Culling the List: Delve into the Darkness with Tokoyami II

Welcome to Culling the List, a series of deck breakdowns in preparation for the National Championships of UVS, being held on October 19th through the 22nd. Within this series specifically, I will be breakdown down the decks on my “short list” (it is actually a long list) of decks I am/was considering for nationals. The first up is one of my favorite pet decks within the game, Tokoyami II.

Learning to Fly

When Tokoyami II was revealed, the community at large breathed a long sigh. A sigh of relief, that the newest rendition of the bird wasn’t a monster. An even larger sigh however was due to his… lack of competitive viability. Not only was he keyword locked in both abilities, but the support for said keywords was lacking to say the least. The best target for his bottom enhance was “Fusion”, a card which only shared the Air symbol with him and heavily limited the attacks available to support that single card. For the top enhance, you got Dark Shadow Dive for minor utility on the rivals turn, while on yours you got… Cavalry Chariot Advance for +1 speed, or Summon Dark Shadow, for +1 speed and damage. While these things were cute, they were nowhere close enough to support him, thus he fell flat.

These were not it...

Fortunately for this character, I love unique characters, even if they were bad. My first explorations of this character determined that Air was his best symbol, being able to use Frog Kick, Tongue Smack, and Blast Rush Turbo with his top enhance, while the bottom enhance… Readied “Fusion” and Training With Gunhead, just to be able to go +1 in resources. The deck, while cute, was far from competitive. It was bogged down running cards that weren’t good in order to support this frankly bad character. But I enjoyed it, and reveled in how “cute” the deck was.

I continued to revisit this character with each set release, with Heroes Clash providing Shadow’s Aid, Successful Results, and Friend of Animals as additional Ally foundations to ready, as well as Command Pigeon Flock to build them in to always have targets to ready. Combined with a way to commit down your board with Training Weights, this made the best variation of the deck go towards Chaos, Air however was still the “cooler” deck so I continued to play that variation.

League of Villains brought one of the biggest draws to him under the Air and Evil symbols with the introduction of Asui’s Friendship. I primarily played the Air variation this set, however the Evil list had some fun options, such as the newly added Dark Shadow Berserk, Dark Shadow Behemoth, and Warp Gate Portal, going into the full Ally package proved less effective then an updated Chaos list or the Air list I have switched back too.

By this point I was disappointed how one of my favorite pet decks had gotten left in the dust, unable to compete seriously against even the mid tier decks of the format. Of course I would continue to revisit him, but I was resigned to having fun with a low tier character. Until…

Rise of the Phoenix

Undaunted Raid was a heavily impactful set, introducing new meta contenders in Overhaul, Mirio, Rappa, and Mimic, along with massive support for certain symbols with Nice Try!, Learning To Harden, Calorie Counter, Rejuvenating Smash, and so much more. But with Evil being the primary symbol of the set, it got the most support out of any other symbol, and with it, a few seemingly mediocre cards tagged with the “Ally” keyword. You have the big ones, with Barrier Shield under Evil, being the best new card at swinging tempo in your favor, while Ryukyu Agency Trainees allowed you to build further while on offense, doubled by being able to reready due to Tokoyami’s bottom enhance. But the most important new card for the deck was a massively overlooked common, and as I had the previous set, Tokoyami was also Resigned, which ended up being the most impactful card in the set for him.

Ally applications open, masks required

With this new card, Tokoyami finally had a use. His top enhance has now become “Once per turn, discard 1 card from your card pool and give this attack +3 or -2 damage”. He also got an additional reready target in Human Garbage, which can ready itself as well, often representing 2-3 resources in a given turn, as well as always being useful due to simply being a target to ready when you have spent all copies of Human Garbage.

Tokoyami II finally had a niche, a string heavy evil deck that can leverage board control with Asui’s Friendship, while also having damage reduction in both Resigned and Back to Back, it was finally his time to shine. Well. He tries too.

Starting with the strengths of the list, Tokoyami II is able to string out very easily with a plethora of solid 4 difficulty moves, as well as Rivet Stab as a 3 difficulty option that often can draw a card due to the damage buff from removing a Resigned. Touch of Decay is also primarily here as a 4 difficulty move that can sometimes draw a card, which is fine enough. Otherwise the attack lineup is standard for the evil symbol, with generic powerhouses in Tongue Whip, Vile Seizing, and Chronostasis Trigger.

The actions are fairly self explanatory, with Summon Dark Shadow allowing you to string out further, or to tag it into your card pool for additional stats, which can also be -1 progressive difficulty due to Dark Shadow Ruin. Barrier Shield is a massive defensive tempo card, that also can be tagged into your card pool as it natively ignores progressive difficulty which occasionally comes up if you lack a better target.

Onto the Ally foundations, Human Garbage is the perfect card in this character, as it rereadies itself to help with board presence, and once all the copies are spent it still remains as a refresh target for our face. Asui’s Friendship is the other primary refresh target, as it allows you to commit down massive sections of the opposing board multiple times a turn. Resigned is primarily used to tag into with your top enhance, though if you need to build it, it is a fine refresh target. Lastly, Back To Back allows for consistent damage reduction with your top enhance, as well as presenting a deadlock threat.

Briefly touching on the non-offensive foundation options, Desperate Times allows further board control in a format dominated by decks that often draw, making it one of the most value 0 difficulty foundations in the game currently. Cooperation Offer is generic speed reduction as well as zone reset which can often come in handy as Mirio remains a popular choice among competitors. Lastly, Excited For Blood gives additional draw power while also allowing some health recovery to assist in the fact we are frail and don’t have much defense other then maintaining a ready board.

Finally onto the suite of offensive options included in the deck, with Floating Around My Babies providing generic damage pump, however you do have to be careful as to not remove any combo pieces with it. Quick To Act is another 0 difficulty foundation to smooth out build turns while allowing us to apply further speed pressure once we are low on health. And lastly we have Brute Strength, which further helps solve our issue of lacking damage.

Other options for this deck include Showdown as another defensive blocking option, Run Away! also is another defensive option as well, while Evil Vs Good lets you string out further as an additional “copy” of Summon Dark Shadow while having the added response cancel utility.

Attack options are more limited, with the big one being Surging Crystal Darts as a big bomb that is able to end games. Amphibious Ambush is also an option to double down on the ranged support within the deck. Otherwise attack options are fairly limited for this deck.

Hol' up, let her cook...

Another cute option that I was toying around with was Hold Hostage and Resting Between Bouts, as the latter lets you pick up any Ally card in your discard on your rivals second attack on their turn, allowing you to tutor for any impactful card such as Barrier Shield or the prior mentioned Hold Hostage, which is a massive tempo swing defensively. Unfortunately the list is tight and I was unable to include them in this variation of Tokoyami II.

A Different Breed of Bird

Another route you are able to take this deck is in a full damage reduction style, as Evil has access to some of the best damage reduction tools out of all the symbols. Options such as Creepy Realization can stifle opposing decks as we are in a string-heavy meta currently, Challenging The Fakes additionally shores up our minimal defenses, while Twisty Surroundings and Run Away! help gives us another avenue of making it more difficult for the rival to swing into you.

This list runs much more defense in terms of damage reduction, giving much better longevity to this deck. The primary limiting factor of this variation is the lack of way to give meaningful stats to your moves, making it much more difficult to kill your rival. In the current meta unfortunately this is too slow, as other decks have much better payoffs for taking the game late, and you struggle to end games reliably. If you’re looking for a slower but more controlled variation of the bird, this is the next best option.

Ashes to Ashes

Through my extensive testing of this character, this is easily the most competitive this character has ever been but it doesn’t make up for the inherent flaws that have plagued this character since his inception, primarily being keyword gated as well as being mediocre generally. These decks do as much as possible to make him work, but at its core is still a deck led by a poor character.

The biggest issue with this character is that he doesn’t natively grant stats, and while he can indirectly by juggling Summon Dark Shadow and Resigned into his card pool, that doesn’t cut it in a world where the best characters are often tossing stats on every single move with little to no drawback. As such, much of the list is dedicated in order to shore this up, such as with Floating Around My Babies, Quick To Act, and Brute Strength allowing us to put at least a few stats onto our moves.

The other biggest issue with the Evil Symbol is the lack of consistent defensive tools the symbol has access to, with the best ones being single use such as Cooperation Offer, In Control, and Clever Distraction. While all of them are strong, they lack repeatability which means the symbol struggles defending in late game scenarios if they haven’t specifically saved them. Barrier Shield is an extrapolation of this, being a ridiculously powerful defensive trick that you can only access a few times a game. Something I was running for a bit was Resting Between Bouts to pick up a Barrier Shield on the rivals second attack, however that ended up being too much setup and space in the list.

Lastly, Evil as a symbol lacks consistent and reliable card advantage generation. Excited For Blood is the best option, while other cards such as Touch of Decay is situational, and Rivet Stab, while working great with Resigned to pump it up to 5 damage, both lack enough “oomph” to put true pressure on your rival.

Let me draw, let me be miserable, I was going to lose to the next Mirio anyway!!

With all of these factors, while Tokoyami II is an exceptionally cool character, he however lacks enough natural strength which warps his deckbuilding to attempt to cover for his weakness, ultimately lowering the ceiling of his decks. This list can certainly get there, but you’ll have to work for you wins in a format where the best decks give you more for less. He struggles to kill people due to lack of stats, he struggles to find card advantage due to the symbols lack of it, and both of these force you to warp your deckbuilding on top of his restrictive face.

Due to these factors I am no longer considering this deck for nationals, but do not let that deter you; this deck is a blast to play and has some incredibly cool and unique lines that aren’t found within any other deck. The list can also be refined further, however the issue is to attempt to mask the mediocrity of this character, when you would be better served picking someone else.

Where To Now?

I will be continuing to release articles detailing other various decks I have considered for nationals leading up to the event, as well as articles covering the reveals of the newest set Jetburn!

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! And if you enjoyed the article, feel free to leave a tip at my Ko-fi.

Have any card game needs? Well visit UnFunStuff to stock up on any TCG supplies or cards, as well as to preorder the next set, Jetburn, releasing November 17th!