Compliation of Duel Masters most common deck archetype

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lmaotan
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:54 pm

Compliation of Duel Masters most common deck archetype

Post by lmaotan »

Hey guys whats up Lmaotan here. What i am going to write below is a serious case of tl;dr on duel masters deck types for those who are still interested in DM. English is my second langauge i hope you guys can forgive me for any vocab/grammar errors. I hope i can share my knowledge of dueling over the years
note that this article/compliation :
1. is entirely my original work AND opinion, critisism and improvements are welcomed , and i may be wrong in certain areas, do comment to help improve!
2. will not cover ALL deck types but the more common ones, because otherwise i have to include "very-weirdly-special-innovative-decks-that-work" created by Bell and others.
3. Part of the reason of not including those uncommon but tier 1 deck type is also largely due to me lacking the knowledge to explain those decktypes.
4. important portions are bolded
2 civilization decks
Water/ Nature (UG or WN) deck
Key cards : Bronze arm tribe / quixotic hero swine snout / fighter dual fang / crystal lancer / aqua hulcus / aqua surfer

concept :
This type of deck (Liquid beast) is very strong in the early developing stage of DM where only a few sets of cards were available. Both Crystal lancer and Fighter Dual Fang are very strong evolutions in set 2, with an amazing cost-power ratio as compared to other evolutions. Most importantly, they both possess 2 of the strongest utility effect at that point of time(unblockable and mana acceleration). Also, it's evolution baits are plenty and pretty amazing!

To put this deck simply, it should be described as "dual-evo-high-acceleration" deck. It is very difficult to "shut down" this deck with discard and destruction due to the fact that aqua hulcus and bronze arm tribe generate and replenish both mana and hand resource, which would help the user recover well in a bad situation. Once this deck gets rolling, the big evolutions will start to come and become huge threats.

The reason why W/N decks has fallen off the favorites is due to the influx or newer sets, providing much better cards to outclass this decktype. Without a doubt, the release of quixotic hero swine snout and several other japanese cards certainly boosted the power of this decktype by enhancing more variety of cards, however, with the introduction of petrova, the channeller of suns, it is better to run L/N instead of W/N due to the fact that petrova does so much for beast folks(discussed later in L/N). Moving on, the sudden influx of RUB control decks with bolmeteus also outclasses W/N decks, as they can effectively disrupt and stall safely for Bolmeteus to arrive, something which W/N have little to answer to except bouncing.

Pro tip : its better to run L/N petrova beast instead of W/N liquid beast now. The little utility Water civilization can provide you is LARGELY outclassed by the sheer overwhelming power the Light civilization can provide you.

Fire/Light (RY) decks
Key cards: Tuk the oracle / Deadly Fighter Braid Claw / Holy awe /sol galla , halo guardian / fuuno , officer of the bloody winds

concept:
Fire/Light rush decks are considered the strongest type of rush, making use of Light civilization's additional four copies of 1-drop creature namely Tuk, the oracle along side Deadly Fighter Braid Claw. This is something the other civilizations are not able to offer, a 1 drop creature that is able to swing shields without huge effect drawbacks. Having 8 copies of 1 drops in a 40 carded deck means you would mathematically have a higher chance of getting a 1 drop to summon in your starting hand, which is VERY important for rush decks, and EXTRA important for mirror matches. With new feature Mulligan (although its CF), the option to refresh into 1 drop gets even higher.

There are a few reasons why i think this particular type of rush forms the best rush of all.
Firstly, if you are unaware, Fire/Light rush won the world championships held in NYC,beating several other strong decktypes and came out winning consistently.
Secondly, i have actually tried all possible combinations of 2 civilization rush, and came to conclusion that Fire/Light would form the most consistent rush among all my decks. This was all in a journey on proving a point made in my RUSH DECK article, which unfortunately got removed. For those who are interested , it is a parody that makes fun of a certain pro player's control deck article.
Lastly, there is a secret tactic hidden which even until today, not many duelists know of, which i am willing to share now since DM has pretty much reached it's end - is the power of Holy Awe in rush. More often than not, you will inevitably find yourself in "lock-down" situations where by the opponent's control or assault deck will reach a point where they "freeze" the game. "Freezing" can be done by stalling with blockers and destroying everything you summon without attacking your shields. And this is due to the fact that you have swinged all his shields and his best bet is to bring the game into late game where rushes dont thrive, and aim for a one-turn kill or something similar for that matter. Holy Awe in this case can serve as that silver bullet that breaks past every single blocker (even Yuliana) and allow you to take the game. I personally have played ALOT of such games with varying situations. For example, i played this match against a W/L guardian deck where he could not attack my last shield holy awe because he will lose the next turn if all his creatures are left tapped, in the end , he lost due to deckout.
The true beauty however, does not lie just on this. For mirror match (rush vs rush) , which not many duelist i know have alot of experience on, HOLY AWE IS SIMPLY THE BEST CARD IN THAT MATCHUP. The fact that there is a chance Holy Awe CAN be in your shields serves as a big advantage in a mirror match best of three. Obviously stuff like which party starts first and getting 1-drop right off the bat in turn 1 is important as well, but having Holy Awe in shields is extremely devastating and game breaking.

Early forms of fire/light rush consisted mainly of the key cards mentioned above, and with newer cards released, fuuno,officer of the bloody winds as well as the nomad warrior guy (2 cost 4k effect : loses 1 mana after death), fire/light has been looking stronger than ever.

Pro tip: USE holyawe, its simply awesome against any decktype. You may argue that other combination of rush can still splash holy awe, but they cant make use of the light mana can they ? ;) Also, Tuk is BEAST.


Water/ Darkness (UB) deck
Key cards : aqua hulcus / aqua surfer / crystal lancer / hydrooze, the mutant emporor / corile / locomotiver / terror pit / cranium clamp / jenny , the dismantling

concept:
Water/darkness deck is one that i have ALOT of experience on. I played one for a good 2 years, and that was actually my main deck back then, which helped me secure a local tournament win. There are quite a few successful ways of building Water/Darkness, such as Bell's Hydrooze deck Ocean of life, which focuses more to the battleish aspect of the cards (hydrooze , aqua soilders). However in here , i am going to share with you the more tradtional way of building an Water/Darkness.

myth #1 : Water/Darkness is weaker than RUB because it doesnt have mass kill GG.
fact : Water/Darkness is a decktype where strangely i dont think mass kill is that important in. The key to fighting assault decks is to discard safely if they have no handguards , and deny them with bounce / destruction. Although this combination of civilization does not have the sweetest blockers, water/darkness decks generally have a higher % of shield triggers in them as compared to other deck types, good ones like aqua surfer/terrorpit/locomotiver/spiralgate. I however will admit though, i honestly feel water/nature/darkness deck outclasses water/darkness deck 95% of the time. The real challenge actually comes when you transit into late game with UB deck. There arent many good finishers to begin with, crystal lancer is lackluster in terms of being the "finisher" by experience. However, you have a very potent mid game with UB deck, so make use of that!

myth #2 : Water/Darkness is not the best discard deck, [insert deck] is better!
fact : There isnt a single decktype that can truely "outtrade" a water/darkness deck in terms of discard or hand advantage in general. The combination of discard and draw along with retrival and revival will automatically win you the trade. I have beaten COUNTLESS RUB/GRUB decks with my water/darkness main because my understanding towards the matchup is very strong. Note that those decks with different civilization combination may do better in other aspects (such as having mass kill from fire or gaining accleration from nature), NOBODY beats W/N in discards.

In the first local tournament i won, i met this guy who registered 2 of his decks into the tournament, where i mercilessly beat him 2-0 on both decks. The problem with him was not about deck building, he actually. had both decks decently built (although its mainly just variant of popular decktype) The problem lies in his inability to understand the matchup.
In my encounter with him, he was using the most standard Fire/Water/Darkness RUB bolmeteus deck known to man, and another nature/darkness ballom deck, while i was using my water / darkness main deck. In both of the matches, he foolishly tries to outtrade me in hand advantage , thinking that he can out discard me.
What happened was, before this torunament , i already came prepared knowing that discard would be the favourite of the month. I ran 3x corpse chargers 4x locomotiver 2x cranium clamp without lost souls. What happened every single game was i got corpse charger and locomotiver in my hand during turn 4 - 5, and which ever he discarded would actually give me an advantage over him. What he SHOULD have done is not to trade discards with me , but rather focus on building up his resources (even if it means using volcano charger without destroying anything) and draw more than he discard. With Fire civilization , he actually can outscale me pretty hard later into the game, but both game he got so focused on the discard war that he ended up with low mana and handless everytime.

Pro tip:
1.Do not back out on a discard war, you'll win.
2.Mid game is where UB decks are strongest, capilize on it
3.i actually ran 0 lancers and only use paladin at one point in time because the meta was too fast for lancer to fit in , and it worked perfectly.
4. gigajabute loop imbalanced xD

A side point i want to make from here, Referring to the situation just now, In most mirror matches of disruption decks (it can be RUB vs GRUB, RYB vs UB), Corpse charger along with a discard creature is extremely potent. I thought about the matches in detail after i defeated that 2 deck dude from the tournament and i came up with a secret strategy that i have been using for my games. There was a period of time where Jenny , the dismantling was just realeased and several duelists questioned the balanceness of that card in KP. I basically dueled veteran disruption player Magmarex almost everyday and there was a strange thing that was happening. Both of us would always have jenny/loco along with corpse charger in our hand during turn 4 - 5. And whichever party to use Jenny on the other would be forced to make the decision of discarding jenny OR corpse charger. This is an EXTREMELY difficult choice to make.
Discarding jenny would mean the opponent can make corpse charger -> jenny counterplay and snowball into oblivion with resource advantage.
Discarding corpse charger would allow your opponent to immediately make a jenny play next turn.
It is these little secret things in dueling that makes it fun, seperating the good players from great ones. I always believed TCGs are not meant to be 100% deck building.


Fire/ Darkness
Key cards: Mongrel man / locomotiver / terror pit / blizzard of spears / volcano charger/ bloody squito

concept:
To be honest i am not all that sure about this deck type, it is very common but most of these decks are poorly built. I added this section specifically because i think a very well-built fire/darkness deck is actually very devastating. I personally dont like to play one because the lack of water civilization is kind of meh to me.
HOWEVER! i am going to share with you one secret trick that nobody knew. <<The secret to beating Nerafim's P3 consistently >> vol 1. to begin with i need to give some background story to this book.
There was a period of time where famous duelist Nerafim created and succesfully market out his main deck P3 and bought the attention of everyone in the dueling world, including the goddess of Dueling Bell. There were several variants of P3 but most of the players didnt knew exactly how the deck works and ends up being engulfed into eteral darkness of battle defeats. SUDDENLY, a heroic icon appear out of nowhere, young LeoMotane, arrived to save the world from the wrath of nerafim's P3.
What he did was to study the deck , and by dismantling and analysis the deck , he realised that a very very well built sustainish fire/darkness deck will consistently beat P3. Truely enough, it crushed every single variant of P3.
When the time of the final battle comes, Nerafim was shocked when his main deck got defeated. LeoMotane saves the day.
tl;dr -> well built fire/darkness which is able to sustain or getby P3's early dominance of cannonball slights and vinechargers and swap abuses, > P3.

pro tip: I dont have much experience on this deck except the time i counter build this deck to try to consistently beat P3 (out of boredom), maybe we can invite bell to do a special section on this.

Light / Nature Key Cards: Petrova, channeller of suns/ bronze arm tribe / quixotic hero swine snout / veema,the freaky totem/ barkwhip,the smasher/ skysword/sanfist,the savage warrior

Concept:
As discussed earlier, this is a stronger version of Liquid Beast. The concept of this deck is actually very simple, summon lots of beast folks and power them up with petrova. Draw power is compensated by having magris / get ready. Choice of adding initates into the mix or not lies on the player. Full beast folk build works as well because of veema and barkwhip able to reach ridiculous amount of power plus double breaker.

One of two common ways to build petrova , the other one being guardian wall petrova. Arguably petrova beasts is stronger due to the fact that it offers better usage of power and progresses and scales better than guardians. A 2-drop -> bronze arm tribe -> into petrova immediately sets up 3 hug threats in the field which cant be removed by targetted destruction spell. The deck is also highly defensive. Having handguards in the form of Sanfist, draw power via get ready or magris , strong blockers from light civilization as well as shield regen via skysword makes the deck solid as a rock.

Pro tip: Never be afraid to 4x Petrova it bro , petrovas always good
Last edited by lmaotan on Thu Jan 17, 2013 8:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
lmaotan
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:54 pm

Re: Compliation of Duel Masters most common deck archetype

Post by lmaotan »

3 civilization decks


Darkness / Water / Fire (RUB or DWF) deck
Key cards: Bolmeteus Steel Dragon / Corile / Lost soul / apocalyse vise / aqua hulcus / terror pit

Concept:
Most of duelists should be familiar with this particular deck type, because it has reign over most part of English Duel Masters for a long time. The key strategy behind this deck is to "protect" Bolmeteus Steel Dragon, even before it hits the field. I strongly believe that Bolmeteus is the only card (at least from set 1 - 17) that is worth spending the whole deck to "protect" for. It's amazing ability to deny opponent from getting any shields at all is unmatched by all other cards. Bolmeteus is certainly a huge threat to the opponent and a decent late game creature.

Darkness -> The deck uses discards such as locomotiver and lost soul to prevent the opponent from making a counterplay once the player summons Bolmeteus into the field. At the same time, discarding the opponent would help protect Bolmeteus itself to be discarded. Lastly, creature revival provided by Darkness enables Bolmeteus to be run at 2 or even single copy without fear that it will be forever lost in the graveyard via discarded or destroyed. Destruction spells like Terror pit also serves as a good shield trigger and an answer to any "biggie" the opponent has to offer.

Fire -> Fire is the most straight forward addition to this deck, due to the fact that bolmeteus itself is a fire creature. What fire offers to the deck is cheap ping kills via the likes of crimson hammer and volcano charger, or swarm kill (a.k.a mass kill) such as blizzard of spears or apocalypse vise.

Water -> I actually have very different view from alot of duelists when it comes to the water civilization's true role in a RUB. The common thought i have gathered is that water is there for it's draw power. This is true only for disruption vs disruption matchup where the opponent runs discard too. Being able to draw more to reach out to your much needed key card to win the game such as lost soul is crucial in such matchups. However, drawpower is highly useless against most assault and rush decks. From experience, such aggressive decks that usually swing shields right off the bat will not provide you with the time to breathe to draw cards, in fact , nothing is more irritating than drawing into more draw cards.
The true purpose of water in this deck in my opinion, is corile. I had to learn it the hard way, where i am forced to admit that corile was the best thing to have happen to every disruption duelists. If you were given a choice between corile and a lamboghini, you'll hestitate, because corile has arguably the strongest effect in this game that NO other cards share. The reason why RUB is considered the best decktype aside from bombazar blue is due to the fact that it is able to handle a WIDE variety of decks, and almost always have an answer to almost everything that is thrown at the user. The reason for this is largely because of corile. In my opinion, people who do not understand the true value of corile will never be a good disruption duelist. It is a card that is too good to pass up because it has too many functions in one card.Corile is the only answer a RUB has towards stuff like alcadeious. It was the reason why more than 80% of all evolutions are considered thrash. In short , corile is your " get out of jail free" card or simply an easy way out to some of the huge threats that may appear.


Although KC DM had nerfed some very core cards of RUB decks, it is infact still very viable outside English Duel Masters. initally the transition faced several challenge such as reducing the card count from the usually 50 into 40, and adjusting against the card changes to popular RUB favourites such as cranium clamp and corile. The deck may have been weaken because of the removal of those key cards, but still remains fundamentally strong , and the strategy of "protect" bolmeteus is still very intimidating to duelists.

pro tip: There are simply too many different versions of RUB. In some you see people go for a more late game orientated build consisting of bazagazeal dragon for lock down, in some you may see focus more on early game removals to deal against agressive decks. Ideally the deck should be balanced, but no 1 deck can truely dominate against ALL other deck, but if there is one decktype that can fare well against all type of decks, it has to be a RUB.

Fire/ Water / Nature (RUG)Key cards: Twin cannon skyterror / bronze arm tibe / aqua hulcus / rumbling terahorn / soulswap

concept:
i prefer not to talk about bombazar here even though it is arguably the most impactful thing that has ever happen to DM to deserve a ban. So for this section i prefer to keep it as a normal RUG assault deck.

I ran a RUG assault as my main deck for a period of time, and even though i was not the one who came up with this deck type, i did not actually copy any deck. I formed the deck from scratch and it just happened to be "any common rug". The way to build it is not as important because this type of assault deck usually have little variation in them. What is important is to understand the thought process to these decks and analyse them.

The key strategy of this deck is VERY straight forward, to swing shields right off the bat and finish the opponent as fast as possible. This is done not through 1 or 2 finisher cards , but rather the deck as a whole. Some of the key features of this decktype is that once it gets into it's progression without much interuption, it has one of the best potentials to be VERY hard hitting and almost unstoppable. It's ability to handle disruptions is second to none because of it contains mana acceleration/draw power/speed attackers/high powered creatures. It focuses on the ability to recover rather than the ability to be immovable. a very prominent and overlooked feature of this deck that i feel many have overlooked is that this deck type provides the user with the BEST top decks ever. I personally have landed into many inevitable situations whereby i topdeck. If the deck is properly built, about 90% of the deck will be good topdecks.

some of the standard progressions of this deck includes
Gonta, the savage warrior -> bronze arm tribe -> windaxe, the savage beast -> twin cannon sky terror
OR
Quixotic hero swine snout -> bronze arm tibe -> rumbling terahorn -> magmadragon jalgazor

most of the time, these progression are entirely possible and not just theory crafting because the likelyhood of these cards appearing is very high.
All in all this deck is pretty straight forward and i would recommend any beginner this deck because of the fact it is simple and is without complicated synergy/combo in many disruptions deck. the ONLY thing that a duelist needs to take note of is Soulswap in this deck. Soulswap is pretty key in this deck, because it allows the duelist to make plays beyond limits. i personally believe that soulswap will make it to top 3 cards in duelmasters ANYDAY. Detailed use of soulswap will not be discussed by usually it is used on smaller creatures into twin cannon/ jalgazor or immediately swapping a summoned creature for a speed attacker for instagibb.

pro tip: If a card does not add more cards to your hand or gets you another creature into the field, it probably doesnt belong to this deck.
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Rashaskool
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Re: Compliation of Duel Masters most common deck archetype

Post by Rashaskool »

A good read, and well written, well done.
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