Usually I don’t profile decks early on that have a loss under their belts, but Jeff Vertrees was 3-0 before taking his fourth round loss, and his deck is exactly what I look for: incredibly original, and incredibly strong. He’s running a Sacred Crane variant that abuses Icarus Attack. The trick? Sacred Crane and Icarus Attack create an advantageous situation, and the Attacks themselves simplify the field in order to make those cards really matter. Very cool.
Spells: 9
1 Graceful Charity
3 Smashing Ground
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Premature Burial
1 Reinforcement of the Army
Traps: 11
3 Icarus Attack
3 Sakuretsu Armor
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted
You might remember Vertrees from his deck profile about a year back. He took Helping Robo For Combat to the top tables of an SJC in San Mateo, and since then he’s had a unique place in the deck-building community. At just 16 years old he’s become widely respected in particular circles, and is well-known in his home town of Sacramento.
“I beat Hugo Adame in round 1,” noted Vertrees, discussing his record. “I built the deck with my team, Team Syndicate. I took it to two regionals and went 6-2 in both of them, losing out on the bubble to time. I chose to go with the Icarus deck this weekend because of Monarchs. When a Zaborg targets my face-down Stealth Bird or Crane, I can chain Icarus Attack in response [to tribute the Winged-Beast that was targeted]. It works in the same way as a chain against Dark World Lightning too.”
Initial inspiration for the deck’s design actually came from teammate. Andrew Dahkil. “He was exploring forced simplification with Drop Offs, and he made Top 4 in yesterday’s regional. So Icarus Attack is like that, but it forces even more simplification.” The fact that it can create card advantage in and of itself with cards like Sacred Crane is something that Drop Off can’t offer.
Marauding Captain, Premature Burial, and Call of the Haunted all give methods of special summoning the Sacred Crane cards. Captain and Stealth Bird can force the opponent to make attacks, but when they do, Sakuretsu Armor and Bottomless Trap Hole rebuke them and create an even worse situation. Smashing Ground is run in triplicate, and makes a great answer to anything that survived long enough to get past the trap-based removal.
“One Reinforcement of the Army and two Marauding Captain cards make the deck pretty reliable,” noted Vertrees. Indeed, while it might seem as if the deck is short on support for Sacred Crane, the Reinforcement of the Army pumps the suite up to a total of five cards, which gives you a 58% chance of opening with at least one partner for Crane. The odds of drawing some form of the combo itself in the first six cards is 21%—very respectable odds that create a massive disparity in the early game.
Special summoning Crane with Marauding Captain, tributing it for Icarus Attack a turn later, and then bringing it back for another draw with Premature Burial is just beastly, and those are the kinds of plays that Vertrees can produce. Also of note is the Mystic Tomato engine backed by Stealth Bird. An attacked Tomato can pull Stealth Bird, and it can then flip itself down and flip summon on the following turn for a quick blast of damage. If you can clear the field to let it swing for an attack, that’s 1700 damage right there, and it’s a huge possibility with three Smashing Ground cards. Plus, with all the simplification this deck can generate, Stealth Bird can sit on the field for quite a while, slowly burning away at the opponent’s life points.
Like several other decks we’ve profiled today, this one uses cards of shared interest to bring two strategies together. Burn and Sacred Crane would seem like an awkward fit, but they’re united by Icarus Attack. Heck, they share an affinity for Call of the Haunted and Premature Burial too, since Stealth Bird can flip itself to blow away either special summon card and still remain on the field.
With one loss already under his belt in round 4, Vertrees will have a tough time making it to Day 2. But he has a great deal of faith in his deck, and with so many duelists banking on Monarchs here today he’s got the right tech for key matchups. While a surprising number of competitors are playing Dark World, it’s not a deck that provides any major problem for this one, so he should be okay.
And hey, it went 3-0 in a Shonen Jump with Icarus Attack! Gotta give him some props for that.