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Carrotizer on YuGiOh
Catch Me If You Can, I’m the Ginger…Strike Ninja?
August 31, 2006

            Strike Ninja has been my favorite card. It has a cool picture, and it has a cool ability. What’s not to love? It’s Warrior, Dark, and 1700 ATK isn’t so bad. Effect is spectacular. Ability to generate advantage even during your opponent’s turn is fantastic. Remove 2 Dark monsters…hey, that’s Freed’s step-brother! How about Strike Ninja Return this time?

            This time, we’ll go from Return from the Different Dimension. First, we need some remove from game engine. Okay, we got those; 2 Strike Ninjas. 3 would be too much, because unlike Freed the Brave Wanderer, you can (and usually will) use the effect to be like Agent Smith and dodge everything they throw at you. Dark monsters are sometimes hard to get to graveyard.

            The deck’s point will be to use Treeborn Frog with D.D. Scout Plane to create infinite food for Tribute. Unless your opponent uses Torrential Tribute or Lightning Vortex, it would be hard to get to your LP with just monsters. Look out for Asura Priest, folks.

            We need something that is effective both with Return and Strike Ninja. D.D. Scout Plane will be run in 3’s. That should fuel Strike Ninja once it hits the graveyard. With Breaker the Magical Warrior, Sangan, and Spirit Reaper, some basic food will be ready. D.D. Assailant and D.D. Warrior Lady provide both Return from the Different Dimension food and Warrior flexibility. Jeez, those two card are broken! Wait, first, I want to check the card counts to see what cards I can use.

Monsters: 14

1 Jinzo

1 Sangan

2 Strike Ninja

1 Spirit Reaper

1 D.D. Assailant

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

3 D.D. Scout Plane

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Night Assailant

1 Magician of Faith

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

Spells: 7

1 Graceful Charity

1 Card Destruction

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Book of Moon

1 Nobleman of Crossout

Traps: 5

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Return from the Different Dimension

            D.D. Scout Plane is a monster that is only good in decks that abuses its effect. Otherwise, it is just a Dark Machine with 800 ATK. Besides, unlike Macro Cosmos deck, which could discard D.D. Scout Plane (didn’t realize it, did you? ^^), we need to discard those to the graveyard as fast as possible. Card Destruction was included to do that, along with Graceful Charity, which can dump Dark Magician of Chaos, which also is Dark and works so well with Return from the Different Dimension. Now it happens that when you remove Jinzo/Dark Magician of Chaos, you can either negate a trap or get a spell back. Awesome!

            Night Assailant will get Magician of Faith back.  However, because you can use Return from the Different Dimension only once, we want second chance. Mask of Darkness is also Dark, and it can retrieve a powerful trap like Ring of Destruction or Mirror Force. With those, we’ll have enough momentum to replace –1 for Card Destruction. Thunder Dragon would have been wonderful, but because we don’t need Light monsters anymore, it’s not good enough.

Monsters: 15

1 Jinzo

1 Sangan

2 Strike Ninja

1 Spirit Reaper

1 D.D. Assailant

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

3 D.D. Scout Plane

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Night Assailant

1 Magician of Faith

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

1 Treeborn Frog

Spells: 7

1 Graceful Charity

1 Card Destruction

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Book of Moon

1 Nobleman of Crossout

Traps: 6

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Return from the Different Dimension

1 Dust Tornado

            Again, just like Freed, we have tons of choices. Most noticeable ones are Blowback Dragon, Cyber Dragon, Fiend Megacyber (all right, I think that’s better than Cyber Dragon), Newdoria, Mystic Tomato, and Dekoichi the Battle-chanted Locomotive. We can use Machine-type supportive Dark monsters to have that extra edge of Limiter, or rush at your opponent with flexible ones.

            First, let’s check the card count again. I added Dust Tornado because when you have a set Mask of Darkness, you can usually use Dust Tornado for free and get it back again. When you pull this off, you may set any face-down on your backfield because your opponent won’t bluntly try to destroy it, unless he/she has Heavy Storm. Chainable Traps rock! You can also use it during Standby Phase (End Phase would be more preferable though) to bring Treeborn Frog.

            With 28 cards, we have some, but not so much, rooms to finish the masterpiece. To thin decks out and to search D.D. Scout Plane faster, 3 Mystic Tomato will both bring out Spirit Reaper when needed, or just replace itself with another copy, just filling up that graveyard with Dark monsters you need. Last Will always works excellent with those.

            Talking about deck-thinning, Reinforcement of the Army also does that, except you get a lot more varieties. I’m considering about Warrior Returning Alive, because D.D. Warrior Lady and Assailant are supposed to go to RFG zone, and Strike Ninja won’t die so easily. Let’s just use 1, in case we run out of bullets.

            With Night Assailant, Dekoichi is also a flip effect monster that are powerful. Look out for Shining Angel or Mystic Tomato. You can use Book of Moon to draw another card! Also, when your opponent uses Nobleman of Crossout on it, instead of D.D. Scout Plane that you planned to bait it out with, don’t worry because now you have 4200 ATK in your removed from game zone, and with Limiter, that’s enough to end game with! Yes, we are following the path of machines.

            The number is rising up fast, but with Mystic Tomato, Card Destruction, and even Dekoichi the Battle-chanted Locomotive, we won’t have any problem drawing any cards. Just make sure not to use Reinforcement of the Army too fast that you can’t bring out Strike Ninja when you need to. You can’t use Pot of Avarice because you won’t have enough monsters in your graveyard. Only target that you would want to get that you can only get with it is Magician of Faith, but Night Assailant takes care of that, while getting another Dark.

            We won’t use Cyber-Stein…just not too good in this format, and with Return, the cost is too high. However, 1 Blowback Dragon will satisfy. Also, in case you draw D.D. Scout Plane and not have Card Destruction or other methods, we’ll include 2 Creature Swaps. It works with Sangan, Treeborn Frog, and Mystic Tomatoes.

            Another scenario that I thought about was having Strike Ninja and not having enough Dark monsters in graveyard because you Special Summoned those D.D. Scout Plane. If you have 2 Scout Planes on the field when opponent uses Mirror Force/Lightning Vortex, you are a bit screwed…to get the Scout Plane in no time, 1 Enemy Controller will do all the jobs; while countering Creature Swaps, Mirror Force will destroy their monster, while providing Strike Ninja enough power to run away from mass destruction. Heck, the only Reaper they have will be gone right away.

Monsters: 22

1 Jinzo

1 Sangan

2 Strike Ninja

1 Spirit Reaper

1 D.D. Assailant

1 D.D. Warrior Lady

3 D.D. Scout Plane

1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

1 Night Assailant

1 Magician of Faith

1 Dark Magician of Chaos

1 Treeborn Frog

1 Mask of Darkness

3 Mystic Tomato

3 Dekoichi the Battle-chanted Locomotive

Spells: 15

1 Graceful Charity

1 Card Destruction

1 Heavy Storm

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Premature Burial

1 Book of Moon

1 Nobleman of Crossout

1 Last Will

2 Reinforcement of the Army

1 Warrior Returning Alive

1 Limiter Removal

2 Creature Swap

1 Enemy Controller

Traps: 6

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

1 Mirror Force

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Return from the Different Dimension

1 Dust Tornado

Total: 43 cards

            If you really wanted to follow Warrior theme, you can try Exiled Forces and Fiend Megacyber, with 1 or 2 Don Zaloogs, instead of Blowback Dragon/Dekoichis. Or, if you need more attackers, use Cyber Dragons. You can welcome their own D.D.’s because Cyber Dragon will be 4200 ATK when you use both Return from the Different Dimension with Limiter Removal. Because of Dekoichi’s 1400 ATK, sometimes you would want to use Limiter on Dekoichi in case their searchers attempt to destroy it. Though you will lose 2 cards, when they destroy Dekoichi and bring out Reaper to follow up, that’s 2 cards anyway!

            Also, another way is to include Morphing Jar and Dark World cards. I won’t suggest that because with 2 Reapers gone, Dark World isn’t as powerful as it used to be. Still, it doesn’t mean they are weak! Don Zaloog will just bring destructions instead of advantages. Still, one last reason is that as all Dark World deck is, opposing Dark World is more dangerous when you run those 2 cards; Morphing Jar and Card Destruction.

            Also, I suggest that if you use Morphing Jar with D.D. Scout Plane, along with Card Destruction, run 1 Skull Lair. If you are using Dark World monsters as I mentioned above, or monarchs, you can remove D.D. Scout Plane for free, along with strong monsters, to remove your monsters while fueling your Return from the Different Dimension trap. Scapegoat won’t be able to survive.

            If you are hard-pressed against faster and more aggressive deck, use Scapegoat; they are useful with Creature Swap and Enemy Controller also (man, Creature Swap has so many combinations, it’s not even funny anymore…I think it was more broken than Snatch Steal, but that’s only personal opinion). Only combinations that you can’t do are limited only by your creativity (I think I heard that somewhere…can’t really remember now X_X). Have fun!

By Paul Yeem – Carrotizer @ paulyeem@hotmail.com

P.S: To 2 kind readers that sent me an e-mail, and got an e-mail that I sent, saying that I would reply again later in the day – Sorry I couldn’t reply; my Internet modem disconnected me soon after I logged in…I’ll get to you asap TT^TT sorry to you. Furthremore, dear Kevin has pointed out to me that in Cyber Dragon vs. Fiend Megacyber article, I made a mistake of saying that you can summon Proto-Cyber Dragon when you use Inferno Reckless Summon with Proto-Cyber Dragon, along with Cyber Dragons. Thanks!