SOL Dragon
Deck Creator: Yanni
"SOL Dragon" is an advantage oriented variant of the popular "Hopeless Dragon" One-Turn-Kill deck that originated from Japan. SOL Dragon utilizes the tuner monster "The White Stone of Legend" to fuel its draw engines and feed its hand and graveyard with "Blue-Eyes White Dragon"(s) for "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" to then revive and swarm the field with. Unlike most Hopeless decks this deck does not play to OTK and as such a lot of the card choices in the deck are chosen to help it last longer into duels, give it more options and aid in abusing the advantage generated by White Stone of Legend. The deck is, as I have already said, and advantage engine. It plays by wearing the opponent down with large beaters and lightning fast Special Summons. It retains advantage through all of this because the beaters come from the Graveyard, and are thus able to be considered "Pseudo-floaters", the Special Summons from the hand and Extra Deck are in the form of monsters such as Chaos Sorcerer and Arcanite Magician; monsters who pay for their summoning cost by clearing cards from the opponents field. All the while as this goes on SOL Dragon is able to maintain a consistent draw engine powered by 3 draw cards. Each and every target for these draw cards is searchable and as a result dead draws are rare. The deck is very live and very versatile, here is an example of my current decklist:
Main Deck: 40
Extra Deck: 15
1 Five-Headed Dragon
1 Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
2 Arcanite Magician
1 Magical Android
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Dark End Dragon
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Colossal Fighter
Monsters: 22
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon
1 Elemental Hero - Stratos
2 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 White Stone of Legend
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
2 Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Dark Armed Dragon
Spells: 16
1 Future Fusion
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Foolish Burial
2 Allure of Darkness
3 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
1 Scapegoat
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
2 Trade-In
Traps: 2
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
As I've already said, the deck plays around advantage. This concept of advantage is as simple as counting cards; the idea is that if you have more cards then your opponent then you have more options, more answers, more plays and thus you are in the more favourable position to win. While card advantage doesn't take all aspects of the game into account the example I have presented is a very basic interpretation of the concept; it is card advantage at the core. There are many facets to card advantage but I won't bother addressing them in this article. For this article all that is needed to be understood is the concept of "Simplification", "Floaters" and "Pseudo-Floaters".
A floater is a monster that has effectively "paid" the cost it took to play them. If someone summons an "Elemental Hero - Stratos" and searches for a Malicious from their deck then the 1 card that they paid to play Stratos - the Stratos itself - has been replaced by a new one, if Stratos were to die then you wouldn't be "losing" anything in terms of Card Advantage because Stratos has given you a +1 in its summoning, in fact anything your opponent does to kill Stratos, bar battle will force them into a less favourable position by making them spend more cards to destroy something that has already replaced itself. In trying to avoid doing so your opponent may be tempted to try and kill Stratos in battle. If you prevent that exchange from happening via a Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute you have simplified the gamestate. For an example of how SOL Dragon does this click this link to a tournament I played it at. Woot self plugging in my own article. :P
Say it is my first turn, I summon Stratos and grab Malicious. I began with 6 cards, I now have 7. I set Mirror Force. Next turn my opponent summons a monster and attacks; I flip Mirror Force. I have lost 1 card in the exchange and they have lost one, however they now are down to 5 cards total whereas I have 6 cards left and next turn shall proceed to draw into a 7th. Instantly I am not only 2 cards up on them but I have a monster on the field, while they do not, they have wasted their normal summon. What may have seemed like a waste of a Mirror Force has now put me above my opponent. Obviously while we both have full hands such numbers are relatively useless, so by removing further cards from the board I can extend my lead over my opponent. After establishing 1 or 2 cards over the opponent if I proceed to make a series of 1 for 1 exchanges with Monsters and Spells or Traps I can eventually reduce my opponent to the point where my 2 card advantage over them is in the form of 3 cards to 1. An incredible advantage as they are virtually topdecking. If some of the exchanges that I make come in the form of monsters that pay for themselves or replace themselves then I will have even more cards over my opponent. After reaching such a point even a top decked Judgement Dragon will find it difficult to turn the game in my opponents favour.
Obviously the devastation wrought by a Judgement Dragon will depend entirely upon how many cards I have committed to the field in comparison to how many I have left in my hand, as well as the possible answers I may have to a Judgement Dragon. By saving cards such as "Brain Control", "Chaos Sorcerer" and the like in my hand I am able to respond easily to something such as a Judgment Dragon. If my field consisted entirely of monsters that had paid for themselves, such as an Elemental Hero - Stratos, a Red-Eyes who had revived a monster and the monster Red-Eyes had revived, then the Judgement Dragon wouldn't phase me at all. Had I a monster such as Red-Eyes Wyvern, Sangan or The White Stone of Legend on the field then I also wouldn't mind. This is because while these cards may not replace themselves when they are played they have further potential to do so after they die. These cards are called "Pseudo-Floaters".
SOL Dragon is built around The White Stone of Legend. Its reliance on this humble 1-star tuner monster is evident in the fact that I named the deck after it. "SOL" comes from "Stone Of Legend". Its also the word for sun in almost every language other than English, as I discovered on the Pojo forums.
SOL Dragon plays with the expectation that The White Stone of Legend will be sent to the Graveyard. Any way is fine; dump it via Future Fusion, dump it via Lightning Vortex, Foolish Burial, set it and let it die in battle, kill it with Torrential Tribute, or even tune it to something like Chaos Sorcerer for Arcanite Magician or to a Malicious for a Black Rose Dragon. The possibilities and methods for triggering The White Stone's effect are endless. Its an incredibly versatile little egg; and when it dies you get a free Blue-Eyes White Dragon.
This is important because it means that in playing cards like Foolish Burial or Lightning Vortex that would normally cost you cards you are receiving their effects for free while also furthering your decks goals. Lightning Vortex played on less than 2 monsters is a -1, however, with White Stone it becomes a 1 for 1 and a +1 against 2 monsters, only further increasing with the more monsters your opponent may have. Foolish Burial is an incredibly versatile card that can open up loads of different plays and openings and when paired with White Stone of Legend its inherent -1 status becomes a 1 for 1 that thins your deck by 2 cards and now you have a Light/Dragon/Tuner in your grave - which means Chaos Sorcerer is now only lacking a dark, Red-Eyes has a viable target for recursion and not to mention your deck is 2 cards thinner and you are now holding a Blue-Eyes in your hand. White Stone is the heart of the SOL Dragon deck and cards like Foolish Burial give immediate access to it and its effect. While we're on the subject, Foolish can also dump an extra dark for DAD, cover an extra Light or Dark for Sorcerer, throw Mali or Plague in the grave for a quick synchro or tribute or even chuck a Wyvern or Darkness Metal into your grave for an endphase summon. Its utility and versatility is endless and almost all these plays go on to make up for its inherent -1 status. Foolish Burial is very, very useful.
As the deck expects that you shall be sending White Stone of Legend to the Graveyard it lends itself to take advantage of that via cards such as Trade-In and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal. Though these may be the most obvious uses for your free Blue-Eyes I shall also point out that it is also, like White Stone of Legend a good source of fodder for your discard costs.
The deck as a whole is a gargantuan draw engine; 13 of the cards in the deck can be considered "high level" monsters, and thats a majority of your monsters, however its a minority in your deck and each of those high level monsters is capable of fueling at least one of the 3 different draw cards in the deck, if not 2 of them - or in Plasma's case all 3. In addition to that almost all of them are Special Summons with easy costs to play.
The benefit of Trade-In in the SOL engine is that every draw target is searchable with Plasma acting as a sort of fiber between them all. Level 8, D-Hero and Dark. Its searchable via Stratos and a 4th target for Trade-In. Also every target for the D-Hero engine is recruitable via Stratos and as such your targets for Allure and D-Draw are recruitable. That means every target for every draw card is able to be searched. On top of all that almost every card in the deck is either Light or Dark which in turn fuels both Chaos Sorcerer and Dark Armed Dragon.
Every monster in the deck is either a Floater, Pseudo-Floater or a named Destiny Hero. Destiny Hero - Plasmas uses have already been outlined. Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude acts as another fiber to merge the deck together; Dark for Allure, DAD and Chaos Sorcerer, D-Hero for Stratos and Destiny Draw, level 4 Warrior for Reinforcement of the Army and an ability that can give you any Normal Spell in the deck for free. This sets up potential abuse with the 3 draw cards, both Trade-In and Destiny Draw can be activated for a free 2 draws if hit by Diamond Dude's effect while Allure will give you its draw but still require a removal.
As every monster in the deck is designed to work in tandem with the rest of the deck, while paying for itself and fueling the draw engine it is easy to see how in a matter of turns this deck can reduce the opponents field to a simplified game state of 1-2 cards including their hand, while your field and hand still consists of the same number of cards you drew at the beginning of the duel. By abusing the decks inherent nature to feed itself free cards at the expense of your opponent and playing the simplification game there is very little your opponent will be able to do when you decide to start dropping dragons.
And drop dragons this deck does. A single Red-Eyes Darkness Metal paired with a Blue-Eyes and a Chaos Sorcerer is enough ATK points to go for game. Though this deck may not play OTK that certainly doesn't mean it can't explode into one. Chaos Sorcerer's use in this deck is vital; serving almost as important a role as The White Stone of Legend. It merges the Light and Dark themes, acts as a free 2300ATK beat stick while also possessing the ability to float upon summon via the removal of an opposing monster. When combined with the Stone of Legend it opens up plays into Arcanite Magician; this decks best secret weapon.
Not many opponents expect a dragon deck to be able to drop a Sorcerer on turn one, sync it to a White Stone for a Bottomless dodging Arcanite which can then proceed to wipe 2 more cards off their field. But regardless of whether or not they expect it; this deck can do it. And it can do it well.
In summary; SOL Dragon is an advantage oriented deck that aims to wear the opponent out of resources whilst maintaining its own, all the while dropping free 2000ATK+ monsters each turn. By playing the simplification game and exhausting the opponents resources to the point where they have no answers left for your monsters you can easily achieve total control of the board, the duel and win it in a matter of turns. This deck is explosive and fast, however, its greatest strength lies in its incredible versatility.
DRONG WAPH WER DARASTRI!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Christmas
Christmas time is break time. Even for the Dragon Lords and their pet Bard.
Have a nice holiday.
Have a nice holiday.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Card Focus: "Future Fusion"
Card Focus: Future Fusion
Just a few thoughts I had about Future Fusion. While playing at the last tournament I attended I noticed how little my SOL Dragon deck seemed to rely on Future Fusion. This stood out to me as its pretty common to hear the phrase "if you don't get Future Fusion you pretty much lose" thrown around when addressing Hopeless variants. Take a look at the top dragon decks being run right now; Disaster Dragon, SOL Dragon, Dark Hopeless and Dragon Nohr.
Imagine if Future Fusion were banned tomorrow. Dark Hopeless and Dragon Nohr would cease to exist as viable deck-types, SOL Dragon would take a hit but with some card changes and focusing the deck further into control away from OTK it would continue to exist as a decktype and Disaster Dragon would likely shrug it off and keep on charging.
This is because for decks such as Disaster Dragon and SOL Dragon the card "Future Fusion" is not integral to the decks strategy. The deck does not revolve around a single limited entity. This is not to suggest that they do not benefit dramatically from it, or that they should not run it, however, neither deck requires Future Fusion in order to play. Now, obviously I'm speaking in very generalized terms. We all know that Dark Hopeless and Dragon Nohr can win without Future Fusion, however, if you were to remove the card from the deck completely would you want to continue running the deck?
When Richard Clarke engineered the Disaster Dragon engine he sought to create a consistent, powerful deck that didn't depend on specific combos or singular cards to run. In doing so he removed the necessity of Future Fusion from his decks skeleton and while the card obviously helps; throwing 5 of your dragons into the Graveyard right where you want them and giving you access to reverse toolbox features, it isn't necissary.
Take a look at Dark Hopeless.
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 20
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Dark Horus
2 The Dark Creator
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 Axe Dragonute
2 Red-Eyes Wyvern
3 Dark Grepher
2 Phantom of Chaos
Spells: 15
1 Future Fusion
1 Heavy Storm
1 Giant Trunade
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Card Destruction
2 Allure of Darkness
2 Lightning Vortex
2 Hidden Armoury
2 D.D.R. - Different Dimension Revival
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
Traps: 5
1 Mirror Force
2 Eradicator Epidemic Virus
2 Deck Devastation Virus
This is a Dark Hopeless deck that topped the 3rd Dark Dragon Cup in Japan back in May of 2009. Its a fairly standard Dark Hopeless build and aside from the missing Norleras and its mained copies of the Viruses and Axe Dragonutes it looks like a deck you'd see at your local. Take a look at the engine powering it; without Future Fusion this deck loses its ability to dump Dark Horus, Darkness Metal and Red-Eyes Wyvern. It then loses its ability to summon The Dark Creator efficiently, which then in turn kills D.D.R. and Hidden Armoury. Without those options you are left with Dark Grepher, Allure and Trade-In as your discard outlets. The inclusion of Lightning Vortex certainly also helps and this deck is running 2 copies. Now translate that over to our format where people are running another level 8 in Norleras and where we don't have Axe Dragonute to feed DDV or play easy fodder for Allure and Darkness Metal.
If a Dark Hopeless variant from the TCG found itself stripped of Future Fusion it would receive the full brunt of all the blows I just noted this deck would receive and it would lack the redeeming 4-Star Dark Dragon that this has. Before I go on I want to point out that by "redeeming" I mean to say that Axe Dragonute is the one step of consistency that our western variants lack. Infernal Dragon has already proven an inferior replacement to Axe Dragonute, thus it is safe to assume that if a TCG variant were to lose Future Fusion they would be even worse off than this deck.
A TCG variant would be left with 3 Trade-In and 2 Allure to feed their monsters into the grave and RFG zone. Most TCG decks run minimal Grephers, if any, in favour of cards such as Hand Destruction and Armageddon Knight. Without a Future Fusion to dig through the deck for the -1 that is Hand Destruction stands out even more glaringly than before and Armageddon Knight would prove too slow and unable to deal with the high level monsters in your hand, forcing players to run Grepher which then forces them into overextending to get their dragons into the grave. Notice Future Fusion does it only via a temporary -1 and dumps 5. Grepher is a -2 (Grepher and the discard) and dumps 2. 3 Trade-In with 6 targets in the form of 3 Dark Horus, 2 Dark Creator and 1 Norleras may seem like a good idea at first but in lacking Future Fusion you could no longer simply toss aside level 8s as draw bait - Trade-In suddenly becomes the most reliable discard outlet the deck has for dumping Dark Horus, this means that because Darkness Metal is not a target for Trade-In that Armageddon/Grepher almost assuredly becomes Norleras and Darkness Metal specific. With this singular limitation of roles in the deck I'd like to take this moment to point out the deck would lack any method of discarding Red-Eyes Wyvern consistently as it is a Wind monster. In the face of such inconsistency and the ridiculous measure the deck would be required to go to in order to cope Dark Hopeless would likely collapse. It could not compete on a tournament level without Future Fusion.
Now we take a look at the ever popular Dragon Nohr.
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 23
1 Dark Armed Dragon
2 Red-Eyes Wyvern
3 Sky Scourge Norleras
3 The Dark Creator
3 Dark Grepher
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Dark Horus
1 Summoner Monk
3 Phantom of Chaos
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
Spells: 17
3 Trade-In
3 Hand Destruction
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
2 Upstart Goblin
1 Future Fusion
2 Allure of Darkness
2 Foolish Burial
1 Card Destruction
1 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Reinforcement of the Army
This is a Dragon Nohr deck built in the skeleton of James Laurent's Norleras OTK deck that he piloted to a top 8 finish in Shonen Jump Orlando earlier this format. The deck is already ridiculously combo oriented and even more inconsistent than Dark Hopeless as well as being able to be foiled by a single D.D. Crow. The aim of this deck is to dump Norleras into the grave alongside 4+ Dark dragons, then to place The Dark Creator atop your deck via Plaguespreader Zombie. From there you can normal summon Phantom of Chaos and remove Norleras to copy its effect; blow up the world and draw into The Dark Creator for an OTK swarm.
I've already pointed out the damage that losing a Future Fusion would do to Dark Hopeless so I won't revise those points for this deck. This deck as you can see carries a lot of draw power to try and dig through its deck in order to get its combo. Future Fusion is not as integral to this combo as another limited card is, however, so my focus shall shift to that momentarily; Plaguespreader Zombie. If this card is gone then the entire deck fails.
The reason I am drawing the similarity between Future Fusion and Plaguespreader Zombie is that they are both limited cards that the decks revolve around. As a result the deck builds itself to be inconsistent as it revolves around a card it cannot run in multiples. Disaster Dragon relies on no one card, but those that carry the deck can be run in 3's: Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Koa'ki Meiru Drago and Masked Dragon. SOL Dragon revolves around White Stone of Legend, Blue-Eyes and Trade-In. Like Disaster, each of these cards can be run in 3's - the difference in this case is that SOL Dragon revolves around an engine and thus the goal of the deck is flexible depending on the other cards included. The goal of Disaster to play aggressive control and disruption is carried in the 3 cards that I listed. Koa'ki Meiru and Masked Dragon give control. When paired with cards such as Creature Swap and Exploder Dragon then Masked Dragon plays to disruption, as Koa'ki does on its own. Darkness Metal fuels the deck and powers the engine. Thats without considering the synchro options the deck has or even addressing cards like Burst Breath.
Now we turn our attention back to Dragon Nohr. With no Future Fusion this decks discard methods are almost all inherent -1s. While for an OTK deck this may not seem like an issue, no other OTK deck is running 13 two-tribute monsters. This deck, without a dumping outlet like Future Fusion loses advantage really fast and draws into even cloggier hands as the dragons that would be normally dumped via Future Fusion must now be drawn and then discarded, or sent once per turn via Dark Grepher. The deck substantially slows and when you are losing a card everytime you draw through plays such as Hand Destruction, Card Destruction and Foolish Burial you soon begin to notice that your hand will diminish at an extraordinarily rapid pace. In fact the deck loses its ability to play cards beyond top-decking after the 5th turn, and thats counting your opponents turns so 3 of your own. Thats assuming you didn't have a hand full of high level monsters and had monsters you could summon on each turn - obviously playing monsters from your hand would contribute to the losing of hand advantage but Grepher only speeds the process along further. The deck, without Future Fusion loses several turns of its life expectancy as well as its huge dark dumper. This puts it in a very fragile position where it either wins in the first two turns or the player can just scoop come their 3rd turn as they aren't going to win; this is a combo deck, it can't top deck. Cards like Hand Destruction, Dark Grepher, Trade-In, Norleras and Dark Horus don't do wonders without a hand to work with. Like Dark Hopeless this deck also loses its ability to function as a tournament ready deck.
At last we come to my personal deck SOL Dragon. Now, no doubt because I run the deck I have some bias towards it that may affect my outlook on how consistently it runs without Future Fusion. I'm sure no one will dispute that Disaster Dragon can run perfectly without Future Fusion but in order to establish the consistency of SOL Dragon I took my deck and tested it; without Future Fusion.
IF you've been following my blog you know that I recently (yesterday) took my SOL Dragon deck to a 7-0 finish at a tournament I found while on vacation. The tournament only spanned 7 rounds so I won the tournament. There is a summary here for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about.
If you look back at the tournament summary you can see that I consistently was able to play and win without the use of Future Fusion; as with Disaster Dragon I feel that SOL Dragon can play without it and that it merely kicks the deck into high gear. Unlike Disaster, however, I do think that SOL Dragon does rely on Future Fusion in part as it is a draw engine based deck that likes its Blue-Eyes in hand to get the deck going. I'll point out that thanks to 3 copies of Destiny Draw, 2 Allures and 1 Reasoning it does not need its Trade-In targets as much as say Dark Hopeless or Dragon Nohr, but it does run the engine and that is what the deck plays around thus obviously getting White Stones into the grave asap is a priority. Future Fusion lets you do this. The advantage of White Stone is that it can often be played much like Sangan in order to gain the Blue-Eyes you want and it is for that reason that I don't think Future Fusions loss shall hinder the deck heavily, but nonetheless I decided to test it anyway.
Now, if Future Fusion were indeed banned I would alter my deck to suit as my deck is designed to include Future Fusion, but being on vacation and lacking the cards I have at home I simply dropped Future Fusion and threw in a Foolish Burial as a replacement. A single Foolish Burial. This gives me 1 method of discarding any monster in my deck to the grave at the cost of a -1, unless its a White Stone in which case it thins my deck by 2 cards and is a 1 for 1. Here is the deck:
Main Deck: 40
Extra Deck: 15
1 Five-Headed Dragon
1 Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
2 Arcanite Magician
1 Magical Android
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Dark End Dragon
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Colossal Fighter
Monsters: 22
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon
1 Elemental Hero - Stratos
2 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 White Stone of Legend
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
2 Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Dark Armed Dragon
Spells: 15
1 Foolish Burial
1 Reasoning
2 Allure of Darkness
3 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
1 Scapegoat
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
2 Trade-In
Traps: 3
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Call of the Haunted
I took science. I know about experiments and testing theories. I know about controls and Dependant and Independent Variables and I will admit this would not stand as away of proving a scientific theory; however, it will serve to prove my point; which is that SOL Dragon can function without Future Fusion. I wanted to keep it as controlled as possible though so I took it back to the hobby shop where I attended the tournament yesterday and found some of the people I dueled the day before. I asked them if they would let me test my deck against the exact deck they ran the day before. Obviously now they have knowledge of my deck and understand how it plays so it wasn't entirely controlled but they didn't know I wasn't running Future Fusion so I figured it balanced out enough for my intentions. :P
Only 3 guys were there. Which is probably a good thing, cuz I didn't want to play another tournament, just test out if my deck could run without Future Fusion. The guys who were there ran Lightsworn, DHZ and Dark Hopeless. Now the only one I lost a duel to yesterday was the guy with Dark Hopeless and in this match he was running Future Fusion, while I was not. We played 3 games each match regardless of who won and it was a best out of 3 result to win the match. That was because I wanted to guarantee 3 duels each match to test the consistency of my deck without Future Fusion. For those of you who care here are the duels:
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 1
8000~8000
I won the roll and opened with Allure, Plague, Blue-Eyes, White Stone, Diamond Due and Scapegoat.
I played Allure and drew into Torrential and Mirror Force, removing Diamond Dude
I set White Stone of Legend, set Torrential and ended
~
He summoned Red-Eyes Wyvern and I chained Torrential, adding Blue-Eyes to my hand
He then played Card Destruction, discarding Giant Trunade, Brain Control, Dark Horus and Prime Material Dragon. I lost 2 Blue-Eyes – 2 Trade-In targets.
I drew into Wyvern, 2 D-Draw, White Stone and Call
He set a S/T and ended.
~
I drew Trade-In
I set Call and summoned Wyvern.
I placed a D-Draw on top of my deck for Plaguespreader and tuned it to Wyvern for Brionac
Brionac discarded White Stone of Legend on priority to bounce his set card
White Stone added a Blue-Eyes
I Traded-In Blue-Eyes for Foolish Burial and Plasma
I D-Drew Plasma for Allure and MST
I Foolished a Darkness Metal into the grave and Brionac hit directly
~
He summoned Phantom of Chaos and removed Dark Horus for its effect
He then Traded-In a Dark Creator – he couldn’t remove Dark Creator for PoC because the only other dark was Dark Horus thus if he wanted to get rid of Brionac this was actually his best move from the cards I could see.
Phantom of Chaos proceeded to run over my Brionac
He set a card to end
~
I drew Dark Armed Dragon and dropped MST in the draw phase to kill his set, which unfortunately turned out to be his MST which he chained on my Call.
I played Allure and drew Wyvern and D-Draw. I removed DAD
I summoned Wyvern and ran over Phantom of Chaos with it
~
I plays Allure and removes Grepher
He D.D.R’s Dark Horus and attacks over my Wyvern
~
I draw Malicious and D-Draw it for Darkness Metal and a White Stone.
His Dark Horus revives a Phantom of Chaos
I summon White Stone and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives a Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes clashes with Dark Horus and Darkness runs over Phantom
I’m now leading 6800-1100
~
He foolishes a Darkness Metal and revives it in the endphase
~
I draw Chaos Sorcerer
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
I remove a White Stone and a Plasma for Chaos Sorcerer
Chaos Sorcerer removes his Darkness Metal and Blue-Eyes hits for game
Game 1 6800-0
~~~
Notes: That Card Destruction screwed me over. Neither of us saw Future Fusion (I didn’t even have it in my deck) and I came out waaay on top.
~~~
Game 2
8000~8000
He opens with Allure and removes Dark Horus. He then D.D.Rs it back in and plays Future Fusion – dumping 2 Wyverns, 2 Horus and a Darkness Metal
In the end phase he revives his Darkness Metal. This duel was going to be interesting
~
I draw Burial, Wyvern, Trade-In, Blue-Eyes, D-Draw and Prime Material
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Reasoning and MST
I play Reasoning and he calls level 8. I get a Darkness Metal Dragon off the top of my deck.
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes and I MST his DDR so his Dark Horus dies
I summon Wyvern
Blue-Eyes runs over his Darkness and my Darkness and Wyvern hit direct
Its 8000 to 3200
~
He scoops.
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Notes: He got a first turn Future Fusion and I still won. SOL Dragon seems to be proving itself highly viable without Future Fusion.
~~~
Game 3
8000~8000
We re-rolled for this duel since it wasn’t actually supposed to happen. Its just another test for my deck, these guys still don’t know what is different about my deck from yesterday.
I won the roll and drew Burial, Sorcerer, Darkness Metal, MST, D-Draw and Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab a Mali
Pitch Mali for D-Draw and draw D-Draw and Plasma
Pitch Plasma for D-Draw and draw Trade-In and Malicious (damn)
I set MST
~
He Sarcos out Future Fusion, sets 1 card and ends. Notice; he has a bad hand – he is going straight for Future Fusion to make it live.
In the End Phase I MST his Torrential
~
I draw Heavy Storm
Tragically my in hand Mali has left me with few plays.
I attack with Stratos and end
~
He sets another card and passes again
~
I draw Call
I set Call and send Stratos to attack again
~
He plays Future Fusion and dumps 2 Wyvern, 2 Horus and 1 Darkness Metal
He endphases a Darkness Metal
~
I flip call and grab Mali
I tribute Mali and Stratos for my own Darkness Metal
I play Heavy taking out Future Fusion and his set Allure
I clash our Darkness Metal’s
~
He DDR’s a Wyvern and tributes it for Prime
I take a direct attack from Prime
~
I draw Allure
I play Allure and get Trade-In and DAD, I remove Malicious
I special summon DAD and am forced to attack his lame Prime Material because he has a hand
I set Burial
~
He passes and revives Darkness in the Endphase
~
I draw Brain Control
I Brain Control his Darkness Metal and remove it for my own Darkness Metal
Dark Armed Dragon and Darkness Metal attack for game
Game 3 4800-0
~~~
Notes: I drew horribly that duel, obviously without drawing any of my White Stones or Blue-Eyes I lack the Lights or Dragons for my Chaos Sorcerer or Darkness Metal. However, even with him getting Future Fusion my bad hand was still better than his.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 1
8000~8000
He won the roll and opened with Rota into Stratos
He summoned Stratos for Malicious but apparently lacked a D-Draw
He set 2 cards and ended
~
I opened with Malicious, Chaos Sorcerer, Wyvern, Heavy Storm, D-Draw and MST
I play Heavy and kill Skill Drain and Burial
I D-Draw Mali for Blue-Eyes and Rota
He D.D. Crow’s my Mali
I Rota my own Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab Diamond Dude
I set MST and clash Heroes
~
He summons Tomato and attacks
He sets 2 cards
In the end phase my MST hits another Skill Drain
~
I draw Mirror Force
I summon Diamond Dude and flip over a Plague
I set Mirror Force and end
~
He sarcos a DAD and attempts to clash Tomato with Diamond Dude but Mirror Force stops him
~
I draw Allure and play it to draw Brain Control and Trade-In
I remove Chaos Sorcerer for Allures cost
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for White Stone and another Wyvern
Diamond Dude flips over an Allure
I summon a White Stone but he flips Torrential
I add Blue-Eyes to my hand
~
Hes topdecking now, he sets a card and ends
~
I draw another White Stone.
I’m tempted to use the Allure but I don’t have any Darks
I summon Wyvern and attack
I set Brain Control and go for the Allure
I draw into DAD and Darkness Metal – I remove DAD
~
He gets DAD from Sarco
He plays Allure and removes a Malicious
He sets another S/T
~
I draw torrential and he flips PWWB in my standby phase discarding an Allure to put Wyvern on top of my deck.
I summon another Wyvern
I remove that Wyvern for a Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
Darkness Metal and Blue-Eyes attack
He has 400 LP
~
I plays Foolish and dumps a Dark, I don’t have time to see it cuz he drops DAD and clears my field
DAD hits me direct
~
I draw Wyvern
I set White Stone alongside a Torrential and end
~
DAD attacks my White Stone
I get a Blue-Eyes
~
I draw a Darkness Metal
I summon a Wyvern and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives a Blue-Eyes and that's game
Game 1 3800-0
~~~
Notes: The deck obviously fared worse against DHZ without Future Fusion. I want to say that I didn’t draw into Foolish which was in Future’s slot but I know that I played differently knowing I didn’t have a Future Fusion to draw into. It's a lot harder getting White Stones into play without it. If we were to lose Future Fusion I’d probably double up on Foolish Burial and I’d consider maining a Masked Dragon engine or a Sangan to recruit them. I need those White Stones. Still won though, and still got a DHZ deck top decking by my 3rd turn so I’m content with that for a Future Fusion-less deck. There is a reason why SOL Dragon is named after the egg. If you don’t get it, you need to claw your way to victory.
~~~
Game 2
8000~8000
He opens with 2 set S/Ts and a face down monster
~
I open with Plasma, Heavy Storm, Rota, Wyvern, Blue-Eyes and Brain Control
I Rota a Stratos
I summon Stratos and elect to search, he chains PWWB and discards D.D. Crow to bounce Stratos
I choose to grab Stratos with its own effect and take the free shuffle
~
He summons Breaker and attacks me directly
He sets 2 more S/T and ends
~
I draw Prime
His whole hand is on the board so I drop Heavy
He chains E-Tele and gets a Krebons but Heavy takes out Bottomless and Skill Drain
I summon Stratos who searches Diamond Dude
Stratos attacks his Krebons and he negates it
I end and Krebons gets removed
~
Breaker, still holding its counter, runs over Stratos
He sets a S/T and ends
~
I draw Allure
I Brain Control Breaker
I remove its counter and force his Burial. He shuffles Krebons back.
I play Allure and draw Mirror Force and Blue-Eyes, I remove Plasma
I tribute Breaker for Prime and attack his last card – D-Hero Defender
I set Mirror Force and end, I’m ready to draw :D
~
He passes
~
I draw Destiny Draw with my draw phase and Foolish with Defender’s effect
I D-Draw Diamond Dude for Trade-In and White Stone
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Mali and Torrential
I foolish a Darkness Metal
I summon Wyvern and end
~
He drops DAD Q_Q
He nukes Mirror Force with its effect and then attack Prime
~
I draw Allure with my draw phase and Egg with Defender’s effect
I play Allure getting DAD and Reasoning, I remove Mali
I play Reasoning and he calls level 10, after passing over a Sorcerer it lands on Diamond Dude
I drop my DAD and remove Sorcerer and Diamond Dude to clear his field
Diamond Dude flips over Scapegoat, but it's a Quickplay so we don’t get it
Diamond Dude, DAD and Wyvern all hit direct.
I set a Stone and Torrential
~
He Rotas a Stratos
Stratos is summoned for Malicious
He ditches Malicious for D-Draw but scoops when he sees his cards.
Game 2 4500~0
~~~
Notes: This is DHZ, where are his Zombies?
~~~
Game 3
8000~8000
I win the Roll.
I open with D-Draw, Darkness Metal, Mali, Mirror Force, Plague and Prime Material
I D-Draw the Mali for Torrential and D-Draw
I remove Mali for Mali and summon Plague
Synchro summon Stardust Dragon, set Mirror Force and end
He D.D. Crows my Plague in the end phase
~
He opens with Rota for Stratos
Summons Stratos to search for Defender
He E-Teles a Krebons and suddenly I’m wishing I had Torrential set
He Synchros a Brionac and discards Solemn and PWWB to bounce my field
Brionac attacks
~
I draw a White Stone
I summon the Stone and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal brings down Prime alongside it
Darkness kills Brionac and Prime hits directly
He has 2 cards in hand, I set Mirror Force and end
~
He D-Draws Defender
He Sarcos a DAD
He sets 1 card
~
I draw Foolish and he flips Skill Drain
I Foolish a White Stone and get a Blue-Eyes to my hand
Tragically in paying 1000 lifepoints to activate Skill Drain in an attempt to prevent me swarming to be able to kill him he lowered himself within the range where Prime and Darkness Metal could kill him alone.
Game 3 5700~0
~~~
Notes: Where are his Zombies?
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Lightsworn
Game 1
8000~8000
I got first. I open with 2 Chaos Sorcerer, 1 Darkness Metal, 1 Foolish, 1 Trade-In and 1 MST.
I Foolish a Stone and grab a Blue-Eyes
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Mali and Torrential
I set Torrential and end
~
He charges a Garoth and mills crap. He summons Garoth but loses it to Torrential
He sets 2 – WTF?
~
I draw Diamond Dude
I summon Diamond Dude and flip over a Plague
Diamond Dude hits direct
I set MST and end
~
He sets a monster and ends
~
I draw Heavy
Diamond Dude flips over something useless
Diamond Dude kills hits Plaguespreader
~
He sets a card ontop of his deck for Plague
He summons Honest and tunes Plague to it for Brionac
He pitches a Heavy to try and spin MST but I chain it on his Bottomless
Brionac kills Diamond Dude – Thank you! My Chaos Sorcerer is live!
He sets his last card in hand – pity I drew that heavy last turn
~
I draw D-Draw, my whole hand is now live
I heavy his Beckoning and Mirror Force
I remove Blue-Eyes and Diamond Dude for Chaos who removes Brionac
I D-Draw Mali for Rota and Red-Eyes
I Rota me a Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab Plasma
Stratos hits for 1800
~
He topdecks a monster and sets it
~
I draw Destiny Draw
I remove Mali for Mali
I D-Draw Plasma for Blue-Eyes and Wyvern
I summon Wyvern and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives White Stone
I tune Stone to Chaos Sorcerer for Arcanite
I add a Blue-Eyes
Arcanite removes its counter to pop Ryko
My field swings for game
Game 1 7100~0
~~~
Notes: Man, this guy, is the weirdest Lightsworn player EVER. I don’t think he is very good. These duels are lacking the explosiveness Future Fusion plays provide but SOL Dragon is still playing very consistently. I attribute this towards the spin I put on it to gear it away from a traditional Hopeless OTK and towards it being more of a control based deck. It’s still very slow, too slow for my tastes without Future Fusion but as I’ve said before, if we lost Future Fusion I’d change the line up to accommodate it.
~~~
Game 2
8000~8000
He begins. He opens by Solar Recharging a Lumina and mills a Lyla and Gorz
He Sarcos JD and Charges for Garoth, milling a Wulf and 2 Beckoning in the process
In the stupidest play I’ve ever seen he tributes that Wulf for Celestia and now I don’t think that this guy is a good person to test with.
He sets a card and ends.
~
I open with Darkness, D-Draw, Stratos, Diamond Dude, Torrential and Trade-In
I summon Stratos and grab Plasma
I Trade-In Plasma for Allure and Rota
I Rota a Diamond Dude
I D-Draw a Diamond Dude for MST and D-Draw
I MST his Beckoning
I D-Draw Diamond Dude for DAD and Foolish
I Foolish White Stone and add Blue-Eyes to my hand
I Allure into Burial and Mali, I remove Mali
I drop DAD
DAD removes Diamond Dude to pop Celestia
I remove DAD for Darkness Metal who summons Blue-Eyes
I Burial DAD and Mali back in, I also toss his JD into his grave since I just nuked his Beckoning and he has already milled 2
I remove Mali for Mali
I swing with my field for game
Game 2
8000~0
~~~
Notes: Bleh, I don’t want to play this guy anymore. He is obviously inexperienced at playing Lightsworn but at least last duel showed that my deck can still explode into a first turn kill without Future Fusion.
~~~
Game 3
8000~8000
I opened with Diamond Dude, Foolish, Chaos, White Stone, Plasma and Wyvern
I summoned Diamond Dude and flipped over a Darkness Metal
~
He made his typical opening play of Charging for Garoth and attacking over my monster. I don’t think this guy realizes the play is supposed to include a Lumina so you can + off your mills
~
I draw Brain Control
I Foolish a White Stone and add a Blue-Eyes to my hand
I remove Stone and Diamond Dude for Chaos Sorcerer
I summon a Wyvern
Sorcerer Removes Garoth and Wyvern swings directly
Gorz hits the field. Yay.
I Brain Control his token and tribute my field for Plasma who absorbs Gorz
~
He Recharges a Lyla and mills a Necro and Bottomless
He sets a monster and an S/T
~
I draw Diamond Dude
I summon Diamond Dude
Diamond Dude flips over MST
Diamond Dude and Plasma trigger Mirror Force
~
He passes
~
I draw Torrential
I set torrential and White Stone
~
He flip summons Ryko and kills White Stone with its effect milling Honest, Lyla and Judgement Dragon
He summons Lumina and discards Wulf to summon it
Wulf triggers my Torrential
He now has enough Lightsworn for Judgement Dragon
~
I draw Trade-In
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Allure and DAD
DAD hits and I play Allure for Mali and Trade-In, I remove Mali
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Darkness Metal and a White Stone
I summon White Stone and remove it for Darkness
Darkness revives Blue-Eyes and my field swings for game
Game 3 6750~0
~~~
Notes: Bleh.
Summary: 3 Matches, 9 duels, 0 losses, no Future Fusion.
Now all of that was to prove a point. The most successful dragon decks are undeniably SOL Dragon and Disaster Dragon. Notice that neither of these decks is reliant upon Future Fusion to run? In committing your entire deck to revolving around 1 limited card you are committing yourself to inconsistency. Give or take freak god hands what it comes down to often is: if you draw it; you win, if you don't; you lose.
When I took the Toronto decklist and tweaked it to make it more consistent; with less OTK, more control and "innovated" SOL Dragon my main focus was to ensure that it could win without Future Fusion. It didn't ever stick out to me to test my theory but it had seemed that my deck was able to do so fairly consistently. Think about how Future Fusion affects our deck building and playstyles and look over the Dark Variants, Dragon Nohr and the Toronto deck; there are a lot of choices that are extremely subpar choices were the deck not to include Future Fusion. Now the reason why that stands out is because these decks are so reliant on Future Fusion - they gear themselves towards getting it as fast as possible but in doing so often short change themselves - if they don't get it then they're often ruined. Obviously they can win without Future Fusion but the point is that many cards included in the deck would be removed if Future Fusion wasn't in existence, thus people are building their decks around Future Fusion. The flaw in this lies in the fact that Future Fusion is a limited card you can have a maximum of 1 copy of and thus in committing your deck around it you are committing your deck to inconsistency.
While I understand that this might sound like I'm plugging myself, and I don't mean to, when I revised the Toronto deck from OTK into SOL I took out the poor choices that had no real place in the deck such as the random Dark Grepher and included other cards like Red-Eyes Wyvern and extra copies of Chaos Sorcerer and Prime Material Dragon to give it more control and help it to last longer into duels. This detracted from the decks overall reliance on getting Future Fusion and thus made it more stable and consistent. I think that if we are to take Dragon Nohr and the Dark Variant to the same level that SOL Dragon and Disaster Dragon are at then we need to revise common card choices in such decks. The point in this ridiculously long article on Future Fusion is to point out that Future Fusion is warping the mind of Dragon users. Instead of building decks to revolve around a single limited card we need to create consistent decks that can utilize multiple tricks in addition to Future Fusion and in doing so we will improve our decks, our standard of play and our tournament standings.
Just a few thoughts I had about Future Fusion. While playing at the last tournament I attended I noticed how little my SOL Dragon deck seemed to rely on Future Fusion. This stood out to me as its pretty common to hear the phrase "if you don't get Future Fusion you pretty much lose" thrown around when addressing Hopeless variants. Take a look at the top dragon decks being run right now; Disaster Dragon, SOL Dragon, Dark Hopeless and Dragon Nohr.
Imagine if Future Fusion were banned tomorrow. Dark Hopeless and Dragon Nohr would cease to exist as viable deck-types, SOL Dragon would take a hit but with some card changes and focusing the deck further into control away from OTK it would continue to exist as a decktype and Disaster Dragon would likely shrug it off and keep on charging.
This is because for decks such as Disaster Dragon and SOL Dragon the card "Future Fusion" is not integral to the decks strategy. The deck does not revolve around a single limited entity. This is not to suggest that they do not benefit dramatically from it, or that they should not run it, however, neither deck requires Future Fusion in order to play. Now, obviously I'm speaking in very generalized terms. We all know that Dark Hopeless and Dragon Nohr can win without Future Fusion, however, if you were to remove the card from the deck completely would you want to continue running the deck?
When Richard Clarke engineered the Disaster Dragon engine he sought to create a consistent, powerful deck that didn't depend on specific combos or singular cards to run. In doing so he removed the necessity of Future Fusion from his decks skeleton and while the card obviously helps; throwing 5 of your dragons into the Graveyard right where you want them and giving you access to reverse toolbox features, it isn't necissary.
Take a look at Dark Hopeless.
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 20
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Dark Horus
2 The Dark Creator
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 Axe Dragonute
2 Red-Eyes Wyvern
3 Dark Grepher
2 Phantom of Chaos
Spells: 15
1 Future Fusion
1 Heavy Storm
1 Giant Trunade
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Card Destruction
2 Allure of Darkness
2 Lightning Vortex
2 Hidden Armoury
2 D.D.R. - Different Dimension Revival
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
Traps: 5
1 Mirror Force
2 Eradicator Epidemic Virus
2 Deck Devastation Virus
This is a Dark Hopeless deck that topped the 3rd Dark Dragon Cup in Japan back in May of 2009. Its a fairly standard Dark Hopeless build and aside from the missing Norleras and its mained copies of the Viruses and Axe Dragonutes it looks like a deck you'd see at your local. Take a look at the engine powering it; without Future Fusion this deck loses its ability to dump Dark Horus, Darkness Metal and Red-Eyes Wyvern. It then loses its ability to summon The Dark Creator efficiently, which then in turn kills D.D.R. and Hidden Armoury. Without those options you are left with Dark Grepher, Allure and Trade-In as your discard outlets. The inclusion of Lightning Vortex certainly also helps and this deck is running 2 copies. Now translate that over to our format where people are running another level 8 in Norleras and where we don't have Axe Dragonute to feed DDV or play easy fodder for Allure and Darkness Metal.
If a Dark Hopeless variant from the TCG found itself stripped of Future Fusion it would receive the full brunt of all the blows I just noted this deck would receive and it would lack the redeeming 4-Star Dark Dragon that this has. Before I go on I want to point out that by "redeeming" I mean to say that Axe Dragonute is the one step of consistency that our western variants lack. Infernal Dragon has already proven an inferior replacement to Axe Dragonute, thus it is safe to assume that if a TCG variant were to lose Future Fusion they would be even worse off than this deck.
A TCG variant would be left with 3 Trade-In and 2 Allure to feed their monsters into the grave and RFG zone. Most TCG decks run minimal Grephers, if any, in favour of cards such as Hand Destruction and Armageddon Knight. Without a Future Fusion to dig through the deck for the -1 that is Hand Destruction stands out even more glaringly than before and Armageddon Knight would prove too slow and unable to deal with the high level monsters in your hand, forcing players to run Grepher which then forces them into overextending to get their dragons into the grave. Notice Future Fusion does it only via a temporary -1 and dumps 5. Grepher is a -2 (Grepher and the discard) and dumps 2. 3 Trade-In with 6 targets in the form of 3 Dark Horus, 2 Dark Creator and 1 Norleras may seem like a good idea at first but in lacking Future Fusion you could no longer simply toss aside level 8s as draw bait - Trade-In suddenly becomes the most reliable discard outlet the deck has for dumping Dark Horus, this means that because Darkness Metal is not a target for Trade-In that Armageddon/Grepher almost assuredly becomes Norleras and Darkness Metal specific. With this singular limitation of roles in the deck I'd like to take this moment to point out the deck would lack any method of discarding Red-Eyes Wyvern consistently as it is a Wind monster. In the face of such inconsistency and the ridiculous measure the deck would be required to go to in order to cope Dark Hopeless would likely collapse. It could not compete on a tournament level without Future Fusion.
Now we take a look at the ever popular Dragon Nohr.
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 23
1 Dark Armed Dragon
2 Red-Eyes Wyvern
3 Sky Scourge Norleras
3 The Dark Creator
3 Dark Grepher
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Dark Horus
1 Summoner Monk
3 Phantom of Chaos
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
Spells: 17
3 Trade-In
3 Hand Destruction
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
2 Upstart Goblin
1 Future Fusion
2 Allure of Darkness
2 Foolish Burial
1 Card Destruction
1 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Reinforcement of the Army
This is a Dragon Nohr deck built in the skeleton of James Laurent's Norleras OTK deck that he piloted to a top 8 finish in Shonen Jump Orlando earlier this format. The deck is already ridiculously combo oriented and even more inconsistent than Dark Hopeless as well as being able to be foiled by a single D.D. Crow. The aim of this deck is to dump Norleras into the grave alongside 4+ Dark dragons, then to place The Dark Creator atop your deck via Plaguespreader Zombie. From there you can normal summon Phantom of Chaos and remove Norleras to copy its effect; blow up the world and draw into The Dark Creator for an OTK swarm.
I've already pointed out the damage that losing a Future Fusion would do to Dark Hopeless so I won't revise those points for this deck. This deck as you can see carries a lot of draw power to try and dig through its deck in order to get its combo. Future Fusion is not as integral to this combo as another limited card is, however, so my focus shall shift to that momentarily; Plaguespreader Zombie. If this card is gone then the entire deck fails.
The reason I am drawing the similarity between Future Fusion and Plaguespreader Zombie is that they are both limited cards that the decks revolve around. As a result the deck builds itself to be inconsistent as it revolves around a card it cannot run in multiples. Disaster Dragon relies on no one card, but those that carry the deck can be run in 3's: Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Koa'ki Meiru Drago and Masked Dragon. SOL Dragon revolves around White Stone of Legend, Blue-Eyes and Trade-In. Like Disaster, each of these cards can be run in 3's - the difference in this case is that SOL Dragon revolves around an engine and thus the goal of the deck is flexible depending on the other cards included. The goal of Disaster to play aggressive control and disruption is carried in the 3 cards that I listed. Koa'ki Meiru and Masked Dragon give control. When paired with cards such as Creature Swap and Exploder Dragon then Masked Dragon plays to disruption, as Koa'ki does on its own. Darkness Metal fuels the deck and powers the engine. Thats without considering the synchro options the deck has or even addressing cards like Burst Breath.
Now we turn our attention back to Dragon Nohr. With no Future Fusion this decks discard methods are almost all inherent -1s. While for an OTK deck this may not seem like an issue, no other OTK deck is running 13 two-tribute monsters. This deck, without a dumping outlet like Future Fusion loses advantage really fast and draws into even cloggier hands as the dragons that would be normally dumped via Future Fusion must now be drawn and then discarded, or sent once per turn via Dark Grepher. The deck substantially slows and when you are losing a card everytime you draw through plays such as Hand Destruction, Card Destruction and Foolish Burial you soon begin to notice that your hand will diminish at an extraordinarily rapid pace. In fact the deck loses its ability to play cards beyond top-decking after the 5th turn, and thats counting your opponents turns so 3 of your own. Thats assuming you didn't have a hand full of high level monsters and had monsters you could summon on each turn - obviously playing monsters from your hand would contribute to the losing of hand advantage but Grepher only speeds the process along further. The deck, without Future Fusion loses several turns of its life expectancy as well as its huge dark dumper. This puts it in a very fragile position where it either wins in the first two turns or the player can just scoop come their 3rd turn as they aren't going to win; this is a combo deck, it can't top deck. Cards like Hand Destruction, Dark Grepher, Trade-In, Norleras and Dark Horus don't do wonders without a hand to work with. Like Dark Hopeless this deck also loses its ability to function as a tournament ready deck.
At last we come to my personal deck SOL Dragon. Now, no doubt because I run the deck I have some bias towards it that may affect my outlook on how consistently it runs without Future Fusion. I'm sure no one will dispute that Disaster Dragon can run perfectly without Future Fusion but in order to establish the consistency of SOL Dragon I took my deck and tested it; without Future Fusion.
IF you've been following my blog you know that I recently (yesterday) took my SOL Dragon deck to a 7-0 finish at a tournament I found while on vacation. The tournament only spanned 7 rounds so I won the tournament. There is a summary here for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about.
If you look back at the tournament summary you can see that I consistently was able to play and win without the use of Future Fusion; as with Disaster Dragon I feel that SOL Dragon can play without it and that it merely kicks the deck into high gear. Unlike Disaster, however, I do think that SOL Dragon does rely on Future Fusion in part as it is a draw engine based deck that likes its Blue-Eyes in hand to get the deck going. I'll point out that thanks to 3 copies of Destiny Draw, 2 Allures and 1 Reasoning it does not need its Trade-In targets as much as say Dark Hopeless or Dragon Nohr, but it does run the engine and that is what the deck plays around thus obviously getting White Stones into the grave asap is a priority. Future Fusion lets you do this. The advantage of White Stone is that it can often be played much like Sangan in order to gain the Blue-Eyes you want and it is for that reason that I don't think Future Fusions loss shall hinder the deck heavily, but nonetheless I decided to test it anyway.
Now, if Future Fusion were indeed banned I would alter my deck to suit as my deck is designed to include Future Fusion, but being on vacation and lacking the cards I have at home I simply dropped Future Fusion and threw in a Foolish Burial as a replacement. A single Foolish Burial. This gives me 1 method of discarding any monster in my deck to the grave at the cost of a -1, unless its a White Stone in which case it thins my deck by 2 cards and is a 1 for 1. Here is the deck:
Main Deck: 40
Extra Deck: 15
1 Five-Headed Dragon
1 Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
2 Arcanite Magician
1 Magical Android
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Dark End Dragon
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Colossal Fighter
Monsters: 22
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon
1 Elemental Hero - Stratos
2 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 White Stone of Legend
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
2 Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Dark Armed Dragon
Spells: 15
1 Foolish Burial
1 Reasoning
2 Allure of Darkness
3 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
1 Scapegoat
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
2 Trade-In
Traps: 3
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Call of the Haunted
I took science. I know about experiments and testing theories. I know about controls and Dependant and Independent Variables and I will admit this would not stand as away of proving a scientific theory; however, it will serve to prove my point; which is that SOL Dragon can function without Future Fusion. I wanted to keep it as controlled as possible though so I took it back to the hobby shop where I attended the tournament yesterday and found some of the people I dueled the day before. I asked them if they would let me test my deck against the exact deck they ran the day before. Obviously now they have knowledge of my deck and understand how it plays so it wasn't entirely controlled but they didn't know I wasn't running Future Fusion so I figured it balanced out enough for my intentions. :P
Only 3 guys were there. Which is probably a good thing, cuz I didn't want to play another tournament, just test out if my deck could run without Future Fusion. The guys who were there ran Lightsworn, DHZ and Dark Hopeless. Now the only one I lost a duel to yesterday was the guy with Dark Hopeless and in this match he was running Future Fusion, while I was not. We played 3 games each match regardless of who won and it was a best out of 3 result to win the match. That was because I wanted to guarantee 3 duels each match to test the consistency of my deck without Future Fusion. For those of you who care here are the duels:
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 1
8000~8000
I won the roll and opened with Allure, Plague, Blue-Eyes, White Stone, Diamond Due and Scapegoat.
I played Allure and drew into Torrential and Mirror Force, removing Diamond Dude
I set White Stone of Legend, set Torrential and ended
~
He summoned Red-Eyes Wyvern and I chained Torrential, adding Blue-Eyes to my hand
He then played Card Destruction, discarding Giant Trunade, Brain Control, Dark Horus and Prime Material Dragon. I lost 2 Blue-Eyes – 2 Trade-In targets.
I drew into Wyvern, 2 D-Draw, White Stone and Call
He set a S/T and ended.
~
I drew Trade-In
I set Call and summoned Wyvern.
I placed a D-Draw on top of my deck for Plaguespreader and tuned it to Wyvern for Brionac
Brionac discarded White Stone of Legend on priority to bounce his set card
White Stone added a Blue-Eyes
I Traded-In Blue-Eyes for Foolish Burial and Plasma
I D-Drew Plasma for Allure and MST
I Foolished a Darkness Metal into the grave and Brionac hit directly
~
He summoned Phantom of Chaos and removed Dark Horus for its effect
He then Traded-In a Dark Creator – he couldn’t remove Dark Creator for PoC because the only other dark was Dark Horus thus if he wanted to get rid of Brionac this was actually his best move from the cards I could see.
Phantom of Chaos proceeded to run over my Brionac
He set a card to end
~
I drew Dark Armed Dragon and dropped MST in the draw phase to kill his set, which unfortunately turned out to be his MST which he chained on my Call.
I played Allure and drew Wyvern and D-Draw. I removed DAD
I summoned Wyvern and ran over Phantom of Chaos with it
~
I plays Allure and removes Grepher
He D.D.R’s Dark Horus and attacks over my Wyvern
~
I draw Malicious and D-Draw it for Darkness Metal and a White Stone.
His Dark Horus revives a Phantom of Chaos
I summon White Stone and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives a Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes clashes with Dark Horus and Darkness runs over Phantom
I’m now leading 6800-1100
~
He foolishes a Darkness Metal and revives it in the endphase
~
I draw Chaos Sorcerer
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
I remove a White Stone and a Plasma for Chaos Sorcerer
Chaos Sorcerer removes his Darkness Metal and Blue-Eyes hits for game
Game 1 6800-0
~~~
Notes: That Card Destruction screwed me over. Neither of us saw Future Fusion (I didn’t even have it in my deck) and I came out waaay on top.
~~~
Game 2
8000~8000
He opens with Allure and removes Dark Horus. He then D.D.Rs it back in and plays Future Fusion – dumping 2 Wyverns, 2 Horus and a Darkness Metal
In the end phase he revives his Darkness Metal. This duel was going to be interesting
~
I draw Burial, Wyvern, Trade-In, Blue-Eyes, D-Draw and Prime Material
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Reasoning and MST
I play Reasoning and he calls level 8. I get a Darkness Metal Dragon off the top of my deck.
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes and I MST his DDR so his Dark Horus dies
I summon Wyvern
Blue-Eyes runs over his Darkness and my Darkness and Wyvern hit direct
Its 8000 to 3200
~
He scoops.
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Notes: He got a first turn Future Fusion and I still won. SOL Dragon seems to be proving itself highly viable without Future Fusion.
~~~
Game 3
8000~8000
We re-rolled for this duel since it wasn’t actually supposed to happen. Its just another test for my deck, these guys still don’t know what is different about my deck from yesterday.
I won the roll and drew Burial, Sorcerer, Darkness Metal, MST, D-Draw and Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab a Mali
Pitch Mali for D-Draw and draw D-Draw and Plasma
Pitch Plasma for D-Draw and draw Trade-In and Malicious (damn)
I set MST
~
He Sarcos out Future Fusion, sets 1 card and ends. Notice; he has a bad hand – he is going straight for Future Fusion to make it live.
In the End Phase I MST his Torrential
~
I draw Heavy Storm
Tragically my in hand Mali has left me with few plays.
I attack with Stratos and end
~
He sets another card and passes again
~
I draw Call
I set Call and send Stratos to attack again
~
He plays Future Fusion and dumps 2 Wyvern, 2 Horus and 1 Darkness Metal
He endphases a Darkness Metal
~
I flip call and grab Mali
I tribute Mali and Stratos for my own Darkness Metal
I play Heavy taking out Future Fusion and his set Allure
I clash our Darkness Metal’s
~
He DDR’s a Wyvern and tributes it for Prime
I take a direct attack from Prime
~
I draw Allure
I play Allure and get Trade-In and DAD, I remove Malicious
I special summon DAD and am forced to attack his lame Prime Material because he has a hand
I set Burial
~
He passes and revives Darkness in the Endphase
~
I draw Brain Control
I Brain Control his Darkness Metal and remove it for my own Darkness Metal
Dark Armed Dragon and Darkness Metal attack for game
Game 3 4800-0
~~~
Notes: I drew horribly that duel, obviously without drawing any of my White Stones or Blue-Eyes I lack the Lights or Dragons for my Chaos Sorcerer or Darkness Metal. However, even with him getting Future Fusion my bad hand was still better than his.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 1
8000~8000
He won the roll and opened with Rota into Stratos
He summoned Stratos for Malicious but apparently lacked a D-Draw
He set 2 cards and ended
~
I opened with Malicious, Chaos Sorcerer, Wyvern, Heavy Storm, D-Draw and MST
I play Heavy and kill Skill Drain and Burial
I D-Draw Mali for Blue-Eyes and Rota
He D.D. Crow’s my Mali
I Rota my own Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab Diamond Dude
I set MST and clash Heroes
~
He summons Tomato and attacks
He sets 2 cards
In the end phase my MST hits another Skill Drain
~
I draw Mirror Force
I summon Diamond Dude and flip over a Plague
I set Mirror Force and end
~
He sarcos a DAD and attempts to clash Tomato with Diamond Dude but Mirror Force stops him
~
I draw Allure and play it to draw Brain Control and Trade-In
I remove Chaos Sorcerer for Allures cost
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for White Stone and another Wyvern
Diamond Dude flips over an Allure
I summon a White Stone but he flips Torrential
I add Blue-Eyes to my hand
~
Hes topdecking now, he sets a card and ends
~
I draw another White Stone.
I’m tempted to use the Allure but I don’t have any Darks
I summon Wyvern and attack
I set Brain Control and go for the Allure
I draw into DAD and Darkness Metal – I remove DAD
~
He gets DAD from Sarco
He plays Allure and removes a Malicious
He sets another S/T
~
I draw torrential and he flips PWWB in my standby phase discarding an Allure to put Wyvern on top of my deck.
I summon another Wyvern
I remove that Wyvern for a Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
Darkness Metal and Blue-Eyes attack
He has 400 LP
~
I plays Foolish and dumps a Dark, I don’t have time to see it cuz he drops DAD and clears my field
DAD hits me direct
~
I draw Wyvern
I set White Stone alongside a Torrential and end
~
DAD attacks my White Stone
I get a Blue-Eyes
~
I draw a Darkness Metal
I summon a Wyvern and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives a Blue-Eyes and that's game
Game 1 3800-0
~~~
Notes: The deck obviously fared worse against DHZ without Future Fusion. I want to say that I didn’t draw into Foolish which was in Future’s slot but I know that I played differently knowing I didn’t have a Future Fusion to draw into. It's a lot harder getting White Stones into play without it. If we were to lose Future Fusion I’d probably double up on Foolish Burial and I’d consider maining a Masked Dragon engine or a Sangan to recruit them. I need those White Stones. Still won though, and still got a DHZ deck top decking by my 3rd turn so I’m content with that for a Future Fusion-less deck. There is a reason why SOL Dragon is named after the egg. If you don’t get it, you need to claw your way to victory.
~~~
Game 2
8000~8000
He opens with 2 set S/Ts and a face down monster
~
I open with Plasma, Heavy Storm, Rota, Wyvern, Blue-Eyes and Brain Control
I Rota a Stratos
I summon Stratos and elect to search, he chains PWWB and discards D.D. Crow to bounce Stratos
I choose to grab Stratos with its own effect and take the free shuffle
~
He summons Breaker and attacks me directly
He sets 2 more S/T and ends
~
I draw Prime
His whole hand is on the board so I drop Heavy
He chains E-Tele and gets a Krebons but Heavy takes out Bottomless and Skill Drain
I summon Stratos who searches Diamond Dude
Stratos attacks his Krebons and he negates it
I end and Krebons gets removed
~
Breaker, still holding its counter, runs over Stratos
He sets a S/T and ends
~
I draw Allure
I Brain Control Breaker
I remove its counter and force his Burial. He shuffles Krebons back.
I play Allure and draw Mirror Force and Blue-Eyes, I remove Plasma
I tribute Breaker for Prime and attack his last card – D-Hero Defender
I set Mirror Force and end, I’m ready to draw :D
~
He passes
~
I draw Destiny Draw with my draw phase and Foolish with Defender’s effect
I D-Draw Diamond Dude for Trade-In and White Stone
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Mali and Torrential
I foolish a Darkness Metal
I summon Wyvern and end
~
He drops DAD Q_Q
He nukes Mirror Force with its effect and then attack Prime
~
I draw Allure with my draw phase and Egg with Defender’s effect
I play Allure getting DAD and Reasoning, I remove Mali
I play Reasoning and he calls level 10, after passing over a Sorcerer it lands on Diamond Dude
I drop my DAD and remove Sorcerer and Diamond Dude to clear his field
Diamond Dude flips over Scapegoat, but it's a Quickplay so we don’t get it
Diamond Dude, DAD and Wyvern all hit direct.
I set a Stone and Torrential
~
He Rotas a Stratos
Stratos is summoned for Malicious
He ditches Malicious for D-Draw but scoops when he sees his cards.
Game 2 4500~0
~~~
Notes: This is DHZ, where are his Zombies?
~~~
Game 3
8000~8000
I win the Roll.
I open with D-Draw, Darkness Metal, Mali, Mirror Force, Plague and Prime Material
I D-Draw the Mali for Torrential and D-Draw
I remove Mali for Mali and summon Plague
Synchro summon Stardust Dragon, set Mirror Force and end
He D.D. Crows my Plague in the end phase
~
He opens with Rota for Stratos
Summons Stratos to search for Defender
He E-Teles a Krebons and suddenly I’m wishing I had Torrential set
He Synchros a Brionac and discards Solemn and PWWB to bounce my field
Brionac attacks
~
I draw a White Stone
I summon the Stone and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal brings down Prime alongside it
Darkness kills Brionac and Prime hits directly
He has 2 cards in hand, I set Mirror Force and end
~
He D-Draws Defender
He Sarcos a DAD
He sets 1 card
~
I draw Foolish and he flips Skill Drain
I Foolish a White Stone and get a Blue-Eyes to my hand
Tragically in paying 1000 lifepoints to activate Skill Drain in an attempt to prevent me swarming to be able to kill him he lowered himself within the range where Prime and Darkness Metal could kill him alone.
Game 3 5700~0
~~~
Notes: Where are his Zombies?
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Lightsworn
Game 1
8000~8000
I got first. I open with 2 Chaos Sorcerer, 1 Darkness Metal, 1 Foolish, 1 Trade-In and 1 MST.
I Foolish a Stone and grab a Blue-Eyes
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Mali and Torrential
I set Torrential and end
~
He charges a Garoth and mills crap. He summons Garoth but loses it to Torrential
He sets 2 – WTF?
~
I draw Diamond Dude
I summon Diamond Dude and flip over a Plague
Diamond Dude hits direct
I set MST and end
~
He sets a monster and ends
~
I draw Heavy
Diamond Dude flips over something useless
Diamond Dude kills hits Plaguespreader
~
He sets a card ontop of his deck for Plague
He summons Honest and tunes Plague to it for Brionac
He pitches a Heavy to try and spin MST but I chain it on his Bottomless
Brionac kills Diamond Dude – Thank you! My Chaos Sorcerer is live!
He sets his last card in hand – pity I drew that heavy last turn
~
I draw D-Draw, my whole hand is now live
I heavy his Beckoning and Mirror Force
I remove Blue-Eyes and Diamond Dude for Chaos who removes Brionac
I D-Draw Mali for Rota and Red-Eyes
I Rota me a Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab Plasma
Stratos hits for 1800
~
He topdecks a monster and sets it
~
I draw Destiny Draw
I remove Mali for Mali
I D-Draw Plasma for Blue-Eyes and Wyvern
I summon Wyvern and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives White Stone
I tune Stone to Chaos Sorcerer for Arcanite
I add a Blue-Eyes
Arcanite removes its counter to pop Ryko
My field swings for game
Game 1 7100~0
~~~
Notes: Man, this guy, is the weirdest Lightsworn player EVER. I don’t think he is very good. These duels are lacking the explosiveness Future Fusion plays provide but SOL Dragon is still playing very consistently. I attribute this towards the spin I put on it to gear it away from a traditional Hopeless OTK and towards it being more of a control based deck. It’s still very slow, too slow for my tastes without Future Fusion but as I’ve said before, if we lost Future Fusion I’d change the line up to accommodate it.
~~~
Game 2
8000~8000
He begins. He opens by Solar Recharging a Lumina and mills a Lyla and Gorz
He Sarcos JD and Charges for Garoth, milling a Wulf and 2 Beckoning in the process
In the stupidest play I’ve ever seen he tributes that Wulf for Celestia and now I don’t think that this guy is a good person to test with.
He sets a card and ends.
~
I open with Darkness, D-Draw, Stratos, Diamond Dude, Torrential and Trade-In
I summon Stratos and grab Plasma
I Trade-In Plasma for Allure and Rota
I Rota a Diamond Dude
I D-Draw a Diamond Dude for MST and D-Draw
I MST his Beckoning
I D-Draw Diamond Dude for DAD and Foolish
I Foolish White Stone and add Blue-Eyes to my hand
I Allure into Burial and Mali, I remove Mali
I drop DAD
DAD removes Diamond Dude to pop Celestia
I remove DAD for Darkness Metal who summons Blue-Eyes
I Burial DAD and Mali back in, I also toss his JD into his grave since I just nuked his Beckoning and he has already milled 2
I remove Mali for Mali
I swing with my field for game
Game 2
8000~0
~~~
Notes: Bleh, I don’t want to play this guy anymore. He is obviously inexperienced at playing Lightsworn but at least last duel showed that my deck can still explode into a first turn kill without Future Fusion.
~~~
Game 3
8000~8000
I opened with Diamond Dude, Foolish, Chaos, White Stone, Plasma and Wyvern
I summoned Diamond Dude and flipped over a Darkness Metal
~
He made his typical opening play of Charging for Garoth and attacking over my monster. I don’t think this guy realizes the play is supposed to include a Lumina so you can + off your mills
~
I draw Brain Control
I Foolish a White Stone and add a Blue-Eyes to my hand
I remove Stone and Diamond Dude for Chaos Sorcerer
I summon a Wyvern
Sorcerer Removes Garoth and Wyvern swings directly
Gorz hits the field. Yay.
I Brain Control his token and tribute my field for Plasma who absorbs Gorz
~
He Recharges a Lyla and mills a Necro and Bottomless
He sets a monster and an S/T
~
I draw Diamond Dude
I summon Diamond Dude
Diamond Dude flips over MST
Diamond Dude and Plasma trigger Mirror Force
~
He passes
~
I draw Torrential
I set torrential and White Stone
~
He flip summons Ryko and kills White Stone with its effect milling Honest, Lyla and Judgement Dragon
He summons Lumina and discards Wulf to summon it
Wulf triggers my Torrential
He now has enough Lightsworn for Judgement Dragon
~
I draw Trade-In
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Allure and DAD
DAD hits and I play Allure for Mali and Trade-In, I remove Mali
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Darkness Metal and a White Stone
I summon White Stone and remove it for Darkness
Darkness revives Blue-Eyes and my field swings for game
Game 3 6750~0
~~~
Notes: Bleh.
Summary: 3 Matches, 9 duels, 0 losses, no Future Fusion.
Now all of that was to prove a point. The most successful dragon decks are undeniably SOL Dragon and Disaster Dragon. Notice that neither of these decks is reliant upon Future Fusion to run? In committing your entire deck to revolving around 1 limited card you are committing yourself to inconsistency. Give or take freak god hands what it comes down to often is: if you draw it; you win, if you don't; you lose.
When I took the Toronto decklist and tweaked it to make it more consistent; with less OTK, more control and "innovated" SOL Dragon my main focus was to ensure that it could win without Future Fusion. It didn't ever stick out to me to test my theory but it had seemed that my deck was able to do so fairly consistently. Think about how Future Fusion affects our deck building and playstyles and look over the Dark Variants, Dragon Nohr and the Toronto deck; there are a lot of choices that are extremely subpar choices were the deck not to include Future Fusion. Now the reason why that stands out is because these decks are so reliant on Future Fusion - they gear themselves towards getting it as fast as possible but in doing so often short change themselves - if they don't get it then they're often ruined. Obviously they can win without Future Fusion but the point is that many cards included in the deck would be removed if Future Fusion wasn't in existence, thus people are building their decks around Future Fusion. The flaw in this lies in the fact that Future Fusion is a limited card you can have a maximum of 1 copy of and thus in committing your deck around it you are committing your deck to inconsistency.
While I understand that this might sound like I'm plugging myself, and I don't mean to, when I revised the Toronto deck from OTK into SOL I took out the poor choices that had no real place in the deck such as the random Dark Grepher and included other cards like Red-Eyes Wyvern and extra copies of Chaos Sorcerer and Prime Material Dragon to give it more control and help it to last longer into duels. This detracted from the decks overall reliance on getting Future Fusion and thus made it more stable and consistent. I think that if we are to take Dragon Nohr and the Dark Variant to the same level that SOL Dragon and Disaster Dragon are at then we need to revise common card choices in such decks. The point in this ridiculously long article on Future Fusion is to point out that Future Fusion is warping the mind of Dragon users. Instead of building decks to revolve around a single limited card we need to create consistent decks that can utilize multiple tricks in addition to Future Fusion and in doing so we will improve our decks, our standard of play and our tournament standings.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tournament Report: "SOL Dragon"
While I happen to be on holiday with only one day till Christmas that doesn't mean I can't join a tournament and try out my deck. I've been itching to test out my SOL Dragon deck in an area other than my local, since I'm currently vacationing half way around the world I thought it would be fun to try and find a local tournament. I found one. Its a small humble hobby shop that hosts a relatively large sized local tournament. I played 7 rounds without a side deck and that was the entire tournament.
Here is the deck I took:
Main Deck: 40
Extra Deck: 15
1 Five-Headed Dragon
1 Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
2 Arcanite Magician
1 Magical Android
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Dark End Dragon
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Colossal Fighter
Monsters: 22
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon
1 Elemental Hero - Stratos
2 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 White Stone of Legend
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
2 Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Dark Armed Dragon
Spells: 15
1 Future Fusion
1 Reasoning
2 Allure of Darkness
3 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
1 Scapegoat
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
2 Trade-In
Traps: 3
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Call of the Haunted
And here is a summary of the tournament:
Bare with it, its mostly just been transcribed straight from my scribbles on paper onto a computer so it hasn't been formatted or edited yet. I'll get around to that later, pramis.
Round 1
SOL Dragon vs Lightsworn
Game 1
8000~8000
He goes first and Sarcos a JD – Oh I’m playing Lightsworn.
He ended with 1 set mon and a s/t
~
I draw Brain Control, Reinforcement, D-Draw, MST, Call and Blue-Eyes
ROTA me a Stratos
MST me a Bottomless
Stratos me a Malicious
D-Draw me a Mirror Force and Diamond Guy
Stratos nukes Necro Gardna
I set me a Mirror and end
~
He Recharged – discarded Lyla I think
Then Charged a Garoth who attacked.
I’m up by 2 cards and hes getting JD next turn so I flip Mirror Force now. SIMPLIFICATION.
~
My turn. :3
I draw Chaos Sorcerer. I want a White Stone so bad.
Summon Diamond Dude and flip me a monster. I forget what it was. Probably a dragon of sorts.
He Necro’s Diamond Dude so I see Gorz coming.
Stratos hits and yup, its Gorz.
~
He now has 1 Judgement Dragon
Summons another Garoth.
Runs over my Diamond Dude and Stratos
~
I draw D-Draw
I brain Garoth, remove Mali and go for a double Tribute summon. Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!!
Blue-Eyes kills Gorz.
Set Call
~
He sets an S/T
I call Stratos in his endphase grabbing Diamond Dude
~
I draw Darkness Metal
D-Draw Diamond Guy for an Egg and some Goats
Summon the Egg and synch with Stratos for Catastor!! No Bottomless?
Egg gets me another Blue-Eyes
Catastor kills the token (its light)
Blue-Eyes hits for 3000.
Check his grave – 2 different LS (Wtf? Shit mills much)
I set goats
~
He sets a mon and passes (Ryko???)
~
I draw a Blue-Eyes (F*ck!!)
Catastor pops… Jain??!?!?!! (He must not have had Honest or learned how to bluff)
Blue-Eyes direct attack FTW!!!
Game 1 4050-0
Notes: That tribute summoning Blue-Eyes move was pretty risky but I’m glad it paid off. I removed Garoth from the field to cut Honest or a next turn Celestia from the equation. I wasn’t afraid of Brain Control as LS decks have been trending away from that lately. Given that I had 4050 LP at that point in the duel I couldn’t maintain anything with him having a field of Gorz, Garoth + Token so I think it was my best move, if a bit unorthodox. Besides from what I had gathered from his playstyle I figured he wouldn’t know how to handle a Blue-Eyes staring him down without the proper LS to summon his JD, turns out I was right. :P
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Lightsworn
Game 2
8000~8000
He sarcos another JD, pulls a bunch of fancy antics that end him with a Garoth on the field and 2 S/T with 2 different named LS in grave and no Necros. (OH yeah and I saw a Mirror Force, excellent!!! Unabated battle field go!)
~
I drew White Stone, Allure, Diamond Guy, Call, Heavy and Plague
I Allure for a D-Draw and a Red-Eyes, I remove Plague.
I d-draw diamond dude and get another egg and a trade-in
I set an egg, set call and end
~
Garoth hatches my egg.
~
Yup, that was seriously his turn, either this guy needs to fix his deck or he doesn’t know how to win outside of Judgement Dragon.
I draw Blue-Eyes.
Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Future Fusion and Burial.
I call Egg
I heavy storm, taking out Beckoning Light and Bottomless
Egg dies and nets me another Blue-Eyes
Future Fusion!
I dump a Prime, 2 Wyvern and 2 Red-Eyes. The only other dragons left in my deck are 1 White Stone and 1 DAD.
I set Burial and endphase myself 2 Darkness Metals
~
He turns Garoth to DEF (CANT BLUFF)
Sets a mon
Sets an S/T (hahahaha we know its not Mirror Force)
Ends
~
We Draw Chaos Sorcerer. Ohhhh. Sweet victory.
Red-Eyes grabs Prime.
Flip Burial tossing Plague and 2 Wyvern into my grave.
Remove a White Stone and Diamond Dude for Chaos Sorcerer who removes Garoth
Set Blue-Eyes ontop of deck for Plague
Tune plague to Chaos Sorcerer for DARK END DRAGON (alright, I know Arcanite via White Stone would have cleared the f/d as well as his monster, but im not doing this just because it's a Dark End Dragon – Prime has his F/D pinned, unless its something obscure like PWWB which can’t stop my OTK anyway, keeping it on the field prevents Gorz thus Dark End is actually the better choice)
Dark End wipes Necro Gardna
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
Necro blocks one attack and my other mons ATK for game. No Gorz cuz he had a f/d Beckoning or something. I dunno, I never saw it.
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn (badly played Lightsworn, but Lightsworn nonetheless)
~~~
Round 2
SOL Dragon vs Tele-DAD
Game 1
8000~8000
I win the roll and draw MST, Stratos, Malicious, RotA, Heavy and Chaos Sorcerer
I RotA me a Diamond Dude.
Summon Stratos who searches Plasma
Set MST and end (he must think I’m playing DHZ)
~
He foolishes a Necro
Sets a mon and 2 S/t and ends
Endphase I MST his Mirror Force
~
I draw Allure
Allure grabs Blue-Eyes and another Allure – I remove Diamond Dude
I Allure again – Trade-In and Call – I remove Plasma
Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Egg and another Sorcerer
Summon egg and tune to Stratos for Android
Egg gives me Blue-Eyes and Android gets Bottomless-ed
I set call and end
~
He tributes Sangan for Caius – removes call
I chain Call on stratos
Sangan grabs him tomato and stratos misses its timing (stupid me)
I take a hit from caius and he sets a card
~
I draw wyvern (really missing that diamond dude, I forgot about stratos’ timing issue and am now left with 2 dead chaos sorcerers in hand as I have no darks in grave, stupid)
Set wyvern
~
He sarcos DAD
Summons tomato
Caius killed wyern and I take tomato to the face
~
I draw trade-in
I trade-in my Blue-Eyes for a wyvern and a Darkness Metal
I heavy – kills torrential
Summon Wyvern and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes get Necro-ed and Darkness smites Caius (like im touching that tomato while he has a level 6 dark on the field)
~
He e-teles a Krebons
Tunes Krebons to Tomato for Brionac and discards his only in hand card – giant Trunade to bounce… Blue-Eyes? He notices my confused face and read darkness metal. Yeah. Realises his mistake.
~
I draw Reasoning
I play Reasoning – he calls lvl 4
I get a Mali
Darkness Metal revives a White Stone
I tune White Stone to Mali for Black Rose but don’t blow up. He has 4 darks in grave.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes
Remove white stone and DAD (was dumped with Reasoning) for Chaos Sorcerer who removes Brionac
Red-Eyes and Black Rose hit direct – hes at 2400, I’m at 4200.
~
He gets DAD – 4 darks in grave – Sangan, Caius, Tomato, Krebons
He scoops. I’ve never been scooped to before so that was kinda cool.
Game 1 4200-0
Notes: lol at my opponent not knowing what Darkness Metal did.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Tele-DAD
Game 2
8000~8000
He foolishes a Necro, sets a mon and sets 2 s/t
~
I draw Allure, 2 Wyvern, 1 White Stone, 1 Plasma and 1 Diamond Dude
Allure for Goats and Sorcerer and remove Diamond Dude
I set goats, set an egg and end
~
He tributes his goblin zombie for a caius – this is looking familiar
Caius removes White Stone and Goblin grabs him Mezuki. Apparently this is a zombie Tele-DAD thing.
Caius runs into my scapegoat and kills one.
He sets another backrow and ends
~
I allure drawing burial and heavy storm – remove sorcerer
I play heavy and he decides to chain his burial on my removed monsters. Thanks broski. Dunno if he was afraid of DDR or what. Heavy also takes out his MST and a bottomless.
Here comes the predictable summon. I tribute 3 goats for Plasma and suck up his defenceless Caius – he chains Necro Gardna thinking that plasma will negate all his effects. READ THE CARD.
I summon a wyvern alongside it and attack – forcing him to negate the first attack – wyvern’s. Plasma hits for 3100.
~
He sets a monster and a f/d
~
I draw RotA.
I play RotA.
RotA gets Stratos.
I check his grave and am suddenly fearful of Mirror Force and Torrential.
I summon Stratos and choose to pop his f/d it's a Call of the Haunted.
Wyvern kills his Mezuki
Stratos hits for 1800 – no Gorz so Plasma hits for 3100 – which is his exact number of remaining lifepoints. Neat.
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
Notes: These people need to learn to read cards more. Winning thanks to Plasma was pretty epic. So far I’ve pulled off a win with a tribute summoned Blue-Eyes, a Plasma and a Dark End Dragon. I’m happy with that so I go get myself a coke to drink while I wait for round 3. I also pojo for a bit since this place has free wifi. Yay. Free wifi.
~~~
Round 3
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 1
8000~8000
I go first and draw Future Fusion, 2 White Stones, D-Draw, Plasma and Torrential. Damn, I wanted a +3 off that Future Fusion.
I Fusion dump 1 White Stone, 1 Prime, 1 Darkness Metal and 2 Wyvern.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes
I D-Draw my Plasma for MST and Chaos Sorcerer
I set White Stone, set Torrential and end
~
He D-Draws a Defender
Summons a Zombie Master – TORRENTIAL.
Egg gives me a Blue-Eyes.
He sets 2 s/ts and ends
~
I draw a Diamond Dude
I go ahead and drop my MST – hitting his Mirror Force (man I’m good at hitting those)
I summon Diamond Dude and flip a Plague (sad face)
The Dude hits for 1400.
~
He summons Mezuki and kills diamond dude
He sets another S/T (awww man my FGD is gonna get bottomlessed)
~
I draw reasoning and he dustshoots a Blue-Eyes back into the deck?
Five-Headed Dragon hits… nothing happens.
I drop reasoning – he calls 4 and I get a Mali
I summon White Stone and tune it to Mali for a Black Rose – again not blowing up
White Stone gets me a Blue-Eyes
I remove a Stone and Plasma for Chaos Sorcerer who removes Mezuki on priority
Black Rose hits for 2400 and Five-Headed kills him. Man I’m winning in so many cool ways today. XD Overextension FTW!!
Game 1 7700-0
~~~
Notes: I wonder what his face-down was... probably a bluff. I knew it wasn’t mirror force and if it didn’t trigger to my FGD I figured I could give swarming the field a try. Glad to see my reckless aggression pays off again. :P
Someday that’ll cost me a duel. XD
~~~
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 2
8000~8000
He summons Stratos.
Grabs Mali.
Ditches Mali for D-Draw.
Removes Mali to fetch another.
Sets 2 s/t
~
I draw 1 White Stone, DAD, 2 D-Draw, 1 Prime, 1 Trade-In
I set my egg and 1 D-Draw and end.
~
He plays Rota for defender
d-draws defender
sarcos a Skill Drain
switches Mali to ATK
stratos kills Egg – egg gives Blue-Eyes
I take 800 from Mali
He sets 2 more to his back row for a total of 4 s/t - now that's intimidating
~
I draw Burial
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Future Fusion and Brain Control
I Future Fuse – dumping 3 Darkness Metals, 1 White Stone and a Wyvern.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes.
I drop DAD removing 1 Red-Eyes to kill one of his f/d on priority
He chains it – torrential, and chains MST on my Future Fusion after that
I set Burial and endphase myself 1 Darkness Metal
~
He passes
~
I draw Chaos Sorcerer
Darkness Metal brings down Prime
I attack but he chains a f/d E-Tele on Krebons.
He negates both attacks and Krebons removes itself in the endphase
~
He drops Heavy Storm. I chain Burial to return 1 Darkness and 1 Wyvern to my grave and lose my D-Draw bluff. He chains his Burial on his Krebons and Mali.
He foolishes a D.D. Crow and sets 1 card.
I bet that set card is Skill Drain.
~
He flips Drain to my Draw Phase
I remove White Stone and DAD for Sorcerer and go for game
Game 2 7200-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
Notes: This locals is seeming really easy. Like, easier than my locals.
~~~
Round 4
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 1
8000~8000
Bleh 2 DHZ in a row.
I win the roll and draw 1 Trade-In, 1 Future Fusion, 1 Wyvern, 1 Torrential, 1 D-Draw and 1 Reasoning. Holy hell this hand could only possible be better with a Stratos. Oh I hope I get Stratos off Reasoning. :P
I Future Fuse 3 White Stone, 1 Wyvern and 1 Darkness Metal
3 White Stones add me 3 Blue-Eyes
Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for a Plasma and Diamond Dude. OMG.
I set torrential and summon a Wyvern to end
~
He sarcos a DAD
Rotas a Stratos
Foolishes a Necro (man his hand is looking almost as good as mine, this duel should be fuunnnnnnnnn)
Stratos grabs Plasma
D-Draws his Plasma (okay his hand might have been better)
Sets 2 s/t and ends
~
I draw Burial
I D-Draw my Diamond dude for a Red-Eyes and a Mirror Force (Shoulda Reasoning-ed >.<)
I Reasoning – he calls level 6 and after skimming over both my Chaos Sorcerer’s and DAD it lands on Plaguespreader
Tuning Plague to Wyvern for Brionaaaaaac
He solemns my Brionac.
I end-phase a Darkness Metal but it gets Bottomlessed.
~
He summons Tomato but I flip Torrential
He sets 1 s/t
~
I draw MST and drop it to hit his Mirror Force
Five-Headed hits the field.
I check his graveyard and DAMN HE HAS A NECRO.
Five-Headed swings for game but Necro blocks it.
~
He gets DAD
He drops Heavy Storm
~
I draw Heavy Storm
I set Mirror Force and play Burial to get back a Wyvern and Red-Eyes into my grave.
I end phase a Darkness Metal
~
He sets 1 S/T (hes practically topdecking btw, he has a DAD in hand and 2 darks in grave)
~
I draw D-Draw
I drop Heavy and he chains his Burial to get his Necro back.
I D-Draw my Plasma for Diamond Dude and another Darkness Metal
Red-Eyes revives 1 Blue-Eyes
I remove Red-Eyes for another one that drops a Blue-Eyes form my hand
I then proceed to remove that Red-Eyes for yet another one, who in turn summons my third Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my hand. Fuck you single Necro Gardna.
Game 1 8000-0
Notes: I summon my Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!!! As you may have noticed my play style is that of simplification. I play a simplification game where I reduce the cards on the board and in both players hands till we both have 1-3 each, then proceed to beat face with excessive Special Summons. Thanks to cards like Prime Material Dragon, Chaos Sorcerer, Plasma and Arcanite/Dark End Dragon such plays are made ridiculously easy and rewarding for me as they make it easy for me to capitalise on such simplification, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal also allows for me to profit from such a situation and due to the intense combo nature of most top tier decks now if you can keep control of the board, keep and eye on their grave and keep their hand low they can’t do anything. As you saw in this duel, I summoned Brionac and he flipped Solemn. He had to, I had 6 cards in hand to his field and 2 of them were expendable Blue-Eyes and another was a Darkness Metal, but he didn’t know about that. But since Brionac wasn’t my goal and I was just playing it to simplify the board it accomplished its purpose – stripping him of 4000 life points and ridding him of yet another answer to my uberhand. He overextended pretty bad in the beginning of the duel, he had like 2 cards in hand when I Brionac-ed him. The grave is super important this format. Being able to see your opponents grave is like being able to see half of their hand. At all times you should know whats in there regardless of what you are playing against. Knowing whats in your opponents graveyard not only helps you prepare for JD/DAD/Vayu plays but it also gives you the ability to tell what cards have been played, what is yet to be played, you can also guess the number of cards left in their deck based on their grave, field and hand count which allows you to accurately predict what cards your opponent has and doesn’t have. The graveyard has always been important but in this format with so many decks actually playing out of it its more essential than ever to keep track of your opponents grave. /End Rant.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 2
8000~8000
He opens with Gold Sarco for DAD.
He Rotas a Stratos
Allures for 2 and removes Necro
He summons Stratos and grabs Plasma
Sets 2 s/t
~
I draw Plasma, Trade-In, Prime, Call, Wyvern and Heavy
He Dustshoots my Plasma in my draw phase. My hand is now shit and he knows it. :(
I summon Wyvern and set Call
~
He summons Plague and Brionac hits the field.
Brionac pitches a Bottomless to return my call.
Then he puts a card on top of his deck for plague and tunes it to Brionac for Colossal Fighter.
Colossal runs over Wyvern.
~
I draw Torrential
At least Brionac is off the field and Plague is removed.
I set Call and Torrential
~
He gets DAD
Colossal hits direct >.<
He sets 1 s/t
~
I draw Wyvern
I summon Wyvern and flip Torrential
~
He sets another S/T
I call Wyvern in the End phase and he Torrentials
~
I draw Plasma (yay It came back)
I heavy and he chains burial on Necro and plague (oh man…) but I kill his MST, which is lame. Bad heavy.
I Trade-In Plasma for Allure and a Stone. I now have 3 cards to his 2, problem is, 1 of his is DAD and I don’t have any darks for allure. Hrm. If I risk Allure and pitch Prime and Stone I get a free Blue-Eyes, but its dead. If I get a dark I get to keep everything.. choices, choices. I’m in a bad spot in the duel so I set White Stone and end.
~
DAD hits.
DAD removes Colossal to kill my egg.
I get Blue-Eyes.
Plague comes back.
DAD and Plague hit direct. No Synchro???
~
I draw another White Stone
I have no choice at 800 LP so I play Allure and draw D-Draw and Diamond Dude. Damn.
I remove Diamond Dude.
I try to bluff? In a shit measure I set D-Draw and end my turn. Removing Wyvern for another one in DEF mode.
~
He falls for it!!! DAD pops my D-Draw by removing Necro and thus has to kill Wyvern in battle.
Plague hits for 400 but I live another turn!
~
I draw Darkness Metal
I summon White Stone, removing it for Red-Eyes
Red-Eyes brings down Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes kills DAD and Red-Eyes kills Plaguespreader.
WOOT.
I’m pretty much clawing for damage here. Fuck card advantage, I have 400 Lifepoints.
We both have 3 cards. 2 of mine are on the field with over 2800ATK, his are all in his hand but he has used his DAD, his Plague is removed and he has used his burial (assuming hes not running 2). All of a sudden, I’m actually in a good position to win?
~
He sets a monster
~
I draw my DAD pity I don’t have any darks.
Darkness Metal brings down Prime.
Prime kills D-Hero Doom Lord
Darkness Metal hits directly.
Blue-Eyes attacks and I win?!?!
HAHAHA. I so should have lost that duel. Yay for bluffing.
Game 2 400-0
Notes: I pulled that win out my ass. Man that was so funny. He was pretty stunned. Topdeck powaaaaa.
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
Notes: This locals is easy. I may have almost lost that last duel but seriously to only nearly lose 1 duel is pretty ridiculous, most of these wins have left me with 7000+ lifepoints.
~~~
Round 5
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 1
8000~8000
Oh man its on. This guy and I are the only people in this entire tourney running Hopeless Dragon. He’s running the dark variant. This is gonna be fun. :D
I’m still rather excited about my last win. He asks why I’m so bubbly and I show him my notes from last duel while we wait for the round to start. He laughs, I laugh, and everything is awesome. Only problem is now he knows what I’m running. I already saw his deck in action during an earlier round when I had finished up my match so my advantage over him is gone; its Hopeless vs Hopeless, who will win?
He wins the roll but lets me go first, nice guy, that or he just wants the first battle phase. I played during Cyber-Stein, I know what OTK decks like.
I draw Chaos Sorcerer, Call, Plaguespreader, Future Fusion, Brain Control and Stratos. That Brain Control will come in real handy against his Darkness Metals.
I play Future Fusion – I dump 1 Wyvern, 1 Darkness, 1 Prime Material and 2 Stones. I’d dump 3 but I need that Prime to protect me from his field clearing tactics.
I get 2 Blue-Eyes to the hand. Chaos Sorcerer is now a live card.
I summon Stratos and grab myself a Mali.
I end my turn and use it to discard that Mali. (Setting up for Dark End Dragon FTW)
~
He summons a Wyvern and removes it for Darkness Metal.
It kills Stratos.
~
Oh man. Oh man. He didn’t set ANYTHING.
I draw Heavy Storm
I remove Mali for another Mali
I summon Plaguespreader
I Brain Control his Darkness Metal.
Darkness Metal revives my Prime Material Dragon.
I tune Plague to Malicious for Red Dragon Archfiend. I’d summon Dark End but I’d rather save that surprise for later. After all, who suspects a Dark End Dragon?
I remove White Stone and Mali for Chaos Sorcerer
No Gorz = OTK.
Game 1 6200-0
Notes: I drew way better than him. Consistency. SOL Dragon has it. Dark Hopeless doesn’t. Watch him Norleras my arse next duel.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 2
8000~8000
He goes first this time.
He Foolish Burials a Phantom of Chaos
He plays Future Fusion dumping 2 Wyvern, 2 Dark Horus and 1 Darkness Metal.
He End phases himself a Darkness Metal.
~
I draw 1 Wyvern, 1 DAD, 1 Allure, 1 Burial, 1 Trade-In, 1 White Stone.
I play Allure, drawing another Trade-In and another Wyvern. Lame.
I remove DAD for its cost.
I set a Stone and end my turn.
~
He Trades-In a Dark Creator
Darkness Metal revives him a Dark Horus
Darkness Metal hatches my egg and I get a Blue-Eyes.
Horus hits me direct.
He sets 1 S/T and ends.
~
I draw Call.
I Trade-In my Blue-Eyes for Chaos Sorcerer and Torrential Tribute
Then I see why he Foolished that Phantom of Chaos as Dark Horus revives it. >.<
Stupid shortsighted me.
I use Burial to throw DAD into my grave and remove it again alongside White Stone for Chaos Sorcerer in DEF mode. It removes Darkness Metal. We don’t want that on the field.
I realize Five-Headed is coming next turn and thus set Torrential Tribute and Call of the Haunted.
I also set a Wyvern and end my turn.
~
Five-Headed hits the field and I torrential
~
I draw Destiny Draw.
I flip Call on my Blue-Eyes and trigger his Torrential.
I summon Wyvern and peck him for 1800.
~
He plays Swords of Revealing Light
He sets 1 card and ends
~
I draw Blue-Eyes
I Trade-In that Blue-Eyes for another Blue-Eyes and White Stone.
I curse my shit shuffling.
I summon White Stone alongside Wyvern and tune them for Magical Android.
I’m out of Blue-Eyes. He gets to look at my deck. :(
I end my turn and get lifepoints.
~
He passes.
~
I draw another Destiny Draw and pass, getting more lifepoints
~
He Brain Controls my Android
He Giant Trundes
He sacrifices Android for Prime Material Dragon
He removes Prime for Darkness Metal and revives a Dark Horus.
I take 2 dragons to the face. Oh man. I’m probably going to lose this one.
~
I draw Future Fusion.
I play it. Dumping 1 White Stone, 1 Prime and 3 Darkness Metals – the last of my dragons.
He gets Phantom of Chaos back via Dark Horus
I end my turn and revive myself 2 Darkness Metals. Looks bad.
Oh ya, I have 400 Life points again.
~
He spams dragons for a while before attacking for game.
Game 2 0-5400
Notes: First loss, and to Hopeless Dragon? Not bad. At least Hopeless is the one that beat me.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 3
8000~8000
I get to go first.
I draw 1 Plasma, 1 White Stone, 1 Darkness Metal, 1 Burial, 1 Reasoning.
I play Future Fusion and dump 1 Wyvern, 1 Prime, 1 Darkness Metal and 2 White Stones.
I get 2 Blue-Eyes.
I play Reasoning and he calls level 8. I get my Plaguespreader in DEF mode.
I end phase myself a Darkness Metal Dragon.
~
He MST’s my Future Fusion.
He Sarcos his own Future Fusion.
He Foolish Burials a Phantom of Chaos.
He summons Grepher and discards Phantom of Chaos to send Plaguespreader.
He puts his last in hand card ontop of his deck to revive Plague and Synchros a Goyo Guardian.
Goyo kills my Plague and tunes with it to summon a Colossal Fighter.
~
I draw Trade-In
I Trade-In my Blue-Eyes for Torrential and Diamond Dude
I check his Colossal. It has 3000 ATK.
Red-Eyes revives White Stone of Legend.
My Plague summons itself by placing Blue-Eyes ontop of my deck.
I tribute those 3 for Plasma and suck up Colossal
White Stone gives me Blue-Eyes, right off the top of my deck. Yay, free shuffle.
Plasma hits for 3300. He has no hand. This looks good for me.
~
He sets a monster, one turn till he gets Future Fusion
~
I draw another Blue-Eyes
I summon White Stone and remove it for Red-Eyes Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Prime Material Dragon
I Burial back 1 White Stone, 1 Plague and 1 Wyvern.
Plague summons itself by placing Diamond Dude ontop of my deck.
I tune Plague to Prime for Red Dragon Archfiend
Red Dragon Archfiend nukes his set Wyvern
Darkness Metal and Plasma hit for game.
Game 3 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
2-1 vs Dark Hopeless
Notes: First loss is to Hopeless. I’m glad I won that match though; I haven’t lost a mirror match with dragons yet and I don’t intend to start now.
I am now in the Semi Finals of this local
~~~
Round 6 – Semi Finals
SOL Dragon vs Gladiator Beasts
Game 1
8000~8000
Kyuusei would love to play this match. :P
He won the roll.
He Respited a Bestari and War Chariot back into his deck.
Summoned Prisma and set 2
~
I drew Darkness Metal, Brain Control, Wyvern, White Stone, D-Draw, Blue-Eyes
I Brain Control his Prisma and use it to dump a Blue-Eyes
I summon a White Stone and tune it to Prisma for Catastor.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes.
Catastor hit direct.
~
He Respites a Respite and a Laquari
He Proving Grounds a Hoplomus
Sets a monster and another 2 S/t
~
I summon Wyvern
I remove Wyvern for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives a Blue-Eyes
Catastor attacks but he flips Book of Moon
Darkness Metal attacks and kills Laquari
Blue-Eyes hits direct
He now has 2800 Lifepoints
~
He sets another S/T
~
I draw Trade-In
I Trade-In a Blue-Eyes for Rota and a White Stone
I play Rota for Stratos
I summon Stratos and search Malicious
I D-Draw Mali for Chaos Sorcerer and another Mali (ha)
I flip summon Catastor
Red-Eyes revives another Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes attacks but he flips Waboku
We hold off our assault
~
He sets a monster
~
Catastor wipes Bestiari off the field
Blue-Eyes hits for game
Game 1 8000-0
Notes: I wonder what the 4 s/ts were.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Gladiator Beasts
Game 2
8000~8000
He lets me go first.
I draw 2 D-Draw, 1 Diamond Dude, 1 Wyvern, 1 Trade-In and an Allure
I D-Draw Diamond Dude for a Rota and another Allure
I Rota a Stratos
I summon Stratos to grab Malicious
I D-Draw Malicious for a White Stone and a Mirror Force
I Set Mirror Force and end
~
He sets a monster
He sets 2 S/T
~
I draw Scapegoat and wish I had searched Plasma
I remove Malicious for Malicious
He chains Torrential, killing his Test Tiger
I set White Stone of Legend; denied my Synchro
~
He summons Rescue Cat.
Tributes Rescue Cat for Samnite and Test Tiger
Test Tiger tags Samnite out for Bestiari who nukes my Mirror Force
Bestiari kills my White Stone and I get a Blue-Eyes
Bestiari tags out for a Laquari
~
I draw another White Stone of Legend
I Trade-In my Blue-Eyes for a Destiny Draw and a Chaos Sorcerer
I remove White Stone of Legend and Malicious for Chaos Sorcerer and remove Laquari on priority – no war chariot?
I summon White Stone of Legend and tune it to Chaos Sorcerer for Arcanite Magician
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes
My Arcanite removes its counter to destroy his set Dust Tornado – apparent anticipation for Royal Oppression or Mirror of Oaths – too bad I forgot my side deck. :P
I set Scapegoat
Arcanite attacks directly
~
He sets a monster
~
I draw Plasma
Arcanite removes its counter to kill his face-down Murmillo
I Destiny Draw Plasma for DAD and Burial
I summon Dark Armed Dragon
Dark Armed Dragon hits directly, Arcanite turns to DEF mode
~
He sets a monster
~
I draw Wyvern
DAD removes Plasma to pop his face-down Bestiari
I summon Wyvern
Wyvern and DAD hit for game
Game 2 8000-0
Notes: I think we can all see that Gladiator Beasts are no match for a Dragon.
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
2-1 vs Dark Hopeless
2-0 Gladiator Beasts
Notes: Final Round. Me vs some Twilight deck!!
~~~
Round 7 – Finals
SOL Dragon vs French Twilight
Game 1
8000~8000
I win the roll. Lets go!! OTK!!!
I draw Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Allure, 2 Trade-In, 1 Future Fusion and a Diamond Dude. O_________________O
I Future Fuse 3 White Stone, 1 Darkness Metal and 1 Wyvern
I get 3 Blue-Eyes
I Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for Prime Material Dragon and Destiny Draw
I Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for Burial and Malicious
I D-Draw Malicious for Plasma and Darkness Metal
I play Allure, drawing DAD and Rota and removing a Darkness Metal for the cost
I plat Rota and grab Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab a Diamond Dude
I end my turn discarding 1 Blue-Eyes and 1 Diamond Dude
~
He Charges a Garoth
Summons a Garoth and kills my Stratos
~
I draw MST
I drop DAD and remove Diamond Dude to kill Garoth
I summon Diamond Dude and flip over Destiny Draw!
Diamond Dude attacks and triggers Tragoedia with 2400ATK
DAD kills it.
~
He removes Garoth and Tragoedia for Chaos Sorcerer and removes DAD
~
I draw Call of the Haunted
Five-Headed Dragon hits the field
I activate Destiny Draw through Diamond Dude and draw Allure and Scapegoat
I remove Mali for another Mali
I play Allure, drawing Sorcerer and Torrential and removing Plasma for the cost
I tribute Diamond Dude and Mali for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes White Dragon
Darkness kills Sorcerer and triggers another Tragoedia. This one with 1800 DEF
Blue-Eyes kills Tragoedia
Five-Headed attacks directly
I set Torrential in case of a freak Judgement Dragon
~
He scoops
Game 1 7950-0
Notes: Tragoedia is annoying.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs French Twilight
Game 2
8000~8000
He summons Garoth and ends
~
I draw 1 Malicious, Allure, Torrential, Prime Material, Future Fusion and Trade-In
I Future Fuse 2 White Stone, 2 Wyvern and 1 Darkness Metal
I add 2 Blue-Eyes to my hand
I Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for Stratos and D-Draw
I D-Draw my Mali for Diamond Dude and Sorcerer
I summon Stratos and grab Plasma
I remove Mali to summon a Mali
I play Allure and draw DAD and another Sorcerer. I remove Diamond Dude for its cost.
I remove White Stone and Red-Eyes Darkness for Chaos Sorcerer
Chaos Sorcerer removes Garoth
Stratos hits for 1800
I set Torrential
~
He summons Jain and I flip Torrential
~
I draw Allure
I play Allure, drawing Mirror Force and Blue-Eyes, I remove DAD for its cost.
I set Mirror Force
I summon Chaos Sorcerer by removing Malicious and a White Stone
Chaos Sorcerer hits for 2300
~
Solar Recharge and Charge hit the field and cards are milled but nothing of consequence comes of it.
He sets a monster and an S/T
~
I draw Heavy Storm
Five-Headed Dragon is summoned
I tribute Sorcerer for Prime Material Dragon
Prime runs over Necro Gardna
Five-Headed attacks but gets Necro-ed
~
He scoops again
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
That's a finals.
That's a tourney.
Final Score for SOL Dragon:
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
2-1 vs Dark Hopeless
2-0 vs Gladiator Beasts
2-0 vs French Twilight
So I won me a locals and got some boosters which had nothing of use in them, but that's okay cuz it was fun and I only lost once. :P
Overall it was a pretty fun tournament. It was nice to see another local other than the one I'm used to hosting and it was also nice being a competitor instead of the TO. While I understand that winning a local is no great feat I would like to point out that in many of my duels my opponents decks despite having numerous cards available to them (particularly that Twilight deck) couldn't do anything. That reeks of inconsistency in their deck building. Having played Hopeless Dragon, one of the most inconsistent decks in the metagame I think thats a pretty good example of how important it is to test your deck thoroughly for inconsistency like that.
Anyway, That was my tournament report using "SOL Dragon". Hope you liked it. ;)
Here is the deck I took:
Main Deck: 40
Extra Deck: 15
1 Five-Headed Dragon
1 Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
2 Arcanite Magician
1 Magical Android
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Dark End Dragon
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Colossal Fighter
Monsters: 22
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon
1 Elemental Hero - Stratos
2 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 White Stone of Legend
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
1 Destiny Hero - Plasma
2 Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude
2 Destiny Hero - Malicious
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Dark Armed Dragon
Spells: 15
1 Future Fusion
1 Reasoning
2 Allure of Darkness
3 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
1 Scapegoat
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
2 Trade-In
Traps: 3
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Call of the Haunted
And here is a summary of the tournament:
Bare with it, its mostly just been transcribed straight from my scribbles on paper onto a computer so it hasn't been formatted or edited yet. I'll get around to that later, pramis.
Round 1
SOL Dragon vs Lightsworn
Game 1
8000~8000
He goes first and Sarcos a JD – Oh I’m playing Lightsworn.
He ended with 1 set mon and a s/t
~
I draw Brain Control, Reinforcement, D-Draw, MST, Call and Blue-Eyes
ROTA me a Stratos
MST me a Bottomless
Stratos me a Malicious
D-Draw me a Mirror Force and Diamond Guy
Stratos nukes Necro Gardna
I set me a Mirror and end
~
He Recharged – discarded Lyla I think
Then Charged a Garoth who attacked.
I’m up by 2 cards and hes getting JD next turn so I flip Mirror Force now. SIMPLIFICATION.
~
My turn. :3
I draw Chaos Sorcerer. I want a White Stone so bad.
Summon Diamond Dude and flip me a monster. I forget what it was. Probably a dragon of sorts.
He Necro’s Diamond Dude so I see Gorz coming.
Stratos hits and yup, its Gorz.
~
He now has 1 Judgement Dragon
Summons another Garoth.
Runs over my Diamond Dude and Stratos
~
I draw D-Draw
I brain Garoth, remove Mali and go for a double Tribute summon. Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!!
Blue-Eyes kills Gorz.
Set Call
~
He sets an S/T
I call Stratos in his endphase grabbing Diamond Dude
~
I draw Darkness Metal
D-Draw Diamond Guy for an Egg and some Goats
Summon the Egg and synch with Stratos for Catastor!! No Bottomless?
Egg gets me another Blue-Eyes
Catastor kills the token (its light)
Blue-Eyes hits for 3000.
Check his grave – 2 different LS (Wtf? Shit mills much)
I set goats
~
He sets a mon and passes (Ryko???)
~
I draw a Blue-Eyes (F*ck!!)
Catastor pops… Jain??!?!?!! (He must not have had Honest or learned how to bluff)
Blue-Eyes direct attack FTW!!!
Game 1 4050-0
Notes: That tribute summoning Blue-Eyes move was pretty risky but I’m glad it paid off. I removed Garoth from the field to cut Honest or a next turn Celestia from the equation. I wasn’t afraid of Brain Control as LS decks have been trending away from that lately. Given that I had 4050 LP at that point in the duel I couldn’t maintain anything with him having a field of Gorz, Garoth + Token so I think it was my best move, if a bit unorthodox. Besides from what I had gathered from his playstyle I figured he wouldn’t know how to handle a Blue-Eyes staring him down without the proper LS to summon his JD, turns out I was right. :P
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Lightsworn
Game 2
8000~8000
He sarcos another JD, pulls a bunch of fancy antics that end him with a Garoth on the field and 2 S/T with 2 different named LS in grave and no Necros. (OH yeah and I saw a Mirror Force, excellent!!! Unabated battle field go!)
~
I drew White Stone, Allure, Diamond Guy, Call, Heavy and Plague
I Allure for a D-Draw and a Red-Eyes, I remove Plague.
I d-draw diamond dude and get another egg and a trade-in
I set an egg, set call and end
~
Garoth hatches my egg.
~
Yup, that was seriously his turn, either this guy needs to fix his deck or he doesn’t know how to win outside of Judgement Dragon.
I draw Blue-Eyes.
Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Future Fusion and Burial.
I call Egg
I heavy storm, taking out Beckoning Light and Bottomless
Egg dies and nets me another Blue-Eyes
Future Fusion!
I dump a Prime, 2 Wyvern and 2 Red-Eyes. The only other dragons left in my deck are 1 White Stone and 1 DAD.
I set Burial and endphase myself 2 Darkness Metals
~
He turns Garoth to DEF (CANT BLUFF)
Sets a mon
Sets an S/T (hahahaha we know its not Mirror Force)
Ends
~
We Draw Chaos Sorcerer. Ohhhh. Sweet victory.
Red-Eyes grabs Prime.
Flip Burial tossing Plague and 2 Wyvern into my grave.
Remove a White Stone and Diamond Dude for Chaos Sorcerer who removes Garoth
Set Blue-Eyes ontop of deck for Plague
Tune plague to Chaos Sorcerer for DARK END DRAGON (alright, I know Arcanite via White Stone would have cleared the f/d as well as his monster, but im not doing this just because it's a Dark End Dragon – Prime has his F/D pinned, unless its something obscure like PWWB which can’t stop my OTK anyway, keeping it on the field prevents Gorz thus Dark End is actually the better choice)
Dark End wipes Necro Gardna
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
Necro blocks one attack and my other mons ATK for game. No Gorz cuz he had a f/d Beckoning or something. I dunno, I never saw it.
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn (badly played Lightsworn, but Lightsworn nonetheless)
~~~
Round 2
SOL Dragon vs Tele-DAD
Game 1
8000~8000
I win the roll and draw MST, Stratos, Malicious, RotA, Heavy and Chaos Sorcerer
I RotA me a Diamond Dude.
Summon Stratos who searches Plasma
Set MST and end (he must think I’m playing DHZ)
~
He foolishes a Necro
Sets a mon and 2 S/t and ends
Endphase I MST his Mirror Force
~
I draw Allure
Allure grabs Blue-Eyes and another Allure – I remove Diamond Dude
I Allure again – Trade-In and Call – I remove Plasma
Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Egg and another Sorcerer
Summon egg and tune to Stratos for Android
Egg gives me Blue-Eyes and Android gets Bottomless-ed
I set call and end
~
He tributes Sangan for Caius – removes call
I chain Call on stratos
Sangan grabs him tomato and stratos misses its timing (stupid me)
I take a hit from caius and he sets a card
~
I draw wyvern (really missing that diamond dude, I forgot about stratos’ timing issue and am now left with 2 dead chaos sorcerers in hand as I have no darks in grave, stupid)
Set wyvern
~
He sarcos DAD
Summons tomato
Caius killed wyern and I take tomato to the face
~
I draw trade-in
I trade-in my Blue-Eyes for a wyvern and a Darkness Metal
I heavy – kills torrential
Summon Wyvern and remove it for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes get Necro-ed and Darkness smites Caius (like im touching that tomato while he has a level 6 dark on the field)
~
He e-teles a Krebons
Tunes Krebons to Tomato for Brionac and discards his only in hand card – giant Trunade to bounce… Blue-Eyes? He notices my confused face and read darkness metal. Yeah. Realises his mistake.
~
I draw Reasoning
I play Reasoning – he calls lvl 4
I get a Mali
Darkness Metal revives a White Stone
I tune White Stone to Mali for Black Rose but don’t blow up. He has 4 darks in grave.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes
Remove white stone and DAD (was dumped with Reasoning) for Chaos Sorcerer who removes Brionac
Red-Eyes and Black Rose hit direct – hes at 2400, I’m at 4200.
~
He gets DAD – 4 darks in grave – Sangan, Caius, Tomato, Krebons
He scoops. I’ve never been scooped to before so that was kinda cool.
Game 1 4200-0
Notes: lol at my opponent not knowing what Darkness Metal did.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Tele-DAD
Game 2
8000~8000
He foolishes a Necro, sets a mon and sets 2 s/t
~
I draw Allure, 2 Wyvern, 1 White Stone, 1 Plasma and 1 Diamond Dude
Allure for Goats and Sorcerer and remove Diamond Dude
I set goats, set an egg and end
~
He tributes his goblin zombie for a caius – this is looking familiar
Caius removes White Stone and Goblin grabs him Mezuki. Apparently this is a zombie Tele-DAD thing.
Caius runs into my scapegoat and kills one.
He sets another backrow and ends
~
I allure drawing burial and heavy storm – remove sorcerer
I play heavy and he decides to chain his burial on my removed monsters. Thanks broski. Dunno if he was afraid of DDR or what. Heavy also takes out his MST and a bottomless.
Here comes the predictable summon. I tribute 3 goats for Plasma and suck up his defenceless Caius – he chains Necro Gardna thinking that plasma will negate all his effects. READ THE CARD.
I summon a wyvern alongside it and attack – forcing him to negate the first attack – wyvern’s. Plasma hits for 3100.
~
He sets a monster and a f/d
~
I draw RotA.
I play RotA.
RotA gets Stratos.
I check his grave and am suddenly fearful of Mirror Force and Torrential.
I summon Stratos and choose to pop his f/d it's a Call of the Haunted.
Wyvern kills his Mezuki
Stratos hits for 1800 – no Gorz so Plasma hits for 3100 – which is his exact number of remaining lifepoints. Neat.
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
Notes: These people need to learn to read cards more. Winning thanks to Plasma was pretty epic. So far I’ve pulled off a win with a tribute summoned Blue-Eyes, a Plasma and a Dark End Dragon. I’m happy with that so I go get myself a coke to drink while I wait for round 3. I also pojo for a bit since this place has free wifi. Yay. Free wifi.
~~~
Round 3
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 1
8000~8000
I go first and draw Future Fusion, 2 White Stones, D-Draw, Plasma and Torrential. Damn, I wanted a +3 off that Future Fusion.
I Fusion dump 1 White Stone, 1 Prime, 1 Darkness Metal and 2 Wyvern.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes
I D-Draw my Plasma for MST and Chaos Sorcerer
I set White Stone, set Torrential and end
~
He D-Draws a Defender
Summons a Zombie Master – TORRENTIAL.
Egg gives me a Blue-Eyes.
He sets 2 s/ts and ends
~
I draw a Diamond Dude
I go ahead and drop my MST – hitting his Mirror Force (man I’m good at hitting those)
I summon Diamond Dude and flip a Plague (sad face)
The Dude hits for 1400.
~
He summons Mezuki and kills diamond dude
He sets another S/T (awww man my FGD is gonna get bottomlessed)
~
I draw reasoning and he dustshoots a Blue-Eyes back into the deck?
Five-Headed Dragon hits… nothing happens.
I drop reasoning – he calls 4 and I get a Mali
I summon White Stone and tune it to Mali for a Black Rose – again not blowing up
White Stone gets me a Blue-Eyes
I remove a Stone and Plasma for Chaos Sorcerer who removes Mezuki on priority
Black Rose hits for 2400 and Five-Headed kills him. Man I’m winning in so many cool ways today. XD Overextension FTW!!
Game 1 7700-0
~~~
Notes: I wonder what his face-down was... probably a bluff. I knew it wasn’t mirror force and if it didn’t trigger to my FGD I figured I could give swarming the field a try. Glad to see my reckless aggression pays off again. :P
Someday that’ll cost me a duel. XD
~~~
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 2
8000~8000
He summons Stratos.
Grabs Mali.
Ditches Mali for D-Draw.
Removes Mali to fetch another.
Sets 2 s/t
~
I draw 1 White Stone, DAD, 2 D-Draw, 1 Prime, 1 Trade-In
I set my egg and 1 D-Draw and end.
~
He plays Rota for defender
d-draws defender
sarcos a Skill Drain
switches Mali to ATK
stratos kills Egg – egg gives Blue-Eyes
I take 800 from Mali
He sets 2 more to his back row for a total of 4 s/t - now that's intimidating
~
I draw Burial
I Trade-In Blue-Eyes for Future Fusion and Brain Control
I Future Fuse – dumping 3 Darkness Metals, 1 White Stone and a Wyvern.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes.
I drop DAD removing 1 Red-Eyes to kill one of his f/d on priority
He chains it – torrential, and chains MST on my Future Fusion after that
I set Burial and endphase myself 1 Darkness Metal
~
He passes
~
I draw Chaos Sorcerer
Darkness Metal brings down Prime
I attack but he chains a f/d E-Tele on Krebons.
He negates both attacks and Krebons removes itself in the endphase
~
He drops Heavy Storm. I chain Burial to return 1 Darkness and 1 Wyvern to my grave and lose my D-Draw bluff. He chains his Burial on his Krebons and Mali.
He foolishes a D.D. Crow and sets 1 card.
I bet that set card is Skill Drain.
~
He flips Drain to my Draw Phase
I remove White Stone and DAD for Sorcerer and go for game
Game 2 7200-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
Notes: This locals is seeming really easy. Like, easier than my locals.
~~~
Round 4
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 1
8000~8000
Bleh 2 DHZ in a row.
I win the roll and draw 1 Trade-In, 1 Future Fusion, 1 Wyvern, 1 Torrential, 1 D-Draw and 1 Reasoning. Holy hell this hand could only possible be better with a Stratos. Oh I hope I get Stratos off Reasoning. :P
I Future Fuse 3 White Stone, 1 Wyvern and 1 Darkness Metal
3 White Stones add me 3 Blue-Eyes
Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for a Plasma and Diamond Dude. OMG.
I set torrential and summon a Wyvern to end
~
He sarcos a DAD
Rotas a Stratos
Foolishes a Necro (man his hand is looking almost as good as mine, this duel should be fuunnnnnnnnn)
Stratos grabs Plasma
D-Draws his Plasma (okay his hand might have been better)
Sets 2 s/t and ends
~
I draw Burial
I D-Draw my Diamond dude for a Red-Eyes and a Mirror Force (Shoulda Reasoning-ed >.<)
I Reasoning – he calls level 6 and after skimming over both my Chaos Sorcerer’s and DAD it lands on Plaguespreader
Tuning Plague to Wyvern for Brionaaaaaac
He solemns my Brionac.
I end-phase a Darkness Metal but it gets Bottomlessed.
~
He summons Tomato but I flip Torrential
He sets 1 s/t
~
I draw MST and drop it to hit his Mirror Force
Five-Headed hits the field.
I check his graveyard and DAMN HE HAS A NECRO.
Five-Headed swings for game but Necro blocks it.
~
He gets DAD
He drops Heavy Storm
~
I draw Heavy Storm
I set Mirror Force and play Burial to get back a Wyvern and Red-Eyes into my grave.
I end phase a Darkness Metal
~
He sets 1 S/T (hes practically topdecking btw, he has a DAD in hand and 2 darks in grave)
~
I draw D-Draw
I drop Heavy and he chains his Burial to get his Necro back.
I D-Draw my Plasma for Diamond Dude and another Darkness Metal
Red-Eyes revives 1 Blue-Eyes
I remove Red-Eyes for another one that drops a Blue-Eyes form my hand
I then proceed to remove that Red-Eyes for yet another one, who in turn summons my third Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my hand. Fuck you single Necro Gardna.
Game 1 8000-0
Notes: I summon my Blue-Eyes White Dragon!!!! As you may have noticed my play style is that of simplification. I play a simplification game where I reduce the cards on the board and in both players hands till we both have 1-3 each, then proceed to beat face with excessive Special Summons. Thanks to cards like Prime Material Dragon, Chaos Sorcerer, Plasma and Arcanite/Dark End Dragon such plays are made ridiculously easy and rewarding for me as they make it easy for me to capitalise on such simplification, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal also allows for me to profit from such a situation and due to the intense combo nature of most top tier decks now if you can keep control of the board, keep and eye on their grave and keep their hand low they can’t do anything. As you saw in this duel, I summoned Brionac and he flipped Solemn. He had to, I had 6 cards in hand to his field and 2 of them were expendable Blue-Eyes and another was a Darkness Metal, but he didn’t know about that. But since Brionac wasn’t my goal and I was just playing it to simplify the board it accomplished its purpose – stripping him of 4000 life points and ridding him of yet another answer to my uberhand. He overextended pretty bad in the beginning of the duel, he had like 2 cards in hand when I Brionac-ed him. The grave is super important this format. Being able to see your opponents grave is like being able to see half of their hand. At all times you should know whats in there regardless of what you are playing against. Knowing whats in your opponents graveyard not only helps you prepare for JD/DAD/Vayu plays but it also gives you the ability to tell what cards have been played, what is yet to be played, you can also guess the number of cards left in their deck based on their grave, field and hand count which allows you to accurately predict what cards your opponent has and doesn’t have. The graveyard has always been important but in this format with so many decks actually playing out of it its more essential than ever to keep track of your opponents grave. /End Rant.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs DHZ
Game 2
8000~8000
He opens with Gold Sarco for DAD.
He Rotas a Stratos
Allures for 2 and removes Necro
He summons Stratos and grabs Plasma
Sets 2 s/t
~
I draw Plasma, Trade-In, Prime, Call, Wyvern and Heavy
He Dustshoots my Plasma in my draw phase. My hand is now shit and he knows it. :(
I summon Wyvern and set Call
~
He summons Plague and Brionac hits the field.
Brionac pitches a Bottomless to return my call.
Then he puts a card on top of his deck for plague and tunes it to Brionac for Colossal Fighter.
Colossal runs over Wyvern.
~
I draw Torrential
At least Brionac is off the field and Plague is removed.
I set Call and Torrential
~
He gets DAD
Colossal hits direct >.<
He sets 1 s/t
~
I draw Wyvern
I summon Wyvern and flip Torrential
~
He sets another S/T
I call Wyvern in the End phase and he Torrentials
~
I draw Plasma (yay It came back)
I heavy and he chains burial on Necro and plague (oh man…) but I kill his MST, which is lame. Bad heavy.
I Trade-In Plasma for Allure and a Stone. I now have 3 cards to his 2, problem is, 1 of his is DAD and I don’t have any darks for allure. Hrm. If I risk Allure and pitch Prime and Stone I get a free Blue-Eyes, but its dead. If I get a dark I get to keep everything.. choices, choices. I’m in a bad spot in the duel so I set White Stone and end.
~
DAD hits.
DAD removes Colossal to kill my egg.
I get Blue-Eyes.
Plague comes back.
DAD and Plague hit direct. No Synchro???
~
I draw another White Stone
I have no choice at 800 LP so I play Allure and draw D-Draw and Diamond Dude. Damn.
I remove Diamond Dude.
I try to bluff? In a shit measure I set D-Draw and end my turn. Removing Wyvern for another one in DEF mode.
~
He falls for it!!! DAD pops my D-Draw by removing Necro and thus has to kill Wyvern in battle.
Plague hits for 400 but I live another turn!
~
I draw Darkness Metal
I summon White Stone, removing it for Red-Eyes
Red-Eyes brings down Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes kills DAD and Red-Eyes kills Plaguespreader.
WOOT.
I’m pretty much clawing for damage here. Fuck card advantage, I have 400 Lifepoints.
We both have 3 cards. 2 of mine are on the field with over 2800ATK, his are all in his hand but he has used his DAD, his Plague is removed and he has used his burial (assuming hes not running 2). All of a sudden, I’m actually in a good position to win?
~
He sets a monster
~
I draw my DAD pity I don’t have any darks.
Darkness Metal brings down Prime.
Prime kills D-Hero Doom Lord
Darkness Metal hits directly.
Blue-Eyes attacks and I win?!?!
HAHAHA. I so should have lost that duel. Yay for bluffing.
Game 2 400-0
Notes: I pulled that win out my ass. Man that was so funny. He was pretty stunned. Topdeck powaaaaa.
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
Notes: This locals is easy. I may have almost lost that last duel but seriously to only nearly lose 1 duel is pretty ridiculous, most of these wins have left me with 7000+ lifepoints.
~~~
Round 5
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 1
8000~8000
Oh man its on. This guy and I are the only people in this entire tourney running Hopeless Dragon. He’s running the dark variant. This is gonna be fun. :D
I’m still rather excited about my last win. He asks why I’m so bubbly and I show him my notes from last duel while we wait for the round to start. He laughs, I laugh, and everything is awesome. Only problem is now he knows what I’m running. I already saw his deck in action during an earlier round when I had finished up my match so my advantage over him is gone; its Hopeless vs Hopeless, who will win?
He wins the roll but lets me go first, nice guy, that or he just wants the first battle phase. I played during Cyber-Stein, I know what OTK decks like.
I draw Chaos Sorcerer, Call, Plaguespreader, Future Fusion, Brain Control and Stratos. That Brain Control will come in real handy against his Darkness Metals.
I play Future Fusion – I dump 1 Wyvern, 1 Darkness, 1 Prime Material and 2 Stones. I’d dump 3 but I need that Prime to protect me from his field clearing tactics.
I get 2 Blue-Eyes to the hand. Chaos Sorcerer is now a live card.
I summon Stratos and grab myself a Mali.
I end my turn and use it to discard that Mali. (Setting up for Dark End Dragon FTW)
~
He summons a Wyvern and removes it for Darkness Metal.
It kills Stratos.
~
Oh man. Oh man. He didn’t set ANYTHING.
I draw Heavy Storm
I remove Mali for another Mali
I summon Plaguespreader
I Brain Control his Darkness Metal.
Darkness Metal revives my Prime Material Dragon.
I tune Plague to Malicious for Red Dragon Archfiend. I’d summon Dark End but I’d rather save that surprise for later. After all, who suspects a Dark End Dragon?
I remove White Stone and Mali for Chaos Sorcerer
No Gorz = OTK.
Game 1 6200-0
Notes: I drew way better than him. Consistency. SOL Dragon has it. Dark Hopeless doesn’t. Watch him Norleras my arse next duel.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 2
8000~8000
He goes first this time.
He Foolish Burials a Phantom of Chaos
He plays Future Fusion dumping 2 Wyvern, 2 Dark Horus and 1 Darkness Metal.
He End phases himself a Darkness Metal.
~
I draw 1 Wyvern, 1 DAD, 1 Allure, 1 Burial, 1 Trade-In, 1 White Stone.
I play Allure, drawing another Trade-In and another Wyvern. Lame.
I remove DAD for its cost.
I set a Stone and end my turn.
~
He Trades-In a Dark Creator
Darkness Metal revives him a Dark Horus
Darkness Metal hatches my egg and I get a Blue-Eyes.
Horus hits me direct.
He sets 1 S/T and ends.
~
I draw Call.
I Trade-In my Blue-Eyes for Chaos Sorcerer and Torrential Tribute
Then I see why he Foolished that Phantom of Chaos as Dark Horus revives it. >.<
Stupid shortsighted me.
I use Burial to throw DAD into my grave and remove it again alongside White Stone for Chaos Sorcerer in DEF mode. It removes Darkness Metal. We don’t want that on the field.
I realize Five-Headed is coming next turn and thus set Torrential Tribute and Call of the Haunted.
I also set a Wyvern and end my turn.
~
Five-Headed hits the field and I torrential
~
I draw Destiny Draw.
I flip Call on my Blue-Eyes and trigger his Torrential.
I summon Wyvern and peck him for 1800.
~
He plays Swords of Revealing Light
He sets 1 card and ends
~
I draw Blue-Eyes
I Trade-In that Blue-Eyes for another Blue-Eyes and White Stone.
I curse my shit shuffling.
I summon White Stone alongside Wyvern and tune them for Magical Android.
I’m out of Blue-Eyes. He gets to look at my deck. :(
I end my turn and get lifepoints.
~
He passes.
~
I draw another Destiny Draw and pass, getting more lifepoints
~
He Brain Controls my Android
He Giant Trundes
He sacrifices Android for Prime Material Dragon
He removes Prime for Darkness Metal and revives a Dark Horus.
I take 2 dragons to the face. Oh man. I’m probably going to lose this one.
~
I draw Future Fusion.
I play it. Dumping 1 White Stone, 1 Prime and 3 Darkness Metals – the last of my dragons.
He gets Phantom of Chaos back via Dark Horus
I end my turn and revive myself 2 Darkness Metals. Looks bad.
Oh ya, I have 400 Life points again.
~
He spams dragons for a while before attacking for game.
Game 2 0-5400
Notes: First loss, and to Hopeless Dragon? Not bad. At least Hopeless is the one that beat me.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Dark Hopeless
Game 3
8000~8000
I get to go first.
I draw 1 Plasma, 1 White Stone, 1 Darkness Metal, 1 Burial, 1 Reasoning.
I play Future Fusion and dump 1 Wyvern, 1 Prime, 1 Darkness Metal and 2 White Stones.
I get 2 Blue-Eyes.
I play Reasoning and he calls level 8. I get my Plaguespreader in DEF mode.
I end phase myself a Darkness Metal Dragon.
~
He MST’s my Future Fusion.
He Sarcos his own Future Fusion.
He Foolish Burials a Phantom of Chaos.
He summons Grepher and discards Phantom of Chaos to send Plaguespreader.
He puts his last in hand card ontop of his deck to revive Plague and Synchros a Goyo Guardian.
Goyo kills my Plague and tunes with it to summon a Colossal Fighter.
~
I draw Trade-In
I Trade-In my Blue-Eyes for Torrential and Diamond Dude
I check his Colossal. It has 3000 ATK.
Red-Eyes revives White Stone of Legend.
My Plague summons itself by placing Blue-Eyes ontop of my deck.
I tribute those 3 for Plasma and suck up Colossal
White Stone gives me Blue-Eyes, right off the top of my deck. Yay, free shuffle.
Plasma hits for 3300. He has no hand. This looks good for me.
~
He sets a monster, one turn till he gets Future Fusion
~
I draw another Blue-Eyes
I summon White Stone and remove it for Red-Eyes Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Prime Material Dragon
I Burial back 1 White Stone, 1 Plague and 1 Wyvern.
Plague summons itself by placing Diamond Dude ontop of my deck.
I tune Plague to Prime for Red Dragon Archfiend
Red Dragon Archfiend nukes his set Wyvern
Darkness Metal and Plasma hit for game.
Game 3 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
2-1 vs Dark Hopeless
Notes: First loss is to Hopeless. I’m glad I won that match though; I haven’t lost a mirror match with dragons yet and I don’t intend to start now.
I am now in the Semi Finals of this local
~~~
Round 6 – Semi Finals
SOL Dragon vs Gladiator Beasts
Game 1
8000~8000
Kyuusei would love to play this match. :P
He won the roll.
He Respited a Bestari and War Chariot back into his deck.
Summoned Prisma and set 2
~
I drew Darkness Metal, Brain Control, Wyvern, White Stone, D-Draw, Blue-Eyes
I Brain Control his Prisma and use it to dump a Blue-Eyes
I summon a White Stone and tune it to Prisma for Catastor.
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes.
Catastor hit direct.
~
He Respites a Respite and a Laquari
He Proving Grounds a Hoplomus
Sets a monster and another 2 S/t
~
I summon Wyvern
I remove Wyvern for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives a Blue-Eyes
Catastor attacks but he flips Book of Moon
Darkness Metal attacks and kills Laquari
Blue-Eyes hits direct
He now has 2800 Lifepoints
~
He sets another S/T
~
I draw Trade-In
I Trade-In a Blue-Eyes for Rota and a White Stone
I play Rota for Stratos
I summon Stratos and search Malicious
I D-Draw Mali for Chaos Sorcerer and another Mali (ha)
I flip summon Catastor
Red-Eyes revives another Blue-Eyes
Blue-Eyes attacks but he flips Waboku
We hold off our assault
~
He sets a monster
~
Catastor wipes Bestiari off the field
Blue-Eyes hits for game
Game 1 8000-0
Notes: I wonder what the 4 s/ts were.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs Gladiator Beasts
Game 2
8000~8000
He lets me go first.
I draw 2 D-Draw, 1 Diamond Dude, 1 Wyvern, 1 Trade-In and an Allure
I D-Draw Diamond Dude for a Rota and another Allure
I Rota a Stratos
I summon Stratos to grab Malicious
I D-Draw Malicious for a White Stone and a Mirror Force
I Set Mirror Force and end
~
He sets a monster
He sets 2 S/T
~
I draw Scapegoat and wish I had searched Plasma
I remove Malicious for Malicious
He chains Torrential, killing his Test Tiger
I set White Stone of Legend; denied my Synchro
~
He summons Rescue Cat.
Tributes Rescue Cat for Samnite and Test Tiger
Test Tiger tags Samnite out for Bestiari who nukes my Mirror Force
Bestiari kills my White Stone and I get a Blue-Eyes
Bestiari tags out for a Laquari
~
I draw another White Stone of Legend
I Trade-In my Blue-Eyes for a Destiny Draw and a Chaos Sorcerer
I remove White Stone of Legend and Malicious for Chaos Sorcerer and remove Laquari on priority – no war chariot?
I summon White Stone of Legend and tune it to Chaos Sorcerer for Arcanite Magician
White Stone gives me a Blue-Eyes
My Arcanite removes its counter to destroy his set Dust Tornado – apparent anticipation for Royal Oppression or Mirror of Oaths – too bad I forgot my side deck. :P
I set Scapegoat
Arcanite attacks directly
~
He sets a monster
~
I draw Plasma
Arcanite removes its counter to kill his face-down Murmillo
I Destiny Draw Plasma for DAD and Burial
I summon Dark Armed Dragon
Dark Armed Dragon hits directly, Arcanite turns to DEF mode
~
He sets a monster
~
I draw Wyvern
DAD removes Plasma to pop his face-down Bestiari
I summon Wyvern
Wyvern and DAD hit for game
Game 2 8000-0
Notes: I think we can all see that Gladiator Beasts are no match for a Dragon.
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
2-1 vs Dark Hopeless
2-0 Gladiator Beasts
Notes: Final Round. Me vs some Twilight deck!!
~~~
Round 7 – Finals
SOL Dragon vs French Twilight
Game 1
8000~8000
I win the roll. Lets go!! OTK!!!
I draw Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Allure, 2 Trade-In, 1 Future Fusion and a Diamond Dude. O_________________O
I Future Fuse 3 White Stone, 1 Darkness Metal and 1 Wyvern
I get 3 Blue-Eyes
I Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for Prime Material Dragon and Destiny Draw
I Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for Burial and Malicious
I D-Draw Malicious for Plasma and Darkness Metal
I play Allure, drawing DAD and Rota and removing a Darkness Metal for the cost
I plat Rota and grab Stratos
I summon Stratos and grab a Diamond Dude
I end my turn discarding 1 Blue-Eyes and 1 Diamond Dude
~
He Charges a Garoth
Summons a Garoth and kills my Stratos
~
I draw MST
I drop DAD and remove Diamond Dude to kill Garoth
I summon Diamond Dude and flip over Destiny Draw!
Diamond Dude attacks and triggers Tragoedia with 2400ATK
DAD kills it.
~
He removes Garoth and Tragoedia for Chaos Sorcerer and removes DAD
~
I draw Call of the Haunted
Five-Headed Dragon hits the field
I activate Destiny Draw through Diamond Dude and draw Allure and Scapegoat
I remove Mali for another Mali
I play Allure, drawing Sorcerer and Torrential and removing Plasma for the cost
I tribute Diamond Dude and Mali for Darkness Metal
Darkness Metal revives Blue-Eyes White Dragon
Darkness kills Sorcerer and triggers another Tragoedia. This one with 1800 DEF
Blue-Eyes kills Tragoedia
Five-Headed attacks directly
I set Torrential in case of a freak Judgement Dragon
~
He scoops
Game 1 7950-0
Notes: Tragoedia is annoying.
~~~
SOL Dragon vs French Twilight
Game 2
8000~8000
He summons Garoth and ends
~
I draw 1 Malicious, Allure, Torrential, Prime Material, Future Fusion and Trade-In
I Future Fuse 2 White Stone, 2 Wyvern and 1 Darkness Metal
I add 2 Blue-Eyes to my hand
I Trade-In 1 Blue-Eyes for Stratos and D-Draw
I D-Draw my Mali for Diamond Dude and Sorcerer
I summon Stratos and grab Plasma
I remove Mali to summon a Mali
I play Allure and draw DAD and another Sorcerer. I remove Diamond Dude for its cost.
I remove White Stone and Red-Eyes Darkness for Chaos Sorcerer
Chaos Sorcerer removes Garoth
Stratos hits for 1800
I set Torrential
~
He summons Jain and I flip Torrential
~
I draw Allure
I play Allure, drawing Mirror Force and Blue-Eyes, I remove DAD for its cost.
I set Mirror Force
I summon Chaos Sorcerer by removing Malicious and a White Stone
Chaos Sorcerer hits for 2300
~
Solar Recharge and Charge hit the field and cards are milled but nothing of consequence comes of it.
He sets a monster and an S/T
~
I draw Heavy Storm
Five-Headed Dragon is summoned
I tribute Sorcerer for Prime Material Dragon
Prime runs over Necro Gardna
Five-Headed attacks but gets Necro-ed
~
He scoops again
Game 2 8000-0
~~~
Woot.
That's a match.
That's a finals.
That's a tourney.
Final Score for SOL Dragon:
2-0 vs Lightsworn
2-0 vs Tele-DAD-Zombies
2-0 vs Skill Drain DHZ
2-0 vs DHZ
2-1 vs Dark Hopeless
2-0 vs Gladiator Beasts
2-0 vs French Twilight
So I won me a locals and got some boosters which had nothing of use in them, but that's okay cuz it was fun and I only lost once. :P
Overall it was a pretty fun tournament. It was nice to see another local other than the one I'm used to hosting and it was also nice being a competitor instead of the TO. While I understand that winning a local is no great feat I would like to point out that in many of my duels my opponents decks despite having numerous cards available to them (particularly that Twilight deck) couldn't do anything. That reeks of inconsistency in their deck building. Having played Hopeless Dragon, one of the most inconsistent decks in the metagame I think thats a pretty good example of how important it is to test your deck thoroughly for inconsistency like that.
Anyway, That was my tournament report using "SOL Dragon". Hope you liked it. ;)
Deck Analysis: "Disaster Dragon"
Disaster Dragon
Deck Creator: Richard Clarke
"Disaster Dragon" is a deck created by Richard Clarke. It is an aggressive control oriented deck that plays disruption strategies to gain and maintain control of the duel. Utilizing a pure dragon lineup it is an evolution of the popular "Hopeless Dragon" deck from Japan. "Disaster Dragon" is one of the most popular dragon decks in the competitive scene and easily the most consistent, outranked only by SOL Hopeless in tournament results.
Here are two examples of a Disaster Dragon Decklist:
Yamata Disaster Dragon
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 20
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Koa'ki Meiru Drago
3 Red Eyes Wyvern
3 Masked Dragon
2 Exploder Dragon
1 Yamata Dragon
1 Genesis Dragon
1 Magna Drago
1 Debris Dragon
1 Totem Dragon
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
Spells: 13
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Giant Trunade
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Foolish Burial
1 Creature Swap
1 Future Fusion
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
2 Book of Moon
2 Gold Sarcophagus
Traps: 7
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Burst Breath
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
Light and Darkness Disaster Dragon
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 22
1 Genesis Dragon
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
2 Light and Darkness Dragon
1 Exploder Dragon
3 Masked Dragon
1 Prime Material Dragon
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
3 Koa'ki Meiru Drago
2 Totem Dragon
1 White Night Dragon
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Debris Dragon
1 Magna Drago
Spells: 12
1 Future Fusion
2 Creature Swap
1 Lightning Vortex
2 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Book of Moon
1 Burial from the Different Dimension
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
Traps: 6
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Burst Breath
Disaster Dragon is a control oriented deck that plays disruption strategies mixed with lockdown aggression to gain and maintain control of the board. It carries a lot of momentum and explosive power as the deck can consistently drop 2+ monsters per turn without losing advantage and often times they will be big monsters. This is done through the use of the decks backbone card “Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon”. Weighing in at 2800ATK this card is easily the most powerful or one of the most powerful dragons in the deck, outclassed only by a potential “White Night Dragon”. Red-Eyes effect allows for the constant recursion of monsters from the graveyard as well as the ability to bypass the normal summon limit and the requirements for tributes that many decks suffer from. As a result Disaster decks are packing some of the highest ATK monsters in the present Metagame, because they can bypass the tribute mechanic required to summon them.
Obviously ATK points don’t do much on their own but the fact that its carrying these powerhouses only serves to solidify Disaster Dragons real strength; disruption and lockdown. Through the usage of cards such as Koa’ki Meiru Drago, Exploder Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon alone the deck is capable of shutting out and eliminating a majority of plays made by the current popular decks. The deck plays like a toolbox, with Masked Dragon working to recruit the dragons you need for tributes, Synchros, battle, monster removal, etc and cards like Red-Eyes Darkness and Genesis Dragon allowing you to reuse them. Cards such as Foolish Burial and Future Fusion allow you to dump dragons into your graveyard faster while also aiding in the deck inherent synergy; some dragons such as Yamata Dragon or Light and Darkness Dragon cannot be Special Summoned, thus they are unable to cheat their 2-tribute requirement via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon as most dragons would. Instead the deck utilizes “Totem Dragon” a self-recurring dragon that can act as 2 sacrifices in order to summon a dragon-type monster. Being a dragon in itself Totem Dragon is a viable target to search with Masked Dragon or to dump with Future Fusion. It can also be easily revived via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.
The idea with Koa'ki Meiru Drago is to play it after Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is on the field, or simply remove him from the field by other means in order to summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. One of the most common analogies for Koa'ki Meiru Drago usage compares it to a switch, courtesy of a feature match involving Richard Clarke where he flipped Koa'ki Meiru Drago on and off the field allowing himself all the Special Summons and locking his opponent out of everything.
Future Fusion also carries synergy with the newly released Genesis Dragon. Allowing you to discard dragons from your deck to the grave and simply retrieve them to your hand in a form of reverse tutoring. Genesis Dragon also carries synergy with Yamata Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon. Both dragons cannot be Special Summoned from the grave but via Genesis they can be resummoned again and again. An infinite loop exists with Light and Darkness Dragon and Genesis Dragon where in you sacrifice Red-Eyes Darkness Metal and Genesis Dragon for Light and Darkness Dragon. When that dies you bring back Red-Eyes and use its effect to revive Genesis who grabs back the Light and Darkness Dragon. Then you can sacrifice them both to summon it again and spam Light and Darkness Dragon. It’s fairly unstable for obvious reasons but the ability to infinitely reuse a monster as powerful as Light and Darkness Dragon is definitely an option the deck has at its disposal.
In basic summary Disaster Dragon is a more control oriented deck that utilizes a full deck of dragons. As it doesn't rely on any combo's to go off it’s by far the most consistent dragon deck and is one of the favoured choices online. Future Fusion is the power house dumper of the deck, and although it’s not needed it kicks the deck into high gear instantly by giving you 5 dragons of your choice in the grave - right where you want them. Masked Dragon acts as a recruiter toolbox engine, Red-Eyes can swarm the field or reuse dragons, Yamata and Light and Darkness rack up a ton of advantage and disrupt/lock down the field, Prime Material Dragon covers your dragons from s/t hate, Koa'ki Meiru locks out the top decks Light and Dark summons and also acts as another control measure and Genesis is basically the best thing ever, allowing you to recycle lost dragons, trade in dead ones and tons more. The deck does not pilot itself and requires forethought and careful consideration of options. Every choice made with what you dump, search, revive can tilt the scales in either favour. It plays aggressively - as almost every monster in the deck has higher ATK than opposing monsters they can utilize this in their favour and play a momentum game. By locking down the opponents options while you continue to amass your own it is quite easy to take complete control of a duel in a matter of turns.
You can also find this post on Wikipedia here. Thanks to Bahamut Dragon King from Pojo forums for making the page.
Deck Creator: Richard Clarke
"Disaster Dragon" is a deck created by Richard Clarke. It is an aggressive control oriented deck that plays disruption strategies to gain and maintain control of the duel. Utilizing a pure dragon lineup it is an evolution of the popular "Hopeless Dragon" deck from Japan. "Disaster Dragon" is one of the most popular dragon decks in the competitive scene and easily the most consistent, outranked only by SOL Hopeless in tournament results.
Here are two examples of a Disaster Dragon Decklist:
Yamata Disaster Dragon
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 20
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Koa'ki Meiru Drago
3 Red Eyes Wyvern
3 Masked Dragon
2 Exploder Dragon
1 Yamata Dragon
1 Genesis Dragon
1 Magna Drago
1 Debris Dragon
1 Totem Dragon
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
Spells: 13
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Giant Trunade
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Foolish Burial
1 Creature Swap
1 Future Fusion
1 Burial from a Different Dimension
2 Book of Moon
2 Gold Sarcophagus
Traps: 7
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
1 Solemn Judgment
2 Burst Breath
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
Light and Darkness Disaster Dragon
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 22
1 Genesis Dragon
3 Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
2 Light and Darkness Dragon
1 Exploder Dragon
3 Masked Dragon
1 Prime Material Dragon
2 Red Eyes Wyvern
3 Koa'ki Meiru Drago
2 Totem Dragon
1 White Night Dragon
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Debris Dragon
1 Magna Drago
Spells: 12
1 Future Fusion
2 Creature Swap
1 Lightning Vortex
2 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Book of Moon
1 Burial from the Different Dimension
1 Heavy Storm
1 Brain Control
Traps: 6
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Burst Breath
Disaster Dragon is a control oriented deck that plays disruption strategies mixed with lockdown aggression to gain and maintain control of the board. It carries a lot of momentum and explosive power as the deck can consistently drop 2+ monsters per turn without losing advantage and often times they will be big monsters. This is done through the use of the decks backbone card “Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon”. Weighing in at 2800ATK this card is easily the most powerful or one of the most powerful dragons in the deck, outclassed only by a potential “White Night Dragon”. Red-Eyes effect allows for the constant recursion of monsters from the graveyard as well as the ability to bypass the normal summon limit and the requirements for tributes that many decks suffer from. As a result Disaster decks are packing some of the highest ATK monsters in the present Metagame, because they can bypass the tribute mechanic required to summon them.
Obviously ATK points don’t do much on their own but the fact that its carrying these powerhouses only serves to solidify Disaster Dragons real strength; disruption and lockdown. Through the usage of cards such as Koa’ki Meiru Drago, Exploder Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon alone the deck is capable of shutting out and eliminating a majority of plays made by the current popular decks. The deck plays like a toolbox, with Masked Dragon working to recruit the dragons you need for tributes, Synchros, battle, monster removal, etc and cards like Red-Eyes Darkness and Genesis Dragon allowing you to reuse them. Cards such as Foolish Burial and Future Fusion allow you to dump dragons into your graveyard faster while also aiding in the deck inherent synergy; some dragons such as Yamata Dragon or Light and Darkness Dragon cannot be Special Summoned, thus they are unable to cheat their 2-tribute requirement via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon as most dragons would. Instead the deck utilizes “Totem Dragon” a self-recurring dragon that can act as 2 sacrifices in order to summon a dragon-type monster. Being a dragon in itself Totem Dragon is a viable target to search with Masked Dragon or to dump with Future Fusion. It can also be easily revived via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.
The idea with Koa'ki Meiru Drago is to play it after Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is on the field, or simply remove him from the field by other means in order to summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. One of the most common analogies for Koa'ki Meiru Drago usage compares it to a switch, courtesy of a feature match involving Richard Clarke where he flipped Koa'ki Meiru Drago on and off the field allowing himself all the Special Summons and locking his opponent out of everything.
Future Fusion also carries synergy with the newly released Genesis Dragon. Allowing you to discard dragons from your deck to the grave and simply retrieve them to your hand in a form of reverse tutoring. Genesis Dragon also carries synergy with Yamata Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon. Both dragons cannot be Special Summoned from the grave but via Genesis they can be resummoned again and again. An infinite loop exists with Light and Darkness Dragon and Genesis Dragon where in you sacrifice Red-Eyes Darkness Metal and Genesis Dragon for Light and Darkness Dragon. When that dies you bring back Red-Eyes and use its effect to revive Genesis who grabs back the Light and Darkness Dragon. Then you can sacrifice them both to summon it again and spam Light and Darkness Dragon. It’s fairly unstable for obvious reasons but the ability to infinitely reuse a monster as powerful as Light and Darkness Dragon is definitely an option the deck has at its disposal.
In basic summary Disaster Dragon is a more control oriented deck that utilizes a full deck of dragons. As it doesn't rely on any combo's to go off it’s by far the most consistent dragon deck and is one of the favoured choices online. Future Fusion is the power house dumper of the deck, and although it’s not needed it kicks the deck into high gear instantly by giving you 5 dragons of your choice in the grave - right where you want them. Masked Dragon acts as a recruiter toolbox engine, Red-Eyes can swarm the field or reuse dragons, Yamata and Light and Darkness rack up a ton of advantage and disrupt/lock down the field, Prime Material Dragon covers your dragons from s/t hate, Koa'ki Meiru locks out the top decks Light and Dark summons and also acts as another control measure and Genesis is basically the best thing ever, allowing you to recycle lost dragons, trade in dead ones and tons more. The deck does not pilot itself and requires forethought and careful consideration of options. Every choice made with what you dump, search, revive can tilt the scales in either favour. It plays aggressively - as almost every monster in the deck has higher ATK than opposing monsters they can utilize this in their favour and play a momentum game. By locking down the opponents options while you continue to amass your own it is quite easy to take complete control of a duel in a matter of turns.
You can also find this post on Wikipedia here. Thanks to Bahamut Dragon King from Pojo forums for making the page.
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