Metagame.com - Take Your Game to the Next Level

The last time I saw someone playing Magical Explosion, it was someone who thought that if you couldn’t find a monster with Reasoning, then you got to put your entire deck into the graveyard. Obviously that’s wrong, but since then duelists have continued to try and find ways to load their graveyard up with enough spells to pull off a huge Magical Explosion or two. Mike Powers has found the way and is sitting at 7-1 right now, with 2 rounds to go in the tournament. The key piece of the deck, like many other decks right now, is Card Trooper. Trooper is the way we throw cards into the graveyard, and Powers’ has really dedicated his deck to abusing the ability to do so. In addition to his Troopers, Powers also plays 3 copies of Machine Duplication in order to ensure that when he gets one Trooper, he gets them all. From there he can attack recklessly with the Troopers, relying on most players’ desire to not destroy them with trap effects, to score some damage while throwing a massive amount of spells into the graveyard to fuel his eventual win via Magical Explosion. Even if the key cards get dumped into the graveyard, powers can put them right back on top of his deck with A Feather of the Phoenix, ensuring that he’ll draw them on the next turn at the latest. This is assuming that the Card Troopers are allowed to survive through the turn, which, ideally, they won’t. When you’re drawing through nearly your entire deck every game, getting your win conditions tends to be a rather simple task. Once you’ve got an Explosion or two in hand, you can either set the rest of your hand or play it out in order to score extra damage by attacking your opponent with their own monsters. The deck runs 3 copies of Brain Control to make sure that this happens with alarming frequency, and the fact of the matter is that most decks just aren’t equipped to handle this kind of combo deck. Banisher of the Radiance can shut it down if you have it out, as can Macro Cosmos, but right now no one is playing those cards. Now is the time for decks like this to shine, and, if Mike Powers’ streak continues, he’ll be shining all the way through to Day 2.