When people saw that Chris Bowling, the current US National Champion, was playing here in Hawaii, everyone had the same question. “What is he playing?” Fear not; your faithful Metagame writers are ready to answer your questions, and provide you with fuel for a few more!
According to Chris, this deck, conservatively titled Dark Armed Control, was developed chiefly by Team DOA teammate Erin Diaz. Erin is no stranger to building powerful decks, having had success with other decks, notably the Shadowpriestess of Ohm OTK.
Chris is very proud of their creation, estimating that it should be favored against all the big matchups in the first game, and expects it to help him make it to the top of yet another major event.
Of course, the decklist won’t be visible yet, but I’ll tell you a bit about it right now. It is not drastically different from Dark Armed Dragon decks you may have seen recently, but Chris considers it a tuned machine, ready to make it to the top.
1 Dark Grepher
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
1 D.D. Crow
Spells:
3 Upstart Goblin
3 Destiny Draw
2 Allure of Darkness
2 Trade-In
2 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Monster Reborn
1 Premature Burial
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Scapegoat
Traps:
1 Crush Card Virus
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Trap Dustshoot
2 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
3 Solemn Judgment
Side Deck:
1 D.D. Crow
2 Destiny Hero – Malicious
2 Prime Material Dragon
1 My Body as a Shield
1 Prohibition
1 Brain Control
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Null and Void
2 Royal Decree
2 Mask of Restrict
Fusion Deck:
1 Gladiator Beast Heraklinos
3 Gladiator Beast Gyzarus
1 Sanwitch
1 Reaper on the Nightmare
1 Elemental Hero Grand Neos
The deck is not made to be as aggressive as many other Dark Armed Dragon variants, gladly giving opponents life points in exchange for power through multiple copies of Upstart Goblin. It powers through for the strongest cards with Destiny Draw, Allure of Darkness, and even Trade-In complementing the search and draw power of Stratos, Reinforcement of the Army, and Disk Commander.
The side deck brings to bear some of the most powerful cards in the metagame with Prime Material Dragon providing some defense and offense all in one, and cards that have seen only sporadic play in different builds like Null and Void and Mask of Restrict giving him options when dealing with a field as large as a Shonen Jump veteran might expect.
Of special interest is his Fusion deck, which features all the cards from the powerful Gladiator Beast deck. Could this be preparation for an amazing steal-your-monsters power strategy, or a simple psychological attack using the typically face-up Fusion deck to gain an advantage before the match even begins?
We’ll be looking at his progress throughout the day and keeping an eye to see if its power is able to match the recently proven skill of its pilot.