Deck Construction: Rescue the Hero

Today I'm going to build a deck I've been thinking about for quite a while. Rescue Rabbit is a very powerful card. Its one is an automatic +1 on the field and sets you up for big Xyz plays. Rescue Rabbit has been a huge part of the game since its release, being used with Dinosaurs to make the Evolzar monsters. Aside from that, it can be used in any deck using Normal Monsters.

After trying out the Noble Rabbit deck, using Rabbit to Special Summon Noble Knight Artorigus to make Heroic Champion - Excalibur, Blade Armor Ninja, and setting up plays with Number 16: Shock Master; I started to think of other ways to use this amazing effect. When you think about a deck that has many different Vanilla Monsters, what's the first thing that comes to mind? If you said Elemental Heroes, this deck may be for you!

Deck Construction: Fiend Comedian is No Joke

A random card popped into my head, and as I usually do, I started thinking of ways to use it in a deck. That card is an old trap from Legacy of Darkness, Fiend Comedian.

Fiend Comedian

Trap Card

Toss a coin and call it. If you call it right, all of your opponent's cards in the Graveyard are removed from play immediately. If you call it wrong, send a number of cards equal to the number of cards in your opponent's Graveyard from your Deck to your Graveyard.

In the upcoming format, this card's first effect looks amazing. You banish your opponent's entire Graveyard. That means your opponent will have a hard time summoning their Judgment Dragon, Black Luster Soldier, or Master Hyperion. One of the best things about this card is that it's chainable, so if your opponent activates any card that targets or effects a card in the grave, they lose out big time.

At first look, risk outweighs the reward. What happens if you mill through most of your deck? Well I'll answer that question with another: What deck thrives on milling? Lightsworns, of course! There are several ways to retrieve your important monsters, such as Beckoning Light and Monster Reincarnation, so going through multiple JDs or your BLS shouldn't be a problem. 

I'm going to go backwards this time and list the Trap cards first. I usually don't like to max out on cards that aren't guaranteed to help, but for the sake of testing, we'll use 3 Fiend Comedian. With so much potential milling, we'll also have 3 Beckoning Light.

• Fiend Comedian x3
• Beckoning Light x3

As for Spell Cards, we'll include the usual staples and Lightsworn support. A single Monster Reincarnation should suffice since we have 3 Beckoning Light as well.

• Monster Reborn
• Heavy Storm
• Dark Hole
• Charge of the Light Brigade
• Book of Moon
• Pot of Avarice
• Monster Reincarnation
• Gold Sarcophagus
• Mystical Space Typhoon x2
• Solar Recharge x3

That's 19 cards so far, but since we'll be milling so much, we can go a little over 40. The monster line-up is pretty standard, except for the Wulfs. I usually don't like the inconsistencies that card brings, but it can be Special Summoned if milled off Fiend Comedian, so we'll max on it. I've also cut out Ryko altogether because it seems a bit too slow for this deck.

• Tragoedia
• Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
• Judgment Dragon x3
• Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
• Celestia, Lightsworn Angel x2
• Wulf, Lightsworn Beast x3
• Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress x2
• Jain, Lightsworn Paladin x2
• Garoth, Lightsworn Warrior
• Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner
• Aurkus, Lightsworn Druid
• Ehren, Lightsworn Monk
• Necro Gardna x2
• Effect Veiler x2
• Glow-Up Bulb
• Plaguespreader Zombie
• Honest

And there it is. 45 cards of fast milling, Special Summoning, hinder your opponent sackiness. Trimming it down to 40-42 cards would probably make it more effective, but that's what testing is for. Enjoy :)

Deck Construction: Skulls

^That's a Misfits reference btw^

I recently acquired a playset of the new Skull Servant support card, Wightmare, and I think it's a great time to build the deck.

We'll start with the base of the deck, Skull Servant support!

• Skull Servant
• King of the Skull Servants
• The Lady in Wight
• Wightmare

I'll be using 3 of each of these cards. Max Skull Servant seems bad, but there are plenty of ways to dump them in here.

• Armageddon Knight
• Mezuki
• Sangan

Armageddon Knight can send a Skull Servant to the graveyard whenever it's summoned, and that's very important. We really don't want to draw those little guys. Mezuki is a decent ATK beater and acts as a Monster Reborn for your Zombies. Sangan simply searches any card in the deck except Mezuki and King of the Skull Servants.

Moving along to Spell Cards, these are the basic staples that will go in. 

• Monster Reborn
• Dark Hole
• Mystical Space Typhoon

Since this deck has decent potential to OTK, we'll add some enablers. Also since King is a level one monster, we can use an Equip Spell to let him attack directly. One for One lets us discard a useless monster from the hand to Special Summon a King from the deck. Allure is draw power for all the dark monsters, and RotA searches out Armageddon Knight. Gold Sarcophagus lets us search any component of the OTK. Foolish Burial works like Armageddon Knight, and Book of Life revives any of the Zombies we send to the graveyard. And finally, Burial from a Different Dimension puts back any Skull Servants that might have been removed with King's effect or Allure, along with a used Mezuki.

• Giant Trunade
• Cold Wave
• Foolish Burial
• Allure of Darkness
• Burial from a Different Dimension
• One for One
• Reinforcement of the Army
• Gold Sarcophagus
• Opti-Camouflage Armor
• Book of Life

Moving on to the Traps, we have some basic staples and that's about it.

• Mirror Force
• Torrential Tribute
• Solemn Judgment
• Bottomless Trap Hole
• Call of the Haunted

So, for the final deck list, we have
Monsters: 17
3x Armageddon Knight
3x Skull Servant
3x King of the Skull Servants
3x The Lady in Wight
3x Wightmare
1x Mezuki
1x Sangan

Spells: 17
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
1x Giant Trunade
1x Cold Wave
1x Foolish Burial
1x Allure of Darkness
1x Burial from a Different Dimension
1x One for One
1x Reinforcement of the Army
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
2x Gold Sarcophagus
2x Opti-Camouflage Armor
2x Book of Life

Traps: 6
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Solemn Judgment
1x Call of the Haunted
2x Bottomless Trap Hole


This is only one way to run the deck, maybe next time I'll build a faster version using milling cards like Magical Merchant.

[Deck Construction] Metabo Globster.dek

While typing my last article, I noticed a card from PTDN that I made fun of, but never really read until then. I decided to build a deck around this card and take advantage of the tokens it produces.

First, since the only way to get tokens is to tribute this card for a Dark monster, we'll throw in the best ones we have. Caius is an obvious choice, and Jinzo is a good way to get around the opponent's Solemn Warnings and other traps. Then, we need a way to abuse the Metabo Tokens. Plasma negates the effects of your opponent's monsters, and lets you turn one into an equip card.

• Metabo Globster x2
• Caius the Shadow Monarch x3
• Jinzo x1
• Destiny Hero - Plasma x2

Next, we need a way to get Metabo Globster from the deck. Mystic Tomato can Special Summon it straight to the field, and Sangan can add it to your hand. With Tomato bringing out Dark monsters, we'll throw in a few more good ones. Malicious is excellent for Synchro Summons, and is a Destiny Hero. Plaguespreader Zombie is the best Dark Tuner out there and can be easily used more than once.

• Mystic Tomato x2
• Sangan x1
• Destiny Hero - Malicious x2
• Plaguespreader Zombie x1

With all the Tokens and level 6 monsters here, we can add some more Tuners. Since we have 4 Destiny Hero monsters, we can use one of the best Fusion Monsters in the game, Absolute Zero, if we add some Water monsters, which makes Deep Sea Diva a great choice as a Tuner. Stratos is another Hero for Absolute Zero, and can search for Plasma or Malicious. Then, to round out the monsters, we'll add Gorz and Dark Armed Dragon.

• Deep Sea Diva x3
• Elemental Hero Stratos x1
• Gorz, Emissary of Darkness x1
• Dark Armed Dragon x1

Now for the Spells.  Monster Reborn and Dark Hole are obvious choices. Cold Wave will let our combos go off without interruption, and Book of Moon will help take care of enemy monsters.

• Monster Reborn x1
• Dark Hole x1
• Cold Wave x1
• Book of Moon x2

With all the Dark monsters and Destiny Heroes, we can safely use Allure of Darkness and Destiny Draw to speed up the deck. Miracle Fusion is the best way to summon Absolute Zero, and Future Fusion easily enables Miracle Fusion and sends Malicious to the graveyard.

• Allure of Darkness x1
• Destiny Draw x1
• Future Fusion x1
• Miracle Fusion x2

We're using a pretty basic trap line-up. The object is to keep your opponent's monsters at bay, and Trap Stun is used for the same reason as Cold Wave.

• Mirror Force x1
• Torrential Tribute x1
• Solemn Judgment x1
• Call of the Haunted x1
• Bottomless Trap Hole x2
• Dimensional Prison x2
• Trap Stun x2

The Extra Deck is set up for using Diva and Plague in every way imaginable in this deck.

• Elemental Hero Absolute Zero x2
• Armory Arm x1
• Ally of Justice Catastor x1
• Magical Android x1
• Goyo Guardian x1
• Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier x1
• Black Rose Dragon x1
• Stardust Dragon x2
• Dark End Dragon x1
• Red Dragon Archfiend x1
• Scrap Dragon x1
• Colossal Fighter x1
• Mist Wurm x1

This is the final deck list.

Monsters: 20
1x Gorz, Emissary of Darkness
1x Dark Armed Dragon
2x Destiny Hero - Plasma
3x Caius the Shadow Monarch
1x Jinzo
2x Destiny Hero - Malicious
2x Metabo Globster
2x Mystic Tomato
1x Elemental Hero Stratos
1x Sangan
1x Plaguespreader Zombie
3x Deep Sea Diva

Spells: 10
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
1x Cold Wave
1x Destiny Draw
1x Allure of Darkness
2x Miracle Fusion
2x Book of Moon
1x Future Fusion

Traps: 10
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Call of the Haunted
1x Solemn Judgment
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
2x Dimensional Prison
2x Trap Stun

Extra: 15
2x Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
1x Armory Arm
1x Ally of Justice Catastor
1x Magical Android
1x Goyo Guardian
1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Black Rose Dragon
2x Stardust Dragon
1x Dark End Dragon
1x Red Dragon Archfiend
1x Colossal Fighter
1x Scrap Dragon
1x Mist Wurm

Deck Contruction: Burning Skulls

I recently obtained playsets of the three burning skull monsters; Burning Skull Head, Skull Flame, and Supersonic Skull Flame, and I've been thinking so hard about how to build a deck around them. That's where this post comes in. Instead of explaining a deck I already built, I'm going to go through the process of building a deck from scratch.

First, let's look at the cards which the deck will be based around.

Burning Skull Head

FIRE/Zombie/Effect

3/1000/800 

When this card is Special Summoned from your hand, inflict 1000 damage to your opponent. You can remove from play this face-up card you control to return 1 removed from play "Skull Flame" to its owner's Graveyard.

Skull Flame

FIRE/Zombie/Effect

8/2600/2000

Once per turn, you can Special Summon 1 "Burning Skull Head" from your hand. You cannot conduct your Battle Phase the turn you activate this effect. You can add 1 "Burning Skull Head" from your Graveyard to your hand instead of conducting your normal draw during your Draw Phase.

Supersonic Skull Flame

WIND/Zombie/Effect

10/2600/2000

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card can only be Special Summoned by removing 1 "Skull Flame" in your Graveyard from play. Once per turn, you can inflict 400 damage to your opponent for each "Burning Skull Head" in your Graveyard. When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard, you can Special Summon 1 "Skull Flame" from the Graveyard.

So, what do these guys do? Let's start with Skull Flame. He can special summon Burning Skull Head from your hand, dealing 1000 damage by Burning Skull Head's effect. You can also add 1 Burning Skull Head to your hand from your graveyard instead of drawing a card in your draw phase. While Skull Flame is in the graveyard, you can remove it from play to special summon Supersonic Skull Flame. Supersonic Skull Flame can deal up to 1200 damage per turn, depending on how many Burning Skull Head are in your graveyard. When it's destroyed, you can special summon 1 Skull Flame from your graveyard, which starts the cycle over again. Then, by removing from play a Burning Skull Head from your side of the field. you can place the Skull Flame you removed to special summon Supersonic Skull Flame back in the graveyard.

So basically, you should constantly have a 2600 attack monster on the field while being able to get some burn damage in as well. The great thing about these monsters is that they're Zombies, which have a huge amount of support. All three monsters can be special summoned from the graveyard, though you'd have to special summon Supersonic Skull Flame properly first.

On to the deck! First, the monsters

• 3x Burning Skull Head
• 3x Skull Flame
• 2x Supersonic Skull Flame

Since Supersonic Skull Flame cannot be easily summoned at first, we'll only use 2. I've left out Skull Conductor because there are other ways of using Burning Skull Head's effect, and without 2 Burning Skull Head in your hand, he's a pretty useless monster.

• 3x Pyramid Turtle
• 2x Il Blud
• 1x Zombie Master
• 1x Mezuki
• 2x Goblin Zombie
• 1x Plaguespreader Zombie

These are the Zombie support monsters. Pyramid Turtle can special summon any of these monsters from the deck, except Supersonic Skull Flame. Il Blud can special summon any of these monsters from your graveyard or hand, which means 1000 damage if you choose Burning Skull Head. Zombie Master can discard a high level Zombie monster for revival, and can special summon any level 4 or lower Zombie, which means reusing your Turtles. Mezuki revives Zombies, Goblin Zombie can add Burning Skull Head to your hand, as well as Zombie Master, Il Blud, Mezuki, and Plaguespreader. Now for the non Zombie-monsters.

• 1x Sangan
• 1x Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind
• 1x Dark Armed Dragon
• 1x Gorz, Emissary of Darkness

Sangan can grab Pyramid Turtle and Goblin Zombie from the deck, Gale can help take down your opponent's big monsters and synchro into Ancient Fairy Dragon, which is another way to get Burning Skull Head's burn effect. Dark Armed Dragon is here because we have plenty of dark monsters, and Gorz is a great backup defense. That makes 22 monsters. Let's look at the spell cards.

First, we'll look at all the spell cards that support the deck theme, then the staple cards and other support spells.

• 3x Book of Life
• 1x Foolish Burial
• 1x Burial from the Different Dimension

I've maxed out Book of Life to fully utilize Skull Flame and Il Blud. Foolish puts monsters in the grave to be special summoned. Burial from the Different Dimension puts Burning Skull Head, Skull Flame, Mezuki, and Plaguespreader back in the graveyard.

• 1x Heavy Storm
• 1x Allure of Darkness
• 1x Brain Control
• 1x Lightning Vortex
• 1x Card Destruction

The first 3 are basic. I'm including Vortex to clear my opponent's monsters for my Zombie swarm to attack, and with so many high level monsters, Card Destruction dumps them for revival, refreshes my hand, and can mess with my opponent's strategy. That's 10 spell cards. Now, on to the traps.

• 1x Mirror Force
• 1x Torrential Tribute
• 1x Call of the Haunted
• 1x Solemn Judgment
• 2x Bottomless Trap Hole
• 3x Thretening Roar

Solemn and Roar protect my field setup, as it may take a turn or two to get the deck moving. The rest are pretty standard.

And there we have it. 41 card deck that should constantly have you bringing out big monsters and burning your opponent the whole match. The deck should be 40 cards to keep it consistent, but I'll leave that decision up to you.

Burning Skulls

Monsters: 22

2x Supersonic Skull Flame

3x Skull Flame

1x Dark Armed Dragon

1x Gorz, Emissary of Darkness

3x Burning Skull Head

3x Pyramid Turtle

2x Il Blud

1x Zombie Master

1x Mezuki

2x Goblin Zombie

1x Plaguespreader Zombie 1x Sangan

1x Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind

Spells: 10

1x Heavy Storm

1x Allure of Darkness

1x Brain Control

1x Lightning Vortex

1x Card Destruction

1x Foolish Burial

1x Burial from the Different Dimension

3x Book of Life

Traps: 9

1x Mirror Force

1x Torrential Tribute

1x Call of the Haunted

1x Solemn Judgment

2x Bottomless Trap Hole

3x Thretening Roar