Have you been looking for a sure-fire way to get your deck fixed up on the site? Well, I’d hate to show favoritism, but, stick Cannon Soldier in something and you’ll pique my interest. I love it. That card has won me more games in surprising ways than any other, and it’s easily my favourite card in all of Yu-Gi-dom.

Now, what if you make an entire deck around Cannon Soldier? Well, I’d have no choice but to do an article on it! Well, unless I already did one. Which I’m doing now, cause Randi Bovell beat you all to it. But I like Sonic Duck . . . anyone want to make a deck around it?

 . . . Please?

Ok, ok, on with the fix. I liked this deck because, yeah, it has Cannon Soldier in it, but also because I felt it was a good example of taking a card not often seen as the basis of a deck and really playing around with it creatively to see what could be done. Here’s what the deckbuilder had to say.

Dear Jason

I've been into this whole Yu-Gi-Oh! thing since LOB hit the market. I've played with a lot of decks, but I always liked Cannon Soldier, so I decided to make a Cannon Soldier deck. Cannon soldier is a great card, and I like using it with Scapegoats It will do 2000 damage to the opponent, and if I use three Scapegoats, it will be 6000 damage. If that doesn't work, then Wave-Motion Cannon should get the job done. I think it needs work, so could you help with this one?

Randi Bovell


Cool. Cannon Soldier rules, and the Scapegoat combo is a classic one that can win games. Like most truly great combos, though, both cards are good on their own and don’t require the other to be of use. Just remember that you can only use one Scapegoat per turn, and if you use one, you can’t normal summon or special summon for that turn, even if you try to do so before playing Scapegoat (though you can set a monster before or after playing Scapegoat).

Here’s what Randi’s deck looked like:


Cannon Soldier Launch Party
42 cards

Monsters: 16
1 Jinzo
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
3 Mystic Tomato
1 Sangan
1 Witch of the Black Forest
3 Cannon Soldier
1 Magician of Faith
1 Fiber Jar
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 Reflect Bounder
1 Exiled Force

Spells: 17
1 Graceful Charity
1 Snatch Steal
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Change of Heart
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Greed
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Raigeki
3 Scapegoat
2 Wave-Motion Cannon

Traps: 9
3 Waboku
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Imperial Order
2 Solemn Judgment

There are a lot of reasons to play Cannon Soldier. It lets you control which monsters are on your side of the field, which can be valuable. Combined with Change of Heart or Snatch Steal, it functions as a piece of monster removal (just attack with the monster you took from the opponent and then launch it once you’re finished with it before it can be returned to the opponent). You can pull it with Mystic Tomato, or search for it with Witch of the Black Forest and Sangan. Its effect has priority, so if it’s Trap Holed or hit with a Torrential Tribute, you can decide to let its effect take precedence and tribute it for 500. Skill Drain doesn’t stop it from tributing itself, so it can be a good surprise against someone running that card. It also combos really well with Sinister Serpent.

Randi is using the above-mentioned strategies, but there’s still more we can do with Cannon Soldier. First, let’s drop some cards.

Dark Magician of Chaos has to go. It doesn’t have much place in the deck as a once-off. The deck is going to be somewhat slow as it is, so we can’t really afford to have any tribute monsters other than Jinzo.

Exiled Force and Tribe-Infecting Virus are also going to be removed. Some spell cards are going to be added to the deck that will give us some different ways to deal with the opponent’s monsters in ways that are a bit more focused on Cannon Soldier. In addition, they’ll give us a bit more bang for our proverbial buck, doing a bit more than destroying a monster or two for the cost of in-hand cards and normal summons.

Premature Burial is going to be removed, mostly for space concerns. With three Mystic Tomatoes and three Cannon Soldiers, we probably won’t need Premature Burial to save the focus of the deck at all, and I personally prefer to go beyond Call of the Haunted and Monster Reborn to add Premature Burial only when a deck truly needs it.

I’m going to remove the two Solemn Judgments—they’re just too much of a loss in the current environment, with Chaos Emperor Dragon and Black Luster Soldier on the scene. One Solemn Judgment, and if a Dragon hits the table, you’re done for. Sure, you could just be very conservative with them, but if that’s the plan, there isn’t much sense in using them.

I’m removing all three Wabokus, but recommending that two of them go straight into the side deck. It’s a decent card for a deck like this, but I’m going to be adding some other defensive options instead to keep the deck light on trap cards.

Now for the additions. The first combo card we need to add to go with Cannon Soldier is Magical Scientist. The Scientist is one of the reasons I felt comfortable removing Tribe-Infecting Virus and Exiled Force from the deck—when it’s on the field, it can deal with anything the opponent might have. It can be brought out by Mystic Tomato, so we can get it quite reliably. Its best use, though, is going to be feeding fodder to Cannon Soldier. For 1000 life points, you can deal 500 damage to the opponent by launching the monster you summoned, and naturally, you can do more by attacking attack-position monsters. It might not sound like much, but it’s won me a lot of games.

Second, I’m adding in a single Spirit Reaper. It can provide great defense against an opponent, can be pulled by Mystic Tomato, and combos exceedingly well with one of the other cards I’ll be adding.

Cannon Soldier turns monster control into monster destruction—Change of Heart and Snatch Steal can grab a monster which can then be used for attacking, but instead of returning the monster or letting the opponent gain 1000 life points, you can just huck it back over the wall with Cannon Soldier’s effect. This is a great strategy, and often you can tell someone hasn’t played Cannon Soldier before because they’ll Change of Heart your Cannon Soldier, attack, and then give it back. It’s a strategy we want to exploit as much as possible, so, we’re adding three Enemy Controller to the deck. In a pinch, it can negate an attack by turning an attacker to defense position. But, when used to its utmost potential, you can sac a Scapegoat token to pay its cost, take a big monster from your opponent, use it as an attacker, and then “give” it back to them by hucking it back across the field for 500 damage. Brutal, and highly effective.

I’m adding two Creature Swaps to the deck as well to use sort of the same strategy. Whether it’s a token, Sangan, Witch of the Black Forest, or Mystic Tomato, this deck has lots of things that it likes to put in the opponent’s hands in return for a better monster. This is the card I was alluding to when I put Spirit Reaper in the deck. Creature Swap never targets specific monsters, so Spirit Reaper can be Creature Swapped to the opponent. If you send it over in attack position, he or she can’t change it on the current turn, which means you can attack with anything you have, repeatedly smashing it and dealing a huge amount of runoff damage. This combos especially well with Magical Scientist—you can’t attack directly, but you can attack the Reaper.

Swords of Revealing Light makes the cut, giving even more stuff for your opponent to use his or her spell and trap removal on. With three Scapegoats, three Enemy Controllers, three Mystical Space Typhoons, and several eligible trap cards, there are lots of things to use to draw out spell and trap removal from the opponent before playing this. Once it’s on the field, it’ll guarantee you some time to breathe and get some serious launching done.

Ceasefire is the last addition to the main deck. In a deck that revolves around direct damage and can be hurt by flip effects, this is the ultimate. It’s a great opener, since it can be chained for some fast damage against a Mystical Space Typhoon or Harpie’s Feather Duster, and it can put a serious hurting on an opponent not expecting it. It techs Exodia and Last Turn decks, really hurts Chaos decks, and is just a generally all-around good card. In today’s speed-oriented environment, this card can often be the leg up that a deck needs to claim decisive wins.

Lastly, Magical Scientist needs Fusion monsters to play with. Not all of these are necessary, but the listed cards shouldn’t be too difficult to get, with very few being holos and most being commons or available in starter decks. Ryu Senshi stops traps, Dark Balter the Terrible stops Effect monsters and flip effects, and Thousand-Eyes Restrict sucks up anything that’s just too big to handle in any other way. Reaper on the Nightmare can be Creature Swapped and then have things slammed against it, and all the others are just large beatsticks or fodder for Cannon Soldier’s launching.

So, the total changes are:

-1 Dark Magician of Chaos
-1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
-1 Exiled Force
-1 Premature Burial
-2 Solemn Judgment
-3 Waboku

+1 Magical Scientist
+1 Spirit Reaper
+3 Enemy Controller
+2 Creature Swap
+1 Swords of Revealing Light
+1 Ceasefire

(plus the introduction of the following Fusion deck)

Fusion Deck:
2 Thousand-Eyes Restrict
2 Reaper on the Nightmare
3 Dark Balter the Terrible
2 Ryu Senshi
3 Dark Flare Knight
3 Punished Eagle
3 Empress Judge
3 Roaring Ocean Snake


The final decklist looks like this:

Cannon Soldier Launch Party—Jason's Fix
42 cards

Monsters: 15
1 Jinzo
3 Mystic Tomato
1 Sangan
1 Witch of the Black Forest
3 Cannon Soldier
1 Magician of Faith
1 Fiber Jar
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Magical Scientist
1 Reflect Bounder
1 Spirit Reaper

Spells: 22
1 Graceful Charity
1 Snatch Steal
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
3 Enemy Controller
2 Creature Swap
1 Change of Heart
1 Dark Hole
1 Pot of Greed
1 Monster Reborn
1 Harpie's Feather Duster
1 Raigeki
3 Scapegoat
2 Wave Motion Cannon
1 Swords of Revealing Light

Traps: 5
1 Ring of Destruction
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Imperial Order
1 Ceasefire

Fusion Deck
2 Thousand-Eyes Restrict
3 Dark Balter the Terrible
2 Ryu Senshi
3 Dark Flare Knight
3 Punished Eagle
3 Empress Judge
3 Roaring Ocean Snake


There, that should run a little more consistently, and the new list has a few more Cannon Soldier tricks. Your field presence is going to be a bit easier to maintain now that you’ll be constantly messing about with your opponent’s monsters, and you’ll be able to get some more use out of those Scapegoat tokens. Don’t be afraid to use Scientist a bit boldly—with a Cannon Soldier in play, you’re taking down the opponent by 500 life points for your investment of 1000 anyways, so even though 1000 LP is in most cases a bargain for a deck to use Scientist’s effect, you’re getting even more for your LP investment than you normally would.

Your key opening plays are Mystic Tomato, Sangan, and Witch of the Black Forest, or Fiber Jar and Spirit Reaper if you’re feeling gutsy. From there, you want to use Scapegoat, Enemy Controller, Ring of Destruction, Spirit Reaper, Mystic Tomato, and Creature Swap to block, threaten, or disrupt your opponent while you dish out damage via whatever attacks you can get in, Cannon Soldier tricks, and Wave-Motion Cannon. Remember to use your quick-plays and traps to draw out the opponent’s spell and trap removal before playing a Wave-Motion Cannon to the field.

Suggested side deck cards are pretty standard—run two Wabokus plus whatever fits your area, mixed with a good amount of Chaos tech. Banisher of the Light fits this deck well with its high DEF, but Torrential Tribute is an excellent choice as well, clearing the field and giving you monster advantage you wouldn’t necessarily have otherwise. Two Banishers and three Torrential Tributes are no doubt good ideas. From there, it’s your call.

Thanks for sending it in, Randi! Gotta love Cannon Soldier!


Have a deck to submit? Want to say hi? Get in touch with me via email at Jason@metagame.com.