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Endphase on Yu-Gi-Oh!
Fairy Tales 1: Agents Among Us
Sept. 10, 2010

There is no type of monsters in this game as confused as fairies. While some monster types like zombies or psychics have pretty clear cut motifs, fairies are all over the place in terms of effects and play styles. Would you like to play a control deck that severely limits your opponent’s options while you slowly build yours? Play counter-fairies or Perfect Herald. How about a deck that relies on overwhelming and crushing power, generating a steady stream of massive monsters that can make dragons seem tiny in comparison? Play Valhalla/Darklord fairies. What about a deck running several tiny monsters that can’t be destroyed by battle but can systematically eliminate your opponent’s hand and field in a couple of turns? Play Cloudians. High risk/high reward play is arguably best personified with the Arcana Force monsters, creatures that either gain a crushing or debilitating effect depending on the toss of a coin. If you want to play a deck that rewards equip cards and allows for some unique syncro summons, wait until the Vairons are released in a future Hidden Arsenal. Maybe you want to do two of these things simultaneously. Many of these decks have cards that link them together, making hybrids that can mold to virtually any playing style. 

So what, you may ask, is the point of this? Surely Cloudians and Arcana Force and Agents are dead decks. They were not viable upon their release and they certainly are not viable in an age of syncro summons and Gladiator Beasts. Why should anyone care about the Darklords when they won’t have a mass release for some time to come? Is there anything I could possible say about Counter-Fairies and Herald of Perfection that has not already been said?

These are all valid questions, ones I asked myself before finally sitting down to write this. The Pojo forums have excellent guides already, and they are created from the combined knowledge of many, some of which are certainly better duelists and deck creators than myself. In fact, if not for a recent announcement in the OCG (Official Yu-Gi-Oh card game in Japan), I probably would not decided to write this at all.

The twentieth structure deck in Japan, translated to Lost Sanctuary, promises new Agent monsters to revitalize the theme. Agents have seen a few, scant direct support cards since Ancient Sanctuary’s release back in May 2004.  Even then, the cards had little impact on the deck as a whole and I personally have not seen anyone else try to build Agents as their own theme since then. Five new cards are promised, and while I have no idea at the time of writing this what those five are, those cards could very well turn Agents into a viable theme. Take what Machina Mayhem did for the Machina archetype (group of monsters that are made to specifically work together and usually mention other members in their text). While properly summoning Machina Force will never be considered prudent due to the high cost, Machina Fortress, Machina Gearframe, and Machina Peacekeeper were all solid, well-designed cards that breathed new life into several monsters that would have never seen play otherwise. Unions, Gadgets, and Machines all received support with only a few cards that will more than likely be around for a long time to come.

If Lost Sanctuary does indeed revitalize Agents, Fairies as a whole will surely benefit as well. These articles are meant to act as a guide, one that highlights the strengths, weaknesses, and playstyles that Fairies have open to them, as well as to show a handful of hybrids that they can create. For those familiar with what I’ll be presenting, I hope I don’t butcher what you already know. For those unfamiliar, I hope this helps bring understanding that you did not have earlier. To both parties in question, I hope you enjoy it.

For clarification, direct support means cards that specifically mention the theme in question or a key card for the theme in question. I know Honest fits into virtually every incarnation of fairies due to the amount of LIGHT fairies, but I won’t list him under direct support because Honest is attribute and not theme support. That being said, I’ll begin with the oldest fairy-centered archetype, the Agents. 

Agents:
Released: Ancient Sanctuary 2004.
Cards Released: Archlord Zerato. The Agent of Creation - Venus. The Agent of Force - Mars. The Agent of Wisdom - Mercury. The Agent of Judgment - Saturn. Mystical Shine Ball. Warrior of Zera. The Sanctuary in the Sky.
Further Direct Support: Strike of Neos 2006, Force of the Breaker 2007.
Cards Released: Meltiel, Sage of the Sky, Nova Summoner, Neo-Parshath, the Sky Paladin. Radiant Geral. Zeradias, Herald of Heaven. 

The general idea behind Agents is to have higher life points than your opponent and then gain effects whose power is based on the difference itself. The Sanctuary in the Sky’s only effect is to prevent life point damage whenever a fairy battles, which is a fairly lackluster effect, but one that can be combined with the several fairies that can’t be destroyed by battle for a solid attacker or defender. Archlord Zerato can clear an opponent’s field of monsters with a discard and attack for 2800 and Meltiel can give you life at 1000 per activated counter trap. Burn cards like Magic Cylinder and Gain cards like Draining Shield can also work to quickly widen the life point gap between you and your opponent.  Once a substantial difference is made, Saturn can tribute itself to inflict damage equal to the difference or Neo-Parshath can attack over virtually anything, dealing piercing damage to further give itself more attack.

Like several other Archetypes, Agents need their field spell in play in order to do just about anything. In fact, without Sanctuary, Archlord Zerato can’t be summoned, Saturn can still tribute himself, but does not inflict damage, Neo-Parshath does not get an attack boost, Mars gets no attack whatsoever and loses his spell immunity, Nova Summoner cannot access Airknight Parshath, Meltiel does not gain his destruction effect, and Zeradias simply self destructs without it. In short, the deck as it stands now needs to constantly have its field in play or it loses.

There are several different ways one could go about building Agents. For example, Meltiel was made for counter traps and this not only opens up the deck to playing counter traps, but also playing fairies such as Bountiful Artemis or Layard the Liberator who also require counter traps to be activated in order to get their effects. For those wanting to run several other large monsters with their Archlord Zerato, the deck is very open to running the other Archlord, Archlord Kristya, as well as many of the monsters and cards that will be discussed in when I get to Valhalla Fairies could be considered in a hybrid build.

Burn and even first turn kill decks (FTK) are possible with Agents. For example, if you were to play Celestial Transformation into Saturn and chain Inferno Reckless summon, assuming you have the Sanctuary in the Sky in play and there is at least a 1000 LP difference, by tributing all three Saturns, you’ll win the game (the first would inflict 1000 damage, leaving your opponent at 6000, the second would inflict 2000, leaving your opponent at 4000. The third would inflict the last 4000 damage needed to win.) As for burn and stall based decks, Mars slips neatly under Gravity Bind and Level Limit Area B and can serve as a fairly reliable attacker, safe from cards like Enemy Controller, Smashing Ground, and Book of Moon while it steadily grows as you whittle your opponent’s life away.

As a whole, there is considerable room for improvement in Agents. Venus has an interesting effect, but unless you have something to do with those Shine Balls, paying 500 life a ball does not seem like such a good move when the main point of the deck is to keep your life higher than your opponents. Mercury’s effect is extremely lackluster and very difficult to use with consistency. Double that onto poor stats, and you have a card that is extremely difficult to play. Speaking of poor stats, Radiant Geral is another monster that I would also shy away from. Because its effect only triggers when killed by an effect, you would probably have to destroy it yourself quickly, as most syncro and tribute monsters can run it over by battle.

When I get to hybrids and after I’ve reviewed general fairy support and other oddities, I’ll revisit Agents and possibly string a few different builds together. On the next article, I can skip the introduction and I’ll have two more archetypes to review with two deck types on the polar opposite sides of the competitive spectrum: Counter Fairies and Cloudians.