[OCG] Extreme Force Leaks: Saryuuja – Skulldeat / Skulldeat, the Chained Dracoserpent

[~~~~]

...except Gofu is only a +2 and it's still way better than Scapegoat. Scapegoat's problem isn't number of cards; it's how you have to wait to use it, which makes it terrible. It was a dumb meme when Links were first announced, but people seriously need to stop acting like it's good. It's really not.

You'll find that I was specifically saying that Scapegoat doesn't give enough tokens to Summon this monster using 4 materials. At least until we get another monster that can use just a single Sheep Token as material, or (heaven forbid) a generic Link 2 that actually generates advantage.

 

As for Scapegoat, it did become a somewhat popular tech in the OCG in some weird decks. I think a Trickstar deck was caught playing it in the TCG recently too. I'd need to look up about its efficacy though.

[Blake]

Priestess was a 2 of which wasn't run at all in many of the most competitive variants. I'll give you the point about recyclable Fate/Power but it doesn't detract from the fact that the deck was still centred on protecting the floodgate rather than playing aggressive.

 

If they have ways to out your board then no s*** you're gonna burn out and lose. It's a risk-it-all playstyle that either wins hard or loses hard so arguing that it has no grind game is just irrelevant.

 

No one is talking about winrates here or how the deck functions in matches but just generally about its existence. It's a playstyle and what year it is really means nothing, as long as SS is the most abundant mechanic in the game, the playstyle will always exist and steal games from unprepared opponents.

Can I get a source on your first claim?

 

>Protect the floodgate

That isn’t stun. That is throwing a new argument in.

 

You said burning out isn’t an issue. Not me. I’m not even arguing that it doesn’t have grind game, either, I’m arguing that it simply has no game because even aggro decks can force it out early now. Even cards like Herald of Perfection with 4-5 fairies in hand can be outplayed without much effort, much less playing bad cards like traps.

 

It doesn’t exist. The closes thing to stun is playing an aggro deck and making a bunch of stun bosses T1. That will always be viable. Normal Summon-reliant backrow decks do not exist, and that “playstyle” doesn’t, either. No more than “banish decks” or “mill decks” do. Decks come and go, and those play styles are beyond outdated. Milling at least has FTKs every now and then, but burn FTKs are easier to achieve and more viable... not that FTKs are generally viable.

 

You said youre not talking about winrates or matchups, but then immediately say that it steals wins from unprepared opponents. Can you stay

 

You can try to argue technicalities or be extremely literal, but in no real capacity does “stun” exist in 2017, outside of aggro -> stun bosses. Which I have stated multiple times. The year does matter, and citing being able to steal a single doesn’t mean sheet.

[~~~~]

just bein' a pedant here, but just because something isn't good, doesn't mean it doesn't exist

 

but I realise that you probably meant exist in the competitive scene or something like that.

[Maeriberii Haan]

we aren't even talking about skulldeat anymore here...

 

issue with stun is, gotta be honest, it's a decktype closely associated with competitive play as antimeta and whatnot. I mean mainly because, compare ti to casual decks. Casual decks will often have their own fun playstyle that while isn't necessarily good, it sets an identity to those decks.

 

Meanwhile stun just seek to simplify the game as much as possible, which goes against the usual casual environment.

 

However, the game the past few years had simply evolved so that it had the speed to make stun pretty much almost irrelevant. Stun decks or sheet like Chain Beat I guess never gets faster, that goes against the point. They just get more tools throughout the years, but at some points decks become too fast and too consistent for it to actually be able to answer the other deck's plays economically.

 

Stun wants to force trades that gives you a net plus in total, but the ease of starting plays from the different zones of the game makes those trades pretty meaningless now (not to mention the ceiling a deck has per turn in comp has increased dramatically the last few years too). If against really fast decks, they used rely on floodgates, but not only floodgates are more fragile than ever now, they just can't get to it fast enough for playstyles relying on it to succeed. You can't just suddenly become faster and get to your needed floodgates more consistently to answer the consistency of the decks you want to slow down (I guess there's stuffs like Maxx C but even then it's pretty slow all things considered for Stun).

 

And in the end, basically you can put it like this.

 

Both players might have access to similar amount of resources, but current decks would be able to start their plays and assemble their pieces more consistently than the other side being able to lock the current deck from playing. People bounce back from a well-timed Solemn whatever a lot better than 2-3 years ago, and they could do it more consistently than you being able to get 2 solemns ready to stop their other play.

Stun as it was known is dead. Unless they release something that pretty much revolutionize how Stun is meant to be played (but that had to be like, Rai-oh level of revolutionary), the playstyle simply can't exist in the environment it's meant to, and who the hell wants to play cookie cutter stun casually? Takes a special kind of people for wishing to make the game a lot duller just for the sake of winning in an environment where it doesn't even matter.

[EHN.]

Can I get a source on your first claim?

 

2nd place NA nats/2nd place worlds, which was as far as Spellbooks got, didn't run Priestess. It's hard to 'source' a memory but if you generally have a look at competitive builds from the time it was common to not see Priestess.

 

>Protect the floodgate
That isn’t stun. That is throwing a new argument in.

 

You said burning out isn’t an issue. Not me. I’m not even arguing that it doesn’t have grind game, either, I’m arguing that it simply has no game because even aggro decks can force it out early now. Even cards like Herald of Perfection with 4-5 fairies in hand can be outplayed without much effort, much less playing bad cards like traps.

 

It doesn’t exist. The closes thing to stun is playing an aggro deck and making a bunch of stun bosses T1. That will always be viable. Normal Summon-reliant backrow decks do not exist, and that “playstyle” doesn’t, either. No more than “banish decks” or “mill decks” do. Decks come and go, and those play styles are beyond outdated. Milling at least has FTKs every now and then, but burn FTKs are easier to achieve and more viable... not that FTKs are generally viable.

 

You said youre not talking about winrates or matchups, but then immediately say that it steals wins from unprepared opponents. Can you stay

 

You can try to argue technicalities or be extremely literal, but in no real capacity does “stun” exist in 2017, outside of aggro -> stun bosses. Which I have stated multiple times. The year does matter, and citing being able to steal a single doesn’t mean s***.

 

I mean I was going off your example of 'can't play the game boards' being stun and simplified it down. As for burning out, I'm not sure we're on the same page here. I said it doesn't matter because it's just a non-factor. The whole idea of having an 'unbreakable board' is to funnel everything into it and hope your opponent can't answer it. If they can, you're f***ed. As I said, it's a high risk high reward concept that's integrated into the playstyle so saying that burning out is a weakness is just a bit pointless.

 

As for the other points, if we're actually strictly talking in a competitive sense here, I only used NS/backrow as a simplified example and never said it would be viable in today's game (though if you do wanna talk competitive, BarrierDemise.dek saw play during Zoo format and won a big tournament in the OCG IIRC so even in a competitive sense it 'exists' even if it doesn't have a crazy big representation). I was more so going against your use of the word 'exist' which just feels too strong to be used here. You can rant at me for being 'literal' or whatever, no f***s given, but you can't claim something doesn't exist when it clearly does. Non-viability =/= existence. 

 

As a side note, it's pretty impossible to ignore the powerhouse that Grass was and say that the only noteworthy resurgence of mill decks was 'milling FTKs'.

 

Anyway this isn't really getting anywhere so it's probably the last I'll say on the topic. Sorry for detracting from the thread so much, didn't realise it would go this far.

[Blake]

Self-mill in LS/Infernoid/etc. form isn’t a mill deck. “Mill Decks” generally means things that aim to mill the opponent to death. Needle Worm, for example.

 

citing OCG decks is generally a poor argument due to the nature of their format,  and winning 1 TCG tournament doesn’t make it relevant. Good RNG and good player/bad deck both occur. It did not see consistent performance.

 

Burning out is a weakness when other decks can do the same without said risk/running bad cards to do it. Making the board with monsters means you invested a more consistent and renewable resource, and even if it breaks, you’re not 100% dead most times. If they clear your back row and your monster, you are dead, because you have very little advantage gain or ability to recover.

 

The idea of “stun” as “anti-meta with backrow” is dead. It has devolved into a casual deck that doesn’t even perform well there, because the game as a whole has moved on from such an archaic deck type. In that sense, it “doesn’t exist”. It doesn’t matter that it can pop up out of the blue, lots of things can, even sheet like Grandsoil Turbo back in the day. 

 

The game has sped up, with multiple plays a turn being standard, and the term “normal summon deck” existing to cover decks that actually do have a bottle necked start through the NS. If the game was still like that, then “stun” would be a coherent idea, but t isn’t.

 

The ability to answer backrow has greatly improved.

 

The punishment for not going first is stricter than ever, due to the soft locks decks make. Even casual ones.

 

It exists in the same way that 60 card Rainbow Dragon turbo exists, yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s even remotely relevant, co sidering even the weaker end of the game generally beats it out. The context was clear from the start, considering I covered why it “didn’t exist”, so arguing semantics was pointless.

[notcleverusername]

Just for record, definitions of stun are contentious and widely debated but I've def always seen "Protect the floodgate" as stun (a la Evilswarm)

 

I kinda tl;dred most of this except for that and the fact that even in "stun" decks Scapegoat is bad

[~~~~]

Is arguing semantics really pointless? After all, it did bring a small ray of satisfaction to my otherwise hopeless and miserable day that I had yesterday.

[ABC Gun]

This card is going to 0 on the banlist in both the TCG and OCG (starting in the OCG); I'm saying this because of what I've been playing on Duelingbook as well as most Decks I play against since this card has been on the site do at some point go into this card in order to gain a HUGE advantage with all of its effects, especially its draw effect and ATK gain.

[~~~~]

nah

[Blake]

The "problem" with Skulldeat is cards like Destrudo (in conjuncture with Darkwurm, but somewhat in general), Grinder Golem, and Gofu.

 

Even then, I don't really think I'm that mad that we have more Zoo-style cards in the game, considering they make the game at large playable.

[~~~~]

How is Skulldeat Zoo-style?

[Blake]

How is Skulldeat Zoo-style?

You have a bunch of goodstuff 1-2 card combos that you use to ladder and gain advantage that allows you to play the game.

 

Grinder Golem is a 1-card Skulldeat.

 

Darkwurm + Destrudo is Skulldeat with a Normal Summon (and post-Link VRAINS Pack, doesn't require NS)

 

Gofu is a 2-card Skulldeat (post Link VRAINS Pack, 1-card)

 

It also gives you card draw/hand correcting, similar to the Norden play, the ability to summon from the hand, and strengthens what you play while being ridiculously easy to summon through said methods. While unlocking zones to play more freely.

[~~~~]

Is the Gofu one

1. Gofu+1 Token for Crystron Link
2. Crystron eff summon Glow-Up Bulb
3. Glow-Up into Linkuriboh
4. Glow-Up eff
5. Glow-Up+Linkuriboh+Crystron+Token=Skulldeat

???

 

Also I previously read Skulldeat as "Draw 4 cards then put 3 of them (as in 3 of the cards you just drew) onto the bottom of the deck". Now I see that it can put any 3 cards from your hand to the bottom of the deck so it's obviously a lot better than I originally thought it was.

[Blake]

Is the Gofu one

1. Gofu+1 Token for Crystron Link
2. Crystron eff summon Glow-Up Bulb
3. Glow-Up into Linkuriboh
4. Glow-Up eff
5. Glow-Up+Linkuriboh+Crystron+Token=Skulldeat

???

 

Also I previously read Skulldeat as "Draw 4 cards then put 3 of them (as in 3 of the cards you just drew) onto the bottom of the deck". Now I see that it can put any 3 cards from your hand to the bottom of the deck so it's obviously a lot better than I originally thought it was.

 

That is exactly it.

 

seems there was one erroneous translation going around with that effect, but it defo returns any 3.

[Blake]

I actually wanna bring this up again for a couple reasons.

 

The first is that Gofu + Grinder Golem is 4-mat Skulldeat twice.

[spoiler=Combo]

Gofu into tokens

Golem into tokens
Gofu + Gofu Token = Needlefiber
Needlefiber finds GUB

Needlefiber + gofu token + grinder token + GUB = Skulldeat
Revive GUB
Grinder Token -> Link Spider
GUB -> Linkuriboh
Linkuriboh + Spider = Akashic, behind Skulldeat
Akashic bounces Skulldeat and Golem
Golem into tokens
Tokens into Security in EMZ
Security bounce Grinder
Grinder into Tokens
Tribute token to revive Linkuriboh
Grider Token + Lunkuriboh + Akashic + Security = Skulldeat

That's mostly just a meme, but if your first attempt at Skulldeat manages to not get you set up well enough, doing it again can't hurt.

 

The more important thing is that... This thing is probably still worth it as a 3-material. SSing a monster from hand is really strong, and if you don't need to fix your hand in order to get the kill, it can easily be better to hold the resources for lethal.

 

Yeah, that's a captain obvious moment, but I've seen lots of comments along the lines of "you're doing it wrong if you summon it less than 4". I know that I've had a couple hands of late where I really would just rather go 3-Material Skulldeat + Security Dragon with the resources available to me, because I can then use that to ladder more easily.

 

This is more relevant going second than first, but I've had it come up going first, as well.

[~~~~]

I'm pretty sure that's not what "points to" means, and therefore that you can't use Akashic to bounce Grinder Golem unless Akashic is in the EMZ.

[Blake]

I'm pretty sure that's not what "points to" means, and therefore that you can't use Akashic to bounce Grinder Golem unless Akashic is in the EMZ.

i actually thought it said in the same column oops

 

ignore that part