When I first decided to write articles about the Silent Swordsman and Horus families of monsters, I planned to write about the Silent Swordsmen first. This is partly because I think Warriors are cool, and partly because I actually have a Silent Swordsman deck that I like to play every once in a while. That was the plan—at least, until I arrived back home after judging at Regionals last weekend to find that someone had scrawled, “Dragonz RULE!! Number 1! LOL!!!111one!” across my backyard. With fire. I took the hint and decided to start things off with the Horus deck instead.

First, though, I’d like say that the responses I’ve gotten to both my Rocketman deck from two weeks ago and to the new Forbidden list in general has been very interesting. Opinions on the new list seem to be surprisingly mixed, with about half the players I’ve spoken to or heard from through email saying that they love the new list because it gives power to theme decks and somewhat significantly lowers the luck factor . . . while the other half of the players claim to hate it for the very same reasons. Either way, it’s going to be an interesting six months. As for the Rocketman deck, I seemed to receive the same suggestion over and over again, so I’ve picked out the email that I think best expresses that idea.

D. Howe Tells it Like it Is

“You’re using a whopping six self-replacing monsters and Sangan. Creature Swap would be great here.”

That is completely true, and it amazes me that I didn’t do this in the first place. I tried the deck out with Creature Swap instead of Enemy Controller, like Mr. Howe suggested, and it works quite nicely. Especially when you manage to steal Cyber Dragon with that Creature Swap. All right, now that that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the main attraction.

Everybody knows that spells are an extremely important part of this game. With the recent change to the Forbidden list, spells are quite possibly the most powerful cards in the game at the moment. As such, it’s quite common to see anywhere from fourteen to eighteen spells in every competitive deck. That’s more than one-third of the average 40-card deck. Now, imagine if you could make every single one of those cards completely useless to your opponent without affecting your own ability to play spells—a one-sided, permanent, free Imperial Order. Now attach that ability to a Dragon that has 3000 ATK. If that appeals to you, then you might want to try out this week’s deck, which is based on Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8.

“Fang and Flame”

Monsters: 19

1 Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8

2 Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6

3 Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4

3 Drillroid

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Morphing Jar

1 Exiled Force

1 Magician of Faith

2 D.D.Assailant

1 Sangan

1 Injection Fairy Lily

1 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

Spells: 17

1 Dark Hole

1 Lightning Vortex

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

3 Enemy Controller

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Book of Moon

1 Premature Burial

1 Snatch Steal

2 Smashing Ground

2 Messenger of Peace

1 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Confiscation

Traps: 4

1 Call of the Haunted

3 Royal Decree

What we have here is a Control deck that’s based on locking down as many of your opponent’s cards as possible. Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8 ruins your opponent’s spell-based plans while still allowing your own. Royal Decree negates any nasty traps your opponent may have waiting for you while you sit there and laugh, because the only trap you play is Call of the Haunted. Finally, once you get your Level 8 Horus on to the field, it’s a safe bet that your opponent is going to be playing defensively. Why not punish him or her for that by playing a set of Drillroids to remove all those pesky Spirit Reapers, D.D. Assailants, and any other nasty monsters that you don’t want to have to attack? In fact, once you have the lock in place, about the only things that the opponent can do to try and save him- or herself are to summon Exiled Force and use it to destroy Horus or to ram a D. D. Assailant or D. D. Warrior Lady into Horus and remove it from play.* However, the only guaranteed method is to use Exiled Force, as you have three Enemy Controllers with which to stop any potential attackers.

Speaking of Enemy Controller, this card is absolutely vital to your strategy. Since you have no functional traps** aside from Call of the Haunted, those Controllers are your primary method for blocking attacks and switching opposing monsters to defense position, so that your Horus LV4 and LV6 can destroy them to level up. Two copies of the classic stall card Messenger of Peace are also in your arsenal.

Messenger of Peace is great in this deck for a few reasons. First, the general tempo of games in the new format is pretty fast, and Messenger of Peace lets you slow things down a bit. Second, Messenger of Peace can be used to save yourself from impending doom if your opponent manages to get an early rush. Sure, he or she might draw or already have a removal card to take out your Messenger, or there might be some monsters that are unaffected by your Messenger, but having that Messenger of Peace can drastically increase your chances of surviving long enough to get back in the game. Finally, Messenger of Peace combos nicely with Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6. Horus LV6 is unaffected by all spell cards, so it can attack through your Messenger of Peace. Heck, it can attack through the opponent’s Messenger as well, or even Swords of Revealing Light, and Level Limit – Area B doesn’t switch it to defense position, either. It’s also Dark Hole-proof, and once people start to realize exactly what can’t affect Horus LV6, we might start seeing it as tech in Beatdown decks and other aggressive archetypes.

Most of the rest of the spells are devoted to removing those obstacles between your dragon and the opponent’s life points. Many people seem to think that Heavy Storm and Mystical Space Typhoon are unnecessary in this deck—but I would remind those people that even though you have three Royal Decrees in the deck, that doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have them when you need them or even that you’ll draw them at all. Besides, even if you do have Royal Decree out, how are you going to stop your opponent from using Premature Burial or Snatch Steal if you don’t yet have your Horus LV8 on the field?

I’m also aware that there’s a large group of people out there who are reading this and yelling at their computer screens about the lack of Level Up! in this deck. Brace yourselves, for I am about to reveal the shocking truth about Level Up!: It’s not very good. “Blasphemy!” you cry, but if you take some time to think about it, you’ll see what I mean. Level Up! is only useful if you have one of two cards on the field already; namely, Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4 and Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6. If at any point you’re holding Level Up! without one of those monsters on the field, it’s a dead card. If you’re holding it after you get Horus LV8 on to the field, it’s a dead card. It can’t interact with any other cards in your deck, unless you discard it to pay a cost. This means that you’re running a card in your deck that’s only useful if you have a specific situation on the field, or if you’re using it as a set bluff or a discard. That doesn’t seem very useful to me, especially when all you have to do to trigger Horus’s own leveling effect is have it destroy a monster.

Enough of the theory behind the deck—I’m sure you’re all wondering how it plays out in real life. A good opening play is to summon Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4 and set an Enemy Controller, which is reasonably likely when you consider that you have three copies each of the Controller and Horus LV4. Assuming that your opponent does not have Heavy Storm or Mystical Space Typhoon in his opening hand, or that he or she chooses not to use them on your single face down card, the most probable move for your opponent is to special summon a Cyber Dragon.

If your opponent is also holding Don Zaloog or Spirit Reaper, he or she may try to grab an early advantage and summon that as well. The best-case scenario for you is for your opponent to summon Cyber Dragon and a non-Spirit Reaper monster that has an ATK value less than 1600. If that’s the case, then all you have to do is block Cyber Dragon’s attack with Enemy Controller and then attack the other monster next turn. Barring the interference of any traps (because I’m assuming you won’t already have Royal Decree out), you should have Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6 in play for your opponent’s second turn.

Obviously, this is a simplified and idealized version of a possible game against a Cyber Dragon Beatdown deck, but even in non-ideal situations your goal remains the same. Put out Horus LV4, block opposing attacks, swing back next turn, and destroy one of their monsters to level up. Unfortunately, this could prove to be somewhat difficult, mainly because of Cyber Dragon’s 1600 DEF. Horus can’t take it out on its own, so you need the opponent to summon another monster that you can destroy in order for the plan to work. Once you do get your Horus LV6 out, destroying another monster should be a piece of cake, and you’ll then be able to bring out Horus LV8, hopefully with Royal Decree in tow.

The Horus deck has a somewhat decent first-game matchup against Burn decks as well. To capitalize on that, though, you’ll have to modify your strategy. Your main goal should still be to get Horus LV8 on to the field, but you might need to make sure you have another Horus LV6 to back it up. Horus LV8 can’t negate spells that are already on the field, like Messenger of Peace or Level Limit – Area B. Your primary concerns in this matchup should be Wave-Motion Cannon and Lava Golem. Since you can’t negate the Cannon once it’s already on the field, it becomes incredibly important to eliminate the opponent quickly. Combine that with the fact that the longer it takes you to win, there’s a greater chance that your opponent will tribute away your Horus LV8 for a Lava Golem. This is a matchup where Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon, and Royal Decree really shine. The Decree shuts down Secret Barrel, Ceasefire, Magic Cylinder, and Dimension Wall, and can even prevent an opponent from activating Judgment of Anubis, making it a key card in the matchup. As for Heavy Storm and Mystical Space Typhoon, we’re talking about a Burn deck here. I’m sure you can find something you’ll want to blow away.

As an added bonus, your Royal Decrees also help protect you against the dreaded Last Turn combo deck in the first game, making your chances of victory a lot higher than if you were to be blindsided without any trap negation at all in game one. However, Cyber-Stein and Ben Kei combo decks will still be a problem, due to their excessive use of Giant Trunade to clear the field before committing to an attack.

On the bright side, Zombies will lose to you, thanks to your Enemy Controllers and the inability of both Horus LV4 and LV6 to be stolen by Creature Swap. Trust me, the look on a Zombie player’s face when he runs his Pyramid Turtle into Horus LV4 to bring out Vampire Lord, only to have it shifted to defense position by Enemy Controller, is priceless—especially when you destroy Vampire Lord with Horus LV6 next turn and level up to 8.

To recap, Horus has a fairly even matchup with Cyber Dragon/Cyber-Warrior Beatdown and Burn decks, and it excels against Zombie and Combo decks that don’t rely on Giant Trunade to clear the field before they go for a win. As always, if you decide to try this deck out, please drop me a line at jcmchale AT andrew DOT cmu DOT edu and tell me how it goes. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

—Jerome McHale

NEXT WEEK: The Silent Swordsman family has a chance to steal! Come on back to see how these Warriors will fare in the evolving metagame, and how they stack up against their draconic counterparts.

*Well, if you’re playing the deck from my article last week, I guess you could ram Dark Necrofear into Horus LV8 and take control of it that way. Horus can’t negate monster effects, even if they involve turning monsters into spells.

**By “functional” traps, I mean a non-Royal Decree trap.