Go undefeated for four rounds with Prickle Fairy and you get a deck profile. It’s basically a rule! Check out this teched Warrior Toolbox variant that Chris Moosman and David Huertas brought to the tournament today. Moosman is going strong with an as-of-yet undefeated record after Round 5.

Cyber Dragon and Hydrogeddon set the pace for the deck: heck, they frequently set the pace for the format, creating blazingly fast tempos and incredible come-from-behind attack opportunities. Moosman plays them with an aggressive intelligence, and a pair of Drillroids makes sure that all those attacks don’t run aground on troublesome blockers like Spirit Reaper and Gravekeeper’s Spy. Two Exiled Force also keep the opponent’s field nice and soft for the attacks that Moosman can kick out.

When Moosman is on the defensive Prickle Fairy helps him reverse the tempo of the game even faster. While dropping Cyber Dragon to recover your field is good, setting Prickle Fairy to shut the opponent down and expose a big attacker by turning it to defense position is frequently better, and running two comeback plans is better than depending on one. When Zaborg is seeing less play in favor of Thestalos it’s a winning strategy: Prickle Fairy can certainly be beaten by a Monarch in battle, but its effect guarantees that the attacking Monarch is a sitting duck on the following turn. The opportunities Prickle Fairy can create for Hydrogeddon are amazing: Rush Recklessly can’t get a Hydro over a Monarch or Jinzo. Prickle Fairy can.

Book of Moon, two Enemy Controller, Blast with Chain and a single Rush Recklessly also serve to set up Hydro. The latter is a classic with Don Zaloog too, which this deck runs one copy of. I doubt that we’ve ever seen a deck in this format that can do such a good job of capitalizing on Hydrogeddon, both in deploying multiple copies to the field and using them aggressively to press a win.

Asura Priest and Banisher of the Radiance serve as main-deck tech for both recruiters and opposing Hydrogeddons. From there, the deck runs a short toolbox of Warriors in the form of D. D. Assailant, D. D. Warrior Lady, and Don Zaloog. While five Warriors with two Reinforcement of the Army can be risky, Moosman’s aggressive pace of play frequently ensures that a Reinforcement is used the moment it hits his hand. That allows him to activate it before it can become a dead card through the natural drawing of Warriors. While any Toolbox deck can do that, most give up precision by doing so: they simply don’t want to be played that fast, frequently preferring reactive moves instead of proactive ones. This deck crams its proactive moves down the opponent’s throat, so Moosman doesn’t have to make any tactical sacrifices in order to compensate for his scaled down toolbox. Pot of Avarice is also helpful, recycling Exiled Force and Don Zaloog easily.

Three Sakuretsu Armor and two Smashing Ground help Moosman capitalize on the raw card advantage he can gain with the Hydros and Don. Duel simplification is something I keep coming back to in deck analysis this format, but that’s because more duelists are conscious of it, and are using it aggressively to win out of topdecking situations that they themselves create. The fact that the Sakuretsu Armors also help Moosman defend Prickle Fairy from the few monsters that might destroy it is a bonus: this deck is relatively lacking in ATK, so anything that manipulates the battle positions of opposing monsters, or that flat out wipe them off the field, is invaluable. This is a synergy-heavy deck that probably won’t topdeck as well as others, but the fact that Moosman takes the fight to his opponents helps a great deal. He never seems to get himself into situations where he’s out of options, so poor topdecking and a strategy that favors synergy over utility never really become problems.

Moosman is currently at table 1, and he’s two wins away from making Top 8. With only three rounds remaining in the tournament, we may see him making a reprisal of his Day 2 showing in Denver!