Ah,
Byser Shock. A perennial favorite in Japan and Europe,
Byser Shock is a card that gets very little respect in the US. It’s a unique card that requires some skill to play correctly, but it’s highly versatile and can really control the tempo of a game. Though it can be deadly in combination with
Anti-Spell Fragrance, today we’ll look at a deck that takes
Byser Shock in a different direction. Here’s what its contributor, Ben M., had to say about his deck.
I'm not a great deckbuilder, and I seem to have a knack for choosing neglected cards to use in decks, so that leaves me in a bad position in fixing them up. Maybe you can find some purpose for this one. This deck mostly uses Byser Shock to clear the field, but I feel it's not aggressive enough, so I hope you can help me. I'm told that Reasoning and Monster Gate, swarming the field, and some Chaos is what I should do, but I'm unsure. If you read this, thanks for taking the time out of your day to do so.
—Ben M, Yonkers, New York
Ben calls his deck “a deck of sorts” and, well . . . that’s a good name for it. Check out what I mean.
Ben’s A Deck of Sorts
42 Cards
Monsters: 18
Spells: 18
Traps: 6
Fusion Deck: 9
It’s an interesting deck that uses a lot of neat cards, but Ben’s right—it looks like it would be difficult to win with. It can’t dish out much damage in its current form, and we’re missing the essential tricks that make
Byser Shock really shine.
On top of that, we’ve got a ton of tribute monsters in the deck (a total of six) without any reliable way to cover for drawing multiples in an opening hand. While cards like
Monster Reincarnation can help out in the mid-game, six tributes is just far too many. We’re going to have to narrow down the deck considerably and add some cheap powerhouses that can be normal summoned.
With that first goal in mind, let’s drop some cards to make some room. Since this deck is all about
Byser Shock, we can’t afford to drop many of them. However, we’ll be making
Byser Shock more searchable and easier to play once we add some cards, so we can remove a single copy. Next, all three copies of
Blowback Dragon need to go. They’re cool, but there’s just no room for them in the deck.
With
Blowback Dragon gone, we don’t have much use for
The Dark – Hex-Sealed Fusion. Those two copies can be removed. In the interest of offense, we can also find better beatdown monsters than
Hysteric Fairy. While Ben has the right idea (tributing monsters for non-summon effects), it’s just too damaging to this deck’s field presence to be running anything along those lines that isn’t
Cannon Soldier.
Cannon Soldier wins games while
Hysteric Fairy only prolongs your survival, so we’ll cut the Fairies since they don’t directly contribute to a win.
Next, I’m going to remove a single copy each of
Soul Exchange,
Metamorphosis, and
Last Will. We’re increasing the monster count, so we need to drop some spells and traps, and these are some of the easiest to cut.
Mirror Wall fits into the same category, and while we’re leaving copies of the spells we’re trimming down on, I’m going to remove
Mirror Wall from the deck entirely. It’s a cute one-shot trick, but I just feel those card slots can be better spent elsewhere.
Now, let’s add some monsters! First, I’m putting in three copies of
Mystic Tomato, an absolute must in any deck focusing on
Byser Shock. Because
Byser Shock’s ATK is so feeble, it can be special summoned by Tomato’s effect. You can crash a Tomato into an opponent’s monster while they’re on defense, pull
Byser Shock, bounce all their stuff, and then attack without fear of consequences. This works well with
Last Will, and there are going to be lots of Dark monsters worth pulling with
Mystic Tomato’s effect by the time I’m done.
I want to replace the two
Hysteric Fairy with a pair of
Blade Knight. In most cases, they’re just better, giving some control over the field while lending potentially far more battle power to our strategy. They’re also Light monsters, like Ben’s original deck prescribed, so we’re preserving that agenda for future use.
Two copies of
Asura Priest are irresistible. Special summon
Byser Shock from or
Mystic Tomato, bounce your opponent’s set traps, and then drop
Asura Priest to wipe out all opposing monsters. It’s also great tech against monsters like
Apprentice Magician and
Shining Angel, which are pretty popular in the current environment. Each time one is destroyed in battle,
Asura Priest can destroy the next one replacing it. Eventually the opponent is going to stop special summoning monsters, or will run out of candidates with low enough ATK to qualify them as replacements. It’s a great trick that can catch opponents off guard.
Also, in the interest of wiping the field, I’m going to add a copy of
Tribe-Infecting Virus. The Virus is amazingly valuable, especially when you can bounce set cards and then use them as payment for its effect. This and
Asura Priest are going to be able to cause massive swings in field presence, and this deck will thrive on that.
Next, I’m adding a copy each of
Breaker the Magical Warrior and
Sangan. These two cards are staples of the current Advanced format, and they’ll work well in any battle-based deck, including this one.
Sangan has a lot to search for, and Breaker’s removal effect will be valuable in this control-heavy deck.
Finally, though I hate to go and make a deck into a Chaos variant, it’s just a no-brainer here. We’ve got a perfect blend of Light and Dark monsters, so this deck is just asking for
Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. Now, this deck will have no problem dishing out the damage it needs to win.
Here are the changes I made.
An all monster-addition fix is pretty rare for me, and this deck is pretty heavy on them. Still, a lot of the monsters thin themselves from the deck, so it’s justifiable in this case. Here’s the final build!
A Deck of Sorts—Jason’s Fix
40 Cards
Monsters: 21
Spells: 15
Traps: 4
Fusion Deck: 9
Your ideal opening is
Mystic Tomato. If it gets destroyed, pull another one, and next turn you can hopefully go to town with
Byser Shock. While this deck doesn’t look fast, it can rack up a ton of damage in the early game, and the combination of
Byser Shock and a big beater of your choice on turn 2 will often make an opponent cringe.
That said, this deck gets really nasty in the mid-game, where its variety of tricks can cause massive card and field advantage.
Byser Shock and
Asura Priest are brutal when paired off, so be sure to manage your special summon effects carefully.
Asura Priest will basically cost you your normal summon for the turn, so your best bet will often be to use
Last Will to bring out
Byser Shock. While
Mystic Tomato can bring it out, remember that attacking with one with the intent to commit “tomatocide” can get you nailed by
Sakuretsu Armor or, worse yet,
Mirror Force.
The deck plays at a sort of stick-and-jab pace. It’s not going to develop a huge board presence, but that keeps its risk factor relatively low when facing cards like
Lightning Vortex. This is a reactive strategy that requires waiting for your opponent to give you the best opportunity you can find. However, that can be dangerous—while proactive strategies control the game, reactive ones are more difficult to play. You might need some practice before you can effectively use this deck.
Note the range of things you can do with
Byser Shock once its effect goes off. You can tribute it to
Cannon Soldier for some damage. You could tribute it for another
Byser Shock to get the effect again. Or best of all, use
Metamorphosis to turn it into
Dark Balter the Terrible. Note that the deck can no longer get at a few of its Fusion monsters, at least not on its own. We won’t remove them from the decklist, though, because they’re not costing us resources to include.
If you’ve been looking for a clever, different Chaos variant, give this deck a try! You’ll be surprised at how playable it is, but your opponents will be even more shocked.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer