This week’s featured theme deck centers on Beasts and Beast-Warriors. Before the release of Invasion of Chaos, Beast decks were practically nonexistent. Now, however, with the introduction of several different key cards that give Beasts diversity, resiliency, and great effects, Beast-themed decks can be very interesting. The deck I am examining was sent in by Manuel, a Yu-Gi-Oh! duelist from Pasadena, California. He writes:

Hello, my name is Manuel. I was wondering if you could feature my Beast deck for your deck review. I have been following the site for deck ideas and I would appreciate if you could assist me in improving this deck. Thanks!


Manuel's Beast Deck
42 cards

Monsters
1 Manticore of Darkness
3 Berserk Gorilla
2 Mad Dog of Darkness
3 Enraged Battle Ox
2 D. D. Crazy Beast
2 Giant Rat
3 Nimble Momonga
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan
1 Cyber Jar

Spells
1 Raigeki
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Snatch Steal
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Delinquent Duo
1 United We Stand
1 Mage Power
2 Axe of Despair

Traps
1 Imperial Order
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Mirror Force
2 Rivalry of Warlords
2 Bottomless Trap Hole


I’ll begin by saying that between Berserk Gorilla, Mad Dog of Darkness, and Enraged Battle Ox, this deck has wonderful synergy. Another nice feature is that it uses equips to boost attack numbers, turning D. D. Crazy Beast, Giant Rat, and even Nimble Momonga into viable threats under the right conditions. Enraged Battle Ox's breakthrough effect is great, however keeping it alive can be a bit difficult since it only has 1700 ATK. In his deck, Manuel compensates for this problem with recursion and stat-boosting, using cards like United We Stand, Mage Power, and Axe of Despair. Manticore of Darkness provides the deck with an additional bit of resilience. However, right off the bat, I notice some weak areas that warrant a few changes.

First of all, for a theme deck, this one doesn't seem to take much advantage of its theme. Sure, the Manticore and Enraged Battle Oxen are great, but they don't make up for running a dedicated deck with lower attack values than the average Beatdown deck. There are a few changes we can make to the deck to take better advantage of the fact that the deck focuses on Beasts and Beast-Warriors. 

Second, I'm a bit wary of using four equip spell cards in any deck other than one that is completely equip-centric. Using four equips is practically begging your opponent to use Mirror Force, Raigeki, or Dark Hole, and get card advantage in the process. I do agree that the deck needs attack boosts to be aggressive and maintain board presence, but I think there are better ways to accomplish this, especially since the deck is so heavily themed.

Lastly, I think the traps could use a bit of work. Once you get an advantage, you assumedly won't be seeing too many face-up monsters being summoned across the table. Some of these traps can be removed to free up slots for more useful cards.

Let's get to it!

The deck doesn't really need to be paired down. Forty-two cards is pretty safe in my mind, especially with Giant Rats and Nimble Momongas providing more thinning than is in most decks. I'll begin by dropping a D. D. Crazy Beast. This card is part utility and part tech. Sure, it takes care of Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest very nicely, but with its low attack, it can also be a liability. With an equip spell, it's nice that D. D. Crazy Beast might be able to remove one of an opponent's big monsters from the game, but in reality, that doesn’t happen very often. Although D. D. Crazy Beast is a conditional card, it is still worth using, so I'm going to leave one in. As Giant Rat, Sangan, and Witch of the Black Forest all allow you to search for the card when it's needed, you likely won't need more than one after a bit of practice.

I'm also going to drop Cyber Jar from the deck. This deck has several high-attack monsters, but it also has a lot of weaker ones. The goal is to maintain field control, and it's not particularly necessary to use Cyber Jar for that purpose. I would suggest side decking it against Control decks where your monsters aren’t going to be able to hold their own and the extra cards will be welcome. However, for general use, Cyber Jar doesn't make the cut. This deck is best suited to a consistent domination of the field for a few turns to achieve victory. Most likely, with this deck, games won’t be won in a single push, as they would with a Machine deck where Cyber Jar is a must. For now Cyber Jar takes a walk . . . or roll.

Now that Cyber Jar and a D. D. Crazy Beast are gone, I generally agree with the monster balance, save a few additions that I'll cover later. For now, we’ll move on to the spells.

I think there are several spell cards that should be dropped. First, I will drop Premature Burial. It's inferior to Monster Reborn and Call of the Haunted, and though all three are good cards, using more than two of them in an attack-oriented deck is excessive. Furthermore, it’s often asking for trouble in the form of an unexpected Mystical Space Typhoon. We need some extra room, and as two other recursive cards are already in the deck, I'm going to get rid of Premature Burial. 

Swords of Revealing Light is also going to be removed. Manuel has included some monsters that could use extra protection, but there are offensive ways we can achieve this, and those methods are going to have more utility than Swords of Revealing Light in this deck. I am generally a big fan of Swords of Revealing Light, but this deck just doesn't need it.

Lastly, some of the equip cards should be removed. Offering your opponent too many two-for-ones with cards like Dark Hole, Mirror Force, Raigeki, Fissure, and Sakuretsu Armor is a mistake that can lose games. In fact, it can lose a lot of games. While this deck does need attack enhancement for D. D. Crazy Beast, Giant Rat, Nimble Momonga, and Enraged Battle Ox, we can exploit the theme of the deck to do this and not risk losing such card advantage.

For the traps, I'd suggest removing both of the Rivalry of Warlords and Bottomless Trap Holes. Rivalry of Warlords is going to hurt you because you're already running several different types of monsters. On top of that, you're also going to run into pure Machine, Warrior, Reptile, or Aqua decks that are going to benefit more from Rivalry of Warlords than you possibly can. You may want to experiment side decking with it, but I'm willing to question how useful this card really is in this case.

As for Bottomless Trap Hole, definitely get them into the side deck; you can even side deck a third if you feel like it. With Chaos decks being so huge in alot of metagames, Bottomless Trap Hole is one of the best options to swap into your main deck. I don’t suggest running it as core main deck material because you are going to run across a lot of decks that will start strictly setting monsters once it gets played, leaving you at a disadvantage in the monster field. In that case, you need to continue building your momentum with each draw. If you topdeck a Bottomless Trap Hole at that point, it's going to be a totally dead card. It's certainly side deck material, but there are higher utility options for those two slots in the main deck.

Now that we've removed eleven cards from the deck, I'm going to replace them with eleven more that will improve the deck’s performance. First up, we need a Jinzo. This is an attack oriented deck, and you've got a lot of cards that can help you maintain board presence, so tributing won't be as much of a challenge as it can be with other decks. Mirror Force, Ring of Destruction, Ceasefire, Call of the Haunted, Sakuretsu Armor, Torrential Tribute, and Imperial Order are all cards that can really hurt this deck, so Jinzo is a must. On the plus side, the price and trade value of Jinzo have dropped since its release, so you can probably get one with a bit of trading.

Because tributing is easier in this deck than in others, I'm going to do something I wouldn't normally do for a themed Beatdown deck. I’m going to add in a third tribute monster. A big strength of the Beast theme is Manticore of Darkness, and, though one is good, a second is going to give you a lot more consistency. In this deck, you're running a ton of Beasts, Beast-Warriors, and Winged-Beasts, so you've got a good shot at seeing reliable use of Manticore's effect. Of course, we're going to abuse the heck out of Manticore of Darkness, so I'm going to add in some more cards that combine well with it.

I'm also going to add in one more Giant Rat. Considering all the options you have in this deck for Earth attribute monsters with more than 1500 ATK, it's going to be a great card throughout the entire game. It can grab another Giant Rat, a D. D. Crazy Beast, a Nimble Momonga, or the Exiled Force that I'm adding into the deck to give even more options. These card combinations add to the utility of the deck by giving it maintained board presence, a chance at even firmer board presence (Nimble Momonga), removal of a Witch or a Sangan (D. D. Crazy Beast), and flat-out removal of a troublesome monster. The latter will be accomplished with the addition of Exiled Force. Ok, ok, so it's not a Beast or Beast-Warrior, but you can't build a theme deck with nothing but the themed monsters. Exiled Force is a great card, and having easy access to it via Giant Rat is just spectacular. On top of that, because it's an Earth type, Exiled Force is also going to get a bonus from Gaia Power.

Gaia Power will make all the difference in this deck without creating a dangerous dependency. I had issues with the first build of the deck because I felt it didn't take advantage of the theme as much as it should; Gaia Power solves this. Not only does it take advantage of the theme and provide increased offense that the opponent will be hard pressed to gain anything from, it also provides all the needed ATK-based protection that is needed to keep the Enraged Battle Oxen alive. In addition, it makes Giant Rat a real jerk to deal with, boosting it to 1900 ATK. Nimble Momonga suddenly becomes a decent 1500 ATK monster that can trump Don Zaloog. Additionally, with 2500 ATK, Cannon Soldier, Mystic Tomato, and Berserk Gorilla now trump . . . well, everything! Of course, the moment Gaia Power hits the table, it becomes a target, but with some practice and cleverness, a good player can draw out an opponent's spell and trap removal in the early game with ease before using key cards like Gaia Power. This is, in my mind, the replacement for all those equip spell cards I got rid of. With Gaia Power, you get the bonuses the deck needs, but without the two-for-one overcommitment. This card is really going to crank the deck up to unknown notches.

We also need a third Mystical Space Typhoon. Heavy Storm and Breaker the Magical Warrior are absent from the deck, so three Mystical Space Typhoons are even more important than they normally would be. A Control deck can get away with running two Mystical Space Typhoons in some metagames, but in general, a Beatdown deck (themed or not) needs three to both survive and press aggressively.

Last up for spells is Painful Choice, a card that takes a bit of experience to fully understand and rewards the veteran player more than the beginner. Painful Choice has card search, deck thinning, and serious combo potential built in. The main reason I'm recommending it for this deck is Manticore. Use Painful Choice to get one or both Manticore of Darkness cards into the graveyard, then use the Manticore's effect in your end phase to get it into play, saving yourself two turns' worth of summoning (the normal summon spent on summoning Manticore itself, as well as the normal summon or special summon used for the monster that is being tributed for it). In a pinch, Painful Choice is also just a really great draw. It's gutsy, but I frequently just use Painful Choice to grab a wide variety of the more important cards in my deck. If I offer my opponent Change of Heart, Raigeki, Pot of Greed, Monster Reborn, and Graceful Charity, odds are good that no matter what he or she chooses, it's going to be bad for him or her. However, it might be risky in the long term, since it means you deprive yourself of amazing cards in the mid and late game, but if the game never gets to those stages anyway it really doesn't matter. With a deck like this, you can make gutsy plays like that because you can end the game quickly if you're playing aggressively and getting the draws to back it up.

I'm also going to add two trap cards to the deck. The first, Ring of Destruction, is an obvious candidate for inclusion. It's such a great card. In the opening and early game, its defense can be used for an extension. In the mid-game, it's an offensive tool in two ways (life point and field control), and in the late game, it's a game winning card when you're up or a game tying card when you're down and need to pull the plug. You're going to get a lot of game clinching done with this card, especially when it’s used with United We Stand. Since it was reprinted in the Invasion of Chaos Special Edition packs, its rarity has gone down quite a bit. If you don't have one already, Ring of Destruction should be pretty easy to get. 

Finally, since nearly all of the monsters are Effect monsters, I'm going to recommend the addition of one of my favorite cards: Ceasefire. Nothing is better than finishing off an opponent for that last 2000 damage when they thought that it was still a close game. Ceasefire is game breaking in the mid and late games, and awesome tech against Exodia decks or lockdown decks using Gravity Bind. Additionally, in the opening or early game, it's a great way to draw out spell and trap removal and get some damage in while you're at it. If a deck can support this card, I always suggest using it. If worst comes to worst and you face a mostly non-Effect deck, you can side deck Ceasefire out without really missing it. 


Final Changes

-1 D. D. Crazy Beast
-1 Cyber Jar (side deck)
-1 Premature Burial
-1 Swords of Revealing Light
-2 Axe of Despair
-1 Mage Power
-2 Rivalry of Warlords
-2 Bottomless Trap Hole (side deck)

+1 Manticore of Darkness
+1 Jinzo
+1 Giant Rat
+1 Exiled Force
+1 Mystical Space Typhoon
+3 Gaia Power
+1 Painful Choice
+1 Ring of Destruction
+1 Ceasefire


The final fix looks like this:

Beast Deck—Jason's Fix
42 cards total

Monsters
2 Manticore of Darkness
1 Jinzo
3 Berserk Gorilla
2 Mad dog of Darkness
3 Enraged Battle Ox
1 D. D. Crazy Beast
3 Giant Rat
3 Nimble Momonga
1 Exiled Force
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan

Spells
1 Raigeki
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Monster Reborn
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Snatch Steal
1 Delinquent Duo
1 United we Stand
3 Gaia Power
1 Painful Choice

Traps
1 Imperial Order
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Mirror Force
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Ceasefire


With these changes, Manuel’s Beast deck should run a bit faster and more aggressively than the first build. It will also be more resilient and less vulnerable to unexpected plays from an opponent.

Ideal opening moves are plentiful. Giant Rat and Nimble Momonga are ideal first turn monsters, but Witch of the Black Forest and Sangan are always good. Berserk Gorilla can also be a good first turn monster. A good strategy for this deck is to focus on overwhelming your opponent and gaining field advantage as quickly as possible. When most players start losing monsters, they tend to make up for it by using up even more cards to try and regain their footing. Keep leaning on them and, usually, most opponents will quickly run out of cards. Just be careful of Dark Hole, Raigeki, and Mirror Force. Also, be careful with how you use United We Stand. Remember, if your opponent has a big monster on the field and you have a Ring of Destruction, you can always attach United We Stand to his or her monster to deal huge amounts of damage without attacking.

Thank you, Manuel, for sending in your Beast deck to be featured in this column. As a reminder, players with deck ideas they would like to see featured in this column can email their requests to jasonatmetagame@yahoo.com. Please include your first name, city and state of residence, deck list in the format used above, and a few sentences about your deck and the challenges and successes you've had with it.