Toward the end of the last format, I created a Dark Creator Turbo deck that threatened fast, consistent OTKs. It focused on a lot of draw power, resulting in a deck that did just what it was meant to do. It was very good because not many people ran D.D. Crow at the time (and even if they did, the chances of them actually drawing it early enough to play were slim given my deck’s speed). If a Crow did resolve, then D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation could bring back whatever was removed. It was easy to say that the deck was hit or miss, but it played into a lot of cards that were popular at the time, taking advantage of opposing cards like Solemn Judgment to create fast wins. If your opponent was forced to play Solemn Judgment, he or she was left sitting at 4000 life points which left that player quite vulnerable to defeat in a single turn. Here’s the deck I played at Shonen Jump Championship Toronto:

Monsters: 21

Now why am I trying to talk about a deck from the last format? It’s simple: the deck isn’t dead yet. People are probably thinking that The Dark Creator isn’t as good as it once was seeing as how it lost its two best targets for recursion: Disk Commander and Dark Magician of Chaos. But The Dark Creator allows you to set up all kinds of Synchro summons with Krebons, and it fetches back Synchro monsters like Colossal Fighter and Thought Ruler Archfiend from the graveyard. The Dark Creator is actually an ideal card at the moment, and it’s perfect here since the deck is quite fast and goes through a lot of Dark monsters in a short period of time. You can often send five Dark monsters to the graveyard in a single turn, if not more.

For example: special summoning Dark Grepher and discarding for its effect gives you three Dark monsters in your graveyard. Furthermore, If you have Emergency Teleport or Krebons in your hand you can Synchro summon with Krebons and Grepher, and already have five Dark monsters in your graveyard without having to lose any monsters in battle. Beyond that, Trade-In and Destiny Draw also allow you to bring out The Dark Creator even if your combos don’t really come together.

The other monster choices are pretty standard. Plasma isn’t just for show since it can be summoned if needed, but it’s probably your best target for Trade-In. It works well with Phantom of Chaos, which allows you to pull off all kinds of neat tricks with your Dark monsters while providing graveyard management to help you summon Dark Armed Dragon.

So the new monster line-up looks something like this:

The spells I’ll be using are pretty self-explanatory: you draw a lot of cards and try to force out or eliminate opposing traps. Ridding the field of stuff like Solemn Judgment, Phoenix Wing Wind Blast, and other defensive cards early leaves you free to make big plays, and that in turn will let you put together an OTK as soon as possible. There are, however, a lot of differences between this version and the original Toronto build: for one, the third copy of Allure of Darkness that was disallowed by the previous Advanced list is much better here than the third Trade-In was, making the deck a little more consistent. At the same time, Emergency Teleport lends the deck some speed while also providing support and consistency. Being able to run three copies of Reinforcement of the Army will let you get to Elemental Hero Stratos and Dark Grepher quickly, allowing you to do substantial damage (if not go for game) on the first turn. You will find that you can reliably open with deadly hands like Stratos, Grepher, Malicious, and a combo-oriented card like Dark Armed Dragon, Teleport, or a live draw card.

Spells: 18

Here’s the trap line up. It’s pretty minimal due to the speed of the strategy:

As you can see, the deck is fast and designed to end the game quickly, so you basically have to let your hand play out. It’s kind of like Diamond Dude Turbo in the sense that if you want to go for the OTK it’s all or nothing. You can develop different play styles to approach this deck with, but it’s mainly designed to be aggressive. Sometimes you have to be careless and go for game even if you’re taking a risk. It’s also good to note that not many people run D.D. Crow at the moment, making this a very good opportunity to capitalize on a card like Phantom of Chaos.

It‘s obviously not a bad idea to tweak the decklist to fit it to your play style, but this version can outplay all of the top decks in the current format. The thing to remember about this strategy is that you can do a lot with it: by that I mean you can switch out very few cards and completely change the style of the deck.

Some people may not like Necro Gardna here, but it has a lot of uses. It’s a good card to pitch with Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Dark Grepher, and it buys you time by allowing you to take a few more hits than you’d be able to absorb otherwise. You don’t normally care about how many life points you have left when you’re playing this deck. With the addition of Necro Gardna you can often get the one or two extra turns you need to set up an OTK. It keeps your monsters alive too, and that can really pay off when you’re abusing something like Phantom of Chaos. It lets you stretch what would be a one-turn trick into something with a lot more longevity. Gardna is also an acceptable tribute for Crush Card Virus, and while it’s not an ideal play, you can easily search it out with Reinforcement of the Army if you need it badly enough.

As long as you practice a bit with this deck, it’ll play itself and you’ll find yourself overwhelming other players without much trouble. It’s what I originally planned to take to a Shonen Jump this season, but since University seems to have other plans for me, I’m passing it on to you.

Good luck ladies and gents!

—Sorosh Saberian