There aren’t many decks that can win before your opponent even begins his or her first turn, but the Empty Jar Mill deck is one of them. By using a combination of Book of Taiyou, Cyber Jar, and The Shallow Grave, the deck gives your opponent fifteen cards in hand to be discarded to a Card Destruction (courtesy of Serial Spell). You discard your hand, saving yourself from running out of cards, while your opponent discards his or her fifteen cards and attempts to draw thirty. Unless your opponent is running a forty-six-card deck, he or she will be in trouble.

While the deck was powerful when first introduced, it has grown far beyond its previous potential with the addition of new cards. As with most decks, its true potency appears in the Traditional format, where amazing decks become even more incredible.

The Monsters

The monster lineup is slim and precise. Only the most essential cards have made the cut. The copies of Thunder Dragon will thin the deck and provide cheap discarding fodder—two extremely valuable abilities in this deck. The rest of the cards are either Jars or monsters to search for them.

Monsters: 7

3 Thunder Dragon

1 Sangan

1 Witch of the Black Forest

1 Cyber Jar

1 Morphing Jar

The Spells

With no traps and only seven monsters, it’s obvious that there will be a lot to say about the spell lineup. An intricate set of spells that compliment each other to achieve a one-turn kill is an absolute necessity for this deck.

To thin the deck and retrieve the pieces of the combo as fast as possible, three copies of Upstart Goblin and Dark World Dealings are used next to the usual choices of Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, and Painful Choice. Three copies of Shallow Grave are used to retrieve Cyber Jar and Morphing Jar after use. Monster Reborn and Premature Burial are used to compliment Shallow Grave. Two copies of Card of Safe Return allow for additional draws, which leads you closer to winning the game. Magical Stone Excavation, A Feather of the Phoenix, and Spell Reproduction grant you the ability to recycle your graveyard further, often retrieving Book of Taiyou or The Shallow Grave.

You may see a repeating theme in this deck: you reuse the same cards multiple times. Flipping Cyber Jar over and over refuels your ability to . . . continue flipping it. This process continues until you have both Card Destruction and Serial Spell in your hand and your opponent has enough cards in hand to deck out.

The deck has the ability to draw cards faster and reach a Jar more consistently in the Traditional format than it does in the Advanced format. The addition of Painful Choice is one of the most notable changes in the transfer, instantly thinning your deck by an eighth and giving you access to a Jar.

Spells: 33

1 Card Destruction

1 Pot of Greed

1 Graceful Charity

1 Painful Choice

1 Monster Reborn

1 Premature Burial

1 Giant Trunade

1 Book of Moon

1 Magical Stone Excavation

2 A Feather of the Phoenix

2 Serial Spell

2 Card of Safe Return

3 Spell Reproduction

3 Book of Taiyou

3 Dark World Dealings

3 The Shallow Grave

3 Upstart Goblin

3 Magical Mallet

The Traps

Anything red is too slow for this deck. The object is to win on the first turn, before you even have a chance to activate a trap. As with the original build of this deck, there are absolutely no traps.

How it Plays

If you’ve never played this deck, it’s difficult to comprehend the incredibly small margin of error it allows. But with careful play, it is one of the most enjoyable decks to use (though your opponents might not feel the same way).

If this deck starts with a Cyber Jar and a Book of Taiyou, it’s almost unbeatable. Unfortunately, that will rarely be the case. Most games will be spent trying to fish a Jar as fast as possible. Once you achieve this, you will flip it with Taiyou, recycle it with The Shallow Grave, and repeat until your opponent has fifteen cards. The object is simple, but the means to accomplish it are complex. Even the most insignificant plays, such as saving an Upstart Goblin for a well-timed A Feather of the Phoenix, can mean the difference between a win and a loss.

While skeptics claim that Empty Jar has too many dead draws, the transfer to the Traditional format grants it a new consistency the deck didn’t previously have. There are a total of fifteen cards that help you get at least one card closer to completing the combo. The rest of the deck mostly consists of either part of the combo or a way to reuse the pieces you’ve already drawn. Once you are able to flip Cyber Jar, you should have enough ways to continue using it until you win.

Playing against the Deck

If you plan to play this deck, you have to be ready to accept that a strong side deck can defeat it. Skill Drain, Royal Oppression, and Neko Mane King all throw wrenches into your plans. But with the exception of Neko Mane King, which will end the turn before you are able to win the game, none of these cards will thwart the deck if it wins before your opponent can make a play. Therefore, winning game 1 will allow you a turn 1 start in game 3. That alone gives you an edge over the trap-based answers to the deck.

Spell Canceller is also worthy of note as a side-deck card, but will be very difficult to play in this matchup. It would take two turns to play, and you can’t count on that. Still, next to the other proper side-deck options, it could make the difference.

Neko Mane King is this deck’s greatest bane. Ending the turn after the first flip of a Morphing Jar will give your opponent the chance to fight back, and the last thing you want is an opponent who can actually play cards.

One of the most important things you can do with this deck is playtest it before you bring it to a tournament. In general, playing alone with it is the same as playing against an opponent.