Yu-Gi-Oh! and why I, a twenty-year Magic: the Gathering Veteran, have started to like playing this game

It's because the game is essentially the Vintage format of Magic: the Gathering

Well, not quite - but it's damn close.

Yu-Gi-Oh has a huge list of banned and restricted cards, and while Vintage Magic has no banned cards, it does have a very long list of restricted ones, and the presence of the restricted ones is what determines play patterns. A resolved Ancestral Recall (limited to one: draw three cards) is just as likely to greatly assist a Vintage player in winning the game as a resolved Raigeki (limited to one: destroy all monsters your opponent controls) is in Yu-Gi-Oh!

Much of the play in competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! is on the "stack" with players attempting to counter or negate what their opponent is doing - the type of monster that you can discard from hand to stop the opponent doing something (a hand-trap) is prevalent in deck building.

The majority of the action takes place within the first two turns, but if neither player obtains an overwhelming advantage, the games can stretch on far longer.

The presence of the 15-card Extra Deck is like playing with a "wish" sideboard - but instead of needing wish cards, you have access to at all times, depending on what monsters you have on-field or in hand.

Any of this starting to sound familiar yet?

Another major part of competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! is the presence of "floodgate" cards, which make it hard and/or impossible for the opponent to play the game. These are similar to playing against a Mishra's Workshop deck, which plays a land that can make three mana per turn  - and then plays both Sphere of Resistance and Trinisphere on the first turn, making all spells cost a minimum of four mana. You won't be resolving anything for a while! Similarly, cards like Imperial Order and Royal Decree can lock a player right out of their main strategy in Yu-Gi-Oh! while other cards can restrict players to doing only one thing per turn. 

It's virtually the same game, and the more I realise that, the more I enjoy it - although Magic will always by my first love.

Now, I've only been playing Yu-Gi-Oh! for just over three months now, but I'm a compulsive brewer, and this is an article about deck building. A few deck archetypes and methods of summoning have immediately jumped out as appealing to me. My favourite method of summoning is fusion, especially if the fusion monsters don't have specific materials. It's the game's least supported mechanic, and is inherently card disadvantage - two or more monsters plus the spell that fuses them become a single monster - but the archetypes focused around it usually have ways around this, and I think that's what appeals to me - creating that huge monster, offsetting the disadvantage by drawing cards, or using materials that already had other uses, and recycling cards. I love recycling things.

 In Magic, where Commander is my favourite format, I favour building decks that make it difficult (but not impossible) for my opponents to play the game, and strategies where I benefit when my opponents do things, whether it's specifically to me, or to each other. Now obviously Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't designed for multiplayer gaming, so we're going to focus on making the game more difficult for our opponent to play. 

What we're going to here is look at a deck that I've put together that makes use of fusion monsters to make it more difficult to play, and see what we can do to ruin other players' fun...oops, I meant "control the battlefield long enough to be able to win the game" and thanks to Super Polymerization being released from the banned list, and with the Soul Fusion set about to be released, we can only hope for a little more of that sweet, sweet support to come flooding our way. The two fusion archetypes I've used, both of which come with ways to circumvent the card disadvantage of fusion summoning, are Invoked - which gets around the card disadvantage by using materials from either graveyard - and Shaddoll, which does it by the virtue of being able to fuse from deck and having monsters have effects trigger when they are sent to the graveyard.

A nice example of a card that restricts
players to doing only one thing per turn
but the stats leave much to be desired;
Aleister's impersonation of dead Roman
emperor Caligula faints in a stiff breeze

Another card that shuts down strategies
that summon multiple times each turn
(I'm pretty sure that's almost all of them)
and is hard to destroy outside of battle
but sadly, she still isn't very tough!

    

The Shaddoll series of monsters should be no stranger to a competitive Yu-Gi-Oh player; they have not been at the height of their power since the banning of El Shaddoll Construct after their tournament dominance in 2014. Neither should the Invoked archetype provide any surprises, having consistently been near the top tables since their release thanks to the awesome omni-negate power of Invoked Mechaba and recycling ability of Invocation and Aleister the Invoker. The Invoked strategy has received a boost as well recently, with the printing of Aleister the Invoker of Madness opening up easy link summoning possibilities and giving us the ability to search for Invocation by making another fusion summon. He even activates when the opponent makes one! Invoked strategies are frequently seen alongside the Mekk-Knight archetype, which provides both strong main-deck beaters that don't take up the normal summon so often required for Aleister the Invoker, and LIGHT-archetype monsters for the summon of Invoked Mechaba. 

My original inspiration for the deck was discovering the banned card El Shaddoll Construct and a hope (in vain) that it may have been released on the last banned and restricted list update. This pairing between Mekk-Knights and Shaddolls would have made for a very interesting deck, with Mekk-Knight Red Moon and Yellow Star being able to banish Mekk-Knights that were sent to the graveyard to make that wonderful fusion monster in order to destroy monsters or traps, but it was not to be. Let's not forget, however, that Shaddoll Fusion is a very strong Yu-Gi-Oh! card, and was also hit with the ban stick at the height of the deck's dominance

"Fusion summon and draw two? Thanks"

Shaddoll Fusion has been at three for a little while now; pieces from that ban have been slowly coming back off the list, e.g. Mathematician's release back to three in the May list - and the card recently saw prominence in "Shaddoll Dino" decks, where it was used to dump Overtex Qoatlus and a Shaddoll in order to search for and activate Double Evolution Pill. In any Shaddoll list, the ability to make a fusion monster such as El Shaddoll Winda by sending Shaddoll Beast and Shaddoll Hedgehog from deck to graveyard, adding two cards to hand, provides for some very potent card advantage to offset the notorious cost of making fusion monsters.

Now, "El Shaddoll" monsters are fusion monsters made from a Shaddoll monster (a DARK Spellcaster) and one monster of a certain attribute...and "Invoked" monsters are fusion monsters made from Aleister the Invoker (also a DARK Spellcaster) and one monster of a certain attribute. Shaddoll Fusion can send monsters from the deck (or hand, or field) to the graveyard to make fusion monsters...and Invocation can banish monsters from the graveyard to make fusion monsters. These findings suggest a logical conclusion, and there is even crossover thanks to the sharing of the DARK attribute between archetypes; Aleister the Invoker and a Shaddoll monster can make either El Shaddoll Winda or Invoked Caliga as the matchup (or hand) demands! The two archetypes are a natural pairing, offering great card economy and the ability to set up restrictive floodgate and/or negate monsters. Invocation can even summon a Shaddoll monster, provided you have the materials in hand rather than on-field, although it isn't very economical to do so. The reverse, however, does not apply, and we have the minor problem when deck building that Invocation is one of the most easily found cards in the game; most Invoked decks have effectively eleven copies of the card (two Terraforming, three Magical Meltdown, three Aleister the Invoker, three Invocation) and Shaddoll Fusion can be found by...flip summoning a Hedgehog?

Wait, what?

(snail.gif)

Don't draw this card, or you'll cry

What else to do but smash another engine into the deck - one that can assist with finding cards with the name Fusion (except Diffusion Wave Motion) and adding them to the hand...Plants! The pairing of Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio and Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra can add Shaddoll Fusion (or Instant, or Brilliant, if we're going to use that) or the newly freed Super Polymerization directly to hand, while providing a pair of bodies to use as link or fusion material. In exchange for running a single garnet in the deck, we no longer have to rely on drawing a one-of restricted card or difficult-to-locate but powerful fusion spells. The addition of Lonefire Blossom - which is any plant you want it to be - provides something Invoked decks sometimes have a little trouble with: a playable FIRE attribute monster that isn't Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring to make Invoked Purgatrio. We never want to use our own Ash Blossom from hand, and of course we'd rather that the opponent didn't draw theirs!

So here's the decklist for "Start Your Engines" which looks like, well, a horrible monster mash of four different engines...but turns out to play as smooth as a baby's bottom, with answers to almost everything in the format and the ability to play through ill-timed negates with ease, set floodgates when playing first, OTK when playing second, fusion summon while under the effect of Imperial Order, and has five ways to find Super Polymerization to break boards. Yeah, it suffers against an opposing Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring and/or Droll and Lock Bird, but what deck doesn't? We all like to search to find the pieces we need!

(insert the dueling book image here)

We've included the following engines in this decklist:

Invoked

2 Terraforming

2 Magical Meltdown

3 Aleister the Invoker

3 Invocation

Standard, almost. Max Invocation is always correct; because triggering Aleister the Invoker uses the normal summon, it's a great target for an opposing Ash Blossom. We'd always like it in hand, if possible. We've had to cut one Magical Meltdown to fit everything else in, and max Aleister is necessary here because we don't always want to use our normal summon on him in this deck - sometimes he's better off discarded or sent to the graveyard when using another engine. As a result, we aren't running The Book of the Law, as we'll almost always use the Invoker of Madness effect to find Invocation. The extra deck Invoked monsters, discussed later, provide negate, floodgate, and board-sweeping effects, plus give the deck that all-important OTK potential.

Spicy tech: allows fusion summon of
monsters while under the effect of
Anti-spell Fragrance or Imperial Order

Predaplant

2 Lonefire Blossom

2 Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio

1 Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra

1 Predaplant Chlamydosundew

1 Super Polymerization

2 Instant Fusion

This here is our access to our named "fusion" spells, including Super Polymerization. Unfortunately, Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra is the worst garnet ever, but the engine doesn't run without it, and the spicy tech choice of Predaplant Chlamydosundew allows for fusion summoning while under the effect of an anti-spell floodgate. Running this little engine gives us five chances to draw Super Polymerization, and we've gone with an Instant Fusion package rather than Brilliant, as we'd have to include another garnet - a Gem-Knight monster - and I hate drawing dead cards. When using this engine, fusion summoning triggers Aleister the Invoker of Madness to find Invocation, so we don't have to use our normal summon for Aleister himself; instead we can open like this:

NS Ophrys Scorpio (or find via Lonefire Blossom) and activate effect; discard Aleister the Invoker, search deck for Darlingtonia Cobra and add either Shaddoll or Instant Fusion, make Aleister the Invoker of Madness off either a Mekk-Knight in hand or Instant Fusion target plus a Predaplant, play a fusion spell to trigger Invoker of Madness, then fusion summon an Invoked monster using the Aleister we discarded, shuffle Invocation back to deck, then return Aleister to hand.

Note that Invocation can also be used
to summon El Shaddoll Winda or Grysta
if materials are in hand, although this
is usually poor card economy. Effects
like Necrovalley and Masked Hero Dark
Law hurt the Invoked strategy, but we
can still banish from the field to fusion
summon, so we aren't crippled

Shaddoll

1 Shaddoll Beast

1 Shaddoll Squamata

1 Shaddoll Hedgehog

1 Shaddoll Dragon

1 Shaddoll Falco

3 Shaddoll Fusion

This is all that remains from the great Shaddoll cleansing of 2014, and we still can't make light fusions. But this engine still lets us draw cards, thin our deck, stock our graveyard and have a little back-row hate on hand - plus, it's self-recurring with Shaddoll Falco, who can also resurrect our Shaddoll boss monsters. As discussed above, the Predaplant engine interacts favourably with both the Invoked and Shaddoll engines; not just by finding Shaddoll Fusion spells, but three fusion monsters in the extra deck can be made from a Plant and a Shaddoll, and three can be made from Aleister the Invoker and a Plant. The extra deck El Shaddoll monsters, discussed later, provide floodgate and negate effects.

The archetypal tutor, Purple Nightfall
dodges removal and adds another   
recurring threat to the deck, plus for
no reason at all, he's chunky as AF     

Mekk-Knight

3 Mekk-Knight Purple Nightfall

2 Mekk-Knight Blue Sky

1 Mekk-Knight Indigo Eclipse

1 Mekk-Knight Red Moon

A self-contained light engine that doesn't use our valuable normal summon, providing both the material to make the important negate machine Invoked Mechaba and some serious main-deck beatdown capability. Red Moon's destruction-on-a-stick isn't once per turn; Indigo Eclipse can shift him over for another shot if you've got more Mekk-Knights in the graveyard. If the beautiful El Shaddoll Construct were freed from oblivion, we'd probably increase the size of this engine a little, but this is all we need. The quick  search effect of Purple Nightfall can be used to dodge removal, and Blue Sky's effect can add two or three Mekk-Knights to hand if the opponent has positioned their cards in the wrong columns

And the rest is a small package of denial, 3 Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring and 2 Ghost Belle and Haunted Mansion - plus 2 Called by the Grave, to stop the opponent's Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring, or worse, Droll and  Lock Bird - plus the restricted Foolish Burial, which can be used to trigger a Shaddoll Effect, or search Aleister to the grave for a later fusion summon.

In the extra deck, we've got the following tech choices; some quite standard, and some new and innovative:

1 Aleister the Invoker of Madness

1 Wee Witch's Apprentice

These are what we use to build up boards, or link-climb when necessary; we aren't huge on link monsters, but we have a couple of link-3, and the sideboard features a few 4s. The atk/def boost from Wee Witch's Apprentice is great in helping El Shaddoll Winda and Invoked Caliga survive in combat - although not ideal if we have our own light monsters in play - and if she dies, her resurrection ability can send a destroyed El Shaddoll Winda (which may have returned Shaddoll Fusion back to hand already) back to the extra deck for another go. I love recycling! Unfortunately Aleister the Invoker of Madness isn't quite as recyclable - he isn't "Aleister the Invoker" while banished, so you can't use the shuffle back to deck effect of Invocation to return him to the extra deck - but thanks to his dark attribute, you can use him to link-climb, send him to the bin, and later on Wee Witchy-poo can still send him back to deck when she bites the dust.

2 Invoked Mechaba

1 Invoked Purgatrio

1 Invoked Caliga

1 Invoked Elysium

Our Invoked package of floodgate, board wipe, OTK and negate machines, all of which are usually made from recycled resources in the graveyard. Note that when summoning Invoked Elysium, the "Invoked Monster" material can be banished from the graveyard, but the "Monster Special Summoned from the Extra Deck" must be banished from on the field

1 El Shaddoll Winda

1 El Shaddoll Grysta

1 El Shaddoll Shekhinaga

Our Shaddoll package for slowing the opponent down; Grysta negates summons including Pendulum summons, providing protection from on-arrival effects, Shekhinaga is our straight-up monster effect counter, and my favourite almost-indestructible floodgate El Shaddoll Winda slows everything down to a crawl. Note that Aleister the Invoker can be discarded to boost the occasionally-too-low attack strength El Shaddoll monsters as well as Invoked ones. As fusion materials are usually found from the deck when playing Shaddoll Fusion, the two Ghost Belle and Haunted Mansion is enough to make Shekhinaga, and the Lonefire Blossom or Ash Blossom is used to make Grysta.

1 Topologic Trisbaena

1 Knightmare Unicorn

1 Knightmare Phoenix

Link monster answers to problems here. The best way to set off Topologic Trisbaena's board-sweeping effect is to summon Mekk-Knight Purple Knightfall into one of its zones, banishing it to its own effect to search in response.

1 Mudragon of the Swamp

1 Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

And now we get to the spicy tech choices! The recently printed Mudragon of the Swamp is one of my favourite new cards, especially for this deck. It's a great Instant Fusion target, helping extend into Aleister the Invoker of Madness (it combines with any other monster in the deck) and provides targeting protection via its attribute-shifting effect.

Swiss Army Fusion Dragon may be a
better name for this card

Starving Venom Fusion Dragon is not a new card - and unlike the banned Supreme King Dragon Starving Venom, only copies opposing monster names and effects - but in this deck he puts in an awful lot of work. Two dark monsters on the field is an easy material requirement, and since the format's best floodgate monsters are dark, he's easily made using Super Polymerization to smash that floodgate - otherwise Predaplant Chlamydosundew and the Ophrys Scorpio that searched it up are probably the next-best choice, since you don't even need a spell card to do this - it can be done under the influence of Naturia Beast or Imperial Order. Plenty of matchups will involve your opponent playing a negate monster - turning Starving Venom into a copy of that is usually a good play. The on-summon effect is a weaker version of Borrelsword Dragon's attack-gaining effect, but can be used in the same fashion - it simply beats over any opposing monster for 2800, crushing it. The second effect can be used as a virtual Raigeki, again while under a no-spell situation - run Starving Venom Fusion Dragon into an opposing larger monster, and he'll take down all their special summoned monsters on the way to the graveyard!

Hiding away in the sideboard are a couple more fusion monsters - one of each attribute is covered by main and side deck, so we can Super Polymerization our way out of trouble! We don't have a main deck water monster to make El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis (although we can use our boi Mudragon of the Swamp) so she comes in against Water matchups or those involving continuous recycling effects such as Red-Eyes or Fur Hire, and Invoked Raidjin does the same job in Wind matchups, while also being a useful Instant Fusion target with attached Book of Moon effect. Mind Crush is there for Sky Striker and Trickstar, and Red Reboot for Altergeist. Droll and Lock Bird at three gives us game against decks that repeatedly search and add to hand, i.e. many of them - it's close to being a main deck choice, but Ash Blossom performs a similar role while adding a valuable attribute to the graveyard. Borreload Dragon is there for indestructible monsters, and the Mekk-Knight boosting package of Mekk-Knight of the Morning Star, Spectrum Supreme, World Legacy's Secret and World Legacy Succession lets you resurrect, negate, and link-climb your way into an untargetable 3k beater in Spectrum Supreme, Borreload, or the mighty Topologic Bomber Dragon, who fills out the last remaining slot in the side and can be triggered with Purple Nightfall, just like Trisbaena.

The deck has a very large amount of play lines depending on what's in the hand, but a few things to remember while starting are:

1) The Predaplant engine: this thing is f*cking versatile!

tribute to search for...

discard one, special summon

from deck, then find...

Scorpio/Lonefire plus any monster can make an Aleister the Invoker of Madness or Wee Witch's Apprentice - discard the monster to search for Predaplant Darlingtonia Cobra and special summon it. Cobra's effect can find Instant Fusion, Shaddoll Fusion, or Super Polymerization, depending on what you have in hand, then either link the two DARK Predaplants into Wee Witch's Apprentice, or play Instant Fusion and link one of them and your Instant Fusion target into Invoker of Madness. These are our ideal starting plays

Scorpio into Chlamydosundew is the go-to play if you can't play fusion spells, giving you three options: Sundew + Aleister in hand = Invoked Caliga. Sundew + a Shaddoll in hand = El Shaddoll Winda. Scorpio + Sundew = Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

A used Lonefire Blossom later becomes Invoked Purgatrio, but don't search them all out of the deck at once - sometimes you need one left to make El Shaddoll Grysta in order to plus off a Shaddoll Fusion

2) Dirty Shaddoll / Invocation interactions abound, like these rippers:

a) The trigger effect of Aleister the Invoker of Madness, which also happens when your opponent fusion summons, does not discard for cost - meaning it triggers your Shaddoll effects, e.g. casting Shaddoll Fusion with Aleister the Invoker of Madness in play can be used to send Shaddoll Hedgehog to the graveyard, adding Shaddoll Beast to hand - which can then be discarded to the fusion summon trigger in order to add Invocation to your hand and draw a card

b) Aleister the Invoker's discard to boost ATK/DEF can be used on any fusion monster. El Shaddoll Winda is usually target #1 in combat, and the 1000 ATK boost to her 2200 ATK, plus potentially 500 from Wee Witch's Apprentice, makes her very hard to get over

c) If Shaddoll Fusion's "from deck" effect is live with Invoker of Madness in play, but you don't have a real Aleister the Invoker around, you can Shaddoll Fusion sending Aleister the Invoker and a Shaddoll to graveyard for El Shaddoll Winda, then use the trigger effect to find Invocation, and fuse those two monsters into Invoked Caliga. Then, use Invocation's effect to shuffle back into deck and add Aleister the Invoker to hand

She's smiling because we figured out
her secret third ability; the one that
returns DARK extra deck monsters 
back to the extra deck

3) Returning extra deck monsters to hand returns them to the extra deck. This allows the on-destruction effect of Wee Witch's Apprentice to return the following monsters to the extra deck to be re-summoned - all of which have large, game-breaking effects:

a) Aleister the Invoker of Madness

b) El Shaddoll Winda

c) Invoked Caliga

d) Knightmare Unicorn

e) Topologic Trisbaena

f) Starving Venom Fusion Dragon

Avoid banishing these monsters from your graveyard for any effects; Aleister the Invoker of Madness is not "Aleister the Invoker" while banished, and is thus unrecoverable. You can force this return to extra deck by smashing Wee Witch's Apprentice into a stronger monster in the battle phase, similar to how players would smash Mathematician into things in order to draw a card, back when Shaddolls were commonly played

I love recycling and recursion in any trading card game - this deck has it in absolute spades, and its use of resources twice or more is a thing any environmentalist would be proud of. Lose an El Shaddoll boss monster? Shaddoll Fusion returns to hand and the next time you use it, bring Shaddoll Falco out from the deck and resurrect it. Flip extra deck monsters back in with Wee Witch's Apprentice and bring them around for another go. Aleister the Invoker and Invocation loop themselves; you can play them until you run out of Invoked monsters to summon. Fusion materials get used repeatedly; Shaddoll fusion spells sending from hand, deck or field to graveyard - then Invocation banishing from there, shuffling back to deck and sending a banished Aleister back to hand.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! decks are usually built as "go first" decks or "go second" decks, but of course, you can never guarantee going either first or second - if you lose the die roll and your opponent is playing a "go second" deck you'll be opening the game! I've taken a balanced approach with this deck, and usually do with deck building in general, because you're almost always forced into doing something you don't want to do - even if it's just to throw a spanner in the works of opposing plans! Obviously we'd like to go second with this deck; it usually means Shaddoll Fusion is live and we can use it to draw cards and fusion summon at the same time, and we have far greater access to Invoked Purgatrio for making an OTK thanks to our plant engine than most Invoked decks...

But we also have the ability to set floodgates, if we are forced to play first. Picture going first with a hand of Magical Meltdown, Lonefire Blossom, Invocation, a Shaddoll monster and something else. Play proceeds as follows:
Activate Meltdown and find Aleister the Invoker. Don't summon him, however!
Summon Lonefire Blossom, tribute to search up Predaplant Ophrys Scorpio and discard Aleister the Invoker to search up Darlingtonia Cobra and add Shaddoll Fusion to hand.
Link the two Predaplants into Wee Witch's Apprentice. Play Invocation, banishing one of the plants and Aleister to make Invoked Caliga, then shuffle it back to deck and add Aleister back to hand.
Play Shaddoll Fusion, sending Aleister and the Shaddoll monster from hand to the graveyard to make El Shaddoll Winda. Trigger the Shaddoll's effect. End turn.

Wee Witch's ATK/DEF modifying ability helps to offset the physical weakness of your floodgate monsters; your opponent will need to get over a 2300DEF Caliga (you did summon him in defense position, didn't you?) and a 2800ATK Winda, or be forced to play the game activating one monster effect per turn, attacking with one monster per turn and special summoning once per turn. It's not impossible, by any stretch - but neither is it easy, and this deck floats like a rubber dinghy; if the opponent destroys El Shaddoll Winda, Shaddoll Fusion returns to your hand, and if they destroy Wee Witch's Apprentice, either Aleister the Invoker returns to hand for next turn, or El Shaddoll Winda returns to the extra deck to be re-summoned.

There's a lot of play to this deck, and it's full of anti-meta counters. I'm interested to see how it performs at the WA Open at the end of the month, and I have no hesitation in sharing the list - for your preparation purposes it probably falls somewhere between "Invoked" and "utter rogue strategy" and you were already preparing for that matchup!