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GeneralZorpa on Yugioh
Armageddon Complex
December 14, 2008

Cuz, I'm Leavin' On a Jet Plane
 
Or rather an intensely large explosion, your preference. Basically, the game right now is all about decimating your opponent's cards before he or she can do anything about it and then control the field with big monsters. The top decks right now, Lightsworn and Tele-DAD, do this by sifting through their deck at an incredible rate, thanks mostly to these five spells, Charge of the Light Brigade, Solar Recharge, Allure of Darkness, Destiny Draw and Reinforcements of the Army.
 
Without these cards, the decks are completely useless, unable to form a cohesive whole on their own, especially cards like Dark Grepher, Necro Garna and Wulf, Lightsworn Beast. So how do you decimate an opponent's hand and options before they can do anything about it?
 
I came up with several solutions. The first was Protector of the Sanctuary, a successful pick for Gadgets, but too week and not that effective. The second was Trap Dustshoot, which is viable, but it is at one per deck and can only affect Monsters when it is Spells we are after. The third was Psi-Impulse, a normal Spell that forces you to Tribute a Psychic monster and then your opponent shuffles his/her hand into their deck and draws 3 cards, leaving you even in cards, but your opponent with less options.
 
It was then that I realized that there just aren't enough viable hand control cards left for that to be truly viable. o what are you going to do? Well, you nuke it, just like Bruce Willis would have done. Here's the deck:
 
 Armageddon Complex
 
Monsters-22
 
3x Sky Scourge Norleras
3x Dark Necrofear
3x Demise, King of Armageddon
 
3x Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
3x Archfiend Soldier
3x Gil Garth
3x Phantom of Chaos
1x Sangan
 
Spells-18
 
3x Trade-In
3x Hand Destruction
2x Foolish Burial
2x Ritual Foregone
2x Dark World Dealings
1x Card Destruction
1x Heavy Storm
1x Giant Trunade
1x Monster Reborn
1x Advanced Ritual Art
1x Contract With the Abyss
 
You Know, Like Wile Coyote!
 
If you thought Tele-DAD was fast, wait until you see the speed that this baby has. 12 spells dig cards out of the deck or draw and 4 monsters do. The idea is to simply go first and destroy an opponent before they can really do anything.
 
The basic strategy is to race through your deck faster than an ACME rocket in order to reach your combo pieces, which are insanely simple to get to. You need Phantom of Chaos in hand and Sky Scourge Norleras in the graveyard. That's it. You summoned the Phantom, copy Norleras and boom! You have a card in hand and they have none. With any luck, it will be Dark Necrofear which you can Special Summon and attack for 2200 damage.
 
It will be unlikely that an opponent could do anything about Necrofear with just the one card that they are going to draw next turn, hopefully Destiny Draw or another such card. Even if they do get lucky and get Dark Armed Dragon with 3 DARKs in Grave, you just activate Necrofear's effect and steal it! Same thing goes for judgment Dragon.
 
In fact, sometimes you will not get so lucky, drawing a copy of Hand Destruction instead of Dark Necrofear. This is why the Ritual Aspect of the deck is there. It both adds some more deck thinning as well as a backup in case the original plan fails or backfires.
 
If I Go I Wanna Take My Own Men
 
Sky Scourge Norleras is the best monster in the game right now. No joke. He nukes everything for just 1000 lp, something only Judgment Dragon can even get close to. You will often not actually summon him, but Phantom of Chaos can copy his effect, allowing you to still nuke the field. But the deck is loaded with Fiends and a couple of Fairies so that he will likely never be a dead draw.
 
Dark Necrofear is one of the trickiest cards in the deck. She works for both Trade-In and can be used as Fiend fodder for another Necrofear or Norleras. Her effect makes her a deadly force on teh field and her 2200 ATK and 2800 DEF make her one of the deadliest cards you can draw with Norleras' effect. Did I mention that you can use MOnster Reborn on her too?
 
Demise, King of Armageddon is the backup guy. You can use Phantom to copy him in a pinch, but you can also use Contract and Advanced Ritual to play him as well as Trade-In, Necrofear and Norleras fodder. It will be more ideal to summon this guy than Norleras, as he can survive his ordeal and deal some real damage. However, he does not kill the hand, so he is going to be more of a late-game card than Norleras.
 
Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands serves as the LIGHT Fairy requirement for Norleras as well as being a solid 1400 ATK. He also searches out Demise, ARA and Contract, making it more likely to pull off a Demise Summon as well as sift for your combo pieces. This is the Stratos of the deck, and you will usually set up your turn by playing him in order to get your draw engines going.
 
Archfiend Soldier is my friend Jon's favorite card, packing the Fiend type, DARk attribute and stunning 1900 ATK and 1500 DEF as well as being a Normal for ARA. This makes this little guy the footsoldier fo the deck. He will often be fodder for Necrofear, Norleras, Demise and Hand Destruction, but will also be your main attacker. When options are limited, 1900 ATK is huge and will kill most anything in battle as well as deal hefty damage.
 
Gil Garth does almost everything that Archfiend Soldier does, but with 100 less ATK. You will often want to use him more for fodder, but 1800 is still a lot, making it easy to deal damage. The rules say that we cannot use 6 copies of Archfiend Soldier, so we are stuck with Gil Garth.
 
Phantom of Chaos is the evil key to the whole deck. He can copy any monster, but most preferably Demise or Norleras. This allows you access to the field and hand clearing effects of these monsters as well as any other ATK increase to destroy an opposing monster. He is only searchable by Sangan, so he will be the hardest part of your combo to get.
 
Sangan is the string around the evil key to the deck. He basically only searches out Phantom of Chaos or Manju in order to get a bad start off to a good one. Sangan is also a pretty good start-up play as you can likely get going with your plans next turn.
 
Lets Chew Through This Turd!
 
Trade-In is the main source of deck sifting that will be used. All of the level 8 monster in the deck that can be used with this card are all Fiends, fueling the Norleras, Necrofear and Phantom of Chaos. It is a great card, as it does not sift through your cards at a -1 cost to you like Dark World Dealings or Hand Destruction, but gets you closer to your goal without a loss of cards. That is not so huge for the early game of this deck but is huge later on after you have made your push, getting rid of dead copies of Demise, Norleras and occasionally Necrofear for the cards that you really need.
 
Hand Destruction is one amazing card. Not only does it sift through your deck while getting your combo pieces in the graveyard, it disrupts your opponent as well. This makes it more likely that an opponent will draw a useful card and have to discard it for Norleras or Card Destruction when you finally have your combos online. Dark World Dealings does the same thing except not as well. Since we do not want to really remove cards from play, but put massive amounts of them into the graveyard, this card is far superior in this deck than the amazing Allure of Darkness.
 
Foolish Burial is another way to get the cards that you need into the graveyard. It can send Norleras, Demise and any other cards that you would not otherwise want to draw out of the way and into the graveyard while thinning your deck even more so that you can draw the rest of your combo pieces. Most of your games will be won by playing Foolish Burial and then Phantom of Chaos, getting your Norleras combo up and running in no time.
 
Ritual Foregone is a panic button. Often you will have extra copies of Demise in your hand and no ARA or Contract in sight, even with the copies of Manju searching them out. It is incredibly good in the late game, as people are generally not expecting a field clear for only 2 cards and 1000 lp. As the monster cannot attack it has far more limited use than a traditional Ritual Summon, but can often turn a bad situation into a good one, especially against Lightsworn, who hate to have their field cleared.
 
Card Destruction is another way to disrupt an opponent. After Dark World Dealings and Hand Destruction have done their thing, your opponent will likely have sifted through their deck a bit and kept the best cards that they draw. You can send that all away with Card Destruction, sending key cards like Stratos to the graveyard where they are of far more limited use than they would have otherwise been. It can also get a hand full of monsters out of the way and allow you to get to your draw spells so that you can get your combo off.
 
Heavy Storm and Giant Trunade are used here to clear out opposing copies of Solemn Judgment and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast that would otherwise make you a sad panda. Remember, Phantom of Chaos has priority to activate it's own effect by assuming the name of a removed monster, but wind blast can be chained before you activate the Norleras or Demise effect you would have wanted. Both of these cards stop those kind of shenanigans and Solemn Judgment is especially nasty when you are later in the game, so this is your answer to that.
 
Monster Reborn does what it does best in every other deck. It can revive fallen copies of Necrofear as well as Manju, Gil Garth and Archfiend Soldier for a quick beatdown after you have nuked the field. It can also steal an opponent's monster, giving you limited access to Synchro monsters like Goyo Guardian that can help in deflecting an opponent from your true goals. Reborn is just an all-around good card, and even in decks packing Royal Oppression it is a good pick, so it helps even more in a deck that will ALWAYS have a monster in the graveyard.
 
Advanced Ritual Art and Contract With the Abyss summon Demise. Beyond that they are almost entirely useless. Except as discard fodder when you have run out of Demise. Manju is a +1, so you can discard unwanted copies of ARA or Contract  while you dig with Hand Destruction.
 
The Mission Has Suffered Massive Failure
 
There are so many ways that this deck can be countered it is not even funny. That is why speed is so important. The quicker you get the combo off, the less likely an opponent will get the cards they need in order to be able to come back from the destruction you unleashed. Here are just a few cards that will destroy this deck.
 
-Thunderking Rai-Oh
-Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
-Vanity's Fiend
-Stardust Dragon
-Solemn Judgment
-Royal Oppression
-Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
-Threatening Roar
 
Last I checked all of these cards were seeing some play, so countering them is going to be really hard, making speed your best weapon. Heavy Storm and Giant Trunade will be able to deal with many of the trap threats before they become an issue. The monsters are a different story. Vanity's Fiend in particular is bad news, as you cannot get over it in battle and there is essentially no monster removal without Special Summoning unless you are lucky enough to get Phantom of Chaos off.
 
Stardust Dragon is even more of a pain, as once your opponent learns your strategy, they will summon it every chance they can. Basically you will have to use Dark Necrofear to steal it. Which is pretty cool, but Necrofear is better at stopping other cards like Dark Armed Dragon. However, I feel that Stardust Dragon is seeing signifigantly less play than it should, making it a possibility that your opponent simply will choose the wrong Synchro befor ethey know what you're got.
 
Well, that is almost it for this article, but don't forget that you can completely customize this deck. Allure of Darkness, Dark Armed Dragon and Herald of Creation are great picks for the deck, but you can do whatever you want with it. As always, raptor1k@hotmail.com is where I'll be if you have any questions or comments or ideas on naything Yu-Gi-Oh! related.