Hello everyone I am back with another exciting article. My last one was on how Harpie Lady decks can be made to be competitive and destructive. This time I want to take a look at another Female theme deck: Amazons! Amazon cards are one of the overlooked / underused warrior deck types. Why? Because their support is too little for it to become competitive. Or so, that’s what today’s meta will have you believe. Amazon decks are thought of to be too slow for warrior decks. Their effects aren’t that favorable. Their cards don’t allow them to be too strong. But those "opinions" are all wrong. Let’s take a look at three NON-monster Amazon cards. First up will have to be:

TRAP
Amazoness Archers
MFC-096
This card can only be activated when your opponent attacks and you control a monster on your side of the field that includes "Amazoness" in its card name, or is named "Amazon Archer". All monsters on your opponent’s side of the field become face-up Attack Position (Flip Effects are not activated) and as long as they remain face-up on the field decrease their ATK by 500 points. Your opponent must attack with all of these monsters this turn.

Now where else have you seen a card with such a powerful effect? Nowhere right? Flip effects aren’t activated… so… good-bye Magician of Faith, Morphing Jar family, Cyber Jar, Old Vindictive Magician/Man-Eater Bug. These are the most competitively played Flip-Effect monsters in today’s meta. So if the opponent has any of these facedown and attacks with another monster, they risk taking a direct attack and more damage on top of that. Most of those flip-effects have less than 500 ATK points and they lose their all-powerful effects! Gasp! Ingenious. But wait there is more. ALL monsters must attack! So the opponent can choose to attack with a stronger monster that survived being lowered by 500. In that case, activate yourself another Amazoness Archers trap card. Now they are at –1000 ATK points. Or you can choose to activate Mirror Wall. –500 ATK points and then half their ATK points. So BLS becomes, 1250! All but Amazoness Blowpiper can now take down BLS with ease. Do you love it yet? No? Well here is another card, exclusive only to Amazon decks:

TRAP
Dramatic Rescue
MFC-097
You can only activate this card when a monster on your side of the field that includes "Amazoness" in its card name, or is named "Amazon Archer", is specifically designated as a target by a card. Return the targeted Monster Card to its owner’s hand and Special Summon another monster from your hand in Face-up Attack or Defense Position.

Now where else have you seen such a great effect? About to be Brain Controlled, Removed by that BLS, Tsuku’d, Snatched, Book of Mooned, Thousand-Eyed, or some other nasty targeting effect? Simply activate this lovely trap card and rescue your Amazon and summon out another copy or a stronger monster. Just know that you cannot summon the same Amazoness card to the field that you just Rescued. You may special summon the same monster however if it is a different copy of it. So that BLS thinks that it is going to remove your Amazoness from the field, rescue her and bring out Freed or Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Why YOU would have a Blue-Eyes White Dragon in this deck beats me, but whatever. And you have the choice of ATK or DEF. So take your liking. Finally we have:

SPELL
Amazoness Spellcaster

MFC-084

Simply amazing! It’s almost like Riryoku, but better! It switches the original ATK! This cripples BLS or any other monster! Imagine the look on your opponent’s face when you switch the ATK strengths of your Amazoness Blowpiper with their BLS, Jinzo, Mobius, Zaborg, etc. etc. Their monster becomes the weakling and your monster becomes the strongest card on the field! If only this card was a Quick-Spell it would be so much more devastating. But oh well. Now that we have finished the NON-monster card forms of Amazons, all that is left is the monsters… All the Amazons are effect monsters and have many nice and once original effects. We’ll begin with my personal favorite:

Amazoness Swords Woman
MFC-061
EARTH/Warrior/4 STARS/ATK 1500/DEF 1600
The opponent takes all Battle Damage to this card’s controller that he/she takes from a battle involving this monster.

This lovely female warrior has saved me many a duels. Her effect is one of a kind. She a card you don’t mind having her attack lower than the opponent. Think about if your opponent has a BLS (yeah I know I use this a lot but it’s only because it’s so common of a card) breathing down your throat and you need that last 1000 damaging attack to take them down. They have no facedown cards to stop an attack, but you have no cards on your field. One more attack will defeat you; BLS attacks twice or removes from play and allows another monster to attack. And then you discover that you have an Amazoness Swords Woman in your hand, or you draw it or reinforcements of the army, or a monster revival card and bring her out to the field! That is game right there! And best of all, you take no damage from the attack! So if they are putting up a defensive wall with Big Shield Gardna, a 2000 defense monster, Neo Aqua Madoor, Labyrinth Wall, Millenium Shield, or Total Defense Shogun, just attack away with Amazoness Swords Woman and watch as their life points fall down! Wonderful right? She is one-of-a-kind! Let’s go with another one-of-a-kind Amazoness card:

Amazoness Chain Master
SP1-EN002
EARTH/Warrior/4 STARS/ATK 1500/DEF 1300
When this monster is destroyed as a result of battle and sent to the Graveyard, by paying 1500 Life Points, look at your opponent’s hand and select 1 Monster Card from it. Add the selected card to your hand, and you can use it in this Duel. (When the card is sent to the Graveyard, it is sent to the Graveyard of the owner.)

Oh my! "Exodia! I just claimed instant victory due to your forfeiting!" "Is that BLS sitting in your hand? Mind if I borrow it? No? Too bad. Thanks!" "I don’t think Mobius will be destroying my S/T’s, but he’ll gladly destroy yours." "Ever wondered how the burn of a Lava Golem felt?" Well all those things now can happen! If you aren’t 100% sure that there is a monster in your opponents’ hand, combine her with these cards:

Eye of Truth
Compulsory of Evacuation
Back to Square One (sorta)
Respect Play
Dark Designator
Exchange

Penguin Soldier/Knight
Hane-Hane

And that’s just to name a few. She can snag ANY monster that your opponent may be holding in their hand. That can sometimes win you the game especially if they were counting on that card ::coughcoughBLScoughcough:: to win it for them. So if you are running Amazons, make sure to include her. Let’s check out another card. The Amazon version of Cannon Soldier:

LON-032

EARTH/Warrior/4 STARS/ATK 1400/ DEF 1000

Hmm… this card fits in for the beat-down aspect of an Amazoness deck, or she works in a burn Amazoness deck! "Amazoness… burn? Is he out of his mind?" No… not hardly. It can be done and if you’d like to know more about it please feel free to e-mail me. Amazon Archer’s effect is pretty basic and to the point. She has the chance of winning you the game by firing her and another monster. Or if you can protect her for a turn, fire four goats for 2400 damage. That’s ¼ and some change of the duel nearly over. She falls short to most monsters and there for is in need of protection. So we’ll discuss:

MFC-063
EARTH/Beast/4 STARS/ATK 1100/DEF 1500

So combine Marauding Captains protection, with Command Knight’s ATK boosting effect and you see why you can only have 1 face up on the field. IF you were able to have three, they would be 2300 ATK monsters, unable to be attacked by ANY monster. The Amazoness Tiger is only good however when you have another Amazoness card on the field, preferably Amazoness Paladin. And two of them. Making them both Amazoness Paladins 2000 and Amazoness Tiger 2300. That’s enough to stand up to a good number of monsters and inflict some damage. Summon another Amazon and the only thing able to stand up to the Tiger, ATK wise is BLS, Blue-Eyes, Tri-Horned, Tyrant, Cosmo Queen, Dark Sage, Dark Magician of Chaos, Master of Oz, and couple of others. Now out of all of those, only 2 our widely played: DMoC and BLS. Other than that, you have yourself quite the force to butt heads with.

The other Amazoness Cards include:

Amazoness Paladin- Beatstick who is a self-booster.
Amazoness Fighter- Swords Woman younger sister.
Amazoness Blowpiper- a constant annoyer.

They are cards that don’t really need explaining because Paladin is obvious. Blowpiper lowers a monster by 500 points during your standby phase, an effect that most likely will only work with Tiger on the field. Fighter is the cheap-man’s Swords Woman. She can discover facedown monsters, and take a hit and not cost you any life points. All in all, the Amazoness is a mighty force. Just because they don’t have the major support other decks have, doesn’t mean they can’t be competitive. Here is a deck example:

Monsters: 16

2x Amazon Archer
1x Amazoness Chain Master
3x Amazoness Paladin
3x Amazoness Swords Woman
2x Amazoness Tiger
2x Enraged Battle Ox / 2x Command Knight
1x Freed the Matchless General
2x Marauding Captain

Spells: 17

2x Amazoness Spellcaster
2x The A. Forces
2x Reinforcement of the Army
The Warrior Returning Alive
Heavy Storm
Scapegoat
Snatch Steal
Premature Burial
Pot of Greed
Graceful Charity
Delinquent Duo
Mystik Wok
Rush Recklessly
Mystical Space Typhoon

Traps: 7

3x Amazoness Archers
1x Dramatic Rescue
Call of the Haunted
Mirror Force
Ring of Destruction / Ceasefire

In the subject header it should say: "Your CCG Amazoness Deck Tip." Or something along those lines... or I'll delete it. ^_^

Oh! And thank you for all of your responses to my Harpie Lady article back in May.