Any deck where I add copies of Outstanding Dog Marron warrants an article of its own. I actually had no idea what Marron was good for—I figured it was the worst card in the game. Not only was it bad, but it kept coming back to clog up your draws over and over. But no! I found a use for it in, of all things, a Burn deck. Here’s what today’s deck submitter had to say about the list that he sent me.
Hey Jason,
I’m hoping that you can help me with my new Burn deck. The idea for this deck first came to me when one of my friends issued a challenge I couldn’t refuse. He said I couldn’t build a viable Burn deck for the new format. With his challenge fresh in my mind, I set to work on my new Burn strategy. I wanted a deck that would destroy his life points so fast that he would wonder if we had even dueled.
The first build consisted of Cyber End Dragon, Cyber-Stein and Catapult Turtle with cards like The Shallow Grave and Re-Fusion to keep abusing the Turtle and Dragon. Unfortunately, I have access to a very small card pool and the deck’s results suffered for it. I then decided that I would go with straight Burn.
The point of my new Burn deck is to use Reasoning and Monster Gate to place as many spells as possible into the graveyard to fuel Magical Explosion. When things go according to plan, I usually can get 25 to 30 spells into the graveyard, which comes out to anywhere from 5000 to 6000 damage with Magical Explosion. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that if I don’t draw an Explosion in my first hand or manage to Reload for one, things can go very badly. This is where I need the help—maybe I’ve missed a couple of cards that can help the deck perform more consistently?
Thanks for looking at my deck!
—Jordan K., Seattle, WA
That sounds interesting! Dan Scheidegger once mentioned to me that he had built a Chaos Necromancer deck that exploited Magical Merchant and a pile of monsters. Jordan’s deck is similar to that idea, but it uses spells and a wider variety of cards to bury them. Check it out for yourself.
Explosive OTK
40 Cards
Monsters: 4
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
2 Gravekeeper’s Curse
1 Mecha-Dog Marron
Spells: 33
3 Reasoning
3 Monster Gate
3 Reload
1 Card Destruction
3 Toon Table of Contents
2 A Feather of a Phoenix
2 Card of Sanctity
1 Premature Burial
1 Serial Spell
3 Meteor of Destruction
3 Tremendous Fire
3 Poison of the Old Man
3 Ookazi
2 Wave-Motion Cannon
Traps: 3
3 Magical Explosion
I had to look up exactly what happens when you use Reasoning or Monster Gate and find that you don’t have another monster in your deck. The good news is that you don’t discard all the cards and then lose the game. The bad news is that you just put all the cards you flipped over back into your deck zone after giving them a solid shuffle. This presents a problem, because once you draw and use Reasoning or Monster Gate to find the deck’s four monsters, you can’t easily get those monsters back into the deck.
Reload is going to cost you a card when you use it (you lose Reload, after all), and it should be used only to keep your string of discards going. It’s also acceptable to use it to hunt for Magical Explosion, but you really don’t want to be Reloading monsters back into your deck. A Feather of the Phoenix could return a monster in the graveyard to the deck, but since Feather’s target returns to the top of the deck, that wouldn’t exactly let us discard spells through the use of Reasoning or Monster Gate. In fact, it wouldn’t let us discard any spells.
I considered changing the deck to accommodate Monster Recovery, but it seemed awkward. Then I realized that Outstanding Dog Marron was exactly what I was looking for! Marron is easily recycled back into the deck, so even if the first couple of Gates and Reasonings don’t discard many spells, we’ll soon be able to chip away at a deck that has nothing but one monster in it. This is important not just because it allows us more consistency in discard rates (we’ll discard more cards more often on a per-game basis), but it also lets us discard copies of Magical Explosion, which can then be dug out of the graveyard with A Feather of the Phoenix.
I want to add a couple monsters beyond Marron, so I’m going to need to remove some of the existing monsters. Dark Magician of Chaos is pretty integral to the deck, and can be reliably summoned off of Reasoning, so it’s definitely going to stay. Mecha-Dog Marron is far more effective at dealing the extra bit of damage that we’re likely to need in a duel, so it will stay as well. However, the two copies of Gravekeeper’s Curse are incredibly underwhelming to me, and I have no problem with dropping the pair. As such, they’re the first cut that I’ll make.
Next, I need some room. Meteor of Destruction is the most dangerously conditional card in the deck, so it’s gone. By the same token, I need three more card slots, so Ookazi will also be removed.
I’ve got nine slots of wiggle room and Wonder Puppy is in one of them. Because we’re running Reasoning, I want to use a couple of bigger monsters that can fend off the opponent for a few turns when it’s needed, and I want them to be at different levels. At level 7, I’ll choose Guardian Angel Joan, and at level 6, I’ll use Infernal Incinerator. They’re big, and their effects work well with our theme. This will put us at a total of five monsters in the main deck, and I think that’s a healthy number for this theme.
Because we’re down to two monsters that can be normal summoned, I’m going to use a single copy of Scapegoat. Depending on how much you like to live on the edge of your seat, Stray Lambs may be in order, but for me, this is just the right mix of insane risk and hopeful payoff. Because I now have Scapegoat and several big monsters, I’ll also add one copy of Metamorphosis. It will give me access to Thousand-Eyes Restrict if I tribute a Sheep token. If I tribute away Infernal Incinerator, Metamorphosis can grab Dark Blade the Dragon Knight, Ojama King, or Ryu Senshi, so I’ll use one copy of each of those, too. Finally, The Last Warrior from Another Planet will be my trade-in of choice for Joan. Its locking effect will really come in handy.
Another copy of A Feather of the Phoenix seems in order, and since I dropped some Burn cards, I feel I should add in a third Wave-Motion Cannon. Flat out, Wave-Motion Cannon is the most effective burn card available. Running three of them should help us get through the 2000 or 3000 life points that a single Magical Explosion can often leave.
Finally, one Swords of Revealing Light will flesh out the deck’s 40-card total. While this deck can certainly go off in one turn, it will sometimes need more, and I consider highly efficient defensive cards to be at a premium for a deck like this. Messenger of Peace is great, but it can’t hold off monsters like Spirit Reaper and Don Zaloog, both of which can destroy this deck’s strategy of winning if left to run free.
Here are the changes that I made to Jordan’s build.
-2 Gravekeeper’s Curse
-3 Ookazi
-3 Meteor of Destruction
+1 Infernal Incinerator
+1 Guardian Angel Joan
+1 Outstanding Dog Marron
+1 Scapegoat
+1 Metamorphosis
+1 Wave-Motion Cannon
+1 Swords of Revealing Light
+1 A Feather of the Phoenix
Fusion Additions:
Dark Blade the Dragon Knight
Ojama King
Ryu Senshi
The Last Warrior from Another Planet
Cyber Blader
Thousand-Eyes Restrict
Cyber Twin Dragon
The final deck looks like this.
Explosive OTK: Jason’s Fix
40 Cards
Monsters: 5
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
1 Mecha-Dog Marron
1 Outstanding Dog Marron
1 Infernal Incinerator
1 Guardian Angel Joan
Spells: 32
3 Reasoning
3 Monster Gate
3 Reload
1 Card Destruction
3 Toon Table of Contents
3 A Feather of the Phoenix
2 Card of Sanctity
1 Premature Burial
1 Serial Spell
3 Tremendous Fire
3 Poison of the Old Man
3 Wave-Motion Cannon
1 Scapegoat
1 Metamorphosis
1 Swords of Revealing Light
Traps: 3
3 Magical Explosion
Fusions:
1 Dark Blade the Dragon Knight
1 Ojama King
1 Ryu Senshi
1 The Last Warrior from Another Planet
1 Cyber Blader
1 Thousand-Eyes Restrict
1 Cyber Twin Dragon
This version of the deck is going to be able to hold off attackers for quite a bit longer. The old deck couldn’t last more than a few turns if it didn’t immediately win the game, but this version has a few defensive options and is skewed toward finding bigger targets for Monster Gate and Reasoning. In addition, it can also use Metamorphosis to create a soft lock* with Thousand-Eyes Restrict or The Last Warrior from Another Planet.
If it runs through its supply of monsters, it doesn’t lose the game automatically, as the previous version did. Outstanding Dog Marron foils one of the worst-case scenarios that threatened Jordan’s success. While the deck is still risky, its consistency has been improved in several different ways, and the use of Marron is one of the most important of those ways.
When it comes to matchups, this deck makes few distinctions. It definitely dislikes Jinzo and Royal Decree, and spell and trap removal can give it a little bit of trouble, but in most cases, either you pull off the combo or you don’t. A deck’s speed can make a difference if the duel lasts longer than a single turn, but some standard threats don’t do much, thanks to the unique conditions under which this deck operates. For instance, Cyber Dragon isn’t very good against this deck, is it? It can’t overcome three of your five monsters, and if you don’t happen to have any monsters out at the moment, it can’t be special summoned. The same goes for Dark Hole, Smashing Ground, Sakuretsu Armor, and other similar cards. Because you aren’t seeking to win through monsters, all the monster-centric effects in your opponent’s deck become either useless or almost useless—and either of those is good for you!
If you’re looking for something that’s fun to play and you don’t mind some added risk, go ahead and give this deck a try. It’s a strange little OTK spin on the classic Scapegoat Exploitation deck, which is a strategy that by all rights should have died with the past Advanced format. It might auto-lose sometimes, but really, what’s better than beating your opponent on the first turn with a string of weird monsters and a trap that few duelists have ever looked at twice?
Hopefully the fix helps. Thanks for sending it in, Jordan! At the same time, if you’re not Jordan, hopefully you’ll give it a try too. I mean, come on . . . Outstanding Dog Marron? That’s gotta be worth at least a few duels!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
*A “soft” lock is when you lock down the field, but the opponent can still take certain actions to remedy their situation. For instance, the effect of Thousand-Eyes Restrict is a soft lock, but repeatedly attacking with Yata-Garasu when your opponent has no cards in his or her hand or on the field is a “hard” or “true” lock.
Do you have an Advanced format deck you could use some help with, or just want to show off to the world? Want to see it appear in a future Apotheosis article? Send it to me, at Jason(at)metagame(dot)com and I might take a crack at it!