Along with Fillipo “Flip” Galati, I’ve been working on a groundbreaking Exodia One-Turn KO deck. Finding myself unable to attend a Shonen Jump in the near future, I’ve decided to share a new version of the old deck. It utilizes the well-known card-drawing engine that fuels most Exodia decks: Manticore of Darkness, Card of Safe Return, and Foolish Burial, creating a loop which enables you to draw your entire deck. Thus, Exodia.

The innovation of this deck isn’t in its ultimate win condition, but in the way it reaches it. Through a combination of Ojamagic and Magical Hats, you get an eleven-card hand on turn 2, then you use the three copies of both Magical Mallet and Reload to continue drawing cards until you draw the combo. That’s right: a combo deck with an eleven-card hand. Interested yet?

The Monsters

The monsters begin with the Exodia pieces: our ultimate win condition. The two Manticores are part of our combo, which enables us to draw all the Exodia pieces in a single turn.

1 Exodia the Forbidden One

1 Left Leg of the Forbidden One

1 Left Arm of the Forbidden One

1 Right Arm of the Forbidden One

1 Right Leg of the Forbidden One

2 Manticore of Darkness

The strange part of the deck is the Ojama backbone, for which we run nine total Ojamas. While they are almost completely dead cards on their own, we’ll find reasons for having six of them in our hand through our spell lineup. Also, notice their monster type: Beast. That means you can discard them for Manticore’s effect in a sticky situation.

3 Ojama Black

3 Ojama Green

3 Ojama Yellow

The Spells

The most notable rarity in the lineup is Ojamagic, which allows you to search for one copy of each Ojama when sent to the graveyard. Notice that it doesn’t matter whether it goes from the hand or the field to the graveyard, as long as it ends up there. Of course, while it obviously allows for a very large hand, Ojamagic basically turns one useless card into three useless cards. As every Gadget player knows, having more cards than your opponent isn’t so great when all those cards are useless.

1 Graceful Charity

1 Pot of Greed

1 Painful Choice

1 Dark Factory of Mass Production

2 Ojamagic

3 Reload

3 Magical Mallet

3 Foolish Burial

3 Card of Safe Return

3 Dark World Dealings

This is why the deck runs three copies of both Magical Mallet and Reload. You trade the two Ojamagic cards for six Ojamas, then reload them back into your deck to draw six new cards (or more). You’ve thinned your deck and increased your hand, a feat more than notable in a strategy that only requires three cards to win the game (all of which can be found in multiple copies here). Also, the three copies of Reload and Mallet help you avoid drawing dead hands, another feat worth mentioning in an unstable strategy.

Three copies of Dark World Dealings gives you more draw power, another way to discard either Manticore or Ojamagic, and a way to turn useless Ojamas into game-winning cards. The one copy of Dark Factory of Mass Production will help you avoid losing games as a result of discarding a single Exodia piece, and can retrieve Ojamas for a stronger Reload.

The Traps

Until I created this trap lineup, the deck was still unplayable in a tournament setting. However, the three copies of Magical Hats turn the deck into a card-drawing machine. Your opening move will most often be summoning an Ojama, setting Magical Hats, and ending. When your opponent attacks, you activate Magical Hats, search your deck for the two copies of Ojamagic and let them die at the end of turn. At this point, you’ll search your deck for six Ojamas and most likely win the game on the following turn.

Traps: 3

3 Magical Hats

The use of Magical Hats has other ramifications as well. Upon use of the card, your opponent will likely assume you’re a beginner. It isn’t a card often seen in tournament play. His or her play may slacken at this point, and it could result in misplays which will lead to a win. Also, it doubles as a defense mechanism, used in a way similar to that of Waboku. That gives you a turn’s reprieve and buys you an extra draw.

Notice that this deck only has three Forbidden cards. It’s absolutely ready for conversion to Advanced format play. Through playtesting, I’ve found that you’ll open with a hand that can win on the first turn about ten to fifteen percent of the time. 50-60 percent of the time (a conservative estimate), you’ll open with a hand that can win on turn 2. The remaining 30 percent of the time, you’ll need three turns to win. Of course, a match is best two of three: if an opponent can’t stop you by turn 2, he or she will have about a nine percent chance of winning the duel.

A major design weakness of this strategy is its inability to compete against remove-from-play decks, which are destined to see a lot of use in the near future. A side deck that’s strong against this concept is absolutely essential. I suggest three copies of Chiron the Mage to begin. Not only does he destroy Dimensional Fissure, run over Banisher of the Radiance, and trade with a D.D. Survivor, but he’s a Beast-Warrior too.

Remember to play smart with this deck and use your math: a little statistics go a long way in playing it. Be careful which cards you choose to return to the deck with Magical Mallet and which ones you choose to keep. An early Foolish Burial or Exodia piece is about as useful as an early Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Until next week, enjoy testing this build, and please don’t blame me if it ends up being “just too good.”

—Ryan Murphy