As always, we'll look at the stats first and foremost, if only because it helps to know what the hell we're talking about sometimes. At 6 difficulty and 3 check, it's a pretty hefty difficulty to play early in the game. Not only that, but it doesn't have a block, so Air can't recur it with Military Rank (but Air and Chaos can use Graceful Kabuki to recur it if needed on your opponent's attack). The saving grace is the Desperation : 4, making it easier to pass when you really need to kill your opponent fast.

What does it do? Very simple : " F: While this card is in your card pool, your control checks get +2 and your attacks get +2  damage. Only playable if this is the first form you play this turn. " For a kill turn, both these abilities are pretty good - Not only are your attacks more damaging, they become easier to pass! It used to be that, once this baby hit the table, it was game over for you on that turn if you did not manage to negate it, and there wasn't a lot that could - Power of the Edge was the most widely accepted means to take care of it, but if you were Dhalsim, Yoga Teleport could do it as well. Reading the Cards also negated the effect, but few used it for that.

How it could lead to a kill was very simple. Promo Adon would set up on turn 1, then on turn 2, he's play it, then proceed to toss out as many attacks as possible, boosting their damage with his R. It was fast, it was furious, it was violent, and it had access to Flowing Gale Hook, making dropping attacks very easy. It wasn't one of the most dominant decks in our formerly somewhat competitive meta for nothing.

Nowadays, it's a different story. Here's a small list of cards that can take care of it, no problem : Yoga Adept (if you're All), Kung-Fu Training, Seal of Cessation, Reading the Cards, etc. These are just cards that counter it outright, as we did not count control check hacking. Granted, if you're using a Fire character, you have access to three of those as well, meaning you can negate the negation, but is it really worth it? My personal answer will come later, of course, but this is a question that we ask for every single card we place in a deck - Is it worth it? Especially when you consider that most kill turns will do it in one attack, maybe two, and at the most, three? Other than maybe Talim Rolling Storm decks, who can really benefit from this card or others of it's ilk?

Ultimately, my final judgment on this card is this : It's no longer worth playing. There are better, albeit different options out there, and while the general bonus to attacks in both damage and control check is decent, it simply is not enough to combat the control check hack running around, especially not when the card giving you this bonus can be so easily hacked, and +2 damage is but a small, paltry bonus when compared to Absurd Strength and other cards that came out later. In fact, +2 damage is easily reached by Army of Huitzil, which has not seen play for many a reason (but mostly that Pyron is considered awful). A very good card that is sadly past it's prime, Challenge the Master will now only be found in casual decks, dreaming of the day it could maybe return to it's glory days. Sadly, those days are long gone, and they'll never come back.