Hey readers, this week we’re going to take a look at Aaron Chislett’s T.G. Agent deck:

Monsters 30

3 The Agent of Mystery – Earth
3 The Agent of Creation Venus
3 [ccProd]Mystical Shine Ball[/ccProd] 2 T.G. Striker
3 T.G. Warwolf
1 [ccProd]Genex Ally Birdman[/ccProd] 2 Maxx “C”
2 [ccProd]Effect Veiler[/ccProd] 2 [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd] 2 [ccProd]Battle Fader[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Honest[/ccProd] 3 [ccProd]Master Hyperion[/ccProd] 2 [ccProd]Archlord Kristya[/ccProd] 1 Black Luster Solider – Envoy of the Beginning

Spells 7

3 [ccProd]Pot of Duality[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Dark Hole[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Lightning Vortex[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Book of Moon[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Messenger of Peace[/ccProd]

Traps 3

2 [ccProd]Royal Decree[/ccProd] 1 Vanity’s Emptiness

I’m going to make a few changes to the main, however the primary thing that Aaron wanted help on when submitting this deck was his side:

Side 15

1 [ccProd]Dimensional Fissure[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Macro Cosmos[/ccProd] 3 [ccProd]Consecrated Light[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Soul Drain[/ccProd] 1 Morphing Jar #2
2 Vanity’s Emptiness
2 [ccProd]Prohibition[/ccProd] 2 [ccProd]DNA Surgery[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]The Transmigration Prophecy[/ccProd] 1 [ccProd]Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer[/ccProd]

So we’re going to do things a little differently this week. In the first half of this article, I’m going to make edits to the maindeck like always, but after, instead of moving onto a second decklist, I’m going to go over the side deck, and work out a rough sideboard plan. I realized the sideboard is something that I have been very much neglecting in these articles due to space constraints of trying to cram 2 decks into a single article. Doing an article focused on a single deck every few months is probably best for everyone.

The first thing that stood out to me was actually something I agree with. [ccProd]Transmodify[/ccProd] is an extremely overrated card in this deck in my opinion, while it does transform your [ccProd]Mystic Shine Ball[/ccProd]s into Venuses, it’s an awful card to draw unless you do draw Shine Ball. [ccProd]Transmodify[/ccProd]ing an Earth into a Venus is way less powerful, as it makes the Venus you just searched out with your Earth pretty much useless. You don’t see Agent decks running While Elephant’s Gift, but I feel that card fits into this deck much better than Transmodify does.

Moving away from things I like though, there are some issues I have. The T.G. engine really isn’t where this deck needs to be right now. The engine takes up valuable space that could instead be spent on trap cards, to help protect your boss monsters and better survive the early stages of the game, which is something Agents traditionally have problems with. The T.G. build of this deck is at its best when the format is slower, as it gives the Agent deck a more explosive gameplan to outspeed the other midrange control decks. Right now, the only other midrange deck is Dragon, and your endgame plan of Kristya absolutely dominates them.

The [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd]s and [ccProd]Battle Fader[/ccProd]s I also don’t like, but for two completely different reasons despite the cards seeming similar at a glance. Tragoedia I don’t like because of how low-impact the card is versus practically every deck in the field. Against Dragon Rulers, you still have to deal with their field, and you’ll often just lose the [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd] to either a MP2 [ccProd]Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack[/ccProd] pop, or a Big Eye steal. Prophecy doesn’t care about Trag at all. [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd] is absolutely gigantic, and you’d need 6 cards in hand to beat over it. If they’re attacking with [ccProd]High Priestess of Prophecy[/ccProd], they’ll often just have the ability to main phase 2 pop your [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd], and 2500 is the exact same number as 2900 as far as Tragoedia is concerned. The worst part versus Prophecy though, is if they’re making a game push, [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd] doesn’t even stop them since they can just [ccProd]Spellbook of Fate[/ccProd] away your Trag between attacks in the battle phase. Overall, I’m cutting Trag because he just isn’t as high impact as you want your cards to be.

[ccProd]Battle Fader[/ccProd], on the other hand, I’m cutting for entirely different reasons. The first thing I want to mention is that [ccProd]Battle Fader[/ccProd] is a worse [ccProd]Swift Scarecrow[/ccProd] in this deck, since even though Fader is dark attribute for BLS, he never goes to your graveyard making that irrelevant, and having Fader remain as a level 1 monster is almost irrelevant. The major downside of Fader though, is that he loses to opposing Vanity’s Emptinesses, which is quickly becoming more and more prevalent in the metagame. Now though, the reason we don’t want neither Scarecrow nor Fader in this deck is just because we’re going to run more real trap cards.

[ccProd]Messenger of Peace[/ccProd] seems like a bit of a relic from the past in here. Both Dragon and Prophecy have plenty of answers to the card, and even Mermails deal with it much easier than you’d want them to. While Messenger is amazing against decks like Fire Fist, it’s often not even a card against a large portion of the field.

[ccProd]Lightning Vortex[/ccProd] is another card I’m weary of, I’m still not completely sold that [ccProd]Dark Hole[/ccProd] is a great card this format, and Vortex is a much worse card than Hole is. The reasons [ccProd]Dark Hole[/ccProd] was good last format are because it was an easy out to Prophecy setups if they didn’t have [ccProd]Spellbook of Wisdom[/ccProd], and it allowed you to [ccProd]Crimson Blader[/ccProd] over a [ccProd]Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack[/ccProd] in the Dragon mirror. However, this deck neither has easy access to [ccProd]Crimson Blader[/ccProd], and the Prophecy deck attacks on a completely different angle which makes [ccProd]Dark Hole [/ccProd]almost completely useless against them. I’m going to keep [ccProd]Dark Hole[/ccProd] in the deck for now, but I’m definitely not a big fan of discarding a card for a similar effect.

Lastly, I’m going to cut the two [ccProd]Royal Decree[/ccProd]s. The top decks right now aren’t all that trap heavy, and we’re going to be running some traps of our own. This is neither the time, nor the deck for [ccProd]Royal Decree[/ccProd] in the main.

The cuts in summary: 13

-3 T.G. Warwolf
-2 T.G. Striker
-2 [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd] -2 [ccProd]Battle Fader[/ccProd] -1 [ccProd]Messenger of Peace[/ccProd] -1 [ccProd]Lightning Vortex[/ccProd] -2 [ccProd]Royal Decree[/ccProd]

There are two major things I want to do with the additions here. First, we just cut pretty much every dark monster in the deck, so we need to add some darks in order to keep Black Luster Soldier in the deck. Next, as I said earlier, I want to run more real trap cards in this deck. The major struggle for this deck is surviving the first few turns. Once you drop [ccProd]Archlord Kristya[/ccProd] you’re home free in a lot of matchups.

I spoke last week about D.D. Crow, and I’m still a huge fan of this card. There isn’t a single matchup right now where Crow is a total blank, and a lot of the time, Crow is a huge blowout. Versus Prophecy, you get to completely invalidate their lategame plan of recycling [ccProd]Spellbook of Life[/ccProd] and looping [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd] on you, you can just Crow their [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd], and their lategame suddenly becomes much less threatening. Even early on, sometimes just Crowing their [ccProd]Spellbook of Secret[/ccProd]s when they try to copy it with [ccProd]Spellbook of Master[/ccProd], causing their Master to fizzle is enough to prevent their deck from getting off the ground. Versus Dragon variants, the card can be just as impactful. There are the obvious applications like blocking [ccProd]Dragunity Dux[/ccProd], or [ccProd]Debris Dragon[/ccProd] from being able to activate their effects, but something to remember is that since Dragon Rulers use the chain, you can Crow a Dragon Ruler in response to its summon effect, and it doesn’t get to search since it already activated the summon effect, effectively shutting off both the summon of the dragon, and blocking access to a color.

Even in the matchup where D.D. Crow is probably at its worst, it’s still really solid. Versus Mermail, you get to block [ccProd]Mermail Abyssgunde[/ccProd]s, [ccProd]Mermail Abyssturge[/ccProd], or Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls which can still be extremely high impact, though a bit more situational than the previous two matchups.

I’d go on about how Crow is even good in some rogue matchups, but I don’t want to turn this into an article about the merits of D.D. Crow. I’m going to add 3 copies of Crow to the main to help support BLS.

I feel as if [ccProd]Mystical Space Typhoon[/ccProd] is back to staple status in the main, despite the initial results from YCS Toronto. Practically across the board, Typhoon hits something important in the maindeck. Be it Vanity’s Emptiness, [ccProd]Dragon Ravine[/ccProd], [ccProd]Black Whirlwind[/ccProd], [ccProd]Abyss Sphere[/ccProd], [ccProd]The Grand Spellbook Tower[/ccProd], or even just [ccProd]Fiendish Chain[/ccProd], [ccProd]Mystical Space Typhoon[/ccProd] is an important answer to have in the main. I’m adding 3.

Now to round out the additions, I’m just going to list 7 traps and add them to the list with little explanation, since all there is to say about them is, “They’re traps, and traps are good.” 2 [ccProd]Fiendish Chain[/ccProd], 1 Vanity’s Emptiness, 1 [ccProd]Torrential Tribute[/ccProd], 1 [ccProd]Solemn Warning[/ccProd], 1 [ccProd]Mirror Force[/ccProd], 1 [ccProd]Bottomless Trap Hole[/ccProd].

Additions in summary:

+3 D.D. Crow
+3 [ccProd]Mystical Space Typhoon[/ccProd] +2 [ccProd]Fiendish Chain[/ccProd] +1 Vanity’s Emptiness
+1 [ccProd]Torrential Tribute[/ccProd] +1 [ccProd]Solemn Warning[/ccProd] +1 [ccProd]Mirror Force[/ccProd] +1 [ccProd]Bottomless Trap Hole[/ccProd]

Moving onto the sideboard, I’m just going to scrap what we have, and build up from nothing. When I build a sideboard, I go through five steps. First, I identify the threats in the field, and check how many cards in my main I don’t want against each of them.So for this deck, we’re probably going to have a few problems with Water especially since we’re maining 3 copies of D.D. Crow. We have 4 cards to side out almost immediately versus Water, since if we cut Crows, we certainly need to cut BLS as well. Looking into the list a bit more, I’ve always cut [ccProd]Book of Moon[/ccProd] versus Mermail, and those [ccProd]Effect Veiler[/ccProd]s probably aren’t at their best either. So we have 7 cuts for mermail.

What about Dragon? I actually feel this list is pretty solid in the main for Dragon, though [ccProd]Mirror Force[/ccProd], and probably [ccProd]Dark Hole[/ccProd] can get boarded out here rather easily. We can possibly cut one of the [ccProd]Mystical Space Typhoon[/ccProd]s as well. 3 Cuts here.

Now Prophecy. [ccProd]Mirror Force[/ccProd], [ccProd]Torrential Tribute[/ccProd], Maxx “C”, and [ccProd]Dark Hole[/ccProd], and probably the [ccProd]Genex Ally Birdman[/ccProd] all seem like very easy cuts. 6 cuts again.

These three are, at least in my opinion, the three major decks to be worried about. So next, I’ll assemble a list of cards I can sideboard for each of these decks, and see what overlap there is. We only have 15 slots in the side, but we already have 16 cuts just across 3 different matchups. I’m not going to write out the long list here, as that takes up way too much space, so I’ll skip that, and just write out what we have so far:

1 Vanity’s Emptiness (all 3)
1 Maxx “C” (Water and Dragon)
2 [ccProd]Mind Crush[/ccProd] (Water and Prophecy)
3[ccProd]Banisher of Radiance[/ccProd] (Water)
2 [ccProd]DNA Surgery[/ccProd] (Prophecy)
1 [ccProd]Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer[/ccProd] (Dragon and Prophecy)

And just like that, in only 10 sideboard slots, we’ve got a rough sideboard plan versus 3 different decks, demanding 16 cuts total.

The third step is to identify which rogue decks you’re afraid of. Don’t side for something you aren’t afraid of. For example, you incidentally have an absurd Infernity matchup because of all the maindecked hand traps. Feel free to side in the 3rd Maxx that you’re already siding, but don’t bother dedicating any sideboard cards just for Infernity. Let’s say you’re worried about Blackwing though, do the same thing we did with the above threats and identify what cuts you have. The Emptinesses are pretty bad, and just about every hand trap in the main is useless, leaving us with a staggering 10 cuts. Now, what do we have in the sideboard that can come in here? Well, not much. We can bring in the [ccProd]Mind Crush[/ccProd]es, but those aren’t very exciting, and that’s only 2 cards. So let’s build a list of sideboard cards for Blackwing: [ccProd]Trap Hole[/ccProd], [ccProd]Seven Tools of the Bandit[/ccProd], [ccProd]Starlight Road[/ccProd], [ccProd]Royal Decree[/ccProd], [ccProd]Dust Tornado[/ccProd], [ccProd]Consecrated Light[/ccProd], [ccProd]Snowman Eater[/ccProd], Thunder King Rai-Oh…

It is a rough and incomplete list, but you get the idea. So we see that [ccProd]Dust Tornado[/ccProd], was both on the list for Blackwing, and for Prophecy, it’s also something to consider versus Mermail. We can pretty easily take out the DNA Surgeries for [ccProd]Dust Tornado[/ccProd]s, those were pretty greedy and narrow to begin with, so we have 4 cards to come in versus Blackwing now. Thunder King can come in versus Water and Prophecy rather easily as well, we can add that in as the 11th card for now, and come back to it later.

And we continue this process until we end up with a sideboard looking like:

3 [ccProd]Banisher of Radiance[/ccProd] 2 [ccProd]Mind Crush[/ccProd] 2 [ccProd]Dust Tornado[/ccProd] (Fire Fist, Blackwing, Prophecy)
3 [ccProd]Snowman Eater[/ccProd] (Blackwing, Fire Fist, Constellar, Evilswarm)
1 [ccProd]Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer[/ccProd] 1 Maxx “C”
1 Vanity’s Emptiness
2 Open Slots (possibly more cards for Blackwing that overlap somewhere with another deck you’re worried about)

Feel free to fill the open slots with whatever you want to test, or for other matchups I may be forgetting here. Step 5, is just testing and refining what we have here. Expand on those lists of cards you built for each matchup, and make changes if certain sideboard plans aren’t working out for you. See something you think is cool on a forum, or article? Test it out and see if you like it. Your sideboard should be constantly evolving, even more so than your main.

Now, this is only one method of building a sideboard. It’s more tuned for a more diverse metagame, where having overlap is more important than just having extremely high-impact cards across the board. A common thing people overlook when building a sideboard is how many cuts they have in each matchup. In reality, that is often more important than having cards to cram in. It isn’t much use to have 12 cards in your sideboard for Dragons especially if you only have 3 you can take out. It’s just an inefficient waste of space.

Well, it seems I always write more when I restrict myself to one deck, than I do when I talk about the standard 2. I’ll cut myself off here, and give my standard outro: If you have a deck you’d like either Johnny or myself to doctor, send us a message at: https://www.facebook.com/ArgDeckDoctor

And until next time, remember to Play Hard or Go Home!

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