Another Shonen Jump Championship has come and gone, and with it, the dominance of the combo and burn deck strategies is apparent. Day 2 of these last few tournaments has been packed with OTK and stall and burn-based decks. Other than one recent Jump, these decks have consistently taken three or four of the Top 8 spots, with even more appearing in the Top 16. Diamond Dude Turbo has made it to the Top 8 in every SJC since the beginning of the format, and Demise OTK has seen Top 8 light since Advanced Ritual Art first became legal. As if this weren’t enough, burn appears to be making a comeback. Both speed burn and slower-paced, stall-based burn have seen Day 2 glory in the last two tournaments. In fact, three members of Team Overdose have made it to Day 2 with the “OD Burn” deck, with both Emon Ghaneian and Anthony Alvarado sweeping the Swiss portion of the tournament and Bryan Coronel losing only to Anthony in the last round at SJC Montreal.

With burn and combo decks making such a comeback, the fifteen cards of side deck space may no longer be enough. Players are going to have to start using their main decks to combat the wide variety of decks they are unable to side deck for completely. One player seemed to reach this conclusion, and although he eventually lost to Demise OTK in the quarterfinals at SJC Anaheim, West Tran likely took down many burn and combo decks on his way to Top 8 glory with this build:

Monsters: 22

2 Exiled Force

2 Mystic Tomato

2 Giant Rat

2 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

2 Injection Fairy Lily

3 Hydrogeddon

3 Cyber Dragon

1 Spirit Reaper

1 Asura Priest

1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

1 Sangan

1 Newdoria

Spells: 10

1 Premature Burial

1 Snatch Steal

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Confiscation

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Book of Moon

1 Enemy Controller

1 Scapegoat

1 Rush Recklessly

Traps: 9

2 Dust Tornado

3 Magic Drain

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

1 Call of the Haunted

The difficult task Tran faced was creating a main deck that could both stand up to current popular decks and provide a significant edge over the combo and burn strategies out there. Throwing in some copies of Banisher of the Radiance or Threatening Roar may improve your matchup against these combo builds, but if you’ve got to take on today’s top Monarch builds, you’ll be hard-pressed to pull out a win with those conditional cards in your hand.

Tran’s first innovations came in the form of Magic Drain and Dust Tornado. Magic Drain is an excellent card that will almost always balance out as an even trade with your opponent. Furthermore, you can sometimes completely negate your opponent’s plans. How often is a topdecking war won by the player who had Brain Control and Mobius the Frost Monarch? Magic Drain can give you the ability to shut out an opponent who was too careless with his or her hand management. Against decks like Demise OTK or DDT, your opponent will often be unable to spare any spells from hand, or will have to ditch his or her back-up plan. Therefore Magic Drain will either stymie your opponent entirely or change his or her sure-fire win into a coin flip, giving you the opportunity to come out on top.

Dust Tornado, on the other hand, complements the monster line-up in the deck. Often DDT decks will be able to sit back on a Threatening Roar to build up a hand for their Magical Stone Excavation or grab a few more uses out of Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude. Dust Tornado can allow you to break up their plans and bash through with an Injection Fairy Lily or Spirit Reaper. Dust really shines in the burn matchup though. Slow burn decks rely on a lot of stall cards to protect their smaller monsters, and speed burn decks need to be able to get some mileage out of every single card. Using Dust Tornado in the end phase interrupts both plans and can allow you to make a game-winning move. Against more mainstream decks Dust can make room for attackers or some Hydrogeddon trouble.

With these two cards being the focal point of the trap line-up, Tran would need to adjust his monster line-up accordingly. The task wasn’t so simple: find a monster that doesn’t need a whole lot of protection, works well with the way Dust Tornado and Magic Drain simplify the game, and can aid against these specific combo and burn matchups. Surprisingly, the answer is very easy to spot. Mystic Tomato and Giant Rat fulfill all these conditions. Both are self-replacing, so they don’t require a heavy investment in defense, and their search targets complete the last two tasks.

Injection Fairy Lily is a great anti-combo card. Both DDT and Demise OTK need to have at least 2000 life points to go off. One shot from Lily drops the opponent to 4600 life points, and a second puts him or her at a scary 1200. Although your life points will drop as well, you’re not hurt as much because your opponent effectively loses his or her win condition and you still have yours. Of course, this is only the case if you’re swinging into a blank field. Here’s where the synergy of the deck is really outstanding. Both DDT and Demise OTK play out early monsters that have 1400 ATK. This means your Giant Rat and Mystic Tomato can bump heads with these monsters to search out either Injection Fairy Lily or Spirit Reaper.

Spirit Reaper’s discard effect is going to hurt your opponent a lot. Demise OTK needs about four or five cards to make a guaranteed OTK shot and DDT’s field presence is backed up by the fact that it’s got even more options next turn. Take away cards from the hand, and both of these decks begin to crumble. Combine Reaper’s effect with Magic Drain and your opponents are going to be really hard-pressed to come up with outs.

Of course, if you don’t have these monsters, you can simply stomp your opponent with Hydrogeddon. Dust Tornado clears the way for Hydrogeddon to take out the 1400 ATK monsters on your opponent’s side of the field, and allows you to get in there for some impressive damage. Coupled with a Cyber Dragon, the damage can really add up.

The remainder of the monster line-up is meant to be aggressive and able to take out other commonly used monsters. Asura Priest can tear down opposing Mystic Tomato cards or Hydrogeddon cards, and Exiled Force can knock opposing Legendary Jujitsu Master cards or Gravekeeper’s Spy cards out of the way. Neo-Spacian Grand Mole compliments Dust Tornado, and works wonders against DDT. Imagine sending a Card Trooper to the top of your opponent’s deck over and over again? Or throwing Dark Magician of Chaos or Destiny Hero - Malicious up there?

The final note to be made about this deck is that it plays Rush Recklessly over Shrink. This is a very smart play, as Rush Recklessly does a lot more in this deck (and the current North American metagame). Rush lets you trade Giant Rat in battle with Cyber Dragon and pump out a 3400 ATK beatstick when you special summon Injection Fairy Lily. It can also tip the scale your way when sending Hydrogeddon into face-down monsters. Finally, Rush Recklessly can simply be used to dish out another 700 damage in the damage step, allowing you to knock the opponent under 2000 life points when he or she thought it was safe.

With the threat of burn decks becoming more and more relevant, and with combo decks perched at the top of the ladder in tournament play, you can expect to see more tech cards in main decks at tournaments. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Tran’s skeleton decklist being duplicated at upcoming Shonen Jump tournaments.