The Solo leveling deck has been on store shelves less than a week, so you know what that means. Time to hand out the definitive grades and optimal play patterns for each card in UVS’s newest Challenger Series.
note: These grades will be about how the cards interact with the entire card pool of Standard UVS, and not just the sealed deck.
Meta-Power Level: C+
Potential: A-
Fun-factor: A
Lucidity: B
Jinwoo is a very unique character with most of his skills being level locked. The meta of UVS is very quick at the moment, presenting killing lines on Turn 3, so Jinwoo is going to need to play a great defensive game to last long enough to get his best skills. In a slower format, he’d be much more reliable and getting Ruler’s Authority online changes the landscape of battles. His mechanics are simple for newer players and flexible enough to enable plenty of creativity. Threatening Echo on attacks can force players to block the wrong thing. Holding Murderous Intent can discourage your rival from playing further attacks. This is a great character to start from as a novice and notice new play lines as your UVS skill increases.
The Assassin Skill Tree (AST) is a great tool for putting a wall of text on a card without destroying it visually. It’s also an interesting way of managing the Turn 6 idea. Most games would like players to kill each other on Turn 6. It’s about the right amount of time for games to take for many reasons. The AST gives you a God-Tier ability on Turn 6 and says, something is about to go down right now! Critical Attack and Murderous Intent are the next 2 best skills and really give Jinwoo a chance to stabilize early. Quicksilver and Dagger Throw, although powerful, are lacking a great target attack right now. That may change with HoE. Stealth completes the defensive puzzle with zone control, but levels 3-5 don’t change the game much. There’s a period where you’re just waiting to get to Ruler’s Authority and that’s where Jinwoo suffers. Whether he’ll get any support in the future to help this, who knows?
Meta-Strength: B+
World’s Weakest Hunter is going to drive sales of this deck for a loong time. Until it sells out I guess. The speed of this move with EX: 31 gets insane quick. If your rival doesn’t have speed control, they’ll often have to block an 8 speed move, committing almost half their stage just to prevent you from drawing 3 cards. I think people will probably experiment with this card more after Nats season is over, so we’ll see where the value goes.
Also, it’s interesting to note that there are no non-keyword Enhances on attacks in this deck, so the Response seems to be the way the new design team is leaning resolving effects to expedite the game.
Meta-Strength: C
It’s super hard to grade this card because it’s only valuable in the Jinwoo deck, so we’re only going to grade it there. Wolf Assassin is a great card to keep you on schedule, queueing up a card for the level up or even giving you a loot box while applying pressure. As one of the few 1-blocks in the deck, it’s even powerful when it’s removed thanks to Ruler’s Authority. However, it is limited when it comes to speed and damage, relying on AST’s Quicksilver to make it threatening.
Meta-Strength: B+
Venom Fang Dagger is nearly my favorite card in the deck. It’s not locked to the character and plays nice with any weapon package you can assemble with it. All of it’s stats come cheap, and low-block attacks can be hard to come by in some decks. Drawing multiple VFD’s in a turn can by very dangerous if you can add any kind of damage to them. Every bit of damage you add essentially doubles, as it will just be added to the next attack if it hits.
Meta-Strength: D+
This grade could change in the near future as sealing cards seems to be getting more support in HoE, but at this point Killing Intent just doesn’t do enough to really impact a game. Since you have to Seal before you Stun, your opponent can just Stun what got Sealed, so instead of turning off potentially 2 cards, you’re only turning off 1. It lacks the XP keyword, so Jinwoo can’t pick it up at will. At this point, it’s a JAC2.
Meta-Strength: D
I never turn my nose up at a throw, especially when it’s a lower difficulty. However, Grasp For Survival doesn’t really offer anything special. With Hammer Launcher debuting in HoE, Jinwoo’s throw just lags behind something like that and Horse Toss. Not great cards sure, but they have better play patterns than GfS.
Meta-Strength: ?
I’m not afraid to say when I just don’t know the answer. Enough of this is a card that needs much more testing than I’ve put in to this point. It’s a great closing to your attack line in any deck, allowing you to punish your rival for blocking, while not pushing your builds over the 5-diff mark which can be so often fatal. The Frenzy skill is still one I’m not high on. I think it’s limited and would be much more interesting if it said Frenzy: X instead of just Frenzy. Either way, Enough of This has moments where it can feel awesome and moments where it’s best feature is it’s 1-high block. I think it’s still looking for a true home and no telling when that’ll be.
Meta-Strength: F
Determined Cut is one of those cards that you look at and then go, “Wow, this can deal so much damage without even getting blocked!” But upon closer inspection, its Response won’t be going off very often and the momentum for Powerful: 3 would probably be best used on another card like Colossus Swat or Fueled By Tragedy, also sporting the Death Attuned symbol.
Meta-Strength: C+
This card honestly plays better than it reads. Really weird. So, imagine your rival has a 3-check on top of their deck and you have 5-check. Great! Stun 2. Attacking with a 5-speed move. Block on a 7? Check a 3 ofc. Commit another 4. Yup. Your rival just committed 6 resources on your first attack. Then, the other way. Your rival has a 5 on top. You reveal an attack. I’ll get the 5 off the top and grab that attack, increasing my chances of dealing damage and playing more cards. I think 1 or 2 of these can be a great asset to a lot of decks 4/9 of the time and has a great block mod. What’s that? Where’d I get 4/9 you ask? Well assume, on average, decks are 2/3 Foundations and 1/3 attacks. you’ll hit those scenarios 2/9 of the time each. If you have card draw on board, then the info revealed by CwtB can be even more impactful. Definitely a card I’ll keep my eye on.
Meta-Strength: C
This card is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL in Jinwoo. This allows him to his level 6 on Turn 6 instead of waiting for Turn 7. It applies a great amount of pressure on that turn specifically. I REALLY wish they didn’t lock this ramping mechanic behind Unique and [Your Turn] modifiers, because Jinwoo could really use the ramp to make himself a viable option in formats like we find ourselves in. It’s not like he’s going to have a ton of XP cards removed if he levels up too early anyhow. While you wait for the perfect turn to strike, Double Dungeon does give the ready up mechanic, extending your stage a touch. This is the hardest card to pull in the SL Collector’s pack by far, so the price tag on the Alt-Art will be sky high for sure.
Meta-Strength: A-
Loot box is just a great card. It does SO much well. Extends your stage at will. Manipulate the top of your deck. Help sculpt your hand for the next turn. I especially enjoy using it on attacking turns, allowing me to commit 1 less resource and letting me see the block mod of the card I’ll pick up, so I can change my build line to sync my block zones. The numbers are expensive, for sure, but I say it’s plenty worth it.
Meta-Strength: F
Stun hate is important and as a teaching tool, I think Dungeoneering Armor does a great job teaching newer players about the Tenacious 3mechanic… Now that I think about it, there are 6 cards in the Solo Leveling deck that use Tenacious and none of them have a definition of what that keyword means, nor is it in the pamphlet. Ok, so teaching the keyword might be a bit difficult, but all the same, once players know what Tenacious means, they’ll be able to fight back with committed Foundations and really get the most value out of their stage.
Meta-Strength: C
This card is great in the Jinwoo deck. It’s the oil that makes this car go and last. I can easily see other decks come along that remove from the hand utilizing Item Menu, especially on the All symbol. We’ll have to see if it finds a spot in a deck similar to how Pony and Kiryu increased the playability of Any Means Necessary.
Meta-Strength: D+
Improving Skills is a card Jinwoo has to use, but a hard card to utilize if it’s not in your hand. It does give you comtrol over your number of Foundations in a format where that’s very important and it’s stage extending attributes are a plus. It’s just hard to main a 2-diff that isn’t looking to impact the board in a meaningful way.
Meta-Strength: F
This card might not exist.
Meta-Strength: D
Commit: -2 Speed is a more and more common effect with the new design team, so no surprise to see it pop up here. Not the most impactful card and the block mod isn’t what you want to see.
Meta-Strength: D-
Yea, I mean Breaker is always nice I guess, but there’s not much meat on this bone. Expensive block mod and no real reason to build it. Jinwoo might include it to round out the number of XP cards he has access to, but if he gets more XP cards in the future, this will be the first to get cut.
Meta-Strength: B
Teleportation Stone is the new Learning the Standards and it’s even more impactful seeing as how u can be defensive and then trigger it. I love this card and I’ll be attempting to include it in a lot of decks as long as it’s legal.
Meta-Strength: D-
Beautiful Card. Gorgeous. The burn on this is just too slow to be viable even in the Challenger deck it self. Maybe if it wasn’t Unique and you tried to burn your rival for 3 or 4 life each time they attacked. But as a Unique, it’s just not worth including in a strategy.
My Hero Meta 
Leave a comment