I like alternate win conditions. I rarely build decks around them, but they can be a lot of fun when they take an opponent by surprise. Many alternate win condition decks need more time to go to work and achieve a victory than battle-oriented decks. As such, several decks of that type are more viable in the Advanced format than they were before in the Traditional format; not necessarily because the environment is any slower, but because it’s easier to slow down games when you set your mind to it.
Reader Nick B. from Saskatchewan sent me the following deck.
The point of this deck is to burn your opponent's life points with Chain Energy and to win with Final Countdown.
I’ve come across some issues with the deck, such as losing too many life points before I can shake my opponent up as far as life points go, and a good burn deck can do some devastating damage to this deck. I did think about taking out cards like Final Countdown and some others and making this more of a burn deck by using Fire Princess, Cure Mermaid, and Dancing Fairy. However, I kind of like the original concept of the deck, which is to bounce cards back into their owners’ hands for some nice damage with Chain Energy.
Could you help me out?
Thanks,
Nick, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan
Chain Energy is very under-rated. On a basic level, Yu-Gi-Oh! is about playing cards. Chain Energy punishes you for playing cards by making you die. That’s . . . that’s pretty much what it does.
Final Countdown pressures your opponents to do stuff, which means playing cards—but Chain Energy makes them die if they do. The synergy between these two cards is pretty evident, and it’s a cool idea to bounce stuff back to the opponent’s hand.
Here’s the original decklist.
Chained Down
42 cards
Monsters
2 Mobius the Frost Monarch
1 Fiber Jar
1 Cyber Jar
1 Penguin Soldier
1 Swarm of Scarabs
2 Tornado Bird
3 Lady Ninja Yae
3 Dancing Fairies
3 Banisher of the Light
Spells
1 Pot of Greed
1 Painful Choice
1 Reload
2 Giant Trunade
2 Level Limit - Area B
3 Final Countdown
3 D. D. Borderline
3 Chain Energy
Traps
1 Anti-Spell Fragrance
2 Gravity Bind
2 Hallowed Life Barrier
2 Life Absorbing Machine
2 Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell
I think the concepts behind this deck are solid, and they’re definitely capable of winning tournaments. Unfortunately, I’ve got some serious reservations about how well this deck sticks to its primary goals.
In game terms, bouncing monsters makes sense. Monsters can kill you before Final Countdown resolves and wins the game, so keeping monsters out of play and making your opponent take damage for summoning them is good. However, there are virtually no set spells or traps that hurt this deck. Thus, there’s little reason to be playing Mobius the Frost Monarch, Tornado Bird, and Lady Ninja Yae. No opponent is going to re-set those cards once they’re bounced, and you’re not going to benefit by bouncing them.
Second, Dancing Fairies and Banisher of the Light don’t fit into this deck because we don’t need to gain life points. We need to keep up a hearty amount of defense to make sure we don’t take damage, and that’s easier to accomplish with a bit of focus and planning. We need cards that can maintain board presence, as well as cycle through the deck to get to Final Countdown and Chain Energy as quickly as possible, so cards that only give life points, like Dancing Fairies, and cards that provide little but defense, like Banisher of the Light, have to go.
Next, there are some individual cards I want to take out. D. D. Borderline isn’t a great card in this deck, because we do intend on eventually using spells. Final Countdown is our win condition, after all, and if Chain Energy gets destroyed, that’s also another source of veto power against D. D. Borderline’s effect. It’s a dead card a lot of the time, and it’s even a hindrance at some points, since we won’t be able to get rid of certain monsters that we’ll want to destroy in battle. Those three have to go.
I’m also going to remove the two copies of Giant Trunade. Like I said earlier, bouncing spells or traps gives virtually no benefit to this deck. The exception is when someone uses a set card to negate Final Countdown, but skill and wit can be used to play around it.
Anti-Spell Fragrance is pretty conditional as well, because there aren’t a lot of spells we’re particularly afraid of with this deck. Sure, it could slow an opponent down, but it’s also slowing us down, and that’s not something we can tolerate if this deck is going to be competitive.
Life Absorbing Machine doesn’t fit in this deck either. There are very few cards in the deck that can make use of its effect, and even when they do, it’s likely not worth the card disadvantage and slowness of tempo. I’d rather pay 2000 life points than have this thing sitting in my hand, even when it is useful. When it’s not useful, I’d rather have an angry monkey sitting in my hand wielding a tiny and very sharp axe and also possessing a strong conviction that my face is full of delicious candy, which it could feast upon to sate its monkey appetites.
If there was a place to submit new Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, I would go with, “Tiny Axe Monkey in Search of Candy.”
Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell needs to be removed as well. Not only are we kind of short on spells to discard, there’s nothing that’s played in multiples that hurts this deck much. Sealing away a Warrior player’s first Reinforcement of the Army would be decent, but that isn’t a big issue. It’s the only one that immediately comes to mind when I try and figure out what Cursed Seal is useful against in the Advanced format. In the Traditional format, it’s a great answer to Mystical Space Typhoon, but here, where Mystical Space Typhoon is limited to one copy, it just doesn’t seem necessary.
Lastly, the two copies of Hallowed Life Barrier are going to be removed as well. Defensive cards are good, but not this type. There are better options that Nick will hopefully like more once he tries them out.
Now we’ve got a lot of room to work. Penguin Soldier is a great idea. Bouncing monsters is a great thing for this deck to do, and the Penguins are very hard to play against. I’m going to add two more to max them out. Without the key cards in play for this deck’s central combo, they’re a nice touch of stall. With the deck’s key cards in play, they’re just crushing. I’m even going to add in some support cards later on.
I like Swarm of Scarabs, too, and I’m going to add in two more. It puts pressure on your opponent and allows you, in effect, to control what he or she attacks (the Swarm), which puts the game into your hands. It’s a very clever little card that fits well into this strategy.
Three copies of Tsukuyomi will back up Penguin Soldier and cause some general chaos. Tsukuyomi will manipulate difficult monsters on the opponent’s side of the field and allow us to get more use out of some of the monsters we have.
Next up, I’m going to add three copies of Serpentine Princess. At 2000 DEF, it’s a nice opener and a nice wall, and because it’s a Water monster, it’s going to fit with some of the cards I add to the deck. In addition, it can combo with Monster Recovery to special summon out some of the key monsters in this deck, like Penguin Soldier, while at the same time acting as a Reload to help you cycle into Final Countdown. Serpentine Princess is a really useful card in this deck—in a Final Countdown deck, you need to be running more than just three Reloads, and Monster Recovery fills the gap very nicely. Serpentine Princess not only allows you to make up for the board presence you’d normally lose by using Monster Recovery, but also searches out this deck’s best tricks.
To support Serpentine Princess and Penguin Soldier, and to power through the deck faster, I’m adding three copies of Mother Grizzly. “But Jason! Those cards will be summoned in face-up attack position! You won’t be able to use Penguin Soldier’s effect, or defend with Serpentine Princess!” Ah, yes, but remember, that’s why we have Tsukuyomi—to manipulate those monsters as needed.
As far as spells go, we need the cycling that every deck of this type needs. The deck currently has one Reload, but we need two more, and three copies of Monster Recovery are a must in my mind. There’s just no getting around these cards. They’re what make Final Countdown a viable deck.
I’m going to add one Salvage, strictly because after I add in the trap cards I want to use, I’ll have one card slot left over to get up to 40. Salvage will work really well in this deck. It will retrieve those used Mother Grizzlies, Penguin Soldiers, and Serpentine Princesses, and it provides card advantage in the mid- and late game. It’s a great card that will let you reuse the tricks that make this deck efficient.
Lastly, I’m going to increase the deck’s lockdown engine. Two Gravity Binds are a good start, but we need a third, plus we need protection for that lock power. Three Magic Jammers are going to make use of our relatively stable hand power without requiring specific cards like Anti-Spell Fragrance would have. With a standard 3/3 lock protection and lockdown engine this deck should do quite well, especially considering the inclusion of Level Limit - Area B.
Here are what the total changes look like.
-2 Mobius the Frost Monarch
-2 Tornado Bird
-3 Lady Ninja Yae
-3 Dancing Fairies
-3 Banisher of the Light
-3 D. D. Borderline
-2 Giant Trunade
-1 Anti-Spell Fragrance
-2 Life Absorbing Machine
-2 Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell
-2 Hallowed Life Barrier
+2 Penguin Soldier
+2 Swarm of Scarabs
+3 Tsukuyomi
+3 Serpentine Princess
+3 Mother Grizzly
+2 Reload
+3 Monster Recovery
+1 Salvage
+1 Gravity Bind
+3 Magic Jammer
Here’s the final deck.
Chained Down
Jason’s Fix
40 cards
Monsters
1 Fiber Jar
1 Cyber Jar
3 Penguin Soldier
3 Tsukuyomi
3 Swarm of Scarabs
3 Serpentine Princess
3 Mother Grizzly
Spells
1 Pot of Greed
1 Painful Choice
3 Reload
3 Monster Recovery
1 Salvage
2 Level Limit - Area B
3 Final Countdown
3 Chain Energy
Traps
3 Gravity Bind
3 Magic Jammer
The deck has a lot of big cards to help dig for those Final Countdowns. Fiber Jar, Cyber Jar, the three Reloads, and the three copies of Monster Recovery are all great cards to help you get to Final Countdown as quickly as possible.
The deck has a lot of strong openings. Cyber Jar, Fiber Jar, Penguin Soldier, Serpentine Princess, and Mother Grizzly are all great opening cards, and those are most of the monsters in the deck! From there, you want to thin the deck and attempt to draw into Final Countdown, Chain Energy, and the lockdown cards as quickly as possible. Thin the deck aggressively—don’t be afraid of attacking with Mother Grizzly into one of your opponent’s monsters if you think you can afford to do so. Take as many risks as you need to with Reload and Monster Recovery in order to get to the deck’s key cards. You’re not going to win without Final Countdown, so burn through the deck as quickly as possible to find it.
As for the side deck, I’d personally suggest a somewhat standard mix. Ceasefire can help you burn your way to wins and take advantage of the lockdown strategy by maximizing damage. Bottomless Trap Hole is great when combined with Cyber Jar, as it turns Cyber Jar into a free five cards for you while wiping the opponent of all of his or her new summons, if those summons were placed face up. It will also counter some of the better combo plays with Marauding Captain, D. D. Warrior Lady, Mystic Swordsman LV4, and whatnot, which is good, because the outrageously fast speed of Warrior decks is the biggest threat against this deck. Though I decried the lack of uses for Giant Trunade earlier on, go ahead and put a pair in the side deck, just in case someone is running a lot of spell negation. If you can’t draw it all out, Giant Trunade can be of some use, and to be honest there’s not a lot that you need in your side deck anyway. Run a few copies of Poison of the Old Man to counter Last Turn decks, and throw in a few copies of Book of Moon. Not only will Book of Moon be a valuable defensive tool against certain decks, but it will also combine nicely with the Penguin Soldiers.
That should do a lot better than the first build! It’s a really cool idea, Nick, and thank you for sending it in. Hopefully it works well for you!
Have a deck to submit? Want to say hi? Get in touch with me via email at Jason@metagame.com.