I’m all about the Beasts lately! After a short stint of netdecking Shonen Jump Championship Baltimore winner Shane Scurry and his earth-shattering Chaos Return deck, I’m back playing more creative fare in my local tournaments. Beasts are my most recent flavor of the week, and when I got the following email from reader Kyle, I couldn’t resist writing an article on his deck.

Hey Jason,

I just got done tweaking my Sacred Crane Return deck. Its goal is to remove the Sacred Crane cards and then use Return from the Different Dimension to put them back into play, activating their effects. This deck has proven metagame-worthy, as the three Chaos Sorcerer cards do the heavy damage and the Sacred Crane cards allow the deck to gain card presence quickly.

Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer would make Chaos Sorcerer unplayable, but it is  also removing the Sacred Crane cards and allowing then to be Returned, along with Cyber Dragon or whatever else is in the removed area. Graceful Charity helps this deck a lot, allowing me to draw three cards and discard Sacred Crane for Premature Burial or Call of the Haunted. Crane cards fuel Chaos Sorcerer too, since it’s a Light monster.

It would be pretty cool for you to fix this deck up for me, because I really want to see some play with it.

Thanks,

Kyle K.

Kyle’s got a neat idea that blends two of my favorite things: Return from the Different Dimension and Sacred Crane. Here’s the decklist that he sent me.

Sacred Crane Return

40 Cards

Monsters: 20

3 Sacred Crane

2 Cyber Dragon

1 Magician of Faith

2 Magical Merchant

1 D. D. Warrior Lady

2 Mystic Tomato

2 Spirit Reaper

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Tsukuyomi

1 Exiled Force

1 Sangan

3 Chaos Sorcerer

Spells: 11

2 Smashing Ground

2 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Premature Burial

1 Scapegoat

1 Book of Moon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Graceful Charity

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Snatch Steal

Traps: 9

2 Return from the Different Dimension

3 Sakuretsu Armor

1 Mirror Force

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

I’m going to remove the three copies of Chaos Sorcerer right off the bat. Not only is this a “deck philosophy” move based on comparisons of this Chaos Return deck to others, but I also didn’t feel completely satisfied with Kyle’s spread of Dark monsters. There weren’t that many if you don’t count the Sorcerer cards, and relying on two copies of Magical Merchant is a poor way to address the issue. Nobleman of Crossout is a big threat to Merchant nowadays, and I prefer Merchant in a supporting role for Pot of Avarice instead of Return, since it establishes a slower tempo that fits a non-Return deck better. For that reason, I’m also going to drop both Magical Merchant cards. With only two copies of Return, and no way of getting them back, it just seems like a poor card to depend on.

With both Magical Merchants gone, this deck is down to just one flip effect monster, so I don’t think Tsukuyomi is worth running anymore. Sure, it’s great Monarch tech and can shut down Jinzo, but I don’t think this deck can use it to its full ability.

Finally, I’m going to remove one Spirit Reaper. It’s a nice stall card in a pinch, and it can reward this deck in the early game if it hits hard coming out, but every day, someone finds a new way to beat it. The amount of Reaper hate in the North American metagame alone is enough to justify discarding a copy. The fact that it doesn’t actually contribute to my intended path to victory is just gravy.

Scapegoat? In a Return deck? Not in my Return deck! If a duelist knows you’re playing Return, and you pop Scapegoat, he or she will let you keep the tokens on the field. All Sheep tokens do is fill up your field, preventing you from stocking up on attackers with Return from the Different Dimension. This card just works against what Kyle is trying to achieve, even before my tweaks. In addition, Exarion Universe and Airknight Parshath are seeing plenty of play, and lots of duelists are running Asura Priest too. Either Scapegoat will lock you out of your primary win condition, or your tokens will be swiftly pierced and destroyed anyway. To me, that’s not worth a card slot. Sorry, Sheep. Some days, being adorable just isn’t enough.

Sakuretsu Armor is my final cut from the deck. I’m just removing one copy, since I’m a bit concerned about the amount of Jinzo cards that this deck could face. I’ll be adding more spell cards that control the field in return.

What’s my big idea for Kyle’s deck, you ask? Sacred Crane is a Winged Beast-type, which gives it a lot of potential advantages over other monsters. The best in this case is the effect of Enraged Battle Ox, which will give Sacred Crane the ability to deal piercing damage!

You see, the one problem with the average Return deck is defense position monsters. If you’re playing a conservative player, or one who just knows to turtle when the turtling’s good, every monster the opponent sets will push you another step away from victory. While Nobleman of Crossout can take care of two monsters and Exiled Force and Mystic Swordsman LV2 can harass face-down cards to some degree, you still slow down. And that, for lack of a technical term, sucks. It sucks a lot.

Enter Enraged Battle Ox, and his ire-filled horde of horned and furry buddies. Is a single Spirit Reaper blocking your path to victory? Oh, good, let’s all take turns whaling on it! Are you faced with a wall of defense position mystery monsters? Hey, just pop Return anyway and start swinging! If you don’t finish the opponent off that turn, then at least you gained some added card presence by Returning a Sacred Crane or two. Or three. Enraged Battle Ox lets all your Sacred Cranes attack through your opponent’s defenses.

So we’re running three of those. Now we’re faced by a very sweet pair of conundrums. Without Chaos Sorcerer, this deck doesn’t have any reliable way of removing its monsters from play, and that simply won’t do in a Return build. At the same time, we have the ability to give any Beast, Beast-Warrior, or Winged-Beast the power to dish out piercing damage at will. Let’s see . . . remove from play monster plus Beast-type equals Bazoo the Soul-Eater, right? Yeah, I think I’ve done my math correctly on that one. In fact, since we’ll be using Bazoo as a potential source of huge damage, I don’t see any problem with running three. A Bazoo and an Enraged Battle Ox make for an imposing sight, no matter what your opponent’s field looks like.

I want to add one more monster, and again, I need to ensure that Enraged Battle Ox’s effect is really played to the hilt. I’m hoping to attack where I want, when I want, which means I can run either Jinzo or something like Mirage Dragon, and Shane Scurry showed how great the latter was in Baltimore. Since then, a lot of duelists have fallen in love with Mirage’s game-breaking effect, and some have also taken note of its Dark attribute counterpart, Pitch-Black Warwolf. The Warwolf happens to be another Beast-Warrior monster, so splashing one copy to combo with Return (or just to ensure that a random attack goes as planned) seems like a really great idea. Like Sacred Crane it will offer 1600 ATK of piercing damage when Enraged Battle Ox is backing it up. Any Return that special summons Warwolf and an Ox is going to be nothing short of ridiculous.

Moving on to spells, I need to replace that Sakuretsu Armor I removed from Kyle’s original build. Again, my main concern here is Jinzo. I’d rather not have this deck’s most important trick shut off, and since Return will often be a dead card, we can’t afford to risk a large trap lineup becoming useless. On the proactive side, another Smashing Ground seems like a good idea. Gravekeeper’s Spy could be rough on this strategy since we have very few monsters that can top its DEF, and a third Smashing Ground will help solve that problem. Moving to a reactive perspective, Enemy Controller will stave off big attacks or steal a troublesome monster that would otherwise block your Return horde. Both spells should have far greater synergy with the deck than Scapegoat or Sakuretsu Armor.

That completes the final list of my changes to the deck! Here’s what they look like.

–2 Magical Merchant

–1 Spirit Reaper

–3 Chaos Sorcerer

–1 Tsukuyomi

–1 Scapegoat

–1 Sakuretsu Armor

+3 Bazoo the Soul-Eater

+3 Enraged Battle Ox

+1 Pitch-Black Warwolf

+1 Smashing Ground

+1 Enemy Controller

The final version of the deck is as follows.

Sacred Crane Return: Jason’s Fix

40 Cards

Monsters: 20

3 Sacred Crane

2 Cyber Dragon

1 Magician of Faith

1 D. D. Warrior Lady

2 Mystic Tomato

1 Spirit Reaper

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Exiled Force

3 Bazoo the Soul-Eater

3 Enraged Battle Ox

1 Pitch-Black Warwolf

1 Sangan

Spells: 12

3 Smashing Ground

2 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Premature Burial

1 Book of Moon

1 Heavy Storm

1 Graceful Charity

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Snatch Steal

1 Enemy Controller

Traps: 8

2 Return from the Different Dimension

2 Sakuretsu Armor

1 Mirror Force

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

That’s it, and it looks pretty cool. I’ve done a ton of work with original Return variants, and the trick to running one successfully is to find advantages that other Return decks don’t offer. Chaos Return has constant monster removal and beats up on Kycoo. Phoenix Blade Return never fears Bottomless Trap Hole or Torrential because it always has something to chain Return to, and its raw numbers can be impressive. Strike Ninja Return has, well, Strike Ninja, and Dark World Return has (you guessed it) Dark World monsters! Kyle’s deck has the massive drawing engine of Sacred Crane and the ability to use Return without immediately winning in order to access an expanded range of options. Plus, it can unleash an unprecedented force of piercing monsters that virtually ignores the opponent’s field presence. Good stuff!

This deck is going to want to open with Mystic Tomato, Sangan, Spirit Reaper, or D. D. Warrior Lady. It’s not as long a list as some other decks boast, so you can expect the first turn to be a little rough sometimes. To make up for this, the deck can become very aggressive early on, pressing for damage as quick as turn 2 with Enraged Battle Ox. In the mid-game, you want to adopt a stick-and-move tempo: keep the pressure on the opponent, and score damage when you can while you build your way towards the late game. Play aggressively, but don’t be afraid to get into a setting war, because momentum isn’t that important at this point. Yes, your opponent might flip a few Dekoichis or Skelengels, but remember that when it comes down to it, your win condition is in no way related to your opponent’s card presence. Unlike most Return builds, this deck doesn’t really need to establish a topdecking situation in order to emerge victorious. Treeborn Frog? Leave it there—its low DEF is awesome. The same goes for Magician of Faith, Magical Merchant, and a host of other weenies that tend to go to defense position after they flip.

Keep the threat of Heavy Storm open whenever possible. Once you play it, any opponent who has culled a few good spell or trap cards will start setting them more frequently, and that means an increased count of threats to your Return horde. This deck is especially fun to run against bean-counting duelists who value card advantage above all else. They’re the kind of opponent least likely to over-extend in the back row, even if they have the card advantage to justify doing so. This deck can punish such as player like none other.

Your most difficult matchup is Lockdown Burn. Like most Return decks, Ceasefire wrecks you unless you have Pitch-Black Warwolf on your list of attackers. This deck has very little spell and trap removal (no Mobius the Frost Monarch and no Dust Tornado), so it’s going to need to side deck hard into spell and trap destruction. Three Dust Tornado cards are a must, and a couple Giant Trunade or Mobius cards won’t hurt either. Once you can attack, you’ll be able to blow gaping holes into monsters like Stealth Bird and Solar Flare Dragon, but it’s the attacking part that can get tricky.

You may also want to side deck Dust Tornado for the Dark World matchup. You can set Dust Tornado and wait for an opponent to target it with Dark World Lightning, then use its second effect to set Return and have it ready for your next battle phase. This move denies Lightning’s ability to discard a Dark World monster, and you get Return ready without leaving it open to destruction.

Chaos can be a bit difficult to handle, but remember that Bazoo can overpower Chaos Sorcerer when needed. In addition, Enemy Controller can steal you a Sorcerer and let you remove a monster from play, including itself. Again, the trick is managing the opponent’s low DEF monsters. If you can’t gain control of the field, leave those weak monsters there and unleash a flurry of piercing monsters later. Take care not to leave your opponent with tribute fodder, but the more dedicated he or she is about running Chaos Sorcerers, the fewer tributes you’ll see.

Against Monarch Control, this deck just wants to go totally aggro. If the opponent wants to bring that Treeborn Frog back, slam it with something and beat through some damage every turn you can. Make him or her pay dearly for using it, and lean hard on him or her as soon as possible. Most Monarch Control decks are rife with small effect monsters, especially Spirit Reaper. Just watch out for Gravekeeper’s Spy. As I noted earlier, its high DEF can be really annoying to deal with.

That’s the deck! If you’re looking for a really entertaining Return variant that gives you unique (and strong) advantages over your competition, this is for you. It’s a flexible low-budget strategy, too. Cyber Dragon, Enemy Controller, and Mirror Force are the only cards it uses that don’t have non-holo counterparts, and you can substitute for those cards to fit your own tastes if you’re missing any. I’m really pleased with this deck and would endorse it for tournament-level experimentation, so give it a shot! Hopefully the fix helps Kyle out!

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

Do you have an Advanced format deck you could use some help with, or that you just want to show off to the world? Do you want to see it appear in a future Apotheosis article? Send it to me at Jason(at)metagame(dot)com, with your name, location, and explanation of how the deck works—I might take a crack at it!