#zanjoyner614

Before I begin, if I haven’t already done so: I’m going to mention that Shadow Paladin is my official secondary clan because a close friend of mine whom I look up to as a rival and a teacher mains Shadow Paladin. And during the time of my introductory to competitive Vanguard, I always talked and listened to him about the clan and his decks so the clan became secondary nature for me. I started actively playing Shadow Paladin more during Stride Era with Diablo and Raging Folm’s upgrades, with the former being my primary choice if I wanted to switch it up from Aqua Force. I didn’t take an interest of Luard until later when I saw how fun it was managing the resources, tool-boxing, and building advantage to which I started to like it enough to take it into competitive events which it did pretty well.

x4 Dragheart, Luard: The entire deck revolves around this unit - Dragheart, Luard. His main ability being Ritual 3, return two normal units from your drop to bottom of your deck and you can stride without paying the stride cost. His heartbeat is when you Stride, counterblast retire one rear-guard to call two grade 1 or lower units from deck to your field. He’s able to stride constantly without any issues, and he’s able to build up a field and provide units necessary for combos or to build resources. In some ways, he is the best Grade 3 not only in his clan, but in the entire game. He removes the caution of securing the ability to stride allowing players to play and guard more flexible than before. As per his namesake, Luard is the heart of this deck.

x2 Supremacy Dragon, Claret Sword Dragon Revolt: So to be perfectly honest, I’d much rather be playing Blaster Dark Diablo here like I did originally since he also has a similar “reduced cost of stride” concept going on. However, Claret Sword Dragon Revolt is searchable via his own stride fodder (which we do play but I’ll explain when it shows up) which is good for deck thinning and if you just wasn’t able to get Luard. His heartbeat looks at the top cards of the deck until 2 Grade 1s are revealed: one goes to hand and the other is called to field while the rest is shuffled to the deck. This is really just honestly a back up even though there is another preferred yet riskier back up of the deck.

x1 Sharp Fang Witch, Fodla: Fodla is the “true” back up/support Grade 3 of any Luard deck currently because she can call two grade 0s for one counterblast: some of which being key cards to plus off of. The reason I have her at one is because I do not wish to ride Fodla and would prefer to ride something a bit more safer if I couldn’t get to Luard, especially when she’s a 9k.

x4 Dragwizard, Morfessa: Morfessa is Luard’s best grade 2 with a Ritual 3 getting an extra 5k power when she attacks and an on hit to call a grade 1 card from the deck. Her other skill is when she’s in the drop zone, she’s treated as a Grade 1: allowing her to fulfill Luard’s Ritual costs.

x4 Dragwizard, Naoise: Naoise is the second best grade 2 in the deck for it’s ability to call grade 1 or lower units from the top five for free. Without a doubt, building field, getting units to retire to build resources. Naoise also gains power depending on the unit called, becoming a maximum 14k. At the end of the turn, the unit called does return to the deck if it’s still on the field.

x2 Knight of Brawn, Grosne: Grosne used to be played more in this deck being able to gain power for every grade 1 or lower called to your rear-guard. However, with the introduction of Naoise and having to remove my 10k Grade 2s, I lowered Grosne since he is very susceptible to control unless I place him down after using Luard’s heartbeat skill thus missing out on a free 6k.

x4 Abyssal Owl: Abyssal Owl’s is Luard’s trusted Owl that when placed from hand to rear, you can check the top seven cards and if you see Luard within those cards, you may add it and then discard cards equal to it’s grade to the drop zone. When Abyssal Owl is retired due to the cost or effect of Luard, you counter charge 1 (provided you have Ritual 3). Abyssal Owl is a grade 3 trade that you can afford to use since you’d be effectively building your drop zone and securing a Luard ride.The counter charge is also good because it makes your plays (which are typically counterblast one) free.

x4 Dragsaver, Esras: Esras another key unit of the deck being the default sentinel. On Ritual 3: you can choose another card named “Dragsaver, Esras” and return it to the bottom of the deck and retire one rear guard, to add her to your hand. It goes without saying that Esras is the best Perfect Guard in the game and would continue to set a trend for future clans to have recyclable sentinels (after fulfilling conditions) and even Perfect Guards with bonus drop zone effects. Being able to have infinite perfect guards makes Luard a very sturdy deck with it’s only answer is through a sentinel restricting unit.

x3 Black-winged Swordbreaker: When placed on rear-guard from the deck, you may soul blast one to draw a card. Originally, I didn’t play much of swordbreaker: 1-2 at best only preferred to call her if needed. However, there were times when she’d get placed in the damage zone or stuck in the soul: to which in later on the game I did actually need her. So I put her to three because it means while I won’t use all three, I can at least guarantee one being in the deck. Luard’s deck upon release was also very soul blast heavy (much like most decks nowadays) and even now meaning it’s best to use Swordbreaker if you need the extra hand and not to spam it just because you can.

x3 Cherishing Knight, Branwen: As I started in the Claret Sword Revolt section, Branwen is played here even if the Vanguard can stride for free because if you go second, you need to have another grade 3 since Luard’s skill happens at the beginning of the ride phase. So increasing your ability to pay the stride cost traditionally is good. Additionally, Branwen is a grade 1, so when you do stride with Branwen, it is adding to your Ritual condition being in the drop zone.

x2 Witch of Nostrum, Arianrhod: Arianrhod is a very strange card to use in Luard or rather in Shadow Paladin in general since her skill is to drop and draw while resting herself. However, there are amazing benefits to having her. Opening up with her early in the game will allow you to dig into your deck for whatever it is you’re looking for while also building up your drop zone with either grade 1s or just dumping away useless cards. There have been times when just dropping an Esras with her to draw into another card, and now having two Esras’ in soul, I can retire her and add back my Esras and have one at the bottom of the deck. And after she’s served her purpose, you can retire her away for skills as demonstrated above. Though I mostly value her for being able to dig into my deck especially if I’m looking for a grade 3 or a combo piece or something that’ll allow me to search/grab either of those two, on top of deck thinning.

Difarbau: Difarbau is my starter of choice for Luard. If he’s retired for the cost or effect of a “Ritual card”, you can throw him into the soul to check the top card and either call it to rear or put it to the drop zone. There aren’t too many starters for Luard save for Dragprince Rute, David, and the Creeping Dark Goat. Rute I find useless only adding a 5k and soul charging himself for a counterblast when retired. David used to be my go to starter since my finishers were Diablo units who retired 2-3 and being able to relax your field is a good thing. Creeping Dark Goat can secure a grade 3 but the chance to whiff after paying a counterblast and giving up a unit is not very fun. Difarbau let’s me replace himself while also having him be soul charged and leaving the rest to luck: either getting a solid attacker, a grade 1 to be retired later - worst case being a heal or vanilla trigger to be retired for a skill.

x4 Belial Owl: When you use Luard’s heartbeat skill, this is the unit you will call out the most despite being a trigger. When Belial Owl is retired from rear-guard due to cost or effect of one of your cards, and if you have a Luard vanguard, you draw a card. This also triggers when retired for Esras, any stride stride, and Luard’s heartbeat. Belial’s second skill is on Ritual 3, if you have a Luard vanguard at the end of your turn, you may put Belial at the bottom of your deck. This card is your engine and the reason why Luard is able to generate so much advantage by constantly skill after skill. The more Owl’s you’re able to kill in a single turn the stronger your defenses will be and of course being able to cycle them back into the deck. Even if it were to get damage checked, you can heal it and then it’ll be back in your deck by the end of turn.

x4 Critical Trigger: The rest of Shadow Paladins’ critical triggers are vanilla (except for one but in a Luard deck, it can’t be used so it’s vanilla), so it really doesn’t matter which critical you use. Alternatively, there are some stand triggers that are recyclable in Cursed Eye Raven or Mage of the Rogue Eye, Arsur: which both are really good if you’re looking to have a recyclable deck but I personally prefer to keep it critical due to LJ and due to Belial being out of the deck more than in the deck, will keep my ability to deal extra damage at a moderate level.

x4 Howl Owl/Dragwizard, Babd: Either of these will do since they both have the same effect: throw into the soul to +3k. Luard has little to no advantage at the start of the game, thus making him super vulnerable. Not to mention, his soul building is non-existent without the starter or these draws. So these draws in particular do help the deck a lot.

x4 Witch of Heresy, Jeliddo: Jeliddo is the only heal trigger with an effect that’s somewhat beneficial to Luard - pitching a grade 1 or lower to draw a card when she’s used for the cost of her G-guardian. However, and spoiler alert: we don’t run her G-Guard so at this point, any heal trigger will do.

(Note: Some of the G-Units are not present here because I couldn’t fit them in the banner.)

x1 Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Doomed: To this day, I still call this card by it’s original named: Aurageyser Damned. This is your first stride in every game, unless you G-guard and are in range to kill. Counterblast 1 and choose a facedown copy of Aurageyser Dragon face up from the G-zone and then retiring three units. You reveal the top two cards of the deck and for each Grade 1 or less revealed, you may retire an opposing rear-guard and the cards revealed get added to hand.

x1 Supremacy Black Dragon, Aurageyser Dragon: Aurageyser Dragon is here to fulfill the cost of Aurageyser Doomed. However, I wanted to use this section to explain why I prefer Aurageyser Doomed over Aurageyser Dragon. Aurageyser Dragon has to soul blast, counterblast, and retires two only to add 5000 for each Grade 1 or lower revealed upon attack. Aurageyser Damned: doesn’t have to soul blast, and is able to retire opposing units but more importantly retires 3 of yours in the main phase. Retiring more unit’s in Luard means you’re able to gain more benefits whether it’s retiring 2-3 belial owls, 2 Abyssal owls, so on and so forth. Additionally, retiring during the main phase is a lot better than in the battle phase because you can even strengthen your board or even go for more skills after using Damned’s skills with units you drew. Damned is a lot more flexible and opens the window to plus more than you normally would without having to expend soul which can be used for later skills.

x2 Dark Dragon, Phantom Blaster “Diablo”: Phantom Blaster was the original Shadow Paladin boss and was one of, if not, the strongest strides in the game. Counterblast 1 and persona flipping, you can gain 10k and +1 Critical if the number of cards in the G zone is two or more. It also gains another skill where if you retire three of your units when he attacks, your opponent may choose to retire two of their units and if they don’t or can’t retire 2 units, they cannot call cards from hand to the guardian circle. Phantom Blaster was the card you strode if your opponent wasn’t staying on their toes and leaving themselves wide open and an amazing punishment for mirage decks like Pale Moon, Granblue, and even Resist decks. In Luard, you hardly ever stride into him because retiring three in the battle phase is not really good since you don’t have units that can count as two retires so you’ll be left with only two units and one thing to note about Luard is that he wants to keep his field by the time it’s his turn, so he can use his heartbeat skill. Plus with G-guardians in the game, Phantom Blaster can still be guarded even if they choose not to retire three (especially since there’s no Blaster Dark Diablo to force a retire upon striding into him). Most deck’s don’t bother to run him, but I still feel he’s good to have if not for the mandatory retirement, but for the free 10k/+1 Critical.

x2 Dark Dragon, Spectral Blaster “Diablo”: By soul blasting 1, retiring one of your units, and flipping a face down card from your G zone, face up: Spectral gets the ability to stand after his attack with drive-2, by counter blasting two and retiring two. Spectral Blaster is a very powerful and flexible G-Unit, setting a trend for G-zones to have generic flips because financially it’s perfect: only needing one or two and not an automatic four and can even adjust for G-Assists and even flipping up specific units whose effects are dependent on the number of face up copies of itself. It also has a special bonus for having the “Diablo” heart which is also a G-Unit design that never got re-used again, but rather, preferring to stick to the heart restriction style. Spectral Blaster was at a time my go-to finisher, especially in his ideal deck, Diablo. In Luard, counterblast two is very hefty unless he’s retiring Abyssal Owls. Like Phantom Blaster, I very rarely go into Spectral once let alone twice, but if the situation calls for it, I will stride into one while the second copy is either flipped to pay for a flip cost or will be strode: depending on the game.

x2 Dragstrider, Luard: Going to note, I wish this cards name was swapped with “Dragdriver, Luard”’s name for a very obvious reason based off of their evolution from Luard and their effects. Dragstrider has Ritual 7, when he attacks, you retire two of your rear-guards and discard any number of cards from your hand to the drop zone. He gains 3k for each card discarded and if the number of cards discarded is two or more, he gains Critical+1, Drive+1, and guard restriction of grade 1 or higher from hand. This is your go-to finisher and is the reason why Phantom Blaster Diablo is considered to be removed from the deck. This is a really powerful card to go up against considering the requirements at minimum is discarding two cards to touch 32k with bonus skills. With no counterblast or soul blast card, you can just constantly stride into Dragstrider and keep throwing cards until your opponent has nothing else while also recycling your deck. It also takes advantage of the nature that Luard does draw a lot of cards: so you can go all in with very few clans being able to guard this effectively. I feel two is fine because if they survive one, then chances are, you’re probably dead and if they can’t kill you, then chances are that they’re dead.

x1 Draganger, Ogma: My favorite art from any Shadow Paladin. Ritual 5: counterblast 1, soul blast 1, and flip up a face down card in the G zone. Choose up to 5 grade 1 rear-guards and retire them and for each one retired, the opponent chooses a card from their hand or their rear-guards and puts them into the drop zone. You also draw a card if a total of three or more rear-guards by both fighters were put into the drop zone via this effect. This is a really really niche card, as most Generation Rares should be. Like Phantom Blaster Diablo, it punishes mirage decks and resist decks by dropping their hand since there’s either no field or the field cannot be touched. The only issue I have regarding this card is having five grade 1s to retire since specific Grade 0s such as the starter and Belial Owl also benefit from being retired, however, I think that was done intentionally so I guess it’ll just settle for being able to counter charge 2-3 from retiring Abyssal Owl or by flipping him for Spectral. Ogma is also the reason why having Naoise around is really good.

x1 Dark Dragon, Carnivore Dragon: Very basic stride, retire one of your rear-guards and your opponent has to retire two of their rear-guards (even if they have one) and they couldn’t retire two, three units in the front row gain 4k until end of turn. This is really just filler and very rarely would you stride this because even if you’re lacking counterblast and/or soul blast, you can stride into Dragstrider. Originally, I had two Claret Sword Helheim’s in place of this and one Spectral but I didn’t think they were that useful in this deck and I didn’t want to run Dragdriver either (even though he’s good for an empty board.)

x1 Dark Knight, Irgahn Vert: Irgahn Vert is the generation break 8 of Shadow Paladin. You counterblast one to choose up to five of your rear guards and retire them. Then you search your deck for up to the same number of grade 1 or lower units as the number of units retired and call them to seperate rears and they get +15k until end of the turn. Additionally, you retire the same number of your opponents rear-guards as the number of units called. This is a really strong game ender - not so much that they survived against everything in your arsenal but because you accelerated your G-zone far enough to pull this off. And because Luard does recycle his deck, getting a deck of grade 1s for this is pretty easy to fulfill.

x1 Air Element, Sebreeze: Standard G-unit because Luard is a stride based deck and doesn’t like to give up stride. There are also a number of Generic flips to flip this card should you choose not to go into him, making him flexible to play.

x3 Dark Dragon, Plotmaker Dragon: Plotmaker is a 25k Shield during Ritual 3 while on the Guardian Circle. This is currently the best and really should be the only G-Guard you should be playing except for the following one.

x1 Dragwiser, Bronach: Bronach is best used as your first G-guardian since once placed she checks the top five cards of the deck and calls all of the grade 1s from among them to the guardian circle with her. If you’re really lacking ritual, she will build it back up for you, especially when you want to go for a counter attack.

Deck Conclusion

Luard at a time was considered one of the best decks after his introduction and a follow up support set in Set 10. His only equals were Nightrose, Link Joker, and Gear Chronicle. Being able to draw and recycle his entire deck and have near infinite defenses, it was quite difficult to beat Luard because while he was overpowering other decks offensively and defensively, he also was allowed to grind out others forcing them to deck out. With a specific style deck build, not this one, Luard is also able to access a loop which can strengthen specific units and deck thin extremely hard. However, ironically, in his recent support: Set 12 Dragon King’s Awakening, while giving him Dragstrider and other important cards, they also strengthened decks that had the means to make him obsolete such as Narukami’s Thunderstrike, which is a keyword - like Ritual - revolves around the opponent having a specific number of cards bound. Most of the binds come from the drop zone, and with enough, you can lose access to your Ritual requirements making it extremely hard to go into your power plays. And with a number of guard restricts available to most clans in the game, Esras can be invalidated: forcing Luard to rely on his hand to guard everything. I don’t really have too much expectation of what Shadow Paladin will get in Set 14, let alone Luard since I would much rather see Diablo support since I do love Diablo a lot, but I also do appreciate Luard’s tool-boxing and combo play making.

So thank you all for reading this profile since this is my first non-AQ profile, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to do this since I generally prefer to do deck profiles on real life decks that way I can step through alternatives but this didn’t seem too bad. I think next deck profile will be one that I actually have in real life: not to mention potentially some screenshots of a few updated decks in real life but other than that, look forward to this deck profile!

Pre-Generation Fights

So Pre-Generation will consist of Seasons 1-4. Yes I’m even including the Legion arc despite how negatively received it was by fans for subpar narrative story and the fights, even the format in real time just being undeveloped. When I think back to Pre-G Fights, I remember looking and watching all of the fights with a bit of involvement as a viewer. Each play is thoroughly shown and you can even hypothesize and theorize scenarios if any of the players did something differently, especially if they made errors in guarding or misplay (unless it was for narrative purpose like Tetsu not calling Amon R to rear and just defeating Ren). I feel as though this era of fights up until season 3 showed a level of skill and showed characters individually by their own play and deck styles. Kai overpowers and beats down his opponents during grade 3 ride while Ren minimizes their resources by killing off rears at the last second, so on and so forth. I enjoy watching these fights the most because it pulls me into the fight. Earlier in the day, I watched Ren vs Aichi at the Vanguard Highschool Championship Qualifier, and noticed that Aichi could’ve won on the same turn in two different ways:  >>One was protecting 9k Rear Guard with 2 10k Shields in hand, following his break ride and callling his 7k grade 1 booster behind something and done the same play: 16k Rear, 33k Vanguard, 19k rear (from break ride and critical trigger power), and Blaster Blade being 16k.  >>Alternatively, he could’ve called his trigger behind a rear guard and had another 24k rear guard which would’ve required 15k shield which Ren did not have.  Now I’m not mad at Aichi at all, but the animators did a good job animating the fight well enough for fighters to see potential missed plays or errors if they paid attention to fight beyond a narrative perspective. There are many more examples like this even in scenarios where it would appear someone cheated but if you follow the game and guarding, it still would’ve equated to the same result (aka when Leon made Tidal attack rear for fourth battle when Tetra-drive requires the 4th to be at the vanguard, Leon could’ve just boosted the 3rd attack and Koutei could’ve just intercepted, same value.) But my point in bringing it up is that these fights had a lot more to offer and take from if viewed from a fighters perspective. The little details put into the fight, showing how a fighter played, how they built their deck, what tactics they used, and most importantly how the fight ended. How a fight ends is equally important because outside of knowing from foreshadowing narration, I like not knowing who will win or seeing someone who is skilled at the game beat down their opponent in a fitting gap of ability (these matches you can look back when Kai just destroys anyone he fights in any of the tournaments). Normally we have the cliche moment of the “Situation Card has appeared!” or the “Top deck win”, however it was done in a way that didn’t just seem like the opponent was completely obliterated and had no chance to stop it. How the player took advantage of their “Situational Card” made the difference from it being a “lucky sack” to a “lucky pro play”. I’ll explain more on this in the G-series segment but a good example of this would be when Leon fought Asaka in episode 116. He was in a tough spot but made the most of his situation and won. A beautiful example of a good anime Vanguard fight. So, before I talk about the G-Series Fights, I’ll go ahead and list my top 5 fights in no particular order.

5. Leon vs Daigo 4. Kai vs Kyou (Season 1) 3. Leon vs Koutei (Most of Reverse Koutei’s fights to be honest) 2. Aichi vs Ren (Season 3 & 2 are tied) 1. Kai vs Ren (Season 3)

G-Series Fights

Cardfight Vanguard G anime fights are... a complete mess. I try to watch the fights from a fighters perspective but there are only a few fights where I am able to actively engage myself as a fighter rather than for story. I’ll say this hands down, G-Series has no good anime fights whatsoever with Chrono. Compared to Aichi where he loses but then in other fights you’re like “I don’t know if he’ll win”, that suspense doesn’t exist with Chrono. He wins every fight except gag fights or when they need to show off a new antagonist, which, I understand this is the trend for the protagonist to win as much as they can, which is why I didn’t watch Aichi a lot until about Season 2 where he’d lose a lot of the tournament matches and then improved and started taking wins (and even then he’d still lose from time to time: aka Kai and Ren in Season 3). Chrono takes it to a whole new level, mind you, Chrono is a beginner. Season 1 of G was okay because Chrono started off strong (despite being a beginner) and I gave him the benefit of the doubt of having a fighters sense to strive and improve, which was shown more ferociously than Aichi. However, it was shattered in G GIRS Crisis (season 2, pretty much) where his reign of terror beats even the best of Vanguard from Pre-G. I know the plot was that they needed to win every G-Quest to have Generation Master Titles. Which was dumb. (Well just now looking at the wiki, they needed 50 or more points for Generation Master however 6 Branches, 10 points each. Do math.) Ok, so they won every match, at least the fights were good right? Wrong. The fights themselves are short and rushed and only seem to matter after each players first stride. Sure each game starts the same of riding your grades 1/2/3, however, that’s 5 turns before the first stride appears, you mean that everyone is playing the same and not rushing their opponent down to 3-4 damage? Back in Pre-G, people would be beaten down to 4 or sometimes 5 before their grade 3 ride. Okay so early game is inaccurate or well non-existent, but surely the turns post-Stride/Generation Break are worth it? You’d be wrong again. The game usually ends by the protagonists 2nd/3rd stride, otherwise their opponents third stride will end the game for them. Plus there seems to be a lack of detail for effects unless a unit contributes to the winning turn or to make an emphasis on the opponents ability to defend (or lack of ability to defend: aka showing perfect guards in drive check before the next stride has a guard restrict ability). Plus the fights don’t really show much detail on the fighters own play style, you see their builds and their strides, but nothing on if they’re aggressive or defensive outside of the units they play. The biggest example I can think of is when Chrono fought Leon. For all intents and purposes, Chrono honestly should’ve lost that fight, 0 cards in hand, 1 G3 rear. He topped deck the ability to stride and drove check a critical in both attacks from Nextage and Chronojet. I... don’t see how this is possible granted Leon should’ve had more cards in hand due to abilities of previously activated units. Don’t get me wrong, I know Pre-G has a few fights that are par with how bad this one was (certain top deck Grade 3 w/ no field, 5 open damage for cb5 +10 followed by double critical triggers comes to mind), but this is how most if not all of Chrono’s fights end against high level players. Take a look at any of his fights with Ibuki from the end of CF-G and on (minus when he didn’t have Chronojet). To make matters worse, I believe I brought up the topic of “situational cards”, well, there really isn’t any. Most characters just stride into their secondary/Generation Break 2 strides to end the game as if nothing happened. There’s not much though-processing when watching the characters stride because they just activate their effects as they continue, as though they’re on autopilot mode. Note: I’m not calling the strides or decks autopilot, I’m calling their fighters autopilot, Chrono the biggest one. It’s basically telling the other opponent, “Hey that was cool what you did and all, I might lose, but I’m not so time to win.” Before I wrap this up, I suppose I should mention my favorite fights and I’m gonna be honest, I don’t like much of them, they’ve gotten better in terms of Vanguard G-Next which I do give them credit for but it doesn’t have the same feel of watching it just for the cardfight, it’s just really to show off new units or for the narrative/plot. So... which fights or rather fighters do I like watching? Well in the intended order... 5. Shion Kiba 4. Mamoru Anjou 3. Kouji Ibuki 2. Tokoha Anjou 1. Jaime Alcaraz

Conclusion

Deck Count: 43 (Usually I play 40 or 42 but, I feel this deck warrants 43 for all of its searching power.)

(Monsters: 23) x3 Blue-Eyes White Dragon: Okay can’t have a Blue-Eyes deck without the original dragon himself. I’ve seen a few decks play him at 2 but ultimately (no pun intended), you’ll always have 1 in hand to trigger off Alternative while the others should be in the deck (should you lose the one in hand) or in graveyard. You have ways of recovering it, that is true, but I feel having him at anything less than 3 is putting yourself in an awkward situation. Plus, it’s an iconic tradition to have 3 of him. Sure you can brick but that’s why you have the following card. x3 Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon: Alternative is your well... Alternative Blue-Eyes. Easy summon conditions, a nice effect, and is treated as a Blue-Eyes White Dragon for effects or summons? This is how you retrain a card. For the risk of having a vanilla in your hand, you have basically a more versatile card in your possession to blow up annoying cards and to deal massive damage to your opponent. x2 Dragon Spirit of White: I tend to call this “White Dragon Spirit” to be honest. This is a much weaker “Alternative”, still gets treated as a “Blue-Eyes” monster rather than the actual dragon but it’s also a Normal in hand and graveyard and can summon the original Blue-Eyes from your hand by offering himself as tribute, which isn’t even the best part. Upon summon, you can banish, yes, banish, any spell or trap your opponent has. I only say to play 2 because, outside of the back row ability, it’s honestly weaker Blue-Eyes. 2500 ATK 2000 DEF yet still requires the same number of resources to summon a regular Blue-Eyes. Plus, back row isn’t much of an issue towards this deck. I will say: this dragon does better in the graveyard for easy revives and quick back row pops. x1 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon: This card was suggested to me by a friend of mine and so far, every time I summon this dragon, the decks speed increases tenfold, so gotta give thanks to Cherry. With that being said, I normally don’t summon Red-Eyes because banishing a dragon is a pain only because most of the time, I end up banishing one of the three dragons above.(unless it’s a tuner but the tuners do better when sent to the graveyard.) The other reason why I don’t summon this dragon is because unlike the other dragons who can be searched, this guy is a “luck of the draw”. However, when it’s drawn and summoned to the board, crazy stuff happens. A full field of dragons ready to prey down on the opponent is a nice feeling. x3 Sage with Eyes of Blue: This is probably the most important non-dragon in the deck simply because upon summon he can get you any LIGHT-Tuner Monster which means Maiden, Veiler, the stones. But his better effect is discarding him from hand to graveyard, sending an effect monster on the field to join him, to getting out any Blue-Eyes monster from deck, especially works if sending a Maiden or any of the stones to trigger their effects. So 2 Blue-Eyes if Maiden, or Blue-Eyes on first summon then on the end Phase, summon Spirit to pop a back row. x3 The White Stone of Ancients: This is the newer “Stone” tuner. If sent to graveyard, at the end phase of the turn it was sent, you can summon 1 Blue-Eyes monster from deck. Extremely good. You get field presence and a potential back row pop. The other effect is to banish itself from graveyard to put a Blue-Eyes monster from graveyard to deck. This is mainly used to recycle Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon but other than that still a good effect and much better than the other Stone. x1 Maiden with Eyes of Blue: Originally at 2, I cut her down because she’s really here for defensive purposes. Everyone’s afraid to attack her in fear of me summoning a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. However, she’s very... slow. Slows down the game in my opinion, which means my opponent builds up enough resources to when if she does activate, Blue-Eyes can be stopped/countered. But she is nice to have because she’s searchable and if nothing else is good in your hand, just summon her, no one will attack her for a few turns. x1 Effect Veiler: This format is just too fast for little ole Veiler, in my opinion. However, due to being searched via Sage, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Aside from that, she’s a tuner. There are rare occasions where she does save me but other times, it’s not so effective. x2 Maxx “C”: My favorite hand trap by far, tied with Honest to be...honest. (That wasn’t intended but yeah x.x) Literally, this format has a lot of swarm and special summoning from here to New Vestroia (for those who get the reference) and most of the time, you’ll survive the first wave of attacks but if you don’t have a response, you’re pretty much dead. Here comes Maxx C and it’s infamous challenge. You can force your opponent to being cautious and hold off on their assault if they know they can’t finish or if they fear other potential hand traps. I’ve literally dropped this on Pepe, Blackwings, Phantom Knights, and the pluses were so rewarding. REDMD is a legit win-con counter attacks, you draw your spells and traps and set up shop. It’s ridiculous. I’m not sure if I’d play 3 if I could run 3 but... 2 seems fine to me. x2 Summoner Monk: This is my own personal tech in almost any/all decks. I feel that Rank 4 monsters have some of the most casual punish plays in the game of Yu-Gi-Oh ranging from Utopia the Lightning, 101 Silent Honors, Gagaga Cowboy, Dark Rebellion, etc. I don’t really see too many Blue-Eyes decks have this or the following card in their decks which I think it’s sad because these are solid 1 card plays. It makes the difference between stealing an opponents monster or being able to kill a monster unconditionally to not doing anything and getting blasted, especially in mirror matches. Plus the amount of spell cards in the deck and the amount of searching, there will be times where one of those Spells will be a dead draw, so you can trade it in for a rank 4. x2 Keeper of the Shrine: Absolutely needed in dragon decks, especially Blue-Eyes or Red-Eyes. The card requires some set up but you have numerous ways of achieving this set up through Dragon Shrine, or Summoner Monk, or even just setting this card face down and your opponent bumping into it’s 2100 DEF. If your dragon is killed, just get it back and then you get yourself a solid 2100 DEF monster, next turn, tribute it (because it counts as two tributes for dragons) and summon it. It is slow because of some set ups but it’s defensive and making Blue-Eyes and even Dragon Spirit to be summoned at a greater ease is well worth it.

(Spells: 15) x3 Return of the Dragon Lords: I really wish they called it Gospel of Revival, sounds so much better. This is one of your key cards of the deck. Monster Reborn a Level 8 Dragon and then if this card is in the graveyard, banish it when a dragon monster(s) would be destroyed, and they can’t die. Really powerful, really good. Amazing even. Even if you were to pitch it to the graveyard via a cost, it’s super good. x3 Melody of the Awakening Dragon: This is another really good spell card because you pitch a card and add 2 Dragons whose stat line is 3000 or more ATK and 2500 or less DEF (aka Blue-Eyes stats). Getting 1 original and 1 Alternative or even 2 Alternatives, so amazing. Plus pitching the Ancient Stone or even Keeper of the Shrine? Nice nice. x3 Trade-In: Your deck has 8 level 8s. This should be a staple to be able to draw into your other non-searchable cards. x2 Dragon Shrine: This decks’ Foolish Burial. If you send a normal dragon, you can pitch one more dragon. The second pitch is usually Keeper of Shrine or a Stone to proc into getting a free Blue-Eyes and potential back row snipe. I only play 2 because you really only need to use this once and running 1 is like, I’ll never see it ever. x2 Twin Twister: I play this in compensation of the missing Dragon Spirit of White. Twin Twister is overall faster and better for more destruction and a quick silence to a potential pendulum summon. Plus killing 2 is better than banishing 1. 3 is too cloggy, 1 is well, why play it? 2 is fine. x1 Soul Charge: This is honestly win-condition. Special Summon as many and take 1000 for each. You give up battle phase but you can go into some crazy plays. Bringing out more extra deck monsters outside of Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon and Azure-Eyes (which already do enough as they are). Bringing back Spirit/Alternative to pop something on the board and then overlaying them or tuning them for something greater? This card is worth it. Very explosive play and a nice comeback from behind victory too. x1 Raigeki: Same reason of Twin Twister, why pop 1 when you can pop your opponents board. I really like the one card turn arounds because as powerful as this deck already is, it’s not invincible, so having some extra fire power such as this, or Soul Charge, Summoner Monk, etc really helps reinforce the pressure that this deck has. Raigeki and the aforementioned cards are not cards that have to be ran in this deck to stay powerful, but are optional cards.

(Traps: 5) x3 Floodgate Trap Hole: A lot of decks nowadays don’t really run traps because of the imminent threat of being Twin Twister’d, however, I feel trap cards do help especially if they’re searchers or revivals or even quick stuns. This trap card is by far my favorite trap card (for now) because it just shuts down the spamming of summons. All monsters special summoned at that moment are flipped facedown defense and cannot flip up or change positions. Really really powerful. You can legitimately prevent your opponent from summoning monsters unless they tribute over them, leaving them stunned for a few turns. Many won’t look at this as a good card because it still has the risk of getting twister’d but it’s honestly worth. Especially when used with a card that I’ll explain later. x2 Solemn Strike: I’ve never been a fan of any of the solemn cards but like Floodgate, it can hit a simultaneous special summon all for a low cost of 1500 LP. The added bonus is that it’s a trap card and can negate effects too. So it’s really nice.

(Extra Deck: 15) I believe the Extra deck is my favorite part of this deck because of the many options and tools it has in its arsenal. I’m not really a fan of decks that have 1 specific summon type because they easily get shut down especially with Dimensional Barrier now a thing. This deck does emphasize synchro summoning (which is my favorite summon mechanic and monster type) but it can do other things such as Xyz Summon, Fusion Summon, Ritual Summon or even Pendulum if I wanted to include it. It’s why this deck is my favorite deck right now in the game.

x1 Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon: So, I’ll start off by saying, I hate fusion summon. You need 3 cards and sometimes they need to be on the field, which is already a pain. Twin Burst, like most of my favorite Fusion Monsters, is a Contact Fusion, meaning it doesn’t need Polymerization. You just send 2 Blue-Eyes White Dragons on your field to the graveyard. It’s an okay monster, I only summon this if the situation calls for it or if I’m just going all in for damage. It can’t be destroyed by battle period but it can pretty much remove anything it battles in one way or another by banishing it if its still there, and it has double attack. x2 Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon: This card is just so majestic, I’d have to say it’s my favorite Synchro. My only gripe is that it’s... 2500 ATK. But following the tradition of big things comes in small packages: this monster alone is a control freak. Neither you or your can’t special summon 2 or more monsters at the same time, so Pendulum decks are killed off. You can negate a graveyard effect once per turn, which helped out a lot vs Phantom Knights. Lastly, you can tribute him to summon 1 LIGHT Dragon Synchro Monster from Extra, except himself, in DEF (but it dies on end phase.) All 3 effects are just really good. I play him at 2 because well, you only need 1 for control and the other to summon the other LIGHT Dragon Synchros. x1 Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon: This is your other go-to Synchro Dragon. When summoned, grants immunity to all of your dragons until the end of the next turn and once per turn during standby phase, you can special summon 1 normal monster from your graveyard. Meaning constant renew of your Dragon Spirits to pop something or a Blue-Eyes to go for another play. The 2500 ATK is a gripe though but the 3000 DEF unlike Spirit Dragon, is a nice wall to sit on. x1 Black Rose Moonlight Dragon: A generic Light Dragon Synchro for BESD’s effect. When summoned (or if a level 5+ is summoned to your opponents side) target 1 Special summoned monster and bounce it. Combo this with BESD’s effect during their turn, and bounce something back is really well worth it. x1 Michael, Lightsworn Lord: Another generic Light Dragon Synchro for BESD’s effect. I choose to run this one because I’m more than likely to use Moonlight Dragon’s effect on my opponents turn rather than on my own. So having Michael here lets me banish a card for 1000 life points and lets me go into some plays. x1 Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon: A hidden boss of the deck. It’s summoning conditions is why I have a Michael in the deck but, when this card comes out, the pressure is real. Built in honest, for when it attacks and negates effects that targets him and can just casually negate monster effects again and it’s 3000 ATK. Really powerful. x1 Traptrix Rafflesia: Rafflesia is pretty good. Summoner Monk being a 2 card play to get her out as early as turn 1 along with her effect is worth it. So, back when I was talking about how Floodgate Trap Hole still loses to being Twin Twister’d, right? Well, Rafflesia activates them from the deck provided that the timing is correct. So having a walking trap hole on the field, 2500 DEF, that can be summoned off of 1 card (technically 2 if you pitch the spell card). Really good flood control. x1 Number 101: Silent Honors ARK: Silent Honors has to be one of my favorite rank 4s because I’m a Barian fan and a Shark fan. Same summoning requirements as Rafflesia, he steals a special summoned monster and attaches it as an xyz material for himself. Once per turn, can survive a battle if he gives up a material. A solid poker and a nice snatch away of annoying monsters such as Raikiri and other boss monsters. x2 (x1 each) Number 39: Utopia & The Lightning: I put these two together because I only summon Utopia just for The Lightning, sorry 39 but you’re only relevant for summoning out the big boss. Now onto said boss, when he’s in battle, opponent cannot activates cards or effects and if it has a “Utopia” xyz material you can detach 2 to make The Lightning become 5000 ATK. It’s really helpful against annoying boss monsters or floaters. Pretty solid to be honest. Originally and normally I do play 1 Utopia Ray to use this effect twice but everything else in the extra deck has more value than needing Utopia Ray to Lightning my opponent twice. x1 Divine Dragon Knight, Felgrand: Felgrand is an interesting card. I could honestly take him out for that Utopia Ray but he’s a pretty solid xyz play providing defense for monsters including himself or otherwise negating effects of opposing monsters. He’s pretty versatile. x1 Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon: Galaxy-Eyes Cipher and the other two Galaxy XYZ monsters are have synergy with Blue-Eyes being Rank/Level 8, Same stat line and attribute/type. Cipher steals a monster and clones himself on top of giving it it’s exact stat line. However, only the original Cipher can make direct attacks if this effect is used, meaning it’s better to use this effect just to steal a monster and inflict damage or minimize their board. x1 Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon: Full Armor and the last Galaxy Eyes can be summoned by overlaying on top of a previous Galaxy-Eyes Xyz monster. What this means is, if you steal an Xyz Monster with Cipher, it becomes a “Galaxy Eyes” Xyz Monster, meaning you can summon Full Armor and the last Galaxy-Eyes monster on top of the stolen Monster, effectively ARK-ing it. Full Armor doesn’t really do much outside of being a 4k beater and popping face up cards your opponent controls. x1 Number 95: Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon: Dark Matter is yet another 4k beater that can be summoned from Full Armor, Cipher, or any Xyz monsters that Cipher took. When summoned, you select up to 3 different dragons from your deck and send them to the graveyard and then your opponent banishes 3 monsters from their deck (their choice). Basically you can kill off your last Keeper, last Stone, or even your REDMD for this effect.You can also detach 1 material for him to make up to 2 attacks on monsters only. 4k beater and attacks twice? Holy wow. Unfortunately, I only summon this if I’m pushing for game and I don’t make it a habit to bring him out every duel.

Side Deck: Unavailable at this time. Normally I do make a habit of making a side deck but with this deck I don’t feel I need to. All of the main cards and counter cards are there. If I had to it’d be +1 Twin Twister but I mean what this deck does already is good enough if my opinion.

(Closing Notes)

Normally I’d do an alternatives section but it’s really just player preference rather than a right/wrong thing to play in this deck. For example, I don’t play the other Stone because adding a BEWD in hand is already accomplished via Melody and summoning them is better than adding them in my opinion, plus you only need 1 in hand. The other can remain in deck to be special summoned by Stone, Sage, or even Maiden. I know some people play Cards of Consonance (Discard 1 Dragon-Tuner w/ 1000 ATK or less from hand: draw 2), but I don’t feel it’s necessary because I only play 3 Dragon Tuners and this deck draws/searches enough. Pot of Desires triggers me in this deck because granted the argument is “you run 3 of your important stuff” but that doesn’t make it any less RNG’d than what it already is, and 1/3rd of your deck for what? 2 Cards? Not my style. I have a separate Chaos MAX build which I can upload but I don’t enjoy it as much because Rituals are clunky and Chaos Max is very cheesy in my opinion. I used to play Hope Harbinger in the deck to help stop annoying spell cards but I was advised to take it out, along with Tachyon. Silver’s Cry is a budget Gospel of Revival, the fact that it can only be used once and only on Normal Dragons is kinda underwhelming. It is good, I will say, for offensive aggressive plays or for quick revive but the amount of recovery this deck does from Keeper and Stone, to even prevention via Gospel and Maiden, it’s not needed. I used to have Honest too but it was “luck of the draw” despite Summoner Monk summoning it and then bouncing it back to hand but then you just have a vanilla summoner monk til next turn. I know people play Master with Eyes of Blue at 1, I do as well in my real life build, but like most other stuff, I don’t feel it’s necessary. An interesting tech that I believe will help is Galaxy Soldier at 3 and having Cyber Dragon Nova and ultimately Cyber Dragon Infinity (my favorite XYZ monster in general) but obviously extra deck space is a pain already although I’ll update the deck if I decide to include them because I do love Cyber Dragons too. As far as deck weaknesses/flaws, I suppose bricking with opening hand or any really heavy anti-dragon stuff (hence why I play the Rank 4 XYZs as non-dragons). I had the unfortunate pleasure of being hit by Buster Blader which was... annoyingly frustrating. Although I will say if you do want to run a Side Deck, I’d include the Galaxy Soldiers and Cyber Dragon XYZs.