The last time I made use of this particular forum, we were talking about the culmination of the efforts of duelists all over the country during the previous format: the National Championships. Now, I’m speaking to you regarding what one might consider the exact opposite of the National Championships: the first Shonen Jump Championship of a new format. I’m sure that, with Washington now in the books, many of you are asking,  “What happened?” We saw Jonathan Labounty win the Jump with Perfect Circle—the Monarch deck that took the biggest hit from the Forbidden list—while Zombies outclassed Monarch variants as the deck with greatest representation in the Top 16. Despite his incredible success with Zombies, Lazaro Bellido still took a big fall in the first round to Big City. How does that work? What gives a slow deck like Big City the ability to completely shut down Zombies? Finally, just what is it that made the much-hyped Apprentice Monarch deck severely underperform? All these and more are on my list of things to discuss today, so let’s start with the success story that transformed Il Blud into the standard release card with the all-time largest secondary market value: Team Superfriends’ Zombie deck.

One of the things that made Snipe Hunter so good last format was that it would allow you to discard anything from your hand in order to give yourself a shot at destroying anything on the field. This led to decks like T-Hero being able to easily dump a bunch of Destiny Heroes or monsters like Jinzo and Dark Magician of Chaos into the graveyard where they could be easily revived or otherwise used to generate a huge number of special summons to finish the game in one turn. The Zombie deck run by the Superfriends is able to generate an even greater rate of special summons during all parts of the game. It can’t achieve the field-clearing potential of the old T-Hero decks, but it doesn’t need to. Even if the opponent happens to have one of his or her mass removal cards at the same time as you attempt a massive swing at the opponent, there’s a very good chance it won’t matter. Zombies have the ability to pull off their special summon tricks again and again. Aside from the mainstay Call of the Haunted and Premature Burial, Zombie decks have three special summon engines, and while they take advantage of this, they can draw up to three extra cards thanks to Card of Safe Return. Now there’s something that I never thought I’d be saying. Card of Safe Return is the thing that gives Zombie decks the cards they need to pull off all of these shenanigans.

Here’s the thing that I don’t get. What is it with everyone attributing the success of Zombie decks directly to Il Blud? I see it every time a Zombie discussion comes up. The thing is, Il Blud doesn’t really perform all the miracles that people claim it does. That doesn’t mean the card isn’t good. It’s large and frightening and capable of very scary things should it remain on the field for too long. Only it doesn’t tend to remain on the field very long. It draws all the hits and removal toward itself due to its high potential for mayhem, allowing Zombie Master to get the job done through multiple revivals of Pyramid Turtle, Spirit Reaper, and other copies of Zombie Master. Zombie decks with Il Blud currently have the advantage of being able to keep the fire off of their Zombie Master cards while they rush the field again and again. What happens if all your Zombies get blown away? Use Book of Life on Zombie Master. The only real problem with Zombie Master is the limited number of targets you have for it in the deck. If you’ve scoped out the new Champion Pack: Game 4, you’ll find that the latest ultra rare, Gernia, is a level 4 Zombie with a built-in resurrection effect. You may wish to consider this should you get your hands on one.

The great thing about Book of Life, though, is that it lets you wreck opposing strategies, especially ones involving Treeborn Frog. So why is it that a deck with such incredible speed and power managed to lose so hard in the hands of a brilliant player in the first round of that Jump? First off, when you’re playing so many tribute monsters and synergy-dependent cards, bad hands can and will happen. The other factor is the deck that the Zombies were up against: the newest incarnation of Big City. What’s the best way to make a bad hand worse? Bounce something on top of the deck to constrict the opponent’s ability to draw out of the situation. Raiza the Storm Monarch does it in grand style, but so does one of my favorite rares from Flaming Eternity, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast. If you take a look over at my main column, you’ll see that the Big City deck I built runs a full set of Wind Blast—mainly because it ruins Zombies like you wouldn’t believe. Knocking Il Blud to the top of the deck destroys every monster it summoned, but the real kick in the pants is that Zombie Master needs to be face up on the field in order for its effect to resolve correctly. This means that if you chain Wind Blast to the effect of Zombie Master, your opponent just pitched a card for no benefit.

Big City also tends to run a full set of Lightning Vortex cards (which obviously hurts swarm decks), but the biggest problem you face in the Zombie/Big City matchup is the fact that Zombies rely primarily on combat to get things done. This makes Skyscraper 2 - Hero City amazing against you, and if you can’t get Elemental Hero Stratos out of play at breakneck speed via Book of Life, you’re probably going to lose. My advice in this case is to play a huge amount of removal. I built a Zombie deck with no Il Blud and piloted it to a win in a local dominated by Big City decks thanks to a full set of Lightning Vortex and Dust Tornado cards. I also had access to a pair of Gernia cards, which helped enormously against all the mass field clearers played against me. If you’re a Big City player looking to dominate your tournaments, your key to victory is going to be proper use of Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Solemn Judgment, with a side of that one The Transmigration Prophecy you’re allowed to play these days.

Speaking of The Transmigration Prophecy, isn’t it amazing that a card that was critically lauded since its release but never saw any play suddenly shows up at SJC Washington—in the winning deck no less—just as soon as it’s Limited to one? Well, it’s too late to get the full benefit of being allowed multiples of Transmigration, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play it. This was a key card for Labounty and a number of other players throughout the day for many reasons . . . the most obvious being its ability to chain to recursion effects to stop them from resolving successfully. I don’t care what you’re trying to bring out of the grave, The Transmigration Prophecy won’t let it happen.

Prophecy is also useful in Perfect Circle decks as a means of recycling key cards or enabling certain combos that may go astray as a result of less-than-stellar hands. A perfect example of this is using Prophecy to shuffle one Malicious back into the deck, and leaving the other in the graveyard should you come across a double Malicious hand. It’s also useful for saving key cards in the graveyard (such as Treeborn Frog and Destiny Hero - Disk Commander) from being removed from play by things like D.D. Crow. This no doubt came in handy for Labounty during his victorious run with Perfect Circle, but why Perfect Circle and not the Apprentice Monarch deck everyone had been talking about? Apprentice Monarch is a very slow deck for starters. You can pull off some really nasty combos with Apprentice Magician and the Spellcasters he fetches (including the new Crystal Seer and the recently returned Magician of Faith). These are largely reactive combinations, though, since it’s unlikely you’re going to run your Apprentice Magician into a bigger monster and then manage to have your Spellcaster survive till next turn.

The reason Perfect Circle is still alive, and, well, better than Apprentice Monarch is that it has the capability to produce a lot more “active” tribute material than other decks. By “active tribute material,” I mean monsters that you can produce to the field for the sole purpose of tributing them away, without any need for the opponent to take any specific course of action. Special summoning Cyber Dragon and then tributing it immediately is an example of making use of active tribute material. Removing one Malicious to get the other and then tributing him off is another. To a lesser extent, ramming your Destiny Hero - Fear Monger into an opposing monster so that you can get Disk Commander next turn is an example as well. The key distinction is that if you are actively generating tribute material, your opponent shouldn’t have much of a chance to destroy the monster by spell or trap effect, and no chance to do so by battle. Combining the ability to do this with access to cards that set up these kind of plays while setting the opponent back a turn (like Phoenix Wing Wind Blast) was absolutely essential to the Perfect Circle victory, and we’re sure to see all sorts of decks that attempt to emulate these capabilities as the format develops.

These are exciting times ahead of us, and there are sure to be plenty of things to study as the format progresses, so make sure to come on back for the next School of Duel. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

Jerome McHale

jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu

HOMEWORK: With the increase in popularity of cards like Lightning Vortex and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, players are now forced into making a number of potentially difficult decisions regarding when and where they want to spend their cards. Is it ever okay to use Lightning Vortex on just one monster? When is it a good move to shuffle your own Treeborn Frog or Destiny Hero - Disk Commander back into the deck with The Transmigration Prophecy? These are some things to think about for next time.