Skyweaver Interview Series 1: JustAddBacon

Hello everyone! We are starting a new series, in which we will interview pro players from Skyweaver. You will get to know them better and get some insights into their style of play. Our first guest is JustAddbacon. Enjoy!

1-) Firstly can you tell us a little about yourself?

I am JustAddBacon, and I’m a white dude from the glorious state of Texas. I’ve been playing skyweaver since march of 2020, and write analysis here for Skyweaverleagues.com. Irl I’m a student at texas A&M, majoring in political science with a philosophy minor. I study the intersection of personal ethics and political systems, have been published in an undergraduate journal, and will also be a TA in the upcoming semester. In my free time I play skyweaver, write, prep dnd stuff, or compose music. I’m rather prolific I think

2-) What is your history with card games and what makes Skyweaver special for you?

So I’ve been playing tcgs since I was probably 8. first card I ever got was a pokemon card in first grade (remoraid of all things lol) but I really got into yugioh since they had the ds games. Never watched the anime, but I played all of the 5ds games a ton. Eventually I got into playing online some time around 7th ~ 8th grade I think, but whatever the free website was it got shutdown. I had a friend recommend hearthstone to me, played that for a year or two, moved to eternal, and then when eternal’s balance became awful I moved to skyweaver.

Skyweaver is special cus its easily the best crafted tcg I’ve ever played. Attachment mechanics are genius for a tcg, and the format + draw power + hero attack dramatically reduces the decisiveness of luck in games, which makes it much more enjoyable for someone like me.

3-) What is your favorite style of play and why?

I really enjoy a quick, tactical game of beatdown, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m at my best when piloting control. Aggro is set up in this game where it feels volatile and chancy, and most of all vulnerable if the opponent knows how to build for aggro. Control feels like it has options for everything, so I feel a lot “safer” playing it. I’m also really good at managing resources long term and analyzing my opponent’s deck, so control gives me the time to leverage those skills to steer games.

4-) What are your favorite prism, card, and hero? Why did you choose them?

Favorite prism kinda has to be heart. It’s just good, but I don’t feel like I’m cheating with it when I play it like with wisdom. It also has a very wide range of ways to build it, which means that I can pair it with other prisms like str or wis to capitalize on niche holes in the meta. Str has some of the coolest cards but it doesn’t get enough “stuff” to do, Wisdom feels bonkers but is at its best when passive, Agi feels like I just get beat out by stronger cards, and Int doesn’t have many units I like.

Card is supremely tough. A very quick and easy candidate would of course be Fox Familiar because of how beautiful its design is, but we’ll discuss him later so I’ll pick something else. Probably the card I want to run more than any other card in the game is Unfallow, just because of how versatile it is. Someone like horik can use it as a deck thin. In my axel builds I use it to cycle floaters into aggro units, and it also resets avatar of light who is immensely helpful for dealing with large units, an occasional difficulty for heart. It’s just versatile and feels good to use.

Hero simply needs to be Fox. Horik is also cool af, especially after they tuned up his art lately, but Fox is just the dude. All of his lore is about the values of things independence, courage, and having a little bit of humor in your life. His card pool also grants access to fire synergies, which are exactly what I love in a good aggro deck. He can be very fun, but unfortunately his board control hasn’t been as good lately, so I don’t play him much anymore.

5-) What are your general views on the state of the game and the new set?

The new set is great. Probably a bit pushed, but it added a lot of cool things for the game. Uno synergies are very good to have for int cus it provides a way for mai to play aggressively without just being worse than the other agi heroes. Heart also has some tools that deeply expand late game tactics, so I’m excited for when those become meta.

The state of the game is a bit harder because I’ve mostly been playing to grind stickers lately (also conquest queue is dead), but I’d say I’m generally positive on it. It feels like for me that trying to play for board is a dead strategy, so I’ve just been living in Axel for several months now, but I was recently informed that the stats actually indicate quite the opposite, so I’m not sure. Those same stats also say Axel is just bad though, so it may just be that I’m ahead of the curve a bit. I certainly feel strong about Axel v Fox, I’d probably put it 60-40 rn with the builds I’m running.

6-) You have been creating content for some time, what motivates you to create content for Skyweaver?

Well, the original motivation was to hone my writing for law school. Law Schools love to see good writing skill, so doing the types of chill analysis that I write is a good change from the rigorous analytical essays I write for my classes. I also genuinely care about seeing the game grow and be successful, if skyweaver fails I don’t get to play it anymore, so if I can contribute to its community that’s a positive.

7-) We know that you love Dragons and Foxes, why do they have a special place for you?

Well, Foxes started with a meme during closed beta. There was one patch where fox familiar got moved to wisdom because matchstick was moved to agility. I was kinda pissed, cus I had just started playing and I’d already seen how much of a centerpiece fox familiar was to fire fox decks (matchstick was a 2/1 at the time, not as great for aggro). It was also insulting to me that such a clear aggro tool was moved to wisdom, the least aggressive prism — it just seemed like a design fail. So from there the meme started.

Where it really took off was during the 3rd closed beta tournament we had, after the old dev had been replaced with the superior Coulter Baker. I made a joke in the twitch chat asking coulter to add more foxes to the game if I won. Well, I took first in that one with a Fox deck (ravebeats used to be busted) and the next patch Run Wild and an old version of Pyrecrafter were added to the game. From there it stuck.

Dragons comes from my friends in real life. In 2020 I had a new friend in college introduce me to dungeons and dragons (it’s a hell of an addiction, I don’t recommend it). I had no clue anything about the game, but a few sessions in I was trying to convince a dragon to go raze a whole horde of orcs for us. In doing so I said “oh yah, I love dragons, I’ve studied them all my life” and so on, and when the dm let me get away with that I said “well shoot, I guess that’s part of my character now.” So I read all the lore on dragons, my character became obsessed with them, and it migrated to a running joke with my friends.

I even named my first completed ensemble Dragon Dance as a reference to the joke. I don’t know if this is art imitating life or life imitating art, but I do genuinely enjoy the mythos and symbolism of them in different cultures now that I’ve actually read up on them. As for the game however, I just like the gag of simping for the dragons. I mean, who wouldn’t want to have dinner with Undragon?