The answer? Well, it starts with recognizing facts. They say the devil’s greatest trick was convincing people he didn’t exist. Personally, I think Dark Armed Dragon’s greatest trick is making players believe he’s the one to blame.

He's not. In truth, the real strength of Dark Armed Dragon Return is that last bit—the Return. The part where four or five monsters leap onto the field, one negating your traps (Jinzo), one blowing away all of your monsters (Darklord Zerato), and one grabbing you a free spell of your choice just to add insult to injury and seal the deal (go ahead—take your wildest guess as to which card I’m alluding to). As brutal as each monster is on its own, I don’t think any of them are uniquely responsible for the deck’s strength. Sure, Dark Magician of Chaos often lets those long strings of Destiny Draw and Allure of Darkness continue long past their natural termination, but even then, it’s the spells that are to blame. Destiny Draw brings a ton of draw power online through its own effect as well as the oft-repeated use of Destiny Hero - Disk Commander. Allure of Darkness is even more vicious. Jerome McHale expressed it to me perfectly earlier this week so I’ll just quote him: "Allure of Darkness removes monsters from play and sets you up for Dimension Fusion—while helping you draw towards it." That kind of synergy is nuts. Destiny Draw is actually pretty similar, drawing cards while filling the secondary role of getting Darks into your graveyard.

The good news? If you can deprive a Dark Armed Dragon deck of its draw power, it loses a tremendous amount of strength. Not only will it have fewer chances to see the cards it needs in order to win, but the multiple uses of Allure of Darkness and Destiny Draw will be lost as well. Ironically, the fact that these two cards are so strong and provide a dual-purpose can actually be used against the deck, because negating or discarding a single draw spell shuts down multiple actions the Dark Armed Return duelist was depending on.

That means a deck packed with counter traps could be exceedingly good in the average competitive metagame, but such decks have historically run aground on one problem: capitalizing on their advantages. Counter Fairies was never competitive in the eyes of most duelists simply because once it went off, it still had a hard time controlling the field. The deck lacked the powerful monsters other decks had access to, usually topping out at Cyber Dragon. The reality is that eventually, you run out of counter traps and "something else" has to take over. Thankfully, any deck that wants to run counter traps to stop Dark Armed Return now has that "something else," and his name is Van’Dalgyon . . .

Van’Dalgyon got a ton of hype when he was released in Shonen Jump Magazine a scant couple of months ago, but very few players actually ran him when the opportunity arose. Legalization dates kept the Dark Dragon Lord out of competition at Shonen Jump Championship Orlando, and by the time Houston rolled around, the dueling public was already in love with a different Dragon. That’s a shame, because Van’Dalgyon’s got everything you need to shut down Dark Armed Dragon and his supporting cast.

—Van’Dalgyon can’t be special summoned unless you negate an effect with a counter trap. For instance, if you negate a spell or trap card with Solemn Judgment, you can bring him down. But if you negate a summon with Solemn Judgment, you won’t get to summon the Dragon because you haven’t negated an effect.

—He can’t be special summoned during the damage step.

—You can’t pick and choose which of the Dragon Lord’s three effects you’ll activate in a chain with multiple counter traps. Van’Dalgyon latches onto the last one that successfully resolved and negated an effect, then chooses his own effect accordingly.

—You can only summon one copy of Van’Dalgyon per successful negation—you can’t drop two off a single counter trap.

It’s important to outline these limitations on the card because most players really have no idea how Van’Dalgyon works. If you joined us for the feature match coverage at Houston, you saw Van’Dalgyon misplayed at least once, and even I didn’t catch it until it was too late. The sheer complexity of this card has scared away a lot of players.

The first chain in the sequence is the one with the counter trap that’ll eventually let you special summon Van’Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord. It’s important to note at this point that you don’t actually reveal or activate Van’Dalgyon’s effect until this chain has completely resolved: once it has, you can activate Van’Dalgyon’s special summon effect to start a second chain. Any other effects that were triggered during the first chain (and would activate in a second chain after the complete resolution of the first) will share a chain with the effect that will summon Van’Dalgyon.

Van’Dalgyon’s effect does not resolve and bring him to the field until the appropriate point in the second chain: you don’t just slap him down like Cyber Dragon. Your opponent will get a chance to respond with something like Royal Oppression, or any other chainable action he or she might want to throw in the mix. Once Van’Dalgyon has been special summoned and the second chain is completely resolved, his "one of three effects" ability will activate.

That forms a third chain, which your opponent can also respond to. Two of Van’Dalgyon’s three effects choose targets at activation, which is when your opponent might want to respond by chaining a card you targeted for destruction or activating D.D. Crow to remove the target of your attempted special summon.

Once those three chains resolve, you’ll be left with a shiny, 2800 ATK beatstick on the field, and that’s where the fun really starts. Provided you selected a particularly crippling counter play to make, you’re ready to capitalize with some big attacks. First though, let’s look at how each of Van’Dalgyon’s effects operates in the Dark Armed Return matchup.

The best part, though, is how easy it is to negate spell cards. Solemn Judgment is a catch-all that can stop almost anything (including spells), and it’s the obvious first-pick for negation. The next most common counter trap is Dark Bribe, which can also shut down spell cards and let you bring down Van’Dalgyon. Where it gets interesting though, is when you start to look beyond those options. Once you’re running six copies combined of the two obvious picks, Magic Drain really becomes the next most desirable counter trap. While Solemn Judgment and Dark Bribe offer hard negation, Magic Drain provides what is called "soft negation." It’s a term applied to any form of negation that your opponent can pay his or her way out of. In days gone by, Magic Drain wasn’t very good because many of the spell cards being played were monster removal. Your opponent would activate Smashing Ground, you’d respond with Magic Drain, he or she would discard a spell, and you’d still lose your monster. You weren’t really gaining anything aside from simplifying the duel by two cards on either side. If the card you were trying to negate was Brain Control, well, that simplification was actually good for your opponent.

Fast forward to today and you’ll see a very different range of spells. Respond to Destiny Draw or Allure of Darkness with Magic Drain and your opponent will have to give up three cards to see just two more: the spell he or she activated, the spell the opponent discarded for Drain, and the discard or removal of a monster. Since Magic Drain requires the discard of a spell card, you’ll often cost your opponent an additional copy of Destiny Draw or Allure just to get his or her first one off the ground, and that slows things dramatically. If you negate either spell card outright, that’s even better, especially when you summon Van’Dalgyon.

Look at Lazaro Bellido’s deck from Costa Mesa as an example. It runs fourteen spells, six of which are Allure and Destiny Draw. From there, it runs eight more, two of which are only rarely worth negating: Mystical Space Typhoon and Enemy Controller. These are really the deck’s only "disposable spells," and if you can get your opponent to discard anything other than these two for Magic Drain, you’ve likely chalked up a big victory. From there, the remaining spell cards are two Reinforcement of the Army cards, Monster Reborn, Premature Burial, Heavy Storm, and Dimension Fusion, all of which are imperative to the deck’s success. Dark Armed Return needs free reign to resolve all of its spells in order to work. If it doesn’t have that, it moves into beatdown mode and at that point the opponent is off his or her game. The Dark Armed duelist has big problems dealing with your 2800 ATK Dragon, and you have a definite advantage. All in all, the damage effect Van’Dalgyon wields is his least impressive, but it’s also the most relevant due to the shape of the current competitive metagame.

When Dark Armed Return is setting up to end the game, it frequently does so by setting two cards in its back row—usually Return from the Different Dimension and another live card, such as Enemy Controller or, most commonly, Escape from the Dark Dimension. When the opponent activates one of his or her set traps, you can negate it with Solemn Judgment or Dark Bribe, then flop Van’Dalgyon and blow away the other back-row card. At this point, if that card is Return from the Different Dimension or Escape, you’re in business—even if the opponent flips Escape to special summon Jinzo (the only card that will stick to the field when Van’Dalgyon destroys Escape), he can’t match Van’Dalgyon’s raw ATK. Beyond that, the fact that the Dark Armed player has to make that play reactively instead of proactively is backbreaking—especially if you can force this chain of events on your turn instead of the opponent’s, when Return is useless.

This scenario is so good for you that it’s got me eyeing stuff like Seven Tools of the Bandit and Malfunction (both of which are actually surprisingly passable in this matchup). Those urges will probably pass, but they’re a good illustration of just how enthused I am over Van’Dalgyon’s destruction effect. If you use it properly, it’s really the perfect counter to Dark Armed Return’s most common win scenario.

Jerome took great pleasure in beating the answer into me last weekend: Divine Wrath. It can stop Armageddon Knight from getting things started, it can shut down Dark Armed Dragon’s effect before it wrecks your field or loads too many monsters to the removed-from-play pile, and it halts the acquisition of extra cards through Destiny Hero - Disk Commander and the dreaded Dark Magician of Chaos. It’ll even stop Darklord Zerato.

What’s great is that all of these plays slow down the Dark Armed Return player while clearing his or her field—Divine Wrath destroys the monster bearing the effect it’s negating. Wrath creates a huge opening in the Dark Armed player’s defenses regardless of how developed his or her plan has become, and with Van’Dalgyon in the mix, you’re instantly given the tool to capitalize. In fact, since Van’Dalgyon will grab his favorite buddy from the graveyard, you’ll often find yourself in a position to clinch or end the duel a turn later.

I feel like the time is finally right for Counter Fairies to challenge the top decks of the format. Van’Dalgyon is the first real "leg up" the Fairy theme has received since Harvest Angel of Wisdom in Strike of Neos, and combined with Drastic Drop Off, it’s really a different beast.

Van’Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord and the cards that support him just so happen to play into a lot of the trends and patterns Dark Armed Dragon Return adheres to. If we see skilled players running Van’Dalgyon at SJC Columbus, it could easily be enough to fend off the Dragon’s clawed grasp on the current format. Answers are out there, and make no mistake: Van’Dalgyon is one of the best.

—Jason Grabher-Meyer