Real-Life Game Skills: The 96-Skill System Behind 10,000 Hours of Play Work with Yu-kai
Real-Life Game Skills: The 96-Skill System Behind 10,000 Hours of Play

Real-Life Game Skills: The 96-Skill System Behind 10,000 Hours of Play

A Real-Life Game Skill is a named, trainable move a person can actually run — the way a role-playing game names an ability instead of calling it “being good at things.” Lich Grind is not a personality trait; it is sealing yourself away for a long, unglamorous stretch of work. Phoenix Rebirth is not resilience in the abstract; it is coming back from a failure that actually destroyed something. Naming the move is what makes it repeatable.

The system has 96 skills across seven classes — Warrior, Ranger, Mage, Rogue, Druid, Paladin and Warlock — and three tiers of depth. It comes out of Chapter 5 of 10,000 Hours of Play, the book by Yu-kai Chou that treats a life as a character build rather than a résumé.

This page is the reference for all 96: what each skill is, which class it belongs to, and — where the record exists — which real people ran it. Those last links are not editorial picks. Every OP Hero profile names the skills its subject leveled, in the profile body, with the moment each one fired. This page reads 238 of them and groups the result: 1309 skill-to-profile assignments across 85 skills in active use.

The seven classes

Every skill belongs to exactly one class. The class is the disposition the skill serves, not a job title — one person runs skills from five classes in a single decade.

Class Purpose What it looks like Skills
Warrior Confront and Persuade Bold, persuasive, action-driven — sales, closes, confrontation. 12
Ranger Observe and Innovate Strategic, opportunity-focused — vision, planning, leadership. 14
Mage Analyze and Calculate Analytical, intellectual, data-driven — problem-solving over sentiment. 14
Rogue Experiment and Optimize Clever, adaptive — break norms, optimize systems, unconventional wins. 15
Druid Nurture and Empathize Empathetic, community-driven — harmony, cooperation, conflict resolution. 14
Paladin Inspire and Attract Idealistic, resilient, charismatic — lead through conviction. 13
Warlock Compete and Crush Dominant, power-focused — control, strategic advantage, supremacy. 14

The skills the heroes actually run

Counted from the profiles themselves, not chosen. This is the part no one else can publish: across every life the series has worked through, these are the moves that keep coming back.

Skill Class Profiles
Phoenix Rebirth Paladin 146
Vision Manifestation Warlock 87
Lich Grind Warlock 83
Loremaster Druid 83
Courageous Heart Paladin 69
Aegis Paladin 59
Mastermind Ranger 48
Cognitive Lens Mage 41
Elemental Transposition Mage 33
True Sight Ranger 31
Ninja Focus Rogue 29
Siphoning Warlock 28
Thunder Clap Paladin 28
Devour Warlock 26
Concord of Elements Druid 25

Phoenix Rebirth leads at 146 profiles. That is the finding, not the framing: the most common thing the series records about exceptional people is that something of theirs was destroyed and they rebuilt it.

All 96 skills, by class

Warrior — Confront and Persuade

Battle Instinct — Warrior · Tier II

Combine vision of success with real-world obstacles (mental contrasting).

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Berserk Mode — Warrior · Tier II

Triggering five minutes of intensity so the scary task actually starts.

A self-started burst (music, countdown, self-talk) that launches you into the thing before the brain can negotiate. The window is short on purpose; it only has to last until you have begun. This is Warrior prep, not the confrontation itself.

In practice: Mel Robbins’ 5 Second Rule: counting 5-4-3-2-1 and moving before the excuse arrives.

Further reading: The 5 Second Rule (Mel Robbins)

Builds that ran it (1): Michael Jordan.

Charge — Warrior · Tier I

Walking up and starting the conversation with someone already in front of you.

In games, Charge closes the last few yards. Power Leap is flying to London; Charge is crossing the conference floor. The skill is first contact when the person is already there — before fear invents an errand.

In practice: Gary Vaynerchuk working a conference floor by walking up to people instead of waiting at a booth. Charge is crossing the room; Power Leap is crossing an ocean.

Builds that ran it (1): Dany Kitishian.

Execute — Warrior · Tier I

Asking for the signature when the deal is actually ready.

Execute is the finisher used when the enemy is nearly down. Most deals die at 90% because nobody dares to ask. Seeing that the moment has arrived, then asking for the close, is its own skill — it often follows a Heroic Strike in the same meeting.

In practice: Oren Klaff, after cutting Bill Garr’s half-eaten apple in half, closing the deal before he left the room.

Further reading: Pitch Anything (Oren Klaff)

Builds that ran it (2): Larry Ellison, Mary Kay Ash.

Heroic Strike — Warrior · Tier I

An audacious move so shocking it earns respect or forces a reset.

A statement or act outrageous enough to pierce someone’s frame. Most people hedge; the one who doesn’t can flip a room that was already lost. The Paladin counter is Divine Shield — the power to say no to a strike this sharp.

In practice: Oren Klaff cutting a hedge-fund manager’s half-eaten apple in half and handing the bitten side back. Steve Jobs asking John Sculley whether he wanted to sell sugared water or change the world.

Builds that ran it (7): Babe Ruth, Billie Jean King, Cristiano Ronaldo, Eleanor Roosevelt, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams.

Intimidate — Warrior · Tier I

Imposing a presence so strong the other person yields before the argument starts.

Warrior confrontation through frame, not volume. Posture, stillness, and unflinching attention can end a standoff without a speech. Overused, it becomes a bluff someone will call.

In practice: Walter White in Breaking Bad: “Say my name.” Napoleon demoralizing opponents through sheer force of personality before the fighting started.

Builds that ran it (1): Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Iron Skin — Warrior · Tier I

Becoming unaffected by rejection after proactive outreach.

In games, armor only exists because you expect to get hit. Outbound effort multiplies the word no. Iron Skin is trained, never innate: after enough deliberate rejections the sting fades, and volume — the real driver — goes up. Different from Aegis (public mockery mid-quest) and Divine Shield (saying no).

In practice: Jia Jiang’s 100 Days of Rejection, deliberately seeking one rejection every day until the fear lost its grip.

Further reading: Rejection Proof (Jia Jiang)

Builds that ran it (1): Ray Kroc.

Limit Awareness — Warrior · Tier I

Interoception — listen to body signals while pushing.

Builds that ran it (5): Ayrton Senna, Harry Houdini, Jesse Owens, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Novak Djokovic.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Power Leap — Warrior · Tier III

Traveling to someone, uninvited, to force the meeting into existence.

Showing up in person is a commitment signal no email can fake. It is a high-risk upgrade to Charge: leap to the wrong place and you are out of position, having spent the time and fare. Used well, it compresses months of circling into one conversation.

In practice: After Google’s IPO, Sergey Brin and Larry Page diverted their jet to London, refused Philip Rowley’s no, and won AOL Europe’s ads away from Yahoo. Rowley later said their physical presence made the difference.

Builds that ran it (2): Estée Lauder, Ray Kroc.

Taunt — Warrior · Tier II

Becoming visible enough that prospects start the conversation.

In games, Taunt forces enemies to come to you. Here it is inbound: content, talks, and positioning sharp enough that buyers message first. Different from Bat Signaling (they summon you when they have your kind of problem) — Taunt fills the pipeline, Bat Signaling fills the calendar.

In practice: Alex Hormozi publishing so much free value that buyers come to him instead of being chased.

Further reading: $100M Leads (Alex Hormozi)

Builds that ran it (1): Babe Ruth.

Undying Rage — Warrior · Tier II

Activating survival instincts to overcome an overwhelming challenge.

When retreat is impossible, humans find a gear they didn’t know they had. Undying Rage is choosing that state on purpose: removing your own escape routes so total commitment is the only option left.

In practice: Xiang Yu ordering his army to sink their own boats and smash their cooking pots, leaving victory as the only way home. Elon Musk moving into the factory during Tesla’s Production Hell.

Builds that ran it (7): Chung Ju-yung, Diego Maradona, Junko Tabei, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Rafael Nadal, Terry Fox, Tu Youyou.

War Cry — Warrior · Tier III

Rallying a team toward results others call unreasonable.

The leader’s voice sets the ceiling on what a team believes is possible. War Cry raises that ceiling on purpose: demand the unreasonable with enough conviction that people attempt it. In Diablo, the barbarian’s war cry buffs the party; here it buffs a product team.

In practice: Steve Jobs’ Reality Distortion Field, pushing Apple teams into the iPhone and MacBook under impossible deadlines. Eiichiro Oda telling a new editor, “I want you to die for One Piece.”

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Ranger — Observe and Innovate

Adaptive Foraging — Ranger · Tier I

Finding the right resources to solve the challenge in front of you.

Rangers live off the land: whatever the situation provides becomes the toolkit. Resourcefulness beats resources; the skill is seeing what is available (people, tools, information) and improvising the solution from it.

In practice: The Apollo 13 engineers building a working CO2 scrubber out of the spare parts aboard the spacecraft.

Builds that ran it (4): Akio Morita, George Washington Carver, Hedy Lamarr, Sergey Brin.

Bat Signaling — Ranger · Tier I

Building a reputation and brand so strong that people summon you.

Gotham lights the signal when it needs Batman; nobody holds auditions. Years of consistent, visible excellence make your name the one that appears in people’s minds the moment your kind of problem shows up.

In practice: The Octalysis Framework becoming so recognizable that companies and governments seek out Yu-kai instead of the other way around.

Builds that ran it (7): Akio Morita, Dolly Parton, Enzo Ferrari, Michael Jordan, Ralph Lauren, Tobi Lütke, Usain Bolt.

Batcave Crafting — Ranger · Tier I

Designing your environment, and your team’s, so the right behaviors happen by default.

Batman without the Batcave is just a determined man; the environment is half the power. Willpower is unreliable, so craft the cave instead: shape the spaces, tools, and defaults around you until the right behavior becomes the path of least resistance.

In practice: Placing the guitar in the middle of the room and the phone in a different one. James Clear’s environment design: make good habits obvious and bad ones invisible.

Further reading: Atomic Habits (James Clear)

Builds that ran it (4): Martina Navratilova, Quentin Tarantino, Reed Hastings, Tobi Lütke.

Beacon Flare — Ranger · Tier I

Igniting PR moments that cut through the noise and seize hot attention.

A flare works because the sky is dark: one bright, unexpected burst and every eye turns at once. Great PR manufactures that moment, then converts the attention before it fades.

In practice: Richard Branson’s stunts, from record-breaking balloon crossings to driving a tank into Times Square, keeping Virgin permanently in the headlines.

Further reading: Losing My Virginity (Richard Branson)

Builds that ran it (11): Carl Sagan, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Larry Ellison, Louis Armstrong, Nellie Bly, Princess Diana, Richard Branson, Salvador Dalí, Susan B. Anthony, Wangari Maathai.

Biome Mastery — Ranger · Tier III

Moving capital, talent, and attention to where they produce the most.

An ecosystem thrives when resources flow to the highest-yield ground and drain is pruned. This is allocation, not vision: the Ranger capstone of Observe and Innovate applied to an organization.

In practice: Warren Buffett treating capital allocation as Berkshire’s real job. Elon Musk shifting people and money across companies toward whatever is the bottleneck this month.

Builds that ran it (3): John D. Rockefeller, Konosuke Matsushita, Larry Page.

Foresight — Ranger · Tier I

Reading today’s signals for a future that is not priced in yet.

The present is already crowded. Advantage lives in what has not happened. Foresight is temporal (where the puck is going). True Sight is present detail. Instinctual Pathfinding is non-analytic knowing when there is no data.

In practice: Wayne Gretzky: skate to where the puck is going. Jeff Bezos building AWS years before most of the industry admitted it would rent computers.

Builds that ran it (24): Alexander Graham Bell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Ernest Shackleton, Jack Ma, Kiichiro Toyoda, Larry Ellison, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Roald Amundsen, Simón Bolívar, Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky … and 12 more — see all 24 builds tagged Foresight.

Hydra Riposte — Ranger · Tier III

Countering every crushing blow with innovation that never stops coming.

Cut off one head and two grow back. Built right, you and your venture answer each setback with two new counters, until opponents learn that hurting you only upgrades you.

In practice: Netflix, rejected by Blockbuster, pivoted to streaming; when studios pulled their licenses, it answered with original content.

Builds that ran it (2): Chung Ju-yung, Jack Ma.

Instinctual Pathfinding — Ranger · Tier III

Trusting your gut to find the right path when maps and data run out.

Intuition is compressed experience: pattern recognition too fast for conscious reasoning to narrate. At the frontier, where no data exists yet, the trained gut is often the only compass available.

In practice: Howard Schultz walking into a Milan espresso bar and knowing Starbucks had to become a third place, not a bean seller. Suzy Batiz crediting intuition for the calls that built Poo~Pourri.

Builds that ran it (5): Diego Maradona, Edmund Hillary, George R. R. Martin, Laozi, Neil Armstrong.

Mastermind — Ranger · Tier II

Holding a multi-step plan, with branches, until reality hits it.

A Mastermind keeps every actor and contingency in view, and designed the adaptation in from the start. The plan survives contact because the branches were not an afterthought.

In practice: Eisenhower orchestrating Operation Overlord, history’s largest amphibious invasion, including the deception that hid the landing site.

Builds that ran it (48): Abraham Lincoln, Beyoncé, Enzo Ferrari, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jacinda Ardern, Kiichiro Toyoda, Marco Polo, Milton Hershey, Reed Hastings, Sara Blakely, Sun Tzu, Tim Cook … and 36 more — see all 48 builds tagged Mastermind.

Tactical Command — Ranger · Tier II

Directing people of different talents so they work in harmony toward the plan.

Talent alone produces noise; command produces music. Know each person’s strengths, place them where those strengths compound, and keep egos pointed at the mission instead of at each other.

In practice: Phil Jackson channeling Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman into one triangle offense and eleven championships.

Further reading: Eleven Rings (Phil Jackson)

Builds that ran it (24): Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harriet Tubman, Jacques Cousteau, King Sejong the Great, Lee Kuan Yew, Martin Luther King Jr., Niels Bohr, Patrick Collison, Satya Nadella, Simón Bolívar, Theodore Roosevelt … and 12 more — see all 24 builds tagged Tactical Command.

Track Treasure — Ranger · Tier II

Spotting hidden treasures and opportunities that are not obvious to others.

Rangers spot value on a faint trail: the undervalued person, the ignored market, the idea everyone walked past. Track Treasure is why Oprah did not stay “just a talk-show host.”

In practice: Oprah finding a gem in almost every interview, then owning her own show and building a business empire from those finds.

Builds that ran it (8): King Sejong the Great, Louis Braille, Michael Dell, Miles Davis, Morris Chang, Naval Ravikant, Ray Kroc, Sergey Brin.

True Aim — Ranger · Tier I

Lock onto a precise target and commit (goal setting / OKRs).

Builds that ran it (6): Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eliud Kipchoge, Jack Nicklaus, Junko Tabei, Shohei Ohtani, Usain Bolt.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

True Sight — Ranger · Tier I

Observing the keen details everyone else overlooks.

The answer is often already visible, just unnoticed. True Sight is trained attention: seeing the anomaly, the pattern, the tell that others walk straight past.

In practice: Alexander Fleming noticing that mold had killed the bacteria in one contaminated dish, a detail others would have washed away, and discovering penicillin.

Builds that ran it (31): Agatha Christie, Alfred Hitchcock, Charles Darwin, Claude Shannon, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jane Austen, Laozi, Magic Johnson, Mark Twain, Pierre Omidyar, Rachel Carson, Sam Walton … and 19 more — see all 31 builds tagged True Sight.

Wildfire Spark — Ranger · Tier II

Creating ideas engineered to spread like wildfire.

Virality can be engineered: one spark (an ad, a video, a stunt) built to be shared, and the audience becomes your distribution at a scale no ad budget could buy.

In practice: Poo~Pourri’s “Girls Don’t Poop” ad (Suzy Batiz). Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series.

Further reading: Contagious (Jonah Berger)

Builds that ran it (7): Billie Jean King, Drew Houston, Jacinda Ardern, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Marc Benioff, Taylor Swift, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mage — Analyze and Calculate

Arcane Metrics — Mage · Tier I

Harness data to measure progress (goal management / MBO).

Builds that ran it (7): Benjamin Franklin, Carl Jung, Gregor Mendel, John D. Rockefeller, Michael Dell, Neil Armstrong, Temple Grandin.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Arcane Wisdom — Mage · Tier I

Absorbing a wide range of data, then synthesizing it into a decision.

Anyone can collect information. The Mage gift is distillation: reports, stats, and signals become one judgment someone can act on. Unused, the skill is the same as not having it.

In practice: Warren Buffett spending most of the day reading, then converting that volume into a handful of investments.

Builds that ran it (21): Agatha Christie, Angela Merkel, David Attenborough, Florence Nightingale, Gautama Buddha, J.R.R. Tolkien, Johannes Kepler, Jonas Salk, King Sejong the Great, Larry Page, Naval Ravikant, Rosalind Franklin … and 9 more — see all 21 builds tagged Arcane Wisdom.

Astral Projection — Mage · Tier III

Walking the future branches of a decision before you pick one.

The mind leaves the present and tests each fork: if this, then what, and what after that. Whoever has walked more branches appears to predict the game.

In practice: Magnus Carlsen calculating lines many moves deep over the board, walking futures the opponent has not looked at yet.

Builds that ran it (21): Abraham Lincoln, Ada Lovelace, Albert Einstein, Florence Nightingale, Hedy Lamarr, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, John von Neumann, Nikola Tesla, Plato, Stephen King, Viktor Frankl … and 9 more — see all 21 builds tagged Astral Projection.

Clairvoyance — Mage · Tier II

Exploring the world around you to gain knowledge and wisdom others never look for.

Clear sight is earned by going and looking: crossing disciplines, places, and experiences that desk-bound rivals never touch. The insight advantage starts with curiosity, then compounds for decades.

In practice: Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, filled with dissections, water studies, and bird flight. Charles Darwin’s five-year voyage on the Beagle.

Builds that ran it (1): Benjamin Franklin.

Cognitive Lens — Mage · Tier I

Zoom in on details / zoom out for strategy (micro & macro).

Builds that ran it (41): Ada Lovelace, Ayrton Senna, Brian Chesky, Emmy Noether, Hideo Kojima, Jeff Bezos, Katherine Johnson, Marcus Aurelius, Pablo Picasso, Richard Feynman, Shigeru Miyamoto, Sun Tzu … and 29 more — see all 41 builds tagged Cognitive Lens.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Cosmic Alignment — Mage · Tier I

Optimizing complex logistics so every moving part arrives in harmony.

Where most minds see tasks, this one sees orbits. Timing, sequencing, and dependencies across dozens of moving parts, arranged so a huge operation looks effortless — the Mage version of logistics as spellcraft.

In practice: Tim Cook turning Apple’s supply chain into one of its greatest competitive weapons.

Further reading: The Goal (Eliyahu Goldratt)

Builds that ran it (8): Edmund Hillary, Jacques Cousteau, John von Neumann, Nellie Bly, Ray Kroc, Rosa Parks, Tim Berners-Lee, Tim Cook.

Elemental Ensemble — Mage · Tier I

Composing a complex work entirely in the mind, then executing it.

The piece exists upstairs first: every element already in place before anything touches paper, stage, or kitchen. Execution becomes transcription. Chemists, chefs, and musicians all use this Mage skill.

In practice: Jay Chou writing fifty songs in ten days after Jacky Wu’s challenge, launching the career that made him Asia’s defining pop composer. Beethoven composing entire symphonies after losing his hearing.

Builds that ran it (25): Agatha Christie, Charlie Chaplin, Ella Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jim Henson, Katsushika Hokusai, Ludwig van Beethoven, Nadia Comăneci, Ray Charles, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Temple Grandin … and 13 more — see all 25 builds tagged Elemental Ensemble.

Elemental Transposition — Mage · Tier II

Reframe every problem as a puzzle (solution-oriented thinking).

Builds that ran it (33): Alan Turing, Alexander Fleming, Bruce Lee, David Bowie, Emmy Noether, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington Carver, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Niels Bohr, René Descartes, Stephen Hawking … and 21 more — see all 33 builds tagged Elemental Transposition.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Ley Line Infusion — Mage · Tier II

Flooding yourself with one subject until years of learning compress into weeks.

A ley line is a concentrated current. Tapping one means the densest books, papers, and experts in a single field, not dabbling across ten. Different from Dash (ramping a project) and from Arcane Wisdom (synthesizing many fields).

In practice: Scott Young completing MIT’s undergraduate computer-science curriculum in twelve months from the open courseware — a year of compressed, single-subject flood.

Builds that ran it (9): Ada Lovelace, Carl Jung, Julia Child, Ludwig van Beethoven, Mark Twain, Morris Chang, Patrick Collison, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Tu Youyou.

Mana Buffer — Mage · Tier I

Compartmentalize stressors so one can’t overwhelm others.

Builds that ran it (5): Jesse Owens, John D. Rockefeller, Naomi Osaka, Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Nethermind — Mage · Tier I

Entering deep, sustained focus on intellectual problems.

Hours of unbroken concentration where the outside world goes quiet and the problem becomes the whole universe. Modern life makes this state rare, which is why it has become a superpower.

In practice: Andrew Wiles working in near-secrecy for seven years to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem.

Further reading: Deep Work (Cal Newport)

Builds that ran it (9): Alexander Graham Bell, Immanuel Kant, Johannes Kepler, Katherine Johnson, Lise Meitner, Neil Armstrong, Niels Bohr, René Descartes, Steve Wozniak.

Phantom Cloning — Mage · Tier III

Keeping a perfect mental copy of something you have seen, to re-inspect later.

Memory strong enough to act like a clone of reality: a page, a position, a face can be summoned back in detail. The original fades; the phantom copy does not.

In practice: Magnus Carlsen recognizing thousands of historical games from a single position. Kim Peek, who could recall thousands of books nearly word for word.

Builds that ran it (1): Stevie Wonder.

Telekinesis — Mage · Tier II

Manipulating physical objects and systems purely within your mind.

Machines are assembled, run, and stress-tested in imagination before anything gets built. Moving matter with the mind, minus the special effects: the design works or breaks mentally first, saving enormous real-world cost.

In practice: Nikola Tesla, who claimed he could build and test entire machines in his imagination. Einstein’s thought experiments, riding a beam of light.

Builds that ran it (5): Antoni Gaudí, Buckminster Fuller, James Clerk Maxwell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak.

Temporal Freeze — Mage · Tier I

Running numbers in your head fast enough that the room looks frozen.

While others reach for a calculator, the answer is already there. From the outside it looks like time stopped for everyone except the Mage.

In practice: Shakuntala Devi, the “human computer,” multiplying two 13-digit numbers in her head in seconds.

Builds that ran it (3): John von Neumann, Katherine Johnson, Lise Meitner.

Rogue — Experiment and Optimize

Switching tasks or roles and arriving fully present, with no reload cost.

Most people pay a tax every time they change context. Blink is teleporting between modes — deal, debug, bedtime story — and landing already in character. Different from Dash (speed of ramping a new project) and Masquerade (borrowing another identity).

In practice: Walt Disney moving between voice work as Mickey, studio leadership, and park design in the same week — each at full presence.

Builds that ran it (6): Babe Ruth, David Bowie, Magic Johnson, Ray Charles, Shohei Ohtani, Taylor Swift.

Cloak — Rogue · Tier I

Gathering information or executing plans without being noticed.

Visibility invites interference. Operating quietly lets you learn more than people intend to reveal, and finish moves before anyone thinks to resist them.

In practice: The 2000 PayPal board coup that replaced Elon Musk with Peter Thiel, organized while Musk was on a plane.

Builds that ran it (3): Ada Lovelace, Harriet Tubman, Hedy Lamarr.

Covert Ops — Rogue · Tier II

Getting close to a high-level target by volunteering your services over a long period.

Asking for someone’s time takes value, while volunteering yours gives it. Serving consistently over months builds a kind of trust no pitch could ever create, until one day you are simply on the inside.

In practice: Joris Beerda and Mark Diaz both began by volunteering their skills to Yu-kai, and ended up running The Octalysis Group and co-creating 10,000 Hours of Play.

Builds that ran it (1): Rosa Parks.

Dash — Rogue · Tier I

Getting up to full speed on a new project or role at exceptional pace.

Speed is its own advantage: strip the noise, find the fraction that matters, and reach full contribution while others are still orienting. Whoever finishes the ramp-up first sets the pace for everyone else.

In practice: SpaceX assembling and launching Falcon 1’s fourth rocket weeks after the third one failed, when the company had money for exactly one more try.

Further reading: The 4-Hour Workweek (Tim Ferriss)

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Decoy — Rogue · Tier II

Misleading opposition so a covert plan can execute cleanly.

Attention is a resource, and a decoy spends the opponent’s attention on the wrong target. While they defend the illusion, the real move completes untouched.

In practice: Operation Bodyguard: the Allies built a phantom army so Hitler defended Calais while the real landing hit Normandy.

Further reading: The Art of War (Sun Tzu)

Builds that ran it (1): Sun Tzu.

Feign Death — Rogue · Tier II

Playing weak or harmless so opposition dismisses you or moves on.

Sometimes the winning move is to be underestimated. Appearing harmless makes adversaries drop their guard, skip the counterattack, or reveal what they would hide from a threat.

In practice: Detective Columbo’s bumbling act that made suspects talk freely. Sima Yi feigning illness until his rivals dismissed him, right before he seized power.

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Fulcrum Strike — Rogue · Tier III

Executing the high-leverage move that turns the entire tide.

Archimedes said a long enough lever could move the earth. Most effort moves nothing; a Fulcrum Strike finds the one point where modest force produces transformative results.

In practice: Masayoshi Son’s early bet on Alibaba, roughly $20 million that became one of the greatest returns in history. Peter Thiel’s power-law rule: a handful of bets produce nearly all the returns.

Further reading: Zero to One (Peter Thiel)

Builds that ran it (8): Claude Shannon, Harry Houdini, Hedy Lamarr, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Konosuke Matsushita, Naval Ravikant, Patrick Collison, Sun Tzu.

Masquerade — Rogue · Tier III

Performing as someone more skilled until the skills become yours.

Pretend, on purpose, to have the soft skills of a person you admire. Truth stays (this is my first speech); style upgrades (speak like someone who has given a hundred). Over time the mask teaches the face.

In practice: Yu-kai roleplaying an experienced speaker to get through early keynotes. Barack Obama studying Lincoln’s rhetoric until it lived in his own cadence. Beyoncé’s Sasha Fierce as the modern version of the same move.

Further reading: The Alter Ego Effect (Todd Herman)

Builds that ran it (7): Bob Dylan, Coco Chanel, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Frida Kahlo, J.K. Rowling, Nellie Bly.

Mood Hacking — Rogue · Tier II (also: Emotional Espionage)

Arousal control: rituals to change state at will.

Builds that ran it (4): Jackie Robinson, Novak Djokovic, Usain Bolt, Wilma Rudolph.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Ninja Focus — Rogue · Tier I

Sustaining discipline and focus on a task, day after day.

Flashy tactics lose to boring consistency held for years. Ninja Focus is sitting down, shutting the world out, and training the same skill again today. Different from Nethermind (one intellectual problem, hours deep) and Dash (ramping a new project fast).

In practice: Kobe Bryant’s famous 4 AM training sessions, repeated for two decades.

Builds that ran it (29): Albert Einstein, Cesar Chavez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ella Fitzgerald, George Washington Carver, Kobe Bryant, Lionel Messi, Michael Jordan, Pelé, Roger Federer, Shohei Ohtani, Tiger Woods … and 17 more — see all 29 builds tagged Ninja Focus.

Self Mastery — Rogue · Tier II

Watching your own patterns so you can tune them.

Knowing your energy, triggers, biases, and tells turns you from an instrument you are stuck with into one you can adjust. Every other skill gets cheaper once you can see yourself honestly.

In practice: Ray Dalio’s “pain + reflection = progress,” including the Dot Collector that rates him as harshly as anyone else at Bridgewater.

Further reading: Principles (Ray Dalio)

Builds that ran it (5): Bruce Lee, Leo Tolstoy, René Descartes, Socrates, Tom Brady.

Shadow Courier — Rogue · Tier I

Reaching someone through the channel nobody else thinks to use.

Important people’s front doors are barricaded by thousands of identical requests while a side channel sits empty. Arriving where no one else arrives proves creativity and effort before you say a single word.

In practice: Tim Ferriss reaching Robert Scoble through Scoble’s wife when the front door was jammed. A student reaching Yu-kai through Octalysis Prime instead of cold email.

Further reading: Never Eat Alone (Keith Ferrazzi)

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Shadow Dance — Rogue · Tier I

Reaching someone through the people they already trust.

A cold approach starts at zero trust. An introduction borrows someone else’s, so you arrive pre-endorsed. Map the graph around the target; do not kick the front door.

In practice: Reid Hoffman opening doors through his graph instead of cold email. Keith Ferrazzi’s method in Never Eat Alone: the warm path is the skill.

Further reading: Never Eat Alone (Keith Ferrazzi)

Builds that ran it (1): Ada Lovelace.

Vanish Assault — Rogue · Tier II

Stepping back from view to prepare an explosive burst of activity.

Rogues vanish before their biggest strike, and builders do the same. Going quiet to think, plan, and load up makes the eventual burst land with force no continuously-busy person can match.

In practice: Bill Gates’ twice-yearly Think Weeks: disappearing to a cabin with books and memos to plan Microsoft’s next moves.

Builds that ran it (1): Angela Merkel.

Whisper Chamber — Rogue · Tier I

Expose target to your presence across multiple mediums to gain familiarity.

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Druid — Nurture and Empathize

Charm — Druid · Tier III

Making a person or a whole group feel warm affection toward you.

Presence and attention aimed fully at another person until they feel like the only one in the room. At scale, the same warmth holds a crowd without becoming Thunder Clap (which is a speech, not a gaze).

In practice: Oprah making a guest and twenty million viewers feel equally addressed in the same hour.

Further reading: Charisma on Command (YouTube)

Builds that ran it (6): Diego Maradona, Dolly Parton, Estée Lauder, Richard Branson, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Yuri Gagarin.

Cleanse — Druid · Tier I

Resetting your mental state and clearing out past toxicity and trauma.

Old wounds keep running as background programs until they are cleared. Cleanse is the after-the-fact reset: scramble the memory so it no longer runs you. Hex is real-time; Cleanse is archaeology.

In practice: Tony Robbins’ scramble pattern: replay the abusive scene with circus music and Mickey Mouse ears until the charge drains out of it.

Further reading: Awaken the Giant Within (Tony Robbins)

Builds that ran it (1): Maya Angelou.

Concord of Elements — Druid · Tier III

Uniting parties with different interests behind one common purpose.

Fire, water, and wind have no reason to cooperate until a druid gives them one. Finding the shared purpose beneath conflicting agendas, and making each side feel ownership of it, is among the rarest leadership skills.

In practice: Nelson Mandela using the 1995 Rugby World Cup to pull a divided South Africa behind one team.

Builds that ran it (25): Amelia Earhart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Billie Jean King, Carl Sagan, Chung Ju-yung, Desmond Tutu, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jacinda Ardern, Junko Tabei, Marc Benioff, Mikhail Gorbachev, Satya Nadella … and 13 more — see all 25 builds tagged Concord of Elements.

Enchant — Druid · Tier III

Using gamification to make any activity more enjoyable and preferable.

In games, Enchant makes a target want to do the thing. In real life it is gamification: redesign the activity so people prefer it. Yu-kai’s own ultimate technique inside Enchant is the Octalysis Framework.

In practice: Duolingo turning language drills into a game hundreds of millions keep opening. Octalysis used to make important work feel worth doing.

Further reading: Actionable Gamification (Yu-kai Chou); Octalysis Prime

Builds that ran it (11): Akira Toriyama, Alfred Hitchcock, Benjamin Franklin, Claude Shannon, Estée Lauder, Jim Henson, Louis Armstrong, Mary Kay Ash, Pierre Omidyar, Shigeru Miyamoto, Wangari Maathai.

Floral Blossom — Druid · Tier I

Educating and mentoring others so they grow into their potential.

Flowers open when the conditions are right. Mentors work the same way: see what someone could become, then patiently tend that version of them until it appears. This is Druid nurture, not Paladin speeches.

In practice: Anne Sullivan spelling W-A-T-E-R into Helen Keller’s hand until the world opened — a lifetime of tending that followed.

Builds that ran it (17): Alexander Fleming, Alexander Graham Bell, Arthur Ashe, George Washington Carver, John Wooden, Katsushika Hokusai, King Sejong the Great, Kobe Bryant, Madam C.J. Walker, Maria Montessori, Socrates, Steve Wozniak … and 5 more — see all 17 builds tagged Floral Blossom.

Hex — Druid · Tier II

Transforming a tormentor in your mind so their attacks stop landing.

In World of Warcraft, Hex turns an enemy into a critter that can neither deal nor take damage — and you gain no experience for bypassing them. Real life is the same: shrink an abusive critic in the moment so they cannot touch your inner state. Different from Cleanse, which reframes old memories after the fact.

In practice: Walt Disney tuning out his father’s abuse while it was happening. Elon Musk doing the same with an abusive father. Warning: hex the critic and you also skip the lesson.

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Imitate — Druid · Tier I

Building rapport by mirroring and reflecting back what the other person says.

Repeating someone’s last few words, in their own rhythm, tells their nervous system it has been heard. Trust rises before any argument is made, which is why hostage negotiators treat mirroring as a core tool.

In practice: Chris Voss building trust in FBI negotiations by repeating a speaker’s last three words.

Further reading: Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss)

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Loremaster — Druid · Tier II

Weaving stories that carry ideas straight into people’s hearts.

Facts inform, but stories move. A Loremaster wraps the same truth in narrative so it gets felt, remembered, and retold, which is how ideas actually spread.

In practice: Lin-Manuel Miranda turning a founding father’s biography into Hamilton.

Builds that ran it (83): Abraham Lincoln, Anne Frank, Charles Darwin, Frank Lloyd Wright, George R. R. Martin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Johnny Cash, Marco Polo, Michael Faraday, Quentin Tarantino, Sara Blakely, Stevie Wonder … and 71 more — see all 83 builds tagged Loremaster.

Mind Soothe — Druid · Tier I

Calming others down through gentle, steady communication.

Emotional states are contagious, and the calmest voice in the room slowly sets everyone’s baseline. Slowing your pace and lowering your tone can de-escalate situations that no argument could.

In practice: Chris Voss’s “late-night FM DJ voice,” used to settle armed hostage-takers.

Further reading: Never Split the Difference (Chris Voss)

Builds that ran it (3): Angela Merkel, Ernest Shackleton, Fred Rogers.

Serenity — Druid · Tier I

Returning to inner quiet on command through meditation or prayer.

A practiced stillness that survives a chaotic day. The mind is trained to go quiet the way a forest does after a storm — not once, but every time you sit down to it.

In practice: The Dalai Lama’s daily meditation practice, kept through exile and public life. Naval aviators and monks train the same return-to-calm on a schedule, not as a mood.

Builds that ran it (4): Aretha Franklin, Gautama Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, Naval Ravikant.

Shapeshift — Druid · Tier II

Adapting to a new environment without losing who you are.

Each world has its own language and pace. A shapeshifter meets it in its own form and still keeps a core identity, which is how one person moves between groups that never talk to each other.

In practice: Sun Yat-sen changing register and message to unite groups with opposite interests behind one revolution.

Further reading: How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie)

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Spirit of Nature — Druid

Meaning-making under stress (turn stress into a value-driven mission).

Builds that ran it (21): Anne Frank, Aretha Franklin, Cesar Chavez, Edmund Hillary, Friedrich Nietzsche, Greta Thunberg, Jack Ma, Jonas Salk, Malala Yousafzai, Rosa Parks, Temple Grandin, Viktor Frankl … and 9 more — see all 21 builds tagged Spirit of Nature.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Summon — Druid · Tier II

Calling an ally whose skills this Quest actually needs.

Knowing the Quest requires something you lack, and having built the relationship long before you needed it. The summon fails if you only start networking on the day of the crisis.

In practice: Oprah putting Dr. Phil on her show after seeing what he could do, then watching him build his own empire from that summons.

Builds that ran it (3): Alexander Graham Bell, Dany Kitishian, Martina Navratilova.

Vision of the Wild — Druid · Tier I

Seeing situations through others’ eyes, with real empathy.

The wild looks completely different to the wolf, the deer, and the bird, and every conflict works the same way. Stepping fully into another person’s perspective reveals solutions invisible from your own.

In practice: Temple Grandin seeing the world through the eyes of cattle, then redesigning livestock systems around what they feel.

Builds that ran it (4): Carl Jung, Fred Rogers, George R. R. Martin, Jacinda Ardern.

Paladin — Inspire and Attract

Aegis — Paladin · Tier I

Ignoring public criticism and naysayers while pushing toward the Quest.

Anything new draws mockery long before it draws praise. The Aegis holds while conviction outlasts the noise; critics are loudest during the exact stretch when the work can least afford your doubt.

In practice: Jeff Bezos telling shareholders Amazon must be “willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.”

Builds that ran it (59): Akira Kurosawa, Antoni Gaudí, Carl Sagan, Florence Nightingale, Grace Hopper, Hideo Kojima, John Wooden, Lee Kuan Yew, Michael Faraday, Pelé, Simone Biles, Tim Cook … and 47 more — see all 59 builds tagged Aegis.

Courageous Heart — Paladin · Tier I

Charging into uncomfortable zones, uncharted territory, and even hostile environments.

Growth and glory both live outside the comfort zone, guarded by awkwardness and fear. A Paladin walks in anyway, treating discomfort as the entry fee instead of a warning sign.

In practice: Amelia Earhart flying into distances nobody had crossed, when aviation was considered no place for a woman.

Builds that ran it (69): Abraham Lincoln, Beyoncé, Dany Kitishian, Freddie Mercury, Harriet Tubman, Jacques Cousteau, Junko Tabei, Malala Yousafzai, Muhammad Ali, Plato, Sara Blakely, Theodore Roosevelt … and 57 more — see all 69 builds tagged Courageous Heart.

Divine Shield — Paladin · Tier I

Saying no, even to a Heroic Strike.

Every yes spends hours your Quest needed. Divine Shield makes you temporarily invincible to charm, guilt, and social pressure — including a Heroic Strike aimed at you. Without it, the most audacious person in the room writes your calendar.

In practice: Warren Buffett’s rule that really successful people say no to almost everything. John Sculley had no shield high enough for Jobs’ “sugared water” line, said yes, and later became the man who fired him.

Further reading: Hell Yeah or No (Derek Sivers)

Builds that ran it (10): Akio Morita, Carl Jung, Dolly Parton, Fred Astaire, Jane Austen, Lise Meitner, Quentin Tarantino, Ralph Lauren, Rosa Parks, Socrates.

Guardian Restraint — Paladin · Tier II

Ego Check — channel divine discipline to hold back pride.

Builds that ran it (6): Jackie Robinson, Kiichiro Toyoda, Laozi, Michael Jordan, Neil Armstrong, Reed Hastings.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Heal — Paladin · Tier I

Regaining composure through breathing and mental control.

Stress hijacks the body first, so the body is the fastest way back. Slow, deliberate breaths downshift the nervous system and return you to a state where judgment works again.

In practice: Box breathing, the four-count technique Navy SEALs use before high-stakes operations.

Builds that ran it (2): Arthur Ashe, Jack Nicklaus.

Holy Barrier — Paladin · Tier I

Deciding in advance what is allowed into your time and mind.

A barrier is a rule, not a mood: which requests, hours, and behaviors belong to others, and which are consecrated. Without one, the world sets your limits for you. Different from Divine Shield (saying no in the moment) and Aegis (ignoring public noise mid-quest).

In practice: Cal Newport’s office hours and deep-work blocks, published so the world stops assuming 24/7 access. Sheryl Sandberg leaving the office at 5:30 when that was heresy at Google.

Further reading: Boundaries (Henry Cloud & John Townsend); Deep Work (Cal Newport)

Builds that ran it (2): Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles.

Inspire — Paladin · Tier I

Bringing hope and excitement to a single person.

One conversation, aimed at one heart, can redirect an entire career or company. Inspiration at this range is personal: show someone a bigger version of their own future, then lend them the belief to chase it.

In practice: Elon Musk inspiring Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga to build the Gigafactory: “We are too conservative. We are a ninety-five-year-old company. We have to change. We have to use some of Elon’s thinking.”

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Phoenix Rebirth — Paladin · Tier III

Rising from devastating failure and coming back stronger than before.

Some failures burn everything down: the company, the savings, the identity built on them. A phoenix treats the ashes as raw material, returning with hard-won wisdom and a resilience that cannot be faked or shortcut.

In practice: J.K. Rowling going from rejected, depressed, and broke to writing the best-selling book series in history. Steve Jobs, fired from Apple at 30, returning to lead its greatest era.

Builds that ran it (146): Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Ashe, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Shackleton, Henry Ford, Johnny Cash, Ludwig van Beethoven, Michael Jordan, Osamu Tezuka, Richard Branson, Simón Bolívar, Theodore Roosevelt … and 134 more — see all 146 builds tagged Phoenix Rebirth.

Prophetic Calling — Paladin

Hope Builder — imagine a world where your actions matter; antidote to learned helplessness.

Builds that ran it (4): Cesar Chavez, Louis Braille, Marc Benioff, Pierre Omidyar.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Reflect Damage — Paladin · Tier III

Turning attacks, criticism, and setbacks into fuel for growth and wins.

The highest form of defense converts incoming damage into outgoing power. Criticism becomes free consulting, mockery becomes marketing, and every setback funds the comeback.

In practice: Liquid Death turning its worst hate comments into an album (“Greatest Hates”). Xbox answering “looks like a fridge” jokes by actually shipping an Xbox Mini Fridge.

Builds that ran it (17): Drew Houston, Gautama Buddha, George R. R. Martin, Johnny Cash, Louis Pasteur, Michael Dell, Michael Jordan, Naval Ravikant, Quentin Tarantino, Sergey Brin, Tobi Lütke, Vincent van Gogh … and 5 more — see all 17 builds tagged Reflect Damage.

Revive — Paladin · Tier II

Recovering from failure and taking fresh action toward the next Quest.

Everyone falls. What separates players is how fast they are back on their feet: process the loss, extract the lesson, and re-enter the arena before defeat hardens into identity.

In practice: James Dyson treating 5,126 failed prototypes as 5,126 restarts on the way to the first Dyson vacuum.

Builds that ran it (7): Alfred Hitchcock, Dolly Parton, Eliud Kipchoge, Jack Nicklaus, Jane Austen, Julia Child, Toni Morrison.

Sanctuary — Paladin · Tier II

Protecting real recovery time — including scheduled moping.

Recovery leaks into everything when it never gets its own room. A Sanctuary is a block where you fully rest (or fully mope) so the rest of the week does not have to absorb it. Scheduled moping beats ambient moping.

In practice: LeBron James treating sleep and recovery days as part of the job, not a break from it. The honest version: putting “mope for 40 minutes” on the calendar so it does not leak into the Quest.

No profile in the series has claimed this skill yet.

Thunder Clap — Paladin · Tier II

Electrifying and inspiring a whole crowd through public speaking.

Where Inspire moves one heart, Thunder Clap moves a thousand at once. A single speech, landed at the right moment, can turn passive agreement into money, movement, and sacrifice.

In practice: Sun Yat-sen’s speeches moving overseas Chinese to give their money and lives to the revolution. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream.”

Builds that ran it (28): Aretha Franklin, Bob Marley, Carl Sagan, Desmond Tutu, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Freddie Mercury, Jackie Robinson, Margaret Thatcher, Martin Luther King Jr., Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Stan Lee, Theodore Roosevelt … and 16 more — see all 28 builds tagged Thunder Clap.

Warlock — Compete and Crush

Animate — Warlock · Tier III

Animating machines and code to do work that once required human hands.

While others hire more hands, a Warlock raises tireless workers from code and steel. Every process you automate keeps producing while you sleep, and it scales without complaint.

In practice: Amazon’s Kiva robots after 2012: shelves coming to the worker instead of workers walking miles of warehouse.

Builds that ran it (10): Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, Henry Ford, Jeff Bezos, John von Neumann, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar, Tobi Lütke, Zaha Hadid.

Bind Fate — Warlock · Tier I

Binding your fate to someone else’s brand or resources to grow powerful yourself.

Power borrowed is still power. Attaching your rise to an established name, platform, or resource pool lets you skip years of building alone; choose the binding well, because their fate becomes partly yours.

In practice: Nike and Michael Jordan binding their fates: the shoe empire and the legend built each other.

Builds that ran it (24): Andrew Carnegie, Audrey Hepburn, Coco Chanel, Enzo Ferrari, Jack Ma, LeBron James, Morris Chang, Pablo Picasso, Richard Branson, Salvador Dalí, Stan Lee, Volodymyr Zelenskyy … and 12 more — see all 24 builds tagged Bind Fate.

Chaos Control — Warlock (also: Chaos Channeling)

Take control of chaos by accepting setbacks; reset expectations and shift into solution mode.

Builds that ran it (4): Ella Fitzgerald, Julia Child, Larry Ellison, Pierre Omidyar.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Devour — Warlock · Tier II

Consuming steps, parts, and processes until only the lean essential remains.

Where others add, a Warlock devours: every component, meeting, and step must justify its existence or be consumed. What survives runs faster, cheaper, and with fewer ways to break.

In practice: Elon Musk’s “the best part is no part.” Steve Jobs cutting Apple’s sprawling lineup down to a 2×2 product grid. LEGO abandoning wooden toys to bet everything on the brick, then cutting product sprawl again to survive its 2003 crisis.

Builds that ran it (26): Akio Morita, Brian Chesky, Coco Chanel, Drew Houston, Henry Ford, Jim Henson, Kiichiro Toyoda, Larry Page, Michael Dell, Osamu Tezuka, Sam Walton, Steve Wozniak … and 14 more — see all 26 builds tagged Devour.

Gravity Flip — Warlock · Tier II

Flipping the power dynamic of a negotiation in your favor.

Every negotiation has a gravity: one side orbits the other. Flipping it means changing what each side believes about who needs whom, so the party that arrived powerful leaves paying.

In practice: When Disney needed Pixar’s pipeline more than Pixar needed Disney, Steve Jobs flipped the frame and extracted the 2006 acquisition on Pixar’s terms.

Builds that ran it (5): Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder.

Greed Alchemy — Warlock · Tier II

Using financial leverage to transmute modest resources into exponential gains.

Alchemy turns lead into gold; leverage turns one dollar of your own into ten dollars working for you. Debt, equity, and other people’s money multiply outcomes in both directions, which makes this skill powerful and dangerous in equal measure.

In practice: McDonald’s discovering its real business was owning the land under its franchises.

Builds that ran it (6): Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Dolly Parton, John D. Rockefeller, Michael Dell, Naval Ravikant.

Lich Grind — Warlock · Tier I

Sealing yourself away for intense, secluded stretches of work.

The lich withdraws from the living world to pursue power without distraction. The mortal version is a sealed-off stretch (days or months) where one obsession gets every waking hour, producing work that scattered attention never could.

In practice: Marie Curie spending years in a leaky shed processing tons of pitchblende to isolate a fraction of a gram of radium.

Builds that ran it (83): Ada Lovelace, Andrew Carnegie, Bob Dylan, Claude Shannon, Friedrich Nietzsche, Harry Houdini, James Clerk Maxwell, Johannes Kepler, Louis Pasteur, Nikola Tesla, Stan Lee, Tu Youyou … and 71 more — see all 83 builds tagged Lich Grind.

Lich Pact — Warlock · Tier III

Trading normal sleep for extra waking hours through a polyphasic sleep schedule.

The lich pays a price mortals refuse and gains hours mortals never see. Polyphasic schedules reclaim sleep time at the cost of strict discipline: miss the naps and the pact collapses on you.

In practice: Yu-kai ran the Uberman schedule (six 20-minute naps per day) for 2 months, then the Everyman schedule for 2 years.

Builds that ran it (1): Buckminster Fuller.

Locked Heart — Warlock · Tier I

Pain contrasting — compare current pain to worse hardships to transform suffering into gratitude.

Builds that ran it (6): Fyodor Dostoevsky, Marcus Aurelius, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Terry Fox, Viktor Frankl.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

Mind Shift — Warlock · Tier I

Moving someone’s decision through psychology, not a better argument.

Minds rarely move on facts. Framing, scarcity, authority, and emotion do the work. A Warlock studies those levers on purpose, which is why this skill needs ethics equal to its power. This is Compete-and-Crush influence, not Druid empathy.

In practice: Edward Bernays making bacon-and-eggs the American breakfast by wrapping it in “doctor’s advice.” Robert Cialdini’s six levers used as a named toolkit, not a vibe.

Further reading: Influence (Robert Cialdini)

Builds that ran it (2): Alfred Hitchcock, Enzo Ferrari.

Sacrificial Cycle — Warlock · Tier II

Sacrificing today’s rewards by reinvesting everything back into the project.

Each cycle feeds on the last: earnings go back on the altar, and the project returns stronger every round. Compounding only works for those willing to keep sacrificing the payout.

In practice: MrBeast reinvesting his first $10,000, and nearly everything since, straight back into bigger videos on his way to becoming the biggest YouTuber ever.

Builds that ran it (18): Andrew Carnegie, Antoni Gaudí, Enzo Ferrari, Howard Schultz, Jeff Bezos, Kiichiro Toyoda, Mark Zuckerberg, Milton Hershey, Phil Knight, Richard Branson, Sara Blakely, Stephen Covey … and 6 more — see all 18 builds tagged Sacrificial Cycle.

Siphoning — Warlock · Tier II

Extracting skills and knowledge rapidly from other people.

An expert carries years of hard-won learning, and the right questions can transfer it in hours. Siphoning is systematic: find who holds the knowledge, drain deeply, then move to the next source.

In practice: Elon Musk cornering his engineers and questioning them until he understood their entire field.

Builds that ran it (28): Akira Kurosawa, Benjamin Franklin, Dany Kitishian, Frederick Douglass, Helen Keller, Jesse Owens, Marc Benioff, Martina Navratilova, Pablo Picasso, Roald Amundsen, Stephen Hawking, Vincent van Gogh … and 16 more — see all 28 builds tagged Siphoning.

Terraform — Warlock · Tier III

Changing the rules of the game so the landscape itself favors you.

Most players compete on the map; the strongest redraw it. Lobbying, standards, and regulation drain time, but a successful terraform makes the environment itself an ally. High cost, paradigm-shifting payoff.

In practice: Keith Rabois at PayPal (2000–2002) lobbying so an unlicensed “bank” could operate, then again at Square in 2010 so mobile card readers were not crushed by bank rules.

Builds that ran it (14): Billie Jean King, Cesar Chavez, Charlie Chaplin, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Desmond Tutu, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Rachel Carson, Stevie Wonder, Temple Grandin, Tim Berners-Lee … and 2 more — see all 14 builds tagged Terraform.

Vision Manifestation — Warlock · Tier II

Visualize success through mental rehearsal so vividly it shapes reality.

Builds that ran it (87): Ada Lovelace, Audrey Hepburn, Bruce Lee, Florence Nightingale, Helen Keller, Jeff Bezos, Lionel Messi, Mark Zuckerberg, Norman Borlaug, Sara Blakely, Soichiro Honda, Tiger Woods … and 75 more — see all 87 builds tagged Vision Manifestation.

Canon skill; no 10K HP Academy card published yet.

How this page was derived

Nothing on this page was classified by hand. The skill list is the 10K HP canon reference — 96 skills, of which 81 also have a published Academy card and 15 do not yet. Each definition is quoted from that canon, not paraphrased.

The build lists are parsed out of the profiles. Every OP Hero profile writes its skills as Skill Name followed by the class in brackets, so the grouping is read, not judged. The check that it is trustworthy: across 253 posts and every skill mention in them, no skill name is ever paired with two different classes. A hand-built taxonomy is never that consistent.

11 canon skills have no profile yet: Battle Instinct, Dash, Feign Death, Hex, Imitate, Inspire, Sanctuary, Shadow Courier, Shapeshift, War Cry, Whisper Chamber. They are listed above with their definitions — the series simply has not yet worked through a life that leaned on them.




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