Have you ever wondered just how far you can take a deck concept with just the materials you have on hand? I have. In fact, I tried it out when my local store finally got the Rise of the Dragon Lords structure decks in stock. With a release like this, the general dueling public usually just ravages the deck for whatever hot new singles it holds. This time, Foolish Burial and Trade-In were the objects of the duelists’ desires, but personally, I’d like to use these cards in the context of the structure deck’s strategy before I go about designing a Light and Darkness Dragon deck like everybody else. Thus, I decided to take my structure decks and build as many decks as I possibly could out of them (and any cards I could find in my binder) within one hour. To make things more interesting, I added another condition. Each deck needed to be capable of dropping a continuous stream of 2500+ ATK monsters, the theory being that if Monarchs with a Treeborn Frog can do it, my decks should be able to one-up them in at least the ATK department. I came up with three different decks that fit the requirements, including one that fulfilled my initial goal of exploring the strategy of the structure deck. In fact, you can build this deck primarily from cards found in the new structure, so if you haven’t picked up any copies of it yourself and you’re planning to do so in the near future, go ahead and give this week’s deck a spin before you plug your Foolish Burial and Herald of Creation into whatever else you have planned.

Monster recursion has become a lot more readily available over the past year or so. Unfortunately, most of it has some sort of limitation on how it can be used. Birthright gives normal monsters more copies of Call of the Haunted, Swing of Memories gives you an instant monster on the field (provided it’s a normal monster), and Silent Doom . . . also gives you a normal monster. You know, maybe I don’t want to revive normal monsters this week. The most famous Dragon of them all, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, may be a normal monster, but it’s not in the spirit of the structure to go around and revive normal monsters. The deck itself provides two strong candidates for resurrection: Tyrant Dragon and Felgrand Dragon. Felgrand is a bit of a pain since you need to normal summon it to the field and have it sent from there to the graveyard before you can start using its effect, but in this one instance I’m willing to forgive the inconvenience because the card image so perfectly depicts a “Dragon Lord.” That means that the primary target for revival is Tyrant Dragon. Sure, I’ll need to tribute a Dragon every time I revive the monster, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this is the real purpose behind Decoy Dragon. Any player who takes the time to read the card when it’s summoned will never attack it if there’s a level 7 or higher Dragon in the graveyard, and quite coincidentally, that makes it the perfect Dragon to tribute when you go to revive your Tyrant Dragon. Here’s what I came up with to tackle the challenge.

Monsters: 20

2 The Creator

3 Tyrant Dragon

1 Felgrand Dragon

2 Destiny Hero - Dasher

1 Treeborn Frog

1 Morphing Jar

1 Sangan

2 Herald of Creation

2 The Creator Incarnate

2 Decoy Dragon

3 Masked Dragon

Spells: 16

1 Heavy Storm

1 Card Destruction

1 Premature Burial

2 Trade-In

2 Foolish Burial

3 Monster Gate

2 Reasoning

2 Lightning Vortex

2 Mausoleum of the Emperor

Traps: 5

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Call of the Haunted

2 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast

For those of you who keep track of these kinds of things, the only cards included in this deck that don’t appear in the structure itself are the traps (except Call of the Haunted), Heavy Storm, Card Destruction, the two Destiny Hero - Dasher monsters, Sangan, and the Reasoning and Monster Gate cards. That’s just a bit more than 25% of the deck, and most of those cards are available as commons. As for the deck’s effectiveness? If I had tried this out before the release of Foolish Burial, I’d be very worried about getting my Treeborn Frog out of the deck, since it’s essential to the strategy. You can’t tribute it to bring back Tyrant Dragon, but you can certainly tribute it and anything else to tribute summon Tyrant Dragon or Felgrand Dragon or most importantly, The Creator. Thanks to Foolish Burial, games where I see no sign of the Frog will be few and far between. Cards like Book of Life and D.D. Crow will still be an issue in the Zombie matchup, but it is likely to be phased out of the metagame due to Light and Darkness Dragon. If you haven’t tested that particular matchup yet, then here’s your spoiler alert: Zombies get wrecked by the Dragon. As for how this deck deals with Light and Darkness Dragon, the best bet is to flat-out overpower it with Tyrant Dragon. With 2900 ATK, you can smack down the most hotly anticipated card in recent history and the monster it leaves behind in its wake while staying safe from unpleasant surprises like the premier trap that targets, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast. This is especially grand since most decks won’t survive being forced to topdeck a level 8 monster.

As for what to do if you get stuck drawing all your high-level monsters, there are a couple of options. Trade-In is probably the best thing to happen to Creator-based decks since Treeborn Frog, and that’s saying something. Not only does it provide the draw power of Destiny Draw without needing to commit yourself entirely to a Destiny Hero strategy, it also dumps gigantic monsters into the graveyard where The Creator can pull them directly into play. Draw power and combo power just happen to be exactly what this deck needs, and Trade-In is going to be one of your major sources of both.

Similarly, once you have Treeborn Frog in the graveyard, Monster Gate becomes a huge boon to the strategy, allowing special summons of both The Creator and Tyrant Dragon without needing any tributes. There’s always a chance that you’ll hit something you’d rather not special summon with Monster Gate, like a Decoy Dragon or Morphing Jar, but in this case, it simply becomes tribute material for anything you have in your hand, allowing the flow of massive monsters to continue. Of course, this occurs because this deck plays monsters at a wide variety of levels, making Reasoning particularly useful. If your opponent has seen what you’re up to, he or she will most likely call eight, since your Tyrant Dragon and Creator cards can cause him or her the most trouble. If the opponent’s right, you get another level 8 monster in your graveyard where it can be easily revived, but if he or she’s wrong, you still get a free monster . . . and you’re much more likely to hit one of your big monsters off of Monster Gate when you finally play it.

As I mentioned above, the major concerns with this build are effects that bounce things to the top of your deck, Light and Darkness Dragon, and anything that can remove your Treeborn Frog from the graveyard. In general, I would recommend a side deck that includes both Divine Wrath and Wave-Motion Cannon to help deal with these threats. Swarm decks can also be a problem especially if people don’t give up on Zombies and do pick up six Samurai again. For these situations (in addition to rogue combo decks like Demise), I recommend keeping some copies of Threatening Roar at the ready to combat the aggression. Your advantage lies in the size of your monsters and the fact that Tyrant Dragon can clear two monsters each turn while being protected from Phoenix Wing Wind Blast. So if you decide to modify this deck for your own use, I recommend anything that makes it more difficult for your opponent to use his or her effect monsters against you. In almost every major deck type, the monster effects define what the deck does, so if you can shut that down you’ve immediately given yourself a better chance to win, especially if the opponent is just playing tiny monsters. This is a large part of what Comic Odyssey burn uses to drive its way to victory, and any way that strategy can be adapted to other decks is sure to become popular. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

Jerome McHale

jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu