Deck Analysis 8:
Looking at the Horus Deck.

By ~ShineSoldier~

Hey once again.
I’m back with another article and this time we’re looking at the Horus Deck.
A Horus Deck means a Deck that focusses on three cards:
Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4, Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6 and Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8.


Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv 4
Fire / Dragon
Effect
4*

“As long as this card remains face-up on your side of the field, control of this card cannot switch. During the End Phase of a turn that this card destroyed a monster as a result of battle, send this card to the Graveyard to Special Summon 1 "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6" from your hand or Deck.”

ATK 1600 / DEF 1000


Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6
Fire / Dragon
Effect
6*

“As long as this card remains face-up on your side of the field, it is unaffected by any Spell Cards. During the End Phase of a turn that this card destroyed a monster as a result of battle, send this card to the Graveyard to Special Summon 1 "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8" from your hand or Deck.”

ATK 2300 / DEF 1600


Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv 8
Fire / Dragon
Effect
8*

“This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card cannot be Special Summoned except by the effect of ‘Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6’. As long as this card remains face-up on your side of the field, you can negate the activation and effect of any Spell Cards and destroy them.”

ATK 3000 / DEF 1800


The two final Horus Cards are immune to Spells. Horus LV8 even has the power to negate all of them! A very powerful card indeed. Let’s look at them one by one.
Horus LV4 has a nice bonus effect: He cannot be controlled by your opponent. He’s got 1600 attack, which is nice. Unfortunately, he only has 1000 defense, meaning he will fall prey to Tsukuyomi. When he destroys a monster as a result of battle, you can sacrifice him during that End Phase to bring out...
Horus LV6. He has a very nice effect: Immunity to all Spells, meaning he can’t be destroyed by Smashing Ground, nor can he be targeted by Enemy Controller. This card can be normal summoned, but summoning him through LV4 might be a little bit faster. His 2300 attack is very good for a level 6 monster, and his 1600 defense makes him Tsuku-proof. Just like with LV4, when he destroys a monster in battle, you can summon the bigger version of this card:
Horus LV8 is even better than LV6. He has a whopping 3000 attack, which is fabulous. His 1800 defense is a bit low, but who would be that crazy to put this in defense mode? He can negate ALL Spells you want to, which means you can still use Spells. The best card in the entire Horus Deck, to be short about this.

Well, obviously, Horus Decks are good at negating Spells. That ability gives the deck some sort of protection, so you can swarm without having to worry about Nobleman and Smashing Ground (or before his ban: Dark Hole). A strategy that works very well in a Horus Deck is playing calm and let your opponent use a lot of his resources while you counter them all. This way, you’ll have a fair amount of cards in your hand late-game so that you have a lot of options when it’s time to bring out LV8.

A card that will work very well in a Horus Deck is Royal Decree.


Royal Decree
Trap / Continous

“As long as this card remains face-up on the field, negate the effects of all Trap Cards on the field except this one.”


I think most of you already know this combo, but for everyone who doesn’t, I’ll explain it.
Royal Decree stops all Trap Cards. Now why is this so good in a Horus Deck? Because you can totally lock your opponent down. Horus LV8 negates all Spells. If you combine that card with this one, your opponent won’t be able to use any Spells nor Traps!

And thanks to the limitation of D. D. Assailant, there aren’t many cards that will form a threat to Horus anymore. Maybe Newdoria will see more play now, but we’re going to discuss that problem later.

Since Horus LV4 and LV6 need to destroy a monster in battle to summon their bigger parts, let’s add some support for that.


Ojama Trio
Trap / Normal

“Special Summon 3 ''Ojama Tokens'' (Beast-Type/LIGHT/2 Stars/ATK 0/DEF 1000) in Defense Position on your opponent's side of the field. The tokens cannot be used as a Tribute for a Tribute Summon. When an ''Ojama Token'' is destroyed, inflict 300 points of damage to the controller's Life Points”.


Rush Recklessly
Spell / Quick-Play

“Increase the ATK of one face-up monster on the field by 700 points until the end phase of the turn in which this card is activated.”


Ojama Trio summons three very weak tokens on your opponent’s side of the field that could be easily destroyed by both Horus LV4 and LV6. This means you can summon LV8 very easily.
Rush Recklessly is an even better addtion. Why? Well, let’s say you’ve got Royal Decree out, together with Horus LV4. Your opponent can’t use his Torrential Tribute or Mirror Force, so he’ll have to get rid of your Horus with Spells or monsters. Since Horus LV4 isn’t a real threat alone to your opponent, he’ll try to keep his precious Spells for later. Then he’ll summon...let’s say Cyber Dragon and attacks your Horus. You use your Rush Recklessly, destroy the Cyber Dragon and during your opponent’s End Phase, you offer Horus LV4 to bring out LV6. Then the only thing left to do is destroy a monster with LV6 on your own turn and there is LV8.

If we would include ‘Ojama Trio’ to summon the Horus LV8 faster, then we might get stuck with a bad hand, since Ojama Trio by itself is a bad card. So in order to make good use out of Ojama Trio, besides only using Horus, we will add two more cards.


Spear Dragon
Wind / Dragon
Effect
4*

“If this card atacks with an ATK that is higher than the DEF of your opponent's Defense Position monster, inflict the difference as Battle Damage to your opponent's Life Points. When this card attacks, it is changed to Defense Position at the end of the Damage Step.”

ATK 1900 / DEF 0


Enemy Controller
Spell / Quick-Play

“Select and activate 1 of the following effects:
- Change the Battle Position of 1 face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field.
- Offer 1 monster on your side of the field as a Tribute. Select 1 face-up monster on your opponent's side of the field. Take control of the selected card until the End Phase of the turn this card is activated.”


Spear Dragon can trample right through the Tokens and inflict some nice damage.
Enemy Controller is in this deck for many reasons more than just switching Ojama Tokens in attack mode. Of course, bringing out a 0-attack monster on your opponent’s side of the field is nice, but this card really shines in this deck, because it’s a Spell. That means you can still use this card when Royal Decree is out, so you will be able to stop attacks, while your opponent can’t (he’ll be running Saku and Mirror Force most of the time). The second effect of Enemy Controller could also be very nice. You can offer one monster on your side of the field to take control of one of your opponent’s. And not to forget: This card works perfectly against Spirit Reaper, the main enemy of this deck.

As said earlier, the only thing that forms a threat to this deck are monsters. To negate this type of card too, we’ll be adding Dark Ruler Ha Des


Dark Ruler Ha Des
Dark / Fiend
Effect
6*

“As long as this card remains face-up on the field, negate the effects of Effect Monsters destroyed by Fiend-Type monsters on your side of the field as a result of battle. This card cannot be Special Summoned from the Graveyard.”

ATK 2450 / DEF 1600


He’s a Fiend himself, so all the monsters he’ll destroy will have their effects negated too.
That means he can negate D. D. Assailants, D. D. Warrior Ladies, Magician of Faiths and many cards more, so this’ll be a solid protection card.
Just to add some more protection to this deck, in case you can’t bring this guy out, we’re going to include My Body As a Shield.


My Body As a Shield
Spell / Quick-Play

“Pay 1500 Life Points to negate the activation and the effect of card that has the effect of destroying one or more monsters on the field and destroy the card.”


Since we’re using a lot of tributes now, it would be wise to include some cards that ease this procedure. Brain Control comes to mind immediately.


Brain Control
Spell / Normal

“Pay 800 Life Points. Take control of one face-up monster on your opponent’s side of the field until the End Phase of the turn in which this card is activated.”


A great topdeck when your hand is full of tributes and your being slammed by a Berserk Gorilla or something. Just steal their Berserk Gorilla and tribute it for your precious Horus LV6.

Another card that works very well in decks that contain a lot of Tributes is Twin Headed Behemoth.


Twin Headed Behemoth
Wind / Dragon
Effect
3*

“If this monster is destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, this monster is Special Summoned with an ATK and DEF of 1000 during the End Phase of the turn. This effect can be used only once during the current Duel.”

ATK 1500 / DEF 1200


Twin Headed Behemoth will return to the field whenever he’s destroyed and sent to the Graveyard. Too bad you can only use his effect once.

This deck is good at dealing with face-up monsters (Brain Control, Enemy Controller, Snatch Steal). What this deck hates, are face-down threats. Of course, we’ve already added some cards that help dealing with this (Dark Ruler Ha Des, My Body As A Shield), but we could use one more. Let’s use Nobleman of Crossout for that.


Nobleman of Crossout
Spell / Normal

“Destroy 1 face-down monster and remove it from play. If the monster is a Flip Effect Monster, both players must check their respective Decks and remove all monsters of the same name from play. Then shuffle the Decks.”


A perfect card for this deck.

Well, we’ve looked at some of the weaknesses of this deck: Spirit Reaper and Face-Down Threats, and we’ve found ways to deal with them.

Now it’s time to add the Staple Cards.
+ Snatch Steal
+ Graceful Charity
+ Heavy Storm
+ Mystical Space Typhoon
+ Scapegoat
+ Premature Burial
+ Breaker the Magical Warrior
+ Torrential Tribute
+ Call of the Haunted

Well, let’s construct the deck.

Monsters: 17x
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 8
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 8
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 6
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 6
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 4
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 4
Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv. 4
Spear Dragon
Spear Dragon
Spirit Reaper
Spirit Reaper
Breaker the Magical Warrior
Magician of Faith
Magician of Faith
Twin Headed Behemoth
Dark Ruler Ha Des
Jinzo

Spells: 17x
Enemy Controller
Enemy Controller
Messenger of Peace
Scapegoat
Rush Recklessly
Rush Recklessly
Brain Control
Brain Control
My Body As a Shield
Level Up!
Graceful Charity
Heavy Storm
Mystical Space Typhoon
Nobleman of Crossout
Nobleman of Crossout
Premature Burial
Snatch Steal

Traps: 6x
Royal Decree
Royal Decree
Royal Decree
Torrential Tribute
Call of the Haunted
Ojama Trio

Total Cards: 40 cards


Final Explanations:

- The Deck runs 6 tribute monsters, of which 2 nomi’s. That might look like a bad thing, but with Scapegoat + Enemy Controller, Brain Control, Snatch Steal, Twin Headed Behemoth and 2 Spirit Reapers, you’ll have a lot of cards to gain or use as tribute bait.
- I included Jinzo to add more Trap Negation. Royal Decree is a very good card, but it doesn’t protect you from attacks. Jinzo has a lot of attack points, so he will do that.
- Spirit Reaper is, as stated above, for tribute bait. That and he forms a nice defense so that you’ll have some time getting the pieces of your lockdown combo.
- Messenger of Peace is also for defense. And the nice part is that Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6 can attack even when it’s on the field, since he’s unaffected by Spells.
- Level Up! is a very handy card in this deck. You can summon Horus LV4, use this and attack with LV6 to summon LV8...And that all in one turn!
- There is only one copy of Ojama Trio, since it doesn’t give you the necessary defense.

Some Strategy Tips and Combo’s:
- Scapegoat + Enemy Controller
- The best way to play with this deck is to use Spirit Reaper and Messenger of Peace to stall long enough so that you can get your combination. That way, you’ll totally surprise your opponent.
- Try to only use Royal Decree when you’ve got either Horus LV6 or LV8 out. Of course, when your opponent activates Torrential while you have 4 monsters out, don’t hestitate to use it...


That does it for this article.
I hope you liked it and if you want to share your thoughts about it with me, or if you want to say anything else, feel free to mail me at slam25@hetnet.nl

‘Til next time,
~ShineSoldier~