I’ve received a lot of requests lately for "oddball" decks. I never really thought I stopped looking at odd or unusual decks, but if you expand the definition of "mainstream" or "normal" to include anything that uses middle-price-range secret rares and/or Crush Card Virus, I can definitely see where these people are coming from. That’s fine though: I strive to have something for everybody, so this week I’ll be taking a look at an extremely inexpensive deck that’s also 21 kinds of strange. Well, 22 if you start counting from zero.

The Arcana Force monsters from Light of Destruction are an odd bunch indeed. They have a series of seemingly unrelated effects that they can only achieve if you win the coin flips associated with them, and thus far no one has really figured out the best combination of them to create a solid deck. Don’t get me wrong: there are strategies involving Arcana Force monsters already. A while back, I made a prototype of a deck that grants infinite turns using Arcana Force XXI - The World, and Yannick Dubeau took a Top 8 spot at Canadian Nationals with a Counter Fairy deck augmented by Arcana Force 0 - The Fool. The difference is that neither of these can really be called an Arcana Force deck. In my rush to talk about Lightsworn, Batterymen, Destiny End Dragoon, and Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem, two potential decks flew straight under my radar: Frogs and the Arcana Force. With time slipping away before The Duelist Genesis previews begin, I figured the only fair way to decide which deck I would definitely cover before previews was to flip a coin. In a very fitting twist of fate, the coin came up in favor of the Arcana Force.

The big question is, "How do you make these seemingly random effects work together?" After all, the effects of each monster aren’t necessarily attached to the type of monster they’d be most useful with. Take Arcana Force XIV - Temperance for example. You can pitch it from your hand to have it act as a Kuriboh, but if you summon it, its effect halves the damage taken by either you or your opponent. The 2400 ATK and DEF body for a tribute just doesn’t mix with the effect at all, since if you win the flip, your opponent wasn’t going to be attacking anyway, and if you lose the flip, you’re just hosing yourself. In fact, there’s no reason to ever summon Temperance.

It’s a confusing series of monsters, but there are three of them in particular that seem to lend themselves toward a specific aggressive strategy. First, you have Arcana Force I - The Magician. Aggressive decks tend to pack more spells than traps, so it’s very likely that your Magician will remain at twice its original ATK for most of its time on the field. Second, Arcana Force IV - The Emperor can buff everything up another 500 points as long as he’s on the field. After playing a spell, The Magician will pump to 2200. Adding The Emperor to your field afterward pumps that up to 2700. Not bad at all for a level 4 monster, but the buffs aren’t even the best effects available on the low-level Arcana Force monsters. The monster theft granted by Arcana Force VII - The Chariot is. Let’s put it all together and add a dash of stupefying risk for good measure.

Monsters: 19

3 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
3 Arcana Force VII - The Chariot
3 Arcana Force I - The Magician
3 Arcana Force IV - The Emperor
2 Arcana Force 0 - The Fool
2 Shining Angel
2 Cyber Dragon
1 Sangan

Yes, it’s a strange deck. "Strange" is par for the course for such a bizarre group of monsters, and as odd as it seems, the deck isn’t half bad. A big part of its functionality is in the field spell, Light Barrier. With Light Barrier, you get to choose which effects your monsters will have when they come into play. In this case, all the effects that you want are the Heads effects, except for The Fool, for which you would want the Tails effect assuming that you ever actually summon it face up. Unlike Yannick Dubeau’s Counter Fairy deck, I’m not running any copies of Nova Summoner to bring The Fool out in face-up defense position, so its coin flip effect isn’t really relevant. If you wanted to add some extra cash to the deck, you could pick up some Nova Summoner cards to swap with Shining Angel and then throw in Creature Swap for good measure. A fully pumped field of Arcana Force monsters can punch 6800 damage through an attack-mode Fool in a single turn. That leaves any single monster you can summon to finish the job next turn. As it stands, The Fool will act as a stall card in your non-Gladiator Beast matchups and likely get shunted off to the side deck when you do play against them.

In addition to letting you pick your opponent’s poison, Light Barrier has a secondary effect that most people don’t pay attention to. Whenever an Arcana Force monster destroys an opponent’s monster by battle, you gain life points equal to the destroyed monster’s original ATK. With some help from Book of Moon, Shrink, or Enemy Controller, you can take down some pretty big monsters and build up a huge buffer of life points. This comes in handy if and when you start losing the coin flip on Light Barrier and need to take a couple of direct hits to regroup.

The Chariot is the keystone of your offensive strategy. Note that it immediately special summons the monster that it destroys to your side of the field in whatever position you wish, meaning that you can continue the offense if you take out something big. Or if you take out a defender that you’ve switched to attack position, you can bring it up as a wall on your side of the field. This will also let you make use of the copies of Gladiator Beast Gyzarus sitting in your Fusion deck. Chariot will steal any Gladiator Beast monster you destroy, and if you can fetch at least one Gladiator Beast Bestiari in addition to any other Gladiator Beast between your Chariots, Enemy Controller cards, and Brain Control, you can unleash your own Gyzarus on your hopefully-about-to-be-helpless opponent. You won’t be able to send it back to the deck, but that’s largely irrelevant considering that Gyzarus will have the biggest original ATK of any of your monsters anyway.

While The Chariot is your key card, you don’t want to summon it without the power buff from The Emperor. At 1700 ATK, The Chariot will get run over by Gladiator Beast Laquari regardless of whether or not its ATK is pumped. At 2200 ATK, The Chariot runs over every non-Fusion Gladiator Beast except a buffed Gladiator Beast Hoplomus. Fortunately, Hoplomus isn’t much of a concern anyway, seeing as how most players run only one and never really play it except as the second Gladiator Beast needed for a contact Fusion or a stepping stone on the way to Test Tiger shenanigans. Speaking of Test Tiger, this deck runs a number of tricks to prevent the kitty from ransacking your field. Since Shonen Jump Championship St. Louis, the general rule for Test Tiger has been that if something happens to the cat’s target that causes it to stop being a face-up Gladiator Beast monster you control, the effect fails. Therefore, Book of Moon and the theft effect of Enemy Controller will block Test Tiger and stave off the beats, hopefully long enough for you to set up for the next offensive.

Arcana Force is bizarre. Very, very bizarre. If you wanted to invest in the deck past the aforementioned Nova Summoner cards, you could also make a build focusing on Arcana Force EX - The Dark Ruler. The Dark Ruler is pretty big and capable of taking a player out in two swings or wiping out the field if destroyed. In fact, if you get your Heads effect and clear the road first, The Dark Ruler is game. Another useful card is my favorite (and possibly yours), Honest! Every Arcana Force monster is a candidate for the protection of Honest, and I would really recommend it if you intend on doing something with this deck outside of a local tournament.

Coin-flip effects are dangerous, and I personally only like to play them if they’re absurdly powerful. I probably shouldn’t even do it then considering that my total hit percentage on Snipe Hunter is something like 13%. But if you feel like it’s worth the risk and you’re looking to do something with your Light of Destruction commons and rares, this might just be the deck for you. Until next time, play hard, play fair, and most importantly, have fun!

—Jerome McHale