This deck is one of the best in terms of matchup strength. Almost every deck is crippled by Ojama Trio, and locking an opponent up is as easy as a pair of Trios and one Neo-Spacian Grand Mole. Baboon Burn plays much like Blackburn or Overdose Burn. It aims to deal battle damage and finish the opponent with burn cards. The idea is that your opponent simply won’t be able to stop you from dealing 8000 damage.

Ojama Trio is really what the deck is all about. It adds 900 burn-over-time damage, meaning that eventually the opponent should take 900 damage from the tokens’ destruction. Each Trio also boosts up the power of Gyaku-Gire Panda by 1500, Just Desserts by 1500, and Secret Barrel by 600. The Pandas also deal piercing damage, so destroying a token means extra battle damage for the opponent. Looking at it from this perspective, it’s not hard to see how the deck wins games. Punching through chunks of damage with cards like Ojama Trio and Gyaku-Gire Panda can drop the opponent by 2000-2500 life points. If you get the same mileage out of the rest of your cards, the opponent will be defeated by the third turn.

Des Koala usually gets this kind of damage all by itself. Usually the Koala will pluck 1600-2000 life points from the opponent, depending on how much they put on the field before attacking. However, in games where both players are drawing and passing, Koala can easily achieve 2400 or 2800 damage on its own. Just Desserts and Secret Barrel can deal the same amount of damage. It’s not impossible for the Baburn player to draw something like Des Koala, Ojama Trio, Just Desserts, Gyaku-Gire Panda, and Secret Barrel, and win on the second turn.

But it doesn’t always pan out that way, so the rest of the deck needs to be geared toward maintaining consistent rates of damage and generating attacks. Giant Rat and Nimble Momonga are in the deck to provide field presence and a means to special summon Green Baboon, Defender of the Forest as many times as possible. Alternatively, Rat can search for Neo-Spacian Grand Mole to clear out an opposing defender. Direct attacks are the absolute best because they’re free damage.

Raiza the Storm Monarch further reinforces that belief by providing the perfect means to remove defense-mode monsters and mess with your opponent’s draw flow at the same time. Raiza will almost always spin a monster card, and, if done early enough in the game, can lead to 2400 or more damage in direct attacks. Raiza also slows your opponent’s deck down, and forces him or her to re-draw a dead card (say a monster in a monster-clogged hand, or the third Gravekeeper’s Spy) meaning that your opponent could be unable to prevent the loss of cards or life points.

Marshmallon and Breaker the Magical Warrior fit the mini-damage scheme quite nicely. Marshmallon deals out 1000 direct damage, and then throws up a wall for the opponent to work around. Spinning Marshmallon really isn’t optimal either, because it will simply be reset next turn, and then if you attack face-down monsters, you run the risk that one of them could be that Marshmallon and burn you for another 1000.

Breaker, on the other hand, is one of the few cards that can simply drop, destroy a card, and still be useful. With the introduction of Dimensional Prison, card-for-card defensive removal is suddenly popular again. The reason is that Prison gets many cards Sakuretsu Armor can’t (like Sangan and Card Trooper) while disrupting cards like Call of the Haunted or Pot of Avarice. Breaker ruins the Prison though, and any other card that can’t be chained. Removing defensive options or live cards from the opponent’s resource pool usually translates into extra damage, either on that turn or shortly thereafter. Your opponent simply won’t have as many plays as you, and will have to concede direct attacks or further cards.

, Messenger of Peace, and Gravity Bind back the deck up if it takes a more damage-oriented stance. Using up plenty of cards to put the opponent in danger of you top-decking for game is a viable strategy if you can back yourself up with Gravity Bind or Level Limit - Area B. There aren’t too many ways to destroy spells and traps right now, and some players are even taking Breakers and Mystical Space Typhoon out of their decks. Most of the removal these days relies on spinning cards to the top of the opponent’s deck, which means that your stall cards are going to last longer. Give Baboon Burn a few turns to draw more cards, and it’ll find a new way to take you out.

The strength of this deck is in its flexibility. You can tune your play toward defeating the opponent based on his or her draw. If you think strategy is one of your strengths, I’d recommend giving Baboon Burn a try.