Monsters: 17
2 Doom Shaman
2 Yubel
1 Yubel - Terror Incarnate
1 Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare
2 Don Zaloog
3 Armageddon Knight
3 Dark Grepher
3 The Calculator

My absolute favorite part of this game is exploring the many possibilities for unique and devastating card interactions. It’s the driving force behind my cardboard-related thought processes. When I first saw Doom Shaman, I thought to myself, "This card ought to be good somewhere." After all, Il Blud had taken the game by storm, and it was more or less the same card as Doom Shaman. The differences in statistics actually gave Doom Shaman the edge in terms of being able to stand up to other popular monsters in the metagame, but the main thing that kept Doom Shaman down was the fact that Il Blud was much more useful and accessible in the Zombie deck than Doom Shaman was.

Now we have Yubel: a Fiend with more stars than most people are used to seeing on any given card. We can special summon it from the deck with Mystic Tomato, but if we do, it’ll basically act as a chump blocker for a turn and nothing more. I mean, the opponent won’t attack it, but if you haven’t got a monster to tribute at the end phase, Yubel will self-destruct. Unfortunately, that’s the only way to destroy Yubel without setting off its transformation to Yubel - Terror Incarnate, and that makes Tomato a no-go here. Doom Shaman on the other hand, can special summon any Fiend from your hand or graveyard if you keep it long enough to turn on its Gemini effect. Then, if Doom Shaman summons Yubel and the Shaman is somehow removed from the field, Yubel will be destroyed and Terror Incarnate will arise! It’s even more clever when you consider that even if you just summon Yubel with Doom Shaman, you can tribute the Shaman to maintain Yubel’s presence . . . which in turn would set off Yubel’s transformation and allow you a free field clear that turn.

The best way to achieve this scenario involves that nasty little common from Gladiator’s Assault, Swing of Memories. This spell has seen a lot of play in Demise decks to resurrect the Metal Armored Bug used to summon Demise long enough to tribute it for Great Maju Garzett and achieve 8000 points of total offense. Today, we’re going to use the Swing for a much more subtle approach to total domination. If you read the Gemini monster text carefully, you’ll see that it’s treated as a normal monster whenever it’s face up on the field (before you switch it on) and while it’s in the graveyard. As a result, a Doom Shaman in the graveyard is a viable target for Swing of Memories. This allows you to special summon the Shaman, leaving your normal summon open to activate its Gemini effect and drop Yubel. It’s nasty, but how does one set this up? My picks for loading the graveyard are Dark Grepher, Armageddon Knight, and Foolish Burial. Grepher really excels in this deck due to the possibility of playing him to the field for free by discarding one of your level 5 or higher Dark monsters that you really wish you hadn’t drawn. In fact, Grepher can let you set off the entire combo on the first turn of the game causing an absolutely devastating blow to your opponent if he or she can’t come up with something quickly. The problem is that the opponent will probably come up with Raiza the Storm Monarch or Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, the only commonly-played cards that can stymie Terror Incarnate. That’s upsetting to say the least, so I’m going to pack in three copies of Dark Illusion to negate and destroy those nasty effects that target our face-up Dark monsters. It’s even good against Soul Exchange which, judging from the most recent Jump, is a much bigger deal than I’d hoped it would be. What I give up in favor of this protection is the space that I would otherwise use for ways of manually destroying my Yubel like Generation Shift or Assault on GHQ. Whether or not this turns out to be a wise decision remains to be seen. I’d try it both ways and see which works better.

Now we’ve established that we can create a valid reason for your opponent to just not play monsters anymore. How can we win once Terror Incarnate is out? Wouldn’t our own monsters be destroyed too? Sure, if they’re around at the end phase. To help combat this, I’ve included one of my personal favorites, Begone, Knave!, to keep monsters off the field during all stages of the game. Early on, it’ll leave my opponent open to direct shots from Don Zaloog, and later on it’ll allow me to swing for game unopposed with The Calculator. In case you’re unfamiliar with The Calculator, it’s the kind of card that people look at and say, "You know what? Someone’s going to do something really dirty with that." Its original ATK is 300 times the combined levels of all the monsters you control, so with Terror Incarnate and The Calculator, you have a 13*300 = 3900 ATK monster. That’s half of an opponent’s life points, and our quantitative friend will bounce back to the hand due to Begone, Knave! to set up for another swing next turn. Or, if you’re feeling especially cold-hearted and you still have a Metal Reflect Slime set that you didn’t ever need to use as a huge blocker, you could flip it and then play The Calculator for a 23*300 = 6900 ATK swing! It’s ruthlessly unpleasant, and there are very few ways your opponent can stop it once it starts. Not even Light and Darkness Dragon will be able to hold out very long, even if it can negate the field-clearing effect every turn. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crazy Phantom Darkness shenanigans.

If you’re planning on heading out to SJC Houston later on this month, I would seriously consider checking out the next few decks I’ll be building to get an idea of what you might have to go up against at the Jump, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

—Jerome McHale