Score! Someone finally sent me a copy of one of my favorite decks in the format, and now I can show it off. Check it out, everyone—it’s another fun thing to do with Frogs!
Dear Jason,
I’ve been away from the game for a while, but the new cards and the return of my friends to the game made me decide on a comeback. I was catching up courtesy of Metagame.com and saw the new decks on the Shonen Jump Championship scene. I was thinking of just doing the norm until I saw the Armageddon deck that you described in your column and I thought, “Hey, why not do something nobody else is running and maybe take the new metagame by storm?”
I sat analyzing the new cards available and thinking about what could be good for the new format. Dark World, Monarch, Zombie, Warrior, Phoenix, Burn, Spellcaster, and Gravekeepers all went through my mind, but then I had a great thought. With the new emphasis on field control (since Nobleman is at two copies per deck now) and the emergence of Treeborn Frog, I came up with an idea involving Dark Dust Spirit. With people looking to make runs at the field with Cyber Dragon, Dark World, Monarchs, Spirit Reaper, and more, I thought of the damage Dark Dust can do. You can keep bringing it out with Treeborn Frog, clear the spell and trap zone with Phoenix, and take big shots at your opponent’s life points. Plus if it gets put in the graveyard, there’s always Pot of Avarice.
I made a deck based on the above explanation. I run Messenger of Peace, two Waboku and two Sakuretsu Armor for stall and protection. I also put in two copies of Dust Tornado in case of Bottomless Trap Hole. I have two Reapers and a Tomato for stall and disruption. Tsukuyomi is here in case I can get Dark Dust Spirit face down, so it can survive my opponent's turn. With that said, here’s the deck. I like the build but there is always room for improvement, which is why I'm submitting it to you. I want it to be competitive. Thank you for any time you put toward this.
Sincerely,
Sean W., Philadelphia, PA
This is absolutely my all-time favorite Treeborn Frog strategy, and with the loss of Dark Hole and the rise of Dark World, this deck gets a big push from the new Advanced format. Check out Sean’s build.
Dawn of Dust
40 Cards
Monsters: 19
2 Dark Dust Spirit
2 Cyber Dragon
1 Jinzo
1 Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
1 Treeborn Frog
1 Sangan
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Tsukuyomi
1 Hand of Nephthys
1 Magical Merchant
1 Magician of Faith
1 Morphing Jar
1 Mystic Tomato
2 Spirit Reaper
2 Apprentice Magician
Spells: 13
2 Pot of Avarice
1 Graceful Charity
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Premature Burial
1 Snatch Steal
1 Book of Moon
1 Enemy Controller
1 Messenger of Peace
1 Swords of Revealing Light
2 Nobleman of Crossout
Traps: 8
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Waboku
2 Sakuretsu Armor
2 Dust Tornado
We’ve got some cool stuff going on in this deck. The primary goal is just as Sean stated: to use Frog and Dark Dust Spirit to clear the field of any face-up monsters every turn. That forces the opponent to set monsters, which gives you control of the game’s tempo. Then you can pick off his or her sets or merrily draw cards until you have the duel in the bag. If the opponent doesn’t set monsters and instead opts to attack you, he or she is going to lose that attacker (or attackers) next turn, and hopefully take a 2200 ATK swing from Dust Spirit in the process.
Sean’s got some cool combos in this deck, too. Treeborn Frog obviously makes Dust Spirit free, Cyber Dragon gives you tribute fodder in a pinch, and each has great synergy with Hand of Nephthys, allowing you to bring out Sacred Phoenix a bit more reliably. Jinzo and Phoenix each support Dark Dust Spirit, protecting it from Bottomless Trap Hole, Trap Hole, and cards like Sakuretsu Armor when it attacks.
On the other hand, the deck could easily draw conflicting cards under the wrong conditions. Cyber Dragon clashes with Treeborn Frog, and becomes a dead draw unless you want to tribute a Frog for it. Tributing isn’t a big issue, but part of the reason you play Cyber Dragon is because bringing it to the field won’t consume your normal summon. Dust Spirit massacres the big hitters that would otherwise look to accompany it to victory. Remember that its effect destroys all face-up monsters on the field, not just the opponent’s, so that Jinzo had better be brought back with Call of the Haunted or Premature Burial after the Spirit’s been summoned or flipped and not before.
My goal with this deck will be to streamline it a bit, making it more effective at its stated purpose and giving it some more versatility. I really think this can be a competitive strategy, and because of that, most of my suggestions are aimed towards improving utility. After all, competitive decks need to be reliable. Because Sean is running so many potentially conflicting cards, he must increase the average utility of the deck in order for it to function effectively.
First, the second copy of Cyber Dragon has to go. This is going to be such a dead draw (and so often), that I can’t justify running more than one copy. If I didn’t fear the late game so much I would probably drop both, but for now, I’ll leave that as an open possibility for Sean and keep one copy in the deck.
Pot of Avarice is limited under the new Advanced list, a fact that many duelists have lost sight of under the blinding glare of the return of Graceful Charity and Mirror Force. Sean needs to drop one from his deck, and that’s going to shape some of the direction for the fixed build. Before, he was dependent on Pot of Avarice to compensate for discarded or destroyed copies of Dark Dust Spirit. That wasn’t necessarily the best plan to begin with, but with only a single Pot, we definitely need to come up with something better.
I’m going to toss the single Magical Merchant, partly because we won’t need it to support Pot of Avarice as much. While I like the idea of running a few flip effect monsters to slow the tempo of an aggressive game, I think there are better options for the deck than Merchant. Therefore, I’ll be replacing it with something more synergistic.
Finally, Waboku is a perpetually terrible card in any combat-oriented strategy. That might sound controversial, but I’m willing to stand by it. With the amount of field control that this deck can generate, I don’t see any reason to run a “worst case scenario” contingency card like Waboku. The deck won’t be taking much damage in large rushes, and losing a card to block a single hit is usually a poor move. I definitely appreciate what Sean is trying to do by loading up on traps to help him survive combat, but that can be chained or activated at any time in order to enable Treeborn Frog’s special summon. But there’s a word for that kind of card.
Three words, actually.
Compulsory Evacuation Device.
If you’re looking to play a combat-oriented deck that wants to reliably use ’s effect, Compulsory Evacuation Device is going to be your newest buddy. It bounces potential attackers off the field, lets you reuse flip effect monsters (and Breaker the Magical Warrior), and it can target just about anything, so you never have to worry about whether you can activate it and get it off the field. It chains to Mobius, eliminates the opponent’s Frog before it can be tributed, and even does some cool stuff specific to this deck!
For example, we need to protect Dark Dust Spirit, and Bottomless Trap Hole is a particularly large threat, since it removes the Spirit from play. Basically, anything that can destroy the Spirit and break our cycle of monster destruction is bad, whether it’s Sakuretsu Armor, Widespread Ruin, Mirror Force, or Trap Hole. Luckily, Compulsory Evacuation Device is the solution to all of those problems.
Whenever something threatens the Spirit—even at the point of the card’s summoning—Compulsory Evacuation Device can be easily chained to get it back to your hand. If the opponent flips Bottomless Trap Hole or something similar, it has to be chained to the Spirit’s effect, so you’re still going to get that field-clearing goodness. While you won’t be able to press an attack with the Spirit on the turn where you Evacuate it, you’ll still keep your loop intact and wipe the field. That’s what counts. Failing that, you can always use the Device to bounce a set monster that your opponent tries to throw in the way of your loop, scoring a quick shot with the Spirit. It’s good stuff all around, so I’m adding two copies of Compulsory Evacuation Device to take the place of the two copies of Waboku I removed.
The single Magical Merchant? It’s going to turn into Old Vindictive Magician. Like Jerome and Mike, I’m a huge fan of Apprentice Magician engines, and Old Vindictive Magician is just too good to pass up, since we already have the infrastructure to support it. This deck is running Tsukuyomi, so you can get multiple monster destructions out of just one copy, and since it’s a flip effect monster that naturally wants to be set, it’ll combo really nicely with Dark Dust Spirit’s tendency to munch on its face-up allies. If it’s set to the field before the arrival of the Spirit, Old Vindictive Magician can clear out the set monsters that the opponent will inevitably play to try and stop the Spirit’s rampage.
The last monster I want to add to the lineup is D. D. Warrior Lady. This is a combat-oriented deck, and the card is, in a nutshell, just amazing. Whether it’s an opening set on turn 1, an early-game solution to a combat problem, or a late-game answer to a monster that’s way bigger than it is, D. D. Warrior Lady is always going to be useful. Its presence on the field can even act as an attack deterrent, allowing you to tribute it on a later turn. That’s great for a deck that wants to tribute summon so often.
Since we’re down one Pot of Avarice, we’ll need another method of recovering lost Dust Spirits. Monster Reincarnation, though often too conditional for certain strategies, is right at home in this deck. Not only can it bring back a Spirit or anything else that might be useful, it also gives you a handy way to send Treeborn Frog to the graveyard. It can even help you deal with cards that are useless under certain conditions. Remember what I said about conflicting cards? Monster Reincarnation will turn Cyber Dragon into something more useful when your field is already full, or can exchange a second Dust Spirit for something else.
My last addition to the deck is Mirror Force. Sure, it isn’t chainable and it can’t be activated in a pinch in order to ensure that you can special summon Treeborn Frog, but hey, it’s Mirror Force! For all its battle-centric plans, this deck depends on combos, and it needs all the protection it can get. You’ll want to be careful when Sacred Phoenix hits the field, but Mirror Force is one of the most feared cards in the format for a reason, since it can dictate card advantage, tempo, and momentum.
That’s it for my changes, so let’s recap what I altered.
–1 Cyber Dragon
–1 Pot of Avarice
–2 Waboku
–1 Magical Merchant
+1 Old Vindictive Magician
+1 D. D. Warrior Lady
+1 Monster Reincarnation
+2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
+1 Mirror Force
The final deck looks like this.
Dawn of Dust: Jason’s Fix
41 Cards
Monsters: 19
2 Dark Dust Spirit
1 Cyber Dragon
1 Jinzo
1 Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
1 Treeborn Frog
1 Sangan
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Tsukuyomi
1 Hand of Nephthys
1 Magician of Faith
1 Morphing Jar
1 Mystic Tomato
2 Spirit Reaper
2 Apprentice Magician
1 Old Vindictive Magician
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
Spells: 13
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Graceful Charity
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Premature Burial
1 Snatch Steal
1 Book of Moon
1 Enemy Controller
1 Messenger of Peace
1 Swords of Revealing Light
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Monster Reincarnation
Traps: 9
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Sakuretsu Armor
2 Dust Tornado
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
1 Mirror Force
This build of the deck is going to be more consistent, more versatile, and more capable of outplaying an opponent. Though it’s rarely useful to the average duelist, Monster Reincarnation is actually one of the deck’s MVPs, and when it’s combined with Compulsory Evacuation Device, you’re going to see this deck recycling monsters over and over. That’s great news for monsters like Old Vindictive Magician, Dark Dust Spirit, and Spirit Reaper.
Good matchups for this deck include Warrior Toolbox and Monarch Control. In the Toolbox matchup (or basically any beatdown matchup) the opponent’s tendency to have multiple face-up monsters on the field becomes his or her greatest weakness. The moment you limit the opponent’s ability to attack more than once per turn, you instantly gain an advantage—you just took away his or her primary win condition. As for Monarch Control, it’s essentially comparable to this deck. The difference is that Zaborg can only be used once, while Dark Dust Spirit can be used repeatedly. Phoenix is a huge pain in the neck for Monarch Control players, since Zaborg suffers a penalty if it destroys the Phoenix with its effect, and the deck doesn’t play anything that can best the Phoenix in battle.
Flip-Flop Control can be a concern, but that matchup is receding into the shadows, thanks to Deck Devastation Virus and Nobleman of Crossout. However, I’d suggest side decking hard for this matchup. Ceasefire is a particularly good idea, since it can negate the flip effects the deck needs while exposing monsters to Dark Dust Spirit’s wrath by flipping them face up. Without Dark Hole to worry about, the remaining Flip Flop players tend to set monsters whenever possible. Torrential Tribute is the only reason to do otherwise, while Nobleman of Crossout provides a strong impetus to make the best of that single set or summon each turn. You can use that to your advantage. Play patiently and set up the opponent for the kill they won’t see coming. You should take game 1 most of the time, and game 2 will come down to side-decking.
This deck can definitely satisfy Sean’s cravings for competitiveness, and while it was good before the new Advanced format lists, it’s even better now. It plays right into the trends that are starting to materialize, and as Dark World becomes more popular, it will just gain more and more steam. Capable of controlling the field like nothing else out there, it’s another spectacular example of the options that Treeborn Frog is making possible. Thanks for sending it in, Sean!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Do you have an Advanced format deck you could use some help with, or that you just want to show off to the world? Do you want to see it appear in a future Apotheosis article? Send it to me at Jason(at)metagame(dot)com, with your name, location, and explanation of how the deck works—I might take a crack at it!