When you’re dueling an opponent, you should always be looking for a way to end the game. You should always be hoping for a one-turn sweep with a flurry of cards like Brain Control and Emergency Teleport, or a calculated series of Phoenix Wing Wind Blast/Dark Armed Dragon plays after a Trap Dustshoot to win in two turns. Being able to control your opponent is nice, but when it comes to Shonen Jump Championships, winning is everything. If you’re able to win quickly and easily one out of every three games, you’re on the path to Day 2.

But how easy is it to achieve game-winning scenarios like these? Why do some players always seem to be able to set up plays like that while others are always forced to play a control game? The answer is that some players build their decks with winning the game in mind. Those players realize what it takes to claim victory: a deck that can win the game on any given turn. That means the right mix of special summons, draw power, support, and search cards.

Sounds an awful lot like the current version of TeleDAD, right? That’s because TeleDAD is the best when it comes to winning on any given turn. It can easily achieve what I like to call "magic numbers." Magic numbers are enough ATK points put on the field all in one turn that can win the game. Usually this means 8000 points of damage or more, though cards like Caius the Shadow Monarch can reduce your magic number to 7000 with added effect damage.

Doing this all in one turn means lots of special summons. This was the reason Dark Armed Dragon and Judgment Dragon needed to be Limited. Three copies of either one make magic numbers (8400 or 9000 damage respectively) all by themselves. In addition, both have an added field-clearing effect. This means that not only do a combination of three of those cards produce magic numbers, they offer a means to put the numbers on the field uncontested.

These days, the most common ways to find magic numbers are with Elemental Hero Stratos, Dark Grepher, Dark Armed Dragon, and Emergency Teleport. With just those four cards together you can produce 1800 ATK + 1700 ATK + 2800 ATK + 3000 ATK (Red Dragon Archfiend) + 800 ATK (your second copy of Destiny Hero - Malicious) for 10,100 damage. That’s enough to constitute a magic number even with something like Elemental Hero Stratos on the opponent’s side of the field.

Having the means to achieve those sums in your deck has always been beneficial. For proof, simply look into the past at some of the most successful strategies of all time. The two most recent decks that were so powerful they required a mid-format change all won because they were able to achieve magic numbers so easily. Cyber-Stein himself could put 6300 ATK on the field. Winning was as easy as Cyber-Stein + Brain Control.

However the real magic with Stein was how the numbers aligned between its own threat alongside Monarchs. Cyber Twin Dragon + Zaborg the Thunder Monarch = 8000 damage, and when Last Will was playable you could win the game simply by combining it with Cyber Dragon and Zaborg the Thunder Monarch. Dark Armed Return—the version that was so devastating Dimension Fusion had to be dealt with—resulted in mid-format changes to the Advanced list, Forbidding Dimension Fusion, and Limiting Return from the Different Dimension. Why were these cards Forbidden and Limited? Because all by themselves they could give you magic numbers.

Dark Armed Return has so many ways to make 8000 ATK it’s impossible to list them all. Most of the monsters in that deck revolve around either 2800, 2400, 1800, 1400, or 800 ATK points. There’s lots of ways to make 8000 with those numbers, the most obvious being 2800 + 2800 + 2400. Dark Magician of Chaos is another card that had to be Forbidden. The Magician could help you achieve those magic numbers just as easily as Dark Armed Dragon and Judgment Dragon. There’s almost always a spell card in your graveyard that can help add more damage, and the Magician could bring it back. Monster Reborn, Brain Control, and Heavy Storm are all cards that can give your hand that final push into OTK potential, and Dark Magician of Chaos getting free spells made that a whole lot easier.

Of course not all games are won in a single turn. It is possible to securely achieve magic numbers over the course of two or even three turns. We saw this a lot when Monarchs were all the rage and Raiza the Storm Monarch, Trap Dustshoot, and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast were all still at three per deck. It wasn’t uncommon to know all of your opponent’s cards in these games, including his or her next draw. With a hand like Raiza the Storm Monarch, Sangan, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, and Destiny Hero - Malicious you could achieve magic numbers over the course of multiple turns knowing that your opponent could do nothing to stop you.

Say it’s still early in the game and your opponent has 8000 life points. You know from a first-turn Trap Dustshoot that your opponent has the following hand: Mystic Tomato, Mirror Force, Sangan, and Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive. You have the hand I just mentioned with Raiza, Sangan, Wind Blast, and the card to discard for it. You summon Sangan and swing for 1000 damage before setting Wind Blast. Your opponent draws a temporarily dead card (like a Monarch) and sets a monster and a spell or trap. During the end phase you flip Wind Blast and spin Mirror Force before playing Raiza to spin the monster and put your total damage dealt to 3400. You search for Snipe Hunter with Sangan’s effect, and next turn you’ll be able to play Snipe Hunter, destroy whatever monster your opponent sets, remove Malicious, and add 4700 damage to the 3400 you already dealt—a total of 8100. So with complete knowledge of your opponent’s hand and just those four simple cards you can claim to have game a turn before it’s all said and done.

If your deck is unable to achieve magic numbers you’ll probably run into a lot of trouble on the tournament scene. Let’s take Gadgets for example. Gadgets have the potential to summon a field of five monsters in one turn, but they can’t win the game by doing so. Ultimate Offering and an optimal string of Gadgets only produces 6600 damage (1400 + 1300 + 1200 + 1400 + 1300 = 6600). Also, because the monsters can’t solve problems by themselves, you’ll need to add spells and traps to make magic numbers. That’s just not a deck that can explode on any given game for the win, so it’s going to struggle in a Shonen Jump Championship.

The best players are always looking for a way to win the game, and the best deckbuilders know that in-game, they’ll be looking for just those cards. It’s not easy to predict which decklist can generate the most game-winning scenarios, but understanding how your deck achieves magic numbers most often and playing to that strength is a good way to start learning.

—Matt Peddle