Shonen Jump Championships and regional events are completely different. While there are the obvious differences in numbers, prizes, and difficulty, there’s the even more obvious fact that Shonen Jumps have more rounds. However, many players don’t realize the significance of that. To them, it just means more matches to play and more opponents to defeat. But three extra rounds can make a huge difference: consistency is a big factor in “Jump-worthy” decks. Can the deck draw good hands often enough to endure nine rounds of tournament play? Two bad hands in a row is all it takes to force a match loss upon you.

Top 8 potential is another factor. Many decks can make it to the Top 8 solely on consistent draws and overpowering effects on unsuspecting opponents. However, if your deck doesn’t work when the opponent knows exactly what to do against it, it likely won’t win the tournament. That keeps the field from being swarmed by Stein-OTK and Tundo copycats.

In this writer’s opinion, the most important thing for a deck is flexibility. Your deck only needs to do one thing consistently: win. It doesn’t matter how the deck achieves this. All that matters is victory. We’ve seen players pull out alternate win conditions with standard decks. Shane Scurry proved that alternate wins are a viable strategy when he decked out Chris Pittao in the finals of SJC Baltimore. Deck-out is just one example. Lethal Cyber-Stein attacks are a more prominent example, and many players have turned to that for some flexibility.

Monarchs are pretty famous for being flexible. They can be 2400 ATK beaters, dropping down without using their powerful effects just for the brute force. They can also be field equalizers, using their effects and then letting other monsters (usually Monarchs) or defensive traps destroy them, thus minimizing the opponent’s field (and hopefully making it more equal to yours). Finally, they can provide a wide range of control options. Their 2400 ATK is pretty hard to get past, and their effects can neutralize even the most aggressive opponents. That flexibility is one of the primary reasons for their popularity in recent premier tournaments.

At Shonen Jump Championship Boston, Lazaro Bellido made the Top 8 with an excellent Monarch deck. Unfortunately, he Top 8’s too often, so I chose not to cover his new deck, since I just finished reviewing his Machine build from SJC Hamilton. Luckily, Ryan Spicer made the finals of SJC Austin with a very similar (and likely better) deck. Let’s take a look:

Monsters—23

3 Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch

2 Old Vindictive Magician

2 Apprentice Magician

2 Mystic Tomato

1 Spirit Reaper

3 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

1 Treeborn Frog

3 Cyber Dragon

1 Magician of Faith

1 Sangan

3 Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

Spells—10

1 Heavy Storm

1 Graceful Charity

1 Scapegoat

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Pot of Avarice

2 Brain Control

1 Soul Exchange

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Confiscation

Traps—7

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

3 Sakuretsu Armor

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

1 Ring of Destruction

This deck embodies everything you want in a Shonen Jump competitor. There’s a lot of consistency and power: three copies each of Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch and Zaborg the Thunder Monarch give Spicer the ATK power and field stability necessary for every deck. The Apprentice Magician engine—complete with two copies of the Apprentice, two copies of Old Vindictive Magician, and a single Magician of Faith—provide support for six Monarchs.

The Apprentice engine has the sort of sneaky flexibility that I mentioned earlier. If you’ve ever played an Apprentice Magician deck, you know how tough the decision to attack a face-down monster can be. If it’s Old Vindictive Magician, you’ll want to attack, because setting a monster in defense mode usually means it’ll be destroyed (giving your opponent perfect tribute fodder). However, if you go barreling into an Apprentice Magician, your opponent will simply search out Old Vindictive Magician and you’re in the same predicament. This is exactly the kind of unpredictability you want in a Shonen Jump-level deck, and I’d be willing to bet it’s part of the reason Spicer did so well.

Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive only adds to the fun. Now, you have even more cards to punish an opponent who’s not willing to attack. Dekoichi is insanely hard to take care of once it’s been flipped. Most players won’t commit any resource other than an attack to rid the field of it, and this is where Spicer’s deck outstrips Lazaro’s: three copies of Sakuretsu Armor and one Bottomless Trap Hole make for a much stronger defense.

This defense system, when coupled with three copies of Dekoichi, means that attacks won’t be enough to help your opponent, forcing him or her to waste some sort of monster removal. This strategy, which I’ve dubbed the “Protect the Deko” (PtD) philosophy, will win many games over the course of a nine-round tournament. It also works with Breaker the Magical Warrior and other high-attack floaters (such as Twin-Headed Behemoth or a pair of Gravekeeper’s Spy cards). Spicer clearly utilized the synergy between Monarchs, Dekoichis, and defensive cards to back opponents into different corners at every stage of the game.

Mystic Tomato and Spirit Reaper complete the list of more variable monsters found in this deck. Although Spicer didn’t play Creature Swap cards in his build, the Tomatoes are still a vital tool for the deck. Searching out Treeborn Frog via Sangan can pull him out of sticky situations and bad hands. The Frog creates an enormous amount of consistency and having an extra path to fetching it is never a bad thing. Tomato can also pull out Apprentice Magician and trade off in battle with Dekoichi. As such, its flexibility and unpredictability in tournament play is wide and strong. The Spirit Reaper is not a surprising inclusion, given the presence of Mystic Tomato and the deck’s desire to keep monsters on the field.

The spell line-up is very basic, comprised of the most popular cards with a few extra Monarch support cards. Spicer chose to play two copies of Brain Control and only one Soul Exchange. It’s a risky move, but it could pay off. Brain Control offers fewer options, but lets you have your battle phase. It’s also killer against Don Zaloog or D. D. Warrior Lady. Soul Exchange is generally more reliable, but Brain Control offers a more aggressive option, and gives Spicer even more positive scenarios.

I would prefer a Creature Swap or two in this deck, but you could provide a solid argument for cutting it over any of the other spells. The main incentive to run Swap (besides the Mystic Tomato/Spirit Reaper combo) is that it allows you to play your Treeborn Frog from hand without spending a turn setting it. In a fast-paced duel, or one where you haven’t drawn much defense, using all your turns and battle phases as efficiently as possible is key. Creature Swap can help achieve that, which makes it a great alternate pick for this deck.

The trap line-up is quite simple. The more popular traps are included, as well as three copies of Sakuretsu Armor and one Bottomless Trap Hole to aid the PtD philosophy. Call of the Haunted was excluded since it conflicts with Treeborn Frog and Pot of Avarice, and since the deck lacks enough powerful monsters to special summon (trumping its timely usefulness with a big Monarch or Sangan, or against an opposing Creature Swap).

I’ll take a moment to address the side deck, which shifts gears into a Stein-OTK. Lazaro Bellido used the same strategy with an almost identical deck at SJC Boston, and he made the Top 8 there. However, most people don’t know that Lazaro only lost in the Swiss rounds when he sided into the Stein OTK. He concluded that his Monarch deck could not reliably side into OTK Stein. According to Spicer’s tournament report, he won five games with the OTK Stein, and lost only slightly fewer than that with the same strategy.

It’s unknown whether the Stein OTK was necessary, but since Spicer won all his Stein OTK games after winning game 1, I don’t believe that he needed to do it. However, I agree with the unpredictability of a Stein-OTK side deck, and against average decks in the Top 8, having a Stein-OTK makes the opponent quite nervous and possibly over-aggressive, which can be exploited.

Spicer has taken Lazaro’s Top 8 build and transformed it into one of the most powerful decks the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG has seen in a long time. This may become the deck to play (or beat) in this format. Expect to see it at the Top 8 of the next Shonen Jump. Ryan Spicer, you’ve created a monster!