Did everyone go to the Sneak Preview? I missed it, but I’ve been thinking about my preview cards off and on all week. Last week, I wrote about Black Ptera and mentioned its use with the new structure deck, Lord of the Storm. This week, I thought I’d expand on that theme and take a look at a potential Wind deck, using two copies of the structure deck, some cards you probably already own, and a few Black Ptera. (We have to fit some Dinosaurs in here someplace . . .)
So to begin, we’re going to crack open two copies of the structure deck. You want two of these for the Sakuretsu Armor cards anyway, so be off with you to pick them up, if you haven’t already! Here’s the card pool we get from opening up the decks:
Monsters:
2 Simorgh, Bird of Divinity
2 Sonic Shooter
2 Sonic Duck
2 Harpie Girl
2 Slate Warrior
4 Flying Kamakiri #1
4 Harpie Lady Sisters
2 Bladefly
2 Birdface
2 Silpheed
2 Lady Ninja Yae
2 Roc from the Valley of Haze
2 Harpie Lady 1
2 Harpie Lady 2
2 Harpie Lady 3
2 Swift Birdman Joe
2 Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon
Spells:
2 Card Destruction
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Nobleman of Crossout
4 Elegant Egotist
2 Heavy Storm
2 Reload
4 Harpies' Hunting Ground
2 Triangle Ecstasy Spark
2 Lightning Vortex
Traps:
2 Hysteric Party
2 Aqua Chorus
2 Dust Tornado
2 Call of the Haunted
2 Magic Jammer
2 Dark Coffin
2 Reckless Greed
2 Sakuretsu Armor
2 Ninjitsu Art of Transformation
2 Icarus Attack
This structure actually has a few directions in which it could head—it’s full of great Harpie cards, so you could tweak it to create a Harpie Lady deck that swarms the field using cards like Elegant Egotist and the new Hysteric Party. You could expand on the Ninja theme and add in some big hitters like Saber Beetle in order to create a deck centered around Ninjitsu Art of Transformation. Both of those decks are good, but alas, there is not much room in them for Dinosaurs. So I’m going to focus on two of the three cards in the deck that center around an irresistibly unique game plan—one that will drive the opponent crazy and allow Black Ptera to aid and abet all kinds of mayhem. With the proper support, this strategy can be very effective in tournament-level competition. And hey, Dinosaurs! Let me tell you more!
Two cards unique to the structure deck, Simorgh, Bird of Divinity and Sonic Shooter punish your opponent for not having cards in his or her spell or trap zones (as if not having any options there isn’t punishment enough sometimes). Simorgh will deal out 1000 damage every turn to each duelist with nothing in the spell or trap zone, and 500 to each duelist that only has one set spell or trap. Sonic Shooter can attack directly if the opponent’s spell and trap zone is clear, so with these two monsters you can hop right over your opponent’s monsters and dish out some serious damage in a hurry.
There are plenty of cards available that can keep spells and traps off of the opponent’s field, many of which are unique to the Wind attribute. This gets better and better! If we can take advantage of these two new monsters and support them properly, we’ll be able to create a deck that will preventing the opponent from using his or her spells and traps while creating lots of pressure due to the damage we’re handing out.
Does that sound fun? Let’s get started, by cutting some cards from our 80-card pool, focusing just on what we’ll need so we can add in the support. We don’t want two copies of any limited cards, and we won’t be taking advantage of the Harpie strategies, so we’ll cut over 50 cards quite easily.
After doing a preliminary round of cuts, we’ve got 25 cards left, forming the foundation of our new deck:
Monsters: 15
2 Simorgh, Bird of Divinity
2 Sonic Shooter
2 Slate Warrior
3 Flying Kamakiri #1
2 Silpheed
2 Lady Ninja Yae
2 Swift Birdman Joe
Spells: 5
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Heavy Storm
1 Lightning Vortex
Traps: 5
2 Dust Tornado
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Sakuretsu Armor
We’re off to a good start here—Simorgh, Bird of Divinity and Sonic Shooter will provide our primary win conditions, so we’ll run both of our copies of each of those monsters. Slate Warrior is simply one of the best Wind monsters ever printed, and its enormous 2400 ATK will really come in handy when we can blast out the opponent’s spell or trap zone and attack with impunity. Lady Ninja Yae and Swift Birdman Joe will each help keep spells and traps off of our opponent’s field, and Flying Kamakiri #1 will search out Yae when she’s needed. All of these Wind monsters provide excellent fodder for Silpheed, which requires the removal of a single Wind monster from your graveyard in order to special summon it. Not only does Silpheed give us some added muscle for game-winning over-extensions, but its effect will also slow down aggressive opponents. There will be times we’ll need that—the extra time Silpheed buys will often give us the opportunity to draw into our key cards.
Most of the “keeper” spells and traps are pretty self-explanatory—Sakuretsu Armor and Call of the Haunted maintain our field presence, while Mystical Space Typhoon, Heavy Storm, and Nobleman of Crossout are used in 99% of battle-oriented decks out there. Dust Tornado is important because it contributes to our primary goal of taking away our opponent’s spells and traps, while Lightning Vortex . . . well, you’ll see why that’s staying in shortly.
Keep several of the dropped cards to add into the side deck—Dark Coffin will punish an opponent who tries to turn Simorgh against you, or just happens to be running a pair of Dust Tornado cards (just watch out for Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World). Bladefly can give you some extra muscle against a rush deck if that’s your style, and Icarus Attack can be invaluable in a Lockdown match-up. It doesn’t make the main deck list because we only have six or so monsters to tribute for it, but against a very slow deck like Lockdown Burn you’ll be able to take your time digging for the proper monsters anyway.
We’ve got three goals for the finished version of the deck. The first is tribute support—we want to make sure that we can tribute for Simorgh and Swift Birdman when we want to get them out, which means having Wind monsters on the field. Silpheed and Flying Kamakiri already provide renewable board presence, since Silpheed can be special summoned when needed, and Flying Kamakiri replaces itself when destroyed in battle. Since we’re employing a Wind theme, we’ve got some other options we should take advantage of. Sasuke Samurai #4 is a powerhouse on both offense and defense, and can overcome insurmountable odds to leave you with tribute fodder on a following turn. It can also be searched out via Flying Kamakiri #1, so it synergizes beautifully with the cards we’re already using. Two Black Ptera cards (did you know these are Dinosaurs? That makes them better than other monsters, by the way*) will allow us to tribute monsters without losing card presence, get Swift Birdman Joe’s effect, and cycle those Pteras into Lightning Vortex or Graceful Charity later on in the duel. Finally, we’ll keep one copy of Whirlwind Prodigy. It’s the double-tributer for Wind, meaning that it can count as two tributes when you’re summoning Simorgh, Bird of Divinity. While Prodigy is physically weaker than other two-for-one tribute monsters like Double Coston and Kaiser Sea Horse, its 1500 ATK allows us to—yeah!—pull it when needed with Flying Kamakiri #1. What fun!
Our second goal is to keep gusting the opponent’s spell and trap cards off the field, and hopefully keep them from coming back. A pair of Giant Trunade cards will augment Yae and Birdman Joe splendidly, but let’s make it even nastier by putting in two copies of Chain Energy. Remember that card? It snips away 500 worth of a player’s life points each time he or she uses a card from the hand. That means you can bounce the opponent’s spells and traps in order to press through damage with Simorgh and Sonic Shooter, then activate Chain Energy—and suddenly if the opponent wants to stop taking damage from your monsters, he or she will need to take more damage to set cards to the back row. That’s just plain mean (though don’t forget that the effect of Chain Energy works on both players).
Ok, so now we’ve got a 34 card deck. We can add anywhere between six and eight cards to finish this off—and the smartest choices will be to put in some general support using a few staple cards. One copy each of Sangan, Graceful Charity, Snatch Steal, Premature Burial, Book of Moon, Torrential Tribute, and Mirror Force will make this deck battle-worthy, and while these are typical cards for most decks you’ve seen, there are some tricks worth noting here. As stated earlier, Graceful Charity will combo nicely with Black Ptera, but also don’t forget that Premature Burial and Giant Trunade combine to get you virtually any monster from your graveyard at a nominal cost.
Here’s what the final build looks like!
Gone with the Wind—41 Cards
Monsters: 21
2 Simorgh, Bird of Divinity
2 Sonic Shooter
2 Slate Warrior
3 Flying Kamakiri #1
2 Silpheed
2 Lady Ninja Yae
2 Swift Birdman Joe
2 Black Ptera
2 Sasuke Samurai #4
1 Whirlwind Prodigy
1 Sangan
Spells: 13
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Heavy Storm
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Graceful Charity
1 Snatch Steal
1 Premature Burial
1 Book of Moon
2 Giant Trunade
2 Chain Energy
Traps: 7
2 Dust Tornado
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Sakuretsu Armor
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
What’s the best part? There’s only one card in this deck (Mirror Force) that you won’t be able to get in a common or silver foil form. With twenty bucks and a bit of trading, you’ll be able to slap this thing together in no time and have a secondary deck with which to experiment.
So how do you play this thing? Look at all the great monsters to open a duel with if you go first. Flying Kamakiri #1 can load your graveyard and maintain field presence, and Slate Warrior can set your opponent up for a beating on the following turn, or weaken a big attacker. Black Ptera can punish any opponent who goes for a Cyber Dragon/Zaborg the Thunder Monarch opening, or you can just summon Sasuke Samurai #4 and let it sit there, daring your opponent to try for a Cyber Dragon/Spirit Reaper rush.
Sasuke Samurai #4 is especially important if you’re facing a very aggressive opponent. Odds are good that most opponents won’t commit too much to the field in the first few turns, but if they figure out you’re running a combo deck they might try to rush you. In that case, fend them off with Flying Kamakiri #1, Sasuke, and Silpheed. If the opponent plays things slowly, or employs a moderate pace, you’ll probably want to spend most of your time setting monsters. Remember that once you decide to set it off, your Kamakiris can become Sonic Shooter cards and attack immediately. Setting Black Ptera is also fun when an opponent builds towards a big rush of monsters led by Zaborg. Ptera doesn’t care at all if it gets nailed by Zaborg’s effect—it just bounces back to your hand.
The mid-game is where you usually want to unleash your primary strategy. By now you’ve had time enough to draw into at least one Shooter or Simorgh, as well as a turn or two of support for it. Time to crank out a few thousand points of damage and build some momentum! The duel gets especially beautiful once you’ve alienated your opponent from his or her big monsters and start to lean on him or her with Chain Energy. This deck provides some good answers for plenty of common moves—you can attack through a defense position Spirit Reaper, or you can smack down Chaos Sorcerer with Sasuke Samurai #4—all while depriving your opponent of other moves (“Oh, sorry . . . you owe Chain Energy 500 life points!”).
If you hit the late game, then cards like Sasuke and Silpheed become just brutal. Backed up by Chain Energy, either monster can be a nightmare that costs your opponent card after card . . . and you know how players can get about losing card after card. Playing cards to destroy Silpheed or Sasuke outside of battle costs life points due to Chain Energy, but attacking can cost cards too. In addition, Simorgh’s 2700 ATK or Slate Warrior’s 2400 ATK can become incredibly threatening.
I pick up a copy or so of each structure when it comes out, because it’s just so intriguing to mess around with the build and see what I can come up with—it doesn’t have to be particularly competitive, I just enjoy the mental exercise. I have to say, though, that I’m probably going to give this version more than a passing attempt—it’s tricky, fun, and makes my opponent lose life points at an alarming rate once it gets going. Don’t just pick out the Sakuretsu Armor cards and set the rest aside—there’s some good potential in the deck. So sift through it, take a look at your binder, and see what else you can come up with.
*The whole “Dinosaurs are better than other monsters” thing is purely my opinion, of course. Still, it’s a pretty good opinion—you can’t rule the earth for untold millennia without having something going for you. Okay, I’ll grant you that nowadays we’re making buffalo wings out of them, but still.