Control decks have been huge lately. Dale Bellido won Shonen Jump Championship Chicago weeks ago with a deck that he called “Tomato Control,” and Paul Levitin won Shonen Jump Championship Los Angeles with a deck that essentially abused tempo control to steal wins. Control is, and always has been, a big issue in the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. If you have it, you win—and if not, your future’s usually less than rosy.

Today’s contributor takes a look at a new type of Control deck that’s drastically different from anything you’ve seen before. Controlling the field, shutting out selected strategies, and calling forth some of the game’s mightiest effects of days gone by, today’s subject is called Elemental Control. Here’s what Jon, the deck’s creator, had to say about it.

Hi, Jason,

This is Jon from Milwaukee, WI, and I’ve invented a deck that might get some attention. Looking at cards in Rise Of Destiny, Soul Of The Duelist, Flaming Eternity, and The Lost Millennium, I've found a link between the Element monsters that get two abilities from the presence of two different attributes on the field: the Charmer girls, Homunculus the Alchemic Being, Elemental Mistress Doriado, and a few trap cards as well.

At first glance, the deck seems a bit off, but hopefully you can make it a bit better.

—Jon H, Milwaukee WI

Here’s the decklist that Jon sent me.

Elemental Control

42 Cards

Monsters: 17

1 Aussa The Earth Charmer

1 Eria The Water Charmer

1 Wynn The Wind Charmer

1 Hiita The Fire Charmer

3 Elemental Mistress Doriado

1 Element Doom

1 Element Dragon

1 Element Valkyrie

1 Element Magician

1 Element Soldier

1 Element Saurus

3 Homunculus the Alchemic Being

1 Cyber Jar

Spells: 17

3 Doriado's Blessing

3 Scroll of Bewitchment

2 Creature Swap

2 Ritual Weapon

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Heavy Storm

1 Reload

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Dark Hole

1 Swords of Revealing Light

1 Snatch Steal

Traps: 8

2 Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan

1 Dust Tornado

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Spiritual Water Art – Aoi

1 Spiritual Earth Art – Kurogane

1 Spiritual Wind Art – Miyabi

1 Spiritual Fire Art – Kurenai

This deck is really interesting, and its strategy can be summed up as “exploit the use of a variety of attributes to accomplish a wide number of things.” It’s a cool idea, and Elemental Mistress Doriado has always been a tempting card for people around these parts. For example, Curtis adores it.

If we break down the deck’s agenda, we can understand the intentions of the individual cards in the deck:

—Use Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan’s game-winning effect

—Control monsters with the elemental Charmers

—Use Element monsters to generate a multitude of varied effects

—Summon Elemental Mistress Doriado and use her to dominate the field

That’s a lot of things for one deck to do, and none of the tasks that Jon has set out to accomplish are easy. Unfortunately, there are stumbling blocks for all of his goals. Let’s examine each of these, then decide which are worth solving and how we’ll go about doing so.

Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan: This deck isn’t using monsters that are strong enough to maintain board presence on their own. It’s going to be really hard to keep four monsters on the field at any given time, let alone draw into the ones you need to fulfill Fuh-Rin’s condition. Elemental Mistress Doriado can fulfill the condition on its own, but this deck’s chances of summoning it early enough in a duel to prevent Fuh-Rin from being a dead card are slim. Jon isn’t using cards that support the Mistress’s summoning requirements as a ritual monster. If we’re going to use Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan, we need to have better access to Doriado.

The Charmers: The problem with the Charmer monsters lies in the current metagame. Very few attributes other than Light, Dark, and Earth are seeing play in top-tier competition. We have to follow this trend if we’re only going to run a limited number of each Charmer monster. If we don’t, we won’t have the right Charmer for the right situation.

To overcome this, Jon has attempted to use Scroll of Bewitchment. He’s looking to attach the Scroll to a monster, change its attribute, and then match that attribute to the Charmer he has on hand. Beyond that, the Scroll can be used to change an attribute for Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan’s condition. It can even act as a sort of manual trigger for an Element monster’s effect. Unfortunately, the result is an easily disrupted and highly conditional two-card combo. We can’t afford to give up card advantage, and if the Charmer that grabbed your opponent’s monster falls in battle, you’ve virtually lost two cards (the Charmer and the now-useless Scroll).

Element monsters: These are really cool, and some of their effects are terribly powerful. The abilities that they gain when they’ve got some Wind and Fire to draw on are astoundingly good. Fire provides an ATK boost, while Wind allows an Element monster to attack twice. However, the Earth and Water effects aren’t nearly so useful. Water just prevents the monster from being controlled by opposing players, and Earth negates the effects of a monster it destroys. That Water effect is nearly worthless, and while Earth’s effect is decent, it’s not as good as Fire or Wind.

Elemental Mistress Doriado: The problem here isn’t just that Doriado is difficult to get at. Once it hits the field, Jon’s backup plan to keep it from being wiped off the board is Ritual Weapon—he’s looking to increase Doriado’s stats in order to make it a harder target for battle. But the main concern isn’t battle, since we can control that through careful play. Doriado’s big behind is a far greater danger.

 . . . I guess that statement needs some explanation. In TCGs, a card’s ATK and DEF values are often called the “front” and “back” of a card, respectively. Doriado’s problem is that it’s got a very good DEF value. It’s low enough to make it a sitting duck in combat, but high enough to ensure that Smashing Ground will probably nail it if an opponent happens to activate one. Ritual Weapon just makes this problem even worse—it gives Doriado even more DEF, and with a DEF value of 2900, it’ll get Smashed into pieces in no time. While defending Doriado can be problematic, just being able to reliably get it out onto the field will help us out a great deal.

We’ve got four pretty big problems. Here’s how we’re going to solve each one:

Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan is awesome. I like to call it Pot-of-Duo-Geki-Duster when no one’s around, because it’s like four game-breaking cards rolled into one. I really don’t want to take this card out of the deck, so we need to focus more on Elemental Mistress Doriado.

In order to help the Mistress out, we’re going to make it easier to find. If it goes down, it goes down, and we can’t really help that. But we can give this deck some more precision, in order to ensure that the duel ends quickly when Doriado comes out. That way we won’t have to really worry about keeping it around very long. In addition, it’d be nice to to dust off and special summon a fallen Doriado a bit more reliably.

I love those Element monsters, but some of them are undeniably better than the others. I’m going to focus on the Fire and Wind attribute effects and drop the monsters that focus on the Water attribute trigger. This is going to work out really well once you see the changes I make.

Finally, we’re going to bid some of the Charmers a fond farewell. In fact, our first drops are going to be Eria the Water Charmer, Wynn the Wind Charmer, and Hiita the Fire Charmer. Aussa the Earth Charmer gets to stay, because it’s so darn good in the current environment. Taking control of D. D. Assailant or even Exiled Force, it’ll often be able to get you a two-card advantage at absolutely no cost to your hand. Even if it then gets wiped off the field by an attack, it’s gained you a solid superiority of resources.

Element Valkyrie, Element Magician, and Element Soldier are all the “unimpressive” Element monsters, as far as I’m concerned. Basically, I just looked for which of the Element monsters carried the Water attribute condition and dropped them, because it’s that bad. That leaves us with Element Saurus, Element Doom, and Element Dragon, and we’ll end up getting a perfect blend of Earth, Fire, and Wind triggers. Two of these three monsters are also searchable with Mystic Tomato, so that’s going to be an added bonus that will let us use the Element monsters as a sort of toolbox for various situations.

I’ll drop one copy each of Elemental Mistress Doriado and its ritual, Doriado’s Blessing. Both of these cards will become searchable in the deck’s fixed incarnation, so we don’t need to be running three copies of each. I’m going to drop the two Ritual Weapons as well, due to the aforementioned “booty concern.”*

With fewer Charmers in the deck, the utility of both Scroll of Bewitchment and Creature Swap will be reduced. There’s less of a reason to Bewitch anything, and there are few weak monsters to Swap with an opponent. In addition, because the deck will be less concerned with frantically trying to dig for single copies of certain cards, we also won’t need the single Reload. I’ll cut the deck down to two Scrolls, but Reload and Creature Swap are both gone.

Finally, I’ll drop each of the Spiritual Arts, even Spiritual Earth Art – Kurogane. We won’t be running any monsters that are naturally compatible with the other three, so they’re no longer as important as they once were. As for Kurogane, we’ll be running so few Earth monsters that it doesn’t seem worthwhile.

We’re down almost twenty cards, and that’s a lot of room to fill. Luckily, now that we’ve identified some of the challenges that this strategy faces, some of this fix almost writes itself. Let’s start with the obvious additions.

We’ve established that we like Element Doom, Element Dragon, and Element Saurus, so we’ll run an extra copy of each. We’ve also established that we like reliably getting to these monsters, so two copies of Mystic Tomato will make the cut. Not only will Tomato let us search for Element Doom and Element Saurus, but it will also give us a good card to set on turn one if we open the duel.

Aussa is very nice in the Warrior-dominated environment. It can take control of all sorts of Warrior monsters, and it can even steal Bazoo the Soul-Eater and Injection Fairy Lily out from under your opponent’s nose. As such, we’ll add a second copy. The deck is still packing one Scroll of Bewitchment, so keep that in mind when you’re facing some really big monsters. If you grab something like Jinzo or Chaos Sorcerer, you can quickly start cutting down on your opponent’s card advantage.

With all these little monsters running around in the deck, it really cries out for Sangan. Heck, virtually every deck should make use of the little fuzzball. It gives you options, and options are worth their weight in gold. Sangan will let you grab anything in the deck aside from Homunculus, and you can even use it to search for Elemental Mistress Doriado if you need to hunt one down.

Speaking of which, three copies of Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands will also help the Doriado initiative. Manju can nab you a copy of Doriado or its ritual, so it’s a versatile card that you’ll usually be happy to draw. It gives this deck consistency and a clear-cut path to victory. Get Doriado onto the field, exploit the Element monsters and Fuh-Rin, and take the win that you so rightly deserve.

Along those lines, another copy of Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan seems like a good idea. We want to be able to draw into it reliably, and if we draw a pair, then that’s just more firepower once Doriado arrives on the scene. Premature Burial and Messenger of Peace can keep it around once it’s summoned, so each is an integral card. You can even stall with the Messenger until you’ve got a nice horde of Element monsters on the field.

Finally, I want to add three copies of Smashing Ground. Sometimes this deck is going to need to play defensively for a while, and the relatively low ATK and DEF scores of its monsters won’t win it much time. Smashing Ground will slow down virtually any opponent, but be careful of players who are running Strike Ninja or other cards that take advantage of topdecking situations. Such decks can take advantage of your own one-for-ones by letting you burn cards and then costing you the rest by pressing with their own one-for-one trades.

Here are the final changes that I made to Jon’s deck.

-1 Eria the Water Charmer

-1 Wynn the Wind Charmer

-1 Hiita the Fire Charmer

-1 Element Valkyrie

-1 Element Magician

-1 Element Soldier

-1 Elemental Mistress Doriado

-1 Doriado's Blessing

-1 Scroll of Bewitchment

-2 Creature Swap

-1 Reload

-2 Ritual Weapon

-1 Spiritual Water Art – Aoi

-1 Spiritual Wind Art – Miyabi

-1 Spiritual Fire Art – Kurenai

-1 Spiritual Earth Art – Kurogane

+1 Element Doom

+1 Element Dragon

+1 Element Saurus

+1 Aussa the Earth Charmer

+2 Mystic Tomato

+1 Sangan

+3 Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands

+3 Smashing Ground

+1 Premature Burial

+1 Messenger of Peace

+1 Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan

It’s a pretty drastic series of changes, but I think the flavor of Jon’s strategy has been preserved. Aussa the Earth Charmer and the Element monsters’ Wind effects can result in some big-time card advantage, and the deck gains a lot of steam when it’s up against Warriors, which is the format’s deadliest matchup. Now Doriado can be summoned consistently, and when it is, you’ll be ready with Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan.

Here’s the final build of the deck.

Elemental Control: Jason’s Fix

40 Cards

Monsters: 20

2 Aussa the Earth Charmer

2 Elemental Mistress Doriado

2 Element Doom

2 Element Dragon

2 Element Saurus

3 Homunculus the Alchemic Being

1 Cyber Jar

2 Mystic Tomato

1 Sangan

3 Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands

Spells: 15

2 Doriado's Blessing

2 Scroll of Bewitchment

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Dark Hole

1 Swords of Revealing Light

1 Snatch Steal

3 Smashing Ground

1 Premature Burial

1 Messenger of Peace

Traps: 5

3 Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan

1 Dust Tornado

1 Call of the Haunted

This deck still has some issues in the early game—it just doesn’t have the ATK values to hang tight with format favorites like Cyber Dragon and Goblin Elite Attack Force. It also doesn’t have many traps to fend off aggressive players, so you’ll need to play carefully to get through the first few turns of some duels. Once you do, though, you can quickly build up an arsenal of tricky effects.

Your chief goal is to drop an Element monster and then use it to lean on your opponent. Ideally, you’d want to use Homunculus to turn on the Element effect that you most desire, changing its attribute as needed until you can summon Doriado. This deck can take a few beatings and still come back, chiefly because of the Wind effect. Both Element Dragon and Element Doom can attack twice, and that’s one of your key strengths. If you can’t get Doriado into play and can’t seem to keep Homunculus from perishing, remember that a Scroll of Bewitchment can give you easy access to a single attribute when it’s really needed.

Once you start gaining control of the field, the rest of the duel is about momentum: you want to keep dropping Element monsters and maintaining board control. If the opponent really fights back, remember that you can cut his or her offense short by using Aussa to steal a major attacker. If you’re playing an especially aggressive opponent, you might want to side deck in Waboku to keep Aussa on the field. That way, it can be flipped as the result of an attack but still survive the turn, so that you can take advantage of her new pet.

You’ve got lots of ways to keep Doriado safe. Premature Burial and Call of the Haunted can bring it out of the graveyard as needed, and Messenger of Peace can protect it while you build a horde of Element monsters. Remember that if Doriado goes down hard, you can always ritual summon another, too.

You should be well prepared to go up against Warrior decks, though you might want to side deck a second or even third copy of Messenger of Peace against really aggressive opponents. Three copies of Giant Trunade will take care of Lockdown strategies. Your double-attackers will make short work of the opponent’s monsters once you free them from Gravity Bind, Level Limit – Area B, and opposing Messengers.

A generic Control deck can give this deck some issues if it doesn’t go off quickly, but that’s sort of true for any Combo deck. Just remember to avoid taking risks with Doriado: don’t bring it out before drawing off some of the opponent’s one-for-one monster removal cards.

There it is—a perfectly serviceable Elemental Mistress Doriado deck that does all sorts of interesting things on a consistent (and deadly) basis. Thanks for sending it in, Jon! Hopefully the fix helps out, and hopefully you give the deck some consideration for your next play session!

—Jason Grabher-Meyer

*Note to self: Try and work the phrase “booty concern” into every article from this point forward.