Sometimes I fix a deck because it’s a cool idea that has very little chance of actually working. In that case, my goal isn’t to turn it into the next tournament powerhouse, but just to focus on helping it survive, and helping it to be a bit more efficient in pulling off its tricks. Other times, I’m blessed with a submission that could be a genuine tournament powerhouse: all it really needs is a tweak. In that case, I hope to offer some insight into the deck’s various options, propose some minor changes that would serve it well, and give the strategy some exposure so that readers can see something new that they might want to take to a tournament.
The tricky part is that last point—the deck has to be fresh and exciting to make it into this column. I probably won’t be giving a fix to anybody’s finely tuned Chaos Control or Warrior Toolbox decks any time soon. So when an original, well-built, tier one deck does happen to wander into my inbox, I love to showcase it and make suggestions. Today just so happens to be one of those days!
Reader Evan D. actually submitted his deck to me four or five weeks ago, before the current Forbidden list had been announced. I saw a lot of promise in it, but I already had decks lined up for the next few weeks at the time. However, it seemed like a great deck to lead off the new format, so I requested that he resend his deck with modifications for the next Advanced format. Sure enough, he came through! Here’s what he had to say about his strategy, which looks to use a variety of under-played cards to counter the more popular strategies we see in high-level competition:
Hey Jason,
I just got done tweaking the newest version of my “Metagame Killer” deck. Its goal is to be as tournament-viable and anti-metagame as possible. I think you can figure out the gist of the deck, but allow me to explain some of the odder choices.
Goblin Elite Attack Force takes out anything up to and including Cyber Dragons and can stand up to many cookie-cutter monsters even in defense position. It’s made even more powerful and reliable with some of the support that’s found in this deck. Slate Warrior is a reliable attacker made downright abusable with Tsukuyomi, Book of Moon, and Final Attack Orders. Where to start with Tsukuyomi . . . it’s more Monarch hate, it pumps Slate Warrior, it resets Goblin Elite Attack Force, and it reuses Night Assailant, Penguin Soldier, and Dark Jeroid. Penguin Soldier resets my own defense position Goblins/Orcs or clears my opponent’s field. It also lets me reuse Breaker, Assailant, and Jeroid.
These days, the only defense that most decks have is in their non-chainable traps such as Sakuretsu Armor, Bottomless, and Widespread Ruin, which are usually run in multiples. Nobleman of Extermination completely strips my opponent of those defenses. Final Attack Orders makes Slate Warrior and Goblin Elite Attack Force simply unfair. I give my opponent a nice target, like a defense position Goblin, and play this to make them smash their monster into mine. It also gives all of my monsters a pseudo-piercing ability: “While Final Attack Orders is active, if you attack a face-down Defense Position monster, the monster is changed to Attack Position, then damage calculation is applied with the monster in Attack Position.”
Compulsory Evacuation Device is an amazingly versatile (and chainable) defensive and offensive card. It resets my own Breaker, Goblins, and Magician of Faith, or it clears my opponent’s field of a newly summoned Mobius or what-have-you.
Thanks again, Jason!
—Evan D.
Here’s the revised decklist that Evan sent me, making it fit for the new Forbidden and Limited lists.
Anti-Meta FAO
40 cards
Monsters: 17
1 The End of Anubis
3 Slate Warrior
3 Goblin Elite Attack Force
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Magician of Faith
1 Night Assailant/Dark Jeroid
1 Penguin Soldier
1 Exiled Force
1 Tsukuyomi
1 Sangan
Spells: 14
3 Nobleman of Extermination
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Giant Trunade
1 Heavy Storm
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Graceful Charity
1 Premature Burial
1 Enemy Controller
1 Book of Moon
1 Snatch Steal
Traps: 9
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
2 Final Attack Orders
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Pole Position
1 Ceasefire
The deck is really tech-focused. The End of Anubis serves to shut down Dark World, which is sure to see a ton of play in the new Advanced format. Most of the game’s top players are either planning to play Dark World (thanks to the addition of Graceful Charity and the removal of Dark Hole) or are teching pretty heavily against it. Not only does Evan have The End of Anubis on his side, but he’s also got three copies of Slate Warrior. With their flip effect, each Slate Warrior can attack over Goldd, Wu-Lord of Dark World or Sillva, Warlord of Dark World, and that’s a pretty big asset.
Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer serves to shut down Pot of Avarice and Treeborn Frog, and can attack into the opponent to remove the Pot’s potential targets—or the Frog itself—from the game. It also keeps an opponent from being able to use Chaos Sorcerer, since he or she won’t be able to remove monsters from the graveyard to special summon it.
Though Evan discussed it in his letter, I really want to emphasize how great Penguin Soldier can be in this deck. In the Dark World matchup, it can block three attackers for the cost of your single card. It’ll absorb one attack, and then bounce two more potential attackers off of the field. That’s enough to shut down what would normally be a game-ending Dark World rush. In less aggressive matchups, Penguin Soldier can bounce away Spirit Reapers that are blocking your potential attacks before you can get out a copy of Final Attack Orders, and it can be a great answer to a set Dekoichi, Magical Merchant, or Skelengel that hasn’t had a chance to flip yet.
The deck’s been built really well, but my main concern is that it might draw its tech-based synergy-oriented cards too often in an aggressive Toolbox or simple Beatdown matchup. While I love this deck’s goals, I’m worried that a deck focused on raw power might simply rip it apart. The round 1 feature match from Shonen Jump Long Beach is a perfect example of my greatest fear for clever decks like this one—sometimes they’re a little too clever, and brute force and speed can overrun them.
My fixes are focused on giving the deck a bit more utility, as well as more staying power in the face of an aggressive deck. I’m also really worried about this deck’s ability to handle Jinzo. It’s very trap-heavy, and we can’t cut many traps from the list without compromising Evan’s goals. The deck needs Final Attack Orders, Pole Position, and Compulsory Evacuation Device to maintain its sort of counter-culture feel, and each of these cards performs a lot of cool functions in the deck that makes them worth playing. I’d be remiss to remove Call of the Haunted or Mirror Force, and Torrential Tribute is a must with so much Dark World looming on the horizon.
That actually brings me to my first drop, which will be Ceasefire. I’m a huge fan of the card: it allows you to capitalize on your own field presence and momentum, it shuts down pesky flip effects, and it’s chainable to boot. It’s a great answer for Return from the Different Dimension, and its ability to steal the win in that matchup makes it an auto-in for any side deck. Once the opponent activates and resolves Return from the Different Dimension, he or she is usually very low on life points, and the very effect of Return brings a whole bunch of monsters (usually with effects) back to the field. After those monsters are summoned, but before they attack, you can usually play Ceasefire to dish out enough damage to claim victory. It’s a truly awesome card. But that said, Ceasefire could negate our own Penguin Soldier, Magician of Faith, or Slate Warriors, and I think it gives this deck another dead draw against Jinzo that it can’t really afford—especially since Jinzo is going to see an increased amount of play as the weeks wear on.
That basically means that we’ll be pressured into finding Jinzo solutions in the spell and monster portions of the deck. I’ll be looking to add a few monsters anyway, since seventeen seems light in the current format. More aggression is going to give us a need for more monsters, and there’s really no way to play cleverly around that. While Slate Warrior and Goblin Elite Attack Force will stand on their own against hordes of smaller monsters, and D. D. Assailant won’t be run in multiples due to the new list, Smashing Ground, Sakuretsu Armor, and other forms of monster removal won’t simply bounce off of our big monsters. Nobleman of Extermination is a great answer for these threats, but I think we need to be redundant here for the sake of reliability. Anyway, let’s drop a few more cards.
Evan couldn’t decide between Night Assailant or Dark Jeroid, but I’ll make the choice easy by just dropping both. Pairs of Nobleman of Crossout are probably going to be in most decks now that players can use them again, so I’m wary of depending on Night Assailant for monster-based monster destruction when I don’t necessarily have to. Do I love the idea of combining it with Tsukuyomi? Of course! But I dislike the idea of losing to some aggro Beatdown deck far more. Dark Jeroid isn’t even a factor in my mind. While it can do some neat stuff in relation to battle, its primary function is to blow away Spirit Reaper by targeting the Reaper with its effect, and I personally believe that we’ll be seeing less of Reaper in the upcoming format. Dark World punishes it eight ways from Sunday—creating big swarms that can rush an attack position Reaper and hammer through enough damage to win a duel—and of course, it also hurts Reaper’s discard ability. With Final Attack Orders in the mix, this deck loves seeing Reaper anyway. Unless the opponent tributes it, the Reaper is probably going to be stuck in attack position, which makes it a sitting duck. I’ll run neither Night Assailant nor Dark Jeroid in my new version of the deck.
Finally, I’m going to drop Book of Moon and Giant Trunade. Trunade was an easy call—it’s conditional, it can give the opponent an edge in card advantage, and it isn’t very useful in the early game. While it can allow a player to capitalize on advantageous momentum, I just don’t feel it’s needed here, and there are other cards that we definitely need. As for Book of Moon, I need space, and it came down to either removing Book of Moon or Tsukuyomi from the mix. Tsukuyomi stays because it’s a monster, which this deck needs. Even if I turn Jinzo face down, that just brings all of the opponent’s trap cards online, and I’m not thrilled with that prospect. I really think this deck can win tournaments with minimal flipping and flopping, and while Tsukuyomi seems versatile and well-reasoned, Book of Moon seems like overkill . . . and a poor topdeck waiting to happen. A tough call, but I stand by it.
I’ve cleared four cards out of the main deck. My first addition is going to be a pair of Mystic Tomatos. This deck will do far better with a Tomato Control engine backing it up, and while we aren’t running the Spirit Reapers that many believe are necessary to the concept, we are running Sangan, and I’ll also be adding in Newdoria. Again, this is an example of monster destruction coming from a non-trap source that can provide an answer to Jinzo, and it can sit around in face-up attack position, as needed, to dodge Nobleman of Crossout. Overall, these three cards are going to make the deck far more balanced when it goes toe-to-toe with an aggressive player, especially if its initial draws are below what’s expected.
My last addition is a simple one. Got Jinzo problems? Smashing Ground is your friend. It’s the quickest, cleanest method of destroying a single monster in the format, and even if you have a Slate Warrior that could theoretically bring Jinzo down, I’d rather attack around the Android first to wipe out anything that might have a higher DEF and then bring it down with Smashing Ground. That way I get to keep my Slate Warrior, and if Call of the Haunted or Premature Burial hits the field on the opponent’s next turn, I’ve still got my Slate Warrior on the field to harass it and block its attacks.
Here are the final changes I made to the deck.
–1 Book of Moon
–1 Night Assailant / Dark Jeroid
–1 Giant Trunade
–1 Ceasefire
+2 Mystic Tomato
+1 Newdoria
+1 Smashing Ground
And here’s what the final decklist looks like!
Anti-Meta FAO: Jason’s Fix
40 cards
Monsters: 19
1 The End of Anubis
3 Slate Warrior
3 Goblin Elite Attack Force
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
1 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Magician of Faith
1 Penguin Soldier
1 Exiled Force
1 Sangan
1 Tsukuyomi
2 Mystic Tomato
1 Newdoria
Spells: 13
3 Nobleman of Extermination
2 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Graceful Charity
1 Premature Burial
1 Enemy Controller
1 Snatch Steal
1 Smashing Ground
Traps: 8
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
2 Final Attack Orders
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Pole Position
I always feel kind of badly for removing creative and intelligent ideas from a deck in exchange for “more Smashing Ground” or “a Tomato Control engine,” but sometimes all a creative deck needs is a little nudge toward the norm to be more competitive. I build a lot of creative decks myself, so I know how easy it is to sneak in one or two more tech cards instead of something more utility-oriented. You want those cards in the deck because you want them to work. The look on an opponent’s face when they get bashed by something they never saw coming is priceless. But I’ve also had enough of my decks flop out upon their first showing, and I know that this can be folly if not handled correctly. The reality is that easy monster destruction, and proven card engines like those associated with Tomato Control, really do work. They reliably provide certain important services and are surprisingly splashable.
Part of building a really good, innovative deck is knowing what to take from proven strategies. This has become much easier in recent months, because duelists have a much better grasp of their various options and can figure out what certain groups of cards in any given deck can accomplish. When you’re trying to be original, don’t feel that you have to shy away from proven material—instead, recognize what it can do for your original idea and how that idea can be supported and made stronger with it.
The deck Evan submitted is definitely worth playing, and with my tweaks it should be better prepared for the new format. If you haven’t decided what you want to use in the coming month or so, but you’ve got three Slate Warriors kicking around, give this a serious try. It works wonders against most of the up-and-coming matchups in the format, and it’s a pretty inexpensive deck to build.
Playing it isn’t nearly as difficult as many creative decks can often be. It won’t present the adjustment period that something like Empty Jar Deck Out did, because it’s essentially just a tricky Beatdown deck. You come out swinging, and when you hit the mid-game and can flip Final Attack Orders, you’ll gain a serious advantage over your opponent.
The two hard calls usually involve the activation of Final Attack Orders and the use of Slate Warrior. Final Attack Orders is a bit of a conundrum. If you activate it on offense, it can result in a huge amount of damage at an unpredictable time. However, if you wait to activate it in response to an attack on one of your set Slate Warriors or Goblin Elite Attack Forces, you can press the same offensive advantage next turn, and destroy one of your opponent’s monsters unexpectedly. So that’s hard call number one.
Hard call number two is whether to attack with Slate Warrior by normal summoning it from your hand, or trying to keep it set for a turn in order to bump it up to 2400 ATK. While it seems like the state of the field can easily decide the matter, it rarely does. I’ve played Slate Warrior on a frequent basis for over a year now, and it’s one of the most challenging and powerful monsters in the game. Remember, too, that its ATK reduction effect needs to be taken into consideration as well. You’ll often want to set it against Mobius or Jinzo just to bring their ATKs to a more manageable level. Just be careful of Nobleman of Crossout! I’m running a Fiend Return deck right now that loves to see Crossout on Slate Warrior, since it auto-loads three 1900 ATK attackers into my out of play area for Return from the Different Dimension, but if this deck loses its Slate Warriors, they’re just gone. Evan has no way of retrieving them, and splashing Return would just open up the deck to Jinzo and poor topdecks for little reason.
Here’s a neat trick: if your opponent activates Nobleman of Crossout, ask to see the card (the graveyard is public info, after all). Remember its edition and set denomination. Nobleman of Crossout was printed in Pharaoh’s Servant and Dark Beginnings Vol. 1 as a super rare, and was included in four different Structure decks, plus the Kaiba Evolution starter. The result? There’s a good chance that if your opponent is playing two copies of Nobleman of Crossout in his or her deck, they’ll be from different editions. If he or she plays one Nobleman of Crossout in the first duel and then plays the card again in the second duel, and you remember the edition of the one that was played in the first game, you can compare it to the edition of the Nobleman in game 2. If the edition is different, it reveals an important piece of information: there’s a second Nobleman of Crossout in that player’s deck. While this may seem like just a cute trick, it can provide a lot of help when managing your Slate Warriors, and it’s just one of the interesting challenges of playing the card.
Fiends in general are worthy of attention in the new format, and while this isn’t really a Fiend deck (it’s more of a deck that happens to run a large quantity of Fiends), there are several ways to take advantage of Fiend monsters. Dark Necrofear is pretty sweet, Dark Ruler Ha Des is great in the right metagame, and Fiends have plenty of monsters that can be tributed for Deck Devastation Virus. Watch for them to be big in the coming weeks!
Big thanks to Evan for the great deck! Hopefully the tweak helps, and hopefully you readers out there will give this deck a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Do you have an Advanced format deck you could use some help with, or that you just want to show off to the world? Do you want to see it appear in a future Apotheosis article? Send it to me at Jason(at)metagame(dot)com, with your name, location, and explanation of how the deck works—I might take a crack at it!