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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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| Deck Profile: Masatoshi Togawa |
| Jason Grabher-Meyer |
| July 30, 2004 |
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Masatoshi Togawa claimed the 2004 World Championship in the name of Japan. This fact alone makes his deck worthy of a close examination. However, some of the choices Togawa made are quite interesting and his success with these choices makes it even more important to examine his deck. Here’s Masatoshi Togawa’s deck list:
Masatoshi Togawa, 2004 World Champion
40 cards
Monsters
1 Witch of the Black Forest
1 Sangan
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1 Magical Scientist
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
2 Magician of Faith
1 Shining Angel
3 D. D. Warrior Lady
1 Sinister Serpent
1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
1 Jinzo
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
1 Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End
Spells
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Confiscation
1 The Forceful Sentry
1 Premature Burial
1 Monster Reborn
1 Pot of Greed
1 Graceful Charity
1 Mirage of Nightmare
1 Smashing Ground
1 Creature Swap
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Dark Hole
1 Snatch Steal
2 Scapegoat
Traps
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Mirror Force
1 Ring of Destruction
2 Torrential Tribute
Togawa’s deck is a hybrid of Chaos Beatdown and Chaos Control, but this in and of itself is unremarkable. It’s common to see an experienced player mix two approaches from different Chaos variants in order to try and find a beneficial medium between the two, and thus have an edge. What isn’t common to see, though, is a deck where the division is made so obviously. Masatoshi Togawa main decked a monster set completely fitting for the Beatdown approach, while his spell set was Control-bred through and through. Let me show you what I mean.
 The monsters are classic Chaos Beatdown. The fitting Limited-list monsters are all run (Sinister Serpent, Breaker the Magical Warrior, and so on), and three D. D. Warrior Ladies backed up by a single Shining Angel fill out the list. There’s nothing innovative there; the only real digression from an average cookie-cutter list are the two Magicians of Faith, and it’s here where the deck’s synergy between spells and monsters really starts to show. Because the deck uses a variety of key spell cards that all have a high level of utility, Magician of Faith maintains a high level of utility as well. The Control spells, like Creature Swap, Confiscation, The Forceful Sentry, and Smashing Ground can all be game-breaking when used in multiples, and Magician of Faith can facilitate that. Such a move with The Forceful Sentry was arguably what won Togawa the semifinals.
The spells are, for the most part, staples and Control cards typical of the format. There are virtually no conditional cards in the lot, and the few that are conditional (Nobleman of Crossout, Creature Swap, and Scapegoat) are powerful enough to justify their inclusion. Creature Swap finds great synergy with Scapegoat, and in truth, Scapegoat is likely the most notable card of the bunch. Heavily popularized in Eastern metagames, Scapegoat has not yet exploded in North America, but it may do so in the near future. It’s a great topdeck card, and in an environment without Imperial Order, it’s far easier to play spell cards successfully than most are accustomed to. Scapegoat can allow for overextensions that would otherwise be risky to the point of stupidity, since it can protect a player for multiple turns. It’s a trend that will probably experience a boom in areas where it isn’t already prominently seen. The rest of the cards hold up admirably on their own—Smashing Ground was a running theme of the World Championship, played for its ability to take out Chaos Emperor Dragon, Black Luster Soldier, and D. D. Warrior Lady. Considering the amount of success it saw, it’s almost a wonder that more players didn’t run multiple copies. Watch for it to be big in all metagames in the near future.
 Looking at the trap cards Togawa chose to play, his actual selections are probably of less interest than the cards he opted not to run. In an age where many duelists are running four to six trap cards due to Jinzo, many are starting to let their trap counts rebound. Togawa isn’t keeping himself to just five traps because of a fear of Jinzo—instead he’s opening up the option to truly punish players who are running traps near, or in, the double digits. By running Jinzo (a somewhat unpopular choice at Worlds) and side decking two copies of Royal Decree, Togawa can really shut a deck down if it’s approximately 25 percent traps. Waboku is a card that seems to get either positive attention or negative attention, and in the restrictive format of the forbidden list environment, it’s not nearly as good with Scapegoat being as viable as it is. It was wise of Togawa to eschew it, and doing so allowed him to really hurt the duelists competing in Worlds who expected to use traps with near-impunity.
Let’s look at the Fusion deck:
Fusion Deck
3 Dark Balter the Terrible
3 Ryu Senshi
3 Thousand-Eyes Restrict
1 Fiend Skull Dragon
3 Roaring Ocean Snake
3 Punished Eagle
1 Giltia the D. Knight
2 Musician King
1 Flame Ghost
2 Reaper on the Nightmare
1 B. Skull Dragon
1 Darkfire Dragon
 Togawa’s Fusion deck isn’t anything special, but it gets the job done and does so reliably: it’s almost complete, albeit not as thorough as it could be. Dark Balter the Terrible, Ryu Senshi, Thousand-Eyes Restrict, and Fiend Skull Dragon provide the usual effects that give Magical Scientist his Swiss Army Knife reputation. Giltia the D. Knight and Musician King provide Light monsters to use as fodder for Chaos Emperor Dragon and Black Luster Soldier, while Flame Ghost and Darkfire Dragon do the same for Darkness. Roaring Ocean Snake and Punished Eagle provide some attackers that give overrun damage to attack-position defenders, and it’s here where the one breakdown in the Fusion decklist is found: for some reason, Togawa is not running Dark Flare Knight. It’s possible this was just an issue of availability—several Japanese duelists came to the event with the 2300 ATK Fusion monsters in their Fusion decks, and since these cards were barred from the event (as they are unreleased outside of Japan), it’s possible that Dark Flare Knight simply wasn’t available. Lastly, Reaper on the Nightmare combos with Creature Swap to equal a huge amount of battle damage hitting the opponent’s life points, and B. Skull Dragon . . . looks pretty.
Moving on, let’s look at the side deck.
Side Deck
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Don Zaloog
1 Airknight Parshath
1 Mystic Tomato
1 Berserk Gorilla
1 Creature Swap
3 Book of Moon
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Waboku
2 Royal Decree
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Time Seal
It may not look like much at first, but Togawa’s side deck may be the most brilliant part of his entire strategy. Spirit Reaper, Don Zaloog, Mystic Tomato, Time Seal, and the second Creature Swap provide control, allowing the Beatdown-style monsters from the main deck to be swapped out in favor of these to change gears. The opposite is true for Berserk Gorilla and Airknight Parshath, which offer raw power in exchange for the rotating out of some of the control cards. Book of Moon and Waboku add more defense (while having offensive synergy with Scientist and Parshath). Nobleman of Crossout provides more aggression, while Magic Cylinder punishes that aggression from others. Lastly, Royal Decree can be side decked, as previously mentioned, to shut down duelists using a lot of traps.
It’s really a brilliant ensemble, allowing the deck to commit one way or another for its primary focus, as well as offering dynamic balance for any situation. The side deck has a yin and yang–type appearance once broken down, with most of the cards having an opposite counterpart. It’s a great approach, one that let Togawa adapt at a fast pace.
The importance of Scapegoat, Magician of Faith, and other cards in a play environment that uses the forbidden list is displayed by Togawa’s deck, but the most valuable lesson could be in his overall approach. The concept of having a split-type deck that can then be balanced one way or another through the side deck is pretty original, and the versatility offered by that approach can, in some views, be credited with Togawa’s victory. Watch for duelists to be emulating this approach in many different ways in the near future.
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