“I don’t know why I’m winning.” It was with those words that Jeff introduced me to his deck. “I made my deck this morning and I forgot a ton of cards I should be playing” he elaborated. “I forgot Call of the Haunted . . . Smashing Ground . . . I don’t have any drawing cards.” I’d never met Wallace before, and, busy at work on a Tech Update, I couldn’t help but wonder why he was talking to me. “But I’m still doing well, I don’t get it,” he continued.

I was part interested in what he was saying, but part distracted by work, too. I asked him what his record was, since that usually moves a conversation like this towards a logical, but friendly end.

“I’m 4-0.”

Jeff's deck isn’t nearly as random as he made it out to be. It’s an extremely aggressive machine that looks to win really quickly with tons of big bodies, backing up its offensive focus with Royal Decree. Because the deck is so aggressive, it foregoes a lot of cards that most might consider staples. There’s no Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, no D. D. Assailant, no Call of the Haunted—it’s lost a lot of cookie cutter cards in order to do what it’s doing. Beyond that, it’s sacrificed traps for more monsters, running an extremely high total of 23.

How does it manage with that huge monster count? If you look at the monster lineup, a lot of the choices Wallace made can provide both offense and defense. Goblin Elite Attack Force, Gravekeeper’s Guard, and Gravekeepers’ Spy are all very large when they’re shifted to attack position, but all three can also be used as attackers. The Goblins have raw ATK power, while the Guard opens up holes in the opponent’s field and the Spies swarm. The staying power that these monsters exercise allows the deck to deal with hands that are light on spells and traps.

Again, the spell selections mirror this situation: heavy offensive potential with a hint of extra tribute power to boot. Remember when people were speculating that Brain Control would be run in multiples? Wallace’s strategy allows that prediction to finally manifest, and again, the advantage rests in the ability to clear the opponent’s field and hit hard and fast.

The lack of Smashing Ground is particularly interesting. This deck isn’t running any card-for-card exchanges that remove monsters, save Nobleman of Crossout. No Smashing Ground, no Sakuretsu Armor, no Bottomless Trap Hole, nothing. In fact, the Brain Controls that I mentioned moments ago have actually supplanted the Smashing Grounds. This deck doesn’t care about the fact that it might hand back a monster it steals in the end phase: it relies on its own ability to maintain a heavy field presence in order to both generate big offense, and occupy the field enough that it mitigates the opponent’s field presence. While swarm is in no way a new concept, the way in which Wallace has implemented it seems to be quite fresh. The concept of basically negating the opponent’s field presence by making yours huge is new: it wasn’t possible in the previous formats where Dark Hole was legal. Torrential is still a threat, but Decree shuts that down. Spell and trap removal can, of course, trump Decree, but remember that this deck only needs a couple turns of freedom to win anyway.

Interesting.

I’m left wondering if Wallace’s story about slapping the deck together this morning is really true. His results are impressive, the deck is highly synergistic, and it takes advantage of environment trends brought on by the new format. An accident? Maybe. But worthy of serious investigation and reflection? Absolutely.

If this strategy continues to churn out wins here today, this deck is bound to come under the microscope of serious duelists the world over. The next six rounds could be very interesting for Jeff Wallace.