Hey readers, this week we’re going to start off by taking a look at Troy Perkin’s Destiny Hero Zombie list:
This is certainly a blast from the past. The September banlist gave a breath of life (death?) to Zombies, not only giving them back their 2nd [ccProd]Mezuki[/ccProd] and[ccProd]Plaguespreader Zombie[/ccProd], but also giving them a 3rd Destiny Hero - Malicious for easier level 8 synchro access. For those unfamiliar, the Zombie deck is a slower combo deck, but what you lose in speed you gain in consistency through all the tutors the deck has access to. The game often goes one or two turns of just setting a monster along with a backrow or two and passing, before seemingly out of nowhere throwing a bunch of level 6 and 8 synchros on the board, often winning immediately.
The first cards I want to cut are the [ccProd]Card Trooper[/ccProd]s and [ccProd]Debris Dragon[/ccProd]s . Between [ccProd]Pyramid Turtle[/ccProd]s, Plaguespreader Zombies, [ccProd]Goblin Zombie[/ccProd]s, [ccProd]Zombie Master[/ccProd], [ccProd]Dark Grepher[/ccProd], and Mezukis, your deck already has a lot of normal summons in it, and running 4 more with little to no synergy with the rest of the deck seems like a waste of space.
Maxing [ccProd]Mystical Space Typhoon[/ccProd] alongside maxing [ccProd]Raigeki Break[/ccProd] seems excessive as well. I’m going to cut 2 of the Typhoons, to make room for more versatile cards. Since Raigeki Break is obviously the more powerful of the two cards, as the discard does more to help this deck, and the added ability to destroy monsters is huge.
[ccProd]Call of the Haunted[/ccProd] doesn’t really feel like a card I’d want to play in this deck. It really just seems like a worse Book of Life, since it’s a trap. If you really want more special summon effects, just play a 2nd [ccProd]Book of Life[/ccProd], or even maybe a [ccProd]Burial from a Different Dimension[/ccProd].
The cuts in summary:
-2 Card Trooper
-2 Debris Dragon
-2 Mystical Space Typhoon
-1 Call of the Haunted
The first card I want to add is the 3rd [ccProd]Pot of Duality[/ccProd]. Because of the slow starts this deck tends to have, Duality is extremely strong in letting you dig for your combo pieces early on with little to no drawbacks. Drawing it on the turn you go off can be frustrating, but more often than not with this deck you’ve sculpted your hand to the point where you were just going to discard the card you drew to Zombie Master, or spin it with Plaguespreader no matter what it is.
Call me crazy for wanting to run Vanity’s Emptiness in every single deck I build, but I’m adding 2 copies of the card in here. It’s worth noting that this deck has pretty easy Number 66: Master Key Beetle access with Zombie Master + Goblin Zombie. On a similar note, Maxx “C” is too strong against decks like Dragons to not run right now, and since you’re playing a fairly obscure deck, they almost need to stop when you pitch Maxx “C” unless they have some crazy reads that you aren’t running [ccProd]Tragoedia[/ccProd]/[ccProd]Swift Scarecrow[/ccProd]. I’m adding 3.
The last card I want to add is a 1-of [ccProd]Mystic Tomato[/ccProd]. Being basically a Pyramid Turtle who can search Malicious, and since Tomato can search for Goblin Zombie, they both search the same cards, just Tomato is a slight bit slower.
Additions in summary:
+1 Pot of Duality
+2 Vanity’s Emptiness
+3 Maxx “C”
+1 Mystic Tomato
Next up, we’re going to take a look at Daniel Jones’ Watt deck.
[ccDeck="Main Deck"]3 Wattgitaffe:3 Wattcobra:3 Wattpheasant:3 Watthopper:3 Wattdragonfly:2 Wattfox:2 Wattkiwi:1 Honest:3 Wattcube:2 Wattcine:2 Photon Lead:1 One for One:1 Where Arf Thou?:2 Pot of Duality:2 Mystical Space Typhoon:3 Wattcancel:2 Fiendish Chain:2 Dark Bribe:2 The Huge Revolution is Over:1 Compulsory Evacuation Device:1 Bottomless Trap Hole:2 Mirror Force[/ccDeck]
Okay, this is a deck I can almost get behind. I’ve played Watts for more local tournaments than I’d like to admit, though this is a completely different build to what I’d usually play. Typically, I’d run the more aggressive, Hopper-less build with [ccProd]Swords of Revealing Light[/ccProd]s, and just beat my opponent’s down. While I feel that is the more competitive build, the conversion is more than 20 cards different, so I’m going to keep this as the Hopper-lock variant.
The first cuts I’m going to make are the 2 Foxes and 2 Kiwis. Neither of these cards contributes to either of your potential gameplans, they don’t help beatdown, and they don’t help establish the lock. They actually don’t do very much at all aside from being tuners, and even Synchro Summoning doesn’t help accomplish either of your gameplans, Unless you count Watthydra giving you Hopper in two turns counts as accelerating towards Hopper-lock.
Wattphesant isn’t really what this deck needs either. Beating your opponent down is a secondary game plan, and Cobra/Giraffe are typically enough to get there once you establish your lock.
Both Wattcine and Wattcube aren’t very good cards. Wattcine is bad for the same reasons you don’t see people running [ccProd]Poison of the Old Man[/ccProd] in their decks. Life gain just isn’t an impactful enough effect to waste a card to have access to it. Wattcube is bad for a similar reason, Equip spells typically aren’t good in decks even where those spells are useful for destroying opposing monsters in battle. In this deck, Wattcube doesn’t even help destroy opposing monsters, and you don’t even care about destroying opposing monsters since all your attacking monsters just attack directly. Wattcube is really just another glorified Poison of the Old Man. All you’re doing with Cube is wasting a card, so one of your monsters can deal an extra 1000 per turn.
Wattcancel only being able to negate inherent summons makes is so much worse than it would otherwise be right now. Being unable to prevent a [ccProd]High Priestess of Prophecy[/ccProd], or a [ccProd]World of Prophecy[/ccProd] from coming out is so huge right now, and the discard cost is actually rather annoying. The only real high-impact card for this deck that Cancel can negate is [ccProd]Black Rose Dragon[/ccProd]
With your goal being to setup a lock that prevents the opponent from attacking, then protecting that lock, I don’t really see the purpose of Mirror Force. After the first couple of turns it seems like it’d be pretty useless.
The cuts in summary: 17
-2 Wattkiwi
-2 Wattfox
-3 Wattpheasant
-3 Wattcube
-2 Wattcine
-3 Wattcancel
-2 Mirror Force
I’m going to start off with the most obvious addition of 3 [ccProd]Thunder Sea Horse[/ccProd]. Hopper-lock or not, Seahorse is one of the strongest cards that this deck has access to. While it can’t search Hopper directly, it does however search for Cobra, who in turn searches Hopper. Sea Horse also lets you get away with running fewer monsters than you otherwise would want to, and thins your deck of extra monsters in the process. Seahorse basically lets you run 9 copies of Cobra.
The 3rd [ccProd]Pot of Duality[/ccProd] also seems obvious to play in here since you don’t do all that much special summoning. I also want to bump Where Arf Thou? to the full 3 copies, as well as add a single [ccProd]Effect Veiler[/ccProd] to the deck. Where Arf Thou both has the utility of searching for a Hopper to set a lock up, or searching for Effect Veiler to protect the lock from Black Rose Dragon, or World of Prophecy. Sure you take 2000 damage, but what does that matter when your opponent can’t attack?
Next, I want to add 2 [ccProd]Imperial Iron Wall[/ccProd]s to the main. Iron Wall makes it impossible for a Spellbook player to break up your Hopper-lock except through World of Prophecy, and it stops Priestess from freely popping off your backrow. Against Dragon, it completely shuts their deck off until they find an MST. With lists starting to cut Card Trooper, it’s much more difficult for them to make Black Rose Dragon without [ccProd]Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack[/ccProd] tokens, or being able to remove Tempest.
We cut Mirror Force earlier, which is a card that helps survive the early game, but interacts with the opponent’s gameplan more than your own. [ccProd]Pinpoint Guard[/ccProd], however, both helps keep you alive early on, and revives Watthoppers, or Wattdragonflies to help accelerate towards your lock. I’m adding 2.
And because we started off with a staggering 46 cards, we’re done with only 11 additions.
Additions in summary: 11
+1 Pot of Duality
+3 Thunder Sea Horse
+2 Imperial Iron Wall
+2 Where Arf Thou?
+1 Effect Veiler
+2 Pinpoint Guard
If you have a list you’d like doctored by either Johnny or myself, send us a message at https://www.facebook.com/ArgDeckDoctor with a typed out decklist.
We are roughly two weeks away from the second-ever ARG Circuit Series in Columbus, Ohio! Be sure to come duke it out with some of the top players in the country! This tournament will be huge! October 12-13
Until next week, remember to Play Hard or Go Home!
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