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GeneralZorpa on Yugioh
Nova Monarchs
February 23, 2009

Nova Means "New", Duh!
 
Word play aside, Monarchs are almost always dominating new formats. That is because they are versatile, easy to play and fairly reliable without any truly complicated comboes that need to be pulled off in order to play. Most people see this as kind of a newbish deck right now, but trust me, in the right hands this deck in the next format will be a beast with big sharp pointy teeth!
 
However, you cannot play Monarchs like we did back in the day. Setting Gravekeeper's Spy and hoping for the best is almsot a surefire way to lose once someone figures out your strategy. Monarchs need a new face so that they can be unpredictable again. Now, how would we go about doing that?
 
Well for starters, we need to be more aggro with our monster choices. High ATK is far better than setting up a wall and hoping to draw into a Monarch. Red Dragon Archfiend ends defensive plays pretty quick, and you better believe that a high powered Synchro deck will be making the rounds at high level play.
 
Second, we need to play A LOT of Monarchs. There are  seven; Mobius, Kuraz, Caius, Zaborg, Granmarg, Raiza and Thestalos. This makes it so that we have a veritable toolbox of effects that we can use to eliminate opponents. Mobius is rather good against Gladiator Beasts. Thestalos, Raiza and Caius are good all around, so we will be basically using them as our main Monarch force. The others are good, but not nearly as versatile as these four.
 
Third, we need to find a way to keep our monsters on the field so that they may be tributed. We can go about this in two ways, one way is DARK and the other is LIGHT. For DARK, we have access to Dasher, Evil Hero Infernal Prodigy and Malicious. For LIGHT, we have Honest. Well, that choice is clear to me. Who would expect Honest in a Monarch deck?
 
It's Clobberin' Time!
 
Monsters-23
 
3x Caius the Shadow Monarch
2x Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
2x Raiza the Storm Monarch
2x Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
 
3x Honest
3x Blue Thunder T-45
3x Thunderking Rai-Oh
2x Wulf, Lightsworn Beast
1x Treeborn Frog
1x Plaguespreader Zombie
1x Sangan
 
Spells-8
 
2x Foolish Burial
2x Magical Mallet
1x Brain Control
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Monster Reborn
 
Traps-9
 
3x Compulsory Evacuation Device
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
2x Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute
 
Flame On!
 
Well, the deck is simple. Get a monster onto the field and protect it with Honest and Traps until you can summon a Monarch and beat face. The best thing about htis deck is that it is relatively simple to play, so there are no grand hijinks that can go horribly wrong. This is crucial in a new format where nobody really knows what is going on.
 
Your deck will also look like an anti-meta deck at first, with Honest and Rai-Oh taking center stage. Your opponent will likely be very surprised when you start dropping Monarch after Monarch on them. Raiza is especially evil multiple times in a row, and backed up by Phoenix Wing Wind Blast your opponent will simply grow tired of drawing teh same cards over again.
 
The most complicated combo in the deck revolves around Foolish Burial. It can be used wither to send Plaguespreader or Treeborn Frog to the graveyard, or to Special Summon Wulf, Lightsworn Beast. Wulf is at 2 copies as there is really no way that you can use him except for Foolish, so this reduces the chances that you draw them together. A Wulf Summon not only gets you a monster, but thins your deck as well, so you can accelerate towards cards that you need.
 
I use Zaborg here because of his Attribute. It works with Honest, so you can keep him on the field with it and then proceed to tribute him for another Monarch. Plus, there are some cards that you just want to plain kill with a giant bolt of Green Afro lightning. Caius' effect is the best in the Monarch world, so he will be our most versatile man, even inflicting burn damage when he feels like it.
 
Thestalos gets rid of potential threats befor ethey become threats. In fact, I considered a deck based around him and using D.D. Designator, Mind Crush and Trap Dustshoot to decimate your opponent's hand, but it is not nearly as good as I had hoped.Raiza does what he does best, getting rid of any card and making your opponent draw it again. There is a reason he is rising in price again.
 
Oh, Oh It's Magic, Ya Know-ow-oh!
 
The deck is exceptionally versatile, but can often suffer from bad hands, as 9-gauge Monarchs often do. That is why Magical Mallet is here. Draw Wulf? No problem. Send it back and Foolish it out. Too many Monarchs? Mallet them.
 
The amount of Monarchs in the deck means that you will draw one or two pretty much in every opening hand. However, bad hands do happen, so you should be prepared to really mess  up your opponent's back row to keep your monsters alive. I recommend siding in Nobleman of Extermination if your opponent is playing Solemn Judgment or Giant Trunade to clear things out.
 
A common side-deck choice for this matchup will be Royal Decree, so be prepared to side out Compulsory, PWWB and Bottomless for Shrink, Book of Moon and Enemy Controller to kill their options. Spirit Reaper is also a solid side-deck choice, giving you cheap defense that is rather hard to kill.
 
We really don't know what kind of format this will be. Without Metagame reporting on every event in the future, there will be littl echance for net-decking. That means that ther will often be local tech in almost every deck, making a big event a rather large conglomerate of different ideas than several variants of a single deck.
 
We do know that Lightsworn will be a solid choice for a deck, so we must be prepared for that matchup. Thus, every card in this deck either annoys Lightsworn or makes them downright unplayable. Especially if htey get a bad hand, Lightsworn decks are very susceptible to disruption in their draws, so Raiza and PWWB are key. They also rely heavily on a single Normal Summon, which is where CED comes in. it all fits together nicely, don't you think?
 
That is all from me today, and as always you can reach me at raptor1k@hotmail.com for any questions or ideas YGO related. Remember to put something YGO related in the title so I see your message. Remember, it's a brand new day, so get your game faces on!
 
Thanx for reading!
GZ