SOL Genesis has been my deck for the past format and a half now, and its running pretty well. I've got 2 Tops with it so far, placing 4th and 2nd. The deck is a lot of fun and I've been getting a lot of pressure from dragon users on pojo to write up an article on the deck. So that is what I'm going to try and do today.
Main Deck: 40
Monsters: 20
2 Chaos Sorcerer
3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 The White Stone of Legend
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Red-Eyes Wyvern
1 Genesis Dragon
1 Vice Dragon
1 Dread Dragon
2 Masked Dragon
1 Delta Flyer
1 Sangan
Spells: 13
2 Pot of Duality
1 Allure of Darkness
1 Dark Hole
2 Cards of Consonance
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Future Fusion
1 Monster Reborn
1 Giant Trunade
2 Trade-In
Traps: 7
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mirror Force
Extra Deck: 15
1 Five-Headed Dragon
1 Magical Android
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Arcanite Magician
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Exploder Dragonwing
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Colossal Fighter
1 Dark End Dragon
1 Red Dragon Archfiend
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Trident Dragion
SOL Genesis is a control deck. Its a much slower paced deck than any of the others you've seen on this blog and it plays an attrition game. It favours singular versatile monsters that can profit from maximum interaction with other cards in the deck, not individual combos. As a result you won't see it running cards like Super Rejuvenation that you might see in other decks carrying a similar draw engine. This deck can support it, yes, but its not a combo deck, its not explosive, it doesn't OTK anymore than say... Disaster Dragon, so you have nothing to accelerate your draw into, plus the deck benefits from controlling the tempo and pace of the duel, recycling with Genesis, etc. Combos, whilst neat, are not welcome here.
SOL Genesis then is a control deck which capitalizes off of the advantage given by White Stone of Legend. If you're reading my blog I'll assume you know about my past decks by now and my obsession with the little egg. Like SOL Dragon before it this deck revolves around the advantage engine Stone of Legend creates. Utilizing SOL and Genesis Dragon the deck aims to constantly maintain its resources as it controls the duel with dragons; forcing the opponent to expend resources while your plays pay for themselves. Genesis Dragon and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon maintain the versatile outlets for your dragon options, be it special summoning for +s and field presence, draw combos, or even just maintaining viable options in your hand. Cards like Chaos Sorcerer, Dark Armed Dragon and Dark Hole aim to enforce your plays, establishing field control and allowing you to gain further pluses off spent Dragons. One of my favourite combos from SOL Dragon is tuning Stone of Legend to Chaos Sorcerer to make Arcanite Magician then raking in the advantage the play creates. This play carried over to SOL Genesis, and although it may not occur with the same frequency the move is devastating in its own right.
The deck wins by whittling the opponent out of resources and just amassing its advantage, virtually leaning on them until they lose. At any point you find they present an opening you can, of course, simply swarm them with dragons in a manner akin to previous SOL decks. Blue-Eyes fuels the draw engine that feeds the deck its resources, and benefits from SOL recruiting it in that it gives you pluses in advantage whilst also making the draw engine more dependable and consistent. Its also just an amazing 3000ATKer - when brought back via Darkness Metal its just a +1 so its fate doesn't really matter, it can cause some serious disruption if you catch your opponent off guard with it.
It is this +1 off Red-Eyes that is so important. Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is the backbone of many dragon decks. In SOL Genesis its role is not as necessary as in past SOL decks to ease the summoning of big hitters, however, its still a powerful asset to the deck. More often than not you'll use its effect to revive smaller dragons, or Genesis itself. Blue-Eyes being brought back as a floater won't often happen until you need to establish a push for game or feel the need for an even bigger hitter than your standard 2800 can muster.
Genesis Dragon is imperative to the deck, and it is for Genesis Dragon that I actually made the deck itself. Because he looks like a Rathalos. And Rathalos is awesome. Dragons used to be renown for their ability to bypass summoning requirements, cheat tributing costs, and carrying some of the heaviest hitters in the game. Now, however, dragons carry 9 possible draw cards, more than any other deck in the game; Trade-In, Cards of Consonance and Super Rejuvenation. Dragons carry some of the most versatile targets for these cards, something later developed on by Dragunitys and Dragons Canyon. Genesis Dragon allows for recycling of Draw card targets, and despite the fact that I am against the inclusion of Super Rejuvenation in this deck also feeds its cost. Genesis Dragon ensures that you never run out of fodder for Cards of Consonance and Trade-In, both with its discard and recycle effect and with its more Pot of Avaricesque effect; one that is actually very useful in this deck. In older variants I ran triple Consonance and Trade-In with double Genesis Dragon. This worked, however, it also led to some clogged hands. By cutting the draw cards down to 2 copies each I was able to ensure that I could still benefit from Genesis' abilities whilst also gaining more fodder for its effect. Spent SOLs and Blue-Eyes still serve a purpose in this deck in acting as free fodder for Genesis to recur other dragons. I still really want a 2nd Genesis in there but my tribute count is beginning to run a bit high.
A single Red-Eyes Wyvern is more preference on my end. Dual Wyverns could work well if you find you have the space, however, I personally find it to be a subpar deck building tactic. I found when I was running Deep Draw that the better I got with the deck the less I relied upon Red-Eyes Wyvern. This is the case with most dragon builds, bar perhaps Disaster which has no better alternative at the moment, however, I really felt it in Deep Draw. This realization eventually spread over to SOL Dragon and has since influenced my stance of dragon deck building; that is that running Red-Eyes Wyvern for the sole sake of recurring Darkness Metal is an inconsistent deck building tactic bordering on a subpar play at best - it reeks of the fact that we dragon users have no better altnernative and is something that should not be relied upon consistently. We may have had no better alternative in previous formats, but now we have Monster Reborn back. Wyvern should not be maxed.
The flaw in Wyvern is that it only has 1 target in the ENTIRE deck. Even if you run 3 Darnkess Metal (which, you should) you still only have 1 target for your Wyvern. Sure you can recurr other Wyverns, but thats moronic. The flaw in Red-Eyes Wyvern is it forces reliance on Future Fusion and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal. Whilst those cards may be our power plays, it does not bode well to construct decks that rely so heavily upon them that when they are disabled the deck falls flat on its face. Without Darkness Metal in play all copies of Red-Eyes Wyvern are vanilla 1800ATK piles of crap. 1800ATK isn't even high anymore, its average, its Shura/Firedog/Laquari fodder, feeds none of your draw cards and ultimately serves no more purpose than a vanilla monster until you get a Darkness Metal into play.
Thus when constructing a deck maxing Wyverns should not be considered "staples" as such. You wouldn't run 3 Mezuki for the sake of 3 other zombies, the fact that dragons virtually have to run Wyvern for the sake of Darkness Metal shows the flaw in our limited cardpool. Which brings us back to my focus on Genesis Dragons importance in this deck and its lack of reliance upon Darkness Metal.
All of that said, I have found despite my abhorring that which Wyvern stands for dragons as of yet do not have a fully viable alternative to it, and Monster Reborn will only get us so far, and thus a single copy is included in my deck.
The rest of the deck is fairly standard. The trap lineup is huge due to this deck aiming for a much loner game. If the game draws out you're better off; your monsters are self replacing and Genesis can refuel your deck and hand. The traps allow you to control your opponents ability to remove your control of the board, and in doing so help you to even further establish it. Solemn Warnings are virtually staples this format and it is for that reason that I'm running a single Seven Tools of the Bandit.
I had thought about running Trap Stun for a while this format, however, in the end 7 Tools outshone it. Last format the deck sided, and then eventually mained dual Royal Oppression. With Oppressions in deck Trap Stun allowed for a versatile method of shutting out my opponents traps for the turn whilst also preventing them from stopping my Special Summons via Oppression. This format, however, with the trap line-up shifting towards Counter Traps and Royal Oppression outclassed by Solemn Warning I find Trap Stun to be vastly inferior to 7 Tools.
SOL Genesis is not an OTK deck so the chances of it pulling off an OTK are low, sure it can, but any deck can. It lacks monster effects to destroy the set cards so the traps are still going to be there the next turn (unless you tech Tiger Dragon), and it has to then be used in the standby phase to block Solemn Warnings, since if they go off Stun cannot be chained. This then means that my Solemn Warnings and Solemn Judgments are down for the turn preventing me from blocking any Quickplays, Monster Effects and Trago/Faders that could impede my push for field control/game that turn.
7 Tools on the other hand may only block 1 trap but it ends the chain there and then. Unless they 7 Tools or Solemn back nothing can be activated after it due to its Counter Trap powaaaa. It also removes the trap in question, can be used reactively after a Solemn Judgment or Warning whilst also blocking any other traps I may have issue with. It also means in the case of those counter traps that are so rampant now; they still pay the cost. That helps my push more than Trap Stun not going off any. Since this deck is a control deck based around attrition that is better for its overall goals and playstyle.
7 Tools is better than Trap Stun in SOL Genesis, just as Solemn Warning is better than Royal Oppression. Oppression was good last format, but now we have better cards to run. Though yes, if you can't afford Warnings then run Oppression and in that instance Trap Stun becomes more viable, however, you should aim to not be running either as the deck is stronger without them.
Pot of Duality is back in force once more; especially in light of the latest Duality ruling on its interaction with Future Fusion there is really no reason not to run this card. For those of you who missed out here it is; If you play Duality then you can still activate Future Fusion on that turn and vice versa. However, obviously you cannot activate Pot of Duality on the turn Five-Headed from Future Fusion is summoned, nor can you End Phase a Wyvern the turn you play a Duality.
Anyway, thats my deck with a little write up on it. It gets a wonderful overhaul with the release of Dragunitys so stay tuned for that one.
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