Worlds Tournament Report - Sung JinWoo

Written By Mike E. (Asmadi)

UVS worlds 2025 report

Last weekend I showed up to the World Championship of Universus with what I believe was the best character in the game that didn't make it to day 2.

Sung JinWoo got a huge glow-up with his new shadow monarch skill tree and the five cards that become shadow backups to feed his abilities.  His fully leveled form is a machine that turns pink cards into orange cards and slams +3 speed and +5-7 damage on a long string of efficient attacks that is brutal to defend against.  The issue in this meta game of course, is getting there.

JinWoo’s turns 1 and 2 can be pretty wide open since he is incentivized to throw away resources to level up, so most of the foundation base in the deck revolves around mitigating that aspect (XP cards that pay you back for spending them on levels) or setting up enough defense to get into your mid-game.  Once you have 4+ backups in play and are at level 3, you are extremely hard to kill because you have access to tons of cards, massive DR for one attack, -2, sometimes as much as -4 speed on anything, and, most importantly, extremely efficient block modifiers.

The decklist that I played is linked here: https://uvsultra.online/deck.php?deck=MbVmVnjsJjxVmUTAckxlrYNRiijGHB

It is very close to the list I played in Buffalo where I got 33rd*.  Since that weekend I kept trying new builds of the deck, I played the character on all 3 symbols, I played with and without Yeagerists, and I ended up basically back to the beginning.

I'm not going to go into every card choice here, but will highlight the ones I got the most questions on while I was tuning.

• “Why 4x rage riot? It's the worst shadow”:  Yes, it is the worst shadow, but it's fail case is a +0 high block or a level up.  Access to one copy is nice as a zone mix up since most of your threats are lows, it kills opposing backups like nobody's business, and it's actually how I start a lot of game ending strings.  One of my favorite sequences was to play a riot from hand, hit and transform it, play one from discard, use the first one to pump damage and speed, sacrificing it so you keep the next one when it hits and shifts, leaving you with a clear card pool and 17 damage, and that's a play you get when you are level 3!

• “What is Help or Harm doing in your deck?”:  defending after your level 1 turn, before you can turn your backups into cards, you rely on shadow sorcerers to pick up blocks, and your only options are other sorcerers or harness undeaths, all +1 high blocks.  Having a surprise +0 mid block that gains 2 life is a huge utility piece.  My list ended up at seven +0 mid blocks, and I can't count the number of determined advances I was blocking with them!  

• “Why only 6 Yeagerists? You could run 10!”: Yeagerists are basically foundations in this deck. One copy peeking at the top and clearing a bad check is kind of like being a foundation.  Two copies committing for -1 speed on defense is a lot closer to being a foundation. Two copies when you hit level 3 that can be -3 speed and draw a card or peeking the top to find the next attack or correct block zone is way better than a foundation.  But after two copies in play, you get diminishing returns, and you do still need real foundations to play more foundations in your early game.  But more on this later.

One of the last things I locked in was my sideboard, which was heavily tuned towards Mikasa matchups, which I expected to be the biggest slice of the meta pie.  

Before the event I typed a light sideboard guide into my notes app, which I never referenced during the weekend, but because I had taken the time to think through things, I had a rough plan of what my post-board configuration would be well before I finished game 1.

I know, a lot of it is pretty vague, it's not all equal ins and outs, but I didn't need it to be! It just took off some mental load during the event because I'd already gone through the basic plans.

Finally, before getting into my matches, SJW actually got another buff during the Godzilla preview season, thanks to this card:

Obviously the set wasn't out yet, so why is this card good for my deck?  Well, how this card is worded, if you use the form ability but don't pass your check, this just goes back into your discard pile and your combat phase doesn't end, because you werent technically playing this card as a form, you were forming to try and play this card.  Yes, UVS rules don't make sense sometimes.  So if you are playing this on a 6, you could theoretically keep attempting it over and over until you do check a raw six.

Don't worry, this got errata'd in the release notes, we don't get to do that shit.

But you know who does get to do that shit?  A certain South Korean Shadow Monarch!

Because that first ability is worded the same way, when you use your once per turn, you can choose to fail the check, and continue with your turn like nothing happened.  I learned this about a week before worlds, and talked in the discords about how often it would actually come up.  Would you really throw away the extra card because you checked a 3 to start your string? Would you find yourself in a situation to spend your once per turn to negate a breaker block?  I think I set the over/under line of how many times I would use it over the weekend at 2.5, with me taking the over.

I played 7 rounds in the main event and another 6 in side events, and chat, I chose to fail a check Every. Single. Match.  Easily over half my games.

Three of my opponents called a judge to make sure that was allowed (as well they should have, it's a silly rule).

It wasn't even about clearing breakers or anything.  There are plenty of turn 2s where you want to get a bear bite into play to have access to -5 damage on defense, but checking a 3 would be a disaster. And now you just get a free roll at it! In later turns I would change up my sequencing and play two attacks from hand first before playing from discard because it was less of a risk. It was also a huge buff to Rage Riot, the riskiest turn 2-3 play, because it simply took away the risk.  

Anyway, it's time to get into the rounds.

Friday, 10:00 am, I've been up since 6 and I had a lovely lox bagel for breakfast.

• Round one: Godzilla.  I felt very ready for the eventual winning character this weekend. Again, relying on excellent block mods let me survive turn two aggression, and as a backup deck, the board wipe is less effective into my defenses.

  Game one went as planned, I established solid defenses, poked him down to 16 or so while adding shadows to my stage, then he blew up the board after I leveled to 4, built 2 and passed.  I drew my hand and played an attack from discard since I could just build if it failed. I passed that check and made that one attack lethal (iron for +3, level 4 for +9 or so).

  Game 2 going second, I got up to level 3 without losing much ground, then somehow survived a double city rampage turn at single digit health. On my turn I jumped a level with double dungeon and was able to get lethal damage across 3-4 moves.

• Round 2: Mark Tyner (the character, not the player)

  This was a matchup I was particularly scared of. I knew there would be people playing the new champ card, but didn't know what the lists would look like and hadn't practiced a single game into it. That's never a good thing going into round two of worlds.

  I was able to sneak a game 1 win pretty early, but game 2 I had a rough mulligan into a tiny build that just never got to keep pace.  Game 3 was similar. I had an awkward start and couldn't build up defenses before he suddenly had multiple Massive Mutant Machines and I didn't stand a chance.

• Round 3: Godzilla again

  This matchup was pretty cut and dry. I won the roll and took game 1, lost game 2, then in game 3 I was mostly stable but found myself with a lethal line as long as I checked 5s two out of three times.

  I checked three threes.

  But it was the right play to make and I'd do it again. Nobody becomes champion without getting lucky, or not getting quite that unlucky, a few times on their road to victory.

I’m 1-2 heading into the lunch break, which is not the best place to be. I would need to win 4 in a row to make the cut. But, I take to heart the words I heard from a Magic Pro: you don't start celebrating at 4-0.  And as a corollary, you don't mourn at 1-2. I didn't let it get to my head, it was sort of freeing in a way.

I ate a crispy chicken avocado lettuce wrap from Bucc-ee's.

• Round 4: Mikasa4

  This is the matchup I felt most prepared for and it went basically how I predicted.

  I got my ass kicked handily game one.

  But I was boarding in like eight cards aimed at overloading their offense and slowing them down to the point where I become unkillable. The only thing I really needed to worry about was my rival having koenmas task set up when I wasn't able to hold a cancel for it, but that didn't come up in games 2 or 3 and I took the match.  3 more for day 2.

• Round 5: Leatherhead

  Peak Universus is playing into a deck you know nothing about and having to learn the matchup on the fly.

  Game 1 he landed a Ray Fillet and I spent 2 turns trying to kill it, unsuccessfully because I didn't account for Leatherhead discarding mikasa's admission for -5 damage on the attack I sent at Ray.  I had solid defense but not enough to DR or block the knockout punch for 5+8+8.

  Game 2 I was able to keep a ray off the board and present an early lethal line with a double dungeon.

  Game 3 I was able to stabilize for a while, then full sent a string taking my rival to 1.  My only ready foundation was a death rattle, so I could kill as long as I had an enhance step.

  He played a stun 1 attack. I had a filled with doubt for the seal, and got my enhance step.

Two more for day 2.

• Round 6: Zeke1

  My opponent (newest UAL member Kameron) won the roll but had a tough starting build. I was able to keep him below 4 backups for long enough to take control of the game and sneak in a harness undeath for a bajillion.

  Game 1 took a good chunk of the clock, and game 2 I was able to set up a strong enough defense to get through his initial flip turn.  From there I built to 20 foundations and he couldn't ever present enough attacks to get through to me, even with the benefits of the beast titan.  I was behind on the milling game, but a scumbug was catching me up with every attack. I just got to wait out the clock and got the 1-0 victory.

One more for day 2.

• Round 7: Benimaru 

  This was another deck I had heard about but hadn't put any reps into, and definitely didn't respect enough.  I lost game 1 in twelve minutes.

  Game 2 I stabilized after a while and closed it out with twenty minutes left on the clock.

  Game 3, going second I had to put all my energy into defense. By the time I felt safe, neither of us could afford to go in for lethal. We got to overtime, and I was taking the last turn with my opponent at 9 health, but a sea of gray, including several damage resets, an incredible display, and a cape of no return.

  I full sent it with seven lethal attacks and not one of them got through. He didn't even need to use the cape.

  If I had another 15 minutes of clock, I probably could have gotten through with a few turns of massive throws from the discard or death rattle pings, but I had taken too long to get through the match, and we ended with a draw, knocking both of us out of day 2.

Obviously not how I wanted my run to end, but 24th place in worlds is something to be proud of, and more important to me, I was the highest placing SJW of the five players who brought him! 

Going into side events the rest of the weekend I took my same list with the following changes:

+2 yeagerist

+1 leveling strength 

+2 fateful decision

Harness from sb swapped for 1 maindeck uppercut

I had really felt the higher difficulty curve and lower foundation ratio in my deck and figured with lower stakes I could just jam a few 1 diffs in to smooth it out.  I swept my standard side event (nago, reiner 2, life SJW) and 2-1d my seat in teams (grog, another life SJW, lost to Godzilla but did do another 0 foundation kill)

So a combined 9-3-1 with my deck during the weekend! Sung JinWoo has the sauce! 

Worlds was easily the best event I've attended for this game and it looks like things are going up from here! Many shout outs to my team, my locals, some guy named Paul, and of course the new reigning champion Jorge! The community really is the best part of the game. I'm here writing this article because a bunch of strangers on the internet were willing to take me into their circle and share their time and ideas.

Looking into the future I don't know if I'll stick with the character, but he loses very little with rotation and it's nice to have an established power level in your back pocket.

Until then, catch me in the discords! 

Peace Out.

Check out Mike’s content at: https://www.youtube.com/@AngryJellyfishGames