The moment I saw Inferno Fire Blast, I knew there was a viable (or at least very cool) deck to be had. Red-Eyes Black Dragon has always been the lesser of Yu-Gi-Oh!’s two recognizable, heavily-branded Dragon characters, and Blast finally gives us a good reason to play it. When a duelist named Philippe sent me his Red-Eyes build, I just had to hijack it and make it into a really cool, interesting deck (as well as an abomination of Philippe’s original intent!).

Here’s what Philippe had to say:

Hello,

My name is Philippe C. I'm a bit of a beginner, and I was wondering if a Red-Eyes Black Dragon deck could win. Can you help me out?

See ya,

Philippe

Here’s what Philippe’s deck looked like before I got to it:

Philippe’s Red-Eyes Deck

38 cards

Monsters

3 Red-Eyes Black Dragon

1 Jinzo

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

3 Masked Dragon

3 Red-Eyes B. Chick

2 Spear Dragon

2 Luster Dragon

2 Magician of Faith

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

Spells

3 Inferno Fire Blast

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Pot of Greed

1 Mirage of Nightmare

1 Premature Burial

1 Swords of Revealing Light

1 Snatch Steal

1 Change of Heart

2 Monster Reincarnation

1 Painful Choice

2 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Enemy Controller

Traps

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Magic Cylinder

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Call of the Haunted

This deck only has 38 cards, so I assume it’s a work-in-progress.

As is, the deck looks like a beatdown-ish build based around Dragons, but it doesn’t have a lot of the cool Dragon-type support cards that make Dragon decks surprisingly playable. We’re going to take the deck’s main theme, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and run with it in whatever crazy way we want.

We’re going to turn this deck into a Lockdown Burn variant that uses Dragons and Spellcasters to keep board presence and achieve the deck’s goal. This deck will win by stopping our opponent from dealing damage and then blowing our opponent away through repeated use of Inferno Fire Blast. We will only need to Blast a couple of times to claim victory, so this is an interesting alternative to traditional Burn decks that are a bit slower and often easy to disrupt due to the weakness of their key monsters.

Consider this the Burn deck that bites back!

The deck’s goal will be to get out Red-Eyes Black Dragon and draw into Inferno Fire Blast. Each Blast will dish out 2400 damage, so we’ll only need to Blast three or four times to win; we’ll need to Blast less if we use traps like Ring of Destruction and Ceasefire. A good portion of the deck will be devoted to abusing Magician of Faith so we can reuse Inferno Fire Blast. Since we can’t search for our two key cards (the Dragon and the Blast), we’ll need to keep the deck as tight as possible and do a lot of thinning.

To start, we need to make some cuts to the deck. Since we’re going to be using a lockdown engine, Jinzo has to go. I don’t care so much about attacking, so all copies of Spear Dragon and Luster Dragon will be axed too. While Breaker the Magical Warrior is a great card, it doesn’t really fit here; I don’t care about its beatdown aspect or its ability to remove spells and traps, so this is one of the few decks I would not run Breaker in. Last up for the monsters, we’re removing the D.D. Warrior Lady. It might be useful here, but we really need the space it’s taking up to fit in better cards.

Next up, we need to unload some spells. Snatch Steal, Change of Heart, and Enemy Controller are not that useful in a Burn deck (unless the deck relies on having extra monsters around for tribute summoning). Enemy Controller’s effect can give a defensive edge, but Book of Moon can do that too, and the Book is going to have a lot more synergy with this deck.

We’re going to get rid of both copies of Monster Reincarnation. Monster Reincarnation could be valuable when used with Magician of Faith, but there are better ways to abuse the Magician. Plus, the cost of playing Monster Reincarnation makes it a risky proposition. It can be a horrible topdeck, and anything that can hurt you in the late game without giving you major benefits earlier on isn’t worth playing (at least in this deck).

Finally, we’re going to throw out Mirage of Nightmare and Mystical Space Typhoon. While it would be great to search for key cards with Mirage, the deck would need more than one Mystical Space Typhoon to keep Mirage from hurting us, and the deck doesn’t have room for more Typhoons. Once Mirage and Typhoon are history, we’ll need to make sure that our monsters can thin the deck.

With that in mind, the deck already has three copies of Masked Dragon. Adding three copies of Apprentice Magician will continue the deck-thinning theme while giving us a good way to find Magician of Faith. Cyber Jar can also help us get to the cards we need. Cyber Jar can be risky to play, but the deck keeps board presence well and should be able to use Cyber Jar even when there isn’t a lock on. Plus, Cyber Jar can kick-start the resource base needed for tribute summoning Red-Eyes Black Dragon.

We’re going to add one more Magician of Faith because it’s so important to this deck. While we can get away with having only one Red-Eyes in play, the Magician gets better in larger numbers.

We’re going to make two final additions to the monster roster: Twin-Headed Behemoth and Tsukuyomi. Twin-Headed Behemoth will give Masked Dragon something else to special summon, and the Behemoth will also give us a strong defensive topdeck when we can’t maintain a lock. Playing Twin-Headed Behemoth is a good move in both the early and late game (or any time all heck breaks loose!), and it begs to be played in this deck because we can search for it.

Tsukuyomi is a solid card. It gives us a way to deal with powerful monsters when a lock isn’t on yet, combos with Nobleman of Crossout to remove monsters from our opponent’s side of the field, and lets us reuse Magician of Faith’s flip effect. Tsukuyomi has a lot of cool uses and gives this deck a few good tricks that most opponents won’t see coming.

Spellwise, the first big addition is two copies of Level Limit - Area B. This card is a must in current lockdown strategies. With Jinzo seeing a rebound in play in most areas, Level Limit - Area B is valuable because it isn’t a trap. Few people are playing Spell Canceller, so Level Limit really does a number on many decks.

We’re also adding two copies of Book of Moon to this deck. Book of Moon will put off our opponent’s attacks and give us another way to flip Magician of Faith face down.

As for traps, let’s throw in the first three that come to mind: Gravity Bind, Gravity Bind, and Gravity Bind. Adding three copies of Gravity Bind will give us five pieces of lock total in this deck. A lockdown engine generally uses three to five pieces of raw lock (most often three) and two pieces of spell negation to keep the lock intact. However, because so many people are playing Dust Tornado and Raigeki Break, spell negation isn’t as effective as it used to be. We’re going to rely on the deck’s speed to keep a lock on long enough to get the job done. We can use multiple Inferno Fire Blasts each turn with a single Red-Eyes, so (in theory) this deck can win on the first turn if our opening hand contains Red-Eyes, a Chick, three copies of Fire Blast, and a Ring of Destruction. Good luck with that.

Finally, we’ll add a single copy of Ceasefire to the deck. Ceasefire is a great card (especially in the mid-game) and it belongs in a Lockdown deck. It’s also very helpful in matches against other Lockdown Burn decks.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the changes we’ve made to Philippe’s decklist:

-1 Jinzo

-1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

-2 Spear Dragon

-2 Luster Dragon

-1 D.D. Warrior Lady

-2 Monster Reincarnation

-1 Snatch Steal

-1 Change of Heart

-1 Enemy Controller

-1 Mirage of Nightmare

-1 Mystical Space Typhoon

+1 Cyber Jar

+2 Tsukuyomi

+1 Magician of Faith

+1 Twin-Headed Behemoth

+3 Apprentice Magician

+2 Book of Moon

+2 Level Limit - Area B

+3 Gravity Bind

+1 Ceasefire

And here’s what the finished deck looks like:

Philippe’s Red-Eyes Deck: Jason’s Fix

40 cards

Monsters

3 Red-Eyes Black Dragon

3 Masked Dragon

3 Red-Eyes B. Chick

1 Twin-Headed Behemoth

3 Apprentice Magician

3 Magician of Faith

1 Cyber Jar

2 Tsukuyomi

Spells

3 Inferno Fire Blast

1 Pot of Greed

1 Premature Burial

1 Swords of Revealing Light

1 Painful Choice

2 Book of Moon

2 Nobleman of Crossout

2 Level Limit - Area B

Traps

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Magic Cylinder

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Ceasefire

3 Gravity Bind

The deck opens strongly, with the Masked Dragons, Apprentice Magicians, Cyber Jar, and Twin-Headed Behemoth making good opening monsters. From there, the deck has two goals: lock down the field and get Red-Eyes into play (hopefully in that order). Once that happens, if you have an Inferno Fire Blast in hand or you’ve already used one, you’ve practically won the game as long as you can keep the lock on.

When things don’t go your way, you’ve always got Masked Dragon and Apprentice Magician to rely on for defense. Since they can replace themselves or even grab Magician of Faith and Red-Eyes B. Chick, a single Masked Dragon or Apprentice can defend you very well. At the same time, the destruction of these cards will thin your deck and help you get to your Blasts, Red-Eyes Black Dragons, and lock cards more quickly. Your opponent will need to win very quickly to beat you.

Once the lock is on, there isn’t a lot that can trouble you. Mataza the Zapper is a great answer to Gravity Bind and Level Limit - Area B, but the Zapper is not as effective against this deck as it is against other Burn decks. While Mataza can take down Masked Dragon, Apprentice Magician, and lots of other monsters in the deck, it can’t defeat the deck’s main source of damage, Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Lockdown Burn decks built around Stealth Bird have a lot more trouble against Mataza.

Coming up with strategies for the early game, mid-game, and late game isn’t as important with this deck as it is with many others. The only thing you have to worry about is making sure you win as quickly as possible. A Fiend or Hybrid Chaos deck is going to pound on you if you don’t have a lock on by the mid-game.

As for your side deck, your best bet is monster removal. For example, Bottomless Trap Hole is great for taking out major threats when you really need it. That being said, the main deck already has most of the answers it needs and won’t gain a lot from rotating cards out (unless your opponent is rotating in three copies of Giant Trunade, in which case you should respond with a few Magic Jammers or Solemn Judgments). If you give this deck a shot, check out the metagame and see what feels right to you.

Thanks for sending me your decklist, Philippe! I hope the (somewhat radical) fix helps!

-Jason Grabher-Meyer

Have a deck to submit? Want to say hi? Get in touch with me via email at Jason@metagame.com.