Branded Swordsoul...

[Hoshi]

... Has anyone else tried this? I wanted to draw attention to it because it caught my eye a while back and I finally pieced it together the other night since I had all the cards.

Example with lots of replays here from namelez, who built the deck (again, not my deck, all credit to him, this deck is brilliant): https://www.masterduelmeta.com/top-decks/master-v/january-2024/swordsoul/namelez/YR8xh

The idea is to bridge the two archetypes using their shared monsters and the commonality of mentioning "Fallen of Albaz" by way of Branded in High Spirits to create frankly ridiculous boards that Swordsoul alone could never manage by itself. These endboards are typically bolstered by the ability to summon Fallen of Albaz on the opponent's turn for spot removal as well as access to the Bystial endboard of Lubellion, Branded Beast, and Branded Regained.

It reminds me a lot of Bystial Runick and I'm sort of shocked that it hasn't caught fire in the same way.

Personally, I've been making tweaks to what he's got there (larger bystial engine with Baldrake and additional Lubellions, picking up Cartesia for Granguignol lines, Chaos Angel in lieu of Gymir Aegirine for more durable endboards, D.D. Crow for spot banishes to trigger many of the deck's on-banish effects, Iris Swordsoul because she's my favorite Albaz lore card and a searchable hand trap off Chengying) and I've been surprised at how consistent it can be for a 60 card deck, nevermind how ridiculously durable it is when playing into handtraps.

It caught my attention because it's running all of the awkward Albaz lore cards I've always wanted to run, like Albaz the Ashen, Golden Swordsoul, New Frontier, and Abyss Dragon Swordsoul. Just wanted to share because the synergy is ridiculously strong and even seemingly pitiful endboards can absolutely explode on your opponent's turn. Really hammers home how well-designed the cards are to interact so well together.

[Takasaur]

I blame the Albaz lore guy for creating Albaz
Also I don't think anyone really mixed them together cuz of them both doing different things

[Exvalcore]

I just got my first sword soul campaign code so I might be able to try it out.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by Taka:

I blame the Albaz lore guy for creating Albaz
Also I don't think anyone really mixed them together cuz of them both doing different things

So long as you avoid ED Lubellion and BraFu, they work together just fine.

The Fusion monsters in ED are mostly there to act as bridges for Branded in High Spirits (did you know that Mirrorjade is a Wyrm, not a Dragon?), which can give you access to any monster that mentions "Fallen of Albaz," including Quem, the various Ecclesias, and of course, Albaz himself, all of which can start your plays.

The deck plays similarly to Bystial Runick in that it wants to turbo out lots of level 8/10 synchro monsters using the ss effects of the Ecclesias and the Bystials (the former returning themselves to your hand every turn or else being summoned from GY off Golden Swordsoul's effect), only with the bonus effect of being able to bring out Albaz on the opponent's turn to yoink ED monsters.

New Frontier is actually a surprisingly decent card (it can use both effects on the same turn, searching and then summoning Albaz), as is Albaz the Ashen. Ashen usually winds up at like 3800 attack by the end of your first turn and he provides blanket targeting protection for your board. He's also a self-recursing level 4 non-tuner, which is great in a synchro deck.

Originally posted by Exvalcore:

I just got my first sword soul campaign code so I might be able to try it out.

From what I've played, Gymir Aegirine and Qixing Longyuan are tertiary; you could drop them for Chaos Angel and Draco Berserker of the Tenyi and probably do just fine. For a while I was running Scarlight RDA simply to have a dark dragon monster on field to get Lubellion out of the GY and onto the field more consistently to set Beast/Regained, since your Bystials are better used as non-tuner synchro material.

The second Chengying also hasn't come up for me, for what it's worth.

[Takasaur]

I would build this deck but I'm broke after VS

[spookywood]

Tried it a couple of months ago. Too inconsistent tbh, keep finding myself play one or the other in a match but rarely both at the same time. Also losing the tenyi cards kinda hurt giving how much utility they bring.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by spookywood:

Tried it a couple of months ago. Too inconsistent tbh, keep finding myself play one or the other in a match but rarely both at the same time. Also losing the tenyi cards kinda hurt giving how much utility they bring.

I mean, the objective isn't really to get into Branded monsters at all. It's like Bystial Runick in that typically your endboard is a handful of level 8/10 synchro monsters plus the Bystial package (Lubellion+Beast+Regained).

The Albaz ED monsters are meant to be used as a bridge into your starters via High Spirits or to fulfill the activation requirements of Ashen, Cartesia, and Quem; it also turns Incredible Ecclesia into more than a substitute Mo Ye, as an Ecclesia left on board can also quick effect swap to an Albaz on the opponent's turn for interruption.

It's pretty easy to set that up in Dis Pater lines; you just banish the Ecclesia during your combo and then revive her off Dis Pater before you tribute him off with Lubellion.

[Ehgk-Zakhari]

i tried it when swordsoul was meta and branded fusion had not come out. it sucked then but it's probably better with all the support that has come out since then

[Hexi]

It's an interesting enough concept, I've played against branded swordsoul but against people with not the greatest builds of the deck. I can imagine that the swordsoul stuff would struggle with having targets in hand/gy to resolve their effects and they could conflict with summon restrictions from getting wyrm/fusion locked. It feels like the deck is trading consistency for potentially stronger end boards but potentially turning off some end board options. The Kash and swordsoul stuff could easily bait interruptions so it does have some going second options. Id play around with the deck myself but I'm lacking several of the ED options.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by gameing:

It's an interesting enough concept, I've played against branded swordsoul but against people with not the greatest builds of the deck. I can imagine that the swordsoul stuff would struggle with having targets in hand/gy to resolve their effects and they could conflict with summon restrictions from getting wyrm/fusion locked. It feels like the deck is trading consistency for potentially stronger end boards but potentially turning off some end board options. The Kash and swordsoul stuff could easily bait interruptions so it does have some going second options. Id play around with the deck myself but I'm lacking several of the ED options.

Wyrm locks are only on Tenyi monsters, not Swordsoul monsters. The token locks you to synchros, but that's all you're really making turn 1 anyhow. Needing to reveal a wyrm/swordsoul isn't as bad as you think; I think I've had a Longyuan stranded in hand exactly twice, only to wind up using him for an Albaz or High Spirits discard on my opponent's turn. Not to mention that Golden Swordsoul is a key card in the deck and extremely searchable as its both a Swordsoul card and its card text mentions "Fallen of Albaz." It's also ideally left in the GY, making it perfect discard fodder for Longyuan right alongside Abyss Dragon Swordsoul.

Branded's fusion locks are on Opening and Fusion. The deck runs neither, or at least mine doesn't, though I've been experimenting with Bystial synchro lines in Branded and I think Branded Fusion could potentially work in Branded Swordsoul as a "the last thing you do on your turn" kind of card, like Nadir, only far more searchable.

[Namelez]

yikes thats a pretty old link, here https://www.masterduelmeta.com/top-decks/master-v/february-2025/swordsoul-despia/nameless9455/n3ChH newer version and also i offloaded alot of the replays to youtube,
yeah its a fun deck, but i gotta agree with spookywood it often ends on just swordsoul (maybe like 20-40% of the time feels like (sometimes just swordsoul is enough though), the branded pieces are better at searching swordsoul but the swordsoul half cant search the branded pieces at all

[Terminal Desolation]

Originally posted by Namelez:

yikes thats a pretty old link, here https://www.masterduelmeta.com/top-decks/master-v/february-2025/swordsoul-despia/nameless9455/n3ChH newer version and also i offloaded alot of the replays to youtube,
yeah its a fun deck, but i gotta agree with spookywood it often ends on just swordsoul (maybe like 20-40% of the time feels like (sometimes just swordsoul is enough though), the branded pieces are better at searching swordsoul but the swordsoul half cant search the branded pieces at all

this thread is over a year old bro of course the links are old

[Steven]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.