Sometimes, the best deck is the one that was designed to take out everybody else’s deck, and Evan Vargas (of Internet writing renown) believes in that concept. He played a metagame-oriented deck this past summer at American Nationals, and has taken a similar approach for today’s Shonen Jump Championship.

Evan Vargas’s Tech Deck

Monsters: 16

3 Berserk Gorilla

3 D. D. Warrior Lady

2 King Tiger Wanghu

1 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

1 Prickle Fairy

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Tribe-Infecting Virus

1 Sinister Serpent

1 Blade Knight

1 Shining Angel

1 Don Zaloog

Spells: 14

1 Pot of Greed

1 The Forceful Sentry

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Book of Moon

1 Snatch Steal

3 Smashing Ground

2 Nobleman of Crossout

3 Scapegoat

Traps: 10

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Bottomless Trap Hole

3 Sakuretsu Armor

3 Dust Tornado

Side Deck:

3 Swarm of Locusts

3 Kinetic Soldier

1 King Tiger Wanghu

1 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

2 Mobius the Frost Monarch

1 Blade Knight

1 Change of Heart

1 Creature Swap

2 Hallowed Life Barrier

Fusion Deck:

3 Thousand-Eyes Restrict

3 Dark Balter the Terrible

2 Ryu Senshi

2 Reaper on the Nightmare

3 Dark Blade the Dragon Knight

3 Dark Flare Knight

2 Fiend Skull Dragon

1 Deepsea Shark

1 Sanwitch

2 Musician King

1 Dragoness the Wicked Knight

2 Charubin the Fire Knight

2 Karbonala Warrior

1 St. Joan

Many of the cards in this deck have been selected for use against specific other decks and monsters. Berserk Gorilla is a great early game play against any deck that needs field cards. D. D. Warrior Lady hoses tribute oriented decks that over-invest in single monsters, and Prickle Fairy does the same thing in a different way. King Tiger Wanghu stymies warriors, destroying many of their best cards before they can be used effectively, and it also techs Magical Scientist into oblivion. Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer provides anti-Chaos graveyard removal, Blade Knight beats up on aggro decks that seek to win via monster exchanges or exchange sequences ending in face-down effect monsters, and the remaining monsters are simply exceedingly good in most decks.

Evan’s spell cards are a split between standard selections and more tech-oriented picks. Nobleman of Crossout hurts anything that needs face-down monsters, especially lockdown burn decks. Scapegoat destroys the early game rush potential of Warriors, and it can also ruin an opponent’s entire field if played in response to a Limiter Removal against a Machine deck. Smashing Ground takes out big bruisers like Mobius the Frost Monarch and Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning, and Book of Moon is a great card against virtually any deck.

Three Dust Tornados ruin Lockdown, which was a popular deck at the Championship. Sakuretsu Armor basically hates on anything attack-oriented, but is particularly nasty against Warrior decks that really can’t afford to lose key attackers (it’s also a great response to D. D. Warrior Lady). Ring of Destruction, Torrential Tribute, Bottomless Trap Hole, and Call of the Haunted are all popular picks that keep the deck offensively bent towards monster advantage.

Vargas’s side deck functions as an extension of his metagaming intents. Swarm of Locusts blows away Lockdown, Kinetic Soldier blows away Warriors, King Tiger Wanghu gets rotated in for a total of three copies against Scientist, Kycoo beats Chaos, and so on. Most notable are the deck’s options against Lockdown Burn—a pair of Hallowed Life Barriers and the Locusts give the deck a robust offensive advantage in direct damage–oriented matchups.

Like most Fusion decks at the Championship, Vargas’s contained all of the expected Scientist staples. It also included some random entertaining cards usually reserved for other decks—Musician King is missing his maindecked Metamorphosis, Sanwitch is usually reserved for Sorcerer of Dark Magic, and so on.

The deck plays reactively but commandingly. Vargas used the deck to great effect, going 4 and 1 in the Championship’s first five Swiss rounds. It works. Vargas put a great deal of thought into analyzing the expected field, and then created the deck around his observations and testing. The deck can do exceedingly well in local metagames, and while I wouldn’t recommend just copying the list, expect to see more players entering tournaments with metagame-oriented decks like this in the future.