With the broadening of options rather than the rigid structure of competitive decks, thanks to the Forbidden list, new sets, and previously unreleased cards, the metagame has provided a golden opportunity for you to distinguish yourself.

Legends of the game today include Paul Levitin and Carlos Santiago of Team Scoop, who were relative unknowns when they burst onto the scene with their Bazoo the Soul Eater and Return from the Different Dimension deck. It catapulted them to multiple Shonen Jump Championship Top 8 finishes. Every time a nifty card called Soul Exchange is used, you can expect Evan Vargas to shake his curly head in glee. After all, the combo has Sandtrap stamped all over it. Despite fewer Top 8 finishes than a bevy of other players from other teams, his name still remains as perhaps the largest on the scene.

The point is that originality for originality’s sake might compromise your deck and make it less than spectacular. After all, most duelists would rather win the Des Volstgalph with a solid cookie-cutter deck than fail miserably with their own creation. But when you use originality to achieve dominance over the metagame, that’s a whole different story. The formula looks like this: Innovation plus a Top 8 finish in a Shonen Jump Championship can equal a Yu-Gi-Oh! legend.

Here are a few tips to help you make your mark on the metagame.

Define the primary focus, or win condition, of your new deck idea.

Here are a few historical examples to get you started. At the 2003 World Championship, Hong Kong’s Ng Yu Leung unveiled Drop Off for the first time, a card that stunned those who knew the metagame. However, almost every solid player in the know at that time was impressed. The win condition was simple. Use field clearers, such as Raigeki and Dark Hole, to strike with Don Zaloog, depleting the opponent’s hand. In a low-resource duel, Drop Off would then establish immediate control, halting the opponent’s strategy while destroying his or her life points. If Drop Off was a bad card, this strategy would not have been viable. Because it did, Leung won the World Championship and became a legend.

Or, take the heyday of Pojo.com around February of 2004, when famous Internet players such as Sandtrap and f00b were running the show. David Simon revealed his infamous Metamorphosis Control deck. The idea was to bring out Magical Scientist as fast as possible. 1000 life points and one Metamorphosis later, you had a 2000 ATK monstrosity named Dark Balter the Terrible that could negate an all effect-monster–metagame and stop the all normal-spell–environment. The win condition was clear.

You don’t want multiple win conditions to clutter your deck. Like Teams Scoop or Overdose, stick to a clearly defined goal and then construct your deck around that goal. This brings me to my next key point.

If the win condition doesn’t generate enough advantage to justify its use, your deck is doomed from the start.

With the way decks are constructed these days, let me ask a simple question. In a low-resource situation, would you rather be holding Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch and Mobius the Frost Monarch, or Spirit Reaper and Smashing Ground? The answer is clear. My point is that combo-oriented decks have quite a few drawbacks, one of which is the bad draws they can receive. The overall point, then, is simple.

Your deck’s win condition must generate enough advantage to justify the instances in the game when your draws lead to disadvantages.

Soul Control provides an immediate two-for-one combo. You get the Monarch effect and destroy your opponent’s monster for a simple Soul Exchange. Other engines, such as that of my old Strike Ninja deck, provided two additional monsters for tribute fodder (in the form of D. D. Scout Plane) every time I wanted. It also made the Ninja immune to spell or trap removal, since it could simply pull a Ninja Vanish! In both of these situations, the win conditions provided an equal advantage, or even more of an advantage, than Pot of Greed!

In a match between Tony Lee and Wilson Luc at a Las Vegas Regional tournament, Wilson managed to play Confiscation on Tony’s hand. Tony was holding both Pot of Greed and Painful Choice. Wilson, at a disadvantage because of the relative novelty of the Strike theme (it had just been unveiled a month earlier), discarded the Pot. When Tony played Painful Choice and discarded all Planes, plus Dark Magician of Chaos to the graveyard, the game was basically over. Would he have won against Mr. Luc without originality? Probably not.

When devising your brand-new idea, make sure that it possesses enough power to offset the bad draws that you might get. I see plenty of duelists who use misguided combos such as Mataza the Zapper and United We Stand, which features one limited card and another 1300 ATK monster. These types of combos are not what you’re looking for.

It’s tough to create something truly powerful in this format, so remember why you’re doing it!

Remember, the very best players in the game that use cookie cutter decks are probably more proficient with those decks than the average player will ever be. At best, you can get a 55/45 shot at beating them, most of which is predicated on the strength of your draw. If Anthony Alvarado and Bryan Coronel from Team Overdose were to play each other 50 times, it’s highly unlikely that one of them would win more than 30 games. They play perfectly with their decks, and low variance with an established deck means the draws usually dictate the winner.

Remember, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get a consistent record in a Shonen Jump Championship with a cookie-cutter deck, unless you’re spectacularly lucky or highly skilled. Therefore, carefully guided originality can help you avoid the mirror match and dictate your own advantage.

Now that we’ve established some rules for determining an original combo, let me create something on the fly that helps illustrate the thought process of creating something new. This isn’t exactly original, since Pot of Avarice is everywhere, but let’s take a look at a deck that aims to abuse Pot of Avarice.

1. The win condition is Pot of Avarice. Is it advantageous enough?

2. Yes, it provides a two-for-one advantage if its conditions have been met. Does this offset the bad early draws? If we build our deck right, it does!

3. Do I want to be original? Am I hungry for it? Um, not really . . . but I’ve got an article to finish.

We’ll start with two copies of Pot, since three is sometimes unwieldy. Now, the deck will need milling effects, so we can add two Gravekeeper’s Spy and three Magical Merchant. Because Merchants provide no field control, we’ll add two copies of Cyber Dragon. Losing a Merchant to battle and then popping a Cyber Dragon is a great maneuver. With five Light monsters already, adding Magician of Faith and D. D. Warrior Lady brings us up to seven.

If we can protect the Merchants from being destroyed, they can set up a free tribute cost. Let’s add three Sakuretsu Armor, two Widespread Ruin, Tsukuyomi, Mobius the Frost Monarch, and Zaborg the Thunder Monarch. Now that we’ve added Tsukuyomi, we’ll need more flip effects . . . and so on and so forth.

I hope you can see the thought process behind creating an original theme! Follow the guidelines provided in this article to find your own path to success.