It’s just about the end of the year, and everyone at Metagame.com is reflecting on the changes it brought: new writers coming in, senior ones going out, and the overall shift in the environment. My, how the game has changed in just the past three months . . . it seems ludicrous to believe that there were a full nine months before that this year.
Of course, thinking about the year is completely irrelevant to my column, and makes no sense unless I’m feeling reminiscent. This deck from Jeremy C. has me going back to a number of similar decks I’ve seen and constructed myself, including one interesting variant with Soul-Absorbing Bone Tower. That’s an issue for another day, however. Let’s see what Jeremy has to say about the 30-monster deck.
Matt, take a look at this one!
This deck is mostly monsters, but it allows you to get what you need fairly easily. I only run nine spells and two traps. Most people don’t understand why I would duel with so little defense, but my offense is my defense. I run 30 monsters, which helps me maintain field presence and keeps my hand nice and supple. The key monsters in this build are Magical Merchant, Gigantes, and The Rock Spirit. They work great with Light and Darkness Dragon since it doesn’t negate them. My copies of Jinzo and Spell Canceller have strong continuous effects that put my opponent in a tough spot and are also unaffected by the Dragon.
—Jeremy C.
Los Angeles, CA
Here’s the deck Jeremy sent me:
Twilight Zone—41 cards
Monsters: 30
1 Light and Darkness Dragon
2 Jinzo
3 Cyber Dragon
1 Spell Canceller
3 Gigantes
2 The Rock Spirit
2 Bazoo the Soul-Eater
2 Exiled Force
2 Giant Rat
2 Steamroid
2 Magical Merchant
1 Snipe Hunter
1 Exploder Dragon
1 Injection Fairy Lily
1 Drillroid
1 Cyber Phoenix
1 Card Trooper
1 D. D. Assailant
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
Spells: 9
1 Future Fusion
1 Overload Fusion
1 Dimension Fusion
1 Limiter Removal
1 Premature Burial
1 Brain Control
1 Giant Trunade
1 Heavy Storm
1 Magical Mallet
Traps: 2
1 Return from the Different Dimension
1 Call of the Haunted
It’s kind of a paradox trying to describe this deck to anyone who hasn’t played it, since it becomes more intuitive than logical and I end up spewing out random gibberish about cucumbers when you ask me why I would choose to use, say, Giant Rat instead of Mystic Tomato. It plays Magical Merchant, Future Fusion, and a bunch of Machines and Earth monsters, creating a potent strategy wherein you get very, very big fields out of seemingly nowhere with Dimension Fusion or simply special summons en masse. These decks work much better than anticipated for many reasons. The first is that many decks are built anticipating something more mainstream, because it makes logical sense to focus on what more people are playing as opposed to what one single duelist is playing. If you are randomly paired against fifteen opponents, and all of them but one are playing Monarchs, it makes sense to tune your deck to beat Monarchs to maximize your chances of victory. This means that certain cards will be largely irrelevant against the person playing this deck, since small amounts of spot removal won’t cut it when a player can easily bring his or her entire hand out and start bashing face with it.
Another reason these decks work well is because they are cohesive and use a strong mechanic. Magical Merchant will put a lot of monsters into your graveyard, and people will play Foolish Burial for just one monster in their graveyard! The comparison is a lot fairer when you consider that while player A wants his or her copy of Exodia the Forbidden One in the graveyard, player B just wants some Earth monsters. When you realize that the entire deck capitalizes on the large number of monsters played, it begins to make a lot more sense. The deck is full of tiny revelations like that. Finally, there is room for a large toolbox alongside a full suite of another group of cards. You can use Giant Rat and fill your deck up with a sterling cavalcade of monsters like Medusa Worm, Des Lacooda, Mystic Swordsman LV2, and Exiled Force, and then drop some mad beets on your opponent (continuing in the line of gibberish involving vegetables). Finally, they work well because they revolve around monsters and they never run out.
Jeremy’s particular build is a 24-carrot gem (gibberish, vegetables, etc.) in this regard, since it capitalizes on explosive damage by including powerful cards like Jinzo that chastise the opponent for using spells and traps. So let’s give it an energy drink and add a rocket engine. Morphing Jar should be in this deck. There really is not much question to it—the aggressive nature of the strategy demands that you constantly empty out your hand. Unsurprisingly, I chose to cut Magical Mallet for this purpose. Next, I had to look at what was in here for kicks and what was actually relevant to the deck, which made for an interesting challenge. The number of tribute monsters seems to justify the addition of cards like Treeborn Frog, Spirit Reaper, Marshmallon etc., but I don’t buy that theory here. In this deck, it makes more sense to add Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute, or other options to answer problem cards like Chaos Command Magician or to supplement a set of cards you’d use to take out Light and Darkness Dragon. Simply being present also allows for a more conservative style of play, perfectly acceptable in a deck running a very diverse and varied toolbox lineup. That is the strategy I am adding to this deck. Having no defense is a problem in something like this since the strategy is quite vulnerable to disruption.
Exploder Dragon gets the axe for another Return from the Different Dimension and Mirror Force, and then I have to call into question some of the other choices. In a strategy where so much relies on putting cards into the graveyard to fuel Bazoo the Soul-Eater, Gigantes, and others, why are there only two copies of Giant Rat and Magical Merchant? After adding a copy each of the latter two, I wonder why more copies of single cards aren’t played since they can constantly be recycled with Dimension Fusion, Call of the Haunted, and Return from the Different Dimension. Also, why would a deck so crucially based around monster presence and field control even consider Light and Darkness Dragon? It seems out of place.
Steamroid is also a conspicuous choice. Without it, there are still plenty of Machines to place into the graveyard, and the intersection between dumping things into the graveyard for Magical Merchant, Chimeratech Overdragon, and Bazoo-Return is glancing at best when you stop and consider the whole deck. While the Chimeratech Overdragon aspect has proven strong many times, why not support it with greater focus on Magical Merchant? Why not use more Earth monsters like Morphing Jar #2 that punish opposing decks? The answer really comes down to space and opportunity cost, and that inspires the following statement: this deck’s themes are at war with each other. Yes, they share some base cards, but I feel as though the lack of Magical Merchant or Giant Rat actually suggests that those are not focused elements. Without trying to squash creativity, it seems as though the deck constructed here suffers from poor economics. The opportunity cost of all those missing spells and traps cannot be completely balanced out by the chosen monster themes.
The downside I face is that I am not sure whether I am fixing a Magical Merchant monster-heavy deck supplemented with Chimeratech and Bazoo-Return elements, or a Bazoo-Return deck with trace elements of Chimeratech and soft elements of Magical Merchant. The decision to cut Steamroid hurts the Earth/Bazoo aspect, yet helps consistency and allows for more diversity and longevity. Adding Mirror Force and extra deck thinning—plus, say, a Giant Rat and a Des Lacooda—gives you a different deck. I’m not sure the word “inconsistent” applies, but what I do know is that I cannot complete this deck without knowing the side deck. This list has the paradoxical nature of being both perfect and majorly flawed since there is only so much intersection between the three themes and only so many cards that can fit into the main list.
We’ve found as perfect a degree of intersection as we can, and not much can be done in any one area to alleviate concerns present without majorly changing the deck. One of the personal rules I had when picking up the torch from Jason Grabher-Meyer is that I would not, when handed an Exodia deck, hand back a Warrior Toolbox. That limits the changes I can make to this deck because of what I have been presented with, yet the potential changes are too extensive to quantify with numbers and words. In the end, I’m handing back a similar deck with different choices that supplement the whole a little better but play in an identical fashion.
This may expose a dual dilemma that links Jeremy and I: neither of us can really improve the deck beyond optimizing single-card choices, because (insofar as the goal set forth is working with the three different noted themes) all the cards in the deck function perfectly. Making the choice to cut Steamroid for more speed and more combo pieces takes a step away from surplus options and back toward combo decks and setup. Yet the choices I made take the deck away from combo setup and back to surplus option at the same time. The conundrum escalates until one conclusion is reached—we are not dealing with a matter of upgrades in choices or functionality, we are dealing with side-grades. Different strokes for different folks. This deck is operating at the outer limit of its production possibilities curve, and not much can improve it past one or two changes without radically changing the way it works.
Cut:
-1 Giant Trunade
-1 Magical Mallet
-1 Exploder Dragon
-1 Light and Darkness Dragon
-2 Steamroid
Added:
+1 Morphing Jar
+1 Giant Rat
+1 Magical Merchant
+1 Des Lacooda
+1 Return from the Different Dimension
+1 Mirror Force
Here’s the final build of the deck!
Twilight Zone—Matt’s Fix—41 cards
Monsters: 30
2 Jinzo
3 Cyber Dragon
1 Spell Canceller
3 Gigantes
2 The Rock Spirit
2 Bazoo the Soul-Eater
2 Exiled Force
3 Giant Rat
3 Magical Merchant
1 Snipe Hunter
1 Injection Fairy Lily
1 Drillroid
1 Morphing Jar
1 Des Lacooda
1 Cyber Phoenix
1 Card Trooper
1 D. D. Assailant
1 Neo-Spacian Grand Mole
Spells: 7
1 Future Fusion
1 Overload Fusion
1 Dimension Fusion
1 Limiter Removal
1 Premature Burial
1 Brain Control
1 Heavy Storm
Traps: 4
2 Return from the Different Dimension
1 Mirror Force
1 Call of the Haunted
Much ado about nothing in my opinion, but I will not pass up the opportunity to pass on some philosophy in the grand world of card gaming, and to showcase a truly interesting deck. Who would think that the resolution of a deckbuilding query would come from a Macro-Economics textbook? Until next time, duelists!
—Matt Murphy