To me, The Immortal Bushi has been one of the most enigmatic cards in the game since his release in Phantom Darkness. On the one hand, he holds all these incredible promises—he’s a Warrior-type Treeborn Frog! He’s a free attacker! He’s the ultimate chump blocker, and the lynchpin to a strategy lots of people talk about but few have every actually seen!
On the other hand, there's a reason few have actually seen it: it doesn’t exist. I’ve seen some solid Bushi decks in my time, even one that Matt Peddle almost decided to play at Shonen Jump Championship Nashville, but they never seem to make it to the big tournaments. If they do, they tend to fall under everybody’s radar, with the lone exception of Samuel Tse’s feature match at Shonen Jump Championship Toronto earlier this summer. The unfortunate truth is that while Bushi is a unique card that does a lot of different stuff, he’s been virtually useless in the past due to his own restrictions. He’s a Treeborn Frog you can’t tribute, and in the era of Gladiator Beasts he was just a free tag-out for any Gladiator bigger than Gladiator Beast Murmillo.
The release of Kuraz the Light Monarch brought some hope for the troubled samurai: finally, we had a worthwhile monster to tribute Bushi for. Still, it never panned out into real results.
But The Duelist Genesis has brought sweeping changes to the game, and Bushi has felt the impact! Thanks to the new Synchro summon mechanic, which sends monsters to the graveyard instead of tributing them, there’s finally a consistent purpose for The Little Ronin That Could. Today’s deck submitter has taken up the call . . .
Hi, I'm Guido. With all the new Synchro craziness I decided to make a Synchro deck of my own.
It’s based around The Immortal Bushi, putting Bushi in the graveyard to bring him back during the beginning of the turn should my field be empty. The deck uses Bushi as constant Tuning material. It’s a pure Warrior deck, for obvious reasons. I added Soul Release just in case my opponent finds a way to keep one of my Stardust Dragon cards in the graveyard, to prevent it from clogging my graveyard and keeping Bushi from coming back.
Thanks,
—Guido F.
Here’s the decklist Guido sent me . . .
Bushi Synchro—40 Cards
Monsters: 17
2 Junk Synchron
2 Speed Warrior
3 The Immortal Bushi
2 Marauding Captain
2 Command Knight
2 Jutte Fighter
2 Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
2 Exiled Force
Guido’s deck has some cool things going for it—the use of Bushi in conjunction with Junk Synchron makes it easy to Synchro summon Goyo Guardian, while Bushi and Jutte Fighter give you fast access to Magical Android. The Android’s 2400 ATK and its anti-burn effect are nothing to sneeze at. Marauding Captain and Bushi can even be Synchro summoned together with Jutte Fighter to bring out a level-8 Synchro monster.
I like that part of the deck. I also like the use of Solemn Judgment and Lightning Vortex, both of which control the field while trumping opposing copies of Solemn (drawing out a Solemn by discarding Bushi for Vortex is pretty sweet). I also like Exiled Force, since it’s a really simple answer to Gladiator Beast Heraklinos.
But I do have a few concerns. I don’t really see Speed Warrior or Command Knight doing big things. The spell and trap spread is all over the place, and seems too focused on a recursion-packed mid-game that the deck might never even live to see. At the same time, some of the greatest assets of the Bushi strategy aren’t represented here. Samuel Tse did a great job laying a framework for future Bushi players, and we can apply a lot of his techniques to this build.
Skill Drain is almost as big in this format as it was in the last. When it’s on the field, Gladiator Beasts are useless. Lightsworn can’t get past your chump-blocking Bushi or play their removal tricks, and though Teleport Dark Armed can still use Stardust Dragon’s effect, they lose a lot of others. Krebons can’t defend itself, Elemental Hero Stratos can’t dig for Destiny Hero - Malicious, and Psychic Commander is just a 1400 ATK beatstick.
Tse was the first person to realize just how good Bushi could be in combination with Skill Drain, and it’s a lesson that holds true months later. A lot of the infrastructure for a Skill Drain 
deck is already here: Exiled Force, big attackers, and the Solemns we’d need to protect Drain. I’m going to expand on that to create a full-fledged Skill Drain strategy, and the result should be a deck that can take its share of local wins.
So let’s make some room! Speed Warrior and Command Knight are bothinferior once Skill Drain hits the table, so there’s four cards gone. With five cards that can search out The Immortal Bushi, we won’t need three copies of him either—if we drop one, two copies should still be plenty. [Jain, Lightsworn Paladin] will stay despite the fact that we'll lose her ATK bonus in the late game, because she's still quite big without it and can contribute to the Bushi effort in the early game.
I’m not sure why Instant Fusion is here when the deck can’t take advantage of a full lineup of Fusion monsters—running three copies of Karbonala Warrior doesn’t actually make up for the missing level-3 and level-5 Fusion monsters a deck playing Instant Fusion would want to run. Instant Fusion just doesn’t work here since its ideal targets aren’t Warriors, so it’s gone too.
The Warrior Returning Alive is looking too slow for this format, and there’s a much better card we can play over Soul Release to get rid of any rogue Stardust Dragon cards that fall to the graveyard. Smashing Ground is sub-par in a format where Stardust Dragon is everywhere, Fissure is just an inferior version of Smashing Ground, and since I’ve dropped Speed Warrior I think it’s unwise to continue playing Limit Reverse. The last cards removed will actually be bounced to the side deck: both copies of Threatening Roar. Consider siding them in over the copies of Skill Drain (bringing in two Injection Fairy Lily cards to match) if you find yourself confronted by a very aggressive Teleport Dark Armed player.
That’s fourteen cards gone, and the first additions I need to make are three copies of Skill Drain. This is an ideal card to be main-decking in every major matchup save perhaps Teleport Dark Armed and Little City, and even when you’re up against Teleport it’s definitely not bad. A lot of the cards I’ll be adding will either work around (or combo with) Skill Drain.
To capitalize on the Skill Drain cards, I’m swiping another page out of Samuel Tse’s playbook by adding three copies of Zombyra the Dark. Zombyra is a huge opening monster that virtually nothing can attack over, and even after it makes its first attack and drops to 1900 ATK, it’s still huge. Combined with the other beatsticks, this card is going to do a great job of locking up the field and preventing attacks. Combo it with Skill Drain and that 2100 ATK becomes permanent while Zombyra suddenly starts swinging on your opponent’s face.
Two copies of Elemental Hero Neos Alius will add even more raw force to the deck. Note the Light attribute shared with Jain—borrow the right monster from your opponent, or put together the right chain of Synchros, and this deck can Synchro summon Avenging Knight Parshath. One Elemental Hero Stratos will search out Alius and give us a reckless early attacker too.
Speaking of which, Brain Control and a single copy of Enemy Controller make that possibility a much more distinct reality. Sure, you can’t tribute Bushi for Controller, but it’s still a great defensive card with strong aggressive applications. It’s a nice combo with Junk Synchron when Skill Drain isn’t around to block Synchron’s special summon effect, and it plays around Stardust Dragon very nicely.
I’ll add two copies of Book of Moon as well, giving Bushi’s 1200 ATK more of a chance to make an impact. By now most of us are familiar with all the great plays Book allows: chain it to Elemental Hero Prisma’s effect to make it disappear, make your opponent waste a Test Tiger, block a Synchro summon (remember, Synchro materials need to be face up), or shut down Krebons’s attack negation. Book of Moon gets better every week, and playing two here seems like a smart, versatile choice.
Next up I’ll add a third Solemn Judgment card to protect those copies of Skill Drain, and one copy of The Transmigration Prophecy. Prophecy fills in for Guido’s awkward Soul Release pick, getting non-Warriors out of the graveyard. But it can also be played sort of like D.D. Crow, and since this deck falls apart when a non-Warrior hits the graveyard, it’s as close to the Crow as we can get. I think it’s a must-run here.
Let’s recap the changes I’ve made to Guido’s build.
While we’re at it, let’s give that Extra deck a tweak too. Karbonala Warrior can be dropped since we’re no longer running Instant Fusion. I don’t really see this deck lucking out so much as to need Gladiator Beast Gyzarus or Heraklinos either, so let’s remove those.
The final build of the deck looks like this!
Bushi Synchro—Jason’s Fix—40 Cards
Monsters: 18
2 Junk Synchron
2 Jutte Fighter
2 The Immortal Bushi
2 Marauding Captain
2 Exiled Force
2 Jain, Lightsworn Paladin
1 Elemental Hero Stratos
2 Elemental Hero Neos Alius
3 Zombyra the Dark
This deck is all about controlling the field and taking an aggressive stance to do so. With Skill Drain down, you’ll bring some of the top decks to a screeching halt, and at that point your Warrior toolbox will get you whatever you need to eliminate your opponent. At the same time you have the potential to kick out some big Synchros and score some quick 1200-damage shots thanks to The Immortal Bushi, and the deck needs relatively limited set up to do its thing.
Getting Bushi to the graveyard is a top priority—you can do it through Reinforcement of the Army followed by Lightning Vortex, or you can just play him to the field. If you draw Foolish Burial you should almost always activate it as soon as you can, to make sure you don’t draw those Bushis. We’re not main-decking Necro Gardna or anything else that works with the Burials, so don’t hesitate to pitch it for the second Bushi. You can’t bring back both at once, but with D.D. Crow running wild a backup Bushi is never a bad thing.
Like most decks that run Elemental Hero Stratos, summoning Stratos is your ideal turn 1 play. Just like Little City, you probably won’t mind playing Stratos alongside Skill Drain because your search cards will almost always get Stratos to your hand before you have to flip the Drain. Marauding Captain plays much the same way—try to use him early to put pressure on your opponent. Once Skill Drain hits the field he’s just going to be a 1200 ATK vanilla.
This deck can out-beatstick almost anything, so that’s really what you want your games to come down to. Simplification is key: play hard into those copies of Bottomless Trap Hole and Dimensional Prison, because once card counts start getting low your Goyo Guardian cards can really shine. Goyo Guardian backed by Solemn Judgment is a major wrecking ball, and even if you’re negating Goyo’s effect at the time with Skill Drain, his 2800 ATK is still enormous. For the low cost of Bushi and Junk Synchron he’s nuts, and the more you simplify the duel the easier it’ll be to keep him around.
This deck is a lot of fun to play, and if you’re looking for something you can build on a budget, Bushi is a great idea. Solemn Judgment and Goyo Guardian are the only big money cards we’re using, and if you don’t have three copies of Goyo you can make do with however many you have—remember, he’s coming out in an upcoming Exclusive Tin next week.
The Immortal Bushi finally has a purpose, and if you’ve been waiting for Bushi to finally shine, your time has come! Slap it together, tweak it for your tastes, and give it a shot.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Want to see your deck featured in The Apotheosis? Send your decklist, formatted like the one in this article, along with your name, location, and a short description of how the deck works, to metagamedeckfixes@gmail.com.