Notes & Combos

Back with a Sky Striker list after taking the deck from M5 to M1 and then putting together a 7-game win streak in Rated.

The climb through Master was honestly pretty smooth, and I've been really happy with how this version of the deck has been performing both going first and second. I also have a few good replays showing both sides of the deck.

Radiant Typhoon Package

I ended up cutting Pot of Desires and Upstart Goblin for the full Radiant Typhoon package with Chant, Eldam, and Swen.

There is a small tradeoff going second since Eldam and Swen can compete for the Normal Summon when you don't already have access to MST, but in practice it rarely caused a real problem during the climb.

Going first, though, I like the package significantly more. It gives the deck much better access to Vision, which means more opportunities to draw two and dig deeper for the high-impact cards you actually want to see alongside the Sky Striker engine. I preferred that over relying on Desires and potentially banishing important resources that I may need later in the grind game.

Forbidden Crown

I've been playing Forbidden Crown, and I do like the card, especially going first.

It can be very strong at protecting your setup or stopping specific cards that would otherwise be difficult to deal with. Going second, it can still do things like stop Albaz from trying to fuse away your field or pin down cards like Cool Tune Remix.

That said, I don't think Crown is quite as powerful going second as it can initially look. In a lot of board-breaking situations, it can feel closer to trading with one important piece, whereas something like Forbidden Droplet can sometimes completely blank an established board and let Sky Striker actually start playing.

Crown has still been good enough for me to keep testing, but I definitely value it more on the play than on the draw.

Monster Hand Traps

I'm also playing a slightly heavier monster hand-trap lineup with 2 Droll, 3 Ash Blossom, and Bell.

One thing I really like about having these in Sky Striker is that they add another defensive layer on top of the normal Striker end board.

The deck can already establish a lot of interaction through its spells, but that setup can sometimes get punished extremely hard by cards like Evenly Matched or other forms of backrow removal. Having an Ash, Droll or Bell still available afterward can completely change whether the opponent is able to capitalize on clearing your board.

They also obviously make the deck much stronger going second, which is important for Striker since you want to be able to interrupt the opponent before trying to dismantle whatever is left.

Sky Striker still rewards knowing exactly when to trade resources, when to hold interaction, and how to sequence your Link monsters, but this version has felt like a really nice balance between the Striker engine, going-first interaction, and enough hand traps to give the deck another layer of protection when the backrow alone isn't enough.