When good friend Kirk Leonhardt wowed the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG world with his explosive, unique Dimensional Fissure strategy at Shonen Jump Championship Anaheim, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. The idea of a revolving floater mechanism centered on D.D. Survivor, D.D. Scout Plane, and Dimensional Fissure had already been thrown about experienced dueling circles, albeit in a different form altogether.

Remember the hubbub surrounding Enemy of Justice? The new “it” card was supposed to be Macro Cosmos, a trap card that seemed (at the time) designed to utterly destroy Chaos-Return and all its variants. Unfortunately, no duelists made the quantum leap that Mr. Leonhardt did with his respected playtesting squad Team Enigma. When he finally pieced the puzzle together and showed us the power of the remove-from-play mechanic in conjunction with Survivor and Scout Plane, it was in a different format altogether.

Many duelists immediately discarded the possibility of Dimensional Fissure or Macro Cosmos arriving on the national metagame. After all, what’s the point of running such remove-from-play mechanics if Chaos Sorcerer isn’t around? Would the ability to cut out a few monsters such as Sangan, Treeborn Frog, and a Mystic Tomato or two make the entire strategy still work out? I think the answer is clearly a resounding yes. Let’s analyze.

Creating Advantage through the Macro Cosmos Theme

Leonhardt and others have realized that Dimensional Fissure is far more powerful from a “solid deck strategy” standpoint. Since you drop it to generate an advantage, you don’t want to wait an extra turn to remove that pesky Frog or Sangan from play. Since equally pesky cards like Jinzo and Mobius the Frost Monarch can wreak havoc on a set Macro Cosmos before you can even activate it, it’s probably a good idea to run Dimensional Fissure in a generic remove-from-play strategy.

Since Mr. Leonhardt has already provided a quirky but superb Dimensional Fissure-based build, I want to take the time to write an article about a pure Macro Cosmos deck. It will feature a copy of Grand Convergence and Helios - The Primordial Sun, two flavor-based cards that help Cosmos augment its advantage.

Cosmos wipes the field clear. It will remove all of your opponent’s threats, such as Treeborn Frog, Pot of Avarice, Magician of Faith, Sangan, and Mystic Tomato. On top of that, it turns your D.D. Survivor and D.D. Scout Plane into floaters with absolute impunity. If your opponent uses monster removal on either card, he or she loses that removal without reducing your field presence in the long term. After all, a Survivor attached to either Dimensional Fissure or Macro Cosmos becomes a Strike Ninja on steroids. Even tributing it for a Monarch will lead to the cycling of a floater effect.

An advantage over Dimensional Fissure is that you can perform a few sneaky tricks with Cosmos. For example, if you summon Survivor and attack into a Sakuretsu Armor, you can chain Cosmos to basically negate the effect of the Sakuretsu. Playing the Dimensional Fissure would force you to reveal your intentions before attacking, whereas Cosmos can be flipped at any time during the battle phase.

If you throw in the fact that Cosmos can do something such as flip for a Helios, which is then tributed for your Zaborg, which hits your opponent’s face-down Treeborn Frog, Sangan, or flip effect (removing it from play) then swings into your opponent’s Cyber Dragon (a common field situation), the idea of the Cosmos deck becomes quite tantalizing. Throw in one copy of a quickplay Dark Hole for consistency purposes, and Cosmos seems to be a fun deck to build. Let’s get to work.

Constructing the Monster Lineup of the Macro Cosmos Theme

We’ll begin by including the three copies of D.D. Survivor as a given. Because of this, we’ll also use two copies of Reinforcement of the Army to ensure that Survivor will see play as much as possible. Let’s begin with the Warrior-based support.

Warrior-Based Support:

3 D.D. Survivor

1 Don Zaloog

1 D. D. Assailant

1 Exiled Force

In this scenario, Reinforcement of the Army will provide us with monster removal, stable field presence, or hand disruption. Each of these Warriors will fulfill a key role.

D. D. Warrior Lady has been omitted because her main utility (which comes from removing Sangan or Frog) is already accounted for through Cosmos. While a Mystic Swordsman LV2 might be nice as well, we won’t be playing enough defensive traps or even enough defensive trap removal to warrant its consideration.

Cosmos-Based Support:

3 Magical Merchant

1 Morphing Jar

2 D.D. Scout Plane

1 Helios — The Primordial Sun

Magical Merchant can remove from play every monster you reveal through its effect, fueling a huge Return while also fishing for the Cosmos that you need to start the entire strategy. It can also set up tributes for your Monarchs, and is generally too good to ignore in any combo-based strategy that needs to search for pieces.

Morphing Jar does much of the same. It can remove everything you discard while also helping you draw for the key components you may need. Both effects also trigger the next card, D.D. Scout Plane, which serves as a mini-D.D. Survivor.

Finally, we’ll throw in a copy of Helios to help the activation of Cosmos. You can always brickwall an attack by special summoning Helios in defense, or use it to help set up a nice tribute summon.

Field-Presence Support:

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

3 Cyber Dragon

3 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

1 Spirit Reaper

The final piece of the puzzle is the monster cards we’ll use to help support a nice and healthy field. The use of three Cyber Dragon cards in conjunction with the incredibly versatile Zaborg should help equalize almost any unbalanced situation. The Breaker and Reaper make nice garnishes to our Cosmos salad.

Constructing the Spell and Trap Lineup for the Macro Cosmos Theme

Of my favorite six, we’ll be cutting Premature Burial for obvious reasons, leaving us with:

Graceful Charity

Nobleman of Crossout

Mystical Space Typhoon

Heavy Storm

Confiscation

The remaining slots will feature obvious choices with one spicy extra.

Themed Spell Support:

2 Smashing Ground: Since the deck will feature fewer defensive traps, to leave us less vulnerable to Mobius and Heavy Storm, we’re going to need quick and speedy monster removal. Smashing Ground fills the void quite nicely.

1 Book of Moon: The use of three Merchants (which have puny 200 ATK scores) and Morphing Jar makes this card a near-necessity.

2 Reinforcement of the Army: The use of this card was already discussed in the monster section. It’s really a no-brainer, considering that Survivor is the power card in the entire arsenal.

1 Dimensional Fissure: Since Dimensional Fissure-based builds are nice enough to include one copy of Cosmos, we’ll do the same.

1 Grand Convergence: Quickplay Dark Hole? Yes please, I say! Running more than one is unsound deck strategy, though. You’ll rarely hit a two for one with this card because of the nature of the format, but it’s still a great tool.

Onward to the traps! We’ll run my favorite four minus Call of the Haunted, again for obvious reasons:

Torrential Tribute

Ring of Destruction

Mirror Force

Themed Trap Support:

3 Macro Cosmos: No explanation needed.

1 Dust Tornado: Dust can help you segue nicely into either Return from the Different Dimension for game or Macro Cosmos. For example, you can clear their Torrential Tribute with your Dust Tornado, set Cosmos from hand, flip it for Helios, and sweep their field the next turn while removing any Sangan or Frog!

1 Return from the Different Dimension: Again, this card is far too powerful in this particular strategy to ignore.

Expected Matchups with the Best Decks in the Format

To be quite honest, barring any disgusting hands such as two Cosmos and a Helios in hand, the deck should carve up the standard Monarch control deck. When put back on its heels through crafty use of your trap cards, the Monarch deck loses all of the floaters that help create so much advantage.

The deck may have problems with more aggressive Cyber-Stein-based strategies, but don’t they all? A good sidedeck should neutralize the Stein threat.

I think Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure are both solid top-tier strategies that should be explored even further. Hats off to Mr. Leonhardt for his strong showing at the Jump, and revealing a strategy that gave me the inspiration to make my own deck!