Good day, duelists! I’m back again to show you the most basic mathematical principle in the universe: two cards are indeed better than one. I’ll take a quick look at the U.S. Nationals decklists and see if anything strikes my fancy as inspiration for a powerful combo. One moment . . .
Well, now that I actually know what they are, I have some ideas for combos. One dominant combo at Nationals several weeks ago was Machine Duplication and Card Trooper. I have no intent of building a deck around that, since many successful builds are already published. But I did get some nice ideas while looking at Card Trooper, which is capable of dumping a lot of cards from your graveyard into your deck. Card Trooper is phase one of the plan, and phase three is profit. Phase two??? Recycling.
Well, perhaps I should be more specific. Phase two is Recycle. That very simple two-card combo effectively allows you to put the best spells or traps in your graveyard back into your deck (albeit at the bottom). Let’s meditate on this. By thinning the deck with cards like Card Trooper, Volcanic Shell, Thunder Dragon, and Giant Rat, we can leave the deck very thin. Many effects that thin the deck also shuffle it, and Card Trooper plays a double role in drawing the card while also digging down into the deck to get at it.
Let’s think of some ways to use this: Mirror Force would make it hard for your opponent to attack, and would also protect a monster like Des Lacooda, which could work well with Giant Rat. Swords of Revealing Light could make it harder to attack. Two copies of Drop Off would make it hard for your opponent to draw a card to fight back . . . if they were the only cards left in your deck. The same applies to Solemn Judgment. Heck, Pot of Avarice would let you shuffle in Card Trooper for Machine Duplication and Thunder Dragon, Volcanic Shell, or Giant Rat, should you need them. Then you can use Recycle on the Pot of Avarice to help the environment and make the combo very persistent.
This deck is so beautifully synergistic that I won’t even waste time talking you through the build. I’ll just show it to you and then discuss all the cool tricks in it.
Reuse, Replenish, Recycle—40 cards
Monsters: 16
3 Card Trooper
3 Nimble Momonga
3 Giant Rat
2 Des Lacooda
2 Snipe Hunter
3 Volcanic Shell
Spells: 11
3 Recycle
1 Snatch Steal
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Pot of Avarice
1 Limiter Removal
2 Machine Duplication
1 Swords of Revealing Light
Traps: 13
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Drop Off
3 Solemn Judgment
2 Solemn Wishes
2 Jar of Greed
It’s not very often I stumble upon a deck I like this much. The extra deck thinning works very well with Recycle, allowing you to reach a point in the game where there are no cards left in your deck except for the ones you put there with Recycle. Since you can use the card multiple times in the same standby phase, you can, for example, put Heavy Storm and Limiter Removal on top of your deck, and then draw them with Des Lacooda or Jar of Greed. Another excellent card you could use here is Good Goblin Housekeeping, although I preferred using Jar of Greed.
One thing that Jar of Greed does (besides facilitate the deck thinning), is allow you to set up a Drop Off lock one turn sooner than you could otherwise, or help you draw into a particular card. Card Trooper is another beast, putting cards from the top of your deck into your graveyard and digging you closer to the bottom. In tandem, you can put two copies of Drop Off on the bottom of your three-card deck, put the top three cards into the graveyard, and be left with two copies of Drop Off as your deck. Activate Jar of Greed, draw one, and then set it . . . if you liked the deck I built using Aswan Apparition, this particular combo should be right up your alley. With Des Lacooda out on the field, your opponent may as well forfeit. You will use Recycle to put Drop Off on the bottom of your deck, and then Swords of Revealing Light. Then you’ll draw the Drop Off with Des Lacooda, and next turn you will draw the Swords, using Recycle to put Drop Off and, say, Solemn Judgment on the bottom. Then you repeat it to put Solemn Wishes down, and use Recycle on Swords of Revealing Light and Drop Off to start over. Call of the Haunted brings out Card Trooper, and then Pot of Avarice comes back and puts two copies of Volcanic Shell, two copies of Snipe Hunter, and whatever else you like in your deck, and then you grind away with Card Trooper. If, miraculously, you don’t draw a Snipe Hunter, you can simply wait until you have the opportunity to use Pot of Avarice again. It’s not like your opponent is doing anything without any cards in his or her hand—unable to attack thanks to your continual activation of Swords of Revealing Light and Drop Off. If you do draw the Snipe Hunter . . . well, your opponent can enjoy watching you slowly obliterate his or her field with Volcanic Shell.
You are drawing two cards of your choice every turn, and very quickly you’ll be setting up a nice stock of life points with Solemn Wishes, which may go down once you start locking the opponent with Solemn Judgment. Because of the massive thinning power, you can set up this kind of late-game dominance over your opponent with haste. I know I’d like to be able to draw any card I wanted for a mere 300 life points. It takes a bit of thought to play, but the deck is almost more sinister than the Aswan Apparition build. Here’s a list of things you can do to have fun with this strategy.
1) Add Sangan. I want to have room for it, but it seems too slow here and not worth the addition of another monster slot.
2) Make a toolbox for Giant Rat. I just chose to use Card Trooper and Des Lacooda, but many more possibilities exist, including another monster in the vein of Des Lacooda—Golem Sentry. Medusa Worm is also an option.
3) Thunder Dragon.
4) More defense to help set up more quickly with Des Lacooda.
It’s hard to explain how awesome this deck is. You really have to try it. Take whatever you want from it, but I really like it myself.
Until next time, duelists!
—Matt Murphy