• Pojo Home Page
  
• Message Board
  
• Contact Staff
  

FanatikMonk on Yu-Gi-Oh!
Skulls Everywhere!
August 31, 2006 

         Yea baby, we’re doing it again!  Welcome to my first week of my second year of college where I have nothing to do but write articles on Yu-Gi-Oh!  Today I come to you with the last of my trap based decks and perhaps one of the best.  I’ve gotten some e-mails recently about why I’m building so many heavily trap based decks and how they’re applicable to the September 1^st environment.  My response is that, with a greater emphasis on chainable traps (thank you ring of destruction), the Meta will shift away from out and out Royal Decree use and go back to Jinzo based themes.  Understanding the necessity for everyone to use traps to protect themselves from many OTK decks, more people will justify their use of Jinzo through their inability to use decree.  Single teched decrees may become common, but it’ll never compare to what the meta once was.  Thus, trap based decks have more security in strategy.  Speaking of trap based decks lets build one!

            Knock, Knock!  (Who’s There?)  A card that can destroy any monster at any point during any turn and can be used as many times as needed?  (What?)  Skull Lair, that’s who!

            Many people have overlooked this fantabulous card which I expected to make a strong showing in last year’s Return based craze.  So, first, the card:

Skull Lair

Continuous Trap
Remove any number of monster cards in your Graveyard from play. Destroy 1 face-up monster on the field whose Level Stars are equal to the number of the cards you removed from play.

            First thing to realize is that this card does activate as a spell speed 2 effect and can be used any time during either player’s turn.  Yea that’s nice.  End Phasing any monster you want is an awesome effect and being able to do it over and over again without any sacrifice from your hand or field is great.  This is one of those cards that has the potential to be b to the roken.  So first lets build the deck and then see why it’s useful.

Monsters (29)

Zaborg the Thunder Monarch x 3

Giant Rat x 3

Apprentice Magician x 2

Old Vindictive Magician x 2

Magician of Faith x 1

Injection fairy Lily x 1

D.D. Scout Plane x 3

Nimble Momonga x 3

Hero Kid x 3

Exiled Force x 2

D.D. Warrior Lady x 1

D.D. Assailant x 1

Mystic Swordsman Lv2 x 1

Morphing Jar x 1

Breaker the Magical Warrior x 1

Sangan x 1

Spells (10)

Graceful Charity x 1

Heavy Storm x 1

Mystical Space Typhoon x 1

Nobleman of Crossout x 1

Reinforcement of the Army x 2

Book of Moon x 1

Confiscation x 1

Creature Swap x 2

Traps (9)

Mirror Force x 1

Torrential Tribute x 1

Ceasefire x 1

Ring of Destruction x 1

Return from the Different Dimension x 2

Skull Lair x 3

Total 48

            Jeez that’s so much!  Wow!  Ha, you’re wrong!  Here’s the great thing about this deck, within a few turns you can have yourself set up well enough to destroy just about anything lets take a second look at the monster lineup and I’ll note the cards that are capable of summoning another monster.

Monsters (29)

Zaborg the Thunder Monarch x 3

Giant Rat x 3

Apprentice Magician x 2

Old Vindictive Magician x 2

Magician of Faith x 1

Injection fairy Lily x 1

D.D. Scout Plane x 3

Nimble Momonga x 3

Hero Kid x 3

Exiled Force x 2

D.D. Warrior Lady x 1

D.D. Assailant x 1

Mystic Swordsman Lv2 x 1

Morphing Jar x 1

Breaker the Magical Warrior x 1

Sangan x 1

            The greatest thing about this is that it provides an incredibly defensive opening.  You’ll often be gifted with a rat/nimble/apprentice to set first turn and from there you can bait your opponent into beating your monsters down.  If you’re smart you’ll be able to maintain field presence very quickly and easily from the get go.  Thin your deck quickly and as soon as you get a scout plane or two into your graveyard go whirly berserk on destruction.  The scout planes will return themselves and serve as fodder for your zaborgs (feel free to destroy your own monsters with Zaborg btw).  The deck slims faster than Opera, but can easily grow to be a serious force (again like Opera).  Due to the high monster count, any hits you take from a reaper or zaloog or goblin (the kind that likes robbin), will usually hit a monster and further your own strategy.

Advice for playing this deck:

1. Every time something is flipped blow it up immediately!  Letting your opponent get a monarch off of a dekoichi or merchant is a terrible thing.
2. Blind Aggression is your best friend.  Just keep rushing your opponent, worse case scenario they overextend summon a monster in atk and you blow it upp with your skull lair.
3. Remember that skull lair is chainable!  Use it whenever you want! 
4. The biggest part of this is the shift in tempo from a very defensive, recruiter blend to a ridiculously mean return variant.
5. Use your RFG as a toolbox!  Sure returning for game is a cool thing to do, but don’t hesitate to return exiled force, mystic 2, and your D. D.’s just to remove your opponent’s monsters.
6. Play like a champion!

Like always I hope this helped and I hope you found something in this article that you can use to your advantage.  Happy Dueling!

FanatikMonk

Clayton_Nelson@Brown.edu