Evolsaur Deck Profile- Digivolve

One of the most interesting decks from the newest era of Yu-gi-oh was the Dino Rabbit deck. Basically an assortment of cards with Rescue Rabbit and Tour Guide of the Underworld serving as a lynchpin, the deck was very powerful in its day, with its ability to quickly summon and utilize two of the most powerful Xyz monsters in the game- Evolzar Laggia and Evolzar Dolkka. A first turn Rescue Rabbit could Special Summon two level 4 Normal dinosaurs, and overlay them into a 2400 ATK monster with a Solemn Judgment effect, or a 2300 ATK monster with a Divine Wrath effect.

The thing is, the Evolzar monsters actually have their own archetype, one which, if used well, can be considerably more fun to use. These are the Evolsaurs, affectionately referred to as Digimon by some, which function as an Xyz toolbox that can summon the Rank 4 Evolzars easily, as well as utilize their own powerful effects.

So what are the Evolsaurs? Well, they are a group of Dinosaur-type monsters, supported by their Reptile-type cousins the Evoltiles. All of them are FIRE attribute, and they have a bevy of useful support cards as a result of this. The Evolsaurs effects are activated when they are summoned by the effect of an Evoltile, giving them functionality similar to the Gladiator Beasts’ ‘tagging out.’

Malefic Skill Drain deck profile

The Malefic monsters were introduced in the Yugioh 10th Anniversary film, Bonds Beyond Time, as a series of cards used by the villainous Paradox. They are essentially corrupted versions of iconic Yugioh monsters, mainly dragons such as Blue-eyes and Red-eyes. In the original Japanese, they were known as the 'Sin' monsters (a pun on the Japanese word for 'truth', pronounced Shin, a play on words which represented Paradox's twisted worldview that these corrupted monstrosities were the true Duel Monsters), but was changed to 'Malefic' by the censors at 4kids in their tireless effort to make everything boring. The Malefic monsters all share some things in common- they require a Field Spell to be active, there can only be one Malefic monster on the field at a time, and are summoned by banishing the original 'good' version of the monster.

They also, basically, suck. At least, a lot of the Malefic monsters do, since their trading card game incarnations come with a whole host of drawbacks. Cards like Malefic Blue-eyes White Dragon and Malefic Rainbow Dragon need you to banish the original monster from your Main Deck, which can result in a ton of dead draws and make for a very inconsistent deck (don't even get me started on Malefic Red-eyes Black Dragon, which is just a terrible card). Not to mention, Malefic monsters stop your other monsters from declaring attacks. That's not to say that the Malefic archetype as a whole is worthless- on the contrary, a skillfully built deck can utilize the best aspect of the Malefic monsters (the ability to effortlessly summon high level monsters), while simultaneously working around their negative effects and limiting the opponent's ability to respond.

Deck Profile: Masked Heroes

Ok, I lied. The deck profile AFTER this will be about Malefics.

Credit goes to Youtuber Chroahcresta, Hero user and duelist extraordinaire whose deck ideas helped greatly with the construction of this particular deck.

Elemental Heroes are one of the longest-running archtypes in Yu-gi-oh, making their debut as the cards used by protagonist Jaden Yuki in the second anime series, Yu-gi-oh GX. Heroes have managed to stick arpund in various forms ever since then, with Destiny Heroes and Evil Heroes being introduced throughout GX's run, and with new monsters being introduced in the GX manga. This Hero deck utilizes a unique subset of Heroes introduced in the manga, one that doesn't see a lot of play; the Masked Heroes. Like Batman, these masked avengers are here to win your duels. That is to say, if Batman was a Yugioh player. And he dueled for you. Umm...

Unlike their counterparts, the Masked Heroes don't have enough cards to support an entire deck on their own- counting their key Spell card, Mask Change, there are only five of them available in the Trading Card Game. Still, utilizing these cards in an Elemental Hero deck adds a surprising amount of versatility to the deck.

Peter's Dragon Deck

So, I just finished my new Yugioh deck. And, I've got to say, I'm kind of proud of this one. No, it's not the type of deck that you could take to a tournament, but it's my deck, and it's one of the better ones I've had for use against my friends.

After a brief turn to a pretty basic Synchro deck, I decided to return to my more traditional focus on Dragon-types, with the release of the Dragons Collide structure deck serving as the basis. The idea is pretty simple- use Red-eyes Darkness Metal and other cards to summon a lot of powerful dragons and clear away threats from my opponent with powerful Spells and Traps- a fairly basic, if effective, strategy.

I'll put the deck list below, but before that I'm going to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of this deck, along with some of the better cards in it. Consider this the beginning of a semi-regular column on Yugioh decks. I'm not the best player out there, but I've enjoyed this game for a while, and with the advent of www.duelingnetwork.com, it's easier than ever to try out new decks and see what can be done with them.