"I wish you noobs would stop trying to build these stupid Burn decks"

That is close to a quote from one of the top message boards recently. While rude, it does capture the sentiment of many players—a deck can't win if it isn't some form of Beatdown/Hand Control. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but that just isn't true. Invasion of Chaos will be viewed as a set with a few extremely powerful monsters. However, the ability to burn is just too great to be ignored.

As stated in the first article in this series, Burn decks are designed to win by inflicting damage through card effects (as opposed to battle). Slowly but surely, each set released has improved the cards of Burn decks. Magical Scientist, Wave Motion Cannon, and now Chaos Emperor Dragon and Stealth Bird make the Burn deck viable as a serious deck type in the current metagame.

I view this article series as more of a report of the current metagame as opposed to influencing it. But perhaps lighting a small flame to get people thinking of alternate deck types can't hurt. In my opinion, Burn decks have great potential to be top contenders on the tournament scene. So far, they have had very little impact on Regionals, but that may change in the near future.

Burn decks have traditionally relied on stall cards, such as Gravity Bind and Messenger of Peace, to give the time needed to inflict enough damage to win. The damage could come from Fire Princess in combination with life gaining cards such as Gift of the Mystical Elf, Solemn Wishes, or Marie the Fallen One. Just Desserts and Ookazi help to inflict one-shot damage. Poison of the Old Man is also used for that purpose, but it does double duty since it can be used to increase your life points as well.

If you could get in 1000 to 1500 damage a turn, then you were on fire. Now, you can deal a few thousand damage in one turn without great difficulty. Even more impressive, you can now build aggressive Burn decks that do not rely on stall cards like Gravity Bind.

Although I personally think Magical Scientist has a prominent place in Burn decks, I am intentionally leaving it out of this article because it has been so thoroughly covered in other articles. In fact, there are dozens of Burn cards not found in the decks that follow. That's the beauty of burn—there are many burn themes and cards that support a Burn deck.


The first deck showcases what can be done to create an offensive or aggressive Burn deck.

Aggresive Burn
40 cards total

Monsters
1 Chaos Emperor Dragon – Envoy of the End
1 Airknight Parshath
1 Reflect Bounder
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
2 Stealth Bird
2 Cannon Soldier
2 Hysteric Fairy
1 Cyber Jar
3 Giant Germ
1 Sangan
1 Witch of the Black Forest

Spells
1 Snatch Steal
1 Change of Heart
1 Dark Hole
1 Graceful Charity
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Painful Choice
1 Pot of Greed
1 Raigeki
1 Poison of the Old Man
1 Swords of Revealing Light
2 Scapegoat

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


Although you can speed up the above deck a bit by adding other searcher cards and better Light monsters, the deck is capable of inflicting incredible damage quickly. It doesn't include cards such as Wave Motion Cannon, Fire Princess, or other decent burn cards because it relies on rapid burn and aggressive attack, if need be, to finish an opponent off. Stealth Bird is an amazing Burn deck card. Its position-changing ability works similar to that of Guardian Sphinx. When it is flip summoned, you inflict a very respectable 1000 damage to your opponent.

If that's not enough raw power for you, the next deck highlights an even more aggressive style—the combination of a trample effect (the ability of a monster to inflict battle damage to the opponent when it attacks a defense position monster) and burn. Note that the cards interplay through the Beast/Beast Warrior/Winged Beast theme. With Wild Nature Release, it is not hard to get Gyaku-Gire Panda's ATK to over 3000—not bad for a monster with a built-in trample effect. The Berserk Gorillas provide solid beatdown capability with a potential trample ability through the effect of Enraged Battle Ox. Gigantes is not only a special summon, but also provides spell and trap removal, which is why Heavy Storm is not included in this deck.

Sample Trample/Burn

40 cards total

Monsters
1 Manticore of Darkness
2 Des Koala
2 Gyaku-Gire Panda
1 Enraged Battle Ox
1 Gigantes
3 Berserk Gorilla
2 Stealth Bird
1 D. D. Crazy Beast
1 Cyber Jar
1 Sangan
1 Witch of the Black Forest

Spells
1 Change Of Heart
1 Snatch Steal
1 Dark Hole
1 Graceful Charity
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Wild Nature's Release
1 Monster Reborn
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Painful Choice
1 Pot of Greed
1 Raigeki
1 Poison of the Old Man
1 Swords of Revealing Light

Traps
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Imperial Order
1 Mirror Force
1 Ceasefire
1 Ring of Destruction
2 Ojama Trio
2 Just Desserts


Finally, a Lava Golem deck can be upgraded to include some of the excellent burn cards released in the last three sets. Ante works well with Lava Golem and virtually guarantees that your opponent will take 1200 damage as well as discarding a card if you activate it when you have Lava Golem in hand.

Lava Golem with Ojama Trio can be devastating. While you don't inflict the damage from the tokens if you tribute them to special summon Lava Golem, Ojama Trio does allow you to get Lava Golem out more reliably. You want to prevent the opponent from attacking with Lava Golem while keeping it on the field to inflict life point damage in your opponent's standby phase. Gravity Bind is perfect for that purpose and helps you get the effect of Stealth Bird more reliably. Cards such as Gyaku-Gire Panda and Injection Fairy Lily are both potentially powerful attackers that can slide under Gravity Bind.


Lava Burn