Artmage Sky Strikers

A semi-serious Artmage List with a small Strikers engine (Example combo below)

Artmage isn't a particularly strong deck, but I've recently come to love it.
While I was originally looking into Strikers as a secondary engine only semi-jokingly, the utility of a free Link-2 is obviously pretty sizeable. Nevertheless, this is definitely not the optimal way of playing the deck.
Either way, I really like playing this variant, and it has come to positively surprise me.
Obviously this deck doesn't have any immensely powerful 1ccs, and the optimal combo in this deck is always shifting very fast depending on how many discards you have for your Field Spell, whether you searched Medius or drew him, what you draw off Finmel, etc.

Either way, I'll add a basic combo below to give a basic idea of how the endboards can look.

Combo (Endboard at bottom):
(Plays into Nib like there's no tomorrow)

Requirements: Engage (or Hornet Drones) + Medius the Pure and 1 blank S/T to discard

[- Activate Engage to search Hornet Drones]

- Activate Hornet Drones to Summon a Token

- Link the token into Kagari

- Use Kagari's effect to re-add Hornet Drones

- Use Hornet Drones to summon a Token

- Link the Token and Kagari into Cross-Sheep

- Normal Summon Medius

- Use Medius' Effect to Special Summon Power Patron from Deck

- Use Patron's Effect to fuse with Medius into Diactorus (Important: Place Diactorus into a Zone that Cross-Sheep points to!)

- CL1 Power Patron Trigger Effect to search the Field Spell CL2 Cross Sheep (in most cases Power Patron's effect will be more important, so use it as CL1 to chainblock your opponent out of negating it) to Special Summon Medius (put him in a Zone that Cross-Sheep points to, this will become important later should we want to make I:P)

- Use the Field Spell to discard your blank S/T and add Graflare to your Hand

- Use Graflare's Effect to Summon him from hand and set Alteration from your Deck

- Activate Alteration to search Awakening (you can search any Artmage card, since you already have the Field Spell up. We search Awakening instead of Litera directly to get it into rotation as a non-target pop for a bounce)

- Use the Field Spell's Effect, searching Litera by discarding Awakening

- Summon Litera using her Effect, and recycle Alteration or Awakening

- Use the Field Spell's Effect again to discard what you just recycled, and declare Finmel to search her. Use her Effect to Summon her and draw one card. She's a very strong negate and the draw one may be a discardable S/T. If you do draw a S/T, you can use Finmel and the Spell to Summon Non-Finito, which will set you an Artmage S/T (you probably wanna set the Fusion Spell here, especially if you have some Monsters in your hand (because you can make Guardian Chimera with it) otherwise Assault is an Option for Field Spell protection, as well as it giving you a Medius in case you already have the Fusion Spell in Hand, which guarantees the Chimera option), and allow you to fuse with itself and Litera on your Opponent's Turn to bring out Ilia Silvia. When you do this, wait until the Main Phase, so that you can CL1 Litera to Summon back Finmel, and then chain Non-Finito. Note that you will have to free up a space on your board to do this, otherwise you cannot activate Litera's Effect. There are a few different ways you can do this. You can make I:P with Medius and Graflare, should you not need the S/T pop, which will then lead nicely into an Avramax or a Zilo. You can also make Nerva with Cross-Sheep, Medius, and Graflare (or any other list of 3 types, but Medius and Cross-Sheep are the 2 pretty much set-in-stone options since they don't do much on your opponent's turn), if you prefer Nerva's one-sided boardwipe effect to the extra negate potential (Zilo on their turn through I:P) or a Tower (Avramax with I:P on your turn). You can also make S:P with Cross-Sheep and Medius, if you don't want to give up your Graflare S/T destruction. For the rest of the combo, I will assume you did not draw into a S/T, meaning you do not have Non-Finito, and Finmel is on your board, not in the GY.

- !!ASSUMING FINMEL DREW A MONSTER, NOT A SPELL/TRAP!!READ PREVIOUS STEP!! Now you can use your Cross-Sheep and/or one or two of your Bodies to go into a link monster. I personally prefer to use Medius and Litera to go into I:P.
This will allow you to pressure negates with the Option of making Zilo, give you a Tower through Avramax, or give you an Accesscode Talker if your Opponent made a Summon on your turn, and you wish to banish it. Note that:
         1. It can also be optimal not to Link off Litera, and keep her so that you can bring back Power Patron on your Opponent's turn, and use his Fusion Effect (maybe you have your second Graflare in hand, and can make Nerva easily through PP...something like that). In that case, you want to free up a Space on your board so that you can legally activate Litera. Consider making S:P using Medius and Cross-Sheep. For the endboard, I will assume this is not the case.
         2. It may be worth shuffling back the Monster you just drew to Summon Medius through his own GY Effect. In that case you could make S:P with Cross Sheep and himself. I think this is case dependent enough for me to mention not doing it (for example, if you drew Ash Blossom, you might prefer having it in hand over having an S:P and banishing one of your Medii, but for the endboard, I will assume you did.

ENDBOARD (if Finmel did not draw a Spell/Trap):

1x Field Spell (Grind Game Potential)

1x Diactorus (Omni+Pop)
1x I:P Masquerena (can turn into negates through Zilo pressure, or into Avramax)
1x S:P Little Knight (Link Material for I:P choice, can also, you know, do S:P things)

1x Graflare (1x S/T Pop)

1x Finmel (Board negate and ATK halve)
1x Awakening in GY (non-targeting pop for a bounce)
1x Alteration in GY (Attack negation)
- (If you did this with your turn 1 hand:) 2 remaining Cards in Hand

ENDBOARD (if Finmel did draw a Spell/Trap):

1x Field Spell (Grind Game Potential)

1x Diactorus (Omni+Pop)
1x I:P (can turn into negates through Zilo pressure, or into Avramax)
1x Cross-Sheep (Link Material for I:P choice, can also reborn Power Patron in cases where you don't use it as fodder)

1x Litera (brings back Finmel, who can droplet all your Opponent's Monsters)
1x Non-Finito (Fuses off with Litera into Ilia Silvia, who is an Omninegate)
1x Awakening in GY (non-targeting pop for an Artmage Name bounce)
1x Alteration in GY (Attack negation)
- (If you did this with your turn 1 hand:) 2 remaining Cards in Hand

Update 10/10/2025: As much as I *really* wanted a larger Strikers package, you just cannot justify main decking Raye and Roze in this deck unless you are running a smaller Artmage Engine (like I was previously running only 1x Field Spell, 2x Alteration and 2x Medius due to not owning more lol), I just had to cut them. A lot more consistent. Also altered the Side Deck, as well as altering the Extra Deck to run Ultimate slayer and alter some ratios.

Update(s) End of January/Start of February 2026: Complete Deck Overhaul. Improved Combo.