It’s no secret—if you’ve been to a Regional event lately, you’ve probably noticed that we’re in the glory days of Lockdown Burn. The presence of Stealth Bird and Level Limit – Area B as well as the decrease in spell and trap removal in the environment have opened the floodgates for a wide variety of Lockdown decks. Decks using direct damage as their win condition have been far and away the most successful.

William from Los Angeles, California, sent me an interesting twist on the standard Lockdown Burn. Using some interesting little tricks to improve the deck’s speed and matchups, it’s a cool example of a deck in tune with the metagame. Here’s what William had to say about it.

Hello, my name is William, and I'm from Los Angeles, California. I've been playing since Pharaoh's Servant came out. I've played many different types of decks over the last couple of years, but once I saw the first banned list, I knew exactly what deck to create—a Lockdown-type Burn. By the time I was able to put it together, the April banned list hit the web. This deck was built around that banned list.

When I can pull out the Stealth Bird and Level Limit – Area B combo, there's nothing my opponent can do to win. But if I don't pull the combo out early in the game, I end up struggling to get the cards I need. Most people in my area use Chaos-type decks and graveyard-resurrection cards, so Necrovalley and The End of Anubis were put in the deck to stop those strategies. That's the basic idea of the deck.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this.

William W.
Los Angeles, California

Here’s the decklist that William submitted.

William’s Lockdown Burn
40 cards

Monsters: 20
1 The End of Anubis
1 Vampire Lord
1 Lava Golem
1 Cyber Jar
1 Exiled Force
1 Don Zaloog
1 Penguin Soldier
1 Protector of the Sanctuary
1 Morphing Jar #2
1 Magician of Faith
2 Spirit Reaper
2 Raging Flame Sprite
3 Balloon Lizard
3 Stealth Bird

Spells: 10
1 Necrovalley
1 Graceful Charity
1 Messenger of Peace
1 Wave-Motion Cannon
1 Giant Trunade
1 Reload
2 Level Limit – Area B
2 Stumbling

Traps: 10
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Magic Jammer
1 Gravity Bind
2 Drop Off
1 Secret Barrel
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Nightmare Wheel
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force

The deck does some neat stuff. It techs against Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, which is a smart strategy. Even if you have a lock established on the field, the Soldier can eliminate the monsters you’re counting on to generate damage. Reload gives the deck more speed than other Lockdown Burn builds, and the many different traps give you some cool options that most opponents won’t see coming.

That said, some of the deck’s tricks are better than others, and the deck could use some more power in the opening and early game to make sure that it survives until it gets the lock. To achieve that goal, I’m going to make a few drops.

First, The End of Anubis, Vampire Lord, and Protector of the Sanctuary are all going to be hitting the road. While each card is potentially useful, I don’t feel that this deck has the right set of support cards to use each to its maximum potential. While all three cards are interesting pieces of tech, the deck would do a bit better if it were more focused towards some of its other strengths.

I’m going to drop a copy of Spirit Reaper strictly because of deck space. However, due to additions that I’ll be making to the deck, deck space won’t be a big issue. There will be a lot of search cards added to the deck, and each one will give us access to the Reaper, so one copy will do.

I want to remove both copies of Drop Off as well. This trap has never piqued my interest, and if I ever felt the need to run a card like that in a Control deck, I’d go with Time Seal, strictly because it’s chainable and isn’t stymied by Sinister Serpent. I don’t understand what Drop Off is doing in this deck. The card certainly adds a wacky splash of disruption that could catch an opponent off guard, but it won’t accomplish anything central to the deck beyond contributing to the protection of the lockdown engine.

I’m also going to remove the lone copy of Nightmare Wheel and recommend that it be kept in the side deck. A pair of Wheels would definitely be useful against any sort of fast-swarming, battle-oriented deck, but as a main deck pick, we already have enough defensive options. Lockdown decks are always a bit tricky, because you want to make sure that you have enough defensive plays, while at the same time, you don’t want to be playing too many redundant cards. Nightmare Wheel definitely fits into the latter category in this case, but feel free to rotate it in against Warrior or even Fire decks.

Finally, Secret Barrel needs to go. While the Barrel can be good, it needs to be run in a deck that encourages the opponent to keep cards in his or her hand. This is generally accomplished through the use of Chain Energy. Because that spell isn’t in this deck (and would make a poor addition to either the main deck or the side deck), it isn’t quite the right place for Secret Barrel. The deck will be packing Ceasefire instead to kick out large amounts of damage at unlikely times, so it has its bases covered in that respect.

Now, we’ve got eight slots to work with. The immediate additions I want to make are two copies of Mystic Tomato and one copy of Sangan. Now that Sangan’s back, it’s an invaluable card in virtually any deck, and running two copies of Mystic Tomato will let you seek out the Fiend. The Tomatoes can also grab Don Zaloog and Spirit Reaper, making the most of what would otherwise be somewhat awkward inclusions for this archetype.

I’m also going to add a second copy of Necrovalley. William believes that his metagame demands some Chaos tech, so I’m certainly not going to say that he’s wrong. When facing a matchup where  Necrovalley is ineffective, it’s easy to rotate the card out for something else in the side deck, such as a second copy of Magician of Faith, Penguin Soldier, or Wave-Motion Cannon.

Next up, I want to max out the deck’s count of Reload. A major problem with Lockdown decks is getting to your locking components in the early game, and Reload lets you easily handle that problem. In addition, Reload is going to be invaluable in any deck that uses lots of single cards to generate a wide array of effects. The spell lets you thumb through your catalog of tricks until you find the one you’re looking for. With some intelligent tech that sometimes verges on the bizarre, this deck is going to be able to demonstrate that point extremely well.

Finally, I’m going to add one more copy of Gravity Bind. While I said previously that the deck’s spread of defensive cards was more than sufficient, running two copies of Gravity Bind is a must for any Lockdown deck. Whether or not you’re vulnerable to Jinzo, Gravity Bind is simply the best piece of Lockdown that you can get. Spreading out the deck’s methods of getting the lock between traps and spells will also force an opponent to diversify his or her attempts to overcome your lock engines, and dividing an opponent’s attention and resources can really pay off.

The changes that I made look like this.

-1 The End of Anubis
-1 Vampire Lord
-1 Protector of the Sanctuary
-1 Spirit Reaper
-2 Drop Off
-1 Nightmare Wheel
-1 Secret Barrel

+2 Mystic Tomato
+1 Sangan
+1 Necrovalley
+2 Reload
+1 Gravity Bind
+1 Ceasefire

Here’s the final decklist.

William’s Lockdown Burn: Jason’s Fix
40 cards

Monsters: 19
1 Lava Golem
1 Cyber Jar
1 Exiled Force
1 Don Zaloog
1 Penguin Soldier
1 Morphing Jar #2
1 Magician of Faith
1 Spirit Reaper
2 Raging Flame Sprite
3 Balloon Lizard
3 Stealth Bird
2 Mystic Tomato
1 Sangan

Spells: 13
2 Necrovalley
1 Graceful Charity
1 Messenger of Peace
1 Wave-Motion Cannon
1 Giant Trunade
3 Reload
2 Level Limit - Area B
2 Stumbling

Traps: 8
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Magic Jammer
2 Gravity Bind
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Mirror Force
1 Ceasefire

William’s new Lockdown Burn deck runs in the same way that any other build would with two major exceptions. The first? Speed. This deck can thin itself to a modest extent, and the three copies of Reload allow you to sacrifice a bit of hand presence in order to draw into the cards you need to see. The result is a Lockdown deck that is far more solid in the opening and early game.

Balloon Lizard adds to the deck’s resiliency early on, as even just one turn’s worth of growth can make the Lizard a daunting monster to deal with. Watch for Balloon Lizard to become more of a factor in Lockdown Burn as time goes on. The Reptile is really good, and it fits easily into most Burn builds. If an opponent ever breaks through your wall, it will be very undesirable to destroy the Lizard, but without doing so, most decks can’t win.

The second difference between this deck and others of its type is the wealth of tech. With Don Zaloog and Spirit Reaper present, the deck can easily harass an opponent’s hand, and Delinquent Duo is likely an excellent choice for rotating in over Necrovalley. Running a single copy each of Magic Jammer and Ceasefire makes the deck unpredictable, and the single copy of Giant Trunade is something that most opponents will never see coming. Exiled Force can take care of any threatening presence meandering back and forth in front of your wall, and Magician of Faith can be used to resurrect a fallen Stumbling or Level Limit - Area B.

With more reliability and consistency and a ton of cool tricks, this deck should do well for William. Thanks to him for sending it in! If you’ve been interested in trying your hand at Lockdown Burn, but you aren’t interested in playing a standard build, give this one a shot! If you’re currently a Lockdown Burn player, hopefully you’ve gotten a few new ideas to try out in your own deck.

-Jason Grabher-Meyer

Are you interested in seeing your deck featured? Send a decklist formatted like the one in this article, your name, and your hometown to Jason@metagame.com, and your deck might be used in a future Apotheosis article!