Now that Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore has come and gone, we’ve all seen the power of Psychic monsters. I think most people knew to expect what we saw this past weekend. The ability of Krebons, Psychic Commander, and Emergency Teleport to create both a Tuner suite and a tribute summoning engine was well-recognized heading into the event, and unless you were a complete and total skeptic (and hadn’t actually tried Teleport decks yourself) there was no way you should have been surprised.
So Psychics are good as a support engine in a variety of decks—that’s fact at this point. But where do we go from here? Previously, a lot of people (including myself) had written off the notion of a dedicated Psychic deck. I mean, I had high hopes for some OTK hijinks involving Mind Master equipped with Telekinetic Charging Cell sending three quarters of my deck to the graveyard, but that wasn’t a Psychic deck per se—it was just an OTK concept, and it wasn’t going to use much real Psychic support. But now, with the most obvious points locked into place, I’m sure I’m not the only person taking a closer look at the really hardcore Psychic cards.
And frankly, I like what I see.
George G from the UK feels the same way, and he sent me a Psychic Synchro deck that goes way beyond the Dark Armed Dragon builds we saw in Baltimore. Here’s what he has to say about his deck:
Hi, I’m George G. from the UK. I’ve been reading the articles on your website. I’ve seen quite a lot of acclaim for both Psychics and Synchros, and I thought I would create a deck devoted to both, seeing as they fit so well together. The basic idea for this deck is to oppress the opponent as much as possible in the Battle Phase with cards like Psychic Commander and Burden of the Mighty, while Psi-Station, Mind Master, and Emergency Teleport try to create ideal situations for Synchro summons.
Thanks for your time,
—George G, United Kingdom
The following is the decklist George sent me:
Psycho Synchros—40 Cards
Monsters: 17
3 Krebons
3 Psychic Commander
3 Doctor Cranium
1 Mind Protector
2 Psychic Snail
2 Telekinetic Shocker
2 Mind Master
1 Destructotron
Extra Deck: 153 Magical Android
3 Thought Ruler Archfiend
3 Stardust Dragon
3 Goyo Guardian
3 Red Dragon Archfiend
I think George has a mix of some very good ideas, and some that might not be as practical. There are definite gems in this lineup, and I want to see if we can make a competitive, battle-oriented deck (not an OTK) with a dedicated Psychic lineup. I’ll emphasize what I feel to be the good ideas and remove the chaff to keep the deck focused.
So first, we need to make some cuts! All three copies of Doctor Cranium are axed right off the bat. Emergency Teleport provides a lot of search power—especially combined with Mind Master—so you can keep the monsters you search. Doctor Cranium is just too slow for current competitive decks, and its life point cost is also a problem for the direction I want to head. Both copies of Telekinetic Shocker get dropped since they’re basically just a sub-par beatstick, and I’ll drop one copy of Mind Master for the sake of space.
One Telekinetic Charging Cell will be removed—I plan to drop some of the life point-costed cards, and three copies of the Cell seems like overkill in a deck that won’t be relying on it to win. In an OTK build this would be justifiable, but here, it doesn’t seem that important. Psi-Station is dropped because it’s conditional, and Battle Tuned gets dropped because it’s slow and we can run better defensive cards. Telepathic Power fails to make the cut for both reasons. It’s conditional, and simply not as good as other defensive cards we could be running.
Reasoning gets the axe for being completely random in a deck that requires precision. A free summon is usually good, but it isn’t here, because the monsters I’m keeping in do such a wide variety of things. Pot of Avarice will be dropped for the better Pot of Avarice Psychics have been afforded, and finally I’ll drop Mirror Force because it can’t stop Stardust Dragon or Gladiator Beast Gyzarus.
That leaves us with seventeen open card slots before we have to consider crossing the 40-card minimum deck size—something I may actually do with this deck despite the fact that it’s mathematical heresy. My first addition to the deck is an easy one: two copies of D.D. Crow.
You’d have to work pretty hard to get me to run a deck in this format that doesn’t main at least two copies of Crow. I don’t like losing to Destiny Hero - Malicious or Stardust Dragon, and I really like punishing the folks running those cards, so Crows are a must for almost everything I’m building right now. If I could fit three copies in the deck I would, but I can’t find the space. Still, two are definitely being included.
Next I’ll add two copies of what I think might be the sleeper hit of the Psychic theme—Mind Protector. This card was a bit difficult for me to understand at first: it’s a defensive card that’s far more secure in defense mode, but essentially needs to be played in attack position to survive—otherwise a Gladiator Beast can bump into it and just tag out to Gladiator Beast Murmillo, and you lose your Mind Protector. But the thought process I went through was flawed, because there’s actually nothing wrong with just summoning this guy in attack mode—virtually nothing can get through its effect, and the only monsters that can do so require either a tribute or a special summon effect to do it. I think if you can keep Mind Protector on the field long enough you auto-win against Gladiator Beasts because they’ll never be able to tag out, while the right trap lineup could cripple Teleport Dark Armed. That leaves Mind Protector to buy you time as you build toward an assured win.
Good game plan. The only flaw is keeping Mind Protector safe from those big baddies that can get rid of it—Gyzarus, Monarchs, big Synchros, and Gladiator Beast Laquari. Laquari won’t be a concern if you’re fast enough: you can stop a Gladiator player from ever attacking by dropping this dude on turn 1. The rest, however, require cold hard negation to take care of. Luckily this deck can run up to six copies of Solemn Judgment thanks to Mind Over Matter, a fact we’ll be taking advantage of later on.
In the meantime I really want to wipe out opposing copies of Solemn Judgment while getting more utility out of Telekinetic Charging Cell, so that means maxing out on Destructotron. With a respectable 1600 ATK and the ability to Harpie’s Feather Duster your opponent, Destructotron is a mean card in your average competitive metagame. I’ll also add another Psychic Snail, simply because it’s an on-theme card with a very high ATK. Its effect doesn’t really matter so much as the fact that the Snail has 1900 ATK and the Psychic monster-type. That means it can run trade with Gyzarus when it’s backed by Psychic Commander, and it can provide field presence to create synergy with Destructotron or Mind Over Matter. We’re going to be keeping George’s Burden of the Mighty tech to combo with Mind Protector, and that’s going to make Psychic Snail more dangerous as well.
Heavy Storm is a must, even in a deck that’s going to be running a rather high number of traps by the time I’m finished. Two copies of Mind Control will clear a defender from the field once we’re ready to go for the big win, and they make for easy Synchro summons too. This deck can draw on three Tuners of different levels via Emergency Teleport, so matching the right Tuner to whatever you take with Mind Control should never be too tough.
From there I’ll replace the two copies of Pot of Avarice with Psychic Overload, a card that’s easier to play due to its lower requirements. The lower graveyard threshold makes the card faster, helping you preempt D.D. Crow. It’s also chainable, so when you don’t have an answer to Gladiator Beast Bestiari or Gyzarus you can at least make them waste their effects.
Finally I’m going to load up on defense: three Bottomless Trap Hole cards remain an exceedingly solid choice in this format, while three copies of Solemn Judgment provide hard negation. You really need to pilot a deck like this to get the full impact of its negation suite: while we all probably know what it’s like to have three trump cards for anything your opponent might do, having six is insane, and it’s one of the top reasons to even attempt a deck like this. Sure, early game Solemns can make it hard to pay for some of your Psychic effects, but careful play can render that a moot point. If worst comes to worst, remember that Telekinetic Charging Cell can pay for almost every Psychic monster’s life point cost anyway. If you run out of life points to pay for Mind Protector’s maintenance cost, you can still shield yourself with Krebons.
So let’s recap! Here are the changes I made to George’s first build:
In addition, I noticed he’s not running Colossal Fighter, so I decided to tweak George’s Extra deck a little. With Lightsworn and Little City both packing Honest, I think every Extra deck needs two copies of the Fighter just to be on the safe side.
-1 Red Dragon Archfiend
-1 Magical Android
+2 Colossal Fighter
My version of the deck looks like this:
Psycho Synchros—Jason’s Fix—41 Cards
Monsters: 18
3 Krebons
3 Psychic Commander
3 Psychic Snail
1 Mind Master
3 Destructotron
2
D.D. Crow3 Mind Protector
Extra Deck: 15
2 Magical Android
3 Thought Ruler Archfiend
3 Stardust Dragon
3 Goyo Guardian
2 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Colossal Fighter
Yes, sir, that is in fact Jason Grabher-Meyer with a 41-card decklist. Personally, I’d rather leave the decision of which card to cut to you—there are a few candidates, and it’s going to come down to playing style. If you build this thing and give it a shot, figure out if you need the second Mind Control, the third Bottomless Trap Hole, or the third Psychic Commander. They all have their advantages, but they may not be necessary for your metagame or your personal approach. If you can get the deck down to 40 cards, by all means do so.
This deck’s main strength is that it’s very hard to kill. Mind Protector and Psychic Commander often make it impossible for your opponent to attack, and even if all you’ve got out is Psychic Snail, there isn’t much that can swing over it. Burden of the Mighty, Bottomless Trap Hole, and Psychic Commander’s effect make it even easier to keep the little guys under control, while Mind Over Matter and Solemn Judgment are run chiefly to help you end games, or to defend you from the bigger threats. This is a fast deck that punishes inaction, and it’s about as close to a Synchro Beatdown strategy as you can get. It also plays Synchros differently as a result.
There are a lot of matchups where a Teleport Dark Armed player wants to drop Stardust Dragon as quickly as possible. But that won’t always be the case here. Since you have superior defense and negation abilities, and can keep your monsters on the field longer than other Synchro decks, playing to the riskier Goyo Guardian is a safer tactic. At the same time, Stardust Dragon is here to protect specific pieces of your infrastructure, more so than to win the game all on its own—it’s part of a larger negation suite, so it often needs to be played a bit differently.
Building your field presence is a precise matter, and because the number of Psychics you control essentially dictates the number of times you can activate Mind Over Matter, you need to manage your on-field monsters very carefully. Remember that while Destructotron is an amazing threat that can clear the field for big attacks (or simply keep your opponent from setting cards), it also isn’t as big as Psychic Snail, and it can’t defend itself. Mind Master is invaluable, because it lets you flip out as many Psychics as you need in order to have the perfect field. Psychic Overload is also an important part of this strategy, letting you recycle Psychics you didn’t need before, but could use now.
Deciding when and where to play Telekinetic Charging Cell is also important. You can’t always count on using its recursive effect, so be careful where you spend your two copies. It’s best to save your Charging Cell until it can help you make serious progress toward a win—don’t just blow it to get a quick two cards with Destructotron if you can’t follow up.
I think decks like this one have a lot of potential, controlling the battle phase in a totally original way. Speed and big moves are currently the two easiest paths to victory, and this deck is fine-tuned to shut down both of those strategies while also just pounding its way toward a win. It’s got some complexities to it, but at its core it’s just a very simple deck, and that kind of simplicity makes the idea reliable.
Give it a shot yourself! There’s a lot more to Psychics than Emergency Teleport and Krebons, and the players who really accept and master that fact might have a big advantage at upcoming events.
‘Til next time, I’m,
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Want to see your deck featured in The Apotheosis? Send your decklist, formatted like the one in this article, along with your name, location, and a short description of how the deck works, to metagamedeckfixes@gmail.com.