Beating Shaddolls

I admit to being a fan of Satellarknights.  The cards are aesthetically pleasing; the theme is noble; and the design is balanced.  While the stalwart will point out that today’s balanced is yesterday’s broken, the archetype is not overrunning the current meta.  In fact, I don’t anticipate that it ever will.  Though Stellarknight Trihiver will be a welcome XYZ addition, the knights fail because of the clause that limits game actions to only tellarknights. 

I call my current build “Stars and Cars” because it combines Tellarknights and Geargia.  While eclectic, the deck is one of the most consistent that I have ever played.  It maintains hand advantage, provides flexibility, and rarely produces dead hands … 

… it also consistently loses to Shaddolls.  In brief, the deck reliably makes Shaddoll Fusion live, which leads to Winda, which leads to tears.  Given the lack of recent Tellar tops, this problem can’t be easily overcome. 

The low moments in Yugioh give doolists a choice: Join ‘em or Screw ‘em.  Since I have already invested too much money, I opted for screw ‘em.  Though zeal and salt may be on my side, successful construction of an anti-meta deck is a bit of a long shot.  The list of positive features in a Shaddoll deck is formidable.  Consider the following:

• Flip effects
• Graveyard Effects
• Search Effects
• Anti-Meta Effects (e.g. Winda)
• Spell Effects
• Large Boss Monsters (particularly when combined with dragons or Lightsworns)

Most anti-meta decks specialize in stopping one or two game mechanics.  Shaddolls gives us six.  Furthermore, some of these mechanics are very difficult to stop.  Graveyard effects are negated by only a few cards, a fact that also causes problems when playing Burning Abyss as well. 

Inspired by ROTA’s promotion to three, I took another look at my Harpie Hanzo deck.  The deck list is given below:

Monsters:

Harpies: Channeler x 3; Lady #1 x 3; Queen x 3, Dancer x 1

Friends: Hanzo x 3; D.D. Warrior Lady x 1, Evilswarm Hraesvelg x 2, Dark Simorgh x 2

Spells: Soul Charge x 1, D Fissure x 1, Raigeki x 1, Elegant Egotist x 1, Hysteric Sign x 3, Hunting Ground x 3, ROTA x 3

Traps:  Hysteric Party x 3, Art of Transformation x 2, Fiendish Chain x 3, Soul Drain x 1

Extra: Castel x 2, Chidori x 2, Zerofyne x2, Abyss Dweller x 2, Silent Honor Ark x 2, Dire Wolf x 1, Exciton x 1, Blackship x 1, Beserk x 1, Heartlandraco x 1

Side: Anti-Spell Fragrance x 3, Stygian Dirge x 3, Emptiness x 3, Soul Release x 3, Creature Swap x 3

While this deck won’t stop every aspect of the Shaddoll deck, it does have several devilish features:

No Setting!  Dark Simorgh keeps opponents from setting any cards on the field.  Good luck if you are playing the Jonesian 20 trap card deck.  Thanks to the triple ROTA, doolists have six cards in their deck that will get them to the big bird. 

Big Body: Not only does Simorgh hinder opponents play, he is also something of a beater.  While Hunting Ground is active, Dark Simorgh has a 2900 attack.  More importantly, he is not summoned from the extra deck, which lowers the effectiveness of Shaddoll Fusion.

Decreasing the Graveyard Threat: There are 13 cards that take away graveyard activation: Warrior Lady x 1, Hraesvelg x 2, D Fissure x 1, Soul Drain x 1, Castel x 2, Chidori x 2, Abyss Dweller x 2, Silent Honor Ark x 2. 

The best XYZ ever! Ice Beast Zerofyne is the single most broken and most unknown card in the game.  It negates monster effects and gains 300 for each face up card on the field.  This latter property is the reason for the 16 continuous spells and traps. 

 I will post my predictions for all of the archetypes for the next format in the coming days. 

I have invited haou judai to become an author for this esteemed blog.  This  invitation also goes out to anyone over the age of 40 who plays this game with passion.  Who knows, maybe I will change the name of the blog to "The Minds of the Yugiold".