First up this week, we have Kyle Croteau’s Exodia deck that he sent in. Anybody who knows me knows that I love degenerate strategies, last year I played Dragon Draw at nationals, and this format I’ve been playing the Gishki FTK. Kyle sent in a take on the Hope for Escape variant popularized largely because of Jarel Winston. Here’s his list:
Monsters:
5 Exodia Pieces
3 Battle Fader
1 Cardcar D
1 Sangan
Spells:
3 One Day of Peace
3 Upstart Goblin
2 Pot of Duality
1 Allure of Darkness
Traps:
2 Accumulated Fortune
1 Gift Card
3 Hope for Escape
3 Jar of Greed
3 Legacy of Yata-Garasu
3 Reckless Greed
3 Threatening Roar
3 Waboku
Side:
1 Cardcar D
2 Exodius the Forbidden Lord
3 Gemini Imps
2 Lava Golem
2 Maxx "C"
1 Metaion the Timelord
1 Heavy Storm
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
I really like that he included the sideboard, as the side for decks like this can be very important. Anyways, the strategy for this deck is fairly straightforward; your goal is to just draw Exodia. As such, the deck is fairly optimized, and there are only a couple of slots to really work with. There will be fewer changes in this than there are in most of these articles, but because of how many cards this deck will see in an average game, each change is much higher impact than in a standard deck.
For cuts, the first cut I’m going to make is the 3 Battle Faders, and the Cardcar out of the monsters. Because of how few monsters your deck plays, oftentimes they will just serve as a lightning rod of sorts for their Solemn Warnings, and with this deck you don’t want to give them anything to use Warning on. One of the advantages of this kind of deck is how you can blank a large number of cards in their deck, especially cards like Warning which allow them to pay life and make your Hopes weaker.
Of course, by cutting the Faders, we need to cut Allure as well. This isn’t too big of a deal, as with only 4 cards to remove to Allure(since you autolose if you remove an Exodia piece) the card is fairly mediocre to begin with.
Cuts in summary: (5 Total)
-3 Battle Fader
-1 Cardcar D
-1 Allure of Darkness
So now we get to add cards. Swift Scarecrow, now that Allure is gone, is just a strictly better Battle Fader, since they can’t Warning it, and having the fader on the field doesn’t do much for you.
The 3rd Accumulated Fortune seems worth running, drawing multiples of this card isn’t as bad as you’d think. Rulings on this card let you activate two of them on the same chain, because at the time the 2nd one is activated, there is only one copy of Accumulated on the chain. No reason not to max out a card that is basically a trap Pot of Greed in this deck.
The last addition to the main is going to be 1 more copy of Gift Card. Hope for Escape is such a huge part of your gameplan, and Gift Card makes up a big part of why Hope is so strong. Gift Card is also a great way to add chain links to make your Fortunes better.
Additions in summary:
+3 Swift Scarecrow
+1 Accumulated Fortune
+1 Gift Card
Now as far as the side goes, I’m guessing Exodius is for decks like Dark World who can discard pieces out of your hand, but is Exodius really the best answer for that? I feel like The Transmigration Prophecy is better than Exodius, since Transmigration makes for more chain links, and can be used to disrupt your opponent’s game. While you can only play 1 Transmigration, you probably don’t need more than 1 since you’re already siding 3 Gemini Imps for Darkworld. You really can’t afford to dilute your deck that much in that matchup, your deck still has to do what it was designed to. The other card I’m going to add over the other Exodius is going to be the 3rd Gift Card, not for any matchup specifically, but just for opponents who realize they can play Solemn Warning on their own cards to lower their life total.
You also have Lava Golems in the side, and while Volcanic Queen can be used to inflict burn damage to you, it also can deal with single monster fields. I’d probably cut the Golems for Queens, you just need to be careful with your life total, and Queen will be a much better card overall than Golem.
Changes made to the side:
-2 Exodius the Forbidden Lord
-2 Lava Golem
+1 Gift Card
+1 The Transmigration Prophecy
+2 Volcanic Queen
The next deck we’re going to look at is Carl Frodge’s Wetland deck.
Monsters: 28
3 Dewdark of the Ice Barrier
3 Dupe Frog
1 Flip Flop Frog
2 Mother Grizzly
2 Poison Draw Frog
3 Prior of the Ice Barrier
3 Ronintoadin
3 Submarine Frog
3 Swap Frog
2 Sea Lancer
2 Tour Guide From the Underworld
1 Sangan
Spells: 12
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm
1 Monster Reborn
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Pot of Avarice
2 Salvage
1 Terraforming
3 Wetlands
Extra: 15
Gachi Gachi Gantetsu x3
Daigusto Phoenix x2
Number 96: Dark Mist x2
Leviair the Sea Dragon x1
Wind-Up Zenmaines x1
Temtempo the Precussion Djinn x1
Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction x1
Armory Arm x2
Ancient Fairy Dragon x1
Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier x1
So this looks like a very combo-driven aggressive deck, with the goal being to create big dudes with Wetlands, and apply pressure with rank 2 monsters made with Ronintoadin. My main goal here is going to be increasing consistency, and it seems like you’re going for an aggressive deck here, so I’m going to try to increase the focus on that.
To begin with the cuts to the monsters, I’m first going to cut the two Mother Grizzlies. While this card looks good in theory, it is often very easy for your opponent to deal with it without having to kill it in battle. It’s on the slower side of cards as well, since it doesn’t get a Wetlands boost.
With Grizzlies gone, Sea Lancer looks much less appealing. This, combined with how my goal is to make the deck more aggressive, I’m going to cut the pair. With Lancers out of the Picture, Poison Draw Frog looks rather silly, so that is going to be cut as well.
Tour Guide looks pretty out of place in here, you don’t really have a great way to make use of any of the Rank 3s that Guide can summon, and it seems like most of the time you’re just going to get a Sangan and wait for it to die. Again, too passive so I’m going to give it the axe. With all these other non-aqua monsters gone, I’m also going to cut the Sangan so I can add another card later. Sangan, being passive as well, is probably not the best choice anyway. You don’t rely on Swap Frog to get your gameplan starting as much as some other Frog based decks.
I’m going to cut one of the Submarine Frogs to make room for another Frog in the additions, and I can’t imagine you need all 3 of the Ronintoadins, so I’ll cut that down to 2 as well.
Moving into the spell cards, Pot of Avarice seems out of place here. You run Salvages, which seem better, and recycling cards from your Graveyard doesn’t have much of a benefit for you. Your deck lives off the grave, and drawing 2 cards isn’t worth resetting all that you setup.
Cuts in summary: (12 Total)
-2 Mother Grizzly
-2 Sea Lancer
-2 Poison Draw Frog
-2 Tour Guide from the Underworld
-1 Sangan
-1 Submarine Frog
-1 Pot of Avarice
-1 Ronintoadin
So now the fun part, lets add in some cards. From the beginning, one of my goals was to make the deck more aggressive, and I can’t think of a better monster to fit than Star Boy. He doesn’t seem very useful at a glance, but when you realize that he pumps himself as well as all of your other monsters, he starts to look better. Remember the added utility he has versus the Fire decks in the metagame, as he reduces all of their attacks by 400 as well. I’m going to add 2 of him.
One of the things that bothered me about the initial list was how often Prior was just a 1000 vanilla monster. To try and fix this, I’m going to add 2 copies of Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier. Not only is he large (2500 under Wetlands), but he helps summon Prior, and can be brought back with Prior’s effect. His effect isn’t completely useless either.
One of the frogs I wanted to add was Unifrog. Going up to 1600 under Wetlands, and 2100 while a Star Boy is on the field, he is smaller than Dewdark is, but not by too much. Having another direct attacker really helps when your goal is to deal damage fast. This isn’t the only reason the card is good though, it also gives you more outs to cards like Macro Cosmos which can otherwise lock you out of the game. Remember that Ronintoadin is treated as a Frog while on the field.Unifrog is a great, aggressive utility card in this kind of deck, despite its low stats. I’m going to add 3 copies.
I also wanted to put in a 2nd copy of Flip Flop Frog, again because he is a solid utility creature for dealing with xyzs, or even just to get attacks in. When you lock your opponent with 2 Dupe Frogs, having a Flip Flop and a Wetlands means you get to bounce 3 of their monsters per turn, and attack for over 4000 damage, killing them in 2 turns rather than letting them wall up.
I also talked about consistency, and to fix some of the consistency issues with the deck, what better card than Moray of Greed? It’s an advantage neutral way of digging through your deck to find your Wetlands, or Swap Frog. As long as you don’t recklessly pitch your hand to Swap Frog, it’s going to be difficult drawing this and it not being live considering how high the monster count is.
The last card I’m adding is a 1-of Solidarity, while it does conflict with your ability to spam rank 2s, it provides a pretty big boost. With Solidarity and Wetlands on the field, your Swap Frogs become 3000, your Dewdarks attack directly for 3200, and even Ronintoadin has a respectable attack of 2100. Solidarity, while risky, has potential to pay off huge.
Additions in summary:
+2 Star Boy
+2 Cryomancer of the Ice Barrier
+3 Unifrog
+1 Flip Flop Frog
+3 Moray of Greed
+1 Solidarity
You sent in an extra deck as well, though you can pretty much do whatever you want with it as long as you have all of the Rank 2s, the rest is just whatever you think you’ll be needing with Reborn, and Chimeratech Fortress (for value).
Some other cool cards to consider:
Jam Breeding Machine: It makes level 2 Aqua tokens with 500 atk, while you can’t summon anything else while it’s up, those tokens get scarily large. With Wetlands up, you get a free 1700 every turn, and with Wetlands and Solidarity up you get 2500 guys every turn, probably not worth it unless you run more Solidarities, but a cool option nonetheless.
Barrier Statue of the Torrent: Again, probably not unless you’re running more Solidarities since it doesn’t get any boost at all from Wetlands, but with Solidarity up it turns into a 1800 Fossil Dyna, which can be very tough to decks to get over.
Shock Troops of the Ice Barrier: This is a really cool side card versus decks with Water monsters, as it’s a self-replacing Exiled Force. Note that you can use Shock Troops to search out another Shock Troops, or a Prior and keep the chain going for quite a while.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed the read, and to those who submitted decks, hope I helped you guys out. Remember to submit your decklists for Doctoring at: https://www.facebook.com/ArgDeckDoctor
And remember to Play Hard or Go Home!
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