Ever since this game first started, many people have tried to make the Dragon-Archetype playable.  However, they have always come one step short of being a competitive deck.  When it originally begun, the Lord of D. + Flute of Summoning Dragon combination was the prototypical OTK, but now that combo is all but obsolete.  Every set that is released, Dragons get a tiny bit of support, but none of it was game-breaking enough to have any sort of impact on the competitive metagame.  Dragons were given a glimmer of hope when Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon was released into the US.  It can basically do the same thing as Lord of D. + Flute of Summoning Dragon, except it has the potential to summon out huge beaters every single turn.

Many people have since then attempted to make to make OTKs around this card.  But very few have had much success at a large tournament-level.  One of the main reasons for its ability to do well consistently is due to the deck being more or less, hit-or-miss type of deck, and due to the fact that it is purely aggressive, and once your opponent stops the first attack wave, you’re left wide open for a counter attack.  The mistake that most people are making is that they only have way of swarming – Red Eyes Darkness Metal.  As for those who are using Dark Creator, they are consistently depleting their hands with Dark Grepher.  After doing so, that pretty much only have a single chance for swarm, and it that fails to win them the match, the deck easily loses out in a top-decking war.

At Toronto Regionals several months ago, a new twist was thrown into the standard Dragon build.  This new deck incorporated the Destiny Hero draw engine, and also included 3 Blue Eyes White Dragon.  No, that’s not a typo, the deck was running a playset of the original boss monster.  The end result was the deck wrecking havoc through the 8 swiss rounds, finishing with an undefeated record.  Now a under a new format, this deck is looking even deadlier as a result of certain card bans and restrictions.  Let’s take a look at what it looks like now:

1x Dark Armed Dragon

3x Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

3x Blue-Eyes White Dragon

1x Montage Dragon

1x Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness

2x Destiny Hero – Plasma

2x Destiny Hero – Malicious

1x Destiny Hero – Diamond Dude

1x Elemental Hero – Stratos

3x Stone of White Legend

1x Phantom of Chaos

[19]

3x Destiny Draw

3x Trade-In

2x Allure of Darkness

2x Gold Sarcophagus

2x D.D.R – Different Dimension Reincarnation

2x Dragon’s Mirror

1x Future Fusion

1x Heavy Storm

1x Giant Trunade

[17]

2x Bottomless Trap Hole

1x Mirror Force

1x Torrential Tribute

1x Call of the Haunted

[5]

[Total – 41]

Before we take a look at the monster line-up, we will examine the spells.  The spell-line up is built for maximum speed without losing advantage, hence the exclusion of Hand Destruction and Card Destruction.  The deck uses all sensible Draw-2 cards, maxing out on 3 Destiny Draw, 3 Trade-In, and 2 Allure of Darkness.  For Destiny Draw, you only 5 targets, with 1 of them being the second Malicious.  At first glance it may appear to be a bad ratio, however you have ways in searching out your Destiny Hero monsters with Stratos, an overlooked monster in this deck.  As for Trade-In, there is a mind-boggling 6 targets.

The use of 2 Gold Sarcophagus allows you to set-up your swarm usually removing cards like Future Fusion, or Heavy Storm.  Also, by using 2 copies of D.D.R, it give you an option of removing a Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to begin a swarm.  Future Fusion is self-explanatory.  And as for the 2 copies of Dragon’s Mirror, you’ll likely only find yourself using one of them.  The second copy is purely in there so you have a better change of drawing it.  Dragon’s Mirror not only livens up D.D.R, it also means getting a 5000-attack monster on to the field. 

Looking at the monsters, one of the first things you will notice, is the exclusion of cards such as Prime Material Dragon, Red-Eyes Wyvern, and Dark Creator.  I’ve already explained the reasoning for not using Dark Creator above.  Prime Material Dragon, while is a good card, it only slows the deck down.  First off, it is not a dark monster, and secondly, it is not level 8.  Because of this, it completely goes against your draw-engine, and it will end up a dead card more often than not.  Red-Eyes Wyern, is not in here due to the simple fact that it completely telegraphs your attempt to swarm, and it allows your opponent to play around it.  Without it, your opponent will less likely be able to predict when your deck is setting up for an explosive turn.

Montage Dragon is a highly underrated card.  In this deck, it actually works wonders.  It gives the deck a secondary OTK option.  Given the number of high level monsters in the deck, it isn’t hard to summon this monster with an attack easily having more than enough power to finish off your opponent if an attack goes through.  Stone of White Legend serves a dual purpose in here.  Not only does it recruit a Blue-Eyes from your deck to hand (to make use of Trade-In), it is also a tuner monster.  This part is often forgotten by many players.  The ability to nuke the field with Blackrose Dragon in this deck is huge.

There’s not much to be said about the traps, so I’ll leave that up to you.

Earlier I said that the deck should be even more effective in this format is due to 2 main reasons.  The first is the banning of Crush Card.  Usually, when your opponent plays Crush Card, this deck is pretty much crippled.  The other reason is Solemn Judgment going down to 1.  This allows you to play with less fear and be more aggressive.  This deck is much better when the player attempts to finish off the match as soon as possible.  The less cards your opponent commits to the field, the easier it is for you to swarm and claim victory.

Have fun! If you have any suggestions, comments, or anything else you can reach me at Darkness_Waters@hotmail.com