Subject: Deck Archetypes: Strengths and Weaknesses--The Mighty Mollusk

Yu-Gi-Oh. A game full of potential, but with currently
somewhat limited options. Still, there are a few
different deck types commonly used, each with its own
advantages and disadvantages. This rant is meant to
serve as a guide to different kinds of decks, listing
the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Beatdown: The single most common deck type, beatdown
decks are exactly as the name implies; designed to
throw out big monsters and lay down the pain.
Signature cards include Summoned Skull, La Jinn, Dark
Elf, and Seven-Colored Fish. Fiend-Spellcaster
Beatdown is a popular variant, focusing on powering up
specific monster types with cards like Book of Secret
Arts and Sword of Dark Destruction.
Strengths: Beatdown decks are highly aggressive;
rarely is the opponent left with a monster to fight
back. Turbo beatdowns can throw down monsters with
excessive speed to lay waste to the opponent quickly.
Weaknesses: Beatdowns rely on monsters with high
attack and low defense. As a result, Shield and Sword
reaks havok with this deck type. Monster removal is a
beatdown deck's worst nightmare, as monsters are a
beatdown deck's only chance. Heavy Storm can destroy a
FS deck's power-up cards, leaving their monsters
weakened and open to attack. Also, while not really a
disadvantage in play, beatdowns require little to no
strategy or originality, which IMO takes the fun out
of it.

Exodia: Perhaps the least-seen, Exodia decks center
around gathering the five pieces of Exodia for an
instant victory. Signature cards include Sangan, Witch
of the Black Forest, and Last Will, all of which allow
easy deck searching.
Strengths: If Exodia is gathered, life points become
irrelevant; having all five Exodia peices in hand
triggers an instant victory.
Weaknesses: Exodia is the most expensive deck type to
build, especially now that LOB is out of print; its
production run was low to begin with, and all five
Exodia peices were ultra-rare, leading to online
prices in excess of $30 for a single piece. The Exodia
pieces are restricted to one each; the chances of
drawing all five pieces at once are excessively low.
Exodia decks tend to be highly defensive; if the
opponent turns on the heat quickly, Exodia decks may
have a hard time staying in the game long enough to
pull all five peices. Finally, Robbin' Goblin, Card
Destruction, and other hand disruption tricks are the
ultimate nightmare of Exodia decks, as a forced
discard could result in dumping one or more pieces
into the graveyard, canceling any chance this deck
would have.

Lord of D: It's all about dragons here. Lord of D
decks use the Flute of Summoning Dragon to its
fullest. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon reigns supreme
here, along with its little brothers, Tri-Horned
Dragon and Red-Eyes Black Dragon. Dragon Treasure and
Mountain are also useful.
Strengths: Lord of D protects all dragon-type monsters
from targetted effects, rendering Man-Eater Bug,
Hane-Hane, and Paralyzing Potion useless. FoSS allows
dragons to be special summoned, thereby bypassing both
tributes and Trap Hole. And of course, these decks
pack the raw power of the BEWD (and, once it's
released in the US, the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon).
Weaknesses: Lord of D itself can still be Trap Holed,
killing FoSS before it can be activated. Horn of
Heaven and Solemn Judgement can negate a special
summon. Dragon Capture Jar shuts this deck down,
unless a Remove Trap or Seven Tools of the Bandit is
handy. Lord of D doesn't protect from mass removal
such as Dark Hole, Raigeki, and Mirror Force. Also,
there are currently too few good dragons for this
deck, as about the only ones worth using are BEWD,
THD, and REBD (and Seiyaryu, for those interested in
the Dark Duel Stories promos), and arguably Curse of
Dragon. Too bad Barrel Dragon is a machine-type.

Gate Guardian: This deck is extremely hard to pull
off, but when it works, it's unstoppable. The Gate
Guardian is currently the most powerful monster in
American Yu-Gi-Oh, bar none. This deck uses drawing
and cycling to draw the pieces and Change of Heart and
Soul Exchange to ease the summoning costs.
Strengths: The Gate Guardian. 3750 attack power. 'Nuff
said.
Weaknesses: Once again, the Gate Guardian itself. GG
requires you to tribute Kazejin, Suijin, and Sanga of
the Thunder in order to play it; each of those three
requires two tributes of its own. Grand total: 9
tributes. If a piece is killed before GG can be
summoned (not a difficult feat in the current
environment), it's all for naught. Also, the Gate
Guardian itself is a secret rare. Good luck finding
one.

Monster Removal: This deck is all about clearing your
opponent's monsters from the field. Entirely focused
on killing monsters, this deck's signatures include
Man-Eater Bug, Wall of Illusion, Hane-Hane, Trap Hole,
Raigeki, Tribute to the Doomed, Fissure, and any other
monster killer or bounce. Barrel Dragon is often this
deck type's strongest beast. This is my personal deck
choice, and it has served me well.
Strengths: If the opponent has no monsters, they have
no defenses, leaving them open to attack. This deck
type also complements Gate Guardian fairly well, using
GG as pure tech with no more than one copy each,
resulting in GG being an easy discard to TttD.
Weaknesses: This deck type may occassionally have
trouble drawing monsters through the thick of removal
cards. This deck also tends to play a defensive game,
much like Exodia; if the opponent gets up to speed
quickly, it may be hard to keep them at bay. Finally,
this deck easily falls prey to Fissure, as ALL of its
monsters tend to be weak.

Shield and Sword: This one plays high-defense monsters
and little else. Mystical Elf, Prevent Rat, and Giant
Soldier of Stone, among others. It abuses Shield and
Sword to turn that Mystical Elf into a 2000-power
beatstick for a turn.
Strengths: With beatdown decks currently in vogue,
Shield and Sword is a death card, cutting Summoned
Skull's attack power in half. This deck will also get
a shot in the arm when Magic Ruler is released,
bringing us the Labyrinth Wall, with 0 attack and a
whopping 3000 defense, at the cost of one tribute.
Weaknesses: Another highly defensive game, with the
same drawbacks as Exodia in that regard. Also, once
the Shield and Sword effect is used up, this type of
deck is left with weak-attack monsters in attack mode,
and thus is open to some serious hurting (Labyrinth
Wall's 0 attack power is something to be concerned
about here). 

Direct Damage (Burn): This one's all about attacking
the life points. A horde of direct attacking monsters
here, such as Rainbow Flower and Queen's Double.
Damaging magics such as Tremendous Fire and Ookazi
also abound. Cannon Soldier and Catapult Turtle have
great synergy with this deck type as well.
Strengths: Waboku can't save you from Ookazi. This
deck also gets help from Robbin' Goblin to limit an
opponent's options, making it perhaps the ultimate
anti-Exodia.
Weaknesses: Most direct-attacking monsters have less
than 600 attack points; Wall of Illusion can beat
these guys up, never mind deck staples like Summoned
Skull. Also, there's not enough burn spells yet to
make this viable, even if you include Just Desserts.

Fusion: Not often seen in tournament play, Fusion
decks revolve around Polymerization. Black Skull
Dragon, Gaia the Dragon Champion, and Two-Headed
Thunder Dragon (noticing a trend?) are strong here.
Strengths: Polymerization allows a special summon of a
stronger monster without tribute and with immunity to
Trap Hole. This deck will get help much later by
Fusion Gate, a field magic card from the Japanese set
Labyrinth of Nightmare, which allows you to combine
monsters without Polymerization, but also removes the
fusion material monsters from the game instead of
putting them into the graveyard normally. For those
rich enough or lucky enough to obtain them, the Fusion
Substitute monsters (Versago the Dark Destroyer and
Goddess with the Third Eye) are useful, as they can
take the place of one fusion-material monster. And of
course, the game's most powerful monster of all, the
Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, is a fusion.
Weaknesses: Horn of Heaven, Magic Jammer, and Solemn
Judgement continue to stall this deck in its tracks.
Many fusions require less than optimal monsters (such
as Gaia the Fierce Knight). Polymerization is
currently hard to come by, although the upcoming
release of the structure decks will help that (the
Yugi structure deck includes three copies of
Polymerization). The Fusion Substitute monsters are
only available in tournament packs and thus are
excessively rare.

These are the major deck archetypes as I see it. If
anyone else has anything they'd like to add, feel free
to contact me. Good luck, happy dueling, and May The
Heart Of The Cards Be With You.

The Mighty Mollusk
themightymollusk@yahoo.com


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