Ryan Yu's INSANE recent YCS top with Sky Striker of all things in this modern meta shocked many duelists after October 2024's YCS Niagara. The Sky Striker GOAT has blessed us with a second place finish with such a unassuming decklist! I personally felt incredibly proud of Ryan since he's my hometown hero (shoutout to the Duelists in the Toronto Area!), Yugioh legend (two time World Champion) and he piloted one of my favourite decks of all time (Sky Striker)!
Upon closer inspection, there is nothing really special about Ryan Yu's Sky Striker list - it looks like something out of 2019 with a few recent cards sprinkled in. It's safe to say that powerful cards like Fuwaros and Dominus Impulse weren't the key to Ryan's incredible YCS run to second place at Niagara, it was sheer skill, determination and experience with the fundamentals of dueling with a Sky Striker deck - something that Ryan definitely has.
All of this inspired me to give Sky Striker a shot against the Yugioh OMEGA ladder, and ooohhh boy, does this deck pack a punch! While it doesn't OTK as well as Tenpai does. Sky Striker trades brute force for resillience and resources. After you blow out your opponent's resources blinding second, or control them with your negates/floodgates, you can outgrind them in an extended tug of war!
Ryan Yu's decklist places it's focus on out-resourcing your opponent in an extended game, hence the triple Upstart Goblin, Pot of Desires and Engage. Sky Striker is also essentially at full power with triple Kagari and Engage, and it even has the modern support tools like Linkage and Accesscode Talker that greatly enhances it's power level.
In the hands of an inexperienced duelist, Sky Striker is fragile and it's often hardpressed to catch up to the speed of combo decks like Yubel and Snake-Eye, so it's definitely up the skill of the individual pilot to bring out the full potential of Raye! Sky Striker is the ultimate challenge for duelists looking for a deck that is hard to master but it handsomely rewards skill and experience.
Ryan Yu has excelled in piloting Sky Striker in YCS Niagara - are you up to the challenge duelist?
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
GLHF Duelists!
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