With the Challenger Series decks releasing TODAY, January 19th, not only are 4 new powerful characters being introduced into the metagame, but UVS Games has posted bounties on them, specifically giving players additional loyalty points for players registering them in any event within the next month. Going along with this, the loyalty point shop has been updated to include two new alternate-art cards of Split-Second Standoff and Get the Scoop, as well as a special Cowboy Bebop playmat.
Due to this, a large influx of players will be itching to give these characters a go, and this article is to prepare you for any events you are determined to tackle with these characters, as I go in-depth with a decklist for each of them, as well as my thoughts on other directions to go with them. I also will note, all of the decklists featured will be able to be built with a single copy of that character’s Challenger deck, so no sweating over having to get multiple! If there is a special mention for cards that could be bumped up in counts with the purchase of multiple decks I will include that when reviewing the deck!
Another note is that each of these decks will not only feature a different character for each, but also a different symbol and playstyle to give you a plethora of options when deciding who you and how you want to approach these characters! And while I won’t be going over a deck for each symbol, I will be including my thoughts on what other explorations on the symbols not featured could potentially look like! Lastly, while these decks will feature cards from My Hero Academia set 1, those cards will rotate with the release of Yu Yu Hakusho: The Dark Tournament in February, so I will also mention any thoughts on how the rotation will impact the lists presented here. Without further ado, let’s hop into the decks!
The Space Cowboy
Spike, Bounty Hunter is the first character I will be going over and while not the most interesting, he is certainly powerful. Being able to flip foundations to draw cards if attacks deal damage gives him inconsistent card draw that is made up with the fact that he can activate it on every single attack, ally or enemy. This lets him pick and choose when to draw, either when you can guarantee an attack hits, from you or the rival, meaning he values attacks that can consistently hit such as throws, as well as not being opposed to half-blocking as he can refund a card there as well.
He also thrives when his board is full of face down foundations, meaning he has an odd gameplay loop of wanting to fill up his board with “blank” cards, meaning his utility throughout the game will fluctuate as he builds and proceeds to flip all of his foundations. This means that he needs to be able to consistently build out wide, so he needs access to both a large influx of foundations as well as low difficulty foundations to have consistently fantastic builds. This means that he loves 0-difficulty foundations, as they are easy to build and his face gives every foundation the text “Flip: If this attack deals damage draw 1 card”, letting him get away with lower impact foundations as he doesn’t care about the text very often.
With these ideas in mind, my initial concept lead me down the Life symbol. Life not only has access to the widest array of 0-difficulty foundations in the game, but additionally several ways to find more foundations throughout your turns. It also gives access to Navel Laser Beam to turbo-flip your board while also spending momentum to unflip your board to reuse the variety of effects you have access to, meaning it is a perfect fit for this character. With the initial concept out of the way, I came up with this list!
The most obvious thing about the list is the gigantic quantity of 0-difficulty foundations, which lets us have consistently large build turns, as well as letting us build out reliably after an offensive turn. They also pack plenty of convenient utility, with Release easing our defense, Tight Lipped accelerating our bottom enhance while also granting damage, while Keeping Eri Safe and Surprising Skill function as stun hate, with the latter also giving anti-seal protection as well. The deck also features Syndicate Target, the new 0-diffculty foundation within the Challenger deck. It boasts fantastic stats with a minor occasional drawback, and finds a perfect home within this list.
Of course foundations don’t win games (usually), attacks do, so the lineup includes some Life staples, such as Tongue Whip as a generic offensive piece and Instant Shining Flash to string out easier and act as some momentum hate. The deck also includes the prior-mentioned Navel Laser Beam, with it Fallen Angel’s Revenge acting as a more offensive off-zone variation of Navel Laser Beam. Falling Heel Strike also finds a home here as a generic unflip piece to let use reuse portions of our stage while being solid for the stats.
The deck also features two throws in Zero Gravity Lift and Overhead Reversal. Spike’s top enhance takes full advantage of throw attacks allowing consistent draw power, and these are some of the highest upside on the Life symbol, Zero Gravity Lift has a massive 6 base damage while also letting us ignore some amount of progressive on future offensive turns, giving this deck decent string potential when combined with Instant Shining Flash. Overhead Reversal on the other hand instantly builds a 0-difficulty foundation from the discard, which can then be flipped to draw when it inevitably does damage due to it being a throw. This means it is one of the key pieces for early-game setup as a cantrip attack that builds a foundation while also snagging a momentum for Navel Laser Beam and Fallen Angel’s Revenge to reuse some of our flipped foundations in future turns.
That of course relies on having foundations that are worth reusing, which this deck has several. In terms of defensive effects Cooperation Offer is one of the best generic speed hate pieces on the symbol, and Fast Friendship is effectively copies 5-through-8 of it, often being a 1-difficulty version of Cooperation Offer. Rescue Completed rounds out the defensive suite, letting us commit all the blank foundations in the stage for speed modification, while being an emergency ready ability that will always be online with how much of the stage we are flipping. These all pair with enabling one of the best blocks in the game currently with Faiths Shield which provides incredible defensive utility.
For the utility side of the deck, New Training Method gives an additional way to both build out wider but also grab more foundations over the course of a turn to help facilitate wide builds. Wild Wild Pussycats fills a similar role, being able to effectively “draw 1 foundation” keeping in the theme of maintaining reliable card advantage. Passing the Torch is another simple draw foundation and Ein, while not a foundation, is copies three and four of Passing the Torch while having bonus text towards the lategame when you are trying to push damage through. And lastly Self Sacrifice finds a few slots as a way to destroy our board to clear some face downs out while also giving slight damage modulation.
On cards that didn’t make the cut, many of the attacks from the Challenger Deck ended up being not good enough. Attacks like Split-Second Standoff and Jaw Jammer, while synergizing well with the deck, are ultimately just stat-sticks and provide no notable utility over other options that are much more appetizing. Foundation-wise many of the Cowboy Bebop foundations don’t make the cut as they are either outclassed or unnecessary, such as the various stat-pump foundations being irrelevant since Spike gives plenty of stats on his own. Welcome to Space Land is another notable exclude, but with the highest damage move being 6-damage, it doesn’t extend the lethal range of the deck by very much, especially given the seven throws included in the deck providing consistent end-game pressure. There could certainly be a variation that includes Welcome to Space Land, however ultimately, I decided it was just below the curve, and it ended up being the very final card I cut. I think it is a perfectly fine include, and for players wishing to play it feel free to, it is easy enough to slip into this deck if you are looking to experiment with it. I just did not think it added anything of significant importance to the list, and as mentioned it was on the very edge of making it into the list.
The early game of the deck is pretty straightforward, build out wide with your array of 0-difficulty foundations and card advantage effects, maintaining safety with the defensive cards in order to go for a swing in the mid-to-late game with a board full of flipped foundations to blow the rival out with huge stats. Zero Gravity Lift and Overhead Reversal are your most important attacks early-game as they function as wonderful pokes while either progressing your gameplan or setting up for a larger turn in the future. This deck could also represent some surprising early aggro turns, as you could easily have 6 flipped foundations on turn 3, with Navel Laser Beam coming in as a 7-Mid-10 assuming you have used both flip-for-stats enhances, which means it is very tough to deal with early on, especially after a failed rival offensive turn. Overhead Heel Strike is another great card to see early on to unflip your resource engines to outvalue your rival in the early-to-mid game to smother your opponent in value.
Looking past rotation, this deck, and the Life symbol generally, lose a ton of incredibly important cards. One of the defensive synergies in Rescue Completed and Release rotates out entirely, while a majority of the attack lineup also gets culled. This means that this deck uniquely will only be playable in this form for the next month prior to Yu Yu Hakusho’s release, and afterward it will have to shift to a different offensive shell.
Above is an initial exploration of a post-rotation list, this time shifting to Jaw Jammer as the secondary Throw while also including Nejire Wave and Spiral Blasts as new momentum outlets, while the foundations have been updated to include new defensive tricks from Jetburn. I also want to note that Welcome to Space Land does make an appearance in this list, due to the offensive suite losing a lot of powerful cards means that it can find a home here to help bring more game-ending power to the deck. This list also features several copies of Interdimensional Plants, the asset from the Vash Challenger Series deck. It functions as a “3 difficulty foundation” that helps grant more card advantage and easing the checks while also letting us clear face downs out of the stage to make way for new foundations.
Spike is a generically powerful character, and while I explored him under Life he could easily see success on his two other symbols being Earth and Water. Notably both of these symbols are shared with Ochaco IV who also came with a plethora of face-down foundation support cards, so he will have plenty of synergy pieces to pick from.
Under Earth you get to run many powerful Throw attacks such as Cat’s Claw Face Grab, Berserker Bite, Fat Grapple, and Overhead Reversal, with the the first two being high-zone attacks that synergize with Falling Skies, meaning Spike can run either a full Throw lineup or a majority Throw lineup. This may be where Spike ends up best competitively due to cantripping off of each Throw attack with his top enhance while also having incredibly game-ending ability to give a bunch of stats to all of these throw attacks.
Water can run a similar throw game plan though with a little less synergy, though I believe Water’s niche for Spike is having a lineup of absolutely massive attacks. Gusty Buffet, Surging Crystal Darts, Meteor Fatfrotskies, and Cannon Blast can all represent enough damage to kill your rival in 2 moves if they aren’t blocked, putting immense offensive pressure on the rival to play defense flawlessly. Water also has an extensive catalogue of 0-difficulty foundations with plenty of defensive interaction, and I could see a hybrid throw and giant stats attack lineup flanked by Water defense to be his best direction on that symbol.
Overall Spike is a solid character that will likely be one of the primary throw decks of the format, though because he is so generic he has many options when deckbuilding. He is effectively a blank slate in terms of brewing, though I am unsure if he has the power necessary to hang with the top contenders of the format. He will likely reside solidly in the middle of the pack as a character that doesn’t do anything special yet is still strong enough to hang with the field.
The Queen of Hearts
Moving onto the second character of the Cowboy Bebop deck, Faye Valentine is an incredibly powerful 7-hand size character sporting an impressive 21 base health. She also comes with two abilities, the first allowing her to flip a foundation to modulate the damage of an attack by +2 or –2, giving her awesome offensive and defensive presence even while committed since it is Tenacious. With the –2 damage combined with her above-average health, she is surprisingly durable for a 7-hander and can reliably stretch her health pool significantly. She also features an ability that lets her commit to pick up the top card of her discard once you hit an opponent with a move, making her a situational 8-hander.
Faye will exist in a similar vein as Spike as a generically powerful character, however she has many more advantages at a baseline that will make her more widely attractive to the playerbase. However, because she is so generic she will need to find some sort of direction within her deckbuilding. I have chosen a very interesting package to focus around that, similar to Spike, will not exist once Yu Yu Hakusho releases, so this is also a limited-time deck!
It should come as no surprise that I designed a deck based around Summon Dark Shadow for a character that is playable while committed, given it is one of my favorite cards to use and find homes for. Summon Dark Shadow, while not the focal point of the deck, is one of the key pieces in assembling an offensive string, especially since it mostly lacks a cost in this character. The other action included in the deck is Cremation, which is useful not only to snag a quick momentum, but moreso to add additional speed onto our moves. Faye can grant damage but she needs to be able to actually connect attacks, which is where Cremation comes in to increase the offensive pressure of the deck while adding additional game-ending power through the amazing speed buff.
This means I had to include the action package of Dark Shadow Ruin and Twisting Azure Inferno, with the former letting us effortlessly weave in actions into attack strings without progressive difficulty stopping the aggression, while the latter is the big action payoff card to ease our checks and reduce the rival’s. I also want to note that because Faye gives +2 damage to attacks, she can enable Twisting Azure Inferno very easily, only requiring +1 more damage to activate the enhance. This gives more freedom in how to use and incorporate the card into strings, and makes us less reliant on finding Twisting Azure and an action in order to enable it.
The rest of the attack lineup is a bit more interesting, with it featuring a small throw package in Zero Gravity Lift and Cat’s Claw Face Grab. Both allow consistent activation of Faye’s response, with ZGL helping smooth strings while CCFG is a 4-difficulty move that can easily slide into strings and gives additional game-ending potential to the lineup. In a similar vein, Electric Jolt always deals damage to enable the bottom response while also being an excellent control piece. Another bonus is that it lets us “recur” a momentum, as you can EX: 2 on Jolt to put an attack on the top of your discard, and once it hits you can pick it right up with Faye, giving it surprising mid-late game offensive power.
The last slows of the attack lineup go to Ice Storm and Questioning Threat. Ice Storm provides the powerful Breaker: 2 to add additional defensive utility while also having Powerful: 3 to capitalize on all the momentum we can collect through the throws and Electric Jolt to become a game-ending offensive threat. Questioning Threat on the other hand is a simple stat-stick attack that in Faye can become a 3-difficulty 5-mid-5, which while at the cost of flipping 2 foundations, is incredible stats for the cost, and can easily come in toward the mid and end of a string to apply a surprising amount of pressure while not stressing your staging area very much. It also has the bonus deadlock enhance to “pass” your next check, meaning that in the off-chance the rival does make it into deadlock you can adequately punish them.
The foundation lineup is pretty standard for the symbol, with Release, Fast Friendship, and Nice Try! comprising the defensive suite, while Struggling with Studies, Incredible Display, and Chivalrous Competitor rounding out the card advantage portion of the deck. Offensively, Basic Training and Easily Excited give efficient repeatable stats throughout the game while also smoothing builds, with Basic Training being especially important to make the throws of the deck an odd amount of damage and Easily Excited gives speed to help push damage through. Rescue Specialist is another awesome offensive piece in the deck by granting “free” speed to our moves if we have committed Faye, which again helps alleviate the speed issue she faces. Elasticity serves as both an offensive and defensive card with bonus Stun hate, letting us give a move +3 or –3 damage after a blocked move, which is incredibly significant for defense. This pairs nicely with Faye’s own damage reduction, allowing us to block the first move of the turn, response with Elasticity, and then use Faye’s enhance to give an additional –2 damage, meaning the rival’s next move has a gigantic –5 damage, doubling down on our survivability while also discouraging the rival from continuing to swing into us.
Utility-wise, Requesting Assistance is a basic staple to stretch our board and reuse any commit effects, such as Irrefutable Force of Nature to target specific pieces on the rival’s board. Petty Squabbles also finds a home, allowing us to either commit our character for both players to pitch 2 and draw 2, a cost we don’t mind paying. It also let’s us take full advantage of being a 7-hand size, soft 8-hand size, by letting us pitch a card to commit down a piece of the rival’s board, which has both defensive and offensive utility. Lastly, League Handler is a gigantic roadblock for the rival’s offense turns, allowing us to “cancel” one of the opponents moves during their long offense strings. Imagine swinging into this deck only to have the first move blocked, the second has –5 damage, and the third has –3 to the check. This means repeated aggression into this deck is heavily punished, and it lets us further extend with little risk to our livelyhood.
As mentioned, the core of this deck will rotate with the release of Yu Yu Hakusho, meaning that there is a time limit on being able to play this list. While this isn’t a “definitive” list for Faye, it is a unique direction that she can go into where many other characters cannot, meaning the novelty of playing this list or a variant of it is high. There certainly will be other viable directions on Chaos for her to pursue, such as pure throws, or a more momentum-based list utilizing Echo moves to sling a bunch of attacks followed up by powerful tools such as Nejire Wave and Ambush Thrust to punish the rival for committing to blocking the barrage of attacks we throw at them.
Outside of Chaos, both Life and Water can also run throw-heavy lineups as well. One thing about Faye is that she is incredibly generic, so players are free to experiment with any direction they thing is interesting for her, giving her limitless deckbuilding possibilities. Both Life and Water can run throw-heavy lineups, with another direction for Life being a committal-based strategy, using cards such as Rewind Throttle, Nejire Wave, and Net Gun Surprise giving a massive amount of committal while Faye aids in remedying their low base damage. Water on the other hand gives more face down foundation support through Ochaco IV’s kit, as well as powerful game-ending moves in Surging Crytal Darts and Falling Skies. Water also packs plenty of utility-focused attacks, which can then be made threatening through Faye’s enhance.
Overall, Faye is a generically powerful character that, like Spike, will be able to go in any direction during deckbuilding giving her limitless options. One downside of this however is that she could very likely end up playing the best 60 cards on whichever symbol chosen, which could “limit” her options to just playing the best ones available. This shouldn’t stop people from experimenting and building their own flavor of Faye, so each person can have “their list” that is whatever direction they want to take with such an open character.
"The Stampede”
Moving on from the two Cowboy Bebop characters, we have made our way across time and space to the universe of Trigun Stampede! The Trigun Challenger Series introduces two new characters to the game in Vash, The Stampede, as well as Nicholas D. Wolfwood! Both of these characters are incredibly similar and yet complete opposites at the same time, and as such will have varying wants and needs and will approach deckbuilding differently due to this! Without any more of a wait, let me get into my take on Vash, the Stampede!
Vash is an incredibly simple character, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he is weak. His top enhance allows him to mill 1 to give his attack +2 speed. Having an effective +2 speed to every attack you play is a massive boon and makes dealing with Vash defensively a nightmare since every attack comes in with a sizable speed bonus. This does mean that Vash has to find his damage within his attack lineup or foundation base in order to make the most of his speed buff. This also means that he has more momentum access as his moves are more likely to connect, so keep powerful momentum effects in mind when building this character!
His second ability is another enhance, this time letting him commit and discard an attack card to draw 3, making him an effective 8-hander. This allows Vash to have an incredible amount of resources, though it comes at a cost of weakening your offense by always requiring you to pitch an attack. This is great in the early game when aggressing is risky, and in the late game you can simply ignore it if you find an aggressive enough hand to close out the game. As a note, assuming the average 1-to-3 attack-to-foundation ratio of a deck, you have about a 70% chance to draw an attack off of Vash’s bottom enhance. This means that why not guaranteeing you to draw back into an attack, there is a high likelyhood that you will, though it will also adjust based on the specific game circumstances.
For Vash I decided to focus on the All symbol to make the best use of Vash’s high card velocity and ability to quickly fill up his discard, with him being the perfect character to use Knee Smash with, a card with incredible potential that hasn’t quite found a home yet. It allows you to flip a foundation to draw a card if the top of the discard is an attack, or if it is a foundation you can remove a foundation to build it. Since Vash can reliably manipulate the top of his discard through both of his enhances, meaning Knee Smash will always be able to achieve maximum value throughout the game. It also as an impressive 6 base damage, and while it only has 1 speed it becomes 3 when paired with Vash, which while still incredibly blockable, is not as free as it normally is and can easily get there later into a string or if the rival is committed out.
Knee Smash is the only attack that interacts with the top of the discard, with the rest of the list packed with a central theme of low-difficulty moves to sling a bunch of them at the rival reliably, with Red Guard being a fantastic defensive trick while also representing a 6-mid-4 as a 3-difficulty move, and while not large, is still something worth respecting, especially in combination with any damage pump. Binding Cloth Capture is a printed 5-difficulty move, however once you play an action it becomes only 3-difficulty, again furthering the gameplan of slinging many low-difficulty moves to string out while pumping the stats to make them threatening! The combo enhance is blank, however being able to seal a rival foundation provides awesome offensive utility, and if you have no actions to reduce the cost of this attack you can always pitch it to draw 3 new cards, making it much easier to pick-and-choose your moment!
For the rest of the attack package, Rapid Punches comes in as a 7-low-4 that cantrips if it manages to hit making it a solid poke, but otherwise there isn’t much to mention. Surging Crystal Darts serves are one of the huge game-ending attacks in the list, and since we are consistently filling the discard, it will often be dealing massive damage! Last-Second Release also finds a home as a sneaky 7-damage move with situational target committal. Since you get to choose to apply the damage bonus after blocks, you can easily threaten this as a “6-mid-4" that can turn into a 6-mid-7 if the rival decides not to block, which will be a tough choice given how fast it is and the “feels bad” of blocking a “4-damage” attack. Lastly we have Endeavor’s secret rare from Jetburn, Fiery Vengance rounding out the attack lineup. Not only does it self-clear with the top response if it is full blocked, but it also serves as a perfect momentum outlet either with the bottom enhance to pick up a milled attack, such as with Vash’s top enhance, or by simply using its massive Powerful: 4 to become a game-ending threat.
I am also running several actions and assets, with the primary being Sugar Rush Power-Up to add more oomph to the decks offense, given Vash is able to quickly fill the bin to fuel the cost, while it indexes more on damage than speed to add additional mid and lategame power to the deck. With Vash’s top enhance and a Sugar Rush Power-Up an attack is getting a massive +4 speed and damage, allowing us to make any moves we find incredibly threatening! Also included are 2 copies of Avoiding Conflict, Vash’s signature action. It is here both as a consistency tool as well as being a great hit when milling with Vash, and it gives another avenue to enable to reduced difficulty of Binding Cloth Capture. For the singular assets in the deck, Interdimensional Plants provides another powerful momentum outlet to take advantage of any moves that hit while also providing another source of card advantage while also easing our checks. \
Moving onto the foundations, the defensive suite consists of Specialist of Sound, Unexpected Hero, and Defending Pageant Queen, all of which provide incredible speed control with varying benefits. Specialist of Sound is the repeatable speed hate of the deck while also being able to hit attacks at response speed and packing a sometimes useful on-check ability to scout out turns. Unexpected Hero is effective and efficient with a simple flip cost while providing occasional offensive power, and it also doubles as a small bit of conditional draw power. Defending Pageant Queen is the speed “reset” of the deck, allowing you to remove it to often to guarantee a block. Because it has a steep cost it is only included as a 2x, though earlier variations had it bumped up to a 3x or even 4x at one point. This is due to Vash’s huge card advantage allowing him to reliably build out while also enjoying the “guaranteed” block it allows. I could easily see this being bumped in counts, but for now 2x seems solid.
Offensively, Prone to Dry Eyes is a bread-and-butter piece of this decks offense, letting you pitch a card for +1 damage for the rest of the turn, making the long strings of attacks this deck can throw actually threatening. Multitasking also finds a home as a way to consistently pump the damage of our moves, since the rival will have to commit to block all of the speed-buffed moves, meaning Multitasking will often be online to give some extra oomph to the attack lineup. Floating Around My Babies is another key offensive piece, since Vash consistently fills the discard it is a reliable source of damage, though be careful about using it to much in case you end up cycling, which is a real lose-condition with this deck.
Utility-wise, It Can’t Be Fixed is a 0-difficulty staple that provides some of the best stun hate in the game, while You’re Finished gives occasional draw power which is active in this deck more than others due to the constant milling. It also packs some much-needed deadlock for the list which is another reason for the inclusion. Celebrity Status is an awesome trick in this deck by letting us stack a momentum and then pitch an attack to draw into it, replacing the attack in our hand with one from our momentum. Chivalrous Competitor also provides even more draw power to the list and pairs nicely with the prior-mentioned Celebrity Status to give another avenue to draw an attack to fuel our offense. Lastly, Hot Pursuit is a solid defensive trick to commit out the rival for our backswing while also stifling a little bit of aggression.
Overall this variation makes perfect use of Vash’s strengths to manipulate the top of his discard while also being able to fill it up at a rapid pace. One thing to note is that there is one conflicting synergy in the list, being Surging Crystal Darts wanting a large discard while Sugar Rush Power-Up and Floating Around My Babies actively reduce the size of your discard. This would normally be a much more concerning issue, but Vash is uniquely able and encouraged to discard any attacks that don’t fit the current game-state, alleviating this issue should your hands lean toward removing your discard rather filling it. This is another reason why Binding Cloth Capture works so well, as hands not conducive to activating it means it simply gives fodder for Vash’s second ability.
Vash is, just as the rest of the Challenger Series characters so far, is incredibly generic and can be explored in any direction the brewer chooses, giving near-infinite possibilities. Unfortunately he does suffer from the same issues as any generic character in that his “best deck” could be a pile of the best cards on symbol, though he has enough distinction as a character with huge card advantage and the ability to turbo through his deck to unlock some unique synergies, such as with cards from Endeavor III’s kit to focus on a cycle-based strategy. He could also potentially use cards such as Jiro’s Bass to help find damage, and when paired with Tasty Riff it could lead to a deck that over indexes on card advantage to find combo pieces to assemble whatever gameplan you would like.
As with the other Challenger Series characters, Vash will see a large spike in play on release due to the UVS Games bounty, but I don’t believe he will see much continued play into the future of the metagame except from dedicated fans. He does nothing special, and while generically powerful, other characters exist that do similar things and are more interesting or have more incentives to play, such as All Might VII being an incredibly similar character with a few gates but also packing a powerful defensive response, or Endeavor III having the same speed modification but also providing incredible stats once he has cycled.
This deck loses a few tools from rotation, with Binding Cloth Capture being the only attack meaning that while the lineup does mostly survive it does miss one of the primary extension and interaction tools. It also loses a variety of set 1 foundations, with It Can’t Be Fixed and Celebrity Status leaving and removing some incredible utility, while Specialist of Sound hurts the most with the loss of consistent speed reduction with few good replacements on symbol post-rotation. The overall core of the deck remains intact however, meaning that this list will continue to function moving into the future Yu Yu Hakusho-forward format, given some minor adjustments.
As for explorations on other symbols, Death would likely revolve around the Fury keyword and using cards such Howitzer Impact Cyclone to close out the game while Red Riot Unbreakable provides disruption and a huge threat when backed up with the bonus speed from Vash. As for Life, I would personally look towards a list revolving around Tasty Riff and Jiro’s Bass to provide awesome card velocity and damage, and flanked with an echo package and Dual Needle Lunge in order to string out on low-progressive difficulty. As mentioned though Vash can explore in whatever direction he wants during brewing due to his lack of restrictions, so explore to your hearts content!
"The Punisher"
Last but certainly not least, Nicholas D. Wolfwood is the last new addition with this batch of Challenger Series decks, and he is arguably the best character of the bunch. He is a 6-hander with the baseline 28-health, and two powerful abilities, with the first one milling a card to give your ranged or weapon attack a massive +3 damage while also featuring a response to spend a momentum at the beginning of his turn to draw 2 cards and gain 2 health. Mr. Wolfwood is an aggro monster, giving his whole lineup +3 damage means that he won’t struggle to end games or apply pressure, while also capitalizing off of any hits to fuel even more card advantage for future aggressive turns.
WolfWood is the most gated character of the Challenger Series, with him requiring a specific keyword (of two) to actually apply his stats, meaning that he will not be as open as the other characters discussed so far. This does “limit” his options, though not in any significant way since he makes use of two of the most supported keywords in the format, and he doesn’t struggle to find attack lineups that synergize perfectly with him.
The two most notable synergies Wolfwood gets to take advantage of are Dual Needle Lunge and Twisting Azure Inferno, both of which are conveniently under the Death symbol. Dual Needle Lunge becomes a massive 3-high-8 while also letting you pay 3 health to zoop it to momentum once it resolves, not only clearing progressive but generating a momentum which can then be used the following turn for Wolfwood’s response, recouping part of the health cost and giving a surge of card advantage for further aggression. Twisting Azure Inferno has another obvious and incredibly powerful synergy, with it giving your checks +1 and your rival’s checks to block -1, on the condition that it has 7 or more damage, which Wolfwood can do by himself. Enabling TAI is one of the strongest things offensive decks can do due to all of the value it enables and it finds a perfect home within this list.
Other offensive options include a small weapon package, with Instant Shining Flash providing more offensive smoothing for aggressive turns with built-in momentum hate, Blood Transfer as guaranteed momentum and additional health-gain, while Deception Dagger is a source of Stun: 2 to help push moves through the rival’s defenses. The deck also has some ranged attacks that provide great utility, with Navel Laser Beam providing excellent defensive utility with Breaker: 2 while also becoming a 5-mid-11 if you pump its stats with itself. Punisher’s Beam is the last attack of the list and has some incredible synergy with the rest of the lineup, being able to mill 3 to zoop a ranged or weapon that was milled to our momentum, fueling Wolfwood’s response while also letting us put Blood Transfer and Deception Dagger into momentum face up to take instant advantage of their momentum abilities. It also provides a targeted foundation snipe if it hits, making it a must-block which eats a block from the rival at worst.
Actions for the deck include several copies Avoiding Conflict, which is here for many of the same reasons as the Vash deck, but it provides a bonus synergy point with Twisting Azure Inferno and would be one of the first cards I would try to find more copies of to include within the deck. Evil Gaze also finds a spot within this list as a flexible piece of speed modification which can be used offensively to make your moves hit more reliably or as powerful defensive disruption that can also prepare you for a backswing.
Foundation-wise, one of the big things Wolfwood is looking for is reliable speed buffs to make his hard-hitting attacks actually able to connect, and that is a huge focus of the foundation base. Snack Time is the most consistent speed buff and it lets us spend all of the cards from Wolfwood's response while on the aggressive. Food is another way to reliably pump the speed of our moves while also letting us remove a non-attack from the rival’s card pool to gain 2 health, further stretching our longevity and recoup health costs from Dual Needle Lunge and Evil Gaze. Last for the ways to buff the speed of our moves is In Control, which serves a dual purpose of also adding some speed reduction for our defense. It also comes with a response to check hack opposing throw cards which is niche though could become relevant as people playing Spike and Faye may gravitate towards throw-based lists and this will help in those matchups. Lastly Glamorous makes an appearance not only to double up on flip effects such as In Control, Latent Skill, and Failed Role Model while also giving conditional +3 speed. The speed buff is one of the big draws to this card as the rival will need to interact with your offense to not perish, which means you will often have Glamorous online to push damage through and make blocking trickier for the rival.
This deck is primarily focused on aggression so there are few defensive effects in here, with Surviving the Final being one of the best 0-difficulty foundations in the game by providing reliable speed reduction. Aside from that, Learning the Standards is the primary “defensive” piece by halting rival aggression to give you as many turns as possible to rush down enemies. Struggling With Studies is also included as a small defensive recursion piece for long rival strings, but without significant speed reduction it is unlikely you will be able to chain block your rivals offense. One quick note however is that this deck does feature some excellent block modifiers, such as with Tight Lipped, Syndicate Target, and the prior mentioned Evil Gaze, and Avoiding Conflict which somewhat shores up the otherwise lackluster defense of the deck.
Utility-wise, Forcing Surrender is simple anti-clog with situational card-pool disruption. Latent Skill is also a small 1x inclusion to help sculpt aggressive hands, though Wolfwood has enough card draw otherwise to regularly find solid hands. Lastly, Failed Role Model is here as stage interaction to shut off rival defensive pieces on your kill turn. I didn’t elaborate on it elsewhere, but Tight Lipped is an offensive card that provides a small bit of bonus damage, but it is in here mostly as a 0-difficulty foundation with upside.
This deck is pretty straightforward in that your goal is just to play a bunch of high-damage moves and kill your opponent to death. There isn’t much to elaborate on as the deck’s goal is to end the game and there are no intricate interactions within the list, just all gas no brakes.
There are a few other offensive options on the symbols, with Fierce Whirlwind, Nitro Explosion Ignition, and Binding Cloth Capture all potential options to string further, and there is some wiggle room for customization within the attack lineup based on what you as a player enjoy. One of the big things about this variation of Wolfwood is that he loses no major pieces from rotation, with the core of Dual Needle Lunge and Twisting Azure Inferno surviving rotation. He does lose bits and pieces, but all of those are replaceable in some form or fashion, with Foresight Fusillade providing consistency and draw power over Instant Shining Flash, while a litany of 5-difficulty options can replace the bomb that is Navel Laser Beam, though no other Breaker: 2 options exist to replace the defensive utility.
On other symbols Wolfwood’s gameplan remains the same, though Fire specifically could be the most terrifying symbol with access to Sugar Rush Power-Up having the same synergy here as with Vash while also packing various speed-bonuses such as with Flashfire Fist: Hell Spider, Cremation for more action synergy, or even Fast as Flame for a simple +2 speed. Cremation specifically gets a special shoutout as it can snag a momentum on “turn 0”, letting you become an 8-hander on your first turn should you so desire, meaning he can have incredibly explosive starts to the game. All gets some of these tools, though its most notable option is being able to throw the biggest Surging Crystal Darts known to mankind.
This character doesn’t have too many variations as he is a simple 6-hand size aggro character, so all of his gameplans will come down to how you want to enable his offense. This means that he doesn’t have the most options in terms of what works with him, but there is enough room for experimentation for people to land on their own versions of him.
Overall Wolfwood will likely become one of the faces of 6-hand size aggro, both on release and continuing into the future. His damage output is obscene and can make use of all the ways to generate free momentum that are available in the current format and will remain available post-rotation. I don’t need to mention the on-release popularity surge, though I do want to point out that in Wolfwood’s case he will likely maintain a solid playrate into the rest of the year due to his simple strengths and explosiveness. I am personally mixed in terms of how I feel about him and where he will reside in the metagame, as his early-game blowout potential is sky high, especially with a huge quantity of defensive tools rotating with Yu Yu Hakusho. I would not be surprised to see Wolfwood consistently make top cuts, though he may eventually fall off due to how simple he is as players may gravitate towards more interesting characters.
A Message from the Future of the Past
Howdy gamers, this is Pippa from after writing up the article. I have done a bit more brewing with these characters and wanted to present a few more lists for several of the characters (sorry Spike!). I won’t go fully in-depth, but I will go over the general strategy and thought process of each list.
This is a basic throw-based list to take advantage of Faye’s damage pump and response, while generating momentum for Double Trouble’s echo ability. Crystal Chokeslam is a vital piece of this deck’s offensive gameplan while also being the best way to close out games by recurring Jaw Jammer for a 10-damage throw, or by slamming a Tongue Whip that has +4 speed due to Crystal Chokeslam’s top enhance. Fateful Meeting and So Manly... capitalize on Faye’s damage reduction, and the list is filled to the brim with spam and defensive foundations to always build wide and give the deck time to achieve its gameplan.
This is a basic Life list utilizing Tasty Riff to sculpt hands along with Jiro’s Bass to pump all of our moves. Meteor Shower is a consistent recursive threat that applies a lot of pressure with Vash’s +2 speed, with Home Run Comet and Needle Stab letting us close out games with huge bombs of attacks. Foundations are standard with a large emphasis on 0-difficulties to build out consistently.
Lastly is a Fire Wolfwood list that aims to over-the-top the rival with a gigantic Sugar Rush Power-Up play. Freezer Burn is one of the best targets to carry stat bonuses due to being able to negate all of the rival’s interaction, with Twisting Azure Inferno being the highest output move that can easily come in for an obscene amount of damage. This deck runs no defense and has the singular goal is to kill the rival, so keep that in mind when playing that you will struggle come mid-late game as you struggle with withstand enemy aggression.
The Aftermath of the Battle
Whew, that was a lot. Hopefully this should not only provide a starting point for directions you can take these characters in, but concepts to further your own exploration of them. All of the Challenger Series characters are solid, and while I have lamented how generic they are, they are certainly powerful and I don’t know about you but playing powerful cards is fun, so I still cannot wait to give all of these characters a spin in the next month. I also expect to also grow tired of playing against them in this timespan due to the bounties, though that remains to be seen.
With the article coming to a close I wanted to reflect on my personal opinions of the Challenger Series product as a whole. I love the concept of being able to bring in other IPs that couldn’t have a full set (either for lack of content or development reasons) into the game via preconstructed decks that players can pick up and instantly jam games with. Unfortunately, the execution with these ones has been, ahem, not the best to say the least. With the decks being marketed as a deck that is more competitive, complex, and powerful than Clash decks, I can say that this product failed on all fronts. These decks are not only on-par with the difficulty of recent Clash decks, but in some cases much less difficult especially when compared to Mirio and Overhaul from Undaunted Raid. These decks also feature some truly mediocre and outright bad cards, making them unattractive for competitive players due to the few playable cards contained with them. And bringing this full circle, these low-difficulty decks with few competitively relevant cards are not very competitive, further making them unattractive for players looking to jump into higher-level play.
Another issue with these decks is that not only do they have all of the prior-mentioned issues but are also near triple the price of regular clash decks, making them a much higher investment to commit to getting. If you’re looking for playsets of each card in the decks you’ll be spending a total of $140 at MSRP, not factoring in tax. Compared to Clash decks where you could get playsets of everything for around $50, these Challenger Series decks are near triple the price while having few high-impact cards. Part of the cost increase is the inclusion of the collector booster within the Challenger Series which contains special foil alternate art cards from the deck, which while looking wonderful, mostly reside on not-very-playable cards. The few playables will be highly sought after for players to bling out their lists and will likely command a high price tag due to the rarity and entry price associated with getting them. This turns the product almost into a lottery, where you spend $35 for a poor deck and hope to recoup the cost with great collector pulls, which isn’t healthy for where a product should reside in terms of its place in the game.
Due to this, I would label these Challenger Series decks as a failure from a product standpoint, though this could be the issue of the initial launch of this new product line. The next Challenger Series will be featuring members of the Critical Role cast, and from the few reveals we have I am hopeful for the future of the product. The characters are powerful and interesting, and the non-character cards so far have also been strong, giving me a lot more hope for the redemption of this product line. As it stands now though, I cannot recommend getting these decks and would advise players to seek out singles of the decks. The biggest draw to the decks are the characters, and this product will sell solely to unlock them for players. The rest of the cards included are a nice bonus, though none are staple level which means the product feels half baked.
Of course, this is just my opinion. If you are excited about these new decks and characters, that is awesome! Don’t let my perspective soil your enthusiasm, and as mentioned I am hopeful about the future of the Challenger Series. And with this massive article coming to a close, what are your favorite cards from the new set, and what are you most excited for? Personally, I cannot wait to try an aggressive Earth or Water deck using Skeptical and Weightless to keep a ready stage, and I also have been experimenting with a Camie deck under All which utilizes Hero Killer, The Big Fall, and Punisher’s Beam to massacre the rival’s stage. As always, good luck in your games and take it easy!
Do you have any articles you’d like to see? Any topics you wish were discussed more? Any questions, comments, or feedback on this article? Well let me know down below, or shoot me a message on discord! And if you enjoyed the article, feel free to follow me on twitter or leave a tip at my Ko-fi.
Be sure to preorder any UVS related needs at UnFunStuff to stock up on any TCG supplies or cards, such as any of the upcoming Challenger Series releasing on January 19th!
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