People keep sending me decks, and it seems like every two or three weeks I’m putting Nimble Momonga into one of them. Well, William B. beat me to the punch on this one, as he submitted a Monarch Control variant that’s already rich in Momonga goodness. Finding his submission in my inbox was like reaching into my morning box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and finding it packed with vicious flying squirrels. In a . . . you know, a good way. Like the squirrels are a prize, or something.

Moving along, here’s what William had to say about his deck.

Hey Jason,

A few days ago I was looking through my box of commons searching for an Asura

Basically, it revolves around two recruiters, Giant Rat and Warrior Lady of the Wasteland to search out either Nimble Momonga or Hero Kid, depending on the situation. Hence the name is “Nimble Kid Monarch Control.” The deck went through a few different revisions once the new list was unveiled, and I've decided to stick to this line-up until I can get some proper testing in.

Thanks for any help you may give in advance,

—William B.

Here’s the deck list William sent along. I recommend breathing in the sweet bouquet of wet fur, and savoring that chittering noise that only airborne rodents can impart!

Nimble Kid Monarch Control—43 Cards

Monsters: 25

2 Mobius the Frost Monarch

2 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

1 Granmarg the Rock Monarch

1 Sangan

1 Morphing Jar

1 Magician of Faith

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

2 Gigantes

2 Exiled Force

2 Warrior Lady of the Wasteland

3 Hero Kid

3 Giant Rat

3 Nimble Momonga

Spells: 13

1 Last Will

1 Brain Control

1 Heavy Storm

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Creature Swap

1 Graceful Charity

1 Premature Burial

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Enemy Controller

2 Reinforcement of the Army

Traps: 5

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Ring of Destruction

2 Royal Decree

I’m only going to make a few changes to William’s deck, since I’ve just got a few minor quibbles with his design. The first is the deck’s size. Even though it’s running plenty of self-replacing monsters, I don’t see any real reason that it should be 43 cards. The sheer number of tribute monsters is going to rule out any chance of softening your opening hand, so this deck is going to be better off with a few less cards.

In addition, a few selections just seem like awkward picks for the way this format is shaping up. Take Mobius the Frost Monarch for instance. While it can clear out your opponent’s back row and allow you to attack with impunity, it’s lost a lot of steam due to the number of chainable spells and traps gaining popularity in this format. Tributing for Mobius only to watch the opponent chain Enemy Controller and Rush Recklessly is kind of lame. I’m going to cut the deck’s Mobius count down to one.

Granmarg the Rock Monarch is going to be removed for the same reason. If he targets a spell or trap card, you could easily just see it chained. Granmarg could destroy a set monster instead, but at that point you might as well run Zaborg. In fact, I’m adding a third Zaborg the Thunder Monarch for just that reason.

Creature Swap is a great card in a deck with so many small monsters and recruiters, but I’m concerned about its viability here. We could already open with a fist full of tributes. In a format that’s so aggressive, cards that can’t be immediately used can easily cost you games, and that’s the chief problem facing Monarch strategies to begin with. I’m going to drop the one Creature Swap as a possible liability.

Finally, I’ll drop both Royal Decree cards. This deck establishes field presence like crazy, so even Mirror Force isn’t going to be a huge problem. Your only big concern is Torrential Tribute, but that doesn’t seem worth running two Decree. Like Creature Swap, they’re sort of conditional and can act as dead top decks when you don’t already control the game. We can’t take that kind of risk, and I’m looking for cards to drop anyways. I won’t go into depth discussing the pain of losing your own Decree to Gigantes, either. It just hurts to think about.

I’ve already added one Zaborg the Thunder Monarch, so the next card I’d like to put into the deck is Metamorphosis. From my experiences, I’ve found that Metamorphosis is great in any deck running Dark Magician of Chaos. Tribute off two Hero Kids or Momongas for Dark Magician of Chaos and return Metamorphosis to your hand, and you’ll have effectively traded your two pint-sized pieces of tribute fodder for Cyber Twin Dragon. Power like that can’t be ignored, and Metamorphosis can also turn Zaborg and Mobius into Dark Balter the Terrible and Ryu Senshi respectively. Cool stuff!

The final addition seems like an absolute no-brainer to me. This deck generates huge hordes of low-ATK monsters. They’re plentiful, but they’re not exactly beefy in the ATK department. The deck’s main strategy is to then leverage this extra field presence into tributes, but how about adding more functionality to that idea? Give this deck a couple turns, and United We Stand can easily add 2400 ATK to any monster on the field. That kind of edge in battle lets Hero Kid cards take down opposing Monarch cards, Cyber Dragon cards, and Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys cards. You can also turn direct attacks that would otherwise hit for only 300 damage, into game-ending power swings. United We Stand is going to add a lot here, ending games faster and making the most of our central strategy.

So, here are the tweaks I made to William’s deck list:

-1 Mobius the Frost Monarch

-1 Granmarg the Rock Monarch

-1 Creature Swap

-2 Royal Decree

+1 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

+1 Metamorphosis

+1 United We Stand

The final build looks like this:

Nimble Kid Monarch Control—Jason’s Fix—41 Cards

Monsters: 24

1 Mobius the Frost Monarch

3 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

1 Sangan

1 Morphing Jar

1 Magician of Faith

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

2 Gigantes

2 Exiled Force

2 Warrior Lady of the Wasteland

3 Hero Kid

3 Giant Rat

3 Nimble Momonga

Spells: 14

1 Last Will

1 Brain Control

1 Heavy Storm

1 Pot of Avarice

1 Graceful Charity

1 Premature Burial

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Enemy Controller

2 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Metamorphosis

1 United We Stand

Traps: 3

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Ring of Destruction

This deck has a whopping eight recruiter monsters that it can open with. The really cool part? When attacked, each recruiter can pull multiple monsters from your deck. Giant Rat and Warrior Lady of the Wasteland let you trade one monster for three when they special summon Hero Kid, while one Nimble Momonga quickly becomes two. This deck can protect itself early on, generating field presence that it can then turn into damage and even more field advantage with Zaborg the Thunder Monarch and Dark Magician of Chaos.

It isn’t hard to play either! Just make a defensive move or two to get some monsters going, and then lean on the opponent and start kicking out the offense. Even if you can’t tribute all of your fodder monsters, you can always let them get some revenge from the grave by removing them for Gigantes. In fact, you’ll often tribute summon a big beater and special summon Gigantes on the same turn to make game-winning attacks.

The one thing you’ll need to be careful of is an aggressive, control-oriented Warrior build. Don Zaloog just loves to eat your smaller monsters, so if the opponent is playing Warriors, you should keep things in defense position whenever possible. Don’t start attacking with Momonga and Warrior Lady of the Wasteland unless you’re sure you can afford a Don hit.

This is definitely an early game deck, but with that said, you do have some options for the mid- and late game. Abuse Pot of Avarice. It is unbelievably good in this deck. If an opponent burns through your Hero Kid and Momonga cards early on, it can often be difficult to play out of, but Pot of Avarice can turn that situation around and get you back on track. You want to play aggressively and take big chunks out of the opponent’s life points as soon as possible, but even if you can’t, Gigantes and Pot of Avarice keep you going. Just remember that these two cards can sometimes conflict: don’t remove a Momonga for Gigantes if you think you might reuse your squirrels later on.

Monarch Control is a strong deck in this format, just like it’s always been. Variants like these take a time-old archetype to new levels, and represent the future of the Monarch strategy. Give this deck a try for yourself, and if you’re a Monarch player, be creative! Every unexpected edge that you can give yourself is going to pay off in spades when you compete outside of your local metagame, and innovation wins Regionals and Shonen Jump Championships.

Thanks for sending it in, William! Hopefully the fix helps!

‑Jason Grabher-Meyer

Working on a deck for the new Advanced format? Looking for some help, or just want to see your creation right here on Metagame? Send it to me, and you might see your deck featured in an Apotheosis column! I’m Jason (at) metagame (dot) com, and I’m always looking for cool new decks to write about.