In-Depth Sky Striker Guide (Post-DPE)
Sky Striker Guide
Sky Striker is a deck specializing in controlling the board, generating advantage and snowballing in power to win games through their grinding capabilities. The deck focuses on its powerful Spell and effects to pick apart the opponent's board and using its monsters to cycle through cards, via sending, adding and recovering. The deck was introduced in Singular Strike Overthrow and immediately found its place in the meta, comfortably sitting in the lower tiers. The deck is primarily a small engine that can be supplemented with other cards such as power handtraps and board breakers, or engines such as the Loading... package or Adventurer engine.
Main Deck Sky Striker Monsters
The Main Deck Striker monsters are small in quantity but carry more than their own weight in the deck. Being your main starters of the deck, Raye acts as a recoverable monsters to allow for Link plays on any and every turn and Roze as a power card that can turn the game in your favour through both of her Special Summon effects.
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Raye is the main card of the deck and is the primary Striker monster. Raye's effects allows her to dodge other effects by tagging out on a Quick Effect, and to resummon herself whenever a Sky Striker Link Monster leaves the field by an opponent's card (battle or effect). Raye tributes herself for cost, so she will resolve under Skill Drain and can not be targeted with cards on activation like Loading... and Effect Veiler. Unfortunately, this plays into cards such as Loading... or an opponent Striker's Sky Striker Mecha - Shark Cannon. The Quick Effect tag out also allows you to play around card such as Effect Veiler by Summoning Loading... during the End Phase.
Sky Striker Ace - Roze
Roze is the other Main Deck Sky Striker monster. While it doesn't have the same flexibility as Raye, being able to tag out on a Quick Effect, it still provides a starter to a deck that requires one to start its advantage snowball. Ratios for the card are flexible, starters are very important to draw into with the deck but with the 9 the starters and draw cards like Upstart Goblin and Loading..., you often enough see one where Roze is useless. Some also opt to run only 1 because seeing multiple starters, while safe in the grind game, can hinder the ability to break boards due to lack of other power cards. Roze's main application is Summoning herself when you're aiming to close games, such as sending it off Hayate when you destroy an opponent's EMZ monster, or Summoning it from hand on the Summon of another Striker monster to facilitate Link climbing.
Sky Striker Spells
The Sky Striker Spells are the focus of the archetype. Providing you with many interactions such as monster negation, revival, and destructive capabilities, these define the deck and allow it to be very adaptable to different metas or different matchups. Most of the cards also have additional powerful effects depending on if you have 3 other Spells in the GY upon resolution.
The useful Spells
Sky Striker Mobilize - Engage!
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Engage is the best Striker card in your deck acting as the supplementary Loading... for the archetype. It allows you to add any Sky Striker card from your deck to your hand, and with 3 Spells in GY, allows you to draw an additional card. The card is essential in your strategy, allowing you to search out cards like your starter monsters, board breakers such as Afterburners or Jamming Waves, or game closers such as Widow Anchor or Shark Cannon. It boosts the consistency of the deck and generates more advantage than any other card in the deck. As the game progresses Engage's power only increases, even as you run out of targets the draw 1 effect alone is enough to outpace your opponent.
Sky Striker Mecha - Hornet Drones
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Hornet Drones is another starter of the deck, allowing you to Summon Links without using up your Normal Summon, letting you saver it for other monsters, such as using handtraps to Summon Charmer Links or Knightmares. It can also be set and used defensively, allowing you to flip it in the Battle Phase to prevent an OTK and save a turn, but this use is not highly recommended. The Token is also restricted into only being Summonable in Defense Position, so it cannot be used offensively outside of its Link Summoning abilities.
Sky Striker Mecha Modules - Multirole
Multirole is one of the best cards to help you in the grind game. It provides 2 effects, both of which heavily contribute to the strategy. The first effect allows you to send 1 card you control to the GY in order to make all your Spell card activations unable to be responded to by opponent's card or effects. The ability to send a card you control to the GY can help generate advantage when used in conjunction with cards like Hercules Base and Area Zero, activating both of their effects when sent from field to GY. It can also protect Engage from Ash Blossom if you're afraid of losing that effect. The second effect sets Sky Striker Spells from your GY to your field during the End Phase, up to the number of Sky Striker Spells you activated while this card was face-up on the field for that turn. This effect can be used for explosive turns, setting cards like Widow Anchor for interruptions and Engage or Afterburners for play within the next 2 turns to break boards and push the gamestate in your advantage.
Sky Striker Airspace - Area Zero
Area Zero is the only Sky Striker field Spell, and serves as a pseudo-searcher, pseudo-starter and extender. By targeting another card you control, the card can excavate 3 from the top of your deck, and add any revealed Striker card at the cost of sending the targeted card to the GY. Getting Area Zero from field to GY is not a difficult feat to accomplish, and is an often used technical play to get a Striker monster from your Main Deck to facilitate Link plays.
Sky Striker Mecha - Widow Anchor
Widow Anchor serves as your a Quick Effect monster negate, and with at least 3 Spells in the GY, allows you to take control the monster upon resolution. Widow Anchor facilitates your Link climbing plays, granting extra materials, allowing the Summoning of higher Level Link Monsters such as Lyna and Dharc, the LIGHT and DARK Link-2 Charmers. Stolen monsters will be given back to your opponent during the End Phase, so Linking the stolen monster off is very valuable. You can also use the card in conjunction with other Spells, such as sending it off your Area Zero to potentially excavate a Striker card (this will not work the turn Widow Anchor is set). The card can also contribute towards closing games, able to steal a high ATK monster to remove walls your Strikers cannot beat over and giving you another monster with a high ATK value.
Sky Striker Mecha - Shark Cannon
Shark Cannon acts as a searchable Loading... but without the monster negate. It can be used to banish key combo pieces from your opponent's GY or to Summon monsters for Link climbing. A monster Summoned by this card cannot attack and cannot be used to close games, but will not have its effects negated. While the card is highly searchable the prevalence it has in many matchups can often lead to running 2 copies to increase the chances of seeing it, or to avoid Desires banishing a singular copy.
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Afterburners is a simple card, allowing you to pop a face-up monster, and a Spell/trap as well if you have 3 or more Spells in the GY. Trading with Afterburners is huge after you amass card advantage, as you will quickly outpace your opponent. A lot of technical play can be done with Afterburners as well, such as popping your own Area Zero for a free Special Summon or destroying an opponent's EMZ monster to Special Summon Roze from the GY. Afterburners is usually ran at 1-2 copies by preference.
Sky Striker Maneuver - Jamming Waves!
Jamming Waves is the dedicated Spell and trap removal of the archetype. Searchable in a pinch by many of the cards, it works well in certain matchups such as Eldlich and Tri-variants. It also acts as monster removal, not having a targeting restriction on it like Afterburners does if there are 3 Spell in the GY, being able to remove un-targetable boss monsters such as Loading... and Loading....
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Eagle booster is a card that can make any card on the field unaffected by card effects, as long as you control no monsters in the Main Monster Zone. Additionally, with 3 Spells in the GY, it makes the monster battle immune, giving this card the ability to provide the best protection in the game. The card can be used to disrupt combos by preventing destruction effects like Loading... setting up combos, or offensively to make your Accesscode Talker unaffected by card effects, preventing your opponent from negating any of its effects, a powerful way to close games. While powerful, its applications are not common, often when closing games your opponent already has no way to counter your Accesscode Talker, proving to be a useless search especially over a card like Afterburners or Widow Anchor to further breaks board or close games quicker.
Sky Striker Mecharmory - Hercules Base
Hercules Base is run in some builds for the purpose of recycling your singular Kagari. Cards like Multirole, Afterburners, and Area Zero can help in put Hercules Base in GY, allowing it to shuffle back 3 of your Striker cards into the deck. The card is not primarily ran for its equip Spell applications, and the ability to draw whenever the equipped monster destroy another by battle rarely comes up. Most deck builds opt to not play the card, as it requires a valuable search and doesn't immediately generate advantage unlike other cards.
The Useless Spells
Both the following Spells have shifted out of that strategy, as they don't have the same advantage generation capabilities as the other Striker cards. Both are playable in the deck but don't provide any worthwhile advantages and are not common inclusions.
Sky Striker Maneuver - Vector Blast
Vector blast is a card that does not provide immediate advantage. While sending 2 cards from the deck to the GY is on-paper, very powerful, most of the time you will have enough in the GY by the time you get to the point where the 2nd effect of Striker Spells really shines. The additional ability to remove an opponent's monster in the extra monster zone also rarely comes up, being unreliable turn 1 to break boards, and useless in later turns where you already have control of the board and answers for explosive plays.Loading...
