I have a rather sordid confession to make, right here on the pages of Metagame.com.

Prior to this article, I’d never really taken a look at the Elemental Heroes. Your passions inflamed, you sputter, “But Jae, Jaden Yuki uses them! They’re all the latest rage!” I just never got around to it. The Fusion mechanic is inherently hurt by its loss of hand size (Polymerization plus two other Fusion monsters tends to drain the hand quickly), and the monsters don’t function very well without the Fusion mechanic. Then I saw the recent resurgence of the rascally rogue Elemental Hero Wildheart. I saw players begin to inexplicably splash it into regular decks, and I shuddered at the thought.

But then a glimmer of clear, conscious crystallization began to coalesce in the caverns of my cranium. If Wildheart was even remotely suggestible as a main-deck splash, doesn’t that mean that the Elemental Heroes are playable enough to warrant mention in New Grounds? Plus, the thought of three highly advantageous support cards—Skyscraper, Miracle Fusion, and Wroughtweiler—simply tickled me pink. Let’s get to work making a top-tier Elemental Hero deck!

Monsters: 21

2 Elemental Hero Clayman

2 Elemental Hero Wildheart

1 Elemental Hero Sparkman

1 Magician of Faith

1 Sangan

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

3 King of the Swamp

1 Treeborn Frog

1 Wroughtweiler

3 Thunder Dragon

2 Gravekeeper’s Spy

2 Spirit Reaper

1 Chaos Sorcerer

There are a number of interesting synergies we’re seeking to exploit in order to elevate the competitiveness of this deck. Running 21 monsters may seem like quite a bit, but look at all of the wonderful thinning in the deck! Thunder Dragon will immediately be discarded for three purposes. First, it provides an auxiliary power dump for Twin-Headed Thunder Dragon, in the rare case you have a Polymerization stuck in hand with no options. Second, it serves as discard fuel for your Thunder Giant’s effect. And third, it thins the deck.

King of the Swamp is another example of deck thinning. Probably the best Fusion support card ever made, this works either to act as a Fusion substitute or a searcher for your all-important Polymerizations. Keep this card in hand for as long as your resources will hold out.

The Reapers and Spies aren’t in this deck to push through damage or disruption. You’ll need them for defense and to set up a good board while you draw the cards that are needed for the Elemental Heroes. Clayman also works in a pinch with a muscular 2000 DEF value, and you can generally hold the board in a deadlock for quite a bit as you get the key pieces together.

So, what are those support cards? The main Elemental Heroes we’re using are the ones that are playable even outside of Fusion form. Clayman will be a great defensive wall against all but Cyber Dragon, Wildheart will take a huge chunk of your opponent’s life points out, and Sparkman is a Light monster for Chaos Sorcerer. Each will funnel into a specific Elemental Hero Fusion. We want to summon Elemental Hero Thunder Giant, Elemental Hero Wildedge, and Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman, respectively, with each of those components.

Spells: 12

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Snatch Steal

1 Premature Burial

1 Confiscation

1 Swords of Revealing Light

2 Polymerization

2 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Scapegoat

We’ve cut out all of the excess dead weight from the deck. Outside of the obvious staples, the other additions are highly important. Confiscation is needed to take out your opponent’s huge threats, which are doubly huge for a deck that expends lots of resources to bring large monsters to the field. Cards like Snatch Steal, Dark Hole, and Smashing Ground can really hurt. Confiscation will neutralize such threats.

Swords and Scapegoat both serve to slow the game down. Reinforcement of the Army will allow you to search out the key fusion support. You’ll want to hold on to Reinforcement until you can draw into a copy of King of the Swamp, in which case, you’ll be able to find the perfect Fusion monster for the occasion! In addition, while The Warrior Returning Alive was considered, I feel that it detracts from Wroughtweiler’s effect and can clog the hand a bit too much.

Traps: 9

3 Sakuretsu Armor

2 Widespread Ruin

1 Call of the Haunted

2 Dust Tornado

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

The traps are simply intended to gain you a foothold on board presence until you can start unloading the big Elemental Heroes.

Mechanics of Advantage: The Elemental Hero Deck

Are the Elemental Heroes the best fusion monsters in the game? Unfortunately, that distinction belongs to Dark Paladin. However, each of the Fusion monsters is fun in its own right. Thunder Giant can immediately take down almost any monster in the game. If you discard a throwaway card like Treeborn Frog, a spare Thunder Dragon, or another such piece of dead weight, you’ve effectively destroyed a monster for free. After that, you can swing for 2400 damage.

Unfortunately, this is a straight Fusion build, and therefore, it must give up the use of Miracle Fusion, which has great synergy with Return from the Different Dimension. However, you might find that the Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman is easily the most powerful card in your arsenal. It comes out of the gates immediately with around 3000 ATK or more, and it will definitely deal hefty damage to your opponent. For example, if you take down Cyber Dragon, that’s 2100 points of extra damage! This can add up quite fast, and make it a real threat to reckon with on the board. Finally, Wildedge is simply a board-clearing monster. It will wipe your opponent’s entire field clear. Your other monsters can then attack directly.

Ability to Counter the Metagame

Unfortunately, the bottleneck of the deck is the sheer effectiveness of the Elemental Hero Fusion monsters. If their powers were suitable to the cost, the stats of the individual Elemental Heroes would be irrelevant. The Elemental Hero deck does not try to counter the metagame or boast supremacy over the format. Rather, it’s a way of cheering on the dueling spirit of Jaden and Yugi that fuels the game, and having fun in a relaxed environment.

Strategies to Use in a Matchup with a Cookie-Cutter Deck

In all fairness, your chances in this matchup are quite slim. However, your goal is to set up an early defense. The deck is strong against the threat of Mystic Swordsman LV2, because you can simply summon Elemental Hero Wildheart next turn to take it out. In fact, don’t hesitate to continuously set defensive monsters, since you can simply swing back on Swordsman LV2 at any time.

As always, you’ll want to beware of Cyber Dragon. Use your defensive traps to hold the behemoth off of your 2000 DEF monsters. However, be sure to conserve your cards in hand. There’s nothing worse than seeing a string of drawn Polymerizations without any cards to use them with. And remember, Thunder Dragons can be fused in a pinch for a heavy hitting 2800 ATK monster.

Wildheart will be the best key to keeping on top of the weaker flip monsters that most duelists are using. It’ll need heavy protection, however, and you should definitely be wary of leaving it in attack position. A timely use of Breaker the Magical Warrior by your opponent will simply wreck your board.

Try to push through enough damage in a few turns with your Fusion monsters to avoid the resource disparity that may develop. Most of all, however, remember to have fun! Your goal is to use something creative to make a statement. As long as your deck is well-constructed and well thought-out, you should get just as many “mad propz” (as Metagame.com’s Jerome McHizzle likes to call it) on the playground, schoolyard, or Internet as the cookie-cutter duelist would.

As it turns out, this particular Elemental Hero build does not use the field spell Skyscraper or the wonderful Miracle Fusion. While those are two of the cards that intrigued me initially, the final build ended up heading in a different direction. I think this speaks volumes about the versatility of the Elemental Hero support that has been thrown at us, and it’ll hopefully continue to improve as more sets are released. I can envision three Elemental Hero variants that are close to the top tier of archetypes. While one example has been provided in this article, I’m sure Miracle Fusion and Skyscraper won’t be forgotten by those who have built solid decks around them.

New Grounds Verdict: This deck isn’t quite top tier, but channeling the spirit of Jaden and Yugi is an extremely fun diversion from the standard decks. It should get quite a boost from the new Elemental Hero spell cards from Enemy of Justice, as Jerome mentioned earlier this week.