Thursday 28 April 2011

Skull Servant Deck Analysis



Skull servant, one of the oldest cards in the entire game, it never see's any love nor play, this makes me sad.


so I decided I am going to work on a skull servant build, my old one is dead due to the limitation of monster gate and reasoning


Over the years I have watched cards pop up here and there that give this guy a little bit of support, and some can be outright nasty played right.


So what is my goal? my goal is to turn skull servants into a top level competitive deck! they have enough support to do it, now all they need is a little bit of love.


now this guy alone wont do anything, look at his attack, defence, level and ability (or should I say lack of ability).




So right now you may be thinking "well, skull servant is obviously a weak card with no win condition, how could you possibly focus a deck around him?" well, the answer is very simple!


King of the Skull servants, the beatstick of the deck, a little slow to get going but once you get him fired up he's going to be a nightmare to get rid of, his effect as bellow.


The original ATK of this card becomes the number of "King of the Skull Servants" and "Skull Servant" cards in your Graveyard x 1000. When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the Graveyard, by removing from play 1 other "King of the Skull Servants" or "Skull Servant" card in your GraveyardSpecial Summon this card.


So the effect is pretty decent right? considering when he is in the graveyard he also helps, so he boosts the attack of the next one that comes out.


now lets take a look at another part of his effect, if you remove from play a king of skull servants or skull servant from the graveyard you can special summon him when he is destroyed by battle, so even if something can trample over it, it wont be going away that easy!


now so far we have realised that in a deck we can have 3 skull servants, and 3 king of skull servants, now if we do the maths it tells us that if all goes according to plan, we can eventualy get out a king of skull servants that has 5000 attack, now this is no easy feat with just the two of these guys, that's why we add in some more support!


The lady in Wight was introduced in the light of destruction era, right before synchro's, and added to the strength of the skull servant deck!


Face-up Level 3 or lower Zombie-Type monsters you control, except "The Lady in Wight", cannot be destroyed by battle and are unaffected by the effects of Spell and Trap Cards. This card's name is treated as "Skull Servant" while it is in the Graveyard.


When she is in the graveyard, her name is treated as "skull servant" so this gives us a total count of 9 targets for the power of the king of skull servants, allowing a total of 8000 attack.


now the other thing about lady in Wight is she gives protection to all your level 3 or lower zombies, so your king of skull servants will not be dying from any mirror force's or dimensional prisons any time soon while she is on the field! 


now so far we realise we have a total count of 9 monsters that can improve kings power, but does it stop there? no it doesnt!


in starstrike blast Wightmare was released! 


Wightmare is basically skull servant with an added bonus.


While it is in the Graveyard, this card's name is treated as "Skull Servant". You can discard this card to activate 1 of the following effects: ● Select 1 of your removed from play "Skull Servant" or "Wightmare", and return it to your Graveyard. ● Select 1 of your removed from play "The Lady in Wight" or "King of the Skull Servants", and Special Summon it.


So if for any reason you lose any of your skull servants, you can use this guy to get them back, but it's better off just being dumped to the grave for the attack bonus.


now this is the last choice in the range of monster for the skull servants, you can choose between "skull servant" "king of skull servants" "the lady in wight" and "wightmare".


now we have to think of something else, it's one thing to have these guys in your deck, but how do we go about getting them into the graveyard? well you have multiple ways of getting them there!


Armageddon knight! the most obvious choice to dump your skull servants. its a dark 1400 monster with an effect that serves a great purpose!


When this card is Summoned, you can send 1 DARK monster from your Deck to the Graveyard.


It's effect is very straight forward, get a dark type from your deck, throw it in the grave, this allows us to send skull servants to the grave much faster!


there is another choice, one that's very similar to Armageddon knight, and that choice would be none other than dark grepher!


Dark grepher is a similar choice to Armageddon knight, however Dark grepher is better ran in decks that use bigger monsters, seeing as your win condition are with low level dark monsters grepher probably isn't a great choice.


You can discard 1 Level 5 or higher DARK monster to Special Summon this card from your hand. Once per turn, you can discard 1DARK monster to send 1 DARK monster from your Deck to yourGraveyard.


at the end of the dark Dark grepher really comes down to player preference with what you feel like playing.


now they are basically the only two good monster for direct graveyard dumping in this deck, however there is an alternative route to grave dumping, we have monsters that can search out!


Goblin Zombie is a very suitable choice for this deck, because it allows you to search for almost anything in your deck and that will be a big help. consistency is a big thing in this game 
and the fact that when goblin zombie dies it lets you search for a zombie and add it to your hand gives you a boost!


When this card inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent, send the top card of their Deck to the Graveyard. When this card is sent from thefield to the Graveyard, add 1 Zombie-Type monster with 1200 or less DEF from your Deck to your hand.


so cards you can get would be skull servant, king of skull servants, Wightmare, Goblin zombie or zombie master, which will usually help your situation.


even though Goblin zombie has an effect to discard the top card of your opponents deck, it usual isn't much of a help, the searching ability is the only reason you want to use this guy!


now another card i have yet to mention, zombie master! he is almost essential in this deck!


with the ability to special summon zombies from the graveyard it becomes a perfect choice in this deck!


Once per turn, you can send 1 Monster Card from your hand to theGraveyard to Special Summon 1 Level 4 or lower Zombie-Type Monster from either player's Graveyard.


so you can use this guy to special summon your king of skull servant and it's also accessible with Goblin Zombie, so searching this guy becomes worth while!


also the fact that zombie master has 1800 attack and is 4 star monster makes it good on it's own!


that's basically all the monsters you will need for this deck! you could splash in a plaguespreader zombie but like the grepher it's all a matter of personal choice, with the levels of monsters it's not really worth throwing in 1 tuner just for synchro summoning.




now rather then explain all the spells i'll just write the list!


Monsters!~18
x3 king of skull servant
x3 Wightmare
x3 The lady in Wight
x1 skull servant
x2 zombie master
x3 Goblin zombie
x3 Armageddon knight


Spells!~ 9
x1 allure of darkness
x1 monster reborn
x1 book of life
x1 book of moon
x1 foolish burial
x1 giant trunade
x1 dark hole
x2 mystical space typhoon


Traps!~13
x1 solemn judgement
x3 dimensional prison
x2 compulsory evacuation device
x1 mirror force
x2 dust tornado
x1 call of the haunted
x2 bottomless trap hole
x1 torrential tribute




basicly meant to hold off until you can get your set up ready to go, then it's just a matter of getting a lady in wight in face up defense then rune over everything with the king!

8 comments:

  1. Those wight cards are awesome looking. I'm not too familiar with them but I remember Skull Servant

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  2. they are pretty good, they make skull servant playable for a change

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  3. oh man.. i wish people still play yu-gi-oh :[

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  4. pretty cool i like the artwork
    these cards usually have cool looking characters

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  5. @ryan: people do, you just needa find the right stores to go to.

    @=dgrphx=: no, no they don't usually have cool looking art work, most yugioh cards look repulsive and don't deserve to exist, these are just a few of the exceptions :P

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  6. Will it work with just the one skull servant? I know other cards count as them whilst in the GY. Seems like a fun deck regardless. I've just lightly touched the duel monsters stuff recently.

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  7. yeh, it will work fine with just one skull servant, older builds used to run 3 kings, 3 ladies and 3 skull servants and they ran very well, Wightmare is basically skull servant with an effect instead of being a blank monster

    feel free to mess around with it how you want, this is just my 5 minute build that isn't tested, but i gave a decent analysis for people to understand the inner workings of skull servant decks.

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  8. Looks like a pretty solid strategy but I always found that decks that focused around a gimmick like this didn't work too well in practice

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