I know it’s bad for my health, but for some inexplicable reason, I can’t stop reading Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG message boards. Day after day, I log on to see the latest flame wars between various e-gangsters and to look for any interesting topics of conversation that might be going on at the moment. Lately, though, all the talk has centered on Treeborn Frog. The little Frog that could has been the topic of at least two or three threads every day—threads that usually involve the same people saying the exact same things over and over again. Normally, I’d just accept this as the nature of the Internet, but this time, there’s an injustice being committed. No one who posts in these threads even stops to consider that some cards can benefit from Treeborn Frog and don’t involve discard costs or have “Monarch” in their name. Today’s deck aims to fix this.

“Killer Kermits”

Monsters: 21

3 Des Frog

3 Treeborn Frog

2 Poison Draw Frog

3 Mother Grizzly

2 Beelze Frog

3 T.A.D.P.O.L.E.

2 Abyss Soldier

2 Fenrir

1 Sangan

Spells: 13

1 Dark Hole

1 Heavy Storm

1 Snatch Steal

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

3 Smashing Ground

2 Creature Swap

2 Des Croaking

2 Rush Recklessly

Traps: 7

1 Torrential Tribute

3 Sakuretsu Armor

3 Time Seal

It may not seem like it, but this deck is capable of doing some dirty, dirty things to an unsuspecting opponent. Things that might bring up horrible memories of being pecked to death by Yata-Garasu. Before I go into the details, though, let’s get the obligatory rulings section out of the way. Your main concerns are going to be dealing with the “missing the timing” aspect of Poison Draw Frog. The main thing you need to remember is that you can’t claim Poison Draw Frog’s effect if you tribute it for Des Frog. Des Frog also has an optional trigger effect, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a possible situation where it could miss the timing in this deck. It’s not really going to happen without Call of the Haunted.

While it may not be much of a concern in this deck, talking about Fenrir gives me a chance to go over another common rules question. Once you properly special summon Fenrir through its effect, can you play Premature Burial on it? The answer is yes, and here’s a quick guide to help you make sure your cards do what you think they do before you play them. If it says “This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card can only be Special Summoned by (whatever),” then it’s okay to revive once it’s been properly special summoned. Some examples of cards with this text are Dark Necrofear, Fenrir (obviously), and Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning. The other type of monster says, “This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by (whatever).” This is the kind of monster you cannot revive, even if you’ve properly special summoned it once. Examples of this kind of monster are Dark Eradicator Warlock and Archlord Zerato.

The last issue with Fenrir concerns precisely when it gets its draw-skipping effect. It works similarly to effects like the one found on Elemental Hero Flame Wingman, but with a key difference. Fenrir only needs to destroy the monster, rather than destroy it and send it to the graveyard. That means that if Fenrir were to be destroyed in a kamikaze attack with Don Zaloog, the opponent would still have to skip his or her next draw, even though Fenrir was lost. It doesn’t work that way with the Wingman, so Fenrir has a leg up in that department.

Now that we know how everything works, let’s talk about how to put it to work in this deck. This is an exhaustion-type deck, in which your goal is to force your opponent to commit most of his or her resources to the board, and then start denying him or her draw phases while you pick off his or her cards either one-by-one or all at once. Ideally, the first thing you want to do is get all the T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s out of your deck and into your hand or graveyard. Since you’ve got three, the chances of drawing one in your opening hand is maximized. The goal is to get two in the graveyard so that when you do get around to tribute summoning Des Frog, you can immediately grab the other two and play Des Croaking if you’ve got it. Normally, though, you want to wait as long as possible to drop Croaking, so as to maximize the amount of damage you do with it. This is where it becomes important to get your opponent committed to the board.

The best way to get an opponent to put his or her cards on to the table is to make it difficult or impossible for him or her to do anything else. Treeborn Frog and Mother Grizzly headline this cause, with Treeborn Frog providing one free blocker or tribute each turn and Grizzly fetching out whatever fun Water monsters you might need at the time. Both cards also function extremely well with Creature Swap, since you’ll claim the benefits of any of your monsters that you might destroy while they’re in your opponent’s possession. One of my absolute favorites in this regard is, once again, Poison Draw Frog. Hitting it with a stolen Don Zaloog is one of the most rewarding feelings that anyone who’s running a rogue deck can get. Moves like this make your opponent use his or her cards to get rid of his or her cards without incurring any real loss on your part. After all, losing your opponent’s cards is almost like losing nothing at all. Especially when the other guy isn’t drawing any new cards.

Did I mention that part? You’ve got three copies of Time Seal in the deck, along with two copies of Fenrir. If there’s anything I learned from the days of Yata-Garasu, it’s that making your opponent not draw cards wins the game. Think of it this way. At the start of the game, both players bring an even amount of momentum to the table. Every time someone presses the attack or commits resources to the board, their momentum increases, while the opponent’s momentum decreases. Every time a defending player successfully fends off attacks, things balance out. Normally, this fluctuates back and forth until one player breaks through, and the other player begins a steady slide towards oblivion. When skipped draw phases come into play, they significantly shift up the time table for this decay to appear on the afflicted player’s side. When a removal card is wasted on a chainable trap like Waboku or Time Seal, it’s even more destructive, as it effectively blocks the player’s ability to either balance things out or go on the offensive while shifting momentum back to the opponent. The worst part is that if you’re using Mystical Space Typhoon or Mobius or Heavy Storm on Time Seal or Waboku, they’re stealing your momentum on your turn. Much like the Internet, being able to steadily build momentum at the expense of your opponent’s well-being is serious business, and you’d be wise to keep it in mind when you build your decks.

The other good thing about Time Seal is that it’s quite possibly the most excellent card to have down when you have Treeborn Frog in the graveyard. In my time playing with the Frog, I’ve noticed that people tend to not attack you after destroying the Frog if you have a face-down card, for fear that it might be Sakuretsu Armor or Widespread Ruin. Why? If it’s one of those traps, then the opponent loses his or her monster and your Frog comes back next turn for even more zany fun. That leaves it up to the opponent’s removal to remove any doubt from his or her attacks. As I discussed above, letting the opponent remove Time Seal is excellent for you, since you can chain it and laugh as you draw your card next turn, safe in the knowledge that your opponent will be doing nothing of the sort on his or her turn. You can also get the same effect out of Fenrir, and since you’re playing an obscene amount of Water monsters, summoning it should never be an issue. The key to remember with Fenrir is that you probably want to save your Rush Recklessly to use on it. Using Fenrir with Rush Recklessly can take out nearly every commonly played monster and deny your opponent his or her next draw phase while doing so.

Players will probably also be quick to note that once you get your T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s out and maybe discard them to Abyss Soldier, they don’t do much else—just like your extra copies of Treeborn Frog. For extra T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s, I recommend the two copies of Beelze Frog. It’s really easy to get it up to maximum strength (that’s 2100 ATK), and the fact that it’s level 3 is a huge benefit, especially in first-game matchups against Burn. Heck, Abyss Soldier is amazing in that respect as well. Not only does it let you dump T.A.D.P.O.L.E.s, but it also lets you bounce opposing Wave-Motion Cannons, stall cards, or pesky monsters back to the hand so that you can attack freely. Abyss Soldier is also good against any cards that require a heavy cost to be put into play. It almost makes me want Sinister Serpent back, even though I know deep down inside that I shouldn’t.

When you’re playing this deck, your best matchup will probably come against Flip-Flop Control. Fenrir is capable of taking out any little flip monsters unaided, with the exception of Gravekeeper's Spy. Sure, Dekoichi or Magical Merchant may give your opponent a card, but he or she will still have to lose the regular draw. Besides, the worst thing in the world is to act defensively against Flip-Flop Control. If you slow-play it too much, your opponent might come up with something that can hurt you, like Chaos Sorcerer, and you don’t want that to happen.

Your worst matchup is most likely Warrior Toolbox, since those copies of Reinforcement of the Army really count for a lot if your opponent is in a situation where he or she can’t draw. The key for this matchup involves waiting until the Warrior Toolbox player uses one of his or her copies of Reinforcement of the Army, and then starting to lock him or her down so the wild card that Reinforcement grants him or her isn’t an option. The obvious problem comes if your opponent was holding both of his or her copies of Reinforcement of the Army. In this case, you’ll just have to hope you have the answer to the opponent’s move on hand.

That’s going to do it for me this week. Shonen Jump Orlando is this weekend, and by my count you’ve got about three more days to get ready for the show. Good luck to everyone who’s attending, and until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

Jerome McHale

jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu

NEXT WEEK: It’s come to my attention that if your opponent can’t play monsters, he or she will have difficulty winning the game. That sounds exploitable to me!