If there is one thing I really enjoy about the vast majority of duelists being so completely focused on one deck, it’s that it drives the secondary market prices down on popular cards that I normally couldn’t lay my hands on. Look at Goblin Zombie for instance. Despite the fact that Zombies were propelled to fame as a result of Zombie Master, Il Blud, and a Shonen Jump Championship win in Durham, I can have close to seven Goblin Zombie cards for what it would take to pick up one copy of Dark Armed Dragon. It’s great for those of us willing to look beyond the obvious deck to beat in order to find the other amazing decks hiding in the format, and really, there is no reason why any of you out there should not fall into this category. Even if you play Dark Armed Return yourself, wouldn’t you want to know what can beat your star deck? If you aren’t enamored with the prospect of endless mirror matches at high-level events, wouldn’t you want to know what the other viable options are? It’s no secret that when two nearly identical decks face off, victory often goes to the player with the stronger opening hand. There are exceptions in the case of incredible players doing incredible things with not-so-incredible openings, but when faced with a choice between needing to play beyond perfectly or creating a favorable strategic mismatch in which your deck has a clear advantage over the opposition, I’d take the latter any day. It simply requires less effort to get a leg up in the deck department than it does to severely outplay everyone you come up against throughout a ten-round tournament.
A couple of weeks back when I was talking about the mechanisms by which a swarm deck makes up for its overextensions, I touched upon the subject of Zombies and Card of Safe Return. What I didn’t talk about then is how Card of Safe Return functions with respect to the other draw engines that see competitive play. Specifically, I’m talking about Allure of Darkness, Destiny Draw, and Six Samurai United. While Allure and Destiny Draw are better cards for powering through the deck in a single turn, there’s something to be said for Six Samurai United and Card of Safe Return that can’t be said for the others. They both reward you for building your field presence in ways that no other cards can. Find me something else that produces a material gain for filling my field with efficient, free monsters with useful and repeatable effects and I’ll build a deck around it. But until then, Six Samurai and Zombie decks will continue to be excellent choices almost regardless of the rest of the format (an exception would be if everyone suddenly started playing Macro Cosmos), and hopefully I’ll be able to demonstrate that with this week’s deck.
The best support cards for themed decks frequently tend to duplicate the effects of cards that would otherwise be Forbidden. Archlord Zerato and Darklord Zerato allow their respective decks to throw down a Raigeki without the penalties associated with playing Forbidden cards. While not as obviously game-breaking as having access to a Raigeki effect, Goblin Zombie fills a distinct gap in deck architecture that other decks are sorely lacking. Specifically, Goblin Zombie lets you run three copies of the Zombie-specific equivalent of Witch of the Black Forest. I’m not sure how many people reading this were around back when Witch of the Black Forest was still legal for play, but allow me to read off a few of the things that she could fetch for you: Jinzo, Breaker the Magical Warrior, Magical Scientist, Tribe-Infecting Virus, Yata-Garasu, and Magician of Faith. Note that all of these cards (with the exception of Jinzo) are now Forbidden. Furthermore, the list of things that could be searched out with Witch have expanded greatly since those times, and now include all of the Monarchs in addition to Elemental Hero Stratos and most of the cards that Sangan is capable of fetching. A Witch of the Black Forest effect is a really big deal, and Zombie decks get to pack three of them for specific use with Zombie monsters. Of course, the threshold DEF of monsters you can get with Goblin Zombie is a bit lower than with Witch, but that’s largely irrelevant considering that your primary search target has 0 DEF.
Zombie Master, like Wolverine, is the best there is at what he does. You get 1800 ATK and an effect that allows you to both load the graveyard and special summon more Zombies, including more copies of Zombie Master. Furthermore, each special summon from the graveyard allows you to draw a card with Card of Safe Return meaning the end result of the exercise is a field full of big monsters and a hand full of cards all in one turn—and using only Unlimited cards. Compare that to what the Dark Return deck can do with all its Destiny Draw and Allure cards. It can keep its hand full, but without drawing into key Limited cards or cards it plays only one of, it can’t produce the kind of field presence that you can get out of a Zombie deck. Even if it does get a Dark Armed Dragon or two on to the field to complement an Armageddon Knight, that leaves that player’s hand relatively depleted while you’re still raring to go. "But what about Dark Armed Dragon completely wrecking my field?" you ask. Fortunately, as you draw through your deck with Card of Safe Return, you’ll find that you encounter a number of chainable options to help you through the tough times created by an opponent’s Dark Armed Dragon. If you’re flying through your deck, you’re very likely to find one or more copies of Raigeki Break and Book of Moon, two excellent answers to Dark Armed Dragon that can be immediately chained to the Dragon’s effect to subdue it before more damage can be dealt. Furthermore, it’s more likely with this deck than with many others that your opponent will target your back row first with the Dragon since you play three Goblin Zombie cards. It works exactly like Witch and Sangan do, so destroying it with Dark Armed’s effect only succeeds in granting you a bonus card. Even if the opponent takes out the rest of your monsters, you’re basically guaranteed a fresh Zombie Master in hand to bring everything back next turn.
Dust Tornado
and Raigeki Break truly are key cards right now in a format where a single Escape from the Dark Dimension is capable of ending you if it brings back the right monster. Whenever possible, you’ll want to use Dust Tornado in the opponent’s end phase to prevent a card he or she just set from ever being activated. If you were a little late though, and your opponent’s card has already been set for a turn’s time, it might still be worth it to blast that card in the end phase anyway due to the prevalence of Return from the Different Dimension. Part of what makes Return so deadly is the ability to activate it for a surprise win during the battle phase, and anything you can do to prevent that is worthwhile. Unfortunately, hitting Return at an inopportune time for your opponent may become more and more difficult as time goes on, especially as Dust Tornado starts to pick up popularity. Brian Bodkin was spot-on with his analysis of Dust Tornado last week, and you should definitely check out what he has to say on the subject if you haven’t already.
Next, I want to talk about one card that’s been in every Zombie deck ever built since the beginning of time, and one that barely sees play ever: Book of Life. It’s just as good now as it was last format, and you shouldn’t let the possibility of giving your opponent exactly three Dark monsters in the graveyard or the right Dark monster in the removed-from-play zone dissuade you from using it when necessary or advantageous. When you play it, you’re likely going to replace any monsters you remove from the graveyard with more of the same type, so you shouldn’t be too concerned about inadvertently setting up the summon of Dark Armed Dragon. Moreover, sometimes it’s just a very easy decision what to remove from play. Disk Commander is an easy remove every time, and if Dark Magician of Chaos is sitting in there without Monster Reborn having already been played, you’re probably going to want to make sure that when that Reborn does come up, it won’t be instantly recycled.
That leaves Decayed Commander. If you read Decayed Commander you’ll find it bears a striking resemblance to Spirit Reaper. While it can’t be fetched by Goblin Zombie and it doesn’t offer invulnerability to battle, being able to attack directly for 1000 life points and a card from your opponent’s hand is still very good, especially when you achieve it by attacking your own Pyramid Turtle with a monster you grabbed from the opponent with Creature Swap.
What I’m trying to get across here is that there are many fast and effective deck types out there right now that can compete with Dark Armed Return and Diamond Dude Turbo. There is a wealth of untapped potential hiding in this format. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
—Jerome McHale