:::Akuma::: Evil/Fire

Asset: 8
4x Olcadan’s Mentoring
4x Seal of Cessation

Action: 11
4x Seclusion
4x Kung-Fu Training
3x Rejections

Attack: 8
4x Ira-Spinta
4x Tiger Fury

Foundation: 35
4x Blood Runs True
4x Chester’s Backing
4x The Red Lotus of the Sun
3x Oral Dead
3x Charismatic
4x Evil Plans
3x Revenant’s Calling
3x Bitter Rivals
4x Manifest Destiny
3x White Magic

Split Card: 4
4x The Anti K’

Sideboard: 8
3x Yoga Adept
3x Lynette’s Shop
2x Family Heirloom
Deck Breakdown:

Assets:
Olcadan’s Mentoring – A stable cards in terms of controlling your opponent’s board, early it the game it can lead to a disastrous iSpinta.

Example: Activating Olcadan’s against a Red Lotus would seem silly, but if your opponent commits, which they nartually will to negate the Owl, them you just baited them into an iSpinta and dominate their Lotus along with anything else that would be a problem. After fueling your Seclusion off the momentum that you get off iSpinta, its worth losing one card in your staging area.

Seal of Cessation – I love this card, it’s a staple regardless of you playing aggro or control. It can negate anything, need I say more. Great card and gives more control overall.

Actions:
Seclusion – I’ve wanted to play this card for a while now; it can tap a foundation or give a card +4 difficulty to play at the cost of a momentum. It’s only 1 difficulty and checks a 4 very nice, just one little problem though. Evil doesn’t gain momentum easily in Block 3, since kunai will be rotating and Meat Eater isn’t that great in this deck to being with. So I decided to splash in White Magic, I had the basic concept and sought Scott Gaines’ veteran deck building skills. So we both decided White Magic had to go in to fuel Seclusion.

Now Seclusion allows you more cc hax and the ability to disable other foundations. It can push a Tiger Fury through no problem. After you Akuma your own attack and respond with Evil Plans you might only have 1 or 2 Blood Runs True open, allowing Rejection or a second Rejection getting hax by BRT, then allowing them to block. Then to only have the block fall to Seclusion, especially if you used Kung-Fu Training to boost its speed. At that point it’s only a 3 difficulty, easily passed in Evil. Plus this card shares 2 symbols with Akuma. This enables Manifest Destiny, which allows more tapping of the cards.

Kung-Fu Training – It’s a staple, it allows speed pumps and the cancellation of other actions. As with Seclusion it shares 2 symbols with Akuma, so Manifest Destiny can fuel off of.

Rejection – Just a filler card…lol! Nah just kidding, protection from large attacks and gains life at 3 difficulty.

Attacks: I chose Fire attacks, because iSpinta and Tiger Fury were the right mix, and Evil lost a lot of attack power during the rotation.

Ira-Spinta (aka) iSpinta – 5 difficulty, 4 damage, and throw, with the ability to remove 2 problem cards like Destiny, BRT, Lord of the Makai, etc..
Its “setback” allows the opponent to choose 1 card in your staging area and send it to your momentum. What a drag right, wrong! Thanks you allow me to abuse Seculsion, thanks, Tiger Fury, Akuma, Evil Plans, Block? Seclusion? GG?

Tiger Fury – Hmm… it’s big and does a lot of damage…hey we have a winner and it has Fire yum ?

Foundations: I’m not going to go that much detail in the foundations because we all know what most do. The only one I will talk about it White Magic.

White Magic – I pretty much talked about this card already, but just to reflect. It allows be to have Seclusion up and going rather early in the game instead of waiting on an iSpinta. I only need one in play and really only 1 momentum at a time. Of course this depends on the situation as well. With just enough of Evil/Fire split cards and Infinity cards I can manage to splash this without messing up the flow of the deck itself. As extra copies get discarded for The Anti K’ or pitching to draw up for the turn.

Sideboard:
Yoga Adept – I think this card will be a major part of Block 3; it’s a counter spell to say the least. Its can stop anything problematic before it ever hits play. It’s good against most decks, but really good against J. Talbain or a deck that uses Defender Loop to win.

Lynette’s Shop – Well there are just some cards that other symbols have that you can’t play. Oh did you just play Lord of the Makai, thanks I’ll play my $2 version of that, same with Assets too. It’s another surprise card, with a 6 check.

Family Heirloom – For really heavy asset based decks, i.e. J.Talbain, Alex, or Defender based decks. Also at the worst it’s a way to gain some momentum.

Conclusion:
There you have it, this is the deck I would play if I was going to GCC, but I will be participating in another tourney in my home state. Thanks to Scott Gaines for his help and deck wisdom. If there are any questions or comments please feel free.

Eric Taylor

Yoga Adept dosn't negate the block. It simply clears the card so the opponent can block the next attack easier. If Akuma had all and the card that was ued to block was an action card then it WOULD negate the block.

We have had a very similar deck floating around here for quite a while, and there's actually a lot to be said about it. Your foundation suite is quite strong, perhaps the strongest possible for Akuma, so it would seem likely that you can actually just power your way out of the biggest problem I've had with similar decks:

By the time Tiger Fury becomes decently fatal, the opponent often has too much control to make it relevant. Of course you are running Spinta, as were we, as well as Olcadan's and SoCs and all that, so you might have very different encounters than we did, without SoC or Chester's.

The second issue we had in testing was that Akuma tends to bring out the best baiters in the business, and thus you have to be a very good player in order to choose the right targets for Seclusions, BRT and his own Hax ability. this is not an issue with the cards, but with the player. Once Destiny hits the board after a series of cat and mouse, however, the game is usually lost.

Finally, his worst matchups are really bad. His Evil foundations go a long way against the mono-Order deck, but splash a little Chaos and it's a losing battle. Talbain has a field day with Akuma, as he bypasses most of the dangers as a matter of course. Most accomplished players pack Destiny as well as the skill and timing required to bypass your defenses, nullifying a full 13 cards in the deck with one foundation: that will be the deciding factor in the match.

Of course Destiny can be removed via Olcadan's and Spinta, as your opponent also knows, so the actual fight will not be how soon you can make Tiger Fury hit for fatal, but who is better equipped to destroy/protect that particular foundation and that's the one that is wins the match. Again, nothing wrong with the cards, but the matchups.

The list is strong, and you probably already know most of these issues, perhaps you have more data than we do and you're willing to share?

Havoc said:

Hmm interesting, I must have read it wrong, thanks.

ceejaybee said:

Sweet, I love me some UFS talk. First off thanks for the compliments

Tiger Fury: Very true about it being a little slow, but also I have 7hs which I will be playing roughly 4 cards early on in the game. So by turn 3 I could have 9 foundations, so 9+4(tiger's damage)+4 off Akuma/Evil Plans = 17 not too bad. Of course this is all under different circumstances. Is there any other attacks that you would suggest? As of now I do like Tiger Fury, and the Pween effect it gives me.

Yes, Akuma brings out the best of baiters, and they are the best at what they do. Now I just started playing UFS about 6 months ago, and magic over the last 9 years. I tend to catch on rather quick and rarely make errors in my reads. But to get good you got to play the best and learn why you don't win, why you did win, and what can I do to increase my playing skills along with my deck building.

Destiny: Hmm well this card is a problem, but I tried to include cards that help with that, i.e. iSpinta, Olcadans, etc. It all comes down to who draws what and skill.

J.Talbain: thats a name I don't want to here often lol. He changes your playing style alot, just one thing with him. Most builds are 70 cards, with 2 copies of Destiny if they can draw it early enough or search it out with the 1 copy of Giradot's then they are gonna be near impossible to beat.

Pure Order really isn't a big problem, but then again it all depends on the player and the actually sit down of the game. Splash in Chaos, Red Lotus and Oral Dead, man my life is hell. But hey thats just part of the game.

Thanks for the advice man, really its only me and Scott where we're from, so any knowledge is good knowledge.

Thanks, Eric