Some of the most powerful monsters, from a raw attack potential perspective, are Dragons. As Yu-Gi-Oh! has progressed, the array of draconian contenders has grown, and more support-oriented Dragons have made tribal Dragon Beatdown decks viable. Francisco Avalos was piloting one of the best examples of such a deck at the Shonen Jump Series Championship. Here’s what he ran:

Francisco Avalos’s Dragon Deck

Monsters: 23

3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon

3 Masked Dragon

2 Lord of D.

1 Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4

1 Armed Dragon LV5

1 Rare Metal Dragon

1 Armed Dragon LV3

1 Tactical Espionage Expert

1 Luster Dragon

1 Cyber Jar

1 Different Dimension Dragon

1 Paladin of White Dragon

1 Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8

1 Familiar Knight

1 Spear Dragon

1 Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6

1 Armed Dragon LV7

1 Mirage Dragon

1 Snatch Steal

1 Premature Burial

1 Dragon’s Rage

1 Megamorph

1 Burst Stream of Destruction

1 White Dragon Ritual

1 Level Up!

1 Giant Trunade

1 Level Limit – Area B

1 Heart of Clear Water

1 Pot of Greed

2 The Flute of Summoning Dragon

1 Change of Heart

1 Interdimensional Matter Transporter

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Seven Tools of the Bandit

1 Trap of Board Eraser

1 Spell Shield Type-8

Side Deck:

1 Twin Headed Behemoth

1 Creeping Doom Manta

1 The Dragon Dwelling in the Cave

1 Fiend Soldier

1 Slate Warrior

1 Gemini Elf

1 Tribe-Infecting Virus

1 Sinister Serpent

1 Waboku

1 Light of Intervention

1 Axe of Despair

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 The Graveyard in the Fourth Dimension

1 Level Up!

The deck runs 23 monsters, which is high for Advanced format play, but it also runs a plethora of really good options for thinning itself, making the high number a valid choice from a deck building perspective.

The deck’s spells are interesting and veer away from convention in some respects. Level Limit – Area B seems like an odd pick in a deck with so many LV 4 or higher characters, but it has a lot of uses. It’s a good panic button when things go wrong, there are a lot of monsters that can power under it, and it can be used to protect your self-leveling monsters while they get to a larger level. Level Up! can force the process along as needed, White Dragon Ritual does the same, and both continue the deck’s theme of thinning. Beyond that, the Dragon-specific spells are quite good, and Megamorph is included because it’s disgustingly powerful on any of the high-level dragons under proper conditions.

The one trap that really needs to be in this deck is Interdimensional Matter Transporter. This card made a big impact on many of the Championship games, and going into the event, it appears to have been underrated by many. In this deck, it shows all of its different facets of utility. It can be used in one of four ways—on the opponent as an offensive or defensive play, or on yourself as a defensively passive or defensively aggressive play. When used on an opponent’s monster, it can prevent an attack by removing the attacker from play. This can save the smaller Dragons. It can also be used to remove a large monster so that your draconian hordes can attack directly. Used on your own monsters, it can remove a monster that you want to save from being destroyed, or it can remove an attack-position monster that would otherwise be a gateway to your life points for one of your opponent’s monsters. These are all useful tactics, for this deck in particular.

The side deck is a mish mosh of extensive and tech strategies. Slate Warrior, Fiend Soldier, Gemini Elf, and Sinister Serpent are examples of cards that give the deck extra options within its normal parameters. When the deck needs some pure beatdown power, it can get it this way. Axe of Despair is a nice defensive card that’s best used on one of the smaller characters you need to keep around. Lord of D. adores it in decks like this one. Beyond that, though, it’s mostly an array of interesting odds and ends that the deck might want in certain matchups or metagames.