Shonen Jump Champion Paul Lyn secured his reputation as one of the most creative competitive duelists in the game ages ago at Shonen Jump Championship Orlando, when he won his SJC title with the Ancient Gear OTK deck he called “Rusty Bucket O’ Bolts.” Today he’s lost his first round match, but his deck is so cool that I really want to show it to the world anyway. He might win out, and even if he doesn’t, I think his strategy has a lot of merit and could be worth another look in the future.
A few formats ago in Japan, a deck called “Vision Gun Blue” saw mixed success — enough that it gained a small international reputation. It used Phantom Skyblaster to amass Token monsters, making it easy to then special summon monsters like Destiny Hero – Plasma and other three-tribute powerhouses. It was very, very good at shutting down opposing monster effects, and it was pretty consistent thanks to the search-friendly nature of its central monsters, but it never saw play in TCG territory because we were missing one of those three-tribute monsters from the TCG card pool. While Plasma was certainly the star — his Japanese name “Bloo-D” provided the “Blue” in the deck’s name — the deck just didn’t have enough firepower doing nothing but dropping a Plasma or two. Supplementary monsters like Raviel, Lord of Phantasms just weren’t good enough.
The Duelist Genesis has changed all that! The Skyblaster Tokens Phantom Skyblaster summons might be low on ATK and DEF, but they’re Level 4, meaning that they’re prime material for Synchro summons. Paired with Krebons (Lyn’s Tuner of choice) a Skyblaster Token makes for extremely easy Synchro Summons of Goyo Guardian. Lyn laughed as he explained his strategy: “I can drop like . . . you know . . . two of those by turn 2 in every game.” He gave a chuckle, but I didn’t really doubt that the deck was capable of that.
The Skyblaster tricks don’t stop there. Two copies of Cyber Valley turn those Tokens into real cards with alarming frequency, while also staving off attacks. They pair with Mind Control and Brain Control and Lyn is running one of each. In moments of desperation he can even use the Valleys to turn an Emergency Teleport into two more cards, furthering his ability to get to his key combos.
One Phantom of Chaos lets Lyn really abuse those Plasmas, while he too is running the pair of Caius the Shadow Monarch that is currently driving Adam Corn and Cesar Gonzalez to undefeated records as I write this. The ubiquitous pair of Dark Armed Dragon is present and accounted for, and since Skyblaster itself is a Dark Lyn has one more disposable monster to tribute.
Lyn’s trap spread is very interesting, and seems to be fine-tuned (no pun intended) to take down opposing Teleport Dark Armed builds. Three Phoenix Wing Wind Blast help him load Malicious into the graveyard while repelling opposing Synchros, just like in Cesar Gonzalez’s deck, but he’s also playing two copies of Threatening Roar. The Roars seem very promising in a format where the top deck can throw Dark Armed Dragon and one or more Synchros at you in a single turn, and they strengthen Lyn’s already-favorable Gladiator Beast matchup. It’s a good main deck call, though if the deck is to be revised in the future, I could see them being subbed out for something else.
If you’re one of the twelve Vision Gun Blue fans here in North America or Europe, and have waited for ages to play that deck in the TCG, this is as good as it gets — and it’s pretty dang good. But if you’re looking for a Teleport Dark Armed variant that has all the strengths of the main-stream build but a few more tricks and a lot more fun, you should definitely check this out. Lyn’s creativity is at an all-time high here, and the result is one very cool deck.