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Doomkaiser Dragon
Card# CSOC-EN043
Doomkaiser Dragon's effect isn't just for Zombie World duelists: remember that its effect can swipe copies of Plaguespreader Zombie, too!
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| Historical Perspectives: Swordsmen and Genies and Summoned Skull, Oh My! |
| Jerome McHale |
| January 31, 2005 |
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Before the start of the Advanced format, the main complaint I heard from both critics and players of Yu-Gi-Oh! was that everyone was playing the same deck. At the time, they were correct. Before the Forbidden list was put into effect, there was always one deck that had so much power and support behind it that you either had to play it or play to counter it. This problem can be traced back to the beginning of the game, and it started with the deck I’ll show you today.
 3 La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp
3 Neo the Magic Swordsman
3 Wall of Illusion
3 Man-Eater Bug
2 Summoned Skull
2 Witch of the Black Forest
2 Magician of Faith
1 Pot of Greed
1 Dark Hole
1 Raigeki
1 Change of Heart
1 Monster Reborn
2 Yami
2 Tribute to the Doomed
2 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Card Destruction
3 Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit
1 Magic Jammer
1 Waboku
I hope this decklist brings back some memories for all the players out there who’ve been with the game since the beginning. For all the new players, feast your eyes on the very first tier 1, tournament-winning deck: Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown. The original Duelist King Tournament system started around the same time that the Metal Raiders expansion was released. This meant that the available card pool consisted of Legend of Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Metal Raiders, and the two original starter decks. From that limited card pool, there were only three playable decks: Exodia, Lord of D. Combo, and Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown.
As you might have guessed, the Limited list was very different back then compared to what it is now. Swords of Revealing Light, Heavy Storm, Witch of the Black Forest, Sangan, and Card Destruction were only semi-Limited at the time. Now Sangan and the Witch are forbidden, and the other cards are limited to one copy per deck. Because Mystical Space Typhoon and Jinzo weren’t around yet, Trap Hole and Mirror Force were nearly unstoppable, and the slightest speculation that one of those traps was on the other side of the field could prompt a player to hold his or her cards back.
 However, the undisputed king of stall in this environment was Swords of Revealing Light. Most players were unwilling to put De-Spell in their decks just so they could get rid of Swords, and the player who used it would have three full turns with no chance of an attack from an opponent. The momentum of a duel could change in seconds if a player activated Swords, and that’s why the Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown deck was built to kill the opponent as quickly as possible.
Like every other beatdown deck, this deck tried to overwhelm the opponent with strong level 4 monsters and lots of removal effects. Neo the Magic Swordsman and La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp were two of the most powerful non-effect monsters in the game. Plus, Yami boosted their stats because Neo is a Spellcaster and La Jinn is a Fiend. This is what made them more playable than 7-Colored Fish and gave the deck its name, Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown. This deck also sported two copies of Summoned Skull, which was the largest one-tribute monster in the game at the time.
To get monsters out of the way, the deck has two copies of Tribute to the Doomed and three copies of Trap Hole in addition to one copy each of Raigeki and Dark Hole. Trap Hole was arguably the most important trap to have in the early days. It was bad when an opponent turned over Mirror Force, but you were probably saving Seven Tools of the Bandit for it. Trap Hole’s in-game effect is simple enough and it has a nasty effect on an opponent’s mental state as well. First, it makes an opponent angry because of the opportunity wasted in summoning a monster. Second, it ruins any plans that an opponent may have had for the turn. Finally, an opponent usually becomes discouraged at the thought of being directly attacked the next turn. Any of these factors could lead to play mistakes from your opponent. When combined with the field advantage provided by Trap Hole, this can create a huge swing in your favor. You can play around Mirror Force, but Trap Hole will get you every time.
Why did the Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown deck rise to the top of the heap? The best way to answer this question is to talk about why the other two decks didn’t. The Exodia deck had a lot of power behind it with two copies of Witch of the Black Forest and Sangan. The problem was that there wasn’t any real stall power available in the environment at that time. Messenger of Peace was still one set away, and Waboku only gets you so far. Monsters with 2000 DEF and Wall of Illusion were fine until your opponent got out a Summoned Skull or used a Tribute to the Doomed on them. To make matters worse, Card Destruction meant death to the Exodia player because there was no way to return cards from the graveyard to your hand. The Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown deck had plenty of high-powered monsters and removal spells, so Exodia couldn’t really stall it. The Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown deck also played a copy of Card Destruction in the main deck, and most players packed another one in their side decks. The advantage in this matchup was on Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown’s side.
 The Lord of D. combo deck could pull off first- and second-turn wins if a player played the Lord with The Flute of Summoning Dragon and multiple copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Part of the reason why this combo was so deadly was because Lord of D.’s card text had an error in it. The original text on Lord of D. didn’t say that it only protected Dragons from targeted effects, and because there weren’t official judges or an official source of errata to correct the error, the card was played as written. This meant that Dragons could get around cards like Mirror Force, Dark Hole, and Raigeki. Unfortunately, the deck was unstable and couldn’t be relied on to go off in the first couple of turns. If a Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown player made it into the mid-game against the Dragon combo deck, the Dragons would probably lose. The Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown deck had too much power and consistency for a Combo deck to overcome unless it reached its goal right away.
Without a viable alternative for tournament play, players built the best Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown decks they could and played their hardest. This trend continued right up to the introduction of the Advanced format, when many of the cards that hurt less-conventional decks were removed from the environment.
What happened to Fiend/Spellcaster Beatdown? As more level 4, 1800 ATK monsters and powerful, generic equip spells came out, the deck began to drop the Fiend/Spellcaster theme in favor of using more raw power. This created the rise of generic, “best of” beatdown decks that continue to be popular today.
There you have it—the story behind the very first tier-one deck. Be sure to join me again next week when I step into the light. Until then, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!
Jerome McHale
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
jcmchale@andrew.cmu.edu |
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