Hey readers, this week we’re going to start off by taking a look at Cody Conner’s Battlin’ Boxer deck.
Monsters(20):
3 - Battlin' Boxer Switchhitter
3 - Battlin' Boxer Glassjaw
3 - Battlin' Boxer Counterpunch
2 - Battlin' Boxer Headgear
2 - Battlin' Boxer Sparrer
2 - Goblindburge
2 - Effect Veiler
2 - Maxx "C"
1 - Gorz, The Emissary of Darkness
Spells(11):
3 - Rank-Up-Magic: Barian's Force
1 - Reinforcement Of The Army
2 - Mystical Space Typhoon
1 - Foolish Burial
1 - Book Of Moon
1 - Dark Hole
1 - Monster Reborn
1 - Heavy Storm
Traps(9):
2 - Compulsory Evacuation Device
2 - Bottomless Trap Hole
1 - Solemn Warning
1 - Solemn Judgement
1 - Starlight Road
2 - Torrential Tribute
The Battlin’ Boxer deck is something that has been very popular at my local ever since it came out. This is in part because it’s inexpensive, but also because there is something fun about throwing super-gachis onto the field for one card, and having Kaluts from the graveyard. Usually, what ends up happening is the deck gets paired against Dragons, and has their Lead Yoke Big Eyed, or versus Prophecy it just gets Fated. Boxers don’t matchup well versus the big 2, but it does do well against decks like Fire Fist, Mermail, and Evilswarm, making it a great deck to take to locals for fun.
The first cut I want to make from the deck are the 3 copies of Barian’s Force. The chaos xyzs are cool, but I don’t really see them contributing much. It’s nice when you can go into one for game, but Barian’s Force seems like it’d wind up sitting dead in your hand quite a bit; Most of the time you’d rather just sit on the Lead Yoke.
I’m also not a huge fan of the Veilers in this deck. Right now, a big reason why Veiler is as good as it is, is because it’s a level 1 tuner, and decks are able to take advantage of that. I’ve said multiple times to people at locals, “Veiler is the best boss monster in the game.” because it fills a dual role of being a boss monster, and functioning as a hand trap. In this deck, it loses the boss monster side of it, and as a hand trap it really isn’t that great of a card right now. Versus dragon, you can block their first big eye with it, but it’s often trivial for them to just make a 2nd, and it’d be better to just have more traps if you aren’t also maining Blaster.
Gorz as a card, especially in this deck, doesn’t seem very good. Spellbooks beat you by fielding a Jowgen, and pecking you to death until the Star Halls take over. Dragons can often just kill it in battle immediately after you drop it, or worse, steal it with Big Eye. Evilswarm also stop you from being able to summon it at all. Even lesser decks like Fire Fist, Bear can often just pop it in MP2 after getting a search off. I’m going to cut it.
Starlight Road isn’t that great of a card right now. Most decks aren’t running Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute, or even Dark Hole right now, so the only thing you’ll really be using Road on is Heavy Storm, and while Storm is an important card to be able to negate, it is only 1 card, and you can’t afford to run a card just to counter a 1-of your opponent might not even draw.
Aside from this though, the deck looks pretty solid.
The cuts in summary:
-3 Rank-Up-Magic: Barian’s Force
-2 Effect Veiler
-1 Starlight Road
-1 Gorz, Emissary of Darkness
Torrential Tribute seems extremely good in this deck, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t want to run as many as you could. Lead Yoke is like Gachi with Torrential, you get to clear their field, and leave something behind.
Imperial Iron Wall seems almost mandatory to main in a deck like this. It fixes the weakness to Fate, and it stops the Dragon deck from being able to spam Big Eyes. While it isn’t at its best versus Evilswarm, at least it turns off their Kerkeyions I’m going to add in 2.
I want to add in the 3rd Compulsory Evacuation Device as well. Versus Dragon, Compulsory is easily the best trap to have, and in combination with Iron Wall, you can actually win grind games versus the deck since when they can’t remove dragons, they run out of resources very quickly.
Playing Goblindbergh but not the 3rd Sparrer seems rather silly. Both help setup your early game, but Sparer has the benefit of not getting Veilered, letting your Headgears go off, and being a Boxer for Switchitter.
Lastly, I also want to add the 3rd Headgear. If you open Sparrer + Headgear, you can use Headgear to dump your Switchitter, then make Lavalal Chain to dump Glassjaw in order to get your Switchitter back, which leaves you setup for next turn. Outside of that combo though, he still has his uses for setting up your Switchitter plays, or loading a Counterpunch.
Additions in summary:
+1 Torrential Tribute
+2 Imperial Iron Wall
+1 Compulsory Evacuation Device
+1 Battlin’ Boxer Sparrer
+1 Battlin’ Boxer Headgeared
Next up, we’re going to take a look at Matthew Lo’s Evilswarm deck.
Monsters: 22
2 Rescue Rabbit
3 Evilswarm Heliotrope
3 Evilswarm Castor
3 Evilswarm Kerykeion
3 Evilswarm Mandargora
2 Evilswarm Thunderbird
2 Thunder King Rai-Oh
2 Maxx "C"
2 Effect Veiler
Spells: 9
3 Infestation Pandemic
2 Forbidden Dress
1 Mosnter Reborn
1 Heavy Storm
1 Dark Hole
1 Reinforcement Of The Army
Traps: 10
2 Compulsory Evacuation Device
2 Safe Zone
2 Torrential Tribute
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Solemn Warning
1 Breakthrough Skill
1 Infestation Infection
This is the more mainstream deck of the two for this article. While personally, I’m not a big fan of the Evilswarm deck, it definitely has a place in the metagame. It has a great Dragon matchup, and if built right it isn’t that bad against Spellbook either. For those unaware, the Evilswarm deck is focused on dropping Evilswarm Ophion as quickly as possible, in order to lock the opponent out. It then protects the Ophion with Infestation Pandemic or Safe Zone. This list is pretty standard, so there isn’t much to really do with it, but I do have some changes I feel are very important to make.
I don’t feel like Dark Hole really fills much of a role in this deck. Sure, it’s nice to Dark Hole the board, and protect all your Evilswarm critters with a Pandemic, but even with that you usually don’t need the Dark Hole. Next, I’m going to cut the 1-of Breakthrough Skill. Again, the card doesn’t really solve any problems the deck has. You have plenty of ways to kill Jowgen with Castor, and a plethora of monsters larger than 1300, and Breakthrough doesn’t really help protect your setups that much, at least in game 1 before Tsukuyomis and Psi-Blockers come in. This deck also doesn’t really get value out of the second half of Breakthrough either, as there are very few opposing effects that are important enough to need to negate on your own turn for this deck.
Heavy Storm, similar to Dark Hole, doesn’t really fill a role in this deck. You have Pandemics which basically act the same as Heavy game 1, sure it’s nice to have for games 2 and 3 when Rivalries come in, but that’s what your own sideboard is for.
The cuts in summary:
-1 Dark Hole
-1 Breakthrough Skill
-1 Heavy Storm
I’ve been running Prophecy for the last few weeks, and can confidently say the matchup is almost literally autowin for Prophecy unless the Evilswarm player happens to open Eradicator Epidemic Virus. While the card is pretty terrible to have versus Dragon, you can’t go around all day conceding game 1s to Spellbook, the deck makes up too large a percentage of the field, and is too good to ignore. For this reason, I’m going to add in 2 Eradicator Epidemic Viruses to the main, and cut the deck down to 40 cards.
It’s possible you might even want to main the 3rd Virus, but I wouldn’t want to go above 40 cards in such a combo-centric deck. With Prophecy getting more and more popular by the day, and with more and more Dragon players switching decks, you need to be prepared if you want to continue running Evilswarm.
Additions in summary:
+2 Eradicator Epidemic Virus
Sorry that section was a little short, but that’s why I try to avoid doctoring established decks. When people submit them, there usually isn’t much room to make changes.
If you would like to submit a deck for either Johnny or myself to doctor in one of our articles, send a message to https://www.facebook.com/ArgDeckDoctor
Until next time, remember to Play Hard or Go Home!
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