I love Return from the Different Dimension. While Chaos Return uses it pretty well, other decks can exploit it even better, and since so many different monster groups have unique ways of removing cards from play, it actually makes a lot of cool decks possible that wouldn’t exist otherwise. I’ve played tons of winning Return variants (and a few that weren’t so good . . .), but Duy Bui and Jimbo Robinson have come up with one that never even crossed my mind.

It’s called BluMoos, partly a nod to Duy Bui’s online alias and part tribute to the deck’s creator. Bui was incredibly vocal about giving credit where it was due: “I want to give major props to Chris Moosman, who invented the deck. I just tweaked it a bit and made my own side deck.” Chris Moosman, who finally broke into the Top 8 at Shonen Jump Denver, is probably one of the most interesting duelists active right now. His combination of deckbuilding innovation and on-table skills may make him a major player in 2006. To those who know him, well, you already knew that. But if you’ve never heard of him, keep an eye on him over the next few months.

Anyway, back to the deck itself. When Bui and Robinson first handed me a copy of it, I had to riffle through it three times to figure out what it was burning cards for. Lady Assailant of the Flames is what makes this deck unique, socking away cards from the top of its controller’s deck to the removed from game pile while dishing out burn damage to boot. Magical Merchant fulfills a similar goal, ensuring that the deck discards tons of monsters to then feed Bazoo the Soul Eater. It’s a new school spin on the old school Return deck that started the craze, and it’s another fabulous example of a very simple, focused deck that does what it’s designed to do, and only what it’s designed to do. Discard monsters or just remove them from play right from your deck, unleash a huge monkey, and then Return for the win. It’s aggression in its purest form, and it’s designed to end games before they’ve even started.

Bui was happy to elaborate. “It usually wins on turn three or turn five. I can side into Chaos for Game 1 if I need to, but when you get into an aggro tempo, you usually win.” I knew the answer, but I wanted a sound bite, so I asked Bui why that was. “Because we’ve got so many outs: Cyber Dragon and Limiter Removal, big Bazoos, two Dust Tornado…” The deck is optimized for exchange-based play, forcing the opponent into a fast tempo that simplifies the duel and then unleashing Return when it can’t be stopped. It’s a refined version of the same philosophy that won Shonen Jump Championship Los Angeles for Paul Levitin last year. This time around, it’s infinitely faster.

The deck runs the maximum amount of the cards that make it run. Three Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, Cyber Dragon, Bazoo, and Lady Assailant are the cards that help this deck win, and Bui and Robinson are intelligent in maxing out the deck’s count of each. Again, like some of the other decks featured today they’ve decided not to run several cards that many duelists put into every deck, in this case Spirit Reaper, opting for a larger and more focused monster list.

Pitch-Black Warwolf seems to be gaining a lot of popularity, providing good ATK and an incredible amount of control. It prevents Mirror Force, Sakuretsu Armor, and Bottomless Trap Hole in the battle step, and basically makes sure that the deck wins when it has the opening to do so. Dust Tornado does the same thing, while also initiating card exchanges in order to simplify the field.

Sakuretsu Armor is a good pick over Bottomless Trap Hole. The deck sets a lot of cards, and since it needs the effects of Dekoichi, Magical Merchant, and Lady Assailant of the Flames, Sakuretsu Armor allows Bui and Robinson to defend themselves from the inevitable side deck of Mystic Swordsman LV2. It also protects the deck’s hand from the threat of Spirit Reaper: losing an on-field card is far better than a random discard, because this deck doesn’t want to take the time to draw a second copy of Return or Bazoo if it draws one in the early game.

With a 4-0 record and a 3-1 record, this deck is performing incredibly well here today. In a relatively slow environment it’s blazingly fast, and like other successfully original decks here today, it forces Chaos Return to play in a manner it was never designed for. Throw off a deck’s tempo and you disrupt the entire strategy that the opponent is trying to execute. Do that, and you win.