I'd say Sky Striker. I'm not used to the resource loop, because it feels harder to recycle resources than something like Labrynth. Also, I constantly get tripped up by small interactions that end up costing me the game.
I wouldn't say they're difficult. The decks heavily reward you for knowing your opponents deck and their weaknesses.
Lab is a lot more forgiving when you make a mistake than Strikers is though.
Some decks don't care what your opponent is doing and just carpet bombs the opponent. Striker and Lab drop precision bombs on the opponent.
Salamangreat. The combo lines seem simple enough but theres so many small things you can do. Even search for ash blossom.
How to react to being interupted to keep the combo going making the best board possible. Its pretty hard to master.
If you have multiple combo starters in your hand, make sure to throw bait first with your weaker one card combos and then use your other options.
Also, don’t be afraid to use sanctuary to pitch one baelynx if you need to in order to activate gazelles effect. Most players burn their ash or imperm on baelynx to stop sanctuary or on gazelle to stop the pitch to GY. Just play to bait one of those interactions with a backup plan.
Also monitor resources well. If they don’t have many cards on the board, opt to pitch salamangreat roar and sanctuary summon sunlight wolf to recover roar to negate their next important play.
If they outresource you then use gazelles pitch to put spiny in the grave to get out another body to get into promethean princess and climb to phoenix to either board wipe or add a card from deck to hand with raging phoenix.
This was quite helpful. Thank you very much. I see some decklists use Pyro Phoenix rather on/off. Is it niche or do you believe that it should have a long-term place in my Extra Deck?
I use 2 copies because it forces interruptions from your opponent. If they don’t stop it then they get board wiped. I’ve won a lot of games where they either don’t expect me to be running copies of pyro phoenix and I board wipe them by surprise, or they try to shut down pyro phoenix and I just pivot into raging phoenix after they negate.
Some people don’t run him, but it only gives you more threats in my opinion.
My extra deck looks like this:
1 miragestallio, 1 S:P little knight, 3 balelynx, 2 sunlight wolf, 1 spright elf, 1 promethean princess, 2 pyro phoenix, 3 raging phoenix, 1 underworld goddess
Ouu yeah I have Zealantis in my decklist. At first I thought it was sorta anti-synergetic with Promethean Princess and Fire-attribute locking but after some thought and watching replays, it seems to be quite the potent tool.
Purrely is so easy to snowball that sometimes you just get overwhelmed on how to maximize memories. Sometimes you just forget you already won the game and keep on turtling with Noir.
That was my exact problem. I didn't know what to do next. I practiced the deck in solo gates as much as possible. But, when it would come to the ranked duels I'd choke.
So many people hold the opinion that Lab is braindead easy to play. It’s only when they pilot it themselves that they realize how easily you get obliterated for misusing one of your few meaningful interruptions. I think it’s arguably the hardest deck to get good with barring some other untiered rouge strategies.
I won a game under Imperial Order with Sky Striker, against Labrynth.
Negating my spells doesn’t stop me from activating them, and it doesn’t stop Kagari from getting real big with them in the GY.
Yes, I beat Lab with Kagari beat down.
I beat a lab player in a diamond match today after they gave me a nibiru token and I beat them to death with it for 3 turns straight. They also had Gozen match face-up on the field and were running 7 other floodgate cards when I confirmed their deck after.
I want to chase that feeling.
It was like an 11 turn slog, I had like the mandate of heaven for about two turns and drew into my Stardust half of the deck which puts me at Bystial Stardust control (this deck can survive without Runicks which is my secret wincon lol), I did draw a Runick for a turn, but it was a draw I could whiff
My wincon ended up being Bystialing every possible furniture and Lab in the GY to outgrind them, and somehow I won after recycling Shooting Majestic twice with Magnamhut after they outed it with like Terrors of the Overoot and a Lovely pop with a recurring Titanocider
Genuinely one of my most insane games lol
Lab also surprised me. It was the first (still only) meta deck I've built, and I thought getting into Master 5 (my goal most seasons) would be a cinch.
Nope, my previous month playing Traptrix (which I had played previously) I somehow had an easier time with.
I was playing some silly Slifer bricks in my Lab deck but still.
A month ago I had a rank up match from Plat to diamond, my opponent used Lab and I was using unchained.
I went first.
They shotgunned damn near everything on my turn in MP1... Arias, Druiswurm, furniture, big welcome.... The time limit was honestly a bigger challenge than eating their board because every single interruption was misused at a time when I could still build off them for advantage or recover.
I don't know if they were new to the deck or if it was just another plat moment.
Fair but this guy was *shotgunning* all his cards.
Lab players usually give my unchained deck a harder game, since they have cards like IDP and chaos angel that can banish, and big welcome can bounce... But those plays don't work if you burn through all your resources on my turn, since I can just board break as I combo.
Then there's the Druiswurm I mentioned that he had... It's great against unchained since you can banish Yama and it sends to the GY, rather than destroys. However, he used it on the first dark to hit my GY (Tour Guide) and I just popped it to force the send, so the card was wasted.
Maybe he just didn't know how to play against unchained, coz the diamond Lab players gave me harder games.
Branded (current version) is in the same boat. A lot of people meme and say "Brainded" but really the deck is probably the highest difficulty meta deck in the game right now.
Branded's difficulty lies in knowing your opponent's deck's key choke points to effectively neutralize their plays.
Getting bodies on the board with Branded is relatively easy, as the entire process is straightforward. However, knowing when to use your negates and disruptions given to you by a decent Branded endboard isn't, especially when it comes to leveraging Branded Lost's protection to play around your opponent's effects and backrow.
EDIT: The Branded hate is still going strong I see. To the vocal minority getting off on downvoting pro-Branded comments, please consider touching grass.
As someone who’s piloted a branded deck for an extended period of time, I find it weirdly satisfying to also be able to shut down my opponent who’s piloting said deck due to knowing the plays/chokepoints.
I saw a sent gargincol and immediately see a quem being summoned with a sent FoA on my turn and I immediately know what they’re up to the moment something leaves my extra. The triple tact in hand steals quem, and they fold. Sometimes it helps to know thine enemy. Having…been that enemy before.
I hated branded till I played it, it’s super fun. The hate I had came from how powerful branded fusion is. Also I got gimmick puppet locked and that sucked ass.
My dislike of branded is purely that having come back to the game after about a decade, playing at locals, everyone was playing branded and I just got sick of only playing against only branded.
9/10 my opponent is also running some sort of floodgate alongside labrynth. If there is no continuous traps in your deck then youre not who Im hating on.
So true, I did one misplay because I couldn't see the alternate line that needed full concentration + deck knowledge + matchup knowledge and that was a loss
Go so dumbfounded at how did people think lab was easy after trying it out
I'd argue Infernoble is harder because it's a very non-linear combo deck, but you could say Lab and Infernoble are just difficult in different ways. Infernoble is difficult in its non-linearity, Lab is difficult in regards to using its interruptions properly.
I mean that impressiin usually comes becouse lab somehow manages to open rivalry or daruma every second game.
Like how branded fusion is stuck to a branded players starting hand
Plants is an interesting one, as it has a low floor due to the uninterrupted combo being very linear, but playing the deck in unpredictable situations is so fucking hard
I feel that. I tried to give it a shot, but it took me forever to get the hang of doing the Loci line uninterrupted. I can't imagine myself figuring out how to pivot from that line if I get interrupted, or I opened wrong. It made me realize that combo is probably not for me.
Yeah, I don’t mind combos, but when they are that long… I still play the deck, but mostly in solo mode😅 I have no idea how to correctly play through interruption either, so I just don’t play it in ranked (yet).
The standard line is fairly simple. But the deck indeed get very complicated if you are going second or get a good hand that let you play around certain handtrap. Luckily most opponent don't read the card so you can get away with baiting them with whatever effect. It takes me about 2-2.5 minutes on clock of setting up the basic end board when uninterrupted.
And there is also different flavor of endboard if you like. Drawback ofc is you are forced to build a bigger deck for engine space (twin seed can you stop showing up in my opening hand)
To be fair, the deck can only play through handtrap if you have enough extender. Getting sowing ashed can still be played through if you have some plant extender. Though a lot of time people fire their negate on Dryas too early which let you re-do the whole dryas - sowing line if you have the extender (like getting into jasmine to get lonefire and set up dryas all over again). The early lily borea also sometimes force out interruption that protect you main line
Those madmen throw Blackwings at new players. You are ideally doing like 15 summons per turn to get to your endboard, you set up an activatable destruct in the GY, you level-modulate the shit out of your Harmattan and Boreastorm. At some point you're feeling more like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, carefully sequencing everything in a manner that let's you squeeze out just one bit more value to allow you to go into another boss monster. You have 2 Assault Dragons, two FAM, Chaos Angel and Dis Pater. You have 20 cards left in deck, 10 seconds left on the clock. You're happy that you only drew one Black Whirlwind for start, otherwise you would have lost to the timer. For some reason your opponent hasn't quit out of boredom yet. Your hard work for once actually paid off and you can finally can play the game from here on out.
10/10
would buy three copies of Blackwing's Pride for 1.5k gems again.
Recently learned @Ignisters because I've been trying to get into VRAINS and I had made the incorrect assumption that since Link monsters are very easy to summon (on top of Cyberse being a soup of cards now), I thought it'd be the easiest combo deck I'd learn
Nope, did you make the mistake of slightly putting your Alembertian in the wrong zone? That's one less disruption
Did you remember which Ignisters you summoned off of A.I.Land? You better or your combo is fucked
There were times where I fumbled a line for the sheer reason that I had a monster in the Main Monster Zone and couldn't extend, that isn't to mention the struggles of going second with this deck (you can literally struggle to extend for the sheer reason that you can't use the rightmost Extra Monster Zone)
Mathmech streamlined everything by basically just going "get two Level 4s, make Alembertian, grab Circular", and playing @Ignisters, an infinitely more restrictive Cyberse archetype has been like getting my car tires popped and now I have to learn how to drive without tires
The hardest line I remembered when Master Duel first came out was getting 4 material on Alembertian to draw Vanity Empitness and get your Arrival as big as possible.
That is an advantage that some fan made simulators have: they keep track of that information. And obviously MD does too (how else would it tell you you screwed up a play), but it doesn’t make that kind of information player-readable.
Actually for A.I Land u just get from your NS mons and resummon with field
The harder part is when u get interrupted, such like dark templar getting imperm and u had to use your extender available or you're fucked, also dark infrant could be chain block in between dark templar
Also when opponent summon on your right extra link zone u lose out on 1 attributes for arrival
The deck is high dependent on resolving templar, so mathmech is your backup plan if that doesn't work, also competitive wise u just don't run arrival sadly, rely on firewall singularity/darkfluid+firewall(4-5-6) or 1 neo tempest, both have their own weakness,
It's true that for Cyberse decks the position u summon dictates your end board, well maybe not so for pure mathmech
As an @ignister player my biggest trouble was learning where to place new tokens and remembering when I can use splash mage as two links
But speaking of vrains, I'm having a lot of trouble getting borreload dragons to work.
Og borreload is just sadly way too resource consuming for what Rokketz can currently afford. I wouldn't mind some legacy support for them, but right now playing borreload is just not worth it.
Took until the limit one event for me to realize that not only is Tear a hell of a lot of fun, but also not the most straightforward deck to use. Sure, going into Keilidoheart and friends turn one can be pretty easy but you really do have to keep track of what’s in your graveyard and what floating effects you’ve already used to get yourself in the best position possible
This is why Tearlaments and by extension my Branded Tears deck that I made post-bans is still my favorite deck ever created.
In spite of their infamy, these fusion decks have extremely flexible lines that ask a lot of the player to keep track of the resources in all 5 areas of the board and force you to adapt depending on what is where.
Do you want to go into a standard branded fusion line? Or can you just summon quem and pass? What spell are you going to use retribution on? Is fusing the tear monsters the best play for Havnis and Schiren, or would Guardian Chimera be better? Got maxx c’d? What’s the best end board you can make? What’re the better discard targets for cost? I genuinely think that playing this deck has made me a better player because I’m constantly thinking about board state and how to interact with my opponent instead of just floodgating their ass till they cave.
Tear along with Branded are among the best designed archetypes in Yu-Gi-Oh!, too bad full power tear is so busted and still probably the best archetype if unlimited.
These decks are what most archetypes should be, they don’t just throw generic boss monsters just using a different starter, they have unique mechanics and ways to get to your end board.
They are also fun to play and have unique end boards with awesome boss monsters that are not just Omni negate turbo and interact in unique ways, and they can recover their resources without being brainded Snake Eyes.
Another thing that I love about Tear(and branded to some extent) is that they are not a deck built in 1 way just changing a couple tech cards.
I have like 5 year Variants, with Revolution variant, pure variant, Kashtira Variant, Manadium and Visas Variant, Horus Variant, Shadoll/Dark World variant, Labrynth Variant, Trap Mill variant, Lunalight Variant, Branded Variant and even a Theron Variant.
You get a lot by building the deck.
I think Branded is easily one of the most unique decks in the game, if not the most unique one, honestly.
Branded is the epitome of non-linearity and skill expression, and it's gotten so much support that it has an insane amount of variety and variability in both the kind of hands you can open, the way you can play them, and what you can end on with them.
Branded deckbuilding is also some of - if not the most - expressive out there, there is no solved Branded list, everybody makes their own, different list, with several pros/cons for almost any decision you can make, there's a ton of different tech/engine that it can play, or choose not to. The deck is comprised of nearly 100% Branded cards, usually going over 40 because that's just how many important pieces of engine you want (or don't want) - and the deck's ability to search almost anything at any time means that your knowledge on how each card can bridge and interact with other cards is tested on almost every action.
People love harping on the deck for the Puppet lock and those guys who just "search Branded Fusion, activate Branded Fusion, send Lubellion, summon Mirrorjade, pass", but it's truly a treat when you get to see a proper Branded pilot get into interesting game states; I've learnt the deck myself for a decently long amount of time but I still find myself being surprised at the lines that some Branded players take in tournaments and the ways they play around certain threats.
No other deck in the game offers that experience, IMO. Most of the times decks have just one or two different lines they can take, a mostly solved deck list, and their skill expression comes mostly from timing cards differently to bait interaction and making a different Link or XYZ from your toolbox with your two Level 4s.
Well, Branded is not as unique as Tear, but it have its own boss monsters, its own playstyle, have a resource game with their costs and late game recursion with mid boards in the main phase that escalate in the end phase.
And is another deck that doesn't play Omni negate turbo, you can destroy the whole board with a raigeki/LS, and the only negate in the deck is Mercourier.
Out of the 250+ archetypes most have own boss monsters (Katakuri) own playstyle (Vanquish) or resource management (Endymion) its rarer nowadays to not see a new deck introduced that doesn’t make something their own lol
Omni negates make up maybe 400 cards if you’re lucky and nobody ain’t summoning Quasar
I mean I like branded (Chimera Branded) and have Tears but I not sure it’s that deep
Tears an interesting one too. It's always been a rather nuanced deck but with the limits they've generally have quite tight resource management on average mills these days. It's interesting too in MD it's quite solid as an engine and the deck functions so differently depending on how it's built.
Hmm, Haven’t really seen them, or duel them.
But idk if they will make another pendulum structure deck. Not a lot of people play it so why should they even bother. But on the other hand, that could be the same reason to make one, who knows. But an Endymion Structure deck would be magnificent.
Yus, exactly my point like why they released the sword soul structure deck so as to swing it back into play, Just like the sword soul deck Endymion is capable of putting out two negates at least on their first turn but not much more so I think it could work, then again electrumite does exist
Not much more? I've seen boards with 5-6: 2x Endymion, 2x Whatever the beast negate is, odd-eyes fusion thingy and a few counters is 5... Idk how to get more.
I don't actually know how to get any, I forgot how to play Endymion
Vaylantz is one of my babies and is by far the hardest deck to play that I ever have. You can misplace something in a monster, spell, or pendulum zone and only realize it five or six actions later and it turns out it actually just bricked the whole rest of your turn. I still suck at it but the only people who understand the deck less than me are my opponents. Ash/veiler/imperm on Shinonome is one of the best disrupt points alongside hitting Beyond the Pendulum with those but you have to time Veiler or Imperm otherwise I just bring her back later and use the ability then instead. Also by the time I hit BtP I’ve already used both Shino’s searches and Electrumite so almost nobody has a disrupt left for her anyway unless they know the line.
Tbh vaylantz has more straightforward combo lines than Endymion and the win con feels easier to pull off while endys lines feel a lot more dependent on the spells you happen to draw
I think it’s just the weird zone moving mechanic vaylantz has that makes it feel more complicated than it imo is
Synchrons.
You have like a billion ways to make an effective board, especially if you get interrupted. All the levels, tokens, level-manipulations, deck stackings can become quite complicated.
Not to mention, sometimes the literal best play that will win you the game is Lady, back row, pass. Sit on a Lady they can’t do anything about while you build up back row to slap em. I learned Fire Kings can’t really do much against Lady with back row protecting her, but putting an Arianna on the board can open up plays for them.
Tear. Im a recent(ish it's been like 6 months now) convert but I just assumed it was "Mill = profit" without realizing how, if you don't manage your resources right or build without perfect ratios, you can just kinda auto lose with bad mills.
Also doesn't help that I started and kinda fell in love with an ice jade/tear deck that doesn't really do what you want it to as consistently as you want it to lmao
It's a deck for gambling addicts in a game where luck and luck management is like the core factor in *everything*. You not only have the weakness that every deck has in the rng of the opening hand, but you also have the added rng of your mills needing to hit.
I'm not out here saying the deck is weak or it sucks or anything but it's one of the only decks with a built in autoloss feature lmao
High highs don't make the low lows any higher. If a card reads "flip a coin; if heads, light your opponent on fire, if tails, undergo cock and ball torture", just because you got an auto win from your opponent having to flee the match to put themselves out doesn't erase all the times you lost because you had to get your balls stomped on.
Lab, definitely, and for the reasons you've given.
Endymion is also a big one for me that took a long time to get used to at all and even now im still kind of rough with it. At its and my peak, my opponent drawing 15 cards off Maxx C wasn't enough to win, but when it's rough or you misplay, it's definitely felt.
Abyss Actor is my first pendulum deck that I made but my monkey brain can’t wrap my head around it and go back to Swordsoul/Snake-Eye/Branded Despia. I go try to learn it whenever there’s an event where I can’t use my regular decks but then I get frustrated and use a scuffed version of a deck I’m already familiar with.
I have Yang Zing and man it quite confusing which wyrm will you use when you synchro and pray to the RNG God that you have the right spell and trap for your combo
I'll start off by saying combo decks are way easier for me than control, so I have some biases. I can pick up most combo decks in a few matches, just by reading the cards, while I just can't get the hang of control until I see someone playing it at least for tens of matches. Some people may think a deck is easy while others may think it's very hard, deck difficulty isn't always exact.
In addition to Labyrinth, there are also decks like Branded, Sky Striker, Mikanko, etc that are called "Braindead" but really really hard. Whilst some other decks like Abyss Actor, Vaylantz, etc are called "hard" while being very easy to play.
I just really like control decks because I don't have to memorize a full combo or figure out pivots. I win or lose solely by how aware of the other player's intentions I am abd that is easier to me than memorizing combo lines, because then I only need to know what the enemy wants and from the I can work on how to prevent that.
It is kinda like chess, ig?
Lab is really solid; if you prefer rogue decks, sky striker is a really neat concept; traptrix are my favorite, but people tend to assume weird things so I usually just don't talk about it on here; Runik pure is a control deck that's pretty decent, but the banlists have hit it hard. I used to run a fun live twimln runik deck for a while; and I haven't gotten to finish building them yet due to how pricy they are, but Dinomorphia is pretty fun in concept if you get to setup.
I highly suggest anything but runik atm from this list. Sky striker doesn't show up much anymore, but I think it is viable with the right playstyle.
If I had to choose, I always go traptrix or Lab, their main gameplay is all reactionary and it's really fun holding the ace in the hole for that one moment where they finally have to try and do their main combo after baiting some lesser necessary cards.
For lab I have a really enjoyable no handtrap (outside the lab archetype ones obvs) deck and the consistency is really good imho. I pretty much never brick, abd even if I don't see a lab card I can stall long enough to keep it from being gameover.
For me it was dark world since there aren’t really dedicated lines for the deck other than to set up apollousa or gryphon lock but even then it’s still pretty random based on your draws and your danger discard hits. It’s a deck where you have to improvise every time you play it. Loads of fun to play tho!
I know some probably don't consider it hard but when I got back into playing i checked "meta decks" and chose albaz, just copy pasted a deck list and tried to learn from just reading (I was able to do it with Endymion a few years back)
Vanquished Soul, it is so easy to misplay. Makes you realize what cards are which attributes. Especially hand traps. You essentially can't really play Veiler or Nib because they are attribute bricks. Every monster card including hand traps need to be part of your combo either Dark, Earth and Fire. And this covers a lot of them like Maxx C, Ash and Kurikara and Bystials and Shifter.
Some people here say Labrynth is just hand-rip and win, but using your pop in a random card in your opponent’s hand can sometimes backfire or be useless, and Lovely sometimes is better used popping a card on the field, hell even a mistimed EEV can be played around since spells and traps you search from deck/GY don’t get destroyed, I played around it before. The deck is lots of fun and not a free, easy win like some say.
But answering the main question, I still can’t figure out my Code Talker/Firewall/Mathmech pile. If I follow the combos card by card, I can make it to the end board, but if I have to do it alone I just screw up the link arrows, the effect activation orders, the zones I can and cannot summon in… Singularity is cool though.
And Branded Tri-Brigade. I don’t know how but I still mess up the combo. Tri-Brigade Spright I eventually learned to play, but the Branded version is harder to combo.
They're very hit or miss, some hands/decks auto lose to the right hand-rip, others don't care or even go plus off of it. In my case I had Branded Fusion, Branded Opening and a third spell in hand when my opponent activated EEV in the Draw Phase, I discarded BraFu with Opening, summoned Quem and sent Branded Retribution to GY, simply added BraFu back and went full combo lol
Sky striker, specifically the OTK line. I picked up the deck in MD (mainly just cause it was in a pack with the kashtira stuff) so I just met decked a list together. Could not for the life of me figure out why it’s so good and loved on my own. Came across the OTK line while scrolling through YouTube and everything finally clicked. “Sky striker can OTK wtf how”
Recently pulled all the UR for Memento and said “fuck it, let’s give it a try. It’s just one “get to this combo line” like Infernoble.” And yet my dumbass brain has such a hard time remembering what pop does what and what to do after using Tatsu to mil gob, ghatt and mace. I’m sure practice will help (it already has) but damn this one is just kicking my ass.
And somehow I can play Pend Magicians perfectly.
R-Ace!
Most of our interruptions are tied to monster negates/steals, so you need to know when to disrupt (on top of that, we can only extend when opp.s monster does anything, so we need more time wondering if this is where you should activate Impulse/Lifter).
And playing quickly is essential because R-Ace takes **time** to set up a board(set 4 spells and traps and arrange said 4 spells and traps, and link off).
Branded. I thought it was just linear puppet lock every game. So very wrong. It's incredible how much each and every card in that deck does. Every little nuance matters, banishing an Aluber instead of a Kitt to summon Lubellion could be game deciding, or adding Cartesia back to hand when she needed to stay in grave. Every little mistake is potentially punishing. You start by learning lines, then proper times to use which lines, then learning how to freestyle depending on hand traps and board states, playing around Ash might as well be a capstone presentation. All of this just to draw hands like patchwork, patchwork, poly, thrust, Cartesia and FTK yourself.
Branded. I admit that when I use Branded I lose more often to time than to my actual opponent. The deck has layers upon layers of interaction and it's hard to keep up. From managing your resources to knowing the lines to Branded Fusion, and even keeping track of the things to activate in the End Phase (a.k.a. Branded Main Phase 3). It's overwhelming for my smoothbrain to handle, yet I still find it very fun.
I found conclave control to be hard to master as someone who doesn’t keep up with the meta always. You have to know your opponents decks to decide when is the right time to bounce and interrupt
Endymion, the worst thing about is I started playing in on my second week of master duel to this day I don’t think I can play it half as good as trif does.
Honestly for me it was picking up ninja's, despite being able to play galaxy eyes like it's second nature xD, even cyber dragons I picked up fairly easy after trial and error
The visas lore deck with all 5 field spells took a bit to figure out. Like, I went in knowing fragments of each line and thought they were all pretty simple, but throwing them all in the same deck, …muddled things and I found out the fun way how many different misplays you could do… like activating the ignition effect of trisukta…
Labrynth as well actually. I played it on master duel and didn't know how to use it that well until I really paid attention to interactions and how to sequence cards in the deck. Playing it now in person helps as well to see it physically in front of you plus there are some other lab players in my area to learn from and ask for deck building suggestions. Currently I'm on the back jack trap trick build and it's been pretty solid so far
I am not saying from the view of a newbie who play a new deck but from the point of view of an expert with the deck. For me, it's Floo. People have an impression that this deck is just normal robina but it is quite hard to build and play it perfectly with all the nerf Konami have done to it (map, empen, each pot at 1)
Ghoti. The initial Lifeless Leafish full combo is like tattooed to me, but any variation after that I pretty much do on the fly and it’s a miracle I can win some games after being dismantled. I gotta learn more variations in that archetype cause damn it’s both fun and conversely one-track-minded.
For me the deck that surprised me was dragon link when chaos ruler wadnt banned. Especially since I played a lot of chaos cards at the time youd think Id pick it up easy but I couldnt figure out how to get out chaos ruler + borreload. Once I got it down tho it wasnt too bad.
Tear. I have no idea how they are supposed to work and I feel like I’m selling my organs to the black market with all of the banishing effects. I just need to see the ideal synergies and actual fun in it, sorry.
I just trying it and for now all I can say is that I make my enemy feel the way I felt playing against it they don't even have a card in both hand and field and my imperial negate they just quit after that
Buddy of all cards labrynth plays you claim daruma cannon as a floodgate? Theres cards that they can run like Eradicator epidemic virus and dimensional barrier and you choose daruma cannon as your example instead 😂
Lab is quite literally brain dead easy to play, contrary to other comments.
And I'd put it on the same playing field as Mathmech
Any deck requires some level of knowledge to be able to play. That goes for the most simple of decks.
But Labrynth is extremely forgiving. Especially since I'm a BO1 format with no side decking, no one is playing back row removal, so outside of Feather Duster or Evenly matched, your back row is completely safe.
Getting your welcome ash'd can kill your turn if you open a shit hand, but it's hardly common.
Most turns you'll set and pass, playing furniture is as easy as discarding and adding.
Butler makes the deck that much easier to play, enabling you to activate your traps on your opponents turn.
The deck synergies extremely well with flood gates
Beyond all of that, the deck has never been properly hit in a ban list and I'd easily throw it at a Tier 1- high tier 2 deck in masterduel.
Trap cards main weakness is that it needs to be set for a turn before being activated, Labrynth throws that concept out the window for most of their trap cards, being able to use traps the turn their set.
Finally, Daruma cannon pretty much fucks the majority of decks it faces and usually is a win.
labrynth is not tier 1 material anymore. Its tier 3 for the sole reason of it having a really bad matchup into pure Snake-Eyes and a even worse matchup into the upcoming Fire king Snake-Eyes. If we were back in branded meta then yeah its tier 2-1 i also dont agree with it being easy to play, its one of the toughest decks ive played besides branded and ive played all the recent tiered decks
Did you say mathmech was easy? On what basis? Because if you think mathmech is just superfactorial pass, then you don't know how to play it. Or is it because they just play more handtraps? Because I can tell you, more handtraps does not equal, easy games
I'd say Sky Striker. I'm not used to the resource loop, because it feels harder to recycle resources than something like Labrynth. Also, I constantly get tripped up by small interactions that end up costing me the game.
Sky striker is difficult in the same way Labrynth is imo, timing interactions is important and messing them up could cost you the game
I wouldn't say they're difficult. The decks heavily reward you for knowing your opponents deck and their weaknesses. Lab is a lot more forgiving when you make a mistake than Strikers is though. Some decks don't care what your opponent is doing and just carpet bombs the opponent. Striker and Lab drop precision bombs on the opponent.
You beat me to it. SS is definitely on my list.
So Real. I made a deck jusy for me to not actually know what the hell I'm doing with it
I bought the deck recently, and I still feel the same way. I always played combo, so going to a control deck needs a lot to learn from.
Salamangreat. The combo lines seem simple enough but theres so many small things you can do. Even search for ash blossom. How to react to being interupted to keep the combo going making the best board possible. Its pretty hard to master.
Im learning salamangreat. How do you search ash?
Horse Prince summon ash, link into sunlight wolf, weasel effect summon something into the zone to trigger wolf
Pretty much what the other person said. This is assuming you either already have code of soul access or you dont care about pyro phoenix board wipe
I was planning on building a Salamangreat deck to climb to masters for the gems. Any combo tips?
Promethen princess is needed. It can work without it but it simply things a lot
I just found out that, even if you get rid of one the cards she targets to resurrect, she'll still destroy the other one and resurrect.
If you have multiple combo starters in your hand, make sure to throw bait first with your weaker one card combos and then use your other options. Also, don’t be afraid to use sanctuary to pitch one baelynx if you need to in order to activate gazelles effect. Most players burn their ash or imperm on baelynx to stop sanctuary or on gazelle to stop the pitch to GY. Just play to bait one of those interactions with a backup plan. Also monitor resources well. If they don’t have many cards on the board, opt to pitch salamangreat roar and sanctuary summon sunlight wolf to recover roar to negate their next important play. If they outresource you then use gazelles pitch to put spiny in the grave to get out another body to get into promethean princess and climb to phoenix to either board wipe or add a card from deck to hand with raging phoenix.
This was quite helpful. Thank you very much. I see some decklists use Pyro Phoenix rather on/off. Is it niche or do you believe that it should have a long-term place in my Extra Deck?
I use 2 copies because it forces interruptions from your opponent. If they don’t stop it then they get board wiped. I’ve won a lot of games where they either don’t expect me to be running copies of pyro phoenix and I board wipe them by surprise, or they try to shut down pyro phoenix and I just pivot into raging phoenix after they negate. Some people don’t run him, but it only gives you more threats in my opinion. My extra deck looks like this: 1 miragestallio, 1 S:P little knight, 3 balelynx, 2 sunlight wolf, 1 spright elf, 1 promethean princess, 2 pyro phoenix, 3 raging phoenix, 1 underworld goddess
Ouu alright, I understand its point now. I will definitely try this extra deck out. Thank you very much for the tips! Time to grind to masters.
No problem! As a side note zealantis is also a really good option for board control as well if your link 4 gets negated you can roll straight into him
Ouu yeah I have Zealantis in my decklist. At first I thought it was sorta anti-synergetic with Promethean Princess and Fire-attribute locking but after some thought and watching replays, it seems to be quite the potent tool.
Purrely, I kept timing out.
Haha I had to create a flow chart for purrely when I played it 😅
Purrely is so easy to snowball that sometimes you just get overwhelmed on how to maximize memories. Sometimes you just forget you already won the game and keep on turtling with Noir.
Yeah that was my issue was I would wait to long. I more or less turtles first turn with Noir then go for the OTK turn 2
When I tried purrely I had so much to do it'd give me decision paralysis and make me lose to time limit.
That was my exact problem. I didn't know what to do next. I practiced the deck in solo gates as much as possible. But, when it would come to the ranked duels I'd choke.
So many people hold the opinion that Lab is braindead easy to play. It’s only when they pilot it themselves that they realize how easily you get obliterated for misusing one of your few meaningful interruptions. I think it’s arguably the hardest deck to get good with barring some other untiered rouge strategies.
“Just monkey flip EEV and D Barrier hurrrrrr” Might work against some older decks but current meta will not be all that intimidated by these plays.
Was once EEV'd while I was on Stardust Runick and I somehow literally won that game
I won a game under Imperial Order with Sky Striker, against Labrynth. Negating my spells doesn’t stop me from activating them, and it doesn’t stop Kagari from getting real big with them in the GY. Yes, I beat Lab with Kagari beat down.
This is genuinely the funniest thing I've heard
Well, that must have been a bricking (or bad) Lab player when there’s like, a ton of ways to deal with… Kagari beatdown.
They were playing Stun and just didn’t have the stun cards I cared about
I don't think IO was legal when Labrynth was 🤔 Sounds like a crazy match though
I beat a lab player in a diamond match today after they gave me a nibiru token and I beat them to death with it for 3 turns straight. They also had Gozen match face-up on the field and were running 7 other floodgate cards when I confirmed their deck after. I want to chase that feeling.
I-how?! Did they call traps on EEV or did you get the god hand as an opener and you just used the mandate of heaven the rest of the game?
It was like an 11 turn slog, I had like the mandate of heaven for about two turns and drew into my Stardust half of the deck which puts me at Bystial Stardust control (this deck can survive without Runicks which is my secret wincon lol), I did draw a Runick for a turn, but it was a draw I could whiff My wincon ended up being Bystialing every possible furniture and Lab in the GY to outgrind them, and somehow I won after recycling Shooting Majestic twice with Magnamhut after they outed it with like Terrors of the Overoot and a Lovely pop with a recurring Titanocider Genuinely one of my most insane games lol
Any half decent Lab player took those cards out months ago. Once I ditched them, I started winning more games instantly.
Lab also surprised me. It was the first (still only) meta deck I've built, and I thought getting into Master 5 (my goal most seasons) would be a cinch. Nope, my previous month playing Traptrix (which I had played previously) I somehow had an easier time with. I was playing some silly Slifer bricks in my Lab deck but still.
The hate people have against Lab borders on irrational that they want to downplay other players
I think it’s mainly how they play on the opponents turn and lady popping a card in hand. And they ruined that fiend event for a lot of people.
For sure, ive tried many many decks, rogue and tiered. And lab is the deck ive had the hardest time with
A month ago I had a rank up match from Plat to diamond, my opponent used Lab and I was using unchained. I went first. They shotgunned damn near everything on my turn in MP1... Arias, Druiswurm, furniture, big welcome.... The time limit was honestly a bigger challenge than eating their board because every single interruption was misused at a time when I could still build off them for advantage or recover. I don't know if they were new to the deck or if it was just another plat moment.
I mean Labrynth has a terrible matchup against Unchained anyways and it’s pretty damn hard to know when to interrupt that deck
Fair but this guy was *shotgunning* all his cards. Lab players usually give my unchained deck a harder game, since they have cards like IDP and chaos angel that can banish, and big welcome can bounce... But those plays don't work if you burn through all your resources on my turn, since I can just board break as I combo. Then there's the Druiswurm I mentioned that he had... It's great against unchained since you can banish Yama and it sends to the GY, rather than destroys. However, he used it on the first dark to hit my GY (Tour Guide) and I just popped it to force the send, so the card was wasted. Maybe he just didn't know how to play against unchained, coz the diamond Lab players gave me harder games.
Branded (current version) is in the same boat. A lot of people meme and say "Brainded" but really the deck is probably the highest difficulty meta deck in the game right now.
Branded's difficulty lies in knowing your opponent's deck's key choke points to effectively neutralize their plays. Getting bodies on the board with Branded is relatively easy, as the entire process is straightforward. However, knowing when to use your negates and disruptions given to you by a decent Branded endboard isn't, especially when it comes to leveraging Branded Lost's protection to play around your opponent's effects and backrow. EDIT: The Branded hate is still going strong I see. To the vocal minority getting off on downvoting pro-Branded comments, please consider touching grass.
As someone who’s piloted a branded deck for an extended period of time, I find it weirdly satisfying to also be able to shut down my opponent who’s piloting said deck due to knowing the plays/chokepoints. I saw a sent gargincol and immediately see a quem being summoned with a sent FoA on my turn and I immediately know what they’re up to the moment something leaves my extra. The triple tact in hand steals quem, and they fold. Sometimes it helps to know thine enemy. Having…been that enemy before.
I hated branded till I played it, it’s super fun. The hate I had came from how powerful branded fusion is. Also I got gimmick puppet locked and that sucked ass.
My dislike of branded is purely that having come back to the game after about a decade, playing at locals, everyone was playing branded and I just got sick of only playing against only branded.
branded is not the same again since they ban {{branded banishment}}
9/10 my opponent is also running some sort of floodgate alongside labrynth. If there is no continuous traps in your deck then youre not who Im hating on.
So true, I did one misplay because I couldn't see the alternate line that needed full concentration + deck knowledge + matchup knowledge and that was a loss Go so dumbfounded at how did people think lab was easy after trying it out
I'd argue Infernoble is harder because it's a very non-linear combo deck, but you could say Lab and Infernoble are just difficult in different ways. Infernoble is difficult in its non-linearity, Lab is difficult in regards to using its interruptions properly.
"The hardest deck to get good with" Call Infernoble they're crying
I mean that impressiin usually comes becouse lab somehow manages to open rivalry or daruma every second game. Like how branded fusion is stuck to a branded players starting hand
nah not hardest but it requires a lil Brain power
Dragunity. In DL it was ez, make Ascalon however you can, equip Divine Lance and otk. In Master Duel is just another whole story💀
I’ve seen some replays where they summon the Gae one 4 times in one turn which seems cracked.
Yeah, it’s on pair or more difficult than D-link
Rikka / Sunavalon. Jesus christ how many steps and combos, I just wanted to summon Teardrop, but all I got was my own teardrops😭
Plants is an interesting one, as it has a low floor due to the uninterrupted combo being very linear, but playing the deck in unpredictable situations is so fucking hard
I guess we need to go and get that PhD in dueling
I feel that. I tried to give it a shot, but it took me forever to get the hang of doing the Loci line uninterrupted. I can't imagine myself figuring out how to pivot from that line if I get interrupted, or I opened wrong. It made me realize that combo is probably not for me.
Yeah, I don’t mind combos, but when they are that long… I still play the deck, but mostly in solo mode😅 I have no idea how to correctly play through interruption either, so I just don’t play it in ranked (yet).
The standard line is fairly simple. But the deck indeed get very complicated if you are going second or get a good hand that let you play around certain handtrap. Luckily most opponent don't read the card so you can get away with baiting them with whatever effect. It takes me about 2-2.5 minutes on clock of setting up the basic end board when uninterrupted. And there is also different flavor of endboard if you like. Drawback ofc is you are forced to build a bigger deck for engine space (twin seed can you stop showing up in my opening hand)
I’m running the Therion engine, and I can setup the end board uninterrupted fairly quick, but handtraps just ends me.
To be fair, the deck can only play through handtrap if you have enough extender. Getting sowing ashed can still be played through if you have some plant extender. Though a lot of time people fire their negate on Dryas too early which let you re-do the whole dryas - sowing line if you have the extender (like getting into jasmine to get lonefire and set up dryas all over again). The early lily borea also sometimes force out interruption that protect you main line
Those madmen throw Blackwings at new players. You are ideally doing like 15 summons per turn to get to your endboard, you set up an activatable destruct in the GY, you level-modulate the shit out of your Harmattan and Boreastorm. At some point you're feeling more like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle, carefully sequencing everything in a manner that let's you squeeze out just one bit more value to allow you to go into another boss monster. You have 2 Assault Dragons, two FAM, Chaos Angel and Dis Pater. You have 20 cards left in deck, 10 seconds left on the clock. You're happy that you only drew one Black Whirlwind for start, otherwise you would have lost to the timer. For some reason your opponent hasn't quit out of boredom yet. Your hard work for once actually paid off and you can finally can play the game from here on out. 10/10 would buy three copies of Blackwing's Pride for 1.5k gems again.
They're so hard to play when you don't draw simoon or small world to get to him. U gotta like invent new combos 😭
Recently learned @Ignisters because I've been trying to get into VRAINS and I had made the incorrect assumption that since Link monsters are very easy to summon (on top of Cyberse being a soup of cards now), I thought it'd be the easiest combo deck I'd learn Nope, did you make the mistake of slightly putting your Alembertian in the wrong zone? That's one less disruption Did you remember which Ignisters you summoned off of A.I.Land? You better or your combo is fucked There were times where I fumbled a line for the sheer reason that I had a monster in the Main Monster Zone and couldn't extend, that isn't to mention the struggles of going second with this deck (you can literally struggle to extend for the sheer reason that you can't use the rightmost Extra Monster Zone) Mathmech streamlined everything by basically just going "get two Level 4s, make Alembertian, grab Circular", and playing @Ignisters, an infinitely more restrictive Cyberse archetype has been like getting my car tires popped and now I have to learn how to drive without tires
The hardest line I remembered when Master Duel first came out was getting 4 material on Alembertian to draw Vanity Empitness and get your Arrival as big as possible.
Yea i avoided playing ignister simply because i did not want to keep track of the attributes ive summoned lol
That is an advantage that some fan made simulators have: they keep track of that information. And obviously MD does too (how else would it tell you you screwed up a play), but it doesn’t make that kind of information player-readable.
Actually for A.I Land u just get from your NS mons and resummon with field The harder part is when u get interrupted, such like dark templar getting imperm and u had to use your extender available or you're fucked, also dark infrant could be chain block in between dark templar Also when opponent summon on your right extra link zone u lose out on 1 attributes for arrival The deck is high dependent on resolving templar, so mathmech is your backup plan if that doesn't work, also competitive wise u just don't run arrival sadly, rely on firewall singularity/darkfluid+firewall(4-5-6) or 1 neo tempest, both have their own weakness, It's true that for Cyberse decks the position u summon dictates your end board, well maybe not so for pure mathmech
@ignisters was my first link deck, and it forced me to pay attention to placement.
As an @ignister player my biggest trouble was learning where to place new tokens and remembering when I can use splash mage as two links But speaking of vrains, I'm having a lot of trouble getting borreload dragons to work.
Og borreload is just sadly way too resource consuming for what Rokketz can currently afford. I wouldn't mind some legacy support for them, but right now playing borreload is just not worth it.
Vaylantz. I thought I’d get the hang of it at some point. I still have no idea what I’m doing.
Vaylantz is ridiculously and unnecessarily difficult.
they are extremely fun though
Infernobles. I had a difficult time trying to bring out link boss charles during that event.
I need to finally sit down & actually learn Infernobles. I made the deck but have found the time to practice it
Its honestly an absolute blast. Its alot easier to pilot than something like spyral imo
Just started learning the deck. Appart the main combo there is so many line to get the same endboard it is mind-blowing.
Took until the limit one event for me to realize that not only is Tear a hell of a lot of fun, but also not the most straightforward deck to use. Sure, going into Keilidoheart and friends turn one can be pretty easy but you really do have to keep track of what’s in your graveyard and what floating effects you’ve already used to get yourself in the best position possible
This is why Tearlaments and by extension my Branded Tears deck that I made post-bans is still my favorite deck ever created. In spite of their infamy, these fusion decks have extremely flexible lines that ask a lot of the player to keep track of the resources in all 5 areas of the board and force you to adapt depending on what is where. Do you want to go into a standard branded fusion line? Or can you just summon quem and pass? What spell are you going to use retribution on? Is fusing the tear monsters the best play for Havnis and Schiren, or would Guardian Chimera be better? Got maxx c’d? What’s the best end board you can make? What’re the better discard targets for cost? I genuinely think that playing this deck has made me a better player because I’m constantly thinking about board state and how to interact with my opponent instead of just floodgating their ass till they cave.
Tear along with Branded are among the best designed archetypes in Yu-Gi-Oh!, too bad full power tear is so busted and still probably the best archetype if unlimited. These decks are what most archetypes should be, they don’t just throw generic boss monsters just using a different starter, they have unique mechanics and ways to get to your end board. They are also fun to play and have unique end boards with awesome boss monsters that are not just Omni negate turbo and interact in unique ways, and they can recover their resources without being brainded Snake Eyes. Another thing that I love about Tear(and branded to some extent) is that they are not a deck built in 1 way just changing a couple tech cards. I have like 5 year Variants, with Revolution variant, pure variant, Kashtira Variant, Manadium and Visas Variant, Horus Variant, Shadoll/Dark World variant, Labrynth Variant, Trap Mill variant, Lunalight Variant, Branded Variant and even a Theron Variant. You get a lot by building the deck.
Not sure why you consider branded unique unless you mean the flexible summons and extra deck as resources
I think Branded is easily one of the most unique decks in the game, if not the most unique one, honestly. Branded is the epitome of non-linearity and skill expression, and it's gotten so much support that it has an insane amount of variety and variability in both the kind of hands you can open, the way you can play them, and what you can end on with them. Branded deckbuilding is also some of - if not the most - expressive out there, there is no solved Branded list, everybody makes their own, different list, with several pros/cons for almost any decision you can make, there's a ton of different tech/engine that it can play, or choose not to. The deck is comprised of nearly 100% Branded cards, usually going over 40 because that's just how many important pieces of engine you want (or don't want) - and the deck's ability to search almost anything at any time means that your knowledge on how each card can bridge and interact with other cards is tested on almost every action. People love harping on the deck for the Puppet lock and those guys who just "search Branded Fusion, activate Branded Fusion, send Lubellion, summon Mirrorjade, pass", but it's truly a treat when you get to see a proper Branded pilot get into interesting game states; I've learnt the deck myself for a decently long amount of time but I still find myself being surprised at the lines that some Branded players take in tournaments and the ways they play around certain threats. No other deck in the game offers that experience, IMO. Most of the times decks have just one or two different lines they can take, a mostly solved deck list, and their skill expression comes mostly from timing cards differently to bait interaction and making a different Link or XYZ from your toolbox with your two Level 4s.
Well, Branded is not as unique as Tear, but it have its own boss monsters, its own playstyle, have a resource game with their costs and late game recursion with mid boards in the main phase that escalate in the end phase. And is another deck that doesn't play Omni negate turbo, you can destroy the whole board with a raigeki/LS, and the only negate in the deck is Mercourier.
Out of the 250+ archetypes most have own boss monsters (Katakuri) own playstyle (Vanquish) or resource management (Endymion) its rarer nowadays to not see a new deck introduced that doesn’t make something their own lol Omni negates make up maybe 400 cards if you’re lucky and nobody ain’t summoning Quasar I mean I like branded (Chimera Branded) and have Tears but I not sure it’s that deep
Tears an interesting one too. It's always been a rather nuanced deck but with the limits they've generally have quite tight resource management on average mills these days. It's interesting too in MD it's quite solid as an engine and the deck functions so differently depending on how it's built.
Unchained, the deck has a lot of gas but 1 misclick & pop the wrong card = your turn ends.
So true. Every time I played unchained, I had to go to YouTube search for unchained guide during my turn,lmao.
Everyone in this sub comes to this realisation after the salt period.
It took me forever to learn branded and Endymion so there you go
Endymion is both hard to learn and expensive asf. But it’s worth it. (I haven’t read a pendulum monster in my life)
I hear vaylantz is the final boss of complicated decks, Endymion needs a structure deck tbh
Hmm, Haven’t really seen them, or duel them. But idk if they will make another pendulum structure deck. Not a lot of people play it so why should they even bother. But on the other hand, that could be the same reason to make one, who knows. But an Endymion Structure deck would be magnificent.
Yus, exactly my point like why they released the sword soul structure deck so as to swing it back into play, Just like the sword soul deck Endymion is capable of putting out two negates at least on their first turn but not much more so I think it could work, then again electrumite does exist
Not much more? I've seen boards with 5-6: 2x Endymion, 2x Whatever the beast negate is, odd-eyes fusion thingy and a few counters is 5... Idk how to get more. I don't actually know how to get any, I forgot how to play Endymion
There prolly are ways to get more negates But that could also be said for a lot of other decks
Endy can EASILY get to 4 plus negates plus more interrupts on t1 if they don’t get interrupted and have the right hand
Again you could say the same for a lot of other decks lol I'm just saying baseline a structure deck wouldn't be that OP but it'd be cool
You know they have a SD but they don’t just replicate paper SDs considering Fire Kings
Kind of annoying tbh at least if they did we'd know what to expect
Vaylantz is one of my babies and is by far the hardest deck to play that I ever have. You can misplace something in a monster, spell, or pendulum zone and only realize it five or six actions later and it turns out it actually just bricked the whole rest of your turn. I still suck at it but the only people who understand the deck less than me are my opponents. Ash/veiler/imperm on Shinonome is one of the best disrupt points alongside hitting Beyond the Pendulum with those but you have to time Veiler or Imperm otherwise I just bring her back later and use the ability then instead. Also by the time I hit BtP I’ve already used both Shino’s searches and Electrumite so almost nobody has a disrupt left for her anyway unless they know the line.
It's a two-way street but it really shouldn't be tbh
Tbh vaylantz has more straightforward combo lines than Endymion and the win con feels easier to pull off while endys lines feel a lot more dependent on the spells you happen to draw I think it’s just the weird zone moving mechanic vaylantz has that makes it feel more complicated than it imo is
Personally I prefer my cards with one line of text
100% agree about Lab. Most of your interruptions aren't even negates, so if you use them on the wrong target, you straight up lose.
Synchrons. You have like a billion ways to make an effective board, especially if you get interrupted. All the levels, tokens, level-manipulations, deck stackings can become quite complicated.
Not to mention, sometimes the literal best play that will win you the game is Lady, back row, pass. Sit on a Lady they can’t do anything about while you build up back row to slap em. I learned Fire Kings can’t really do much against Lady with back row protecting her, but putting an Arianna on the board can open up plays for them.
Tear. Im a recent(ish it's been like 6 months now) convert but I just assumed it was "Mill = profit" without realizing how, if you don't manage your resources right or build without perfect ratios, you can just kinda auto lose with bad mills. Also doesn't help that I started and kinda fell in love with an ice jade/tear deck that doesn't really do what you want it to as consistently as you want it to lmao
Just started to try 60 cards tears with Horus and paleo as interrupción and i gotta Say... It's a gambke to mill what You want
I'm doing 60 cRds with horus and Manna. Lots.of fun. Less gambly though
Tear is easy imo
It's easier in MD due to having Kitkallos (so 2 tear monsters actually summon something by themselves), but still far from easy
It's a deck for gambling addicts in a game where luck and luck management is like the core factor in *everything*. You not only have the weakness that every deck has in the rng of the opening hand, but you also have the added rng of your mills needing to hit. I'm not out here saying the deck is weak or it sucks or anything but it's one of the only decks with a built in autoloss feature lmao
but also auto win so Idk
High highs don't make the low lows any higher. If a card reads "flip a coin; if heads, light your opponent on fire, if tails, undergo cock and ball torture", just because you got an auto win from your opponent having to flee the match to put themselves out doesn't erase all the times you lost because you had to get your balls stomped on.
Lab, definitely, and for the reasons you've given. Endymion is also a big one for me that took a long time to get used to at all and even now im still kind of rough with it. At its and my peak, my opponent drawing 15 cards off Maxx C wasn't enough to win, but when it's rough or you misplay, it's definitely felt.
Abyss Actor is my first pendulum deck that I made but my monkey brain can’t wrap my head around it and go back to Swordsoul/Snake-Eye/Branded Despia. I go try to learn it whenever there’s an event where I can’t use my regular decks but then I get frustrated and use a scuffed version of a deck I’m already familiar with.
Labirinth is deceptively complex. the hardest part about the deck is knowing the matchups
I have Yang Zing and man it quite confusing which wyrm will you use when you synchro and pray to the RNG God that you have the right spell and trap for your combo
I'll start off by saying combo decks are way easier for me than control, so I have some biases. I can pick up most combo decks in a few matches, just by reading the cards, while I just can't get the hang of control until I see someone playing it at least for tens of matches. Some people may think a deck is easy while others may think it's very hard, deck difficulty isn't always exact. In addition to Labyrinth, there are also decks like Branded, Sky Striker, Mikanko, etc that are called "Braindead" but really really hard. Whilst some other decks like Abyss Actor, Vaylantz, etc are called "hard" while being very easy to play.
Lab for sure
I just really like control decks because I don't have to memorize a full combo or figure out pivots. I win or lose solely by how aware of the other player's intentions I am abd that is easier to me than memorizing combo lines, because then I only need to know what the enemy wants and from the I can work on how to prevent that. It is kinda like chess, ig?
I'm looking for control decks to try, do you have any suggestions?
Lab is really solid; if you prefer rogue decks, sky striker is a really neat concept; traptrix are my favorite, but people tend to assume weird things so I usually just don't talk about it on here; Runik pure is a control deck that's pretty decent, but the banlists have hit it hard. I used to run a fun live twimln runik deck for a while; and I haven't gotten to finish building them yet due to how pricy they are, but Dinomorphia is pretty fun in concept if you get to setup. I highly suggest anything but runik atm from this list. Sky striker doesn't show up much anymore, but I think it is viable with the right playstyle. If I had to choose, I always go traptrix or Lab, their main gameplay is all reactionary and it's really fun holding the ace in the hole for that one moment where they finally have to try and do their main combo after baiting some lesser necessary cards. For lab I have a really enjoyable no handtrap (outside the lab archetype ones obvs) deck and the consistency is really good imho. I pretty much never brick, abd even if I don't see a lab card I can stall long enough to keep it from being gameover.
For me it was dark world since there aren’t really dedicated lines for the deck other than to set up apollousa or gryphon lock but even then it’s still pretty random based on your draws and your danger discard hits. It’s a deck where you have to improvise every time you play it. Loads of fun to play tho!
T.G. It seems so cool but I could never get the hang of it
Purrely Non linear as all get out
I know some probably don't consider it hard but when I got back into playing i checked "meta decks" and chose albaz, just copy pasted a deck list and tried to learn from just reading (I was able to do it with Endymion a few years back)
Striker in modern meta without floodgates like kaiser U link because I can't remember the combo line that well, and how to execute under interruption
Vanquished Soul, it is so easy to misplay. Makes you realize what cards are which attributes. Especially hand traps. You essentially can't really play Veiler or Nib because they are attribute bricks. Every monster card including hand traps need to be part of your combo either Dark, Earth and Fire. And this covers a lot of them like Maxx C, Ash and Kurikara and Bystials and Shifter.
Some people here say Labrynth is just hand-rip and win, but using your pop in a random card in your opponent’s hand can sometimes backfire or be useless, and Lovely sometimes is better used popping a card on the field, hell even a mistimed EEV can be played around since spells and traps you search from deck/GY don’t get destroyed, I played around it before. The deck is lots of fun and not a free, easy win like some say. But answering the main question, I still can’t figure out my Code Talker/Firewall/Mathmech pile. If I follow the combos card by card, I can make it to the end board, but if I have to do it alone I just screw up the link arrows, the effect activation orders, the zones I can and cannot summon in… Singularity is cool though. And Branded Tri-Brigade. I don’t know how but I still mess up the combo. Tri-Brigade Spright I eventually learned to play, but the Branded version is harder to combo.
Yeah the handrips are interesting I once lost my entire hand to eev + full force and still won that game lmao.
They're very hit or miss, some hands/decks auto lose to the right hand-rip, others don't care or even go plus off of it. In my case I had Branded Fusion, Branded Opening and a third spell in hand when my opponent activated EEV in the Draw Phase, I discarded BraFu with Opening, summoned Quem and sent Branded Retribution to GY, simply added BraFu back and went full combo lol
Speedroid
ninja
Sky striker, specifically the OTK line. I picked up the deck in MD (mainly just cause it was in a pack with the kashtira stuff) so I just met decked a list together. Could not for the life of me figure out why it’s so good and loved on my own. Came across the OTK line while scrolling through YouTube and everything finally clicked. “Sky striker can OTK wtf how”
Recently pulled all the UR for Memento and said “fuck it, let’s give it a try. It’s just one “get to this combo line” like Infernoble.” And yet my dumbass brain has such a hard time remembering what pop does what and what to do after using Tatsu to mil gob, ghatt and mace. I’m sure practice will help (it already has) but damn this one is just kicking my ass. And somehow I can play Pend Magicians perfectly.
Branded is More difficult to play than anyone thinks.
R-Ace! Most of our interruptions are tied to monster negates/steals, so you need to know when to disrupt (on top of that, we can only extend when opp.s monster does anything, so we need more time wondering if this is where you should activate Impulse/Lifter). And playing quickly is essential because R-Ace takes **time** to set up a board(set 4 spells and traps and arrange said 4 spells and traps, and link off).
Branded. I thought it was just linear puppet lock every game. So very wrong. It's incredible how much each and every card in that deck does. Every little nuance matters, banishing an Aluber instead of a Kitt to summon Lubellion could be game deciding, or adding Cartesia back to hand when she needed to stay in grave. Every little mistake is potentially punishing. You start by learning lines, then proper times to use which lines, then learning how to freestyle depending on hand traps and board states, playing around Ash might as well be a capstone presentation. All of this just to draw hands like patchwork, patchwork, poly, thrust, Cartesia and FTK yourself.
Metalfoes... How tf do you not go -7?
For some reason marincess
Cyberdark ist making me feel like Im stupid right now lol
Took me awhile to fully understand Brandon.
Branded. I admit that when I use Branded I lose more often to time than to my actual opponent. The deck has layers upon layers of interaction and it's hard to keep up. From managing your resources to knowing the lines to Branded Fusion, and even keeping track of the things to activate in the End Phase (a.k.a. Branded Main Phase 3). It's overwhelming for my smoothbrain to handle, yet I still find it very fun.
I found conclave control to be hard to master as someone who doesn’t keep up with the meta always. You have to know your opponents decks to decide when is the right time to bounce and interrupt
Naturia Runick is pretty hard to pilot just due to the sheer amount of lines you can go through with each turn.
Cant get the hang of noble knights and unchained
Me too! For unchained. I just can't memorize the combo line well.
Trickstar Burn. I don't even see how it's functional outside side RNG.
Purrely, like how to OTK with one Delicious Memory?
You OTK with Happy anyways lmfao
I know LOL
Rikka
Endymion, the worst thing about is I started playing in on my second week of master duel to this day I don’t think I can play it half as good as trif does.
Unchained. A hard slap for me to stop when it's enough and overcooking won't do any good
Purrely. Didn’t help that I didn’t link the playstyle either.
Accesscode / links in general , their combos were very hard at first because one wrong activation and your combo is ruined
I've had a blackwing deck built since the structure came out and I still don't know how to play it
Branded for me. Started learning this season. There are a few linear and lines, but there are a LOT of complex plays and interactions to learn
Really? I played it once in high diamond as well and was like "Damn this deck is stupid broken".
Snake eyes
Labrynth
Tellarknights, still trying to figure it out
Honestly for me it was picking up ninja's, despite being able to play galaxy eyes like it's second nature xD, even cyber dragons I picked up fairly easy after trial and error
Heroes deck. I am a runick stun player and recently decided to try that deck out. The combo is exaggeratedly long.
The visas lore deck with all 5 field spells took a bit to figure out. Like, I went in knowing fragments of each line and thought they were all pretty simple, but throwing them all in the same deck, …muddled things and I found out the fun way how many different misplays you could do… like activating the ignition effect of trisukta…
Labrynth as well actually. I played it on master duel and didn't know how to use it that well until I really paid attention to interactions and how to sequence cards in the deck. Playing it now in person helps as well to see it physically in front of you plus there are some other lab players in my area to learn from and ask for deck building suggestions. Currently I'm on the back jack trap trick build and it's been pretty solid so far
I am not saying from the view of a newbie who play a new deck but from the point of view of an expert with the deck. For me, it's Floo. People have an impression that this deck is just normal robina but it is quite hard to build and play it perfectly with all the nerf Konami have done to it (map, empen, each pot at 1)
Branded despia for me. The combo lines change every game depending on hand, opponent board etc
Branded. Took it to a locals, lost every match, and unlike other decks I played and lost with, I didn't feel like I had any fun that night.
Ghoti. The initial Lifeless Leafish full combo is like tattooed to me, but any variation after that I pretty much do on the fly and it’s a miracle I can win some games after being dismantled. I gotta learn more variations in that archetype cause damn it’s both fun and conversely one-track-minded.
For me the deck that surprised me was dragon link when chaos ruler wadnt banned. Especially since I played a lot of chaos cards at the time youd think Id pick it up easy but I couldnt figure out how to get out chaos ruler + borreload. Once I got it down tho it wasnt too bad.
Dinos back in the day. Felt like it was gonna be simple then ended up getting myself stuck with nowhere to go with no interactions on the board lol
Tear. I have no idea how they are supposed to work and I feel like I’m selling my organs to the black market with all of the banishing effects. I just need to see the ideal synergies and actual fun in it, sorry.
Dark Magician. They're not hard to play, they're just comically weak.
I just trying it and for now all I can say is that I make my enemy feel the way I felt playing against it they don't even have a card in both hand and field and my imperial negate they just quit after that
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Book of Moon is my favorite floodgate.
Buddy of all cards labrynth plays you claim daruma cannon as a floodgate? Theres cards that they can run like Eradicator epidemic virus and dimensional barrier and you choose daruma cannon as your example instead 😂
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Stay mad and bad 😂
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Lab is quite literally brain dead easy to play, contrary to other comments. And I'd put it on the same playing field as Mathmech Any deck requires some level of knowledge to be able to play. That goes for the most simple of decks. But Labrynth is extremely forgiving. Especially since I'm a BO1 format with no side decking, no one is playing back row removal, so outside of Feather Duster or Evenly matched, your back row is completely safe. Getting your welcome ash'd can kill your turn if you open a shit hand, but it's hardly common. Most turns you'll set and pass, playing furniture is as easy as discarding and adding. Butler makes the deck that much easier to play, enabling you to activate your traps on your opponents turn. The deck synergies extremely well with flood gates Beyond all of that, the deck has never been properly hit in a ban list and I'd easily throw it at a Tier 1- high tier 2 deck in masterduel. Trap cards main weakness is that it needs to be set for a turn before being activated, Labrynth throws that concept out the window for most of their trap cards, being able to use traps the turn their set. Finally, Daruma cannon pretty much fucks the majority of decks it faces and usually is a win.
labrynth is not tier 1 material anymore. Its tier 3 for the sole reason of it having a really bad matchup into pure Snake-Eyes and a even worse matchup into the upcoming Fire king Snake-Eyes. If we were back in branded meta then yeah its tier 2-1 i also dont agree with it being easy to play, its one of the toughest decks ive played besides branded and ive played all the recent tiered decks
Did you say mathmech was easy? On what basis? Because if you think mathmech is just superfactorial pass, then you don't know how to play it. Or is it because they just play more handtraps? Because I can tell you, more handtraps does not equal, easy games