Mirage Stun

This is an idea I've been toying around with this format. With the release of Dragunity and Malefic monsters Dragon users got a lot of new toys to play with, tragically none of them are compatible with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal and our older toys. As such its been a stretch for dragon users to adapt to this format if they want to maintain their REDMD builds; Dark and Light decks aren't as prominent this format with Lightsworn and Blackwings finally dismantled by the latest banlist so Disaster is out of thew job and Sol has to compete with Dragunity builds doing everything it does, but better.

As such dragon builds built around Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon need to find a niche which they can fill that no other deck can readily usurp or challenge. One such ability is their recurable Trap Stun; Mirage Dragon.

Main Deck: 40

Monsters: 18
2 Dragunity Phalanx
2 Effect Veiler
2 Exploder Dragon
1 Koa'ki Meiru Drago
2 Masked Dragon
2 Mirage Dragon
1 Prime Material Dragon
3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3 Red-Eyes Wyvern

Spells: 14
1 Book of Moon
1 Dark Hole
3 Dragon Ravine
1 Future Fusion
1 Giant Trunade
2 Gold Sarcophagus
1 Monster Reborn
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
2 Pot of Duality

Traps: 8
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Mirror Force
1 Royal Oppression
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Torrential Tribute

The basic premise of the deck is "protect the Mirage" much akin to the old stun provided by Koa'ki Meiru Drago in Disaster decks. With traps on the rise and Dimensional Prison working its way into the pure dragon decks hardest matchups Mirage Dragon locks down opposing Prisons, Mirror Forces and such when offending and stops the opponent from using 7 Tools when on the offensive leaving your traps unhindered. this improves its overall matchup against GK, Dragunity, Glads and any deck that is maining battle attuned removal this format. Mirage Dragon also locks out offensive/defensive uses of DEST and E-Call for random use. The plays to basically deprive the opponent of their resources until you can go for the jugular. Whilst Mirage hasn't much merit against those damn Counter Traps I don't think that demerits it any this format.

Mirage Dragons ATK may seem feeble, but its not in the deck to act as a beatstick. Its supplementary; its support. Its fast become my go to monster alongside Darkness Metal Dragon, and they prove quite the formidable pairing this format. I really wish Mirage Dragon had 100 less ATK. Q_Q

Dragon Ravine is being run in triplicate to speed up the decks setup. Although unable to generate direct advantage from Ravine like a Sol deck when paired with an on-field Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon Dragon Ravine still possesses the capability of turning any card in hand into a Dragon from the deck. Outside of Ravine the only other viable options for searching dragons are Masked Dragon and Dread Dragon; both of which are inhibited by ATK and Level respectively, and neither are capable of searching out Mirage or Koa'ki Mieru Drago. In addition, no other card outside of Future Fusion can dump multiple Level four or higher Dragons from the deck to the graveyard. With Dragon Ravine, you have a generic cost, unlike Summoner Monk where you have to pitch a Spell Card or Dark Grepher where a Dark monster has to be discarded. This makes it more versatile and far more usable than either option as it doesn't impede other deck choices and also doesn't take up a normal summon. Those of you who have read my blog before know my staunch opposition to Dragon builds relying on Future Fusion and the inclusion of Dragon Ravine relieves that reliance even further. For these reasons Dragon Ravine is essential in setting up the decks plays to get everything in motion and is why I'm running 3 of it.

Budget players can drop the Duality out for a third Sarco this format. The free slot can be dedicated to something else of high utility. I ran a lone Trap Stun for insurances sake in earlier builds, however, ultimately it was outdone by Mirage Dragon and just felt unnecessary.

Another card that has seemed useless to me in testing thus far is Prime Material Dragon. With Bottomless trending out of decks and D-Prison trending in the amount of cards Prime can stop is growing more and more limited. Since it can't stop Counter Traps its vastly outclassed by the tiny Mirage Dragon. In practice I mostly use it as a level 6 stepping stone to access Stardust with Phalanx. As such I may replace it with a Dragunity Arma Mystletainn and see how that goes.

Anyway those are just my initial thoughts on the deck as I post it up. I've run some testing with it as per usual and I'll be posting a small tournament report later about a locals I took the deck to just to give some examples of how useful Mirage Dragon really was. (Tournament Run can be found here)