Design Article: Challenger Series Deck Building For Standard
Tim Frie & Clint Badger
I’m Tim Frie, game designer and rules manager for UniVersus! I’m here today with my teammate Clint Badger, the lead on the Trigun Stampede Challenger Series. Today we are here to bring you some deck building ideas we have built using the new Cowboy Bebop and Trigun Stampede Challenger Series cards for the UniVersus standard format.
Spike, Bounty Hunter
Check out the full Deck List on the UGN
This Spike deck wants to get to big bonuses for having facedown foundations fast. Putting +2 speed and +2 damage on everything is the ideal, but we also want to take advantage of his built-in card draw. There’s plenty of defense present, as well with cards like Defending Pageant Queen and Faith’s Shield. Since we are likely to draw extra cards, Snack Time also fits in well to help with offense.
Faye, Queen Of Hearts
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With this deck, Faye wants to try and control the game plan at as many moments as possible. Playing 9 throws plus Falling Skies helps to ensure your attacks will be dealing damage to prompt Faye’s response. Falling Heel Strike and Invisible Infiltration increase the uses of specific foundations as well as Faye’s enhance to modify damage. And of course, we have an offensive boost with just 1 Weightless and a committed Skeptical turning 1 ready foundation into 3. Meanwhile, being built on the Water symbol means we get to main deck some standard defensive tools like Faith’s Shield and Struggling with Studies.
Overhaul
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Who else on these symbols likes to play with facedown cards? The leader of the Shie Hassaikai, of course! Overhaul takes advantage of these new attacks like Hunter’s Pursuit and Falling Heel Strike, encouraging deeper strings and repaying the cost of his response respectively. Skeptical is an easy inclusion in any character with a flip cost on their face. Jaw Jammer combos well with Reconstruction if you don’t have many facedowns, letting you keep the card that you destroy to gain a big damage bonus. Adding in Tetra-Terror Onslaught gives Overhaul just that extra offensive push, and we’re playing that in this deck since we don’t have the punch attacks to support another favored pressuring attack. Light it Up makes sure that you can present significant damage regularly.
Vash The Stampede
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This All symbol Vash deck makes great use of All Might clash deck cards. Being able to control the top of his discard, he can put together some cool interactions using some less popular attacks. Knee Smash benefits a lot here from Vash’s speed bonuses, and is likely to be able to activate both of its Enhance abilities. Foresight Fusillade similarly gives Vash another card off the top of the deck to set the top of his discard to what’s preferable, if needed. This is a great starting point for a deck for those who want to puzzle out lots of little interactions.
Nicholas D Wolfwood
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Wolfwood is all about going on the attack. What do you do with a character that can give any attack +3 damage? On the Death symbol, our heads went to Twisting Azure Inferno, followed up by more heavy hitters! But that doesn’t mean that good ol’ Nicholas D. rushes in with wild abandon. This deck packs major defense with cards like Always Cool and Showdown, and can quickly recover from injury by gaining substantial amounts of health. It’s pretty tough to knock Wolfwood out of a fight. Fiber Web Combo can put in quite a bit of work here, too! Make sure to look out for your copies as you draw all the cards with Wolfwood and Provisional Pursuit. With a properly combo'd Fiber Web in Wolfwood, your rival is looking down the barrel of a throw that started at 6 damage, and potentially a whole lot more if the rival has already blocked. And making your opponent want to block an attack is Wolfwood's specialty!
Endeavor .III
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This Endeavor deck works to burn through his deck as quickly as possible to cycle earlier than you've ever seen! Seen It All is a feature card in this deck, as it will be live on nearly every attack that Endeavor plays. Use Endeavor in conjunction with Seen It All to achieve some burning hot damage values! Endeavor should be able to consistently Slice & Burn the competition while utilizing the high block attacks featured in the deck, such as Hell Spider, Cinder Convection, and Steady Shot. How early can you get 10 or less cards in your deck for Slice & Burn to see?
This is only the tip of the iceberg for fun deck compositions. We are excited to see what the players come up with that will help elevate their game with these new cards now in the meta. The Challenger Series decks are great out of the box but as you have seen, really can help new and old cards and strategies form in exciting new decks. Bring your decks out to play against us along with the rest of the design team at the HLC Gunslinger events and make sure you pick up your copies of Cowboy Bebop and Trigun Stampede Challenger Series at a local game store near you!
Be sure to comment your decks featuring the new Challenger Series cards on our socials below.