As I write this, the Shonen Jump in Washington D.C. is less than a week away. The Regional tournament in Toronto just took place, and the Top 8 showed no clear metagame trend. In fact, no two players amongst the Top 8 were running the same deck. Each deck showed its potential for competition, including burn, Gadgets, Strike Ninja Return, and Perfect Circle. Lazaro Bellido had an especially deadly Zombie strategy, which has prompted me to take a look at the Zombies of the past.
The last time a dedicated Zombie deck made the Top 8 of a Shonen Jump was way back in 2005 in Charlotte. Wilson Luc had recently defined the North American metagame with a Tsukuyomi-based control engine, and players were just settling into their three copies of Scapegoat and Metamorphosis. Games were slow paced, and winning a duel wasn’t very easy. I’ve found that we’re seeing the same type of play in this format. With only one copy of Brain Control and the recent addition of Ring of Destruction and Snatch Steal to the Forbidden list, it’s become increasingly hard to steal games away from the opponent.
Yet it’s during these times that someone will devise a deck that moves faster than the rest of the format, so that top tournament decks just can’t keep up. Jae Kim achieved that goal over two years ago in Charlotte when he took this build to a 2nd-place finish:
Monsters: 17
2 Vampire Lord
2 Pyramid Turtle
2 Spirit Reaper
1 Morphing Jar
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 Sangan
1 Sinister Serpent
2 Giant Rat
2 Magician of Faith
1 Airknight Parshath
1 Exiled Force
Spells: 16
1 Pot of Greed
1 Delinquent Duo
1 Graceful Charity
1 Premature Burial
2 Book of Life
3 Book of Moon
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Snatch Steal
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Heavy Storm
1 Creature Swap
Traps: 7
3 Dust Tornado
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
Although this deck was built for a different format and with a different card pool, the principle of the strategy remains the same. An engine consisting of three Dust Tornado cards can take out spell or trap cards before they ever get to be played, and can leave the Zombie deck free to attack during its turn. Jae combined this aggressive style with Spirit Reaper and Airknight Parshath. Reaper is now Limited to one per deck, and Airknight hasn’t been needed since the Limiting of Scapegoat.
Pyramid Turtle is an extremely deadly monster. When destroyed in battle, the Turtle can grab a bigger Zombie mate from its owner’s deck, which can then beat up the very monster that destroyed the Turtle. In today’s environment, that means that at the cost of 900 life points, the Zombie player could send a Pyramid Turtle into a Cyber Dragon to search out Ryu Kokki, which can then destroy that Cyber Dragon and dish out a little damage to boot.
Even more potent are the combos with Creature Swap or Cyber Dragon. Picture using Dust Tornado during your end phase to destroy the opponent’s spell or trap card, and then, on your turn, dropping Cyber Dragon and Pyramid Turtle, trading your opponent’s monster for the Turtle with Creature Swap, attacking over the Turtle to search for Spirit Reaper, and discarding a card from the opponent’s hand with the follow-up attack by the Reaper. Pretty devastating, isn’t it?
Giant Rat is a nifty card for Zombie decks. On top of working just as well with Creature Swap, the Rat could act as a fourth Pyramid Turtle in a pinch or could search out whatever other Earth monsters are in the deck. For Jae, that was Exiled Force or a Morphing Jar to be flipped down with Book of Moon. With today’s card pool, Rat could still find Exiled or Turtle, but now it can also search out Card Trooper or Neo-Spacian Grand Mole. It’s definitely worth a slot or two for this deck.
Book of Life is an excellent anti-metagame spell. In the past, it removed Sinister Serpent or Night Assailant targets from the graveyard. Today there are an equal number of threats down there, including Treeborn Frog and Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest. In addition, graveyard disruption can reduce the efficiency of other cards like Premature Burial, Overload Fusion, or Pot of Avarice. And that’s just the secondary effect. Reviving Spirit Reaper or Il Blud allows the Zombie player to gain an edge over his or her opponent by either forcing a discard with Reaper or special summoning another monster with Il Blud.
Magician of Faith leads to more Books and Swaps, and Tribe-Infecting Virus is simply replaced by Snipe Hunter. These two monsters can provide a wide variety of options for your hand, as well as finding a way to discard dead level 5 or 6 Zombies you’d rather have in the graveyard. Faith in particular can find the missing piece of a Mystical Space Typhoon, Book of Life, and Creature Swap combo.
The powerful draw and discard spells have been removed from the card pool though, so Zombie players must turn elsewhere to find ways to achieve big hand presence. Card of Safe Return is a reliable draw engine with all the special summons available to the deck. With that, we see that the Zombie deck today wants to play out the same way as Jae’s did. Use Dust Tornado to clear out spells and traps for your turn; generate positive trades with Creature Swap, Card of Safe Return, or Book of Life in combination with Pyramid Turtle, Il Blud, or Spirit Reaper; and lean on the opponent with your massive field and hand presence. The opponent will run out of options before you do, and at that point you bring on the beatdown.
With the ability to explode almost completely eliminated from competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! play, a deck such as this that can make lethal moves in one turn is incredibly valuable. If players begin to play too slowly because of a harder-to-win format, Zombie decks will surely take them by surprise and make a strong showing in Shonen Jump tournaments.