Jeff Vertrees, from Sac Town’s Finest, tore though the early rounds of competition to nab a 5-1 record. He did it with a really unique Chaos deck, packing three copies of Chaos Sorcerer, three Thunder Dragon, and, of all things, three copies of Helping Robo For Combat . . . ?
No joke. Someone’s winning games with Helping Robo. The deck is totally ingenious, and while I doubt it will be netdecked, it’s worth documenting for posterity’s sake.
Helping Robo for Chaos
40 Cards
Monsters: 18
2 Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive
2 Gravekeeper’s Spy
3 Thunder Dragon
3 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Mobius the Frost Monarch
3 Helping Robo For Combat
1 Sangan
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Tsukuyomi
Spells: 12
1 Scapegoat
1 Snatch Steal
1 Book of Moon
1 Enemy Controller
1 Premature Burial
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
2 Smashing Ground
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Swords of Revealing Light
Traps: 10
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Dust Tornado
3 Sakuretsu Armor
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Call of the Haunted
2 Jar of Greed
Side:
1 D.D. Survivor
2 D. D. Assailant
1 Kinetic Soldier
1 Swarm of Locusts
1 Mobius the Frost Monarch
1 Bazoo the Soul-Eater
1 Return from the Different Dimension
1 Royal Decree
2 Dust Tornado
1 Waboku
2 Magic Drain
1 Royal Oppression
The deck is based around two concepts of card economy, card advantage and card cycling. We’re all familiar with card advantage: having more cards than your opponent is good, having fewer cards than your opponent is bad. This deck, like most, aims to achieve the former.
Cycling is a common TCG concept, but in Yu-Gi-Oh!, you don’t see it very often. The idea is that you trade a card in your hand for one off the top of your deck, in order to get rid of cards you don’t immediately need and draw towards ones you do. If that isn’t quite clear, go ahead and click on the link for Helping Robo For Combat. Its effect cycles a card in your hand.
Vertrees’s key combo relies on getting a single copy of Thunder Dragon and Helping Robo For Combat early on in a duel. When he draws the first Thunder Dragon he discards it to grab two more. Then he attacks with Helping Robo to cycle one Dragon back into his deck, placing it on the bottom. He gets to draw in return, so he trades one dud Dragon for a real card. Next turn, he discards the last Thunder Dragon to grab the one that Helping Robo placed on the bottom of his deck a turn before. That clears out all three Dragons from the deck, loads the graveyard with two Light monsters, and when Robo swings this turn, it again trades the last Dragon for another draw. It’s surprisingly doable.
Those two Thunder Dragons come in handy when the deck draws into one or two of its three copies of Chaos Sorcerer. Sorcerer is integral because it can give so much card advantage over a span of a few turns. Jar of Greed gives card advantage when chained to Dust Tornado, Mystical Space Typhoon, or Heavy Storm, and Vertrees has the Tsukuyomi/Dekoichi engine that is so popular here today.
Even when Robo doesn’t have a Thunder Dragon or two to buy real cards with, Vertrees can aggressively cycle cards in his hand in order to get to important matchup-specific picks like those found in his side deck. Only one Kinetic Soldier? He pops up a lot more often when the Helping Robo is digging for him each turn. The Robo has a relatively low ATK value, but it can easily pick on monsters like Mystic Tomato, Don Zaloog, and any number of facedown sets. Tsukuyomi can turn lots of strong monsters into cycle-bait too, giving Robo a chance to make attacks of opportunity when it normally could not.
All in all, the deck is very different and makes use of a mechanic that’ relatively unseen in competitive play. Jeff Vertrees may have a bright future ahead of him creating off-the-wall decks that can legitimately dominate major tournaments. His first major Shonen Jump Championship appearance is an impressive one.