From: Sephiroth The Dark
Subject: Some deck-building suggestions, and a deck for the sentimental... - Rob Gray


Hey there, guys! This is my first time posting, and I thought I'd take
this opportunity to make a few suggestions on building a deck, from the
experiences I've gained from the game. This could take a while, though, so
bear with me...

First thing's first, and I'd like to point out that, while I'm reasonably
confident that my deck-building strategies are successful in many cases, and
often quite helpful, I'm not going to guarantee that they will always be
great, or that they'll necessarily get you far in tournament-level games,
but that's not the intention of this post. My intention is to give ideas,
and maybe a little bit of help for those who are building decks for the
first time, or those who might not necessarily have considered building a
deck in this particular way. So, if you don't like this method, don't use
it; it's no skin off my back. If you do feel inspired, though, then I will
have done my job.

Now, let's get to it. For this post, I would like to use my own deck to
assist me in explaining the processes I go through in building my deck. My
first bit of advice when building a deck: start at the very basics! Get your
entire collection out on the floor, if you like, and go through your
collection until you find ONE CARD that you really like! There's no point
building a deck mindlessly without even considering whether or not you like
the cards that are in it, as I fear far too many duellists are doing these
days.

In my deck, this choice was the mighty Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon (although
technically, you could also say my inspiration stemmed from the Blue-Eyes
White Dragon). A lot of people aren’t keen on these cards; Blue-Eyes White
Dragon is a Normal monster, which requires two tributes to summon. You can
make the job easier, with cards like Kaibaman, Paladin of White Dragon,
Kaiser Seahorse, and Lord of D. with the Flute of Summoning Dragon (or King
Dragun), but you still cannot overlook the fact that it is fundamentally a
tribute monster. Then there’s Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, a Fusion monster
that requires 3 Fusion Materials to summon it to the field (unless you use
an effect like Cyber Stein’s). Its Atk is only 1.5 times the power of
Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s, and it has no effect, meaning it probably won’t
last long. So why bother?

Well, why not?! A lot of people have fallen into the trap of only ever even
considering using cards that have some kind of magnificent effect, or are
really easy to get to the field for a huge attack, and they don’t focus on
what the game is all about: fun! I chose Blue-Eyes, because it has a
significant sentimental value to me. The first deck I ever used was Starter
Deck: Kaiba, where my brother used Yugi’s equivalent. I’ve used a lot of
decks since then, but I feel most at home when I’m using my Blue-Eyes White
Dragon, because it reminds me of those very first duels, back in the good
ol’ days when my brother and I were rookies. And now, both of us are
(arguably) advanced duellists, yet fundamentally our decks have the same
core. You could say that Blue-Eyes is my “Heart of the Cards” – if you want
to be really corny.

Well, I think I’ve discussed the main card about enough. The next important
thing to consider is how you want to use it. While this may seem trivial,
it’s actually incredibly important: my first deck based around BEUD was
mercilessly crushed by the power of my brother’s most recent Dark Magician
deck, all because of one silly mistake in the consideration of my main
objective. Obviously, you want to focus your deck towards your main plan, on
the whole. But, it’s wise to have a few back-ups. For instance, a Blue-Eyes
deck may predominantly feature high-Atk Dragon monsters, but you will want
some kind of defensive strategy, just in case your opponent’s deck happens
to specialise in eating yours! In my case, my main objective was fusion –
but not necessarily the fusion of Blue-Eyes! This may seem to contradict
everything I said above, but I had a special plan for Blue-Eyes when I built
this deck. The point is, by specialising the deck towards fusions, I made
the ability to summon BEUD more likely, while at the same time opening up
options for other schemes.

Once your main plan is formed, you need to decide what you need to carry it
out. An obvious card sprang to mind for me: Polymerization. But, as a lot of
people would know, summoning BEUD with Polymerization isn’t the easiest
task, and I don’t want to bother with Cyber Stein (as with using monsters
that you like, I recommend avoiding monsters you hate. Just because everyone
else might do things one way doesn’t mean you have to; in fact, do the
opposite, just to spite them! Grr!). King Of The Swamp can increase your
chances here, though, and Dragon’s Mirror and Future Fusion can give you
alternatives if you need them. I also use Light – Hex-Sealed Fusion to give
me the option of an alternative Material in place of a Blue-Eyes.

I also included other Fusion-type monsters. King Dragun fits in nicely, so
Lord of D. and Divine Dragon Ragnarok feature as well. I also figured I’d
include the X, Y and Z monsters, as I don’t really lose anything with them
(the fact that I can summon their Fusions without using Polymerization or
equivalent is handy, but even if I can’t get the Fusions out, they aren’t
terrible cards in their own right).

After sorting this part out, I essentially went back a step and started
looking at things I could do with the BEWDs when not using BEUD. Burst
Stream of Destruction was one card that I decided to use: it might not be
one of the most useful (it stops ALL of your BEWD from attacking that turn,
even if it does destroy all of your opponent’s monsters doing so), but I
just liked the card… Lighten The Load went in my side deck in the end,
because I wanted something in case I ended up with a handful of ludicrously
high level monsters, but I ended up with too many cards at the end that I
didn’t want to get rid of.

With regards to summoning BEWD, I decided in the end to make King Dragun the
only card to really assist in that feat. This might seem like an odd way of
doing things, but to be honest, I’m in no hurry to get them on the field.

So, I’ve got my theme for the deck, I have my main card and some things to
make reasonable use of it. What next? Well, now we just need to build the
deck, really. Seems simple, but when you get into it, it can give you a real
headache. Here are some of the things I consider:

- First, how big a deck do you want? I like to keep mine close to 40 cards.
I dislike going above 55, because you’re just making the probability of
drawing the cards you really need a lot lower. My current deck has about 46
cards.
- Now that you’ve decided how big the deck is you want to try to make, how
many should be monsters? A lot of people recommend roughly 1 monster to
every 1 spell/trap card. I think that monsters are very slightly more
important, especially if you need a lot of tributes, so I use slightly more
monsters than I do spells and traps combined (roughly 26:20 respectively).
Of these, I’d suggest about 8 or less being high level. Also, in my deck, I
only have about 8 Normal monsters (including the BEWD). Depending on what
kind of deck you want, you may choose to use a higher/lower ratio of Normal
: Effect monsters, but monsters with effects generally tend to be more…
effective…
- Next, Spells and Traps. Again, this depends on your deck. Some people like
to use a large quantity of Trap cards. However, this can leave you
susceptible to decks using Jinzo and/or Royal Decree. I prefer to use few
Traps, as they don’t serve much purpose in my deck, other than as a
safeguard in desperate situations. I currently use about 14:6 (Spells :
Traps).

Note: when doing each of these steps, bear in mind what you want to achieve
with your deck. If your deck is, like mine, focused on Fusions, then use
lots of Fusion-related cards. If you want a beatdown deck, use lots of
monsters with high Atks and effects that help destroy monsters/ sap LP,
along with spells and traps to add a further kick to your deck.

There are cards I recommend using in any deck. They are listed as follows:
- Curse Of Royal: a card that is effective at protecting your Spells/Traps
from those of your opponent. A good protection for when you really, really
want your Spells or Traps to work (saving Heavy Storm from Magic Jammer, for
instance).
- Jinzo: it negates Trap cards, and only requires one tribute. It also has
an Atk of 2400. Need I say more?
- Royal Decree: Jinzo, but in Trap form. You might want to field Jinzo
instead. Why not use both? Go on: have a laugh!
- Torrential Tribute: kind of a desperate measure. If your opponent is going
to kill you with his horde of wicked monsters regardless of your monsters on
the field, why not take them all out? But, it’s not the most fantastically
useful card in the deck, by any means…
- Swords of Revealing Light: good for when you just need a couple more turns
to consolidate your defences. Also a good way of seeing what sneaky plots
your opponent has with his/her face-down monsters…
- Bottomless Trap Hole: say goodbye to the ludicrously powerful monster(s)
that your opponent just summoned. With them being removed from play, you
don’t have to worry about them for a good while, hopefully (although they’re
not gone for good, by any means…)
- Mystical Space Typhoon: it’s a quick play spell card that destroys a spell
or trap on the field. You could do worse. Trust me when I say that this card
can do wonders for you (even if it gets negated by another card. Put it this
way; if they’re using another card specifically to stop you using this one,
there’s something they don’t want you touching… and now you know where it
is!)
- Heavy Storm: goes without saying. Obviously, play it when it’s most
advantageous.
- Lightning Vortex: a handy card for getting rid of those pesky monsters in
your way, especially when there’re two or three of them with a higher attack
than you, staring you in the face!
- Peten The Dark Clown: a good monster for stalling your opponent. It also
can help you get through your deck quicker to get the cards you want.
- Raging Flame Sprite: with an effect like that, why wouldn’t you want to
field one? Unless of course you just don’t like it…

Generally speaking, I like to have two or three cards for doing each of the
following tasks:

- Negation and/or destruction of Spells and/or Traps
- Destroying powerful monsters before they become too much to handle
- Cleaning up the field so that my monsters have an easy time
- Boosting my monsters’ abilities

Field spell cards can be useful, but often don’t provide as large an effect
as Equip cards (although they provide the effect to more of your monsters at
a time). So, it’s up to you which you use (or a combination of both).

Once you like the feel of your deck, you can build a side deck. I would
recommend this, as it gives you an opportunity to correct any mistakes you
have made in your deck as you notice them.

Now, I will reveal my current deck list, along with some of the ideas I came
up with as I made it. Note: I’ve not had the opportunity to play-test it
yet, so it may have a few (or a load of) bugs to iron out. I sincerely hope
not…

Monster Cards:

- Blue-Eyes White Dragon (x3)
- Horus The Black Flame Dragon Lv. 8
- Horus The Black Flame Dragon Lv. 6
- Jinzo
- Armed Dragon Lv. 5
- Kaiser Seahorse
- Luster Dragon
- X-Head Cannon
- Y-Dragon Head
- Z-Metal Tank
- Lord Of D.
- Divine Dragon Ragnarok
- Spear Dragon
- Sangan
- Mysterious Puppeteer
- Newdoria
- Raging Flame Sprite
- The Dragon Dwelling In The Cave (x2)
- Peten The Dark Clown (x3)
- King Of The Swamp
- The Light – Hex-Sealed Fusion

Spell Cards:

- Lightning Vortex
- Heavy Storm
- Burst Stream Of Destruction
- Future Fusion
- De-Fusion
- Swords Of Revealing Light
- Horn Of The Unicorn
- Wicked-Breaking Flamberge – Baou
- Mystical Space Typhoon
- Premature Burial
- Stamping Destruction
- Soul Release
- Polymerization
- Dragon’s Mirror

Trap Cards:

- Torrential Tribute
- Bottomless Trap Hole
- Curse Of Royal (x2)
- Ultimate Offering
- Royal Decree

Fusion Deck:

- Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
- King Dragun
- XYZ-Dragon Cannon
- XY-Dragon Cannon
- XZ-Tank Cannon
- YZ-Tank Dragon

Side Deck:

- Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon (again, just because I like it!)
- Kaibaman
- X-Head Cannon
- Y-Dragon Head
- Z-Metal Tank
- Spear Dragon
- Des Wombat
- Pot Of Avarice
- Spell Absorption
- Lighten The Load
- Ring Of Destruction
- Barrel Behind The Door
- Shadow Spell
- Return From The Different Dimension
- Call Of The Haunted

Part of my reason for using Future Fusion in this deck is because of the
ease in which I can summon… all three Blue-Eyes White Dragons! An odd tactic
as this might seem, by combining this card’s ability with that of De-Fusion
can enable you to call all three Blue-Eyes to the field via the summoning of
the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Of course, they have a couple of turns to
prepare for the arrival of BEUD… but you know this! Plan ahead, and trick
them into desperately using their traps, and hence falling into yours!
That’s my plan…

Combining Ultimate Offering with Mysterious Puppeteer is a fairly
straight-forward strategy, letting you summon extra monsters in one turn
without sacrificing LP. This could pay dividends when the XYZ monsters start
to appear…

Soul Release is handy if there are monsters in your opponent’s (or even your
own) graveyard that you feel would be better outside of the game. If you
bring Return From The Different Dimension into the deck, you can use this
card to put more of your monsters into the position to make use of Return’s
effect.

Wicked-Breaking Flamberge is there predominantly to protect my more
formidable monsters from being destroyed by the effects of my opponent’s
monsters. It also provides a boost of 500 Atk, which is nothing to be
sniffed at…

Aah, Horus… well, basically I figured, since Jinzo and Royal Decree had the
Traps covered, why not have a monster that can hold off my opponent’s Spells
too?

Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon may feature in this deck soon, as it’d give me more
excuse to make use of Lighten The load. I like the card, but at the moment I
can’t really justify using it, so it’s side decked until I can think up a
reason to shift it into the main deck.

Ring Of Destruction and Barrel Behind The Door, in combination, have the
potential to cause serious damage to the opponent in this deck, if not
annihilate them entirely! However, I don’t predict that I’d get much
opportunity to use this combo, so it’s in the side deck… just in case!

Well, that’s about it, really. It’s gotten a bit late, and I’m suffering
from lack of sleep at the moment, so I’ll stop here before I start waffling…
er, too late.

If anyone has any comments or questions, my e-mail address is below. Feel
free to send me any suggestions you feel may help me, as I always enjoy
constructive criticism and an opportunity to learn something new!

Thanks for reading!

Rob (aka sephiroths_champ, aka Funky Kaiba… don’t ask.)
<sephiroths_champ@hotmail.com>