Hey everyone, Ryan from the SBTCG team here.
If you know me at all, you know that I’m a huge Tensura nerd. Ever since BSR announced vol2, I’ve been eagerly anticipating card spoilers to get my hands on and play with. A little over a week ago from time of writing, we finally got the first batch of spoilers including what should be 8/10 RRs. Safe to say, I was thoroughly impressed with them, and saw potential in a new deck that could end up being stronger than the current meta build. I decided to proxy up this batch of spoilers and begin testing, ending up on this as my current build for the new 8 standby deck vol2 created:
I went through a couple of iterations during testing, and you can find my old iterations and rough notes on my twitter, which I will link at the bottom if you’re curious. The main conclusion from my testing is that this new deck is extremely consistent and very strong. It is able to turbo out value standby targets through forcing triggers, and having an extremely high average power-line at each point of the game.
Today, I’ll be going through most of the new cards and giving my thoughts on them from testing explaining why I think the cards are strong. I won’t be covering the cards that aren’t relevant to the new 8 standby build like the 2 choice combos, Shizu SP or the Rimuru cleancut. I don’t think any of those cards fit in this new deck which I will be focusing on over the old build. I am also not going to talk about the set 1 cards in the build, with some exceptions in order to highlight some of the new cards.
Level 0
CONT – If all of your characters are <Demon Continent>, this gets +2000 power.
AUTO – At the start of your opponent’s Attack Phase, you may move this to an empty Front Row slot with a character in the slot across from it.
The first vol2 card we have is the new Milim oversize. It is functionally identical to the Chika oversize from LSS, a 3500 chaser without a downside. If you ever played against 8 standby sunshine, you know that this profile is extremely powerful. The upside to chasers at 0 is that they give you the potential to control the pace of the 0 game. Standby decks benefit greatly from a slower early game as it gives them more time to set-up hand/waiting room targets, and/or more time to roll board advantage through standbys at 0 and 1/1s. The most common way for your opponent to deny your plus is to only attack once and deny the run. Milim forces your opponent to either slow down their game, or give you your plus; both of these outcomes are net positive.This profile also gives you the ability to control damage intake by denying direct attacks. Another big upside to this profile is that clean-cuts are coming back into favor. Milim completely denies clean-cuts at level 0. This weakens your opponent’s 0 game and helps slow down the game so that you can take better advantage of standby. This profile is also strong outside of standby decks. It would be a great inclusion in the old build, or any build in fact. It doesn’t really matter since this card is just that strong.
AUTO – When this is placed on stage from hand, look at the top card of your deck, and put it on top of your deck or into your Waiting Room.
AUTO – [Return this to hand] When your Climax is placed on the Climax Area, you may pay cost. If you do, choose 1 of your characters, this turn, it gets +2000 power.
The next card is the new Rimuru bounce back. On play surveil (look at top of deck, keep it or send to waiting room), and on cx play, bounce back to hand, give 2000 power to a card, similar card in concept to the Kurobe from set1. These profiles synergize well with standby cxs. They give you their full benefit while keeping a slot open for the standby target you bring in. The main discussion here isn’t about the card being good or not, it’s more about which bouncer you would want to play. After my testing, I settled on the Rimuru. Your level 1 climax combo not being able to side is a real detriment at 1 if you get there second. You can’t beat over 6000+ power cards, and are forced to crash, which is a huge bane for standby. The Kurobe gives a soul on bounce, which is good specifically for the level 1 combo turn, however, it doesn’t scale past that point. The soul on bounce back becomes more of a detriment than a benefit once you have your 2/2s out, and start to win board. Kurobe also top checks 2 and rearranges them on play, which is good in standby decks, but again, it doesn’t scale well. Your best level 3 support also does this effect every turn, making Kurobe a moot card past 1. The power on Rimuru is always relevant. It gives you that extra padding you might need to beat over an early play, or opposing 2/2 without worrying about a counter, pushing your 2/2s to 12500 before your supports, making them out of counter range in most matchups. The surveil on play is also always a good effect. Knowing what the top card of your deck is and being able to manipulate it lets you push for standby triggers. The current brainstorm of choice currently also surveils at the start of every main. This lets you either brainstorm 6+ if you need to hit the brainstorm, or push for more standby triggers with your level 1 combo and the 2/2. These cards in conjunction with each other make the deck very consistent and makes the new Rimuru the better choice overall for this build.
Level 1
CONT – This cannot Side Attack.
AUTO – {CX COMBO} When this attacks, if you have the Standby CX in the Climax Area, and you have another <Demon Continent> character, during the Trigger Step of this attack, perform Trigger Check twice.
I’ll start this segment by saying that initially, I wasn’t exactly sold on this card. Simply reading this, it was hard for me to see how strong this card was. However, after testing, I can safely say that this combo is indeed strong. Twin-drive effects are always good when you have good triggers, especially with standby. The other big benefit to twindrive is the ability to keep your stock clean mid-battle. This card trades stock cleaning for stock charging, which has its own pros and cons, though, it does keep that raw benefit of forcing triggers. A single combo with 2 other attackers, the brainstorm, and the rimuru bounce back enables you to push 6 cards for a standby trigger. With 8 standby triggers, you’re very likely to trigger at least 1. This allows you to push out multiple 2/2s at 1 consistently and gain advantage through the board. The stock charge also synergizes well with the loopable Geld counter. This gives you the realistic potential to loop the counter multiple times in a single turn to defend your board at 2, thus keeping your advantage. There are multiple concerns I have with this card. The combo can remove your tech cards, i.e triggering your stockswap first and causing it to get lost in your stock for the rest of the game since the deck can lack meaningful ways to spend excess stock. You have the loopable counter, early play heals, and a stock-swap; all which give you ways to spend your stock. Even so,they are situational and don’t necessarily burn excess stock in a meaningful way. This means that looping the combo or fielding multiples can cause you to become too vulnerable to stock-swap because you don’t have many ways to play around it. The thought of multiple twin drives at 1 to force out multiple 2/2s sounds like a good idea in theory, but the downsides to fielding multiple of this combo far outweigh the benefits.You can already force out multiple with your surveil effects, which is why I cut the card down to 3. Running this card at 3 with the mask package gives you the consistency to always get the 1 on combo turn, while opening the deck up for more utility. If future vol2 spoilers give us more 1/1s or maybe even a twindrive 1/0, this card might end up being cut, but with current spoilers, this card is strong and worth playing.
Level 2
CONT – For each of your other Back Row <Demon Continent> characters, this gets +2000 power.
AUTO – When this attacks, look at the top card of your deck, and put it on top of your deck or into your Waiting Room.
2/2s are a staple of most standby decks. They are usually the first card I think about while thinking about standby. Every deck running standby climaxes runs some form of front row level 2 card that can be brought out through standby to start winning the board, and build up advantage, and that is no different for Slime. “Standard” 2/2 profiles either have hand encore so the card sticks better, or have no other effect besides the power condition so they can be bigger. When your 2/2 doesn’t fit the mold of either profile, it needs to do something else to warrant inclusion. Milim’s second effect is a surveil on attack. I already mentioned this with the level 1 combo, but pushing standby triggers is extremely powerful and makes the standby gameplan more consistent. 2 Milims and your brainstorm pushes you through 6 cards during your attack phase, similar to the level 1 combo. This style of 2/2 makes hitting the ideal board of 2 Milims, a 3/2 Rimuru, brainstorm and Shuna support extremely consistent. This card can also help keep stock clean by milling standbys once you have the board established. Overall, I think this new 2/2 is stronger than both hand encore and the 11k base ones simply due to how consistently you can trigger standby during the midgame. Even if vol2 prints a “standard” 2/2, I would rather keep this Milim in at 4 copies.
Level 3 
CONT – If all of your characters are <Demon Continent>, this gets +2000 power.
AUTO – When this is placed on stage from hand, you may Heal 1.
AUTO – {CX COMBO} When the Standby CX is placed on your Climax Area, this turn, this gains the following 2 abilities: – “AUTO – (2) When this card’s battle opponent is Reversed, you may pay cost. If you do, choose up to 1 {3/5 Event (below)} from your hand, if you meet the Level and Color requirements normally needed to play the card, immediately play that card without paying its normal Cost.” – “AUTO – (2) When this Direct Attacks, you may pay cost. If you do, deal 2 damage to your opponent.”
Let’s quickly list what this card is before talking about it. This card is a healing finisher, that’s also a good standby target due to her being 11000 base. The finishing profile itself is also fairly strong, playing well with standby winning the board. This card is everything you could want from a top end in a standby deck and then some. I honestly don’t have a lot to say about this card because it’s so powerful and only has upsides. 2 stock burn 2 on direct attacks is a good way to close out the game without much counterplay. The only real counterplay to that mode would be to win the board, but with how consistently this deck is able to push standby triggers, and how high the powerline at 2 is, this is a tough feat for most decks. Even if the opponent clears 1-2 lanes, you still keep direct lanes for burns.You can then use the new Rimuru 3/2, which I’ll talk about in a bit, to swing into the closed lane. If the set had an on-color board disrupting effect, this combo only becomes better. One strange thing you might notice about my list is that I don’t play the event that pairs with this card’s second finishing mode. This exclusion makes losing the board a bit more detrimental in some specific matchups. Though, I do think the burn 2 is better, since you will be winning the board most of the time.
If you have a character whose name includes “Milim”, your opponent reveals the top 7 cards of their deck, shuffles their deck, then send the top X cards of their deck to Clock. X equals the number of Climaxes revealed.
I’ll be blunt, with the current spoilers and card pool, I do not like this event. The event itself is very unique and strong. It helps close out games against compressed opponents. The deck also has the resources to be able to pay for the event, even during main phase, which makes winning board at 2 less of a problem as you don’t need to get reverses to use the event. My issue with this card is consistency. As it currently stands, the event does not have a bonder, meaning you don’t have consistent ways to get the event in a timely manner other than drawing and holding it. Once you establish your board, you begin to clock less. This makes drawing into the event more unlikely as the game goes on. Holding the event early also doesn’t work well. The event is a dead card in hand until your finishing turn. Standby decks already play more dead cards in hand than a typical deck. Adding more dead cards to the build clogs your hand and makes turns more awkward than they should be. You could potentially play a check X, like the TD 3/2 Shizu, but Shizu’s second effect is not particularly good with the set’s current tools, making the card hard to justify. If the set gets a better check X, or some other form of dig, you could play that. Currently, the best way to consistently pick up the event is the set 1 Rimuru chiyuri profile, however, that’s a lot of slots you’re dedicating for this card. Every card you include in your deck has an opportunity cost associated with it. Each card you include takes up the slot of another potential card. Including a few copies of the chiyuri means you have to cut out other cards from the list, in this deck’s case, the mask bonder. When deck building, you have to make the decision whether the benefit of including a card outweighs the benefits of the card you cut for it. When building and testing this deck, I found the consistency you get with the mask package benefits the deck more than the extra mill and ability to grab the milim event. The mask package makes the mid-game more consistent, which in turn makes hitting the standby power spike more consistent. It also makes the deck less reliant on hitting brainstorms to sculpt hand for your level 2 and 3 turns.
If you want to build around the event alongside Milim, you have to run 3-4 copies of the event, 3-4 Rimuru chiyuri, and play towards it, rather than playing towards standby. Running any less than 3-4 of the event makes it too inconsistent. You won’t see it by the time you need it, and the deck can’t afford to hold a copy early due to the nature of standby and having clunky hands. Building the deck this way might not necessarily be bad, but I think it’s overall worse than removing the event entirely for masks. If the set prints a bonder of some sort to this event, these problems might go away. However, with what we currently have, the event is not worth running.
CONT – If you have 4 or more <Demon Continent> characters, this gets -1 Level in hand. AUTO – When this is placed on stage from hand, you may Heal 1.
AUTO – When this is placed on stage from hand, if you have another <Demon Continent> character, until the end of your opponent’s next turn, this gets +2000 power.
The next card is an exact clone of a card we’ve already seen in a prolific 8 standby deck. The Shuna early play is word for word identical to the Tohka from DAL. She plays the exact same role: an easy condition healer at 2 that you can loop over multiple turns. This helps extend the mid-game, while also helping win board on the turn she’s played. She is an overall good card, but nothing too special. If the set gets another early play on color, you might want to run both, however, as it stands, Shuna is perfectly acceptable for both 8 standby and the old Pants/Door deck.
CONT – For each of your other <Demon Continent> characters, this gets +500 power.
AUTO – When this attacks, choose up to 1 card from your opponent’s Waiting Room, and put it on top or bottom of their deck.
The last card to talk about from the new spoiler batch is maybe the most unique card shown after the Milim event. Rimuru is 12000 power with a full board and can top or bottom deck a card from the opponent’s waiting room on attack. I had a lot of trouble evaluating this card when I was reading the spoilers because we haven’t really seen a card like this before. After playing with it, I can say that it’s pretty good. I’ve said multiple times that this deck has a high average powerline, and this card is the reason why. The ideal midgame board ends up being 2 2/2 Milims in front of a shuna support, a brainstorm and this in the lane not covered by Shuna. This board configuration makes your front row sit at 12500, 12500 and 12000, which is pretty absurd when backed behind the loopable counter. Usually, standby decks don’t win all 3 lanes due to lack of power, or lack of coverage by your ideal support. This card circumvents that problem with it’s high power, meaning you can win all 3 lanes on defense in most matchups. Another issue standby decks have is that once the board is established, they begin to overswing with direct attacks unless they decide to play over the 2/2s and give up board. Again, this card circumvents that issue by masking the direct for 3 as swing for 2 by top decking cards from the opponent’s waiting room. This makes the midgame push slightly more consistent. This card also works well on your finishing turn as the best card to pair with double milim combo. It either attacks into the closed lane if you give up a slot, or it swings for “2”.Despite this card’s strengths, getting multiples on board doesn’t generate much value compared to multiple Milim 3/2s. The first Rimuru is a good spike, but after the first, bringing in Milims in front of the Shuna ends up better than more Rimurus. By bringing in Milim, you trade 1000 power for the ability to push earlier with the combo. This line of play ends up being better than bringing out multiple Rimurus, leading me to only run 2 in the current list. If vol2 prints some other high value standby target, like a front row global 1500 or something along those lines, this card would be the cut. For now, this is the best “extra card” to bring out with your standbys pairing with your Milim targets.
Vol2. Wishlist
For this final segment, I’d like to list a few wishlist cards I’d like to see in order to increase the power of this current build and fix the holes it currently has. To make this segment more valuable, instead of coming up with fake cards that don’t exist, like a Milim event bonder, I’m going to pick cards that already exist in the game, and give a brief reason why they would benefit the deck.
1) A better 1/1 Target
The current 1/1 options for Slime are pretty lackluster to be honest. The 1/1 red Rimuru has hand encore and is on color, but the power condition is pretty bad. He’s going to be weak at 0, which diminishes the value of early standbys. This can put you into awkward situations when you don’t want to swing with him because you can’t defend him if the opponent hits 1 first. The blue 1/1 is off color which can make level 1 turns more awkward. It doesn’t have hand encore so it’s less sticky, and the marker effect just doesn’t matter when you have targets at 2 and 3 you want to bring out over this card. What I want is the generic 2 or more other characters 7500 hand encore profile like the Kurumi from DAL, so you get the early encore without having to worry so much about power at 0 going into 1.
2) A better brainstorm
I’ve talked about why I chose the Rimuru brainstorm over Shuna a bit indirectly throughout this article. The constant main phase surveil is very powerful with 8 standbys and the other tools the deck currently has. The only issue with Rimuru is that he’s a tap 2 brainstorm. This isn’t a problem at level 0-1, but becomes a problem once you standby in the Shuna support, since she needs to tap herself to check top 2 and rearrange. These 2 cards conflict with one another and you can only do one of the two effects at 2 onwards. Tap 2 has some benefits, like letting you brainstorm multiple times in 1 turn. However, I’d rather we get a tap self brainstorm with a surveil type effect like the Shiroha brainstorm from SMP. This is lower on the priority scale for me compared to the rest of this list, nonetheless, it would be a good quality of life improvement.
3) An adachi profile on color
“Adachi” as a profile refers to level 1 antichange bombs, taken from the P4 Adachi variant. Early plays are a staple in decks at this point. Most decks opt to run high-value early plays they want to stick to the board and gain some form of advantage. Adachis are a cost efficient way to remove not just early plays, but other standby targets, like 2/2s, without having to be at level 2. Slime already has one of these profiles with the Hakurou, however it’s off color. The deck currently cannot afford to splash yellow, locking out this option. Having another one that’s on color would remove this lock and make the deck better overall as the only way to beat early plays currently is to simply be bigger. The card doesn’t even need to have a second effect like Miu from DC4, any variant on color would do.
4) A form of board disruption on color
The last wishlist card is some form of disruption that’s on color. Similar to the adachi situation, Slime already has this tool with Gazel, but it’s off color. Getting an on color bounce like Kyaru, or simply a hard removal card like Miyako, both from PRD, would be a great benefit for the deck. Any card that can interact with the opponent’s board in some way to remove problem cards or open up lanes you lost on defense would do. If you’re in a matchup where you inevitably lose board, like PRD, having this tool gives the deck a way to bring the game back with Milim, instead of being forced to try and grind the game out. The bounce is more preferable since it has innate synergy with the Milim combo, though any form would do.
Conclusion
The big question that is probably hanging over most of your heads by this point should be something along the lines of “Okay, but is this really better than the old deck?”. At this point, I don’t actually want to answer that as they are completely different decks. New spoilers could very easily push the old deck in a new direction, or simply push it over the top. Answering that question directly at this moment doesn’t sit well with me. I will say however, that my current build is very powerful and has been performing extremely well in testing. I also think this new 8 standby shell has a lot more potential than the old build, especially with more spoilers from the set. So I’ll end this article by letting you answer that question for yourself.
If you enjoyed this article and have any feedback or comments, feel free to let me know on twitter or on discord. If you also want to talk more specifics about the build, or old cards, just shoot me a message and I’ll be happy to respond. I’m planning on doing a proper deck profile video once the set is fully out, so please look forward to that.
Huge thanks to Dan Trinh from Dan’s Ranch for helping me with editing this article.
Thanks for reading.
Discord: Wibbs#8014
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wibbs8
Dan’s Ranch: https://dansranchws.com/