I remember writing the preview article for Dark Red Enchanter. I was pretty excited about it — I dabble with Spellcasters all the time, and while they don’t usually prove to be on the forefront of competition, they’ve been pretty impressive in the right format. I was a fan of the card since it was released in Japan, and was really surprised to learn that it was a Secret Rare in Phantom Darkness.

And then I never played him. Dark Red Enchanter is one of the least valuable Secret Rares from Phantom Darkness, and virtually no one has played him competitively. No one, that is, until today. Derek Rouse is playing the following hand control deck, and heading into Round 5 he’s undefeated.

“It’s a lot like Tomato Control,” explained Rouse as he showed me the deck. Indeed, he’s packing three Mystic Tomato, two Newdoria, and a whopping three copies of Don Zaloog. A lot of people would laugh at that since Mystic Tomato has been largely viewed as a passe card given the frequent use of Dark Magician of Chaos; most duelists refuse to run more than one copy, but Rouse plays it aggressively in conjunction with Creature Swap. That makes a big difference, and turns what would have been a reactive strategy into a more proactive one. The result is easy access to Don Zaloog, and maintained field presence thanks to the Tomato’s self-replacing ability and Newdoria’s deterrent effect.

Rouse then capitalizes on the field presence he’s keeping by turning it into tribute monsters: specifically, Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch and Dark Red Enchanter. He’s extremely dedicated to his theme, running three copies of each. Two Soul Exchange provide more tribute fodder, while Brain Control, Premature Burial, and Monster Reborn accomplish that while also filling other roles. Thestalos and Dark Red will rarely be dead cards.

The deck runs three copies of Shrink and two Enemy Controller, which together serve an awesome dual purpose. First, those spell cards help cut opposing monsters down to size so that Don Zaloog can dish out damage and force the opponent to discard. Each is also just a very high utility spell, and once Dark Red Enchanter is on the field he feeds off those spells to gain spell counters. That means that it’s easy for Rouse to discard a card every turn with Dark Red Enchanter’s effect, defending him from attackers on his opponent’s turn while loading the Enchanter with spell counters. Once the tribute support spells get in the mix stuff gets really crazy, and it’s not uncommon for Rouse to activate Soul Exchange, discard a card as a result with Dark Red Enchanter, then tribute an opposing monster for Thestalos or another Dark Red. That creates a cascade of discard effects that are exceptionally hard to manage.

If Rouse hits a few discard effects early enough against Dark Armed Return or Diamond Dude Turbo, his opponent just doesn’t stand a chance. Most of the decks in this format need serious time to recover from hand disruption, and since Rouse is slinging around so many big bodies and commanding such control over the field, he can create a lot of pressure through battle. Three Dust Tornado compound this fact, while also chaining to Escape from the Dark Dimension or Premature Burial to stop the opponent from abusing Dark Magician of Chaos and tearing apart the Tomato engine.

The synergy here is really impressive — virtually every card in the decklist actually does two very important (often very different) things, and that makes Rouse’s strategy fast and versatile. It’s very battle-oriented, and between Mystic Tomato smacking around Armageddon Knight and just blind Soul Exchange plays, it really has that high-impact early game that this format tends to reward. Short of Macro Cosmos the deck the deck really doesn’t have a bad matchup, and it’s not very dependent on the opponent’s strategy or particular actions to execute its plans.

With nine cards out of 40 shredding his opponent’s hand, and a break-neck pacing that sets everything into motion on a reliable basis, Derek Rouse might just have the perfect tool to disassemble this weekend’s metagame. Time will tell, but whether he makes Day 2 or not, his strategy is a valuable lesson about the effectiveness of hand disruption in the current format.