2nd place Deck Profile YCS Orlando and Teamwork

May 31, 2011

Categories: Free Articles

by Kevin Silva

I just got back from YCS Orlando Florida, and it was an experience that changed my life.

Teamwork… is a keyword in this game. During today’s metagame anyone using teamwork has proven to get greater results than working alone. A few good examples are Frazier Smith’s group of gravekeeper’s who got 1^st 2^nd and 3^rd place at YCS Atlanta Georgia, Nizar Sarhan and Sean covert at YCS Dallas and North Carolina, and finally this recent YCS with Juan Morales and the newly formed Team Tengen which includes me, Greg cohen, Bertha Pena, and Juan Morales. What I’m going to write about hopefully influences to talk to your friends about deck ideas and other play styles, because the more you know the better off you are. I’ll explain Juan’s deck, all the combos in detail, the teamwork involved in it, and future steps you can take leading teamwork to the next level.

So First I want to show Morales’s deck which is this:

Monsters: 26
3 Genex Ally Birdman
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Dandylion
3 Gravekeeper’s Spy
1 Gravekeeper’s Descendant
2 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
3 Reborn Tengu
1 Glow-Up Bulb
1 Chaos Sorcerer
2 Debris Dragon
2 Junk Synchron
2 Effect Veiler
1 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
1 Card Trooper
1 Unknown Synchron
1 Plaguespreader Zombie

Spells: 12
2 Pot of Avarice
1 Mind Control
1 Dark Hole
3 Pot of Duality
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Book of Moon
1 One for One
1 Monster Reboern

Traps: 3
2 Solemn Warning
1 Solemn Judgment

Extra Deck: 15
1 Iron Chain Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Scrap Archfiend
2 Arcanite Magician
2 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Frozen Fitzgerald
2 Black Rose Dragon
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
2 Stardust Dragon
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Formula Synchron

Side Deck: 15
3 D.D. Warrior Lady
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Malevolent Catastrophe
3 Banisher of the Radiance
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Royal Oppression
1 Mirror Force

First of all I need to give credit where credit is due. All of Team Tengen thanks Kevin Klein for letting us use the deck idea for YCS Orlando Florida. Juan uses a variety of combos for quick synchros and fast attacks. This deck has several combos and I’ll review most of them and talk about teamwork as well.

One of the most basic combos in this deck is Normal summoning Reborn Tengu to the field (1700atk). Then by using Genex Ally Birdman’s effect to bounce back Tengu back to your hand you can special summon the Birdman from your hand and it gains 500atk. After that happens, another Reborn Tengu comes out from the deck, letting you synchro summon with Tengu and Birdman to make a lv7 which there is 2 options. The first is Scrap Archfiend (2700atk) and the second is Black Rose Dragon (2400atk). Black Rose can destroy the field if your opponent is dedicating themselves to the field, but after you summon either one of these monsters, the 3rd reborn tengu comes out from the deck just for more damage!

Genex Ally Birdman is not the only combo with Reborn Tengu. If you flip up a Gravekeeper’s Spy you can get another spy from your deck, after that return the attack position Spy to special summon Birdman from your hand! That puts a lv4 spellcaster along with a lv3 tuner on the field, perfect to synchro for Scrap Archfiend, Arcanite Magician or Black Rose Dragon! Depending on the situation of course, and on top of that you still have not used your normal summon, so you can do a play next turn that involves Gravekeeper’s Descendant to destroy even more cards! Of course this only happens when your Spy has been set for 1 turn.

If you still want more ways to summon black rose Dragon, I’ll give you another way. Revolving the deck around 3star tuners and 4star non tuners is always good, it leads to big plays that your opponent is forced to stop or lose everything in the process, which that is the way this game has been leading to this format. You can summon Debris Dragon to take Dandylion back to synchro for a 7star Black Rose Dragon. Since Debris can only be used to synchro a dragon unfortunately that is the only lv7 monster you can summon, but if you synchro with Ryko you can make an Iron Chain Dragon. And if you use Ryko and Dandylion you can make Trishula Dragon of the Ice Barrier!!!

The Next combo is the 2 plants in the deck, they are necessary for making big plays and synchroing into the 1 Formula Synchron in this deck, many different plays with the plants leads to more consistency. For example, we used Dandylion because we ran 12 Tuners in the deck and all these tuners synergize with the tokens that came out of Dandylion. It also fit for the One for One because when we discard Dandylion we not only get 1 star from the deck we also get 2 tokens. This means we can still normal summon and explode off of that. Therefore, the plants need to exist in this deck for the consistency.

The Unknown Synchron, Chaos Sorcerer, and Gorz were all tech cards that work well in this deck for synchro purposes and other reasons. The Unknown Synchron is a quick lv 5 synchro to synchro with Lyla after using her effect to break. It’s good to summon after you flipped gravekeeper’s spy (1+4+4=9) into trishula. It’s also good combination with chaos sorcerer + Unknwon (6+1) for Arcanite, or Gorz token (7+1) for stardust Dragon or Scrap Dragon.

So that’s how the main deck worked the side deck though, was key to Juan’s Success at YCS Orlando. Since the typical player would think it’s a plant variant, they sided in cards such as D.D. Crow, Chain Disappearance, Gozen Match, and cards to stop plants. However, when you side into anti meta all those removal cards become dead. In fact YOU side in removal because 3 Banisher of the Radiance! It was very difficult to side deck but we usually took out the plant cards to make it a solid build for games 2 and 3.

Side Deck: 15
3 D.D. Warrior Lady
2 Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo
2 Dimensional Prison
1 Malevolent Catastrophe
3 Banisher of the Radiance
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Royal Oppression
1 Mirror Force

We sided D.D. Warrior lady because it was a good out to Legendary Six Samurai Shi en, which is always hard to take out with 1 card. We also sided the Warrior Lady in for cards like Sangan, Dandylion, Treeborn frog, or other synchros that are hard to take out. We sided in Fossil Dyna because it completely counters the meta. It counters Reborn Tengu, all synchros, Six Samurai decks, and anything that special summons monsters. We sided in Banisher of the Radiance because there are too many decks that rely on the graveyard, and it stops a multiple amount of random decks that also need the graveyard such as Morphtronics. The Dimensional Prisons, Mirror Force, Bottomless Trap Hole and Royal Oppression go along with the anti meta theme, but if you can think of better options you can always change it the way you want too. The last card we decided was to add was Malevolent Catastrophe because that is the ultimate stopper towards Gladiator Beasts, Gravekeeper’s, and other anti meta variants.

Does the saying “Two heads are better than One” come to mind? The amount of teamwork used on this deck was incredible. You don’t have to be a “Pro” player to help out with a deck, if you think your idea is good just say it! I know for a fact I’m not a “pro” player but I have good ideas I can contribute to my team, so always add your input. Only 1 person created this deck , but 5 people put their ideas into it. If you have 1 player making decks, they can’t make the deck for everything. There are a lot of opinions and options you have to consider, such as what if he summons Shi En first turn? What if he royal tributes me first turn? What if he first turn stardust Dragons me? All those factors always must be considered when making decks, if not the situation will happen and you will lose. What’s also good to know about teamwork, after the event is over, all of you get credit for the deck, and it’s not just a solo person that won, it’s everyone together.

Lastly, congratulations to Juan for getting 2^nd place, and for becoming a new article write for Alter Reality!

Play Hard or Go Home!

Alter Reality Games Writer

Kevin Silva