With his beefy base stats of 6 hp, +2 attack and neutral defense, Store Manager even outmuscles the ever so powerful Star Breaker, and that one has an overall very debilitating passive in only being able to pick wins norma. So with Store Manager being even stronger than her, he must be extremely screwed, right?



Yes and no. Getting no bonus stars from star panels makes you unable to compete in the star race and not being to use cards barring gift cards is certainly an ability that forces you to work with your base stats alone. These are definitely downsides but none of that does not destroy you from the get go. The real kicker of the unit though is the third passive of his unit – he takes damage upon discarding cards. This may sound like another downside of the unit, but in fact should be more called a character gimmick than a nerf as this can be used to your advantage.

This is because the last passive enables a very powerful tool of being able to kill yourself outside of combat, or "tactical suicide" as i like to call it. In 100 % orange juice, you do only lose stars on death when being killed in combat. A death outside of combat lets you keep your stars so "rolling for revives" is basically free heal instead of a massive setback in this case. So having the means to utilize such a powerful mechanic is something very few units can actually boast about.

Usually you would expect to now talk about the unit's Hyper card. However it is necessary to talk in detail about the unit's passive in detail, as this will also be important for the Hyper card.

Most people would assume, that “Discarding” means losing a card from your hand without playing it and having it land in the Discard Pile. Store Manager actually does not take damage from all instances which qualify as “Discard” by that definition. This section here is meant to clarify which effects ACTUALLY damage him and which do not.

Luckily for us, the rule is relatively simple:

• Manual discards damage him, while forced discards do not.
  
• Under manual discards fall discarding a card by overdrawing, or playing a gift card with "Discard upon use" clause, like Price of Power.
  
• Forced discards are card effects that cause cards to be lost, for example Flamethrower or Bad Pudding. Losing a card from these types of effects does not deal damage to him.

Honorable mention goes to the Playground event, which for some ungodly reason damages Store Manager if he gets forced to discard.
Due to all these types of effects being called 'Discard' by the game, a big brain is required to know all
of these interaction



Look at this image, it is literally him. He started this meme. [citation needed]

Store Manager's Hyper “Banned for Life” is a gift card that makes the player unable to play other cards barring gift cards. This effect does not hamper Store Manager in the slightest, while other units holding it essentially transform the unit into a bootleg copy of him. By paying some stars, the Hyper can be sent to another random player to prevent them from playing non-gift cards and force them work on base stats alone just like you.



It also has a secondary effect upon being discarded, that it takes the holders entire hand with it. Going by the terminology established earlier, the effect trigger is a 'Manual Discard', while the hand removal effect itself is a 'Forced Discard'.

If the Hyper is discarded by Store Manager himself this way, he still takes 1 damage from the initial overdraw, but no further damage is taken, which helps Store Manager incredibly over the course of a game, to avoid constant chip damage from drawing cards, so this effect is very beneficial to him.

For most other units however, triggering this effect is very detrimental.
Depending on the situation the character obtaining the gift card is in, the effect can cause anything between a minor nuisance to serious concern, depending on the character who obtains the card and what spot they are in.

• At worst, the user is stunned from playing cards for at least 1 turn, as passing it to another player will take up card play slot for 1 turn.
  
• If a player receives the card at full hand size, they will either be forced to immidiately pass it or give up one of their hand cards, if they choose not to do so and will also prolong the stun.
  
• It also makes attacking holders of the card much safer for Store Manager, as they cannot use any battle cards to counter his attacks. Due to the random nature of the Hyper, getting this benefit is not very reliable though.

Considering Store Manager's restrictions, this type of Hyper works perfectly for him.

Because Store Manager cannot play most cards, the amount of noteworthy cards to talk about should be relatively short compared to other characters.

First, there are the gift cards – all gift cards besides “Unlucky charm” have effect that using them discards them. Turning them into effective tools for tactical suicide. All of them are viable choices to bring, even though some are more useful than others.

Metallic Monocoque and Lucky Charm take the title as a best ones to bring as their effects do not put any norma restrictions on you and have effects that usually benefit him.



Price of Power is essentially a blank card you can use to tactical self-K.O at any point in the game once drawn. Lucky Sevens is another gift card with a 'Discard upon use' clause and no norma restriction making it great choice to bring. The other 4 gifts, 'Windy Enchantment', 'Poppo the Snatcher', 'Lost Child' and 'Bloodlust' also have effects that Store Manager in theory can use to great effect due to its massive stats. However, their norma restriction prevents them from being useful for the whole game once obtained. Still, bringing some or all of those may be worth considering based on their interaction with Store Manager’s passive itself.

Gift cards alone however do not make a full deck, so you need to bring a few couple more cards to the game. There are several good options to consider:

• Forced Discard effects as they can be used to empty your hand without taking damage. Good options include 'Flamethrower' and 'Bad Pudding'. Just do not bring 'Brutal Prank' as you prefer to have your hyper stick around.

• Event cards are also options to bring, as long as their effects are beneficial to you.
  The 'Scrambled Eve' version before Update 3.5 [left image] was a near flawless choice for manager to bring as it was an effective tool to empty your hand while also robbing other people of their cards. You cannot play it but someone else *Mei* do it. Jokes aside, this card also has the potential to be used against you to thwart a potential suicide attempt. This illustrates the issue with all Event Cards you bring perfectly - you cannot play it, so you have zero control over their timing. The updated version of the card is still usable with him for the same reasons, although its merits have been greatly reduced which makes it a "Run by preference" type of card now.

Other good options for event cards with useful effects and relatively low risk include 'Little War', 'Out of Ammo', 'Mixed Phenomenon' and maybe even 'Play of the Gods' to bait people into accidentally trigger those effects. 'Gift Exchange' also should be mentioned, because by keeping cards with low use you actually have some way to manipulate the outcome of the trade in your favor.
• Other mentions go to traps that enforce encounters, such as 'Piyopiyo Procession' or 'Assault'
  
  
  
• Lastly, an honorable mention goes to 'Dinner', as this is the only card you can bring that can heal you.

On a final note - Card that you DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT bring are battle and boost cards, as these only benefit the user of the card and can only be used against you.

Norma 1 to 3

• Picking Wins is the way to go (almost always). Grab every encounter panel you can and K.O. players when it is relatively safe to do so. The lower Norma count in the earlier stages even give you a bit of "safety" when attacking players, since not all cards are usable yet.
  
• To illustrate how hard it is for Store Manager to accomplish a star norma with his passive, take a look at the Formula for star regeneration at the start of the chapter[100orangejuice.gamepedia.com]:
  With this as your only income, you need 8 chapters to collect 10 stars, 16 chapters to collect 30 stars and 25 chapters to collect 70 Stars. By that time you are more than capable to collect 2 or 5 wins to progress.
  
• Once you have reached 5 wins, you may even consider delaying the 4th norma to keep encounter panels around for longer.
  
• In terms of drawing cards:
  
  • in an ideal world, you would love to have no cards in the hand at full health to maintain health, while having a full hand at 1 HP to be able to tactically suicide yourself by stepping on a draw panel. This type of ideal scenario can be achieved by manually discarding your Hyper at 1 hp.
    
  • Drawing a lot of cards is generally not advisable for Store Manager. However, as your health lowers you should consider starting to fill up your hand to be “suicide ready” if it is not full already.
    
  • Generally rushing to fill the hand won't be necessary as you will eventually be forced to draw by RNG.

Norma 4 and 5

• As Norma 4 spawns a boss, you usually have to make a hard call, whether or not you want to keep pursuing wins.
  
• While the general gameplan of mugging people of stars and commit tactical suicide when possible remains the same the approach slightly alters.
  
• As a rule of thumb - you should not pick wins if you have less than 7 wins and mugging a player gets you close to 120 stars (provided you have decent fighting shape).
  
• For wins Norma you need to play much more aggressively and go after other players, as these will be your only income of wins for potentially the rest of the game. As doing well and killing a lot of players makes you amass a lot of stars, walking on drop panels is also an attractive prospect (especially if you are on wins for Norma 5), as this lowers the reward for killing you and prevents people to win by "Lucky Punch". Walking on Draw Panels with 'Metallic Monocoque' is also a good idea for the same purpose. From my own experience you are also more inclined to throw your Hyper around to make getting wins easier while also burning stars as a side effect.
  
• Star Norma does not require you to play as aggressively but due to the volatilty of Star Norma, keeping your star stash by tactical suicide is more important than ever. Star Norma effectively opens up 3 pathes to victory for you:
  
  • The ever so classic victory by Lucky Punch, by killing the player/boss with a lot of stars and run away with the lead
    
  • Victory by simply surviving while everyone dies - which you are never going to achieve outside of getting 'Lucky Charm'. This is because your lack of star generation gives everyone effectively 1 free death without falling behind you in the star race. Furthermore, your inability to use healing cards and your 'good but not amazing' bulk in conjunction with chip damage from your passive makes this incredibly hard to achieve even with 'Lucky Charm'.
    
  • Mug someone, and then avoid combat K.O.’s by tactical suicide. This is much more realistically to achieve than the previous entry. This approach values good defensive play and choosing your fights and draws well over pure aggression.

Over the course of the game, you will have to discard, since landing on less than 2 draw panels over a whole match is VERY unlikely. Since you can't use any of the cards anyway, it does not matter which cards you discard. Right? RIGHT?

Well, in a vacuum yes. However, the existence of Gift Exchange, Scambled Eve, Play of the Gods, Tragedy in the Dead of Night, Treasure Thief (and Exchange) give a sort of natural priority list of what you should prioritize in discarding:

• Discard cards that counter/harm you first when given the choice. You do not want to have your opponent have that "Sealed Guardian" to use on you, don't you.
  
• Discard the cards in order of generic utility if none of the cards in your hand threaten you.
  
• Keep "Bricks" (useless/expensive cards with low impact) as this will decrease the likelihood of "Gift Exchange" and "Tragedy in the Dead of Night" being beneficial for your opponents.
  
• Keep the aforementioned gift cards to always have a tactical suicide tool available when you hit 1 HP. An exception is of course if the Gift card disables normas and you want to Norma.
  
• As some sort of Extra Rule, you could also consider discarding cards good for you / Bricky cards and keep high utility cards in your hand while the game is still at Norma 1 and 2.
  Why would you do the opposite of what has been previously estabilished?
  The reason is that the deck does not shuffle upon reset and the cards discarded first land on the top of the new deck. This gives you some power to "stack the deck" against your opponent in the late game. Once players reach Norma 3 however, you should start abandoning this approach, as "Gift Exchange" and "Tragedy in the Dead of Night" become playable and a good chunk of the Deck already has landed in the Discard pile for it to not matter on a reset. Furthermore I will incentivice, that the merit of this tactic is mostly map dependant, as not every game will result in a Deck reset.
  
  Let's do a example to showcase these rules in practice:
  Let's assume we are at Norma 3, have no home panel in reach and have 5 HP.
  
  The most dangerous card to us in that situation is "Oh My Friend", as this locks us out of Encounter Panels. So it should go first. Neither "Sealed Memories" nor "Star-Blasting Light" threatens us. However, "Sealed Memories" has a slightly higher potential to be a game changer compared to "Star-Blasting Light", so it should go prior to it. And "Windy Enchantment" should be kept as suicide tool if we get bad luck and our health falls to 1 HP.
  
  If we slightly change the setup and we are close to our own home and want to Norma, then "Windy Enchantment" should go, as we have to get rid of it anyway and taking 1 damage over 2 is definitely preferable.
  
  We could also alterate the situation for the game to have the boss spawned on a map with mostly avoidable boss encounters. In this case, 'Oh my Friend' is actually the best card to keep around of the 3 non-gift cards, as the chance of it being able to be played again is incredibly slim, making it a perfect brick.
  
  As you can see, what is good to discard and what is not can drastically change on the situation and even which characters are around. However, the Rule "Bad for the opponent to have = Good for you" is a very tried and true method to go by.
  

• My Co-Author Glitch for help with testing and proof-reading this guide
  
• Xerxes126 for proof-reading and giving feedback from the perspective of an inexperienced player
  
• Tango, Kega, Zlia, Snaggly and ShioHaruka for testing specific interaction to verify them
  
• 100 % Orange Juice Wiki[100orangejuice.gamepedia.com] for images used in this guide
  
• 100 % Orange Juice R & D Server [discord.com] for verifying stuff with their findings and being generally useful for any info on specific card interactions

Updates:
2022/09/02 - i saw a typo and fixed it. also i clarified in the unit section how star denial by tactical suicide works. i mentioned this later in the guide but i figured it would help readers understand why the passive is actually useful a bit earlier this way.
2021/06/17 - Mentioned Lucky Sevens as a new viable gift card and acknowledged that scrambled eve was nerfed in version 3.5