Notes & Combos

For the final leg of my Master 1 climb I decided to play Striker Maliss as I felt that it was the best variant to deal with a combined Maliss + Ryzeal meta.

Why Sky Striker cards?

The main points of the Sky Striker engine were:

1. Provide a way to give Maliss monsters additional bodies as link material without needing Hare, Bystials, or Gold Sarc / Underground. Drones also provides additional bodies while under Detonator, which is not the case for Terrortop or the Millennium engine where they can be seriously hampered by Detonator's non-OPT pop.
2. Lets the Maliss player do lines under Lancea, which some Ryzeal and Maliss players are running just to deal with the matchup going second.
3. Gives more interruptions to the Ransom + Mirror endboard during times where I get Maxx C'd or Charmie'd.
4. This is most important but the engine provides 4 additional cards to deal with Detonator, as even a lone Detonator with 3 mats is hard to push through unless your hand is full gas, so it is best to out it ASAP before committing to your main plays.

To this end, it has performed wonderfully, especially during times where I faced Ryzeal, as it turned from a hard to almost unwinnable matchup to one where you can easily OTK since their handtraps are inadequate to deal with the Maliss engine itself with extenders.

Metaltronus also performed the same function, but it had additional utility against a Maliss board since it deals with one piece of their endboard (unless they're running complete jank like Gryphon + A Bao A Qu).

Why did I cut Dominus Impulse?

As much as I like Dominus Impulse and think it is absolutely mandatory for a normal Maliss deck, the current meta made it untenable to be running it alongside cards like Metaltronus.

Since this deck is tech'ed to deal with Ryzeal, Dominus Impulse was not a good handtrap against them as their monsters usually did not a start chain to be responded to with Dominus Impulse aside from Node or Ice NS, but the latter usually did so too early into the combo for the pop to matter in preventing a rank 4 with Imperm while the former most likely had Cross and Detonator remaining, which is still hard or impossible for Maliss to deal with in-engine.

It definitely hurts to lose Dominus Impulse, especially against a Maliss mirror, but I felt that Ryzeal was a more ubiqutious threat during the time I was actively climbing so I ditched it.

Additional Thoughts

Droll served as my anti-Maxx C and Fuwalos card as CBTG and Crossout were not very good going second and Maliss can easily play under Droll as opposed to Ryzeal. The handtrap also forces the Ryzeal player to do Detonator or Bagooska pass, in which the Sky Striker cards or Metaltronus can easily deal with.

I played Allure of Darkness because it's a card that still functions under Detonator and lets be draw into the many Detonator outs that exist within the deck. Plus it baits a handtrap or forces a Droll (which means they cannot Maxx C me) so it was a worthy inclusion despite its weaknesses against the mirror.