline then move himself every turn. Especially nice in Sanaki since you can use her cycle to draw into the class change or throw away parts you don’t need.

### Nanna BS

Ran purely for her bond skill- makes New Worlding every turn a lot easier on the bond budget. The 10 supports do kind of drag, but the value you get from her is well worth it.

### Kurthnaga 4 B16

Even without Jill, Kurthnaga is definitely worth running. He will still be at least 70 with Sanaki in her main promotion, but he can often reach 80, 90, even 100 with the number of high cost deploys she can tempo out. His heal skill is also useful for getting those high costs back to your hand.

### Soren 4(3) B17

Soren is a nasty card in a lot of decks, but Sanaki can make extra good use of him. His draw denial is very strong when your opponent already has to deal with the other big deploys she puts out, and Sanaki can even use her cycling to draw into dodges to keep him alive for longer or use his 2nd skill to clear the opponent’s board and put even more pressure on.

### Zelgius 6(4)

Though not in every version of the deck, Zelgius is definitely worth mentioning as he is pretty much made specifically for Sanaki. If you promote and New World on 4, you can play him on turn 5 and then New World again to trigger his skill 1 and buff Sanaki to be 100 base, which fixes her ability to hit 80 and can help her stabilize from her rocky early game. His second skill can also make him quite annoying to clear, and if he sticks you can choose 2 allies to buff with his first skill on your next turn.

## Sample Decks

Basil's Sanaki
4 Sanaki, Hailed as the Holy Empress+
4 Sanaki, Child Emperor
4 Sanaki, Goddess-Defying Empress
4 Tormod, Maturing Flame
4 Tormod, Plucky Freedom Fighter (P)
3 Zelgius, The Empire's Greatest General
3 Micaiah, Priestess Shrouded in Dawn's Light
3 Micaiah, Lass of the Dawn Brigade
4 Soren, Silent Windstorm
4 Kurthnaga, The Coming Era's King of Dragons
3 Veronica, Spring Princess
4 Nanna, Brave Princess+
1 Yune, Goddess of Freedom and Chaos
1 Tiki, Towards a Farflung Future
3 Freyr, Dream-Governing God
MC:
1 Sanaki, 37th Sovereign of the Begnion Empire