Welcome back, Ultraman Card Game players! Last week, we talked about Ultraman Blazar, a deck that has, in early competitive testing, proven to be a powerhouse when mixed with heroes like Tiga. Today’s hero, however, is one that we endorse as one of our favorite decks, that’s sure to take the game by storm as more players try it out. We’re talking about the last of the Ultra Brothers, Ultraman Mebius!
Part 1 — How Does It Play, and what is “Mill”?
The Mebius deck functions in a unique way from other Ultra Heroes in the Ultraman Card Game, by focusing on a “self-mill” strategy to find important pieces and then recover them to use later.
That answer, however, requires a bit of an explanation for people new to TCGs — that is, “What is Mill?”
Simply put, Mill is a mechanic focusing on the removal of cards from the deck towards the discard pile. Because games generally end when a player is unable to draw any cards, mill was originally thought of as a win condition to inflict on others, albeit an unreliable one — decks tend to have a lot of cards in them, and focusing on removing potential threats often means your opponent’s active threats aren’t dealt with properly!
However, as general card game theory developed, and the discard area in its various forms became looked at more critically as an avenue for game development, the idea of “self-mill” began to form. After all, while cards in your deck can be in any order and come to you at any time, in the discard pile, you know everything that’s there. In some games, the discard pile is even called the “second hand” if you can access things from it!
Mebius leans into this strategy in a way no other deck in the game does. Every play for Mebius “burns off” a few more cards from the top of your deck, but all that means is that there is kindling later for the phoenix to rise from the ashes!
Part 2 — Level 1s
Mebius as a deck runs plenty of Level 1s — more than the average deck certainly. This is critical not only for the obvious level-up requirements, but because the scene we’ll be discussing a few sections later needs you to have at least one of every level of Mebius in your discard to function!
The traditional R Level 1 Mebius (BP01-019) is probably the most important of its kind to its deck of any of the existing decks right now. It has the same “Check top 3, pick one, bin the remainder” effect that has shown up a few times in decks like Tiga, but in Mebius, sending two cards is perhaps even more important than adding the one to hand. In addition, this Level 1, while obviously being an underdog from a BP point of view, can be less of a risk than others in the same series, thanks to the RRR Level 3, which we’ll discuss later.
After that, the remaining Level 1s that currently exist for Mebius are primarily required to get you to Double on the critically important Level 2s we’ll talk about next. Even if you are running a secondary Ultra (which you probably should at this point in time, but that’s an argument to be made at the end of the article), you want to be running ten Level 1 Mebius cards.
Part 3 — Level 2s
Here we go! Here’s where the real meat of the deck is. Mebius’s RR Level 2 (BP01-022) is important to the strategy of the deck to a degree where we would call it the lynchpin of our combos. The ability to mill 2 cards from your deck, and then pick up any scene or Mebius card — including one of the two you just milled — has endless applications. Just be careful: you want to make sure that you have as many of each level possible in your trash for the endgame, so don’t put yourself out by grabbing your only Level 3 or the like. In addition, you have to retrieve a card as part of the effect, so be careful!
BP01-022 is the one you always want to keep in hand or on field for its effect, so that means that your other Level 2s (BP01-023 and BP01-024) are prime discard bait. Alternatively, you should be using them as the bottom card of certain Double stacks to make sure you can put your key Level 3s out early!
Part 4 — Level 3s
Mebius has an incredible top-end in his RRR Level 3 (BP01-025), a card that can just up the BP grade of any Mebius on the field, at any level, at the cost of discarding a card. Remember how we talked earlier about how BP01-019 doesn’t have to be a guaranteed loss of its battle area? This guy is why, thanks to his ability to raise the Level 1’s stats from a sure-loss 1000 to a respectable 7000! In a game like this one, however, where card advantage is so important, you don’t want to be recklessly discarding, which is why its best use is to raise the BP grade of your weaker cards and latest zones in preparation for using your scene.
The Uncommon Level 3 Mebius (BP01-026) is a case where we actually rate the lower-rarity card as highly as the higher-rarity counterpart, thanks to its incredible on-play ability to mill three cards and give any of your Ultra Heroes +2000 BP for the turn. An extra 2000 BP is nothing to sneeze at, but what makes Mebius strong is its ability to loop effects like this.
The final Level 3 Mebius currently available (BP01-027) distinguishes itself purely by stats, trading an effect for the best Single, Double, and Triple BPs of any of the three available (It shares its Triple BP with the RRR, but that’s purely a positive thing.)
Part 5 — The Scene
The final card we’re going to talk about in this deck is its scene, and continuing on from previous deck profiles, this card is a doozy! The Champion of the Fierce Fight (BP01-103) takes the self-mill effects of the entire Mebius deck and turns them into a sort of puzzle game — stack all three levels of Mebius in your trash, and replace any of your existing Double of Triple stacks once per turn, including the latest battle! The Level 3 BP01-026 is now a repeatable mill 3, 2k boost! Mebius becomes a deck exceedingly well-suited to generating Triple Ultra Heroes every turn once its setup is complete.
Compared to The Man Who Created SKaRD, The Champion of the Fierce Fight requires more active setup — or rather, The Man Who Created SKaRD works with no setup. However, The Champion of the Fierce Fight has the benefit of its upgrades being comparatively permanent. In some ways, it’s almost a pity that the two scenes have to compete for space on the field, but frankly it’s a relief — if you could access both effects constantly, the resulting deck would be almost unbeatable! Still, both are incredible build-arounds!
Part 6 — Partner Ultras
We’re going to be completely honest with you folks — once again, the plan was to toss in the Gaia package. That’s actually our editor’s main deck! However, we want to encourage diverse deckbuilding, and that means trying new pairings, so this time, we’re going back a bit further in TDG, and recommending trying Tiga!
The main utility of Tiga comes from the Rare Level 1 (BP01-001), which adds further self-mill capability to the deck, and the RR Level 2 (BP01-004), which lets you dig through your deck to find the scene you need while also milling. You have access to the solid stats and powerful top-end, though rather than the two Level 3s we proposed, we’re going to recommend the Uncommon (BP01-008), which has the simple but effective ability to strip 1000 BP from any opposing character — any character, which includes Kaiju — at Double or Triple.
With that in mind, let’s put together a decklist to try it all out!
Part 7 — Sample Decklist
Level 1 — 14 Cards
BP01-001 Ultraman Tiga (R) x4
BP01-019 Ultraman Mebius (R) x4
BP01-020 Ultraman Mebius (U) x4
BP01-021 Ultraman Mebius (C) x2
Level 2 — 16 Cards
BP01-004 Ultraman Tiga (RR) x4
BP01-022 Ultraman Mebius (RR) x4
BP01-023 Ultraman Mebius Mebium Blade (U) x4
BP01-024 Ultraman Mebius (C) x4
Level 3 — 16 Cards
BP01-008 Ultraman Tiga Deracium Beam Torrent (U) x4
BP01-025 Ultraman Mebius Mebium Knight Blade (RRR) x4
BP01-026 Ultraman Mebius Mebium Knight Blade (U) x4
BP01-027 Ultraman Mebius Blade Overload (C) x4
Scenes — 4 Cards
BP01-103 Champion of the Fierce Fight (U) x4
This deck puts together everything we’ve talked about regarding Mebius into one deck, giving you plenty of Mebius cards of all levels that you can discard using various effects, before pulling them back onto the field with Champion of the Fierce Fight! Tiga is there as a support engine, helping you trash more cards faster!
That’s everything we’ve got to say about the Mebius deck, but we still have plenty to say about every other deck in the game! Make sure to check out our previous deck profiles, and check out the official Ultraman Card Game site to find out what’s next. As for us, come back next week when we wake up and pull the trigger on a deck that combines the past and the future!
