Monsters: 18

The idea behind this deck is pretty simple: negate everything that’s going to cause you trouble. Ideally you’ll want to negate the cards that make your opponent’s hand function. For example, negating both Elemental Hero Stratos and then Allure of Darkness can really trap an opponent who’s now stuck with Dark Magician of Chaos, Dark Armed Dragon, and D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation. Without negation cards holding it back, there’s no telling how powerful this hand could get. Imagine Stratos grabbing Destiny Hero - Disk Commander, followed by Destiny Draw and Monster Reborn off the Allure. It’s a pretty lucky sequence of events, but one that was only possible because you allowed your opponent to play all of his or her good cards.

Jerome’s deck doesn’t want to let that happen. These days, there are so many key cards that will win matchups or turn a losing game into a winning one. Test Tiger and Elemental Hero Prisma come to mind, as well as Judgment Dragon, Monster Reborn, and Return from the Different Dimension. Most players have to make sure these cards don’t see play by discarding them from the hand or having a one-of answer. The traps in Jerome’s deck means that he’s got plenty of answers.

Torrential Tribute, Mirror Force, and Bottomless Trap Hole are the most basic answers. They can protect Jerome’s life points and field presence by dealing with attackers and key opposing monsters. Bottomless Trap Hole is an especially effective card right now, stopping a lot of important monsters from working in a lot of decks. Both Judgment Dragon and Dark Armed Dragon are usually saved to win the game with, and almost every time will need their massive ATK to make that happen. Remove those monsters from the field—even if they can get their effect off once—and your opponent probably can’t defeat you.

Elemental Hero Prisma and Gladiator Beast Darius are two key monsters in the Gladiator Beast matchup, since they’ll primarily be responsible for special summoning the Gladiator Beast Fusions. Bottomless is also a good answer to Gladiator Beast Gyzarus, and will usually turn the otherwise powerful Fusion monster into a simple two-for-two trade.

Solemn Judgment and Divine Wrath take monster removal a step further. Each has a significant cost to bear, but the effects completely negate the opponent’s card. Each is also a counter trap, meaning that Bountiful Artemis can offset their costs. Negating Elemental Hero Stratos or Cyber Valley can stop an opponent dead in his or her tracks. Suddenly, the amazing hand of Elemental Hero Stratos, Reinforcement of the Army, two Destiny Draw cards, and Dark Armed Dragon isn’t looking so hot because you’ve negated Stratos and Reinforcement.

Magic Drain takes that school of thought a step further. Generally the most devastating plays are a chain of spell or trap cards and monster effects followed by a field of monsters. Magic Drain can shut that plan down before it even happens, forcing the opponent to decide between Destiny Draw’s effect or the Monster Reborn he or she is holding. With Artemis on the field, Magic Drain is really going to make your opponents groan, as they are forced to pick the lesser of two evils while you enjoy a free card.

Dark Bribe is the final counter trap in Jerome’s deck, and it’s there for the same reason as Magic Drain. Stopping almost any spell or trap card is going to force your opponent to take a different route to victory, or may take victory away entirely. There’s nothing like playing your hand out in a bid to win with a big Return from the Different Dimension combo, only to have it stopped by Dark Bribe. Suddenly your win condition is simply negated and you’ve wasted too many cards to make a comeback.

As you can see, Jerome’s main strategy is to cripple the opponent’s hand and field by negating all of his or her best cards. What made the deck weak before was the lack of answers for cards that could avoid being negated. Your opponent might have more good cards than you have counter traps, or may have a bunch of spell and trap removal and one Dark Armed Dragon. Jerome takes this problem into consideration, and uses his monster cards as the answer.

Since running out of counter traps is the problem, it seems that the best idea would be to get them back. That’s what Harvest Angel of Wisdom does. We already know how powerful multiple copies of Solemn Judgment or Dark Bribe can be, and the result is the same when applied to Magic Drain or Divine Wrath. In addition, Harvest is packing a pretty decent amount of ATK power. That’s one of the strengths of Jerome’s monster line-up. In addition to being useful through their effects, most of the monsters are big enough to cause some damage. Even Bountiful Artemis packs 1600 ATK.

Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, Freed the Brave Wanderer, and D.D. Warrior Lady are the deck’s easy monster removal cards. Each can take care of an opposing threat in its own way, and in Ryko’s case the destruction effect extends to any target. Ryko and Freed have particularly strong synergy as well, since Ryko’s graveyard-fuelling effect can provide the necessary fodder for Freed’s monster destruction.

Finally, most of Jerome’s monsters have the Light attribute, which means Honest is an automatic three-of. A Sakuretsu Armor and Magic Cylinder rolled into one, playable from the hand, is something that just can’t be turned down. Furthermore, Honest is one of the best answers to Jerome’s problem with monsters that dodge the counter-traps. Honest can take care of them offensively by attacking with another Light monster, or defensively when your opponent tries to attack.

Counter Fairies are clearly a deck worthy of Shonen Jumps. Jerome made that quite clear when he secured a spot in the Top 16 after defeating a handful of well-known players on Day 1. Now we just wait and see if his work has any impact on the upcoming American and Canadian National Championships.

—Matt Peddle