Hello again Universal Fighters! Deck discussions are back and we’re ready to rock and roll.
My goal is to share with you lessons I’ve learned playing a few top meta characters on my journey to adopt a Spike mentality!
Today we have a Reprogramming Skull Man deck list. Credits to Vegas tech Brett Hillman Heaven’s Gate with Reprogramming and Shane Duckworth for starting it all.
You can find the deck list for this deck on UFS Ultra here
Focus of the Deck:
The way I’ve built Reprogramming Skull Man is so it benefits going off on a turn where you have Reprogramming, The Golden Ticket, Heaven’s Gate stacked, or all 3. It is completely possible to kill your opponent with Heaven’s Gate without Reprogramming or The Golden Ticket with this deck. Trust me, I’ve play tested this in locals :). As long as you have one of these conditions met, you can kill your opponent that turn, the more conditions met the easier! That’s what I love about the deck, it’s hard to fail a kill turn. The deck does not rely on checks off top of the deck but moreso what you were able to build and keep. Your kill turn will lay itself out for you to take victory after completing your “Exodia” pieces.
Foundations:
This deck has many ways to force momentum, Hunters Once More, Strength of Tail, and Reactive Style. This deck needs every single count of force momentum to wreck your opponent. One example is Ever Hopeful, since this deck is designed to play 8 attacks in a turn with no sweat, you can Ever Hopeful your opponent many times! Skull Man makes the Ever Hopeful loop look like Self Destruct!
Curiosity is in the deck because it’s a 1 for 1 in terms of getting more cards in your hand. Skull Man translate Curiosity into advanced card draw with his discard one, draw two ability. It also readies at the end of your turn if you’ve played 3 or more attacks. The more cards you add to your hand, the more attacks you can play.
Attacks:
Toy Touch > Elec Slam. My argument for this is that Elec Slam requires 2 prerequisites to gain value, it has to be early in the chain so you don’t have to commit for it to resolve (4 difficulty) and it needs a high attack in front of it. It also has a poor block mod. It’s combo ability is just another way of saying “this attack does not count towards progressive difficulty.” If you draw an Elec Slam late in the chain, you have to commit for it.
Toy Touch can be played anywhere in the chain, has the same stats with only 1 prerequisite that you have 2 momentum. It also adds a card to your hand so that you gain more card advantage on your kill turn, you can even add Balanced Fighter to your hand. It’s also a low to keep the trigger from Polar Warp relevant. The block mod is amazing +1 high.
Dancing Flash, don’t be a 2 check hater. I’m so glad this card exists, it’s a replacement card for Hien Shippuu Ryugen Kyaku. There’s a lot of differences but let’s look at the bright side why Dancing Flash is better. Dancing Flash can be used with 1 momentum to just be pure damage, you don’t need to destroy foundations, where as the Robert UR gives you opponent allowance to cripple you too. Dancing Flash does the same thing as Robert UR with 3 momentum which is very easy to do with all the force momentum cards out there, there’s even Sweet Baby Challenge. It’s one 2 check in the deck but having it in there is so worth the reward.
Heaven’s Gate, this card is nuts. Innocent Hug synergies so well with Heaven’s Gate ;). It’s also worth tapping for Heaven’s Gate, the card can be a 6/6 9/9 or 12/12. If you can, it’s actually best to have 2 in the discard pile and 2 in your hand, that translate to 18 damage between 2 attacks. However 12/12 speed and damage is nice too. This card is ridiculous, I played Reprogramming Skull Man without it and I felt like the deck was missing a consistent kill condition. Heaven’s Gate fills that gap and the best part is that it has a stronger consistency of being taken for full value over Soul Flash. I believe that Heaven’s Gate is a card that Skull Man abuses the best, because Skull Man goes through the deck so fast that Heaven’s Gate is value towned and abused as early as turn 2!
Assets:
Kyo’s Jacket > Swarm of Bats. Kyo’s Jacket hits assets where as Swarm of Bats doesn’t. Kyo’s Jacket also helps the player generate more momentum which proves useful in this deck. It also can put an attack to lethal damage as a damage buff which this deck lacks a bit. I think it’s to preference but with my play style I’ve taken a strong liking to Kyo’s Jacket.
The Golden Ticket. There was this one game I went in with just The Golden Ticket on turn 3 and killed my opponent because I kept drawing Heaven’s Gate and Innocent Hugs. This card is just hands down amazing, it can be comparable to a Reprogramming just without the damage, because technically Reprogramming is also just a +1 to checks since Reprogramming adds to progressive difficulty.
Actions:
I feel like Reprogramming is essential as a 4 of. I tried playing 3 and I kept missing kill turns. After putting it as a 4 of, my consistency stabilized and winning a game was never impossible. Unless it’s against Geyser Goro, Geyser Goro hurts.
Strengths:
Skull Man makes this deck possible, he filters so much and so fast that the deck itself becomes a consistent beast of kill turns. If you take a look at the graph, this deck list has a pretty optimal amount of block zones for being defensive. I feel very safe playing this deck list keeping 1 or 2 cards back because Skull Man filters them and you can use Curiosity to add one and filter that defensively as well! Kyo’s Jacket is also a great control piece, my greatest joy playing this in locals was committing Roll.
Weaknesses:
Disruption on the kill turn is really bad for Skull Man, if your opponent just happens to be Kula, they could play Neo Freeze Execution and commit 5 of your foundations. I’ve found that it’s really hard to kill playing against Goro, Strategic Taunt, or both. Anybody that fails their kill turn just loses on the back swing in most cases. Cards that counter this deck as well are Fool Me Twice against Heaven’s Gate and Throw it Down and Blood Rivalry cancels Reprogramming. Regardless any player can win and play around these threats. It depends on who is a step ahead and truly understand the game state, the discard pile tells no lies :^).
Man I love this game and I’m glad I get to share it with others that love it too! One valuable lesson I learned recently is that if you put yourself in your opponent’s shoes, your learn their strengths and weaknesses. Which is very valuable if you ever have to fight them and when the fight actually matters like a PTC.
Please come join the UFS Omaha Players page and vote on a poll of which deck you would like to read about next time! (I’ve built and played both decks and I would love to share what I found about them.
Get Wild, Wolf Cub
———————–About the Author———————–
Tony “Wolf Cub” Tu is a UFS player from the Omaha, Nebraska area. He has a love for all things Proto Man and Zero from Mega Man. When he’s not playing UFS, he likes to waste time on games such as League of Legends and browser based MMOs. Coming from a Magic/Yu-gi-oh/Pokemon background, he has been playing UFS since for about a year and has travelled to both Las Vegas and Indianapolis to play in the National and Worlds events, as well as several PTCs throughout the Midwest. He most recently sported a Satoshi deck at the Michigan PTC.