From: GASCHCLAN@aol.com [mailto:GASCHCLAN@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 9:36 PM

Subject: Element (NOT Hero) Deck - DaGman

Hey folks! I'm back and calling the lot of you "folks." "Haha," I am thinking. "I just called a bunch of people 'folks.'" And then I will laugh and laugh. But I digress, which is a fancy word for going off on a weird tangent that seems totally irrelevant. I am here (at my house) to talk to you about a deck idea that I played against in a recent tournament that I thought was kinda cool. It is based around the Element Monsters, specifically cards like the Element Dragon and Element Saurus that I use in the deck I built to y'know attack. However these cards gain different effects based on whether or not a monster of a certain attribute is on the field. Here are the attribute effects which are the same for all six of the different monsters:

FIRE: Increase the ATK of this card by 500 points.

WIND: If this card destroyed your opponent's monster as a result of battle, it can attack once again in a row.

EARTH: Negate the effect of an Effect Monster that is destroyed by this monster as a result of battle.

WATER: Control of this card cannot switch.

Now, all six of these cards (Element Dragon, Saurus, Magician, Solidier, Doom, and Valkyrie) are either light or dark and do not gain an effect for their own types. These cards gain the effects for monsters on your own AND your opponent's field. Each of the different cards have a different combination of two elements that grant them power. And each of the monsters starts with 1500 ATK and 1200 DEF, which is great because that means they are the top value as far as searchability goes. I first looked at my favorites of the effects: FIRE and WIND. These two element effects were found on the Element Dragon, so that opened a whole BUNCH of options. Yay!

Now the deck idea was realy spawned off of Element Dragon itself. I looked for cards that supported it as well as one more Element monster to have in the deck (I chose Element Saurus because it also gains the FIRE effect and the other effect is EARTH, which is fairly common). As it turns out, Masked Dragon is FIRE attribute and Armed Dragon is WIND. I like splicing Armed Dragon into decks becuase they always tend to be huge pains in the rump when I play against them and "tournabout is fair play" and all that rot. Anywho, I also looked for other cards that are fire that fit the deck that were commons I had laying about. I found Battle Footballer (Normal 1000 ATK 2100 DEF) and Tenkabito Shien from the new SOI pack. Tenkabito Shien is a FIRE version of E-Hero Wildheart, so that was cool. I also used a card that I saw in the original deck that I played against. This card is:

Homunculus the Alchemic Being

Lv 4

Light/Plant/Effect

You can change the Attribute of this monster. This effect can only be used once per turn.

ATK/1800  DEF/1600

Bingo! He can be whatever my Element monsters need to power up!

Now I would like to take the time right here to stress that this entire deck concept is about being able to maintain muliple monsters on the field. My M/T situation is totally not built for that because this is a deck I literally through together with spare cards. However, in combo decks you need to put effort and brainjuice into how you can maintain whatever combo it is you are using. They are hard to do. Trust me. These are the kinds of decks that I beat at tournaments all the time. They are fun, but need to have synergy. This deck has Battle Footballer as a sort of stall that can also boost my Element monsters. Tenkabito Shien is used to avoid traps while waiting for the element monsters. Masked Dragon gets out either Element Dragon OR Armed Dragon lv3 which can furher boost monsters. These monsters work well together, but the M?T will not. These are basic, usually common, M/T that most people have that can amintain a deck of most varieties. That's just it though, they are NOT deck specific. I am putting this deck here as an inspiration, not to inspire copy-cats (which is a card I cannot WAIT for release in the US). So here is the deck that I think still works pretty well considering and is a rather fun idea (yay dragons!):

Cards (40)

Monsters (23):

Element Dragon                X3

Element Saurus                X3

Armed Dragon lv3            X3

Armed Dragon lv5            X2

Masked Dragon                X3

Tenkabito Shien              X3

Homunculus etc.               X3

Battle Footballer             X3

Spells (10):

Poison of the Old Man    X2

Last Will                        X1

Dragged Down into the Grave    X1

Confiscation                   X1

Malevolent Nuzzler         X1

Dark World Lightning      X1

Back to Square One        X1

My Body as a Shield       X1

Level Up!                        X1

Traps (7):

DNA Transplant             X1

A Rival Appears!             X1

Spell Shield Type-8       X1

Disappear                      X1

Karma Cut                      X1

Just Deserts                  X1

Non Aggression Area      X1

So that's it really. The Spells and Traps I have in the deck aren't bad, but they are not very high level, play-wise.

The spells are straightforward:

-Poison is chainable and it's versatile.

-Last Will has variety since all but two monsters in this deck are summon-able with it

-Dragged Down, Cofiscation, Dark World Lightning, My Body as a Shield, and Back 2 Square One are all very basic protection cards that let you try new things as the duel progresses.

-Malevolent Nuzzler will boost the relativley weak card of the deck.

-Level Up is for the Armed Dragons.

The traps are pretty basic too:

-Dna Transplant allows the Elements to boost themselves potentially, but it also limits you to whatever Attirbute you pick and that is it.

-Rival Appears, Spell Shield, and Non Aggression, again very basic protection.

-Disappear has been sitting on my desk for FOREVER and I wanted to get it into a freakin deck already.

-Karam Cut I am really quite fond of and I like throwing it into fun decks for, well, fun!

-Just Deserts I have some sort of fantasy of five monsters not being able to get through Battle Footballer, which wouldn't happen, but still.

Manipulate this deck to your hearts content, I would enjoy hearing about different ways you change and play with this deck. Also feel free to use other Element monsters for this fun deck.

Feel free to e-mail me what you think at Gaschclan@aol.com

Later Folks! (I did it again! Heehee)