Runick Sky Striker (August 2023)

Given the meta these days, Raye and friends are straight up not having a good time on Masterduel ladder. Pure Sky Striker is scoffed as nowadays since all other decks like Tearlaments, Branded and Spright have such high power ceilings.

Caught in the crossfire between Tearlaments and the rest of the meta, graveyard hate intended to counter Tearlaments also counter Sky Striker. Bystials banish Raye, Roze, and her hero bestie Destroyer Phoenix Enforcer - cutting off an entire strategy in one fell swoop. Although limited, Ishizu shufflers still prevent recycling of cards in the GY rendering Multirole and Kagari nearly ineffective. 

HOWEVER, adversity forces dedicated Sky Striker players to let go of their crutches holding them back from truly skilled gameplay and it allows for some creativity to shine forth! 

Now with that being said, I say that the current most competitive way to play Sky Striker is to play it with the Runick cards! Combining Sky Striker's control + resource generation with Runick's defensive play make for an extremely potent grindy deck! Since Sky Striker and Runick excel in a long grind game of resources, a combination of both of their strategies push each other to competitive viability! Runick naturally packs the GY with spells, turning on the additional effects of Sky Striker spells so you can use them full power from the get-go (Engage anyone?). 

With Sky Striker close to full power with 2 engage and 3 Kagari being legal, Runick Sky Striker packs a serious competitive punch, earning itself a respected place at the top echelons of Masterduel ladder. Fight alongside Raye with the Runick cards and reach Masters together! 

Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!

There are no straightforward combos with Runick Sky Striker. Your gameplan is hand dependent, and your win condition solely is out-resourcing your opponent with your Runick Fountain's +3 draw and Sky Striker's Engage/Multirole. If played optimally and correctly, you should be able to control your opponent to death, and even deck them out. You can potentially draw 5 per turn if you resolve Runick Fountain's draw 3 and draw twice with double Engage. Three Kagari is now legal, so Engage can be recycled indefinitely if its in rotation. 

Sky Striker's usual win condition of OTKing with Accesscode Talker or Linkage is now unavailable since it's paired with Runick since the strategy skips your battle-phase, so your games generally tend to be a long-winded game of control and resources - one where Runick and Striker excels in. Or given how fast people surrender in Masterduel once they discover that they're out-resourced and out-played, duels can also be concluded fairly fast.

The general set-up is establish Runick Fountain coupled with Multirole and Engage in rotation. With Runick Fountain, Multirole and Engage cycling every turn, you should be drawing 5 cards (3 with fountain and 2 with engage), recycling GY Sky Striker spells, and slowly but surely decking out your opponent until they surrender! Simplifying your opponent's gamestate and forcing out a control-grindgame generally ends up with the Runick Sky Striker player on top. 

Start by summoning Hugin with any Runick quick-play spell. Get your +1-3 draw with Runick Fountain, then somehow summon the appropriate Sky Striker Ace in your Extra Monster Zone. If you have Linkage, you can use your Runick monster to summon a Sky Striker Ace (usually Kagari or Shizuku). Set-up Multirole as well, since it effectively recycles your Sky Striker GY spells every turn.

Runick Sky Striker can comfortable go first or second. Going first, the pilot establishes Runick Fountain, Multirole and Sky Striker Shizuku with as much resources/draws as they can to control their opponent. Going second, nearly every card forces out interactions/negates since both archetypes have natural in-engine methods to crack boards. Most boards also have 0-1 spell negates given the current meta, so it's generally easy to blow through enemy boards and force out a control-grindgame that this deck excels at. 

Although not ideal, you can also go for a purely milling strategy using Runick Allure. That card absolutely slaughters opponent's decks since Runick Sky Striker uses many quick play spells per turn. During testing, I found Allure to be a "win-more" card, and it didn't really contribute much to the gamestate/win condition of resources. The opponent would surrender knowing they will run out of resources much earlier than they would actually deck out due to Runick Allure. 

GENERAL TIPS

• If your opponent attempts to negate/remove Hugin's search with a targeting effect (ex. Imperm or Veiler), you can use Linkage to dodge the targeted negate and summon a Sky Striker Ace.
• Before recycling your Runick spells in your GY with Runick Fountain's draw effect, try to use your Sky Striker cards first since the GY is packed with spells - turning on your additional Sky Striker effects, most notably Engage's additional draw.
• Sky Striker Eagle Booster works wonders for this deck - it allows you to dodge OTKs, renders your monster nigh invincible in the Extra Monster Zone for a turn, allows you to dodge negation - etc. Remember, it can be also used to protect your Runick monsters!
• Remember that Runick Fountain can draw cards during your turn AND your opponent's turn! You can theoretically draw 6 cards before it's your turn again (given you have proper GY and hand set-up)! Remember to keep the GY and hand in mind when you use Runick spells.
• Ishizu shufflers effectively shut down Runick Fountain's draw effect since it targets Runick spells in GY to shuffle back into your deck. Try to clear your opponent's GY shufflers with cards like Sky Striker Shark Cannon before attempting to activate Fountain's effect!
• Runick spells skip only 1 Battle Phase - the Battle Phase is still an option for finishing off your opponent's life points. If your opponent has no more resources and you can attack for game, you can still enter the battle phase after you've skipped one earlier to finish off your opponent!
• Decks that counter Tearlaments are usually also bad match-ups for this deck - like Floowandereeze and Exosisters. Luckily, this deck naturally outs anti-GY floodgates like Macro Cosmos, Necrovalley and Dimension Fissure with Runick and Sky Striker spells.
  
  

CONCLUDING COMMENTARY

I know I'm coping hard with Runick Sky Striker's competitive viability (Lets face it, this deck is still a fragile af "glass cannon"), but this deck is fairly terrifying when it gets going, using two quick play toolboxes to counter every threat my opponent comes up with. Need to negate a monster on the field? -> Widow Anchor and Freezing Curses! Need to destroy a card on the field? -> Afterburners and Flashing Fire! Need to protect your waifu monster? -> Eagle Booster and Slumber!

I also find it thematically cool that instead of the Sky Striker fighting for you, you're actually fighting ALONGSIDE Raye, since Runick implies you're the warrior on the field battling your opponent. So cool! Time to live out your favourite Elder Scrolls/DOOMSLAYER fantasy (I'm such a chuuni nerd lol)!

If you have any questions feel free to ask them below! Remember, Raye is Bae!

GLHF Duelists!