My previews of Icarus Attack and Harpie’s Pet Baby Dragon stoked a tremendous fire for me to construct the best version of the Harpie Lady theme possible. The question I posed in my preview article was whether or not the new pieces of support found in Rise of Destiny and Enemy of Justice give the Harpie Lady deck enough advantages to justify using in serious tournament play.

Regardless of how we build this Harpie Lady deck, keep in mind that its main goal is to promote a fun and healthy dueling environment. Decks that use themes from the animated series, such as Dark Magician decks, Dragon decks, Fusion-based decks, Elemental Hero decks, and others generally don’t see a large tournament presence, but they can be very good if you take the time to master them.

However, this column is called New Grounds because we’re opening eyes to the mechanics of advantage and general desirability of a host of previously underused deck types. While the addition of Icarus Attack gives a huge card-generating engine for our new-school Harpie Lady theme, the deck is generally geared toward casual play. Let’s have fun building this deck as well as possible!

Mechanics of Advantage from the Stated Goals

Because we’re limited to three copies of Harpie Lady, the de facto choice appears to be Harpie Lady 1. The choices possible are two normal monsters (the original Harpie Lady and Cyber Harpie Lady), or versions that either add 300 ATK to all Wind monsters, negate flip effects, or disable your opponent’s monsters from battling. The synergy of packing multiple copies of Harpie Lady 1 with other Wind monsters is far too appealing to resist.

Of the support cards for the Harpie Lady deck, a few create huge advantages. However, I’m going to pass on the Elegant Egotist-Harpie Lady Sisters engine, since Sisters is a special summon-only monster that can definitely clog the hand up. For those special summon combinations, it becomes quite difficult to decide the perfect amount of each to run. Throw in the fact that their main support, Triangle Ecstasy Spark, is also difficult to use consistently, and we’ve made a strong case for not using that line.

Instead, the two pieces of support we’ll use are Harpies’ Hunting Ground and . If we can find a way to consistently summon our Harpie Ladies, a spell or trap will be destroyed upon each summon. Not only does Harpies’ Hunting Ground give a nice ATK and DEF bonus, it generates card advantage each time it’s used. Your opponent can either not set any spell or trap defense and take his or her chances, or lose one each time you summon.

Icarus Attack won’t generally be used with any floaters, but should still create nice simplification techniques. You can basically chain it to anything that destroys your Winged Beast. Your opponent will lose two cards on the field and that piece of monster or spell or trap removal for your Icarus Attack and Winged Beast.

Build: Themed Harpie Lady Deck

General Synergies and Goals:

1) Summon as many Harpie Lady cards as possible to trigger the field spell.

2) Use Winged Beast support to force simplification with Icarus Attack.

Pivotal Cards:

1) Support that summons our Harpie Lady.

2) Support that triggers in conjunction with Harpie Lady.

Constructing the Monster Lineup for the Harpie Lady Theme

We want a good mixture of Harpie Lady support cards. Running too many will lead to a one-dimensional, easily dominated deck. However, running too few will make both Icarus Attack and Harpies’ Hunting Ground dead draws. Two of the best methods for getting Harpie Lady to the hand or field are Flying Kamakiri #1 and Birdface. Let’s organize our monster lineup into two categories: cards that lead to Harpie Lady summons and general support. A good line-up of Harpie Lady cards and their assorted support looks something like this.

Harpie Lady Support:

3 Flying Kamakiri #1

3 Harpie Lady 1

1 Birdface

The Flying Kamakiri’s first search will almost always be Harpie Lady 1, but in case that’s not possible, we can also run a copy of Twin-Headed Behemoth, which is a generally solid option to bring out. After that, the deck begins to morph subtly into a Wind-based deck, which works well in conjunction with both Harpie Lady 1 and Flying Kamakiri #1. As we can gather from my Wind archetype article (and not much has changed since then), the best monsters for the Wind theme are Silpheed and Slate Warrior. We also need an auxiliary target for Flying Kamakiri to search out (in case Harpie Lady is busy that evening). Let’s take a look.

Wind Support:

3 Slate Warrior

2 Silpheed

1 Twin-Headed Behemoth

Now that we’ve established the core of the monster lineup, the rest of the slots will be devoted to two things. The first is monsters that work great with the synergies presented here, and the second is the staple monsters that solid decks need in order to function. We can get the staples out of the way by adding Breaker the Magical Warrior, Sangan, and Treeborn Frog. If you’ll take a look now, we have many self-replacing searchers culminating in a glorious floater (Twin-Headed Behemoth), we have Treeborn Frog, and numerous ways to special summon. Tribute monsters are needed!

The deck can package support together for a variety of options. However, cards like Jinzo and Mobius the Frost Monarch seem to be no-no’s, since Harpies’ Hunting Ground already takes care of spell or trap removal. Add a Dark Magician of Chaos, a few copies of Zaborg the Thunder Monarch, and we’re set!

The three copies of Slate Warrior and two Silpheed cards lead to great Return from the Different Dimension strategies, so instead of being shy, we can go ahead and add a copy of D. D. Warrior Lady and D. D. Assailant. Let’s take a look.

General Support:

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Sangan

1 Treeborn Frog

2 Zaborg the Thunder Monarch

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

1 D. D. Assailant

1 D. D. Warrior Lady

This looks like a rather good monster lineup.

The Spell and Trap Support for our Feathery, Cooing Engine of Destruction

Again, here’s a brief list of the spell staples that help our deck, followed by conceptualized support.

Spell Staples:

1 Graceful Charity

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

2 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Premature Burial

1 Snatch Steal

Themed Spell Support

3 Smashing Ground: It’s amazing to be able to push over stronger monsters without setting extra spell or traps. You don’t want Heavy Storm running roughshod over your field—and now, your Flying Kamakiris and Birdface can deal a nice chunk of damage with relative impunity.

2 Harpies’ Hunting Ground: Two seems to be a solid number, since you likely won’t want too many copies in the hand. It also only affects a few of your monsters’ stats, so it’s not entirely necessary to see it in the opening hand.

That makes twenty-one monsters and twelve spells, and leaves seven slots for traps.

Trap Staples:

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Mirror Force

1 Torrential Tribute

Themed Trap Support

2 Icarus Attack: Again, two is the perfect number. With all of the tutoring flying about, you’ll easily be able to hit Winged Beasts on the field.

1 Return from the Different Dimension: This is a huge swing card that can instantly end the game for you, especially if you have three Slate Warrior cards removed from game zone. However, even between just the D. D. monsters, Silpheed, and Dark Magician of Chaos, this card will work wonderfully.

1 Jar of Greed: You can use this card to chain to spell or trap removal. Also, the more you set, the more they’ll feel safer setting their spell or traps. Then, your Harpies’ Hunting Ground should be able to produce some solid results.

Expected Matchup with Cookie-Cutter Decks

While you can put up a pretty good fight against the strongest deck types of this format, it can sometimes be difficult to handle their huge threats. However, let’s go over some basic strategies. First, the centerpiece of your deck is Flying Kamakiri. It provides you with heavy field presence, allows you to cancel into flipped Dekoichis, and generally allows you to selectively search for Harpie Lady 1. Controlling the flow of Harpie Ladies is vital to this deck.

Also keep in mind that Icarus Attack will generally further your advantage by simplifying when you have the upper hand. Most of the monsters in this deck can function without the Harpie Lady support to secure an upper hand, but remember that you’ll need to generate advantage through Harpies’ Hunting Ground to come ahead in the match.

New Grounds Verdict: This is the perfect example of a casual theme that can be a ton of fun to play and win with!