• Pojo Home Page
  
• Message Board
  
• Contact Staff
  

Deck Analysis:

Dragon’s Fury
May 26, 2006

Hello, readers. Today I’m going to present you a new, yet one of my oldest formats of a Deck Analysis Article. This might sound confusing, so allow me to explain. Before I became a Featured Writer here on pojo.com, I’ve written some Deck Analysis Articles in the TCG Tips Section. Those articles were very, very detailed...a bit too detailed if you ask me, but the way of writing was something I kinda liked: giving a little introduction, explain the monster line-up, then the Spell line-up, then the Traps and finally a summary of the deck. So, that’s what I’m going to do now.

Anyway, onto the introduction of this article. This article will show you how to build a Dragon Deck. Dragons are one of the coolest things around in my opinion. In the Yu-Gi-Oh, they possess enormous power, but they have a big downside. Almost all ‘good’ Dragon-Cards are Tribute Monsters, which makes it hard to run a competitive Dragon Deck. But, I’m still trying to make one by using the Special Summoning abilities of one of the best Dragons in the game: King Dragun. But besides that, it will contain beatdown cards to make good use out of the King Dragun’s effect so that you can quickly take out your opponent. I’ve thrown in some burn cards also, to speed up the Life Points-lowering process. Let’s start!

Main Guidelines for the Construction of the Dragon Deck

Deck Name: Dragon’s Fury

Deck Theme: Dragon

 

-- Main Focus --

Using the swarming nature of Dragon Cards together with their destructive effects to gain control over the field and inflict mass amounts of damage to the opponent’s Life Points.

-- Strong Points --

The strengths of a Dragon Deck lie in its capability of swarming the field with strong monsters and destroying the Spell and Trap Cards through Stamping Destruction at the same time. The high ATK of the Tribute Monsters that this deck has access to is also something that should not be overlooked.

-- Weak Points --

Some of the Dragon Deck’s downsides is the fact that it can run into bad hands sometimes, because of the high amount of Tribute Monsters. Also, monster removal might be a problem, since the deck is more focused on Spell and Trap Removal. It relies on its strong monsters to take out other monsters, but when that’s not possible, this deck might get into some problems.

-- Main Form of Support --
This Deck should be supported by including cards that support the swarming theme, but also cards that can cure or make good use out of the bad draws and hands a Dragon Deck could suffer from.

-- Examples of Support Cards --
King Dragun (Swarm), Spear Dragon (Trample), Final Attack Orders (Mass Life Points Damage) and Stamping Destruction (Destruction).

Analysing the Monster Line-up:

In order to create a decent monster line-up for a Dragon Deck, we will need to follow the guidelines I wrote down above. This Dragon Deck will be built around King Dragun, because of its amazing ability to protect and summon dragons very easily. It’s a Fusion, so that means that there are 3 main ways to bring him out: through Polymerization, through Metamorphosis or through one of the Hex-Sealed Fusions. Since a summoning through Polymerization would result into a too devastating disadvantage, I’m going to skip that option. Since King Dragun is a Level 7 monster, Metamorphosis might not work that well in a typical Dragon Deck. That leaves us with the final option: one of the Hex Sealed Fusions. And since King Dragun is a Dark Monster, we will have to use The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion in this deck. If we’re going to use this option, we will need to include at least one of the required Fusion Monster Material monsters, and I’m going to use Lord of D.

With the use of King Dragun, we’ve cured one of the main problems of a Dragon Deck. Most of the Dragon Monsters exist out of Tribute Monsters, so that means that a typical Dragon Deck will suffer a lot of bad draws. But thanks to the effect of King Dragun, which allows his user to Special Summon a Dragon Monster from his/her hand each turn, you won’t have to tribute any monsters to bring them out.

In order to make good use out of the swarming ability of King Dragun, the deck should run some beatdown cards. I’m going to add Spear Dragon and Luster Dragon for this. They both have an excellent 1900 ATK. The big downside about Spear Dragon is that he’s switched to Defense Position after he has attacked, and with only 0 DEF, he won’t last that long. But his trample ability makes up for that. And even though Luster Dragon is a Normal Monster, he will fit in this deck. He has one of the best stats for a Level 4 monster and that makes him one of the best beatdowners around.

Now, let’s take a look at some powerful Dragon Tribute Monsters. The first card I want to add in this category is Tyrant Dragon, one of my all-time favorite Dragons. It has an excellent 2900 ATK and 2500 DEF, almost just as strong as the legendary Blue-Eyes White Dragon. His effect is what makes him so cool. If there is a monster on your opponent’s side of the field after you’ve attacked with this card, then it may attack once again. And with 2900 ATK, that’s pretty cool. His second effect is rather useless when King Dragun is already out, but when he isn’t, then it’s pretty nice. An in-built protection effect against targeting Trap Cards can prevent him from being destroyed by Sakuretsu Armor and other cards. The second Tribute Monster I’d like to add is Kaiser Glider. It’s a Dragon Monster with 2400 ATK that cannot be destroyed in battle when it battles with a monster with an equally high ATK. This makes him immune to the attacks of all Monarchs and Jinzo and he can take out the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys without destroying itself. His second effect forces you to return a monster from the field to the owner’s hand when he’s destroyed and sent to the Graveyard, and that could allow you to set up for a massive swarm.

That’s it for the Tribute Monsters. One other monster I’d like to add is Mystic Tomato. He can fetch out Sangan, The Dark – Hex-Sealed Fusion and Lord of D. to summon King Dragun faster. This allows you to gain control over the game very quickly. Another card that’s going to be in this deck is Twin-Headed Behemoth. He’s an excellent choice for this deck, because of the fair amount of Tribute Monsters it contains. If you aren’t able to get out King Dragun, you can always use this as solid Tribute Bait. Finally, I want to add Mirage Dragon, another very powerful Dragon. He can protect your Dragons against Mirror Force, for example, and he’s a whole lot easier to bring out than King Dragun.

Finally, I’m going to add the staple monster cards: Sangan and Breaker the Magical Warrior. This leaves us with the following monster line-up:

Monsters: 19

2 Tyrant Dragon

2 Kaiser Glider

3 Spear Dragon

2 Mirage Dragon

2 The Dark – Hex-Sealed Fusion

2 Mytic Tomato

2 Lord of D.

1 Luster Dragon

1 Twin-Headed Behemoth

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Sangan

Fusions: 3

3 King Dragun

Analysing the Spell Line-Up:

The Spell Cards of a Dragon Deck are very important to the effectiveness of the deck. The Dragon monsters need a lot of support to work properly, and that can only be done by adding the correct Spell and Trap Cards to the deck.

Because of the high amount of Tribute Monsters, the risk of having bad draws still exists. Without King Dragun, this deck will have a hard time building up a decent field presence, because cards like Mirage Dragon, Lord of D., The Dark – Hex-Sealed Fusion and a Defense Position Spear Dragon aren’t that hard to deal with. This makes it hard to get out your Tribute Monsters. In order to cure this problem, I’m adding Rush Recklessly and Brain Control. Rush Recklessly allows your weaker monsters to take out stronger ones so that they will remain on the field themselves. Then you can tribute them if you want. Brain Control can also be used as a support card for the Tribute Summoning of some of your monsters. But aside from that, it’s also a nice card to use when you’re about to finish the game.

Another Spell Card that is absolutely necessary in this deck is Stamping Destruction. It can get rid of your opponent’s S/T cards to ensure that your attack won’t be disrupted by a Mirror Force or something like that. And with the swarming nature of dragons and an aggro-like deck, S/T removal is very important to protect the high amount of monsters that exists on your side of the field.

One final Spell Card I would like to mention in special is Smashing Ground. As said earlier, this deck might have some problems with building up a decent field presence without the use of King Dragun. The weaker monsters won’t be able to break through an opponent’s line of strong monsters. That’s why Smashing Ground is in here: to get rid of big threats so that your smaller monsters can attack your opponent’s Life Points directly and build up a field presence so that they can be used as tributes for Tribute Summons.

The rest of the Spell Cards are mainly Spell staples, so let’s take a look at the current Spell Line-Up:

Spells: 13

2 Stamping Destruction

2 Smashing Ground

2 Rush Recklessly

1 Brain Control

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Snatch Steal

1 Graceful Charity

1 Nobleman of Crossout

Analysing the Trap Line-Up:

Aside from the usual Staple Traps, I’ve got a few other Trap Cards that work well with the other cards in this Dragon Deck. The first one to mention is Ceasefire. With the swarming capabilities of this deck and the already-present burn effects that can be obtained through Stamping Destruction, adding some more burning abilities to the deck would be a wise thing to do. When this deck works properly, you will be in control of the field most of the time, and your opponent will be put in a defensive position. He/She will set his/her monsters, allowing you to summon even more monsters. Ceasefire doesn’t only reveal the set monsters of your opponent, but it also deals a fair amount of damage to his/her Life Points for each effect monster on the field. Combine this with some direct hits of your strong dragon monsters and Stamping Destruction to decrease your opponent’s Life Points to a very low amount.

The next and last card I would like to talk about is Final Attack Orders. It forces all monsters into Attack Position as soon as they are face-up on the field. This card allows you to deal mass amounts of damage with your monsters, because your opponent will be unable to defend his/her Life Points. But that’s not all. This card can generate a nice advantage when combined with Spear Dragon. Spear Dragon is switched to Defense Position after attacking. With 0 DEF, he’s the perfect attack target for your opponent when it is in Defense Position. However, when you activate Final Attack Orders when your opponent attacks him in Defense Position, he will be switched into Attack Position and possibly take out the attacking monster. And that’s a +1 in your advantage.

The rest of the Trap Cards are all pretty standard cards, so here’s the line-up:

Traps: 7

2 Final Attack Orders

2 Sakuretsu Armor

1 Ceasefire

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

Deck Summary

The cards in this deck work really well all together. With the ability to bring out King Dragun very quickly by the use of Mystic Tomato to bring out either Lord of D. or The Dark – Hex-Sealed Fusion, this deck can take control over the field very quickly. King Dragun protects himself and all other Dragons on your field from cards like Sakuretsu Armor, Snatch Steal and Chaos Sorcerer’s removal effect to name a few. These cards are currently used in almost every deck, along with Zaborg the Thunder Monarch and Cyber Dragon, who won’t stand a change either. So, it’s safe to say that King Dragun forms the core of this deck. It’s effect is being put to good use by adding multiple Tribute Monsters that can swarm the field very easily with nice effects and high ATK values. The problem however, is that they can still lead to bad hands. But enough has be done about that. Spear Dragon combined with Final Attack Orders, Twin-Headed Behemoth, Smashing Ground and Sakuretsu Armor can defend your Life Points pretty well so that you’ve got some extra time to find a way to bring out King Dragun. Once this has been accomplished, the duel should be yours. Torrential Tribute, Lightning Vortex and Mirror Force will still remain a problem, but with Lightning Vortex seeing less play and the fact that Torrential Tribute and Mirror Force are easily taken out by the high amount of S/T removal cards in this deck, your Dragons should be pretty safe.

Then, there are cards like Ceasefire and Swords of Revealing Light that will make sure that you won’t run into any unexpected surprises. And if that wasn’t enough protection, then Mirage Dragon can also stop Sakuretsu Armor and Mirror Force, even when King Dragun is not on the field. Defend him with Rush Recklessly, and you’ll be alright.

Conclusion: This is a deck that’s focused on the devastating effects of King Dragun and uses it to swarm the field with strong dragons and protecting them at the same time. This allows the deck to be fast and deadly, and it works very well.

Well, I guess that does it for this article.

All your comments, suggestions, reactions, etc. can be sent to ShineSoldier@gmail.com.

‘Til next time,

~ShineSoldier~