Thunder Dragons is an archetype based on the original card Thunder Dragon, a quite old card both on TCG/OCG and in Duel Links, also thunder dragons are a really powerful deck in the TCG/OCG atm. Besides the OG Thunder Dragon, we receive most of the remaining cards of the archetype in September of 2019 with the release of Dark Side of Dimensions World. Most of the cards are f2p with the exception of Thunder Dragonhawk which is from Dark Dimension Box. New Update with the release of Thunder Dragonduo in the release of the new Main Box Future Horizon. Check How to Unlock/Farm Mokuba Kaiba (DSOD)

As duel drop rewards from Mokuba Kaiba (DSOD):

As level-up rewards from Mokuba Kaiba (DSOD):

Hi, my name is GadgetBug and I’m the Author of this guide. I’ve been playing Duel Links since the worldwide release in January of 2017. But in these last few months I’ve been wanting to get into the competitive scenario, so you might see me in tournaments. I really like Thunder Dragons, not from the TCG but Thunder Dragon was one of my favorite cards since I was a kid, the art style and also the mechanic of discarding to add (I think it was one of the 1st cards with this kind of effect, not sure, don’t quote me on that). When I found what about Konami created an archetype based on this card, I got really happy and never thought we would get them this soon.

In the TGC/OCG Thunder Dragons is a control oriented deck that have monsters that can be discarded (they are based on the OG Thunder Dragon) to use effects that can give you card advantage, they also have a 2nd effect if they are sent from the field to the GY or if they are banished. They can easily summon boss monsters that have really powerful effects that helps to control the duel, but until this moment we don’t have access to them in Duel Links. While we don’t have those monsters, the deck has a different way to play, since the deck has a powerful engine to maintain a board you can stay in the duel until you draw your tech cards to help you win the duel and since the deck has a lot of thinning power it’s not a big problem, although the deck isn’t tier worthy atm, it’s a really fun deck and it will definitely get better with future support. That are different variants of the deck, since it doesn’t really need the normal summon you can have synchro and tribute summon plays without losing to many resources. I had finished the guide an hour before the last banlist was announced, so instead of publishing I decided to hold on to see how the Meta would change and because there were a lot of mentions of decks using clash like Six Samurais.

• Beatdown It’s an ok option as a finisher but I think there are better options.
• Baggy Sleeves Great option, probably the best one atm, since you will likely have a level 5 or higher monster on the field and there isn’t much your opponent can’t do to avoid not destroying your monsters by battle, besides not attacking but if he decides so, you will have a monster on the field to go for an offensive play.
• Other skills can work, like Destiny Draw or any Draw Sense one to draw a specific tuner, for example Zombie Draw can draw a Plaguespreader Zombie if is the only zombie you are playing and can be easily triggered with a Cosmic Cyclone. Also you can use counter skills like Sealed Tombs, No Mortal Can Resist to help counter a specific deck(s).

First I’m going to talk about how the cards works and explain about the ratios

The following monsters have 2 effects:

• You can discard the monster to activate the effect
• If the monster leaves the field or if it’s banished (and yes, “if” not “when” none of them can miss the timing) And you can only use one of the effects once per turn.

The monsters are:

Thunder Dragonroar (2-3x)

• Discard effect (ignition): add a thunder dragon card from grave or banished to your hand
• If banished or sent from field: specials summons thunder dragon from deck in defense (the monster returns to your hand in the end phase)

Both effects are essential for the deck.

The discard effect can recycle all the cards from the archetype, including s/t banished by a Cosmic Cyclone for example. While the 2nd one is really accessible with Gold Sarcophagus or Aloof Lupine which can banish from your deck. This effect can give you a free body on the field to be used for a synchro or tribute summon. And during your opponents turn will give you an extra defense in case they remove your roar, it will float into another TD in your deck.

How many of this you should run? It really depends on your build here some factors you should consider:

• 3 Copies
  • Better chances of having in your starting hand:
  1. Good for tribute summon/set
  2. Good along with Batteryman Solar
  • Better chances of having in your deck (to use with Gold Sarcophagus)
  • More Recycle (Good for longer duels)
• 2 Copies
  • If you play a lot of tuners (not so good in your starting hand)
  • Can be bricky if no starter (decks with few starters)

Thunder Dragondark (2-3x)

• Discard effect (quick effect): add another copy of itself from the deck.
• If banished or sent from field: adds thunder dragon card from your deck to your hand.

The searcher of the deck. The good part is that you can use the same copy to search multiple times along the duel (still once per turn). Deck thinning ability.

Should you play 3 copies? Most of the time, yes. Here some reasons for the ratios:

• 3 Copies:
  • Good in your starting hand with no starter and along with hawk
  • Good in your starting hand along Aloof Lupine
  • Great to thin the deck during your opponents turn if you go 2nd.
  • Good to have in your deck (so you can special summon with roar’s effect)
• 2 Copies:
  • You can get away with 2 if you’re playing Batteryman Solar
  • Only bad if you open with both
  • Makes the 1st effect for the deck thinning not a great option.

Thunder Dragonhawk (2-3x)

• Discarded (ignition): you can special summon any thunder dragon that is banished or in your graveyard.
• If banished or sent from field: you can shuffle any number of cards from your hand into the deck to draw the same amount of cards.

The ability to special summon any Thunder Dragon that is banished or in your GY is really good. It will give you different options to what effect you want to trigger in your turn (synchro or tribute summon) and which monster you want to leave on the field during opponents turn. Also can revive Thunder Dragonduo. The Magical Mallet kind effect can be a good option to have along the duel.

Well, it’s a main box UR, you need at least 2. Here the reasons for the ratios:

• 3 Copies:
  • Better for consistency, as long as you can put a TD in your GY it won’t be a brick
  • It will decrease Roar’s duty of recycling this card.
• 2 Copies:
  • Not open multiple.
  • If you play a lot of tuners or a bigger engines you can cut this down to 2
• 1 Copy:
  • Only if you don’t have, it will decrease the longevity of your deck
  • Just as a small tech engine.

Thunder Dragonmatrix (0-2x)

• Discard effect (quick effect): gives 500 atk boost to a Thunder monster you control (permanently, as long the monster is face-up on the field)
• If banished or sent from field -> adds a copy of itself from deck

With the addition of Thunder Dragonduo this card becames way more relevant, not only because it it makes duo a really big beater reaching 3600, and the 500 boost is permanent as long the monster is face-up on the field.

If you summon duo in a turn that you didn’t activate dark’s effect, banishing dark to summon duo allows you to add matrix from your deck to your hand.

Ratios:

• 3 Copies:
  • Can be bricky
  • Can be good as fuel for Thunder Dragon Discharge.
• 2 Copies:
  • Less chances of opening multiple copies
  • Its searchable with dark and duo’s effect
  • Can be recycled with duo’s effect
• 1 Copy:
  • Less chances of bricking
  • Loses the effect when banished or sent from the field to GY to add another copy of itself

Thunder Dragon (0 or 3x)

• You can discard it to add up to two copies of itself from your deck to your hand.

Ratios, play 0 or 3. Reasons to play/not play.

• It gives you a +1 in your hand to use Hawk’s effect to shuffle your hand into the deck.
• Great to fill the GY with for Duo and other monsters that require to banish light and dark monsters from the GY.
• Not worth if not playing 3 or more monsters that uses light and dark in the GY.
• Can be bricky.

Thunder Dragonduo (0-2x)

• You can Special summon this card from your hand by banishing 1 light and 1 dark monster in your GY.
• If you use any Thunder Dragon’s discard effect; Gains 300 atk until end phase.
• If destroys a monster by battle, can banish any card in your GY to add a Thunder Monster.
• During opponent’s turn can return a face-up banish card to either the top or bottom of your deck.

Reasons to play and how many you should play:

• Decent atk and can reach 3600 with matrix, but even without it can easily go up to 3300
• Can be searched or added from banish pile or GY (Dark and Roar’s effects)
• After properly summoned, can be summoned with Thunder Dragonhawk‘s effect or Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders if anything happens to it (Destroyed or Banished)
• Can trigger all the Thunder Dragons effect, if summoned or if destroys a monster by battle
• Can search any Thunder Dragon or other Thunder monsters for follow-up plays
• Can recycle any tech if banished while being able to place on top of your deck so you will instantly be able to use.
• 3 copies can be really bricky and not needed at all
• 2 copies if you really want to see in your starting hand and to save dark’s effect for other cards

A few notes:

• With the exception of the “destroy a monster by battle” effect all the other effects are once per turn but per copy, meaning that multiple Duos will give you multiple recycles.
• World Legacy Clash will return Duo in their end phase which will still allow you to use the recycle effect.

Spell and Traps

Thunder Dragon Discharge (0-2x)

• Prevent the negation of the activation of your thunder monster’s effects.
• If a Thunder Dragon monster(s) is Normal or Special Summoned to your field, target a spell/trap card on the field; banish 1 thunder monster from your deck, and if you do destroy that target (not hard once per turn, it’s once per copy).

It’s the archetype card that deals with backrow.

• Strengths:
  • It’s searchable from Thunder Dragondark’s effect and can be recycled with Thunder Dragonroar’s effect. So 1 copy is enough.
  • Can’t miss the timing, meaning that it will trigger if a Thunder Dragon monster is special summoned during a chain.
  • Can be used during opponent’s turn. With help of the floating effect of roar and with the effect of Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders.
• The downsides:
  • Preventing your opponent from negating the activations of your Thunder Dragon’s effects, is only good against Counter Trap decks, but you need to have it face-up to work, so unless you identify/know your opponent plays counter traps and search it turn 1, it won’t be worth playing it.
  • It’s a continuous trap, so it’s slow and if it’s removed from the field it doesn’t resolve.
  • It can be really costly since you need to banish a Thunder Dragon in your deck, it will trigger that monster’s effect, if you haven’t used its effects prior.
  • This card can help to deal with problematic cards, like Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror and Necrovalley. But there are better choices that don’t require a setup.

Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders (0-3x)

• It’s searchable from Thunder Dragondark’s effect and can be recycled with Thunder Dragonroar’s effect, it’s a really good card and it can be used defensively or offensively by summoning extra bodies on the field.
• Even being searchable, you will most of the time priotize other cards over this one. So it will be really situational or meta dependant.
• The restriction of not being able to special summon non-Thunder type monsters will only prevent you from special summoning if that monster is still face-up on the field.

A few notes:

• Monsters special summoned by this effect will be banished if they leave the field (even if your opponent tries to return them to your hand) which will trigger their effects.
• There is an interaction with cards like World Legacy Clash for example that you should keep in mind. The monster(s) that you special summoned with this card’s effect will be banished when it leaves the field, so if you use World Legacy Clash, the monster won’t come back in your End Phase, due to be considered that it left the field by Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders effect.

Non-archetype cards

Gold Sarcophagus (3x)

• Can banish 1 card from your deck face-up, to add it to your hand in your 2nd standby phase after it was activated.

Amazing card, it’s one of the best starters a deck can have, 1 card that doesn’t cost you a normal summon and can give you card advantage, since that card you banished will be added to your hand later on. It gives access to all the effects of your Thunder Dragons in your deck. This card can also be used as it was intended, banish a card from your deck and add 2 turns latter, mostly used to get a “one of” or a tuner for a finishing blow. Play as many copies you have. It’s from an Ex Structure deck so not many people have access to it, there are other options for f2p, but not nearly as good as this card.

Batteryman Solar

• If Normal or Special Summoned, you can send 1 Thunder monster from your deck to your GY
• If a Thunder monster is Normal or Special Summoned: Special Summon a Token with 0atk/0def (mandatory effect).

Great card that will get infinitely better if we ever get the Fusions. Why should you play? Reasons and Ratios:

• Strengths:

  • Synergy with Enemy Controller (the token can be tributed for a “econ take” play)
  • Synergy with Destiny HERO - Plasma, Solar + Gold Sarc, hawk or roar can summon Plasma without setup
  • Synergy with D.D. Sprite
  • Can play through Artifact Lancea and Chaos Hunter
  • Can helps to fuel the GY for Thunder Dragonduo.

• Weakness:

  • The token can clog your field
  • The token is easy damage for you opponent if you don’t have a way to stop
  • Cost a Normal summon which is bad with a heavy tuner build.

• 3 copies:

  • For builds with no Tuners or builds over 24 cards.
  • For builds with no Gold Sarcophagus

• 2 copies:

  • Best ratio for most builds

• 1 Copy:

  • Only if you’re playing more Battery cards (Batteryman Charger and Batteryman 9-Volt)

Notes:

• Since its effect of spawning a token is mandatory, you can play around by summoning a Thunder monster while there is only 1 zone unoccupied, which will still trigger Solar’s effect but with no zones to summon a token you will be free of the token for the rest of the turn since that effect is once per turn.
• Keep in mind that Solar will also spawn tokens if your opponent summons a Thunder monster too.

Aloof Lupine (0-3x)

• When normal summoned, can banish 1 monster from your hand as a cost and then one from deck with the same type.
• When destroyed by opponent’s card (battle or effect) can add one of your banished monsters.

Why should you play Aloof? Reasons and Ratios:

• Strengths:

  • Can give more consistency
  • If destroyed can add banished monsters

• Weakness:

  • Decrease power, conflicts with other normal summons
  • Can be bricky if you don’t open a Thunder Dragon

• 0 Copies:

  • If you play Batteryman Solar
  • If you play 3 or more tuners

• 1 Copy:

  • Avoid dead copies and bricks, mostly a bad top deck later in the duel

• 2 Copies:

  • Better for Shiranui build or builds that go over 22 cards.

• 3 Copies:

  • If you don’t have Gold Sarcophagus is a must (3x)

World Legacy Clash

A really good card that also synergize with the Thunder Dragons, since they can activate their effects if they are banished. Can stop an atk while reducing opponent’s monster atk (which doesn’t have to be the same monster you are stopping the atk). (You must use in the Damage Step to stop opponents atk).

Enemy Controller

Win games. It also synergizes with the deck, since it will trigger the Thunder Dragon’s effect if you tribute them for an “econ take play”. Allows to unclog your field if you have a Floodgated monsters, while stealing opponent’s monsters. Combos well with Batteryman Solar‘s tokens. It’s a really good card in any deck that can swarm the board.

Chaos Dragon Levianeer (0-3x)

Amazing card. By banishing 3 Light and/or Dark monsters from your GY you can special summon it from yor hand. You will mostly be using it’s effect to banish Light and Dark monsters to trigger the “Destroy up to 2 cards on the field”, this effect does NOT target, which means they don’t know which card you will destroy. The other 2 effect will come up more less, banishing 3 Darks to get “Shuffle 1 random card from opponent’s hand into the deck” can be really devastating when you go 1st, but it will be really hard to pull that off, the last effect doesn’t provide much for this deck and is the most difficult effect to pull of and prob not worth in most scenarios.

It’s special summoning conditions will trigger Thunder Dragon effects (if not already activated that turn) and also they will Chain Block Levianeer’s effect, this is really important because your opponent won’t be able to activate cards that need to be chained direct to the effect e. g. Blackbird Close or Divine Wrath.

The effect from banishing Light and Dark monsters to destroy cards on the field can be used to destroy itself in case your opponent would flip Levianeer face-down, so your field won’t be clogged.

There are a few ways to search it:

• The Melody of Awakening Dragon can search up to 2 copies.

• Eclipse Wyvern, when sent to GY can banish Levianeer from the deck and when Wyvern is banished you can add Levianeer to your hand, this effect is a bit slow and will work better if used with the Lightsworn Engine.

• Card of the Soul can add Levianeer with you lost 1000 LP, cards like Cosmic Cyclone can help with that.

• Strengths

  • Easy to summon.
  • Amazing removal.
  • Can trigger Thunder Dragons’ effects when summoned
  • Has 3000 attack

• Weakness:

  • Cannot attack the turn it activate it’s effects
  • Can be heavy costly
  • Can be bricky

Chaos Sorcerer (0-2x)

• Strengths:
  • Easy to summon.
  • Good monster removal.
  • Can trigger Thunder Dragons’ effects when summoned
• Weakness:
  • Can’t atk the turn it activate its effects.
  • Weak Stats
  • Can’t be searched
  • Competes with Duo (which can be searched)

Lightpulsar Dragon

• Strengths:
  • Easy to summon.
  • Can be a good follow-up. Can revive Red Dragon Archfiend and Dark End Dragon.
• Weakness:
  • Can miss the timing
  • Only viable if you can summon a dark Dragon monster before.
  • Competes with Duo (which can be searched)

Card of the Sould can search this card, Thunder Dragonhawk and Artifact Lancea

Depending on the Meta some Techs will be better than others, here some options:

Some other tech choices as Tribute summon:

The Tuners

I’ll list the generic ones first then will follow with the non-generic ones.

Plaguespreader Zombie (1-3x)

• Strengths:
  • One card that can be used twice (second time by returning 1 card from hand to the deck to be special summoned from grave).
  • Dark monster that has synergy with Thunder Dragonduo and other Chaos monsters.
  • After being banished by its own effect can be placed on top of your deck with the effect of Thunder Dragonduo.
  • Can be used with the skill Zombie Draw if you don’t play other zombie monsters (quite unlike).
• Weakness:
  • The special summon by the GY can be stopped by Sealed Tombs and Necrovalley

Deep Sea Diva (2-3x)

• Strengths:
  • Great Normal Summon that can result in 2 Sycnrhos or 1 Crystron Quariongandrax
• Weakness:
  • Requires to play more than 1
  • Requires to have at least 1 copy in your deck when Normal Summoned. Which might lose it’s benefits if you draw all the copies earlier.

Glow-Up Bulb (1-2x)

• Strengths:
  • One card that can be used twice (second time by milling 1 card from the top of your deck)
• Weakness:
  • It’s effect to be special summoned from GY is once per duel
  • It’s level 1 (so it will mostly summon lv6 synchros instead of 7s or 8s)

Jet Synchron

• Strengths:
  • Can add a “Junk” monster if used as synchro material, best ones are: Junk Anchor and Junk Giant which setups for a follwing turn.
  • 1 Card that can be used twice in the same turn for a synchro summon.
• Weakness:
  • It’s level 1 (so it will mostly summon lv6 synchros instead of 7s or 8s)
  • You can use both effects in same turn

D.D. Sprite

• Strengths:
  • A really good f2p alternative.
  • Has synergy with the starters (Aloof Lupine and Batteryman Solar)
  • Has synergy with the Thunder Dragons
  • Can be special summoned.
• Weakness:
  • Its level 1
  • Removes one of your monsters from play, and that monster won’t return if Sprite is removed from the field (if used as synchro material).

Gusto Tuners

• Strenghts:
  • When Gusto Gulldo is sent from the field to the GY you can special summon Gusto Falco from your deck
  • When Gusto Falco face-up on the field is sent from the field to the GY you can special summon Gusto Falco from the deck, besides if destroyed by battle
  • Gulldo is good set pass against non-aggressive decks
• Weakness:
  • “when” is key, if sent for tribute or synchro summon it will miss the time as well if is destroyed during Chain Link 2+
  • Gusto Falco‘s effect isn’t that great in most cases besides against cards like Treacherous Trap Hole

Note: All the “Daigusto”s (the Synchro monsters from the Gusto archetype) require non-Tuner “Gusto” monsters as materials.

Wattfox

Wattfox can be a really good replacement in case you don’t have better tuners.

• Searchable with Thunder Dragonduo’s effect.
• Can be used to synchro into Watthydra by using Thunder Dragondark summoned of Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders without carring about the restriction and also allowing you to summon non-Thunder monsters afterwards.

Watthydra can finish a game in case opponent doesn’t have a way to stop the attack.

Honoralbe Mentions

You can play with some crystrons that searches the tuners or you can just the tuners, if you choose to play the searchers you will have the ability to search different tuners but if you use the search you won’t be able to synchro summon a non-machine synchro monster on that turn.

Crystron Citree (1-3x)

The effect of synchro summoning on opponents turn is really good in a lot of matchups, you can synchro summon into Samurai Destroyer using Thunder Dragondark in the GY and dark will get its effects when it leaves the field to add a Thunder Dragon card from your deck. This effect can combo well with Thunder Dragon Discharge.

Crystron Quan (1-3x)

Quan has an advantage over Citree, if you open with citree and don’t have a monster in your graveyard or a way to send one, you won’t be able to use its effect, while Quan will allow you to synchro with a monster in your hand, saving you from really bad bricks, the downside it’s that Quan is a level 1, which will limit to only level 6 and 7 synchro monster, so no Scrap Dragon for example.

Crystron Rion (1x)

Rion can be good to use with your banished monsters which can be good in the late game when you don’t have more Thunder Dragons in your deck since Rion shuffles the materials into the deck, the downside is that in the early game you will be shuffling cards into your deck instead of thinning it, and compared to the others you won’t get the effect of the Thunder Dragon used as material for the synchro summon.

The searchers of those tuners are:

The difference between them are in this deck is their levels and there 2nd effects.

• Rosenix can be banished from GY to special summon a token which can be used as material or as a target for Scrap Dragon’s effect.
• Smiger can be banished from GY to add Crystron Impact, which can protect crystrons from being targeted.
• Thystvern can be banisged from GY to add another tuner for a follow-up play next turn. If you decide to use any of those you should consider to add to your extra deck a copy of Crystron Ametrix.

Sample Crystron Builds

Shiranui’s have a lot of synergy between them and we will exploit that to make synchro summoning more consistent and giving you follow-up options.

Shiranui Spectralsword

• It will be just a tuner with no effect
• If banished with Solitaire Squiresaga’s effect can be recycle with Shiranui Solitaire’s effect.
• If used along with Zombie World or the Skill Posthumous Army can summon Zombie Synchros by banishing itself along with a Thunder Dragon from grave to trigger their effects.

Shiranui Solitaire

• It will give extra consistency for synchro summoning, which will be like playing 4 or 5 copies of Shiranui Spectralsword(depeding on how many copies you play)
• Can Special Summon banished Shiranui monsters if banished.
• Easy access to its banished effect with Gold Sarcopahgus and Aloof Lupine.

Shiranui Spiritmaster

• Can Special a Shiranui from hand or GY
• Has synergy with Gold Sarcophagus as a 1 card to destroy a face-up card your opponent’s control, and it will be added to your hand 2 turns latter.
• Can revive Shiranui Squiresaga

Shiranui Squiresaga

• Has non-targeting destruction effect (opponents must respond before you choose what to destroy) for both monsters and s/t
• Can boost your monsters by 300atk
• Can setup follow-up plays by banishing Spectralsword from GY
• If Special Summoned by Spiritmaster, has a target to destroy a s/t and it will trigger Spiritmaster’s effect to destroy a face-up card opponent’s control
• Great follow-up, can banish a Synchro used before, to destroy monsters
• Doesn’t have to be used with the other shiranui cards

Other cards and combos with this version

Aloof Lupine is a good option to increase consistency which not only works with Thunder Dragons but works with Shiranuis too. A good option in case no Gold Sarcophagus or a Thunder Dragon available to synchro with:

• Normal Summon Aloof Lupine and banish both Shiranui Spectralsword and Shiranui Solitaire one from hand and other from deck.
• Activate Solitaire’s effect to Special Spectralsword that was banished.
• Synchro into a lv6 monster using Aloof and Spectralsword, a good synchro turn 1 could be Hyper Psychic Riser which alone could stop a few decks from OTK’ing you. This combo also works along with Gold Sarcophagus so you don’t have to use Aloof and you can Synchro with a lv5, for a lv7 and having Aloof as another monster. Aloof is also good to have on the field to add a banished monster if he is destroyed.

Ancient Fairy Dragon can destroy your opponent’s field spell or yours to add Zombie World from your deck and next turn you will be able to summon a lv7 Zombie Synchro with Spectralsword’s effect in the GY.

Sample Shiranui Builds

Baggy Sleeves

Mythic Depths

It’s a card that can search a lightsworn monster which can be really versatile. On top of the search it mills 3 cards of your deck which can help with brick hands, if you mill a dark/roar, it will enable hawk’s effect and duo in hand can trigger dark and roar effects on it’s summon. The use of charge in this deck is a bit different than other decks, while in other decks they want to stack their GY, this just needs to have a good start, and makes this less relent to a No Mortal Can Resist.

• Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn, as a lv4 tuner doesn’t provide much variety of Synchro options, mostly will be used to summon Vermillion Mech, mainly used to give you extra mills in the mail fase or used as a beater since have decent stats which also provide a less weak normal summon instead of having low atk tuners that you weren’t able to Synchro.

• Minerva, Lightsworn Maiden, has a better level which can be used to synchro a more variety of synchros, also giving a different option to summon Brionac if played along Lumina, Lightsworn Summoner. This duo can help with hands while also besides the brionac play, can also summon Scrap Dragon (using dark) while leaving Lumina as a pop target for Scrap.

• Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress, it’s a decent option but probably only viable in builds with more cards since you probably don’t want to see her too often.

Those are the most common monsters to use here, most of the others won’t bring much for the deck.

Besides the Lightsworn cards other cards that have GY effects can be really good, a few examples are (for main or side deck):

Also the tuners that can be used if it’s drawn or milled will be more important for this version

Spore will require another plant monster in your GY (including another copy of itself), so it can be really good along with Bulb.

Sample Lightsworn Build

Baggy Sleeves

Baggy Sleeves

Plasma it’s good card to deal with decks that use too many monster effects or has monsters with protection e. g. Invoked Cocytus.

With the last change to the skill Bring it!, Plasma becomes way more consistent, by running cards like Cosmic Cyclone or Herald of the Abyss. you can shuffle a card from your hand into the deck and add Plasma to your hand right way.

Batteryman Solar will help you a lot to summon Plasma because of the token summoned from Solar when you summon a Thunder monster.

A list of the better generic synchro monsters and some comments about them:

Crystron Quariongandrax

Great card to deal with monsters like Elemental HERO Brave Neos without destruction and to banish monsters on the field or graveyard like Fortune Lady Every, Bacon Saver, Darklords, etc. It needs 2 tuners so it’s most to be played with Deep Sea Diva.

Samurai Destroyer

What a great card. An easy card to get while you are open packs trying to get Thunder Dragonhawk. It helps to deal with pesky monster’s effects and to force early activations. His float effect when it leaves the field by opponent’s card effects, can float into itself or a crystron tuner. Since it’s a machine it can be summoned by the crystron tuners on opponents turn.

Black Rose Dragon

Can wipe the field. Really easy to summon and you can follow-up without leaving yourself exposed.

Scrap Dragon

Really good to deal with backrow and can destroy one of the Thunder Dragons to activate its effect and trigger that Thunder Dragon’s effect.

Vermillion Dragon Mech

Great effect to destroy a card on the field, not as easy to summon if lv2 tuners, it will require a level 7 synchro monster or for you to play a level 3 tuner instead.

HTS Psyhemuth

A really good level 6 synchro monster that will help to deal with monsters without targeting or destruction.

Powered Inzektron

Really good card to play along with Crystron Quan. You can summon with Quan and dark (from your hand) on your opponent’s turn to protect you and giving you a search through dark’s effect. Can help a lot with a turn 1 brick.

Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier

An amazing card, that can deal with monsters the can’t be destroyed or have protection like Shiranui Sunsaga, Elemental HERO Brave Neos, Revendread Slayer, etc. Also can clear your opponent’s board as long you have enough cards to discard, which isn’t that hard if you are playing the skill Baggy Sleeves.

Dark End Dragon

Another good non-destruction monster removal.

Ancient Fairy Dragon

A decent card to destroy your opponent’s field spell. You can also tech field spells to be searched by it, and If you do so, you might consider to run a field spell skill, Peak Performance which starts with Mountain or Mystic Depths which starts with Umi, both will boost your Thunder monsters by 200.

PSY-Framelord Zeta

A good control card, it can banish atk position monsters that were special summoned along with itself to return them in your standby phase and works during both turns (Quick Effect). Can help stall or disrupt a combo. It can combo with Thunder Dragonduo, during your opponents end phase you can return Zeta to your Extra deck with duo’s effect, which will stop their monster from returning to the field.

Red Dragon Archfiend

A really good card that helps dealing with decks that summon multiple monsters in defense position. Also 3000 attack beater can help a lot.

Shiranui Squiresaga

You can use for different purposes:

• Use her effect to banish herself to destroy 1 S/T, give 300 atk boost to all your monsters and to destroy 1 monster your opponent control (all of this happens when resolving the effect, so they have to chain their cards before you choose herself to be banished, because after that, it will be too late).
• In case you are playing other Shiranui cards, you can banish a Shiranui Spectralsword from your GY to destroy a backrow card, which will set up your banish pile, so you can special the Spectralsword with the effect of Shiranui Solitaire either with Gold Sarcophagus or with the effect of Squiresaga on your following turn.

Shiranui Spiritmaster can special Squiresaga from grave in case it was destroyed. And then you can use her effect to banish Spiritmaster, to pop a S/T and them to destroy a face-up card with Spiritmaster’s effect.

There are good non-generic synchros but you’ll need to use specific tuners so I’ll list some of them.

Chaos King Archfiend

• Strengths:
  • Can deal with monsters with low defense (like Zombies)
  • Can deal with monsters with low attack that like to be in defense (Invoked Cocytus and Superheavy Samurais)
• Weakness:
  • Requires a fiend tuner
  • Doesn’t have a great atk (you can boost with the skill King of the Archfiends

Recommended fiend tuners:

Tuning Gum can protect one of your synchro monsters from target effects (quick effect) Red Resonator can special summon Batteryman Solar from your hand to trigger it’s effect and used for a synchro summon of a lv6 synchro

Sample Lists

King of the Archfiends

King of the Archfiends

Scrap Twin Dragon

• Strengths:
  • Bounce cards instead of destroying them can be really good to deal with cards tha have protection and/or can’t be destroyed
  • Good stats, not many monsters have more than 3000 atk
  • If destroyed; summons a scrap from GY (the tuner that was used for its summon)
• Weakness:
  • Requires “scrap” tuner

Scrap Beast & Scrap Goblin

• Scrap Beast has decent stats for a tuner

• Scrap Goblin has a good effect that stops for the whole turn from being destroyed by battle

• Also Goblin if destroyed by its own effect can add back to your hand a scrap monster (back to extra deck in case a synchro). Can’t itself.

• Cloudcastle can special summon Scrap Twin Dragon from GY and be used as target for Scrap Twin Dragon’s effect

• Scrap Dragon summoned with a scrap tuner will also have the option to summon a scrap from GY.

Sample Build

Baggy Sleeves

There are a lot of Synchro monsters that requires a specific “Synchron” monster as material, we don’t have to play those specifics tuners, instead we can just use Junk Anchor and Righty Driver, to summon all of them.

Junk Anchor

What is good about it?

• Can be used to synchro any monster that requires a “Synchron” tuner
• Can be searched by Jet Synchron

What monsters can it summon in this deck?

In case you play level 4s:

Sample List

Baggy Sleeves

A combo with this deck:

• If you use Jet Synchron along with Thunder Dragondark to Synchro Summon Stardust Charge Warrior, you will draw a card, search a Thunder Dragon with dark’s effect and you will have 2 options:

1. Search a “Junk” monster with Jet’s effect for a follow up
2. You say “no” to the search and instead activate Jet’s effect in the GY, by sending the top card of your deck to the GY, you can special summon it, and then use Jet to synchro summon another monster, either by using Stardust Charge Warrior or a Thunder Dragon.

Righty Driver

What is good about it?

• Can be used to synchro any monster that requires a “Synchron” tuner
• If Normal summoned can Special Lefty Driver from hand, deck or GY
• Can help Synchro Summon monsters that requires “2 or more non-tuners”

What monsters can be synchro summoned with this deck?

• Road Warrior once per turn can Special Summon one Machine/Warrior monster from your deck. Also has 3000 atk.
• Junk Destroyer will destroy 2 cards if summoned using 2 non-tuners.
• Mist Wurm can bounce 3 card your opponent controls. Mist Wurm is a Thunder monster, which mean you can summon while you control a Thunder Dragondark summoned of Hundred Thunders. Also can be revived by it. Thunder Dragonmatrix can boost Mist Wurm’s attack.
• Goyo Guardian can steal opponents monsters destroyed by battle, Righty is probably the best tuner that can summon Goyo Guardian in this deck.

Sample List

Baggy Sleeves

Sun and Moon Dragons

Both dragons can summon each other, which makes it really annoying to deal with. The hardest part is to summon both.

Both require specific tuners but thankfully the levels of both match really well with this deck since we can summon both dragons of Thunder Dragondark + the specific tuner.

When Fire Ant Ascator is destroyed by battle and sent to GY, can summon Thunder Dragondark from the GY, and in the end phase will be sent to the GY, triggering its effects.

Sample List

Baggy Sleeves

Vylon Epsilon

This duo can work really well together with Thunder Dragondark. Summoning Vylon Epsilon of Vylon Cube and Thunder Dragondark, will result in 2 searches, one Thunder Dragon card and one equip spell.

A few equip spell that have synergy with Epsilon and/or good in general:

Sample List

Baggy Sleeves

Sadly not with the Thunder Dragon Fusion monsters that we don’t have.

Hex-Sealed Fusions can be tributed along other monster to special summon fusion monster from the extra deck. This would work similar as a synchro summon but instead of the tuner you will use the Hex-Sealed mosnter. The Dark one is the only that have targets to summon in this deck.

You can summon this monsters with The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion and one Thunder Dragon:

There are others, but not that great or with bad synergy with the deck e. g. Invoked Caliga.

• Fusion Gate allows you to summon a Fusion without using your normal summon and also triggering Thunder Dragon effects. Also can be searched with Anient Fairy Dragon by playing Mythic Depths or Peak Perfomance.

Sample List

Baggy Sleeves

Something thing are really polarizing like the amount of card you should play in this deck, extra starters you should play, extra deck monsters and some of the techs, but most of them really comes down to your preference and will variete with your playstyle, but some details matter and you might not be considering them, so here a few things to keep in mind:

• Deck size

  • 20 card decks will give higher chances of drawing Gold Sarcophagus but in other hand it will decrease your overall resources and increase the chances of bricks with only Thunder Dragon monsters. For builds with 20 cards try to play 5 roars/hawk (this will variate depending if you own 2 or 3 hawks), and only 2 darks.

  • 30 card decks will give you overall more resources, making easier to fit cards for side deck formats, and will dissolve your bricks with only Thunder Dragon cards in hand, but in other hand it will require more starters (AKA Aloof Lupine, Batteryman Solar, Crystrons and/or Charge of the Light Brigade)

Should you only play 20 or 30 and no middle ground? No, I personally avoid playing 30 cards in most builds and trend to play the least amount I possible can, in some build I’ll manage to get down to 20 cards but some I won’t, and that’s perfectly fine (and that’s my personal opnion about it, 30 cards aren’t a wrong way to play this deck). Try to look away when you are looking to the symmetry it could get in the way of making a good decklist (I know this for for proper experience :sweat_smile), I’m saying this because it affects this deck more than others.

• Mixing engines
  • Adding engines could help tight up better your deck and could add more consistency but in other hand it could do the opposite, so try to not overdo it.

Sample Decks

Baggy Sleeves

Baggy Sleeves

Posthumous Army

Grit

F2P Friendly

This deck can be really expensive to build from scratch in a new account, since it uses cards from different boxes and those can be really expensive to search for it, try to use what you already have.

Without Gold Sarcophagus the deck will not perform as good as those with Gold Sarcophagus, but the deck is still playable.

Baggy Sleeves

Baggy Sleeves

The deck has a lot of combos, which will depend of the other cards you have available, either in your hand, field, GY and/or banished. Since the Thunder Dragons have 2 effects and you can only use one of the effects once per turn, every play you make you must 1st consider what will be your follow-up play, either this turn or in your next turn, even if it’s your opponent’s turn. Not an easy deck to play initially but as you play you will start to understand how you should play. I’ll divide this part in 4:

1. Starters
2. Setting up for follow-ups
3. Pushing Combos
4. Tips and tricks to optimize your plays.

Starters

1. Gold Sarcophagus

The main combo starter is Gold Sarcophagus, which basically allows you to activate Thunder Dragons effects from your deck, and will add the banished monster to your hand 2 turns latter.

The cards you will mainly banish are Thunder Dragonroar, Thunder Dragondark and Thunder Dragonhawk. But which one should you choose?

It will variate depending on the scenario you are in, the cards available to you and which turn is.

When banishing roar you will be special summoning a Thunder Dragon from your deck in defense position and it will go to your hand during the end phase if is still face-up on the field. Not necessary in other but this are the things you should consider:

• Do you need to use the discard effect this turn?
• Do you have a Thunder Dragon in your deck, and is it the one you want to special?
• What are you going to do with the Thunder Dragon special summoned?
  • Use to Synchro
  • Use as Tribute

Banishing Dark from the deck will add any Thunder Dragon card. It can sound amazing but it’s not really, is a bit inferior then banishing roar, since roar gives you a monster on the field and if that monster is dark, is essentially the same play but you will be adding the roar to your hand with the effect of Gold Sarcophagus, and it will give access to roar, meaning that you can special that roar with Thunder Dragonhawk. The reasons of banishing dark instead of roar:

• You don’t have a way of using the dark on the field (no tuner, no lv5 or higher in hand or cards like Enemy controller)
• No roar in your deck (important to always keep track of how many roars you have banished, in GY, field and hand)
• You need to use roar’s effect to recycle a card like Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders

Banishing hawk will give you the Magical Mallet of shuffling cards from your hand to your deck to draw the same amount. If gets to the point of considering this play you probably not in a good situation, since hawk’s other effect is way better (special summon a Thunder Dragon monster). Reasons why you should do this play:

• You have a solid board (meaning you are in a winning condition), you need a card to finish them of, and banishing hawk won’t affect the duel state
• You are in a losing condition and will get OTKed next turn, you need a tech to survive
• You have 2 Gold Sarcophagus and don’t have dark and/or roar in your deck, while have some in your hand (can happen quite often with Baggy Sleeves)

2. Batteryman Solar

Solar is a really different starter than Gold Sarcophagus. But they can go well together. Solar can send any Thunder monster from deck to the GY, some call Foolish effect which is a reference of the card Foolish Burial. The main concern about solar is it will cost your Normal Summon and can clog your field. Some things you should consider when summoning solar:

• If you don’t have Gold Sarcophagus, solar becomes your only choice
• Can you summon roar alongside Solar? Or any other Thunder Dragon?
• No Synchro in this turn with a few exceptions: D.D Sprite and Red Resonator
• You are playing against a deck that has multiple destructions, for example Blackwings, solar will generate a token whenever a Thunder monster is summoned (mandatory effect), and it should be the primary target from destruction.
• Do you have a way to protect lethal from opponents monsters over Solar’s token (cards that can switch battle position like Enemy Controller and Piercing)?

What do you foolish of solar? That will depend on your hand:

• Send roar, if you have hawk or Hundred Thunders
• Send hawk, if you have roar
• Send duo, if you have roar and hawk
• Send dark, in case you have hawk and you want and can synchro
• Send solar, can be decent late game

3. Aloof Lupine

Aloof is not really different than Gold Sarcophagus as you starter. The biggest problem is, Aloof cost your normal summon, so you’ll lose the options of tribute and synchro summoning (with the exception of D.D Sprite). Aloof is an early game card, later on it won’t be a great card, so everything I will mention next is base of having Aloof and no Gold Sarcophagus. You should look at Aloof as a double searcher that will cost you normal summon, let me explain, Aloof banishes a monster from your hand and then a monster from your deck with the same attribute, so you will banish a Thunder Dragon from hand and then one from your deck. The criteria from choosing is very simple:

• Dark, because you rather have in your deck than in your hand
• Roar, because you don’t have dark in hand
• Hawk, because you don’t have dark or roar in hand The 2nd monster should be:
• Roar, if dark was banished
• Dark, if roar or hawk was banished
• Duo or hawk, if dark was banished and you don’t have a roar in your deck (so you can add duo with roar’s effect)

Banishing dark and roar will result in adding a Thunder Dragon card with dark’s effect and a special summon from deck with roar’s effect (the monster will go to your hand in the end phase, so basically a double search). Which cards should you add/special with this play?

• Add Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders in case you already have a Thunder Dragonhawk in your hand
• Add Thunder Dragonhawk if you don’t have one in your hand
• Add Thunder Dragonroar in case you already have hawk
• Add Thunder Dragonduo, if you have hawk and roar

In case you have to banish hawk from your hand with Aloof’s effect:

• Choose “No” from hawk’s effect (so you can use hawk’s other effect)
• Banish dark from deck
• Use Dark’s effect to add roar from your deck
• Activate Roar’s effect to add the banished hawk
• Activate Hawk’s effect to special summon the roar in you GY or the banished dark

In case you don’t have roar in the deck (after banishing dark in hand):

• Banish hawk/duo
• Add Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders, hawk/duo
• Use roar’s effect to add banished hawk/duo
• Use hawk’s effect to special roar or dark

4. Non-ideal openings

If you don’t have any of the starters mentioned above You will have 2 plays:

1. You have dark and hawk:

• Activate Thunder Dragondark do add another copy of itself from your deck.
• Use the effect of Thunder Dragonhawk to special summon dark Then you will have the option if you discarded dark on their turn:
• Use the Thunder Dragondark for synchro summon or as tribute, Enemy Controller can be a good option (aggressive option)
• Use the effect of dark to add Hundred Thunders or roar in case you have the prior

2. You have dark and Hundred Thunders:

• Activate Thunder Dragondark do add another copy of itself from your deck.
• Set Hundred Thunders In case you also have roar:
• Activate Thunder Dragonroar to add dark back to your hand

Setting up for Follow-ups

As I mentioned before, you should always consider all your possible plays, and the best way to use the Thunder Dragon’s effects (since you can only use one of the effects). In this part I will list a few things you should accomplish for a good board and hand for a follow-up.

1. What you should leave on the field.

Depending if you can identify if you are playing against an aggressive deck or a passive one.

From safest to less safe boards:

• Roar, will give you the floating option if gets banished/sent to GY
• Hundred Thunders, extra bodies and to sponge a destruction
• Hand traps, gives the idea of possible OTK to your opponent with the possibility of overcommitting, which makes it easier to beat them
• Backrow, can be disrupted but can also make your opponent to be cautious.
• Any non-vulnerable monsters Also meaning any combination of them

2. What you should always prioritize to have in your hand in this other:

• Hawk
• Roar
• Duo The reason being Hawk is the best follow-up in this cases:
• Revive roar to keep a safe board
• Summon a body to Synchro with
• Resummons duo to keep pressure.

Roar:

• To recycle Hundred Thunders
• To recycle hawk in case you couldn’t on prior turn
• To add duo, can be an option to get the banish effect from dark, to search matrix.

Duo:

• In case you don’t need to apply pressure
• Want to save the summon so you can get banish effects
• Don’t want to atk into a possible Drowning Mirror Force or Wall of Disruption.

I’ll split the combos in 2 parts, starter combo and pushing combo. Starter combos will be how to get a different field and graveyard/banished setup while pushing combos will be based on these fields + cards in grave and or banished cards and what can you do from there.

Pushing Combos:

You should always push if you have a backup plan, and only if you have a decent setup. Now that you know the ways to get a monster out and having a follow-up, here a few options of what you can do using those monsters:

• Normal Summon Plaguespreader Zombie + Thunder Dragondark on the field to synchro summon Black Rose Dragon, to wipe the field, then activate dark’s effect, to add a Thunder Dragonhawk from your deck to your hand, use hawk’s effect to special a Thunder Dragon from GY or that is banished. You can also special summon plague back to the field by returning a card from your hand to the top of the deck to go for another synchro summon.

• Normal Summon Plaguespreader Zombie + Thunder Dragonroar on the field to synchro summon Scrap Dragon, then activate roar’s effect to special summon Thunder Dragondark from your deck, then you will have 2 plays:

• Use Scrap Dragon’s effect to destroy dark and one of your opponents cards, which will trigger dark’s effect to add a Thunder Dragon card from your deck to your hand (hawk for an extra summon, roar to recycle a thunder card, Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders for a follow-up play next turn/defensive option).

• Special Summon Plaguespreader Zombie by returning a card from your hand to the top of the deck, use Scrap Dragon’s effect to destroy Plague and one card your opponent controls.

• Normal summon Deep Sea Diva, activate its effect to summon another from the deck, use a Thunder Dragonroar on the field to synchro into a lv8, activate roar’s effect to summon Thunder Dragondark from the deck and use to synchro into a lv7 with the 2nd Deep Sea Diva, use dark’s effect to add a Thunder Dragon card from your deck to your hand (Thunder Dragonhawk for triple beatdown or Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders for a defensive option/follow-up play next turn).

• Normal summon Deep Sea Diva, activate its effect to summon another from the deck, use a Thunder Dragondark on the field to go into Crystron Quariongandrax, to banish your opponent’s monster, then activate dark’s effect to add a thunder dragon card from your deck to your hand.

• Special Summon D.D. Sprite by banishing a Thunder Dragondark on field, activate dark’s effect to add a Thunder Dragon card from your deck to your hand, than you can synchro summon into a level 5 using Aloof Lupine, in case you special dark by using roar’s effect banished by Aloof’s effect or you can add Thunder Dragonhawk to special a Thunder Dragon to synchro with D.D Sprite for a level 6 or 7.

Other starter combos

• Normal summon Crystron Smiger or Crystron Rosenix, use its effect to destroy Thunder Dragondark on the field to special summon a Crystron tuner from your deck, activate dark’s effect to add Thunder Dragon Discharge from your deck to your hand and set it, which will allow you to use the crystron tuner on you opponents turn to synchro summon using a Thunder Dragon, which will activate Thunder Dragon Discharge to destroy a spell/trap card on the field.

In some of these combos you can also use hawk instead of roar as synchro material to shuffle your hand to fish for a tech card that might help going for game. (Only viable if you don’t want to use hawk’s other effect) Also if you have Thunder Dragon Discharge face-up from a previously turn, when you special summon using Thunder Dragonhawk’s effect, it will be able to use Discharge effect to destroy a S/T card on the field, while banishing a Thunder Dragonroar from your deck, which will trigger his effect to special another Thunder Dragon from your deck, this will leave you with 2 monsters on the field, so a Plaguespreader Zombie will be able to be used for 2 synchro summons if you have a card to return to the deck (if you use a Thunder Dragondark as the monster for the synchro summon you can add a thunder dragon card from your deck, so you can put that card on top of your deck as cost to summon Plague from the GY). Later in the game when you have more cards in your graveyard, you can use Chaos Sorcerer to banish a monster on the field then you can use it as tribute fodder or as synchro material, since he can’t attack the turn you used its effect. All of this combos can be extended by summoning Thunder Dragonduo.

Tips and Tricks to Optimize our Plays

A few tricks this deck can do that you should keep in mind:

• Thunder Dragondark effect in hand, you can use this effect to block chains! How does it work? For example if you opponent has a Paleozoic Canadia for example in their GY, and they try to activate a trap just to summon that Canadia to atk for lethal, you can chain dark’s effect to their trap, so they can’t summon the Canadia. This works with any other effects when your opponent is forcing it (If you activate a trap, your opponent has the priority to chain their Canadia from GY, you can’t block that).

• Should you always thin your deck with Dark’s effect during their end phase? This depends, if you have Gold Sarcophagus in your hand, than its a NO, because you are risking to lose your best play, which is to use Gold Sarc to banish a roar from your deck to summon dark, so you’ll be risking not having a dark in your deck. I rather no thin the deck instead of potentially losing your best play. In case you are playing only 2 dark is almost always a NO, with the exception of not having a starter in you hand.

• When should you use roar’s effect to recycle a card? If you are planning on attacking into backrow, you are potentially losing roar’s floating effect, which can be good if you have Enemy Controller Other than that, you should always use roar’s effect before ending your turn or proceding to your battle phase. This is in case you might need.

• The timmer. It can be really a pain, when it gets too low when you aren’t sure what is left in the deck/banished or in GY. So what can you do to help with that:

1. You should play if toggle on on/off mode and with your decklist accessible, this is a valid tip for any deck.
2. If you have Thunder Dragondark in hand: Every time you don’t have something else chainable (that you might want to chain), change your toggle to off, this will save more of the timer than you think. (This also applies to Thunder Dragonmatrix while you control a Thunder monster)

• In case you have both Thunder Dragonroar and Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders on your field: In case they have multiple atks or multiple monster removals, it best to not activate roar’s effect to float, and wait for the next destruction to resummon roar with Hundred Thunders so if they destroy this 2nd roar you can float into dark or hawk, this way you have higher chances of not having a monster summoned of Hundred Thunders still on the field (limiting you from special summoning non-Thunder monsters).

• When should you special summon or add to your hand, a monster that were banished with Gold Sarcophagus effect? You should only do this in case of not having defensive options or If you need extra Damage on board from a Thunder Dragonroar. Otherwise this will be essentially a minus 1, since the monster will be added to your hand latter on.

• Try to use Gold Sarcophagus as your 1st activation in the turn (with the exception against spell negates: Silent Magician, Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En, etc), this will allow you to maybe do some reads of their backrow. Before using your Normal Summon.

Blackwings

Blackwings is a deck that has a really heavy push that’s very difficult to hold, they can OTK you quite easily.

The deck works around Black Whirlwind and Blackwing - Simoon the Poison Wind, Simoon can place Whirlwind from the deck in their S/T zone. When a Blackwing monster is normal summoned they can add a Blackwing with less atk from their deck to the hand. Simoon’s effect counts as an extra normal summon so they can add 2 cards of 1 Simoon.

They can easily synchro summon since quite a few of the Blackwing monster can be special summoned from the hand while they control a Blackwing with a different name.

Their Synchro monsters are:

• Blackwing Tamer - Obsidian Hawk Joe, once per turn can special summon 1 level 5 or higher winged beast from their GY. During either player turn when it gets target for an attack or by a card effect, it can choose another valid target instead (once per turn). This effect makes is so, you have to deal with him first.

• Assault Blackwing - Chidori the Rain Sprinkling, this monster g ets its attack boosted by the number of Blackwings in its GY times 300. When is destroyed can special a Winged Beast synchro (other then Chidori). It can miss the timing, but only relevant if they have another Winged Beast synchro in the GY.

• Assault Blackwing - Raikiri the Rain Shower, this monster can destroy cards you control up to the number of Blackwings they control (except Raikiri). This monster is what makes hard to survive a turn, since it can destroy 2 cards, then can be used as synchro, and then revived with Blackwing Tamer - Obsidian Hawk Joe to destroy 1-2 more cards.

Other cards they play:

• Blackwing - Gale the Whirlwind, can permantly halve the atk of your monsters.

• Blackwing - Oroshi the Squall, can change the battle position of one of you monster to give them lethal.

• Blackbird Close, a counter trap that can be activaded from the hand while they control a Synchro Blackwing monster. This counter trap can negate any monster effect that activates on the field. A really problematic card since it can stop any of the effect of the synchros and some of the tuners.

• Cosmic Cyclone, fits well their deck because their strategy can be easly disrupted by backrow. Some play Hey, Trunade! instead or along. Because it conflicts with Assault Blackwing - Raikiri the Rain Shower also being in the “Limited 2” list.

The goal to this match-up is basically survive their push and hit back as hard as you can, so they don’t really have a good follow-up. All of this can be really hard with all the cards I’ve listed before.

Good cards in this match-up:

1. Going first:

• PSY-Framelord Zeta, can really help surviving by stoping Raikiri from destroying your cards. Since they usually play just one Raikiri. Also can be used aggressivly, by attacking a monster and then banishing itself to banish another monster they control (since most of their monster are special summoned), to open the field for possible lethal.

• Samurai Destroyer, one of the cards you can summon that if they destroy by card effect will be able to special summon itself back (with the exception if you are under Sealed Tombs). Also if battle Chidori will negate Chidori’s effect making it down to the same attack points (in case of no Field Spell boost).

• Treacherous Trap Hole, probably the best card against them. Try to use after they’ve used their normal summon (besides Simoon). In this way you have higher chances of leaving thier field open.

• Sphere Kuriboh, a hand trap that can really help you to survive.

• Artifact Vajra, can help surving, should be used along with Baggy Sleeves for a draw 2, otherwise might not be the best tech.

• Cosmic Cyclone, can stop Black Whirlwind‘s search effect. Instead of using right way, wait until it gets trigger, so they commit their normal summon. Depending on how many Whilwind they have, it might not be a good play if you don’t have protection, since you’ll be putting yourself at lower Life Points.

2. Going 2nd:

• Black Rose Dragon, they can only stop their field from being wiped if they have Blackbird Close.

A few other side choices and techs:

Blue-Eyes

Blue-Eyes is a deck that can summon big beaters with relative ease. Its also a anime deck with makes it popular even if isn’t a great deck, so you can expect to see it, even if its less often.

From all of the cards they play the most problematic ones are:

• Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon can negate once per turn (during either players’ turn), 1 effect that activates in the GY, so you need to be mindful of that. Also it can be tributed to special summon a Light Dragon Synchro from their extra deck (this counts as synchro summon), this effect means that it can dodge a targeting effect.

• Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon also summon off Spirit Dragon’s effect (probably the most common one too), this monster can protect all their dragons that they currently control from getting targeted or destroyed by card effect until the next turn, which means it will protect from most of the removals this deck have. Something important to notice, if you summon Black Rose Dragon and they chain Spirit Dragon’s effect to summon Azure, you will wipe thier field before Azure-eyes’ effect can trigger.

• Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon, they have an easy access to this monster with the skill Alternative Evolution which turns their Blue-Eyes White Dragon into it (you can’t respond to the skill activation). This monster can destroy one monster you control, but if it uses this effect it cannot attack that turn. This monster can also be recycled with The White Stone of Ancients’s effect, and special summon by reveling a Blue-Eyes White Dragon from their hand. Its almost impossible to permanently deal with this monster besides if you banish it, and some other specific ways.

• Dragon Spirit of White can banish your face-down cards when its normal or special summoned (“when”, so if its summon in a Chain Link 2 or higher, it will miss the timing). Also it can dodge targetting effects by tributing itself to special summon a Blue-Eyes White Dragon from their hand. How can it be summoned (to banish a S/T card)?

From the effects of: - The White Stone of Ancients in their end phase of the turn it was send from the GY (special summons from the deck); - Sage with Eyes of Blue, by being discarded and sending a effect monster they control to the GY (special summons from the deck); - Silver’s Cry, a quick-play spell that can summon normal dragon monsters from the GY (Dragon Spirit of While is treated as Normal monster while is in the GY); - Cosmo Brain can tribute an effect monster to special summon a normal monster from deck or hand (Spirit of White is also treated as Normal in the hand, but not in the deck).

Other cards they like to play and you should keep and eye on it are (this will depend on their build):

• Divine Wrath, negate one of your monster effects can be really painful.

• Raigeki Break, can destroy one of your cards by discarding a card

Both of this cards aren’t really a minus if they discard a The White Stone of Ancients, which will summon a Blue-Eyes from their deck during their End Phase.

• Sphere Kuriboh is used to help with aggresive match-up like Lunalights and Blackwings, which can also catch us of guard.

In this match-up you will have diffirent win conditions depending on your build/techs. But most of all, try to set up your Thunder Dragon’s effects before they summon Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon, cuz otherwise it will be really annoyinig since it will stop your effects in the GY, and cards like Sphere Kuriboh and Artifact Vajra will help more on defense than relying on Thunder Dragonroar’s effect (since it can be negated by Spirit Dragon).

A few other things to consider in this match-up:

• Attacking into a face-down defense monster, which could be a The White Stone of Ancients, can be a problem, but also not attacking while is a bluff can also be bad, so you need weigh if its worth or if you have a way to deal with what will come next.

• Some builds use Maiden with Eyes of Blue. If they try to trigger her effect by targeting her with a card effect while they have room on the field, you can chain any effect to the targetting to stop them from activating Maiden’s effect since it has to be chained directly to the targetting effect. (E. g. you can use Thunder Dragondark’s effect to block her effect).

Cards that can help in this match-up:

• Treacherous Trap Hole can stop their synchro plays or destroying 2 of their monsters, but it could be hard to resolve its effect since they have a relative ease time summoning Dragon Spirit of White to banish your TTH before they summon their 2nd monster.

• Enemy Controller can help finishing the game and could also stop their synchro plays by taking control of their tuners/or a Blue-Eyes that can’t dodge.

• World Legacy Clash will probably be the best of the 3 “limited 2” cards, don’t only help dodging effect and stop attacks but reducing their monsters’ attack can help to do damage to close the game earlier.

• Thunder Dragonmatrix, this card will be really important to make Thunder Dragonduo bigger then thier monsters also helping a bit with damage.

• Playing 2 Thunder Dragonduo might help in this match-up too, since they don’t often have multiple disruptions per turn.

• Sphere Kuriboh and Artifact Vajra can help in this match-up like a mentioned before.

• No Mortal Can Resist, can help permanently deal with Blue-Eyes Alternative if is in their GY or if is one their field and you have a way to deal with it before activating the skill.

Other techs and side cards for this match-up:

Crystrons

Some of you might be familiar with Crystrons since I’ve mentioned them on this guide. The difference between them here and on their own deck is mainly Crystron Sulfefnir, which as long they have a discard in hand and a Crystron in their deck they can always use it’s effect from GY.

In this match-up you don’t have much of a choice but to grind through their synchros, besides if you get a great hand and are able to finish them quickly. This will depend on their setup, a Black Rose Dragon can lead into an OTK as long as they don’t have a Powered Inzektron play, which consists on Crystron Citree on the field and a level 4 in GY, Crystron Rion and a banished lv3 or Crystron Quan and Crystron Sulfefnir in hand (this last one is unlikely).

Besides by OTK’ing, the other way is to try to make they summon Crystron Ametrix earlier, so you can beat over with Samurai Destroyer, to stop it’s floating. Otherwise they can keep summoning while getting advantage.

Sealed Tombs can really help in this match-up, since it will stop Crystron Citree’s effect and Ametrix’s floating and on their turn they won’t be able to use Sulfefnir. This can help shutting them down and opening a possible OTK. But since last Sealed Tomb’s changes, it better to use No Mortal Can Resist instead, since it will hurt them more.

They can also lose if their field is cloged, meaning 2 Floodgate Trap Hole can stop them from doing anything, with the exceptions of Tribute Summoning Sulfefnir or a techs like Enemy Controller, Forbidden Lance or World Legacy Clash.

Good side cards and techs:

Cyber Dragon

A really explosive deck. Their last support can easily clear a board and follow-up with a monster that can attack 3 times.

The deck works around Cyber Dragon Core, is their searcher which gives them consistency and makes the deck work (you can tell by it’s name). The most common targets for Core are Cybernetic Overflow and Cyberload Fusion.

• Cybernetic Overflow can banish “Cyber Dragon” from the hand, GY or face-up on the field, with different levels to destroy the same amount of cards on the field. Most of their monster count as “Cyber Dragon” on the field and GY. This effect doesn’t target so you can’t see what they will destroy, you must respond when they activate.

• Cyberload Fusion can return Cyber Dragon monsters that are in thier GY, banished and/or face-up on the field to summon powerful fusion monsters from their extra deck. Only the monster summoned from this card can atk the turn this card is activated.

Their main Fusions are:

• Cyber End Dragon, has 4000 attack and does piercing damage. Not a big problem as long as you can stop his atk if they have lethal. Also its a bit hard to summon since it requires 3 “Cyber Dragon”, none of the Cyber Dragon monsters count as “Cyber Dragon” while banished, so can only be summoned with field and GY (with Cyberload).

• Cyber Twin Dragon, a small version of Cyber End, but easier to bring out, with less atk and without the piercing, but can attack twice. Not a threat at all.

• Chimeratech Rampage Dragon, when summoned will destroy S/T it’s opponent controls up to the number of materials used to its summon. Easier to summon since it requires “Cyber Dragon” monsters which is all of their monster. It’s normally summoned as follow-up from Cybernetic Overflow, using the banished monsters. Also this monster can atk up to 3 times, by sending “Cyber Dragon” monsters from thier deck to the GY. This effect also allows for a follow-up Cybernetic Overflow or another Fusion.

• They don’t play many techs besides Cosmic Cyclone which helps trigger their mostly common skill Cyber Style.

In this match-up you should be patience and avoid doing damage which would help trigger their skill and it can be deadly. As soon they do a push becames easier to beat them if they don’t have a follow-up (most of the cases).

Best cards in this match-up:

• Sphere Kuriboh, probably the best tech in this match-up, since it’s a hand trap and it can stop their monsters with multiple atks. Also by being a hand trap, illudes the posibility of an OTK, when is actually far of, and their overcommitment can help a lot to beat them.

• Samurai Destroyer, all their removal is by destruction, so Samurai Destroyer will always come back. They would need to destroy it by battle to get rid of him. So it can be a great Turn 1 option.

Good side cards and techs:

Dark Magician

Dark Magician is deck that’s quite popular on Ranked and since Dark Magical Circle’s released has become more powerful and consistent. The deck works around the combo between Dark Magical Circle and Magician Navigation. Navigation can trigger Circle in our turn which makes it a really powerful disruption to our plays.

Their tech cards are probably the biggest threats for this deck, Enemy Controller, Treacherous Trap Hole and The Eye of Timaeus. Eye of Timaeus can summon powerful fusion monsters that can be really hard to deal with or can just win the game. Dark Cavalry can negate effects that target, which is not a big issue, just a few of the Synchros and Thunder Dragonmatrix, the biggest problem is that it can gain a lot of attack which can be deadly in monster with piercing effect. Armades, Keeper of Boundaries can stop our monster effects, which is our form to get card advantage or not lose that advantage.

In this match-up your goal is control the match-up until you can do a push when they can’t trigger Circle’s effect or you have a way to stop it.

Avoid to summon your tuners while they have Navigation and Circle combo. Try to summon only Trunder Dragons so their disruption won’t be as bad.

The Shiranui build has a bit of advantage in this case, since you might be able to resummon your tuner with the effect of Shiranui Solitaire by banishing with Gold Sarcophagus.

The best cards in this match-up are:

• Black Rose Dragon can be really devastating and is really hard for them to recover.

• Shiranui Squiresaga can be a really good follow-up after Black Rose in case they manage to survive.

• Cosmic Cyclone, when they summon a Dark Magician while Circle is face-up, the effect of circle will trigger and they will target a card you control, you can chain Cosmic Cyclone so the effet of circle will not resolve.

• Sphere Kuriboh can be a good option, not a only to survive, but also changes monsters like Dark Cavalry into defense, making it easier to deal with.

Good side cards and techs:

Note:

• Chaos Hunter, can be special summoned when a monster is special summoned (from Magician Navigation mostly), if Dark Magician is special summoned, Magical Circle will activate before Chaos Hunter, Circle will be CL1, and Chaos Hunter CL2, Chaos Hunter will resolve 1st so your opponent will not be able to banish the targeted card. Chaos Hunter is better than Artifact Lancea in this match-up, because Lancea only works during opponents turn (at least from the hand, you could tribute summon Lancea, which is too situational), and they normally banish during your turn.

Darklords

Darklords are a consistent deck that can maintain their board while being able to negate the effects of a face-up monster with The Sanctified Darklord which they can use up to use twice per turn (in case they had it set). They have monster removal (Darklord Desire) and can also easily swarm the field with big monsters. Most of their monsters have the ability while on the field to shuffle Darklord S/Ts from their GY back to deck to copy their effects (the effects are treated as monster effects).

The monsters that can use the shuffle ability also have other effects and are the follow:

• Darklord Ixchel, has 2900 defense which can be annoying to deal with. Also its their deck draw power, can be discarded along another Darklord card, to draw 2 cards, this effect is also used to get other cards in their GY, to be used latter on.

• Darklord Nasten, can be special summoned from their hand by sending 2 Darklord cards from the hand to the GY. This is one of the ways for them to summon a monster in attack position.

• Darklord Tezcatlipoca, can be sent from hand to GY to protect Darklord(s) from being destroyed. As long they have access to copy Banishment of the Darklords in their GY they can add this card from their deck to hand to stop their mosnter from being destroyed by battle or card effect.

• Darklord Amdusc, can be discarded along with other Darklord card to add a Darklord card from their GY to the hand. Its mostly used to recycle cards that can’t be shuffled or summoned from the GY.

The spell and traps that they can copy:

• The Sanctified Darklord, by sending a Darklord monster face-up on the field or from the hand to the GY, can negate the effects of a face-up monster on the field until the end of the turn and than gain life points equal to its attack. This effect can be really frustating to deal with but it has some weakness, it doesn’t target, they choose the monster that will be negate on resolution, which they won’t be able to do if the monster isn’t face-up on the field, so in case you have a way to remove the monster off the field, you will still be able to resolve its effects. (This is more for activations on summon, since monsters with ignition effects would get negated before being able to activate).

• Banishment of the Darklords, can add a Darklord card from the deck to hand. This effect is really good for the deck, since they can copy its effect from GY to do multiple searchs in the same turn (one by playing the card and other by copying with their monster effects).

• Darklord Contact, special summons a Darklord monster from their GY in defense position. While they have this card in their GY, becames harder to clear their board.

Their main threats are:

• Darklord Desire, has 3000 attack, and by reducing it’s attack by 1000 can send a monster you control to the GY. The atk reduction can be a good thing for you, they can use The Sanctified Darklord to negate its effect which will restore its attack back to 3000, but they choose to do so, means they aren’t using a negate on one of your monsters.

• Darklord Morningstar, has 3000 attack and cannot be targeted by card effects while they control another Darklord monster. Besides the attack its not really a big deal.

Besides the Darklord cards they don’t usually play many tech cards, mostly Cosmic Cyclone and/or Galaxy Cyclone due to the fact they don’t have inherted ways to deal with backrow.

Your goal in this match-up, is to try to clear their board if possible, while having 2 monsters (1 roar, if possible to be safer, or Hundred Thunders with access to roar).

Clearing their board, you automatic think about Black Rose Dragon, but is really hard to resolve, since they have access to The Sanctified Darklord which can negate your Black Rose, not only that, but can use Darklord Tezcatlipoca to protect all their monsters from being destroyed, even if they don’t have in hand, they can add by shuffling Banishment of the Darklords to add Tez during your turn. So Black Rose Dragon isn’t a good choice unless you are almost sure it will resolve and they don’t have Tez.

If you can’t clear their board, try to priotize destroy the monsters in this other:

1. The ones with 3000 attack (Desire and Morninstar)

2. Monsters with the shuffle effect (Ixchel, Tezcatlipoca, Nasten and Amdusc)

Also if it cames to the end game, they will try to deck you out by keep recycling and looping The Sanctified Darklord, so its import to save a Cosmic Cyclone in your hand through the duel, so if they activate Sanctified you can chain Cosmic getting rid of it for the rest of the duel, this will limit their plays and they won’t be able to keep paying life points to shuffle their cards back to the deck. Saving Cosmic in your hand will make sure they don’t get rid of it with their backrow removal. They will avoid to set Sanctified, since they can only play 1.

Thunder Dragonduo will definely help in this match-up, by most of the time forcing a negate (to negate the 300 atk boost), also being able to recycle it, can help to clear their board or making they use Desire’s effect on it.

Since last Banlist (or Balance changes) with Darklord Ixchel added to the “Limeted 2” list, most Darklord decks opted to not play Ixchel in favor to use 2 Darklord Contact and to use the Lightsworn engine, to help with consistency.

The Lightsworn engine mostly around Charge of the Light Brigade, which has really good chances of milling some of their monsters so they can special summon with Contact. Charge also will search a Lightsworn monster, the most common ones are Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress to destroy backrow or Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn which will give aditional mills and will give them access to Syncro monster, Star Eater being the most common one.

Cards to help in this match-up:

• Red Dragon Archfiend, 3000 atk monster that if attacks a defense position monster destroys all other monsters in defense position your opponent controls. If you can summon 2 copies, you will be able to clear their board for sure since they can’t negate both. Its a bit harder to summon 2 in the same turn, so you should try to protect the 1st one at all costs.

• PSY-Framelord Zeta is a really good turn 1 play along with Sealed Tombs, because it can deal with Darklord Nasten and help defending later on.

• In this match-up all the semi-limited cards are really good. Treacherous Trap Hole can destroy 2 of their monster or making they use a Tezcatlipoca. Enemy Controller helps to finish them, being able to take control of one of their monsters is really good, also 2 copies in the early game can basically steal the game on its own. World Legacy Clash can protecti your monsters while stoping and reducing their attacks, good along Red Dragon Archfiend.

• No Mortal Can Resist, can be a decent option, although it will be really hard to trigger, since they can manipulate their LP to prevent you from actiavting.

Other good side cards and techs:

Elementsaber Invoked

Elementsabers Invoked is a control deck that have a lot of defense options and great finisher cards like Invoked Purgatrio.

Elementsabers are an archetype that can change their attribute while in ther GY which add a good complement to Invoked.

Their mostly common Esaber monster is Elementsaber Molehu, the others are mostly used for its attributes in hand. Molehu is a control card that can flip any monster into face-down by discarding one Esaber monster or if they have Palace of the Elemental Lords they can send from the deck instead.

Besides the Esaber part of the deck, the rest is the Invoked engine, consisting in:

• Aleister the Invoker, the heart of invoked deck, when normal summoned or flipped face-up, add Invocation from the deck to hand. Also during either players turn can be discard to target a Fusion monster they control, to boost its attack and defense by 1000.

• Invocation is the fusion spell of the deck, can banish fusion materials from both GYs and/or their side of the field (besides using hand), to fusion summon an Invoked fusion monster from their extra deck. While in the GY, can be shuffled to add an Aleiter the Invoker that is banished back to hand. This effect basically makes the deck able to keep fusion summoning every turn (with just one copy of Aleiter and Invocation) as long the combo isn’t interupted or Aleiter isn’t used for the boost.

All the fusions requite Aleister the Invoker and a monsters with different attributes, one for each fusion. The Fusions:

• Fire: Invoked Purgatrio, deadly card, can easily clear a board while able to do a lot of damage. Also has piercing. This is the biggest threat of their deck against Thunder Dragons, not only laghting at the float ability, but also doing piercing damage.

• Water: Invoked Cocytus, this is their wall. Can’t be target or destroyed by card effects (its opponents card effects). Its limited to 1 so you only need to deal with once. Can attack while in defense. There are ways to deal with this card, Thunder Dragonduo being able to go over 3100, is the only inherted way to deal with, otherwise you will need a synchro monster or Destiny HERO - Plasma.

• Earth: Invoked Magellanica, non-effect monster but has quite high stats (3000/3300).

• Dark: Invoked Caliga, small stats (1000/1800), but limits both players from activating monsters effects and from attacking, only one effect per turn can be really tricky to play around.

Also Palace of the Elemental Lords will boost all their monsters by 200 atk/def for each different attribute in their GY.

This is a difficult match-up for a few reasons listed above. The combination of Molehu and Purgatrio is really hard to deal with if they also have Traps like Floodgate Trap Hole and Paleozoic Canadia.

Your goal is to beat them as soon as possible, because a longer the duel gets, the harder the duel gets. Its really hard to synchro against them, because of Molehu and their flip traps, so avoid to summon your tuner until you deal with their backrow.

Since the last Balance changes (AKA Banlist), most of the ESaber Invoked deck opted to stop playing Cosmic Cyclone and starded using Destiny Draw over Sorcery Conduit. Now they have less backrow removal and more Traps/Hand Traps, which makes they more vunerable to backrow.

Some cards and techs against them:

• Artifact Lancea can be chainend to the activation of Invocation to stop the fusion (Unless they have the materials in hand), and most of the time leaving them with Aleiter on the field.

• Sphere Kuriboh is really good to stop all the attacks of Invoked Purgatrio, its inferior to Lancea, since Lancea stops the summon while sphere only stops the attack and you still need to deal with the monster.

• Forbidden Lance can help with synchro summoning as long they don’t have Molehu’s effect available. While also able to stop the fusion (you can chain Lance to Invocation by targeting Aleister so they can’t use that Aleiter as material, besides if they flip Aleiter face-down with Molehu’s effect or remove Aleister in a different way).

• Cosmic Cyclone on their Invocation can stop they from adding Alesiter back to the hand (it probably won’t stop the deck, because they normally play 2 Invocation), this can be viable if you have a way to beat them on your following turn.

Other good side cards and techs:

• Forbidden Chalice and Fiendish Chain can stop Aleister search and also can help with Molehu.

How to beat Invoked Cocytus:

• Samurai Destroyer paired with Enemy Controller or Treacherous Trap Hole, can deal with Cocytus. By attacking with Samurai so you will be able to use enemy controller to switch Cocytus to atk position, since it negates its effect making able to target Cocytus (also you can pair with other ways of destruction like Red Dragon Archfiend). Samurai also stops other monster effects that activate on flip like Flip Flop Frog, Aleister the Invoker, Nightmare Penguin, etc, and stops all the magician girls. It’s really good against other variations of Invoked.

• Attacking with a higher attack monster like Thunder Dragonduo, they might use Aleiter to protect but that limits their plays on their following turn.

Lunalight

Lunalights is deck that relies on fusion summoning while getting plusses from their main deck monster if they are sent to the GY by card effects.

Atm they have 2 fusion monsters:

• Lunalight Sabre Dancer, requires 3 fusion materials, cannot be targeted, and gets a lot of attack. This monster isn’t hard to out, since it doesn’t have protection from distruction, so a simple Black Rose Dragon will deal with it.

• Lunalight Cat Dancer, requires 2 fusion materials, cannot be destroyed by battle, and by tributing another Lunalight monster can attack all monsters you control twice (the 1st time the monster isn’t destroyed). Alone isn’t problem at all, but there are some things that will talk about latter on.

From the main deck Lunalight monsters, nothing much to know about them because you won’t interact with them.

But a few thing to consider:

• While Lunalight Crimson Fox is in the GY, can negate a effect that targets a “Lunalight” monster they control, by banishing itself, so keep that in mind.

• Lunalight White Rabbit can bounce S/Ts you control up to the number of Lunalight monsters they control, so you might want to activate your S/Ts before it activates.

So how do you play vs them? Only try to go for game if you have clear lethal and/or have some kind of defense (mostly Sphere Kuriboh), and keep in mind that most of them play Grit, which will make harder to find lethal. Their game play is to wait until you have a attack posion monster than they will fuse by using Lunalight Crimson Fox to make your monster 0 atk than will attack twice with Lunalight Cat Dancer or with Lunalight Sabre Dancer, so if you aren’t planning on attacking don’t summon your monsters in attack position.

Some builds ran Aleister the Invoker so if you feel a delay while they don’t have backrow is most likely an Aleister.

Some cards to help in this match-up:

• Black Rose Dragon, none of their monsters are protected from it or will float so, BRD gets rid of anything they have.

• Samurai Destroyer, after you declare an attack with him you shutdown thier Fox effect in the GY, It also negate both of their fusions effects, meaning it can destroy Cat Dancer by battle and allows you to target Sabre Dancer with card effects like PSY-Framelord Zeta’s effect.

• Artifact Vajra and Sphere Kuriboh are great for this match-up. Vajra so you don’t have to commit to the field while they might which would make it easier to beat them before they are able to OTK you. Sphere so you can’t attack them to put pressure while keeping you safe from 1 attacking monster.

• Other cards to remove your monsters from the field (to remove a monster that was reduced to 0 attack). Cards like World Legacy Clash, even if they negate the effect cuz it targets, you still remove the monster from the field as cost.

Shiranui

Shiranui is an archetype the uses it’s GY a lot, you should always keep an eye on that, also they have synchros with powerful effects which they can easily summon with a decent setup.

All their main deck monsters have 2 effect, 1 when normal summoned or while on field and other when they are banished, with the exception of the tuners.

The main deck monsters:

• Shiranui Squire, when normal summoned will special summon a Shiranui Spectralsword or Shiranui Spectralsword Shade from the deck, which essencially becames a one card synchro into a lv6 or lv7 synchro respectively, unless the use a modulation skill like Level Duplication. If it gets banished draw a card and then discards a card.

• Shiranui Solitaire, can tribute a zombie monsters to special a tuner with 0 defense from the deck (both shiranui tuners have 0 defense). If it gets banished can special summon 1 banished Shiranui monster (including the Synchros).

• Shiranui Spiritmaster, when normal summoned can special summon a Shiranui monster from the hand or GY (including the Synchros), the monster is banished when leaves the field. If it gets banished can destroy a face-up card its opponent controls.

• Shiranui Samurai, during both turns can banish 1 zombie monster in its GY to gain 600 atk, and will banish any monster that battles with. If banished can add one Shiranui monster from GY to the hand.

• Shiranui Spectralsword, on the field doesn’t have effect, but while in the GY, except the turn was sent there, can banished another zombie non-tuner to special a Zombie Synchro monster from the extra deck (note that this is a special summon which bypasses requirements, e. g. Archfiend Zombie-Skull requires “Plaguespread Zombie” + 2+ or more non-tuners Zombie monsters). Also this effect can also trigger the banish effect from the other monster. In case of banishing Shiranui Solitaire will essentially summon a lv6 synchro, and Solitaire will special Spectralsword back to the field allowing to synchro for a level 8.

This monster is the one that you have to keep an eye on. Not destroying while is on the field can be a good option to avoid giving the synchro ability in the GY, or atleast making your opponent use a card to get it in the GY, e. g. Enemy Controller.

Their Synchro monsters:

• Shiranui Squiresaga, lv7 which requires Shiranui Spectralsword Shade, level wise. This monster effect like mentioned before, doesn’t target and you don’t know which card will be banished or which cards will be destroyed, you must respond before resolution.

• Shiranui Samuraisaga, lv6 mostly used for synchro climb. If banished can reduce one face-up monster’s atk by 500. During either player’s turns can return 1 banished zombie to the deck, and than change all monsters its opponents control into defense position.

• Shiranui Shogunsaga, if special summoned can banish a zombie monster in its GY to gain its atk points until the end of the turn. Can get a really high atk which can be really dangerous if you can stop.

• Shiranui Sunsaga, their ultimate boss monster. Despite of being a level 10, not hard to summon, with the synchro climb or with help of level modulation skills. If special summoned can return any number of Zombie Synchro monsters that are banished or in GY, to its extra deck to destroy the same amount of cards its opponents control, similar to Squiresaga’s effect, this also doesn’t target, you must react before resolving. Also if any zombie monster their control would be destroyed, it can banish a zombie monster in its GY instead.

You can tell that they have a lot of ways to banish cards during their turn and also during yours, so you should always pay attention to their GY, to help playing around their banish effects (mostly Shiranui Spiritmaster and Shiranui Solitaire’s effects).

Besides all of those, mostly of the Shiranui decks play heavy backrow, which can turn the duel into a grind game most of the time.

Best cards and techs in this match-up:

• Black Rose Dragon can be a decent option if they can’t protect their monsters, i. e. no Sunsaga or under Sealed Tombs. But hard to pull of against heavy backrow, mostly to use against full field of monsters and no backrow.

• Sphere Kuriboh can help surviving, and also changes their monsters into defense, and since their all have 0 defense points, makes it easier to dealt with.

• Samurai Destroyer can attack into Sunsaga (will require another card or effect), and Sunsaga won’t be able to protect itself.

• PSY-Framelord Zeta can be a really good defensive option to stop their synchro climb and to survive a big push.

• Treacherous Trap Hole and Enemy Controller can help stop the synchro plays. TTH can help clearing their board, while Econ can help OTK’ing by stealing their monsters and could help uncloging your field if some of your monsters were hit by Floodgate Trap Hole.

• World Legacy Clash can be very good, to dodge their destructions while reducing their monsters attack also opening the window to their life points.s

Non destruction removal can be really good to help dealing with their monsters while Sunsaga is on the field. A few examples for your extra deck:

• Chaos King Archfiend works really well in this match-up, since their monsters have 0 defense, which basically open the door to their Life Points. The only downside is it requires a Fiend tuner, so unless you’re playing a Fiend tuner, it’s not even worth to side along with the tuner.

Other good side cards and techs:

• No Mortal Can Resist can be a really good tech, playing with Cosmic Cyclone to help triggering the skill. It can cripple their GY which can be devastating, even more if is a That Grass Looks Greener varient and/or Lightsworn engine. Be carefull to not deal damage unless you think you have an OTK, otherwise it might disable the skill for the rest of the game.

Thunder Dragons

The mirror match. Most mirror matches are really lucky based or really boring, but this one is quite interesting, sure, the luck aspect will always be there (this is a card game afterall).

You probably know the your deck’s weakness but there is more to it. Who ever manage their resorces better will come on top, with exceptions of having less techs then your opponent.

Hand traps will provide the backup needed after a fail attemp for lethal. And some techs will help with lethal while also stop your opponent from getting advantages.

Some great techs in this match-up:

• Samurai Destroyer, will stop their monster effects while also leaving you a protection from its floating effect. The down side is that there are ways to deal with him without sending him to the GY, like banishing or bouncing. Also if your opponent is playing Bandit Keith they are most likely playing Baggy Sleeves, so Samurai Destroyer will still give them a draw 2. You can also use Samurai Destroyer to declare an attack and than use other card effect to deal with the high level monsters so you won’t give them the draw 2 (only worth doing in case you have lethal on board).

• Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier, definitely the best and most aggressive synchro in this match-up, it will get rid of their monsters on the field, but also it will cost you resources that might leave you unprotected, so its high-risk/high-reward type of card.

• Thunder Dragonmatrix, probably the must clutch card for the mirror, after both players do a push using their tuners, this card will come to play by helping you to control the board.

A few other things that you should now:

• If you use Enemy Controller to take control of their Thunder Dragonduo you will be the one to use it’s effect in the End Phase instead of your opponent (Good tip for any deck that uses Enemy Controller). Also if you use Enemy Controller to take control of his duo he won’t get its effects in the End Phase.

Necrovalley its used in some decks when there is a deck that will be affected by (and in Gravekeepers, of course), it can stop a few of our plays, like Special Summoning with Hawk’s effect (from grave, but you can still special a Thunder Dragon that is removed from play), with Hundred Thunders and stopping us from using Roar’s effect to add a card from the GY to the hand (can still add a banished card). Also stops Crystron Citree to synchro on your opponent’s turn. Necrovally hurts quite a lot, but that are ways to that can help dealing with, here are some: Cosmic Cyclone and Thunder Dragon Discharge are the obviously ones. Crystron Quan along with Discharge can Destroy Necrovalley with its effects since it special summons from the hand. Scrap Dragon, Ancient Fairy Dragon and Shiranui Squiresaga are also good options too. Most of these options won’t work If they have Gravekeeper’s Supernaturalist, which prevents Necrovalley from being destroyed, in that scenario you should try to go for Samurai Destroyer which can atk and destroy Supernaturalist even with Necrovalley active, since it negates the effects of supernaturalist which will go down to 2500 atk.

Yubel

This deck doesn’t have much monster removal to deal with Yubel on Chain Link 2 or higher, but if you have access to Samurai Destroyer, which is basically a hard counter to Yubel, you just attack and it will negate Yubel’s effect (no matter which form), it will be destroyed by battle and won’t be able to summon another form.

Counter Traps

If you can tell if is a negate trap deck with cards related to The Sanctuary in the Sky or if your opponent negates one of your cards. In this kind of match-up you have to keep in mind that they can negate one of your effects (If they negate the effect of Hawk and you have another one in hand you won’t be able to use it, you can only use a 2nd Hawk if they negate the Activation)), so you might want to have a backup in case they negate your 1st activation. If you can summon a Samurai Destroyer you can basically beat them down, without activating anything. Also Thunder Dragon Discharge can prevent they to negate the activations of your Thunder Dragon effects,

Six Samurai

Really annoying match-up, if they have Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En on the field, you will have a hard time to start your plays and not being able to loop with Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders. Six Style - Dual Wield is the biggest problem since it can stop synchro plays, if you can summon Samurai Destroyer they will have a hard time to deal with it, Legendary Six Samurai - Enishi is their only out, since if they attack you with any of their monsters you can activate your backrow and Shi En won’t be able to negate. Crystrons can summon Crystron Ametrix on their turn which will change special summoned monsters to defense, shutting down Dual Wield. This match-up got less difficult with the addition of Thunder Dragonduo since it has more atk than Shi en.

Ancient Gears

Hard match-up, if they get Ancient Gear Reactor Dragon out you will have most likely only your turn to deal with it, in case you don’t get OTKed. Against AGs you should try to stop them from summoning Reactor. Not many cards to make Geartown miss the timing, besides Thunder Dragon Discharge, not many people know but Discharge can be activated if you normal or special summon a Thunder Dragon, so you can use Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders to summon on your opponent’s turn, and will ask you if you want to activate Discharge if you have another effect to activate (like Thunder Dragondark in hand) you can use Dark’s effect then chain Discharge as Chain Link 2, this way you will make Geartown to miss the timing (keep in mind that this won’t work if they are tryinig to destroy Geartown, this has to be done outside of a Chain).

Cards that can help dealing with Geartown and Castle:

If for some reason they have a Geartown on the field and it’s your turn, you can destroy it in chain Link 2, by using a Thunder Dragon monster as synchro material of Black Rose Dragon, you can activate the effect of that Thunder Dragon (one that you didn’t use one of its effects this turn) which will be chain link 1 and Black Rose will be Chain Link 2, making their Geartown miss the timing.

Ritual Beasts

Ritual Beast is an archetype that can be really confusing to understand at 1st glance but it really isn’t. All their monsters are “Ritual Beast Tamer” or “Spiritual Beast” with the exception Spiritual Beast Tamer Winda which count as both. The tamers are human like psychic type monsters and the beasts are animal like monsters.

Their Fusions are “Ritual Beast” and riquire one “Ritual Beast Tamer” and 1 “Spiritual Beast” monster to contact fuse, meaning they will banish both to special summon the fusion monster. The main way to summon a fusion is with Ritual Beast Tamer Elder, which allows them to do an extra normal summon (cannot be negated, fliping it face-down won’t stop that effect) or if Winda is destroyed they can special summon any Ritual Beast monster from their deck/extra deck.

The main plays and things you should know about them.

• Each of their main deck monsters can only be special summoned once per turn (unless summoned at the same time).

• Their fusions can “tag out” (return to the extra deck and special 1 Ritual Beast Tamer and 1 Spiritual Beast that are banished) at any time as long as they have banished valid targets (Quick Effect). So anything that targets them, they can chain to the effect, and since returning to the extra deck is a cost you won’t be able to chain another effect to it.

• Their only way to disrupt is with Spiritual Beast Pettlephin by banishing a ritual beast card from their hand. This could really hurt because it will send your monsters to your hand and you won’t get any effect of the Thunder Dragons (unless the monster was summoned by Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders, in that case they will be banished instead of going to your hand). You should try to alaways have 2 monsters on the field (or one and Hundred Thunders set), to avoid getting OTK’ed.

• Their Spiritual Beast have diffent effects. Besides Pettlephin, they have Spiritual Beast Cannahawk as the one you should know, it can banish a Ritual Beast card from thier deck and then add in their 2nd standby phase after the activation (Gold Sarcophagus’s effect for their archetype). His effect is basicly setting up for what they will summon of a “tag out” play.

• Thier fusions besides the “tag out” mechanic have also another effect:

1. Ritual Beast Ulti-Apelio has 2600 atk and when it attacks is unaffected by other card effects (including your opponent’s cards, atk boosts for example).

2. Ritual Beast Ulti-Cannahawk is the monster that gives them card advantage, it can return 2 banished Ritual Beast cards to GY to add Ritual Beast card from their deck to the hand. This effect can be chained with his “tag out” effect special summoning one of the monsters that was going to the GY along with different one. Their monsters don’t have much use in the GY.

3. Ritual Beast Ulti-Pettlephin has 2800 defence and can’t be destroyed by card effects.

• Their S/Ts would should know are:

1. Ritual Beast Return, special summons a Ritual Beast monster from GY or banished, by banishing a Ritual Beast monster from their hand (Quick-Play Spell).

2. Ritual Beast’s Bond, banishes 2 Ritual Beast their control to special summon a Ritual Beast from their extra deck (Quick-Play spell). Being a QP spell makes it so, if you try to disrupt them, they can chain it, which will be basically a way to summon a contact fusion during a chain.

3. Ritual Beast Ambush, special summon 1 “Spiritual Beast” and 1 “Ritual Beast Tamer” in defence position from GY or that is banished (Trap). Its more of a recovering card.

In this match-up your goal is to try clear their field if possible no make hard for them to recover or if you can, defeat them, you can’t really control this match-up as they have ways to recovery. Avoid to destroy Winda if you can’t deal with the monster that will be special summoned of her effect.

The best cards in this match-up are:

• Treacherous Trap Hole is really good disruption when they have only their main deck monsters on the field without Winda.

• Enemy Controller can stop them from summoning their Fusions, if you use the “econ take” play on their Spiritual Beast monsters before they use their effect. Doesn’t stop the Fusion if they have Ritual Beast’s Bond, in this case it would be a one for one trade, but you will stop the Spiritual Beast monster’s effect.

• Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders is the ideal search of dark’s effect for a safer opening or in case lack of good defense. Hundred Thunders allows you to special summon and Thunder Dragon to block an atk, which you might need in case you can’t summon 2 monsters during your turn. This is due to Spiritual Beast Pettlephin’s effect being able to return your monsters to hand.

• Red Dragon Archfiend has more atk point than all their monsters and since all their Fusion’s “tag out” play summon monsters in defence position, this card becames a big threat.

• Samurai Destroyer can be a really good card, because as soon as is your battle phase they have to activate their effects before you declare an atk, other wise you can atk with it and they won’t be able to activate anything, while you are able to use cards like Enemy Controller or Treacherous Trap Hole to help clear their field. Also Samurai destroyer stops Spiritual Beast Tamer Winda from summoning their extra deck monsters when destroyed.

• Black Rose Dragon could be a really great play in case they don’t have Ritual Beast Ulti-Pettlephin on the field.

Cards to flip them down won’t be effective since it won’t stop the contact fusion or the “tag out” play. Also battle trap or cards like Sphere Kuriboh won’t do much since their main attacking monster is unaffected by those.

Good side options:

Fortune Ladies

Can be one of the most slows matchups. Fortune Lady Every’s effect can banish one of your monsters in their standby phase and you can’t respond to its effect after it chooses a monster, so you must think 1st if you want to use something like World Legacy Clash to protect one of your monsters while reducing their Every’s attack. The biggest problem is their backrow, they can have battle traps like Wall of Disruption which can give them lethal Damage on their turn or Floodgate Trap Hole which can stop your synchro plays.

In this matchup Samurai Destroyer shines, it negates their monster effects when it battles making it so you will always win the battle while also will stop their battle traps from activating. If you are playing with the crystron variant you should try to not summon the tuner to use on your opponent’s turn, since Every can easily deal with it. What is good about the crystron’s tuner is that if you go 1st, you can setup the Thunder Dragon Discharge along a crystron tuner combo to destroy one of their backrow on their turn. Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror hurts a lot, not being able to use Dark or Roar’s effect really limits your plays, although it doesn’t stop the banish effect or the discard effect, so you can have your normal Gold Sarcophagus plays, but it will stop Aloof’s effect.

Cards that can help this matchup:

• Cosmic Cyclone, Thunder Dragon Discharge and Hey, Trunade! to help dealing with their backrow, trunade is to use as a finisher card.
• Floodgate Trap Hole can be really good to stop the synchro plays, but if they already have the synchros or a board already setup won’t be as good.
• Network Trap Hole can be used to banish Every when its special summoned from grave or any fortune lady special summoned from the deck (which includes special from Fortune Lady Calling or Fortune Lady Light’s effect)
• Backrow could be good to hold off without having to make an offensive play, so you can make a synchro play to push for game.
• Chaos Sorcerer can deal with Fortune Lady Every permanently, but you might have a hard time doing it so with the popularity of Floodgate Trap Hole and Enemy Controller.
• Side options include:

This puzzles or Duel Quizes have the primary goal to help you learn some tricks or to apply something mentioned before, so most of the scenarios will only list a narrowed hand/GY/deck/extra deck to help choosing or to limit your plays (some might have something to confusing you). Also some of the scenarios are common while others aren’t (but is all for the sake of the leasons/test your knowledge).

The 1st few puzzles will be focusing on OTKs versus common scenarios to show the power of the deck, and the latter ones will help with defense while setting up for an OTK on your following turn.

Puzzle #1

Your opponent’s field:

Your opponent is at 4000 LP

Your hand:

Your deck:

Your extra deck:

Your goal:

• The puzzle starts in your main phase and you have to Win this turn.

Solution:

• Activate Gold Sarcophagus, banish Thunder Dragonroar from your deck;
• Activate roar’s effect, choose Thunder Dragondark from your deck to special summon it;
• Normal Summon Plaguespreader Zombie (this would work with other lv2 tuners)
• Synchro Summon Black Rose Dragon, using Plague and Dark;
• Activate Thunder Dragondark’s effect;
• Activate Black Rose Dragon’s effect, this will create a Chain Link, dark as CL1 and Black Rose as CL2;
• When resolving the chain, it will destroy all cards on the field, and then you will choose a Thunder Dragon card in your deck to be added to your hand, choose Thunder Dragonduo;

This will make Geartown miss the timing, since it says “When destroyed” and something happend after it was destroyed

• Activate Thunder Dragonhawk’s effect to special summon Thunder Dragonroar from your banished pile.
• Special summon Thunder Dragonduo, by banishing hawk and dark from your GY.
• Atk with duo and roar for a total of 5200 damage.

Puzzle #2

Your opponent’s field and hand:

Your opponent is at 3000 LP

Your hand:

Your deck:

Your extra deck:

Your goal: The puzzle starts in your main phase and you have to Win this turn.

Solution:

• Activate Gold Sarcophagus, banish Thunder Dragonroar from your deck;
• Activate roar’s effect, choose Thunder Dragondark from your deck to be special summoned;
• Normal Summon Plaguespreader Zombie (this would work with other lv2 tuners)
• Synchro Summon Black Rose Dragon, using Plague and Dark;
• This time you’re not activating dark’s effect;
• Activate Black Rose Dragon’s effect atempting to destroy all cards they control

The fact your opponent have a 3rd small monster might indicates that they have Blackbird Close in hand which they can activate from the hand in case they control a synchro monster. Even if they don’t have Blackbird Close or they choose to not negate, you still have the option to activate dark’s effect again and also you would still be able to win this turn.

• They will chain Blackbird Close to negate your Black Rose effect;
• Activate Plaguespreader Zombie’s effect to special summon itself from the GY, by returning Thunder Dragonmatrix to your deck;
• Activate Thunder Dragonhawk’s effect to special summon Thunder Dragondark from your GY;
• Synchro Summon Black Rose Dragon, using Plague and Dark;
• Now this time activate dark’s effect and then Black Rose Dragon’s effect;

This is to make Assault Blackwing - Chidori the Rain Sprinkling miss the timing since it will be destroyed and something will happen afterwards, otherwise it would be able to special summon a Winged Beast synchro monster from its GY (other then itself). Not really relevant in this scenario but it could be in other ones.

• Add Thunder Dragonmatrix with dark’s effect;
• Special Summon Thunder Dragonduo by banishing one Light and one Dark monster from your GY;
• Atk with duo;
• Activate Thunder Dragonmatrix and target duo

This will trigger duo’s effect making it 3600 damage (500 from matrix and 300 from duo’s effect), which makes it lethal.

Puzzle #3

Your opponent’s field:

Your opponent is at 4000 LP

Your Field:

Your hand:

Your deck:

Your goal: The puzzle starts in your main phase and you have to Win this turn.

Notes:

• Thunder Dragon Discharge is already face-up
• Thunder Dragons’s Hundred Thunder was set in a previously turn.

Solution:

• Activate Gold Sarcophagus, banish Thunder Dragonroar from your deck;
• Activate roar’s effect to special summon Thunder Dragondark from your deck;

Since a Thunder Dragon monster was special summoned, it will ask if you want to activate Thunder Dragon Discharge’s effect

• Activate Discharge and target Necrovalley;
• Activate Enemy Controller chaining to Discharge effect, and select “Tribute a monster”, and tribute Thunder Dragondark and target Gravekeeper’s Supernaturalist;
• When resolving Discarge, banish a Thunder Dragon from your deck;
• Activate Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders to Special Summon a Thunder Dragon from your GY;
• Atk with Supernaturalist and a Thunder Dragon for over 4000 damage.

Puzzle #4

Your opponent’s field:

Your opponent’s GY:

Your opponent is at 4000 LP

Your hand:

Your GY:

Your deck:

Your extra deck:

Your goal: The puzzle starts in your main phase and you have to Win this turn.

Notes:

• Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders was set in a priviously turn.
• Your opponent has a Dark Magician in hand and a spellcaster in his deck.

Solution:

• Normal summon Shiranui Spectralsword;
• Activate Thunder Dragonhawk, to special summon Thunder Dragondark from your GY;
• Synchron summon Shiranui Squiresaga;
• Use dark’s effect to add Thunder Dragonroar from your deck to your hand;
• Activate Squiresaga’s effect to banish Black Rose Dragon from your GY;

This will allow you to destroy a S/T on the field and then a monster.

• Choose Magician Navigation and Dark Magician;

Now, since he doesn’t control a Dark Magician, he can’t use the Navigation in the GY to negate one of your S/Ts.

• Activate Gold Sarcophagus and banish Shiranui Spiritmaster;
• Use Spiritmaster’s effect to destroy his Magician’s Rod;
• Activate Thunder Dragonroar’s effect to add a copy of Thunder Dragonhawk in from your GY to your hand;
• Activate Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders to special summon roar, and then another copy of roar;

Attack with all your monsters for over 4000 damage (Kiteroid in GY will prevent damage from only one atk)

Puzzle #5

Your opponent’s field and Hand:

Your opponent is at 4000 LP

Your hand:

Your Field:

Your GY:

Your deck:

Your extra deck:

Your goal: The puzzle starts in your main phase and you have to Win this turn.

Notes:

• Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders was set in a priviously turn.

Solution:

• Activate Thunder Dragonhawk’s effect, to special summon Thunder Dragondark;
• Normal summon Jet Synchron;
• Synchro summon Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier;

Then you have 2 ways to finish the puzzle:

• Use dark’s effect to add Thunder Dragonroar from your deck to your hand;
• Activate roar’s effect to add back hawk;
• Activate Brionac’s effect, discarding Thunder Dragondark, to return Chaos Hunter back to his hand;

The card you discard won’t make much of a difference, dark is just better to have in your GY than in your hand.

• Chain Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders to Brionac’s effect;

This will allow you to special summon Thunder Dragon(s) from your GY, while Chaos Hunter is still be on the field.

• The chain will resolve;
• Special summon 1 roar, or 2 darks (if you discarded a dark with brionac’s effect);
• Atk with all your monsters for over 4000 damage.

• Don’t use dark’s effect;
• Activate Brionac’s effect, discarding Gold Sarcophagus, to return Chaos Hunter back to his hand;
• Activate dark’s effect in your hand to discard itself;
• Chain Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders, and target dark in your GY;

This will allow you to special summon Thunder Dragon(s) from your GY during a Chain, so it works to play around cards like Floodgate Trap Hole, which says “When a monster is summon” and since the monster wasn’t the last thing to happen, they can’t activate.

• Special summon 2 darks
• Atk with all your monsters for 5500 damage.

Puzzle #6

Your opponent’s field:

Your opponent have 2 Six Samruais in his GY.

Your opponent is at 4000 LP

Your field:

Your hand:

Your GY:

Your deck:

Your extra deck:

Your goal: The puzzle starts during your opponent’s battle phase and you have to Win during your next turn.

Notes:

• Your opponent activated The Tie that Binds in their main phase, his monsters are at:
  • Kizan, 2400 atk (300 boost from its effect and 300 from the skill)
  • Enishi, 2500 atk (500 boost from its effect and 300 from the skill)
  • Shi En, 2800 atk (300 from the skill)
• Your opponent declared an attack with Shi En against Zeta
• He activates Enish’s effect and targets Zeta.
• The card you will draw isn’t relevant and isn’t one listed that are in your deck.

Solution:

• Chain PSY-Framelord Zeta’s effect and target Shi En;
• He will attack with the remaining monsters;

Even if your opponent doesn’t attack with his other monsters you will still be able to win.

• Dark’s effect won’t matter here;

During your turn you draw, the card won’t matter.

Zeta and Shi En will return to the field.

• Activate Plaguespreader Zombie in your GY, returning the card you just drew, to special summon Plague;

• Activate Thunder Dragonhawk to special Thunder Dragondark from your GY (skip this step in case your opponent didn’t take out dark);

• Synchro Summon Samurai Destroyer using Plague and dark;

• Activate dark’s effect to add Thunder Dragonduo;

• Special Summon duo by banishin hawk and dark;

• Proceed to your battle phase;

• Attack with Zeta into Kizan. This will deal 500 damage.

• Attack with Samurai Destroyer into Enishi, then chain Zeta’s effect to banish Shi En and itself.

Since Samurai is preventing your opponent from activating cards it won’t be able to activate Six Style - Dual Wield.

Shi En will be banished and Enishi will be destroyed dealing 900 damage.

• Attack with Thunder Dragonduo for more 2800 damage, lethal through the 2600 LP left.

Puzzle #7

Your opponent’s field:

Your opponent is at 4000 LP

Your Field:

Your hand:

Your GY:

Your deck:

You are at 1500 LP

Your goal: The puzzle starts during your opponent’s battle phase and you have to Win during your next turn.

Notes:

• Your opponent is attacking with Magician of Chaos and in the Battle Step he activates Cosmic Cyclone targeting your Thunder Dragon Discharge.
• He haven’t used Magician of Chaos’s effect this turn.
• The card you will draw isn’t relevant and isn’t one listed that are in your deck.

Solution:

• Chain Thunder Dragondark’s effect to his Cosmic Cyclone;

This will chain block, so his Magician of Chaos won’t be able to destroy a card on your field.

• The chain resolves adding a copy of dark from your deck, and Discharge gets banished;
• Dark is destroyed and you can’t use it’s effect (since you used his other effect this turn);
• Your opponent will end his turn;
• During your main phase special summon Thunder Dragonduo by banishing Thunder Dragonhawk and Thunder Dragondark.
• Activate dark’s effect to add Thunder Dragonroar from your deck to your hand. Don’t activate hawk’s effect.
• Activate roar’s effect to added the banished hawk.
• This will trigger duo’s effect gaining 300 atk
• Activate hawk’s effect to special summon roar
• Attack with duo, destroying his Magician of Chaos, so you can banish one card from your GY to add a Thunder monster from your deck to your hand (not relevant for this puzzle)
• Attack with roar

Duo does 600 damage (3100 - 2500) and roar does 2400, which is lethal, because of the 1000 LP cost from Cosmic Cyclone.

I’ll try to update the guide every time the Meta changes, when new cards come out and after updates on Konami’s banlist. I’ll try to include more tips against other decks/cards that are popular at lower ranks, so it can help everyone.

I want to give a shoutout too everyone that came up with some ideas for the combos and techs, great community, and shotout to Emma Valentine, Lavamat and Migan, they wrote really amazing guides that expired me to add and improve the content in this. If you are interested you should check them out, Six Samurai Guide and Yubel Guide

Also, I can’t thank enough for what RandomPl0x have helped with edding this guide and for all she does for the community.

I hope this guide can help you understand how to play the deck, improve your plays and help to choose ratios and techs.

Good luck and have fun.

Guide formatted and uploaded by RandomPl0x.
Thumbnail designed and created by RandomPl0x.