[fieryshadowcard@yahoo.com] Post-Ban Exodia Deck- Fieryshadowcard An opportunity for Exodia decks has arisen, especially with the loss of Sangan and Witch, although some may not see it that way. I've never had all five Exodia pieces (I had three at one point, but at that time LoB was done and Exodia was relatively unplayable), but I did fantasize about beating someone mercilessly with an Exodia deck. With the loss of a bunch of cheap cards that made Exodia decks not even so much as a second thought in the dueling realm, a bunch of other staples lose their power, and Exodia is then able to truly shine. Once the ban hits, I foresee the rise of Exodia decks for those who have all the pieces at their disposal. The deck idea I've concocted seems relatively easy to build (not too many insanely rare cards), and it feels like it could really be effective. When I break it down, it can be easily grouped into three categories: Drawing/Thinning; Stall/Removal/Field Advantage; Recursion. But, before that, take a look at the cards you'll be using. Monsters (22) par Exodia the Forbidden One Right Leg of the Forbidden One Right Arm of the Forbidden One Left Leg of the Forbidden One Left Arm of the Forbidden One Emissary of the Afterlife x3 Royal Magical Library x2 Des Lacooda x2 Swarm of Locusts x2 Swarm of Scarabs Mystic Tomato Shining Angel Dark Magician of Chaos Magician of Faith Mask of Darkness Exiled Force Sinister Serpent Spells (14) par Scapegoat x3 Level Limit-Area B x2 Messenger of Peace x2 Snatch Steal Change of Heart Painful Choice Premature Burial Pot of Greed Swords of Revealing Light Mirage of Nightmare Traps (4) par Gravity Bind Call of the Haunted Torrential Tribute Backup Soldier Now, you have your cards. Below are the three categories they'll fall into. A powerful thing about this deck is that many of these cards tend to overlap and may fall into other groups, so the deck thrives on multiple options to cover any shortcomings it may face. Drawing/Deck Thinning Options: Painful Choice Des Lacooda Pot of Greed Mirage of Nightmare Royal Magical Library Emissary of the Afterlife Mystic Tomato Shining Angel Stalling/Destruction/Field Advantage Options: Level Limit-Area B Torrential Tribute Scapegoat Dark Magician of Chaos (C'mon! A 2800 Attack Wall!) Swords of Revealing Light Gravity Bind Change of Heart Messenger of Peace Mystic Tomato Shining Angel Premature Burial Call of the Haunted Swarm of Locusts Sinister Serpent Exiled Force Swarm of Scarabs Recursion Options: Dark Magician of Chaos Magician of Faith Mask of Darkness Premature Burial Call of the Haunted Backup Soldier Sinister Serpent (self-recursion) * Winning Options (lol): Exodia the Forbidden One Left Arm of the Forbidden One Left Leg of the Forbidden One Right Arm of the Forbidden One Right Leg of the Forbidden One * I'm just being an idiot with that last group Breakdown of Uses of Cards : Mystic Tomato and Emissary of the Afterlife/Shining Angel and Royal Magical Library : \tab To put it simply, one pair is meant for deck thinning, and the other is meant for immediate drawing potential. There are three Emissaries to max out the potential of Mystic (not to mention that three Emissaries translates to a possible three Exodia pieces), and there are two Royals to increase Shining Angel's chances of success. If Emissary or Royal don't make it out onto the field immediately, these two cards will solve that problem. Now, Emissary's purpose is clearly for the Normal Exodia cards. If you can already get them in your hand, there's no need to draw anymore. Plus, you're most likely going to be the only benefactor of this effect since your opponent would have to be running an Oppressed People or Ojama Trio deck to really benefit from your card. Watch out for other Exodia Decks, though; for once, letting that searcher die isn't such a good idea. Royal Magical Library is very effective in this deck. A little imagination (and intelligence) tells you that this card is helped immensely by the KINDS of spell cards featured in this deck. Messenger and Limit, as well as every other spell card serve the overly important role of performing their effect, but also giving Royal its tokens, and protecting Royal as well. If all three Emissaries or both Royals come out before Shining Angel/Mystic Tomato, that only leaves Shining Angel the secondary purpose of being a wall, but Tomato has a tertiary (third) purpose; bringing out Swarm of Locusts or S warm of Scarabs. Pot of Greed, Mirage of Nightmare \tab Drawing. In a word, drawing. That's all these are for. Mirage of Nightmare stands there defiantly in the unlikely chance that your hand has no cards in it. Since the majority of other cards focus on single-handedly controlling the field, your hand should be much bigger than normal. No, Mirage isn't as necessary here as it is in many other Exodia decks. Both are weak against spell negation. Torrential Tribute, Change of Heart and Snatch Steal \tab More accurately known as "Anti-enemy field", these cards, although only three unlike the current environment, serve their purposes almost instantly. Torrential is a clean slate card. If you don't like your field, get rid of it and your opponent's as well. Its primary purpose is for anything that Jinzo has not corrupted with his ever-devastating touch. For Jinzo, or anything of the like that truly bothers your field advantage, Change of Heart and Snatch Steal step up. Unlike in the current environment, these three heavy-hitters take a backseat and let the other cards do their work. You shouldn't need much more protection than this. Yata and Raigeki are gone. Take a deep breath and relax. Torrential is weak against Jinzo and trap negation, and Change of Heart and Snatch Steal are similarly weak against Spell Canceller (who uses that?) and spell negation. But the rest of the deck protects against those, anyway. Swarm of Locusts, Swarm of Scarabs, Exiled Force, Sinister Serpent and Des Lacooda \tab When your heavy-hitting cards (DMoC, all the Exodia pieces, Torrential Tribute, deck thinners/drawers, etc.) are not immediately available to you, these help in conjunction with the field stall cards to make it so. Protected under Level/Messenger/Gravity Bind/Swords, the three flippers get really nasty really fast. If brought out on your turn by Mystic Tomato, a Scarab or a Locust immediately sets to work and gets its effect off. I chose Locust over MST firstly because of its reusability, secondly because of deck space and ratio, and thirdly because this deck isn't too concerned with what the opponent is doing on the S/T field. This is also your answer to tricky spells/traps and Jinzo-ish nuisances. Des Lacooda gives you an extra draw each turn. Exiled Force speaks for itself, and Sinister Serpent guards the hand in difficult dueling moments. This part of the deck is weak against cards that try to ward off effects, but since these are triggered by manual flip and not by being sent to the graveyard/having a card activated/being attacked/being flipped by an attack/etc., there is little next to Skill Drain that can stop them in their tracks. Scapegoat, Level Limit-Area B, Gravity Bind, Messenger of Peace, Swords of Revealing Light \tab These are your primary walls for defensive purposes. Scapegoat keeps you protected with an artificial wall during times when you need it, and is always ready in the event that the other four cards fail; three of these guarantee a tight defense. Since Scapegoat's natural weakness is trample and/or positions (Necrovalley decks will mangle this card), when it is on the field, it needs to be secured behind Level Limit/Gravity Bind/Messenger/Swords to be truly effective. Most likely, by the time it's removed, you'll have either already won or eliminated any on-field threats that could harm the sheepish defense. Level Limit takes precedence over Gravity Bind, and Messenger is for instances where restricting levels just isn't enough. The Agent of Force- Mars can die as far as I'm concerned (Gravity Bind, unfortunately, is the only proper defense against such a fatal monster). Since this wall is meant to respond specifically to Level 4 and up monsters or Monsters with attacks that are 1500 and up, its primary weaknesses are against Direct Damage/Weenie/Burn Decks and Angel/Fairy Decks (which revolve around attacking indirectly, rather through brute force or burn damage); spell/trap negation is a given. There is also a chance that four scapegoats who can't be tributed for summons or anything else (since none of the other cards in this deck have tribute costs) may slow down your ability to put things on the field, so conserve the use of a scapegoat up until right before you lose your other defenses. These stalls provide you a light delay; it should never take you long to win a duel, so this is all that's needed in most cases. Painful Choice \tab This card is ultimately a deck-thinner. It gives Exodia a level of speed that Pot of Greed wishes it possessed and it gives an amount of control that Mirage of Nightmare could only dream of attaining. You pick five cards, each as equally important as possible (in order for this to be effective, or else you'll get stuck with crap). Of those five, you let your opponent choose one for you to keep, and the rest are discarded. Other than magic negation as an obvious problem, there is also the selection. Here are a few tips: (1)Never put both Call of the Haunted or Premature Burial in the same group; (2)Never select Backup Soldier as one of the five; (3)Never choose a flip effect monster since this deck has no relatively simple way of reviving them for their effect; (4)The Flip-Trigger Monsters are good picks since revival guarantees them at least one quick shot. In fact, the best choice is: A Des Lacooda, a Swarm of Locusts, Swarm of Scarabs, Mystic Tomato, and Shining Angel. Avoid selecting Exodia pieces since you never know when Backup Soldier will appear. And Sinister Serpent pales in comparison to the urgency of most of the other cards, so draw it; don't select it. Dark Magician of Chaos, Premature Burial, Call of the Haunted, Magician of Faith, Mask of Darkness, Backup Soldier \tab Needless to say, this is for recursion. Exodia decks are always vulnerable to this, and so they need help to keep their key cards (particularly the Exodia pieces) out of the grave. Dark Magician of Chaos and Magician of Faith serve to get ANY Spell card you'll ever need back. Let's see... that's Premature/Scapegoat/Pot/Mirage/Change/Snatch/Messenger/Gravity Bind/Level Limit/Swords/Painful Choice. Eleven cards, and two chances to reuse any one of them. Magician comes out on her own, but Dark Magician of Chaos usually needs to hit the grave first and incur recursion itself, ironically (since this deck avoids tributing except in instances like Snatch Steal or Change of Heart), and he's only a one-hit wonder. Aside from recursion, his field presence with all the restrictive cards in this deck is sure to be impressive, although an effective duelist can do away with him quickly. Premature or Call can easily summon him for his one-time effect, though; however, they're much better used with cards that will have a much more lasting effect. For instance, both Call and Premature can bring back a Flip monster and the Flip Monster can then exist on the field without the threat of death coming by way of MST or Heavy Storm. Premature and Call can bring back Emissary, Royal, Exiled, Mystic, or Shining. Mask of Darkness is to reclaim any one of the four traps you have. And Backup Soldier is the Emissary of your graveyard. Use it to get back your Normal Exodia pieces. This part of the deck falters against Necrovalley and instances where the head of Exodia hits the graveyard. You probably might find Dark Magician of Chaos to not only be unnecessary, but a hindrance. In fact, depending on your tastes, DMoC might not even make it into your deck; but find some decent Spell recursion that will. Perhaps another MoF might be useful. Exodia Pieces \tab If I have to spell out why these are essential, you shouldn't be playing an Exodia deck in the first place. You win. End of story. Since neither Sangan nor Witch are available, the Head is a bit more difficult to attain. This is both good and bad. Good because the head is safe until it makes it into your hand (ideally, it would be the last Exodia piece you draw); bad because it limits the speed. In a pre-ban Exodia deck, speed was determined through drawing, Call/Premature, Witch/Sangan, and Emissary, and these cards freed up the deck so you could include cards to defend against the head hitting the graveyard (ie. removal and returning to hand, or revival and returning to hand). But, without them, there's no more space, and if the Head is lost, generally all is lost. Confiscation is still in play after the bans, so watch out. Forceful Sentry only prolongs the win, but unlike Confiscation, it doesn't severely disrupt your chances. Other than that, Backup soldier still pretty much protects the four Normal Exodia pieces. Hand Control/Disruption/Destruction decks lose a great deal of momentum and power with the ban, which is also a reason why Exodia decks have become so playable now. Of course, Necrovalley decks just got a huge boost contrarily, so it still stands to reason that there are things for Exodia deck wielders to fear. With the cards I've mentioned, you should have no problem ending the game quickly, and you can deal with some light attacks to the hand. One of the best benefits of this particular deck is that although each section has a general weakness, no weakness is carried over through the entire deck (give or take card negation), and if it is, the deck has ways of standing against such a weakness. Side Deck Options \tab Needless to say, this deck isn't perfect. For one, Dark Magician of Chaos may or may not be right for this deck. Remove him for some other recursion, or maybe for extra drawing (ie. a third Des Lacooda), destruction or stalling, if you feel the need. Another Magician of Faith, perhaps? Or maybe a Breaker or a DD Warrior Lady. Possibly even a Nobleman of Crossout. Then, there's also your options for stalling. Maybe exchange one of the Scapegoats for Waboku or something else. Maybe Dark Door or Kaiser Coliseum will replace one of the Level Limits or Messengers. Perhaps you don't feel your graveyard monster recursion is sufficient. Find more Backup Soldiers, or figure out a way to manipulate your opponent's graveyard. Maybe Change of Heart isn't to your liking. Exchange it for Creature Swap (maybe even two at the expense of Snatch Steal) and trade off those bothersome Scapegoats, particularly for the Jinzo that few monsters will be getting around. Maybe even set it up to have bounce-back cards for the Exodia head if you see something excess and unnecessary in my list. If you still find no way to implement head protection, perhaps you can utilize some sort of cop-out method for victory. Like a Last Turn/Jowgen combination and some card to cut your life down. Who knows? This deck actually allows for a very diverse Side Deck, so have fun choosing according to your own tastes. W ell, I've said my two cents, and I'm done. Fieryshadowcard If you have any questions or beef (I love beef. Favorite meat of all), email me at fieryshadowcard@yahoo.com Holla back! }