Jun 4, 2010
If you’re looking to make the next top Deck, there are a few things that it should be able to do. Depending on what cards you’re playing with, some of these tips might not apply to your Deck. For example, if you’re playing with Watt monsters you aren’t going to be Summoning a lot of powerful monsters to take down your opponent’s Life Points. For most Decks though, here are some examples of things you should keep in mind as you build your Deck.
A vast majority of Duels are won by bringing your opponent’s Life Points down from 8000 to zero. Some Decks don’t need to do that but most of them do so that’s what we’re going to focus on. The most common way of reducing your opponent’s Life Points is to attack them with powerful monsters, and you can deal more damage to your opponent by attacking directly when they control no monsters.
Dueling is a little more complicated than that though, as both players can use Spells and Traps to make themselves stronger, and weaken the opponent. Usually, if a player controls no Spells and Traps, they’ve got no way of stopping attacks, so every Deck needs to have a way to get rid of opposing Spells and Traps. Finally, your opponent will be trying to Summon as many powerful monsters as you are, so you’ll need to protect yours with your own Spell and Trap Cards.
To sum up, most of the strongest Decks are capable of doing the following:
- Summoning powerful monsters with high ATK.
- Attacking directly by getting rid of the opponent’s monsters.
- Protecting their own monsters with Spell and Trap Cards.
- Getting rid of the opponent’s Spells and Traps, so that they can attack safely.
Let’s take a look at how the strongest Decks around right now are able to do all of these things with ease.
1: Summoning powerful monsters with high ATK.
Most of the top Decks around right now tend to Special Summon several monsters, often making the most of the high ATK and powerful effects of the Synchro and Fusion Monsters in their Extra Decks.
Infernity Decks usually set up big combos, bringing out the 2500 ATK Mist Wurm as fast as possible. Mist Wurm also sends up to 3 of your opponent’s cards back to their hand, so it can get rid of your opponent’s monsters so that you can attack directly, and their Spells and Traps so that you can attack safely as well. If your opponent controls more than 3 cards, the Infernity player can set up more combos and bring out another Mist Wurm and do it all again, and maybe even another one after that if they have the right cards. By doing this, they accomplish 3 of the 4 major goals at once, Summoning powerful monsters, clearing the path for direct attacks, and making sure that they can attack safely.
Other decks can do this too. Lightsworn Decks can Summon the 3000 ATK Judgment Dragonand wipe out everything else with its effect. Gladiator Beast players can bring out Gladiator Beast Gyzarus to destroy 2 cards, attack, and then Special Summon more Gladiator Beasts so that they can Summon an even stronger monster, Gladiator Beast Heraklinos. Even if you’re not getting rid of your opponent’s cards with your monsters, their high ATK can be enough to take them down in battle.
Blackwing Decks can Summon several Synchro Monsters with over 2000 ATK, like Blackwing Armor Master and Blackwing – Silverwind the Ascendant, and they can make them even stronger with the effect of Blackwing – Kalut the Moon Shadow. Even if you don’t Synchro Summon often, you can still make the most of powerful monsters. Machina Decks can SummonMachina Fortress quite easily, and they can do it over and over again every time it gets destroyed.
Cyber Dragon is an easy card to play that has a lot of ATK, makes it easier to Synchro Summon, and can go in any Deck no matter what kind of cards you like to use. Try it out if you need some more muscle!
Your opponent can't win if they've got nothing to attack with!
2: Getting rid of your opponent’s monsters.
Many of the top Decks right now use cards like Smashing Ground and Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter to destroy opposing monsters, clearing the path for their other monsters to attack directly.
Blackwing Decks make the most of Icarus Attack to destroy the opponent’s monsters, sometimes destroying Spell and Trap Cards at the same time. Some Decks, like Machina and Gadget Decks, use lots of cards that get rid of the opponent’s monsters, because their own monsters aren’t strong enough to take down larger ones in battle.
Other Decks, like Gladiator Beasts, make the most of the effects of their weaker monsters, likeGladiator Beast Murmillo, to destroy monsters before attacking directly with their larger ones. As we’ve seen above, some Decks use the effects of their stronger monsters to clear a path. Monarch decks can remove cards from play with Caius the Shadow Monarch, or send them back to the top of the Deck with Raiza the Storm Monarch, before using their high ATK to win Duels. Some Decks even use cards that can take control of the opponent’s monsters, cards likeBrain Control, Goyo Guardian and Tragoedia are all able to do this.
Cards like Smashing Ground, Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter, and Brain Control are useful in lots of Decks and don’t require you to play any other specific cards in your Deck to make the most of them. Try them out if your Deck needs some extra help clearing away your opponent’s monsters.
Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at the other things you’ll want your Deck to be able to do.
