Greetings to all Yu-Go-Oh TCG afficionados out there!
At long last I am about to write a new YGO deck article after a long spell of silence on anything YGO-related. I have been quite busy over here doing loads of pixel art (yes, even I need to make a living off of something!) and preparing several crowdfunders, among others for my latest game “Dreams of Dystopia” as well as a re-release of my first game creation: Elemental Clash!
But now I yearn for some diversion to relax and unwind and so, after being focuses more on Magic: the Gathering lately I have been pondering various different YGO Deck ideas once again, and the result of said pondering are various decks, some more original and competitive and some less, of which I would like to discuss and share with you 3 of the decks I came up with lately, in this very deck and strategy article. All decks are intended for the Advanced format and I must stress the point again that what you will see are purely experimental deck creations that may or may not be even nearly competitive. I intend to play them casually with friends mainly so I don’t worry too much about the actual power level of the decks to be discussed herein. As always, I will be sharing the decklists with you and then go on with elaborating a bit on the strategy involved in each of the 3 decks I will be showcasing below.
So why not just get started with the first deck then?
PENDULUM MAGICIANS:
Monsters…26
3 x Stargazer Magician
3 x Timegazer Magician
3 x Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
1 x Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid
3 x Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1 x Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
1 x Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
1 x Honest
2 x Chaos Sorcerer
1 x Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning
2 x Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon
3 x Aether, the Empowering Dragon
2 x Odd-Eyes Dragon
Spells…11
3 x Dark Eruption
3 x Monster Reincarnation
3 x Supply Squad
1 x Foolish Burial
1 x Charge of the Light Brigade
Traps…3
3 x Skill Successor
About the Deck:
Well this all started with some sort of deckbuilding dilemma I had been facing: I had purchased a set of 3 of the highly recommendably “Spacetime Showdown” Starter Pack, which introduces the new Pendulum Monsters and Pendulum Summoning as a new, unique mechanic for Special Summoning Monsters, so I had playsets of each Stargazer Magician…
and Timegazer Magicain:
While these two give you a very broad Pendulum range of Levels 2 -7, the problem I was facing was that there were plenty of cards that would special summon either of those from the deck, such as the classic Mystic Tomato etc., but in order to set up the Pendulum Summoning I would have to get the two Pendulum Magicians into my hand to activate and place them in the two Pendulum Zones from there. After some while of thinking for possible solutions, I had quite an unusual idea: Being a huge fan of Lightsworn-powered “Chaos Dragons” builds, I thought “what if I would make my graveyard a greatly extended hand?” So the idea was born to times the Pendulum Magician with a Lightsworn-engine that would send a good part of my deck to the graveyard rather quickly. That way I would have the missing Pendulum parts in the form of the two Magicians showed above in my graveyard sooner or later – to be retrieved from there by means of the classic Monster Reincarnation for instance. There is even a better option to add any of the two Magicians to your hand that came to my mind soon after that. Have a look:
Dark Eruption is simply perfect for easily retrieving any of your Pendulum Magicians from your graveyard in order to get the two different Pendulum pieces into position reliably and repeatedly.
So what I ended up with was a Lightsworn-powered graveyard filling build that creates an extended hand of cards so to say through including cards that let you retrieve your key-Monsters from said graveyard. And since the Lightsworns are of the Light Attribute and many other Monstes in the deck, including the two different Magicians, are Dark, it was pretty obvious to include some classic “Chaos Dragons” powerhorses, namely Chaos Sorcerer and its superior version Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. On a similar note, I may want to make room for a copy of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and maybe even a copy of Dark Armed Dragon. I will look into this further.
Anywas once you got your Pendulum Monsters all set up in your Pendulum Zones, the fun really just begins. There are lots of high level Dragon Monsters that can be Pendulum Summoned, such as two new ones, namely Odd-Eyes Dragon…
…and Aether, the Empowering Dragon, which even has a great effect when Pendulum Summoned:
With lots of different Lightsworns in your graveyard, Gragonith, Lightsworn Dragon can become a huge threat too, especially with his abiltiy to inflict piercing battle damage when attackig defense position Monsters.
Again this deck is highly experimental as it stands now and as I said before, adding cards like Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon which would definitely have a lot of Dragon cards to reanimate from the graveyard by his awesome effect in a deck like this and Dark Armed Dragon would probably be another good choice to look into. Furthermore, the kickass Synchro king of Lightsworns, Michael, the Arch-Lightsworn…
…would be a great addition to the Extra Deck here, especially, and I must check the Pendulum Summoning rules one more time, as I think one can Pendulum Summon Monsters with a Level from the Extra Deck too. That would be perfect as Michael is Level 7, so just in my Pendulum Range in this deck.
Overall I think the deck, in combining tried and tested Lightsworn and Chaos Dragon elements with the new Pendulum Summonig, could have at least some potential, although I highly doubt that it would outmatch a classic, streamlined Chaos Dragons build in performance even by a far shot. It gets a plus point for being innovative for sure though! Alright, on to the next deck:
RED EYES REVISITED:
Monsters…19
3 x Flamvell Guard
3 x Red-Eyes Chick
3 x Red-Eyes Wyvern
3 x Summoned Skull
3 x Meteor Dragon
3 x Red-Eyes B. Dragon
1 x Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Spells…18
3 x Dragon Shrine
1 x Foolish Burial
1 x One for One
3 x Dragon’s Mirror
3 x Inferno Fire Blast
2 x Polymerization
3 x Silver’s Cry
2 x Summoner’s Art
Traps…3
3 x Call of the Haunted
Extra…12
3 x B. Skull Dragon
3 x Meteor B. Dragon
3 x First of the Dragons
3 x Red Dragon Archfiend
3 x Stardust Dragon
About the Deck:
Well I must say I have a soft-spot for the terribly underpowered Red-Eyes B. Dragon. Just have a look at the poor fella:
I always felt ol’Red-Eyes was being treated like the step-child of YGOs early, classic Normal Monster Dragons, being considerably weaker than his blue-eyed cousin on the one hand and getting far less support in form of cards that interact with him than Blue-Eyes White Dragon did. However there is some quality support for Red-Eyes as well, most of which you can see in the above list as well as some fairly strong (at least stats-wise) Fusion Monsters listing him as Fusion Material. I had been playing a version of a Red-Eyes deck earlier on but that was built with Traditional Format rules in mind. So just yesterday I decided to pay tribute to that old deck and revisit and re-build it so that it would be Advanced Format legal. The result is the decklist you have seen above. The new build may not be all-too competitive but has some potential and indeed I think a lot of fun can be had with the deck.
The main man in this show is not plain old Red-Eyes B. Dragon but rather his overpowered cousin Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Take a peek:
He can be Special Summoned from hand quite easily by banishing any Dragon from the field and his effect is really amazing in pretty much any Dragon-based deck, but especially in a build like this one. I would recommend to use Dragon Shrine and Foolish Burial on him early on so you can easily grab him from the graveyard, special summoning him with Call of the Haunted that is and start Special Summoning higher level Dragons from hand or graveyard right away. Another great way to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon or even regular Red-Eyes from your graveyard is Red-Eyes Wyvern, of which I run 3 copies in the deck:
Using the awesome Lv. 1 Tuner Dragon Flamvell Guard, you can easily Synchro Summon into a Red Dragon Archfiend or a Stardust Dragon, whichever you need most at that point, even more so considering you have a ton of ways to Special Summon the Lv. 7 Red-Eyes B. Dragon from hand or graveyard, thus easily setting up the Synchro Summon requirements. There is one nice card interaction or synergy that I would like to bring to your intention involving the awesome Red-Eyes support Spell…
You can just activate it when you have a Red-Eyes on the field inflicting no less than 2400 points worth of direct damage, which is quite a lot and probably the most powerful burn effect in the whole game (the classic Ookazi deals just 800 effect damage for instance) and then you can use the Red-Eyes that is unable to attack to Synchro Summon into some bigger Monster, which then can attack right away! The same goes for the various Red-Eyes based Fusion Monsters. Either by using the classic Polymerisation to Fusion Summon either B. Skull Dragon (3200 ATK -requiring Red-Eyes plus Summoned Skull) or Meteor B. Dragon (3500 ATK – requiring again Red-Eyes plus Meteor Dragon) whilst the Fusion Material is in your hand or on the field, or, even more efficiently in conjunction with your Fusion Material Monsters conveniently sent to your graveyard via Dragon Shrine, from your Graveyard by means of Mirror of Dragons, you can pull of an Inferno Fire Blast and then Fusion Summon into some of the aforementioned big, bad guys that will be able to attack right away. Furthermore, if you used Polymerization, the Fusion Material Monsters will end up in your graveyard from where they can be called back to the field easily via Call of the Haunted, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon etc so they will be joining your attack forces once again. This way you will be able to fill your Monster card zone with a lot of highly powerful (stats-wise) Monsters rather quickly and reliably. Summoner’s Art is great for grabbing any of the Fusion Material Monsters you’d need at any time!
There is one highly powerful Fusion Monster that was released fairly recently that is probably easiest to get on the field either via regular Polymerization or Mirror of Dragons, as it requires just any 2 Normal Monsters as it’s Fusion Materials. Have a look:
Ok then, on to the third and last deck!
RED DRAGON ARCHFIEND DECK:
Monsters…21
3 x Salvage Warrior (Lv. 5)
3 x Cyber Dragon (Lv. 5)
3 x The Tricky (Lv. 5)
3 x Dark Resonator (Tuner Lv. 3)
3 x Flare Resonator (Tuner Lv. 3)
3 x Creation Resonator (Tuner Lv. 3)
3 x Barrier Resonator (Tuner Lv. 1)
Spells…11
3 x Red Dragon Vase
3 x Resonator Call
3 x Scarlet Security
2 x Resonant Destruction
2 x Synchro Blast Wave
Traps…6
3 x Call of the Haunted
3 x Red Carpet
Extra…12
3 x Red Dragon Archfiend
3 x Number 20: Giga-Brilliant
3 x Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
3 x Grenosaurus
About the Deck:
This deck is one of the less creative and more obvious builds as it centers around Lv. 3 Tuner Resonator Monsters as well as around Red Dragon Archfiend and the various dedicated support cards which I personally find very appealing.
So the basic plan is to get out one of your Level 3 Tuner Resonators that are hard to destroy such as Dark Resonator, can be Special Summoned such as Creation Resonator or give an attack boost to your Archfiend like Flare Resonator.
The next step would be to (Special) Summon a Level 5 Monster to Synchro Summon into your Red Dragon Archfiend early on and reliably. Either Special Summon the classic Cyber Dragon if you have no Monsters and your opponent has at least one or go for The Tricky, which just requires you to discard any 1 card from hand to be Special Summoned. Another great Lv. 5 Monster is Salvage Warrior. Whilst you cannot Special Summon him by himself, he will return a Tuner Monster, so one of your Resonators in this particular deck from graveyard to hand when Tribute Summoned.
Once you have at least one Red Dragon Archfiend in play (an multiples of them are very much possible in this deck!) the fun just really begins with a ton of potent support cards that start working once a Red Dragon Archfiend is on your side of the field:
Red Dragon Vase for instance lets you draw 2 new cards which is pretty awesome but comes at the penalty that you cannot Normal or Special Summon the turn you activate it. Scarlet Security is a one-sided Heavy Storm, destroying all opponent Spells and Traps, set or open on the field, which will secure a safe path for your attacking Archfiends and take care of other unpleasant Spells or Traps such as Swords of Revealing Light and many others. Red Carpet lets you Special Summon 2 Resonators from your graveyard, which, since most of your Resonators are Lv. 3. sets up some nice XYZ options – the reason why this decklist includes a variety of powerful Rank 3 XYZ-Monsters.
The last card I wanted to mention is Resonator Call, which is like Reinforcements of the Army, just for Resonators, as it allows you to add any 1 Resonator Monster from your deck to your hand which gives you a nice “tutoring” type of effect and, to a lesser extent, thins out your deck a bit.
Well, dear friends and readers, that are my three experimental decks for you. I for one am looking forward to get them to the table and put them to the test!
Thank you for your interest and GAME ON!
Yours,
Andi
Andi's Games Realm 