Ones Side is Light, The Other Dark
 
Now, you may have noticed the fervor with which people have been espousing the relatively new Dragonsworn decks out there. Mostly they are a rush style deck that tends to put on more pressure than an opponent's defense can handle at any given time. The problem with the deck is that it has to run very specific cards in order to function properly, as well as sending very specific monsters from your deck to the graveyard. This can make the deck very inconsistent at times, and in my opinion limits the amount of power that it can bring to bear in order to get some speed cards in the deck. I have built and played both famous Dragonsworn decks from Toulouse and Dallas and found them to be speedy and deadly, but very prone to bad hands with multiple Chaos Sorcerers, Chaos Dragons and Judgment Dragons as dead draws.
 
This of course does not happen all the time, but enough that I would question their consitency at a major tournament such as a YCS or Regional against multiple opponents. Most theorists say that it has the best matchup with the Dino-Rabbit deck, which made up the majority of both tournaments and accounted for most of the Dragonsworn players wins. No doubt that style of deck was best against Dino-Rabbit, but a normal person at a Regionals can expect to see Dark World, Heroes, Wind-Up, Dragons, Agents, Lightsworn, Chaos, Dino-Rabbit, Frogs, Gladiators, Inzektors and Machines. What would a normal player do against such a variety of decks?
 
The answer may surprise you...
 
Dragonstorm
 
Monsters-29
 
3x Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3x Lightpulsar Dragon
3x Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
3x Alexandrite Dragon
3x Axe Dragonute
2x Chaos Sorcerer
2x Genex Ally Birdman
2x Eclipse Wyvern
2x Darkflare Dragon
2x Tragoedia
1x Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon
1x Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning
1x Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1x Divine Dragon Apocralyph
 
Spells-11
 
3x Chaos Zone
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Future Fusion
1x Allure of Darkness
1x Charge of the Light Brigade
1x Heavy Storm
1x Monster Reborn
1x Dark Hole
 
 
Extra-15
 
1x Tiras, Keeper of Genesis
1x Adreus, Keeper of Armageddon
1x Inzektor Exa-Beetle
1x Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
3x Number 39: Utopia
1x Number C39: Utopia Ray
1x Stardust Dragon
1x Colossal Fighter
1x Dark End Dragon
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Scrap Archfiend
1x Five-Headed Dragon
 
Side-15
 
3x Skill Drain
2x Effect Veiler
2x D.D. Crow
2x Burst Breath
2x Deck Devastation Virus
2x Torrential Tribute
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Mirror Force
 
The Head
 
There is a darn good reason I call this deck Dragonstorm. Mostly because I have the ability to play out of almost any situation with the right cards in my hand. Red Eyes and Lightpulsar are the MVP's of the deck, able to create a relatively devastating combo that allows me to attack without fear and reuse my big monsters easily. Ryko is the workhorse, able to destroy any threat (except Dolkka) easily. You might want to play Lyla instead, but i found that her inability to kill monsters and the fact that she hides in defense for so long can slow the deck more down than I already have. Alexandrite Dragon and Axe Dragonute have an important place in the deck, able to beat over most monsters as well as providing food for Red Eyes, Lightpulsar, Darkflare and Chaos Sorcerer. In themselves they are a threat that needs to be dealt with (Alexandrite a little more) and work very well with the extra deck.
 
Chaos Sorcerer and BLS are there to pick up the slack if the Dragons fails or to get you out of tough spots where sheer muscle cannot prevail. Eclipse Wyvern searches out Red eyes while still being desirable food for Chaos Monsters. Gorz and Tragoedia come into play for defense that can quickly turn into offense, and many times can decide a game all on their own. Thorny Dragon is there as another target for Lightpulsar as well as being able to Summon easily by it's own effect and help to stop monsters from overrunning your position. Birdman is in the deck to abuse Red Eyes multiple times as well as for a good tuner to make level 8 and 7 Synchros successfully. you may want to use Psychic Commander as he can be used with emergency Teleport, but i could not find the space for Teleport and Commander himself is not DARK. Divine Dragon Apocralyph allows the re-use of Red Eyes or any other Chaos Dragon while triggering Eclipse Wyvern with its cost and filtering bad cards in your hand to an extent.
 
The Body
 
The core of the deck is it's monsters, but the spells assist in many ways. By far the oddest choice is Chaos Zone. Decks nowadays banish a lot of monsters every turn both for effects and defense. It makes sense to take advantage of that. With a few counters I can bring back Alexandrite or Dragonute and clean up a little in the aftermath of a field clearer. Or even wait a while and get a level 6 or 5 monster to XYZ. It is also fairly good first game, as your opponent will likely MST it for your lack of Trap Cards. This allows a search, which is always nice. This card has saved me more times than I can count, able to turn a steadily losing situation around quickly. The rest of the spells are fairly straightforward, and I can afford to run a higher spell count as I run fewer blind milling cards than most of the other Dragon chaos decks.
 
The Tail
 
The extra deck focuses around XYZ and Synchro monsters mostly. Utopia is very common to make with the deck, and Utopia Ray is of course a last minute savior. I often use a late Chaos Zone
to make an XYZ monster easily. The Synchros are pretty standard except for Dark End, who is able to be made very easily with Dark Flare and Birdman. Then the Five-Headed Dragon rounds it out as he can oftentimes win games just by having his materials dumped by Future Fusion. You may be tempted to play Light End, I would not. Some of the standard XYZ monsters I omitted mostly because I cannot make rank 3 easily. In fact at all.
 
The Wings
 
The side deck is where this gets interesting. Utility cards like D.D. Crow and Effect Veiler are found her to stop Dino-Rabbit and Wind-Up. Skill Drain allows for the deck to abuse its beaters more effectively as well as shutting down many an opposing deck. As a total surprise from the deck, they will also have sided out their Spell and Trap destruction. The tribute Traps are there to help abuse your big beaters even more. DDV is deadly to most decks now, almost as deadly as Crush Card used to be and very easily used with all of your big DARK monsters. Burst Breath can stop an entire enemy assault in it's tracks, blasting an entire opponent's field in response to removal. Torrential, MST and Mirror Force are optional cards depending on your meta, but a bit more surprise defense couldn't hurt too much.
 
Dragonsbreath
 
The deck plays very well against Dino-Rabbit obviously, but also plays better against Wind-Ups as it can get some pwoer to the field early to discourage an overextension via the combo. Dark World fairs little better, as the deck WANTS to discard and draw dragons. But the ATK points of a powered Grapha can really mess up your attacks. Heroes do not do well at all, as all of their monsters fall to your beaters and if they use their removal on them, your big Dragons come down to beat them to a pulp. Inzektors are a hard matchup, as they need only a few cards in order to make a comeback, which can be a little hard on the deck as it is not quite as fast and deadly as it's Lightsworn counterpart.
 
Most of the other matchups depend on what you draw, as Gladiators, Chaos and Lightsworn are unforgiving to bad hands. The bad hands have been reduced. They are still going to happen, but you will most of the time have a playable card at any given time in the game. Mid to late game is where the deck shines, although a huge early game is not out of the question with future Fusion. When your opponents resources are low is where your topdecked Lightpulsar Dragon turns to solid gold.
 
Opposing sides to this deck will find it surprisingly resilient to the Imprisoning Mirrors and Skill Drain. While D.D. Crow can be a pain, Effect Veiler is far less of a threat than to the Dragonsworn variant. Macro Cosmos can actually help the deck with Chaos Zone on the field, although it is still rough on any chaos deck top run against it.
 
Solid Gold
 
There are a few cards I considered for the deck and side, but just ran out of room for. Here are a few of them:
 
Battle Fader- Stops the Battle phase AND removes itself when it dies. Also searchable easily with Chaos Zone.
Cyber Dragon- Helps draw out removal as well as counters machines. If machines are big in your area, these plus Chimeratech fortress Dragon can really help.
Vice Dragon- Gets out quickly for Chaos Dragon tribute as well as easy fodder for Red Eyes wihtout using your normal summon.
Wing Beat of Giant Dragon- extra copies of Heavy storm are never bad, but without Vice Dragon to abuse with it, it is not quite as playable in the deck.
Thunderking Rai-Oh- Good utility monster, if you are going to a big event, I would side these instead of the extra Trap cards.
Strong Wind Dragon- With many enormous Dragons to Tribute for this guy, he can dominate the field easily. he is just not a LIGHT or DARK and relatively low on the list.
Prime Material Dragon- A great side card against burn decks, and easy to use to manage destruction. It is up to you to side or Main this. I recommend taking out D.D. Crows in order to side it.
Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress- An excellent card, I just think it loses out to Ryko in this deck. You may choose to use Lyla instead of Ryko according to your taste. 
Card Trooper- A good solid card to get you to the cards you need, but being an EARTH and blind miller is not quite what this deck needs.
 
Well that is all for this article, I plan to write quite a bit in the coming weeks as I gear up to Regionals San Jose. If you have any comments, questions or ideas, feel free to email me at alarbios@live.com and not Pojo. Please put "Yugioh" in the title so I do not classify your email as spam. You can usually find me Sundays at Drom's Comics and Cards in Davis California playing sanctioned events if you wish to speak to me in person. If I'm not there, enjoy the event and the great players that have turned that place into a dueling hot spot!
 
Thanx for Reading!
GZ