Skull Warriors - Discard Yamigitsune Variant

The goal for this deck is to create a variation of Skull Warriors that utilizes the cheap, easily accessible temporary plusses of Skull Warriors, then trade them for direct card disadvantage of the opponent.  Flags that start with lower hand sizes (Dragon Ein, Dragon Zwei) and decks with minimal forms of card advantage can quickly get overwhelmed.  The deck poops out soft and hard advantage like crazy, but if you don't open with the means to do either (all defensive cards, only cards that need to be revived from drop zone), then you have bricked and have to hope you can hold out until you can produce card advantage, although this is rare.

Buddy - Undying, Benishojo
Flag - Katana World

Items
4x Ninja Blade, Chirizakura

Spells
3x Return to the Underworld
3x Demon Way, Kasumienran
3x Clear Serenity
3x Demon Way, Arakuyou
3x Demon Way, Jugonrensa
3x Ninja Arts, Snake Gaze
2x Demon Way, Sakurafubuki
2x Benefit
2x Odd Ritual, Skull Festival

Monsters
4x Undying, Benishojo
4x Companion Katana of Magatsu, Yamigitsune
3x Demon Kid, Hiunmaru
3x Godly-speed, Natsubame
3x Thunderclap, Goraiko
2x Blood Knife, Kimensai
1x Diversion Torublemaker, Bakemujina

Impacts

2x Demon Way, Karakurenai

Sideboard
3x Barbed Wire
3x Leaping Ninja, Sarutobi
3x Ninja Arts, Half-Kill
1x Ninja Arts, Snake Gaze

This build plays like most other Skull Warriors builds.  We have removed Shiden and the Ninja Arts engine from the build, as Half-Kill, Minawagakushi, Item Blast, and Mat Flip do far less in this metagame of removal immunity.  Consequently, we are now running more Demon Way cards than ever before.  Sakurafubuki is back to help add pressure and close out games.  With the focus being on forcing discards, nothing is quite as devastating as them trying to use a spell to stop your attacks, then having it nullified, and being forced to discard on top of having their other card wasted.  Again, this deck has an extreme advantage over decks with low card advantage engines, decks that have small starting hand sizes, and combo decks.

There is, of course, the standard play of Goraiko with Yamigitsune to force an additional discard in the main phase.  Benishojo allows you to trade a gauge for a soft advantage that can be converted into a permanent disadvantage for the opponent.  Jugonrensa, Kasumienran, and Benefit all increase life, giving more sustain.  This deck's advantages are many and its weaknesses are essentially only to Penetrate immune, multi-soul, unremoval soul wall decks, Legend World, and bricking.  This deck has many things in place to deal with bricking and many cards can produce soft or hard advantage to unbrick you, but if you cannot keep a board (especially if you get hit with RIP Caliburn), then you can struggle.  Of course, that's in Legend World, where forcing them to discard is usually beneficial for them, so we'll just mark that as a general problem match-up.

Karakurenai is in here, because in a build like this, it's not just plausible, but likely that you will reach a point where they have 2 or fewer cards in hand, and I heard that Infinity Death Crest! was a good card.

Thunder Chess

People have been asking me, "Tim, how would you play Chess with its new support"?  Well, I actually have tried many builds and many worlds, and I have actually settled on the build that is, without a doubt in my mind, the best mixer to use with Chess.

To start off with, due to King the Dominator's new impact monster form, Chess has the ability to set the opponent's life to 4.  This comes with some enormous implications.  First, you don't need to attack their face or commit a board early, because you will set them to 4 when you go for game.  Second, because you don't need to worry about damaging them directly, you can play for card advantage, swinging into their units over and over to drain their resources.  Finally, due to how the new Pawn and new King function, we have easy access to insane killing pushes with a large amount of attacks once we set them to 4 life.

Now, Demon Slay Chess is still a solid way to play the build, but it has its drawbacks.  Primarily, with the addition of Prism Dragons adding another center-based meta build with copious amounts of soul to try and break through, I just don't see Demon Slay Chess working when it flat out requires your opponent to have an open center to have its win condition, and Chess monsters and Danger Spells lack the ability to clear the center effectively.

Deep Chess is a valid option that gives you access to solid self-milling engines with Accel End and Million Edge.  The real reason you'd want to use Deep Chess is for Brutal Disaster!, which has an attribute specific discard cost, making it lose out in consistency, but setting them to 4 and then dealing 4 damage regardless of their field setup is an amazing concept.  winkyface.jpg

There are other builds circulating around, Katana Chess to have Snake Gaze against Thunder Empire, Magic Chess to have access to their spell and advantage cards, and Executioner Chess to have access to their mill engine and borderline guaranteed setup.  Or, if you are a meme, Dungeon Chess just to run Rolling Stone to clear the center and THIS STRIKE SHALL DETERMINE THE FATE OF THE WORLD!  HWAAAH!

However, none of these builds do as much as the build I'm presenting to you.  The true way to play Chess if you want to win with it is Thunder Empire Chess.  The first thoughts that would go through someone's head might be, "Tim, you can't even spell negate when you Checkmate!"  No, you can't.  But Checkmate doesn't have to be our win condition if we set their life to 4.  We have other win conditions available to us.

Flag - Dragon World
Buddy - The Promoted Pawn

Spells
4x Blue Dragon Shield (Staple McStapleton)
4x Fire Dragon Shield (Mill 3 to reduce damage to 0, sets up drop zone requirement for King and Checkmate)
3x Gambit (Return your Pawns back to your hand then play them again for more turbo, is also a Chess in the drop zone)
3x Dragonic Thunder, Rage of the Thunder Dragon (Mill 3 to pop a size 1 or less, sets up drop zone for King and Checkmate)
3x Batzz X Link (If your cards have attacked three or more times, you can check the top three cards of your deck, add one to hand, put the rest in the gauge.  Great for fishing out your win conditions AND giving you gauge acceleration)
2x Pawn Storm (+5000 attack when your weenies need to bop a monster, also a Chess in the drop zone)
2x Dragonic Exchange (This card will allow you to search your gauge and grab any card from it in exchange for a card from hand.  This is a hard minus, but if you haven't gotten Pawn by turn 2, it might be a good idea to have the added consistency so you guarantee your setup)

Items
3x Thunder Dragon Staff Sword (Gain a life when it attacks OR pay a life to pop a size 1 or less monster.  Solid stats and does amazing things.  We don't need their Dragoanthem clone because we only need 3 attacks for Link.  Our impact is 2.  These are practically conditionless)

Size 0s
4x The Promoted Pawn (Mill 3 cards, add a chess monster or chess impact from among them to your hand.  Then Gambit and do it again.)

Size 1s
2x Battle Unit, Knight Fighter (Vanilla)
2x Attack Unit, Flying Bishop (Vanilla)
2x Mobile Unit, Soldier Pawn (Vanilla)

Size 2s
1x Control Unit, Suppression Queen (Vanilla)

Size 3s
1x King the Dominator (Vanilla)

Impact Monsters
4x King the Dominator, End Game (If you have 5 Chess in drop, their life becomes 4.  Gives himself and all Chess double attack.  Has soulguard.  Makes lethal by himself if they have no attack negates.  Procs your impact with just its own attacks.  Amazing card.)

Impacts
4x Thunder Sword, X Tempest Blade (If your opponent has 4 or less life and you attacked two or more times this turn, deal 4 damage.  We set them to 4 with King and then boop them with this for game.  If they have a damage reducer, then we still have a good amount of attacks left to try and end the game or cripple them.)
4x Dragon Secret Arts, Dragonic Resurrection (After you have buddy called, you can use this card to buddy call Pawn during the final phase all over again.  Not only do you get to mill to potentially hit your Kings/Checkmates or just get free cards, because Pawn can attack in the final phase, it also gives you an extra attack.  Two if King comes out.)
2x Checkmate (RIP Zwei.  Extra wincon and has favorable match-ups against certain decks.  Keeps Drei/Retaliation Force from ever going live.)

The gist of the deck is to turbo Pawn to get out King.  You have added consistency increasing cards with Batzz X Link, Pawn, and Exchange.  You have alternative wincons, easily proc your Thunder Empire abilities, and can kill almost any builds regardless of what their field setup might be.

Potential sideboard cards:

Maximum Skill, Breaking Flames - If you're fighting a center monster that makes them immune to burn damage while it's in the center, or if you just want to go in for a Checkmate.

Thunder Spear, X Tempest Buster - Dead them deader.

More Checkmate - Zwei are you so sad?

I think I like impacts or something...  Anyway, give this build a few tests, you will see how much the Thunder Empire Engine does for the build.  I think there's still room for improvement as well, and it's already the strongest version of Chess, so that's saying something.  And with Thunder Empire being the new main attribute for the show, I wager it will only get stronger from here.

Guess who's back. Back again. Grendel's back. Tell a friend!

So, I decided to try an old meme because it got support.  Hilarious support, actually.  Teiwaz Gard is already kind of a stupid card.  But the implications of what it can do in conjunction with other cards is kind of disgusting.  Especially cards like Ultimate Buddy!.  You can actually target an Ultimate Buddy! from your drop zone and add it to the soul of your buddy monster to give it [Soulguard] and an extra soul.  This sounds awesome!  The only downside is that Legend World only really has one monster with limited survivability that would be solid if you can wall with it.  And that's good old Grendel.  Whenever Grendel is attacked by a monster, all monsters that attacked it are destroyed at the end of the turn.  It also cannot be destroyed by spells.  Its weaknesses were the hefty 3 gauge cost, its 6/2/6 statline, no real attack nullifiers that worked with a closed center, and not having [Soulguard].  This build fixes a good chunk of these issues and makes Grendel actually playable.  This deck's only real inconsistency is in drawing into Grendel to make the meme go live.  And you have a slew of Omnilords that can make use of your spell support while you're waiting to draw into Grendel.

This deck's strengths lie against decks that focus primarily on spell destruction and link attacks to get over walls.  It, however, has many weaknesses.  Especially [Penetrate], Balle Soliel, and mass soul removal.

Here's the list.

Size 3:

4x Demonic Beast, Grendel
1x Omnidai
1x Deathmodai
1x Gadez
1x Devilgadez

Size 2

3x King of the Forest, Zlatorog

Size 0

4x Loki the Ehrgeiz
4x Retainer of the Demonic Dragon, Horned Serpent

Items

4x Magic Sword, Azoth

Spells

4x Ultimate Buddy!
4x Teiwaz Gard
4x Illusion of the Void Deity
3x Darkness Rune
4x Medusa Shield (Grendel still procs even if the attack is negated)
4x Scorn of Gremlin
4x The Hardworking Fairies

Ozon Meme - Unlimited Ozon PUNCH!

Many people loved my Ozon meme video and were asking for the decklist.  The list is pretty straightforward in accomplishing three things.

1.  Get out Ozon-Z as fast as possible.
2.  Have the most outs possible to make Ozon-Z get in several attacks.
3.  Survive long enough to reach points 1 and 2.

With that being said, here's the list:

Flag - Dungeon World
Buddy - Ozon-B/Ozon-B's Cat

Items

4x Dominion Rod - (Makes your Ozon-Z hit that magic number of 10000.  RIP Omnidai.  Relevant even when you have a closed center.  Doesn't make Ozon-Z too big to Pillar of Fire.)
OR
4x Alcsbane - (On destroying a monster or dealing damage, you gain a gauge.  Solid stats.  Amazing card.)

Size 0

4x Chaos Blade Joker (When discarded with Rolling Punch, call it over Ozon-Z to revive Ozon-Z, then use its skill to give Ozon-Z a bonus critical.)
4x Ozon-B (Free call OPT from drop for a gauge.  Makes getting Ozon-Z out much easier.)
4x Ozon-B's Cat (Free gauge and pops a monster, solid card.)

Size 1

4x Ozon-A (The best card in the deck.  Searches any Ozon card from the deck.  Makes getting Z moderately consistent.)

Size 2

4x Ozon-C (Free res if it's in the drop zone when you res another Ozon.  Not a bad call to charge this, pay a gauge for your staff to get this into the drop, then revive this when you revive Ozon-B if you haven't gotten Z out yet.)

Size 3

4x Ozon-Z (Zombies Falcon Punching for days.  When it goes to the drop zone it comes back as a new card, so it gets to attack again whenever it does get sent to the drop zone.)

Spells

4x Divine Protractor of Shortsnobby (Pay a gauge, stop an attack, gain a life.  When used early with the other null, they end up just being "Negate an attack." which is amazing.)
4x Glacious Isn't a Word Bushiroad Defense Wall (Pay a life, stop an attack.  When used early, also gives you a gauge.  When used early with the other null, they end up just being "Negate an attack." which is amazing.)
2x Crouching Tiger, Hidden Crossbow (Counter pop a 3000 or less defense opposing monster.  Sadly, this doesn't let our memes come true.)

Memes

4x Rolling Punch (Discard two Chaos Blade Jokers to meme hard with Ozon-Z.  Otherwise, you can choose not to pay the [Cast Cost] most of the time and just counter-pop a monster for FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE)
4x A Wise Move! (Call Ozon-A from drop to size out Ozon-Z.  Ozon-Z tells Ozon-A "plz" and comes back.  You get to add a dank cat to your hand in addition to getting extra swings during that battle.)
4x Pillar of Fire (Blow up your own Ozon-Z after he has attacked to call him right back for some more dank swings.)

That's the main decklist for now.  It is focused on living long enough to get the Ozon-Z plays.  There are a few other tech cards that may help the deck in some situations, but didn't make my main list.

1.  Battle Deity Robo size 0s.  When used with A Wise Move!, they can get in an extra attack.  There are three problems.  Mass Soldier is a vanilla 1/1/1 in this case (even though you could have used his skill earlier to set up the play).  Silver Rabbit is a great call from the drop, but it costs an additional gauge.  Finally, deck space is severely limited.  It doesn't seem worth it for one extra damage only in this case.

2.  Demon Lord's Dungeon.  The pros here are spam reviving Cats (even post Ozon-Z) and Ozon-As (to get your setup and more advantage).  The cons are that you continually have to deal with the fact that you only have one reliable Demon Lord in your deck (Dominion Rod) if you are even running it.  This card feels winmore and inconsistent in an already setup reliant deck, so I cannot recommend it.

3.  Dangerous Fuse.  This deck lacks both card advantage and gauge advantage.  If you fight anything that can snipe your gauge early, you struggle heavily if you didn't get your setup out first.  Drawing cards is appreciated in any deck.  This is a solid card that is a win/win for you, regardless of what it gives you.  Can replace Hidden Crossbow.

4.  Oracle of Tuval.  This deck enjoys having a drop zone, and trading in your hand for a new one can be a lifesaver in turn 2-3.  You can also partially manage your own life totals with your Lifelink cards.

There are plenty of other cards and options available to the deck.  Feel free to experimeme.