DUEL SCHOOL - Deckbuilding Guide - Consistency

A follow up to my last guide, posted ages ago! That covered the concept of deckbuilding roles, now we learn how to apply them, in the context of various top decks through the years!

Introduction

WARNING: THIS WILL BE A LONG, LONG GUIDE. IT'S LIKE 5 ARTICLES, IN ONE. GRAB POPCORN, SIT DOWN AND DUEL!

Welcome back, duelists! It's almost been a year since my last guide, found here, I discussed basic roles given to cards when deckbuilding. Roles that describe the intention and purpose, rather than simply being a monster, spell or trap. Now, we're going to the greatest lengths to put them in action, through a variety of formats through the ages, both TCG and Duel Links.

Whilst the last guide was more of an article, this is much more like a class, with exercises. You don't need to participate in them to understand the guide, but I highly encourage it, to make the most of what I'm explaining today. Fret not however, I won't be making you write essays or equations, but instead we'll be looking at various top decks throughout the years and picking them apart! The goal is to look at these decks and analyse what number of cards they're using in what roles, to maximise consistency and power. Then, we will take what we know and build a deck with it, aiming for maximum consistency in the Duel Links card pool.

First, let's recap what was discussed last time.

Decks consist of multiple cards, which serve multiple roles, including but not limited to -

• Starter Cards, these will offer the widest range of options and facilitate you into your engine
  
• Superior Extenders, In conjunction with Starters, may extend your plays and require minute set up. Often serve other roles, like a situational Starter. They serve the primary purpose of raising your ceiling.
  
• Additional Extenders, Will massively extend your lines of play and raise your deck's power ceiling immensley, but tend to be inconsistent and must be searched optimally.
  
• Bombs, Has a game-ending or gamestate changing impact. Inconsistent, but a power card
  
• Engine Requirements, A portion of your deck that you do not want to see, required for another card to be played

We'll also be adding something new today, Defensive Cards and Removal. The former is cards like Fiendish Chain, Ash Blossom, Mirror Force, ETC. These exist to lower your opponent's ceiling - their power and amount of options. Removal's purpose is to re-raise your ceiling, allowing you to deal with your opponent's Defensive cards and monsters as they try to lower yours.

if you don't know, Ceiling is basically the plays you can make, whilst Floor is the effort required to do them. It's a term also used in MOBAs and other e-sports. So, Ceiling would be the maximum output of our cards, and we want to either raise our own, or lower the opponents.



This is Solemn Strike, one of the most popular defensive cards from my favourite format, Metalfoe / ABC / Paleo. The Solemns are all defensive cards, acting as counter traps that aim to lower the opponent's ceiling and options.

Fun story, I once traded a pizza for a copy of this card. YCS events are wild.

So, with all of that out of the way, let's proceed into Perfect Circle format and break down some decks and put together our own! This guide is very long, divided into 6 parts, or 6 lessons. Which essentially means there's 6 perfect places to stop and take a break to have a stretch and a snack, or resume the next day.

Part 1 - Perfect Circle Analysis

2007, Troop Dupe format is something I love playing on the rare occasion I do. Mostly because I adore all of the decks, staples and strategies used at the time.

We'll start by looking at Theerasak Poonsombat's list from Shonen Jump Philadelphia, 2007.




Perfect Circle is a deck that revolves around OTKs and mass advantage from graveyard recursion, hand advantage and special summon options. You counter the Monarch match up at the time by simply raising your ceiling more than they can lower it, whilst able to have access to unique game ending cards, such as Dark Magician of Chaos and Metamorphosis being easy to trigger.

First, I'd like you to take a look at this list and identify the card roles used! They should all be staple in terms of effects, but note that there have been some erratas.

• Starter Cards - 12, 85% chance to open. Elemental Hero Stratos, all the way down to Sangan are the starters of the deck. Whilst Stratos and Card Trooper are a given, Cyber Dragon in particular functions as a starter due to being instant fodder for you to continue plays, making for DMOC material, a tribute summon of Dasher / Malicious or a Metamorposis target. Whilst it may be more specific than other starters, given the context of the time period, I would argue for this card to be a starter more so than not. This also includes Sangan. Destiny Draw is a given, it's purpose is to get your engine and advantage going, being able to pitch Malicious, Dasher, Fear Monger or Disk Commander, all readily accessible.
  
  
• Superior Extenders - 9, 74% chance to open. Malicious, all the way down to Fear Monger, act as the Superior Extenders for the deck. You can also make an argument for Call Of The Haunted, given that it can revive your Starters to begin your strategy, or revive dumped D-Heroes. However because of the conditions it had, I chose to put it in Additional Extenders.
  
  
• Additional Extenders - 3, 33% chance to open. Call Of The Haunted, Pot of Avarice, Premature Burial. Dark Magician of Chaos, Limited Removal and Brain Control can also be put here, as these cards can serve multiple roles. However I chose to classify Limiter Removal and DMOC as a bomb, whilst Brain Control functions in removal.
  
  
• Removal - 11, 81.95% chance to open. Snipe Hunter, Brain Control, Giant Trunade, Heavy Storm, Mystical Space Typhoon, Ring of Destruction, Snatch Steal, Jinzo.
  
  
• Defence - 3, 33% chance to open. Mirror Force, Scapegoat, Torrential Tribute.
  
  
• Bombs - 3, 33% chance to open. Dark Magician of Chaos, Crush Card Virus, Limiter Removal.

Something interesting about deckbuilding during this era of Yu-Gi-Oh is that numerous Removal and Defence cards can also be bombs, due to the sheer amount of power one ofs present. In modern we would classify Red Reboot, Called By The Grave and Harpies Feather Duster in similar categories, all of which are at 1. Therefore, it comes more difficult and less necessary to categorise these staples into Removal/Defence/Bombs, when a lot of them are Bombs if you're not watching your tempo and making reads. As Yugioh evolves, we can also see Removal double as Defence as powercreep furthers, such as Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit.

So, now that we've broken the deck down, we can look at the individual chances to see your important cards. An 85% chance to see a Starter, 73% for a Superior Extender, 33% for an Additional Extender and so on. This deck is a good example of how a powerful draw spell can also influence deckbuilding, because of Destiny Draw, your smaller chance to see Additional Extenders is increased, in addition they are also further set up by Destiny Draw's discard. Whilst the deck doesn't play a large amount of Additional Extenders, they are easy to see and easy to set-up due to Destiny Draw.

So, what can we learn?

1 - Plentiful starters are good, spell starters are good. Destiny Draw, is a spell starter. Note the amount of monster removal staples, but the lack of spell negating staples being played. This clears Destiny Draw, whilst Monster starters would be more dangerous, due to cards like Torrential Tribute being ran in the format.

2 - Bombs are good, they allow you to have a distinct advantage in your deck, the ability to draw into a bomb. Of course, we don't want an amount that disrupts the consistency of our engine, but having bombs in our deck alone is very powerful.

3 - Removal that doubles as Defence, is good. Such as Torrential Tribute and Mirror Force.

4 - Having the most powerful superior extenders is important, Destiny Hero Malicious is one of the most powerful to exist in the game and raises your ceiling dramatically, so focusing on it gives the deck a big power boost.

5 - Starters that synergise with your deck's win condition is the most important takeaway. Card Trooper, Destiny Draw, Disk Commander, Malicious, Stratos all contribute to the revival cards of the deck and being able to quickly make Dark Magician of Chaos and use Destiny Hero Dasher for additional tempo. Not only that, but removal that contributes to your engine is important. Snipe Hunter is able to fuel your graveyard plays, whilst Snatch Steal and Brain Control let you tribute summon for Dasher, DMOC, Malicious and so forth, whilst removing your opponents cards.

Now that we've dug deep into the cool role application used, let's learn from the numbers.

In a 40 card deck, 12 Starters gives us an 85% chance to see it. This is absolutely ideal, as we want to play at least, 11 starters. This gives us an 81.95% chance to see a starter in our opening hand. Something important however, is not to play too many starters. Consistency is great, but you don't want to be at the point of trading your power for extreme consistency. All the starters in the world won't help you if they can't go anywhere meaningful, or make valued plays.

Furthermore, counting the 9 superior extenders - there's a 61% chance to see both a starter and an extender. However, adding 3 the additional extenders, gives us a 70% chance to see both. Not the highest, but certainly a good number, especially when you include the factor of both Destiny Draw and the deck thinning that Stratos and Malicious provides. So, we would want more than 9 superior extenders in a 40 card deck, to break out of that 61% range. 12 will get us to 70%, but if you are able to play and find the room for say, 14, that number gets to 75%, which is pretty good!

Next, let's put together Removal and Defence into one category, Reactive. We have a 90% chance to see a reactive card of some form, and 75% to see it with a starter.

So, with all these numbers, let's make a chart we can check when deckbuilding!

HANDY NUMBERS FROM THIS CHAPTER

12 of one type of card, 14 of one type of card - 75.37% to see one of each.

12 of one type of card, 12 of the other - 70% chance to see one of each.

12 of one type of card, 9 of one type of card - 61% chance to see one of each.

11 of one type of card, 12 of one type of card - 67.96% chance to see one of each.

11 of one type of card, 9 of one type of card - 58.49% chance to see one of each.

Keep these numbers on hand when you deck build, so you can always know what chances you have to see what cards!

That's the end of this chapter, so feel free to take a break, write down these numbers somewhere (like a Google Doc), get a snack or even quickly put together your favourite deck again, from what we just discussed!

Part 2 - DSummon Karakuri Analysis

2014, YCS Sydney. A format filled with the dangerous Fire Fist deck, with Wolfbark, Tenki and Rekindling. Following is Spellbooks and Water, one with it's amazingly consistent spell line up, the other with the powerful suite of Atlantean and Mermail monsters. Yet the deck that came out number one for this tournament was...

Karakuri?

A deck that hadn't been seen consistently since early and mid 2013, DSummon's win of YCS Sydney is living proof that you don't need to play the best deck to win. Instead, he took his favourite deck and built it to beat the meta, with outstanding success.

I absolutely love doing solitare with this deck, or any Karakuri variant. It's super fun and a great exercise. I'm sure Duel Links players are all aware of these cards, given that they've just exploded in the Meta there. I'd love to pick them up, but I'm not too keen on spending gems and money on Karakuri when I have the deck with ulti synchros IRL.

If you've been out of DL for a bit, or didn't play during their high time in the TCG, Karakuri is an explosive Synchro deck, focused around Earth Machine monsters with a variety of fantastic effects. Their primary gimmick is the rapid changing of attack and defence, as your Karakuri main deck monsters must attack if they're able and when attacked, change their battle position.

The strongest feature however, is the fact that the deck has Extra Deck extenders, in the form of it's 2 (now 3) Synchro Monsters. Karakuri Shogun mdl 00 "Burei" and Karakuri Steel Shogun mdl 00X "Bureido". These are very common now in Link format for the TCG, but at the time, it was insane to have one. Cards like Leviar the Sea Dragon, the Wind-Up Party Boat, Lavalval Chain, T.G. Hyper Librarian and such are all great examples. Instead of being utility or a boss monster, these cards extend your plays and raise your ceilings by a massive amount by acting as superior extenders, starters or additional extenders, right in your Extra Deck. Your two Shoguns will special summon a Karakuri from your deck on summon, with Burei able to change battle positions and Buredi allowing you to draw a card when a battle position is changed. Neither, is a hard once per turn, making for a dangerous pair leading to blow-outs and one turn kills.

So, let's take a look! Same as last time, I'll show you the sorted list, and then we'll divide them and see what roles the cards serve. As always, you can absolutely have different answers to me. I'm simply using these decks as a framework of discussion, the value comes from you being able to identify them on your own!

Because some of these cards aren't nearly as iconic, when we get to my breakdown, I'll be using various Ojama cards to divide the roles in the decklist picture.




FULL LIST: (41 cards)
Monsters
3x Karakuri Komachi mdl 224 "Ninishi"
3x Karakuri Merchant mdl 177 "Inashichi"
2x Karakuri Ninja mdl 919 "Kuick"
3x Karakuri Soldier mdl 236 "Nisamu"
2x Karakuri Strategist mdl 248 "Nishipachi"
1x Karakuri Watchdog mdl 313 "Saizan"
2x Maxx "C"
2x Psychic Commander
1x Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders
1x Solar Wind Jammer
Spells
1x Book of Moon
1x De-Synchro
3x Emergency Teleport
3x Instant Fusion
2x Iron Call
1x Karakuri Cash Cache
1x Limiter Removal
3x Mystical Space Typhoon
Traps
1x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Compulsory Evacuation Device
3x Fiendish Chain
1x Solemn Warning

Now, let's break it down!




That is, a lot of cards.

• Starter Cards - 10, 77% chance to open. 177, down to Ojama Green are the Starters of the deck. Of note however, you can make a strong argument for Solar Wing Jammer and Nisamu. I simply elected to add them to Superior Extenders, as they did not fall in line with the searching effects of this line-up. Although there is only 10 hard Starter cards, the deck's Extra Deck extenders pull the weight of this job, as your Shoguns allow you to combo into whatever you want, or grab the Karakuri level or effects you need. Remember, having power plays is important and with ED Extenders, this smaller line-up is justified. Not only that, but these starters are incredibly powerful. 177 searches anything in your deck, even your starters. Emergency Teleport is absolutely insane too!
  
  
• Superior Extenders - 11, 80% chance to open. Solar Wind Jammer, down to Ojama Yellow. Karakuri is notorious for it's practically infinite ceiling, the deck can do anything. Hell, in my time playing with it, I've achieved my greatest board of ABC Buster Dragon, Cyber Dragon Infinity, Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon, Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon and Number 38. Overkill? Yeah. Impractical and win-more? Yeah. But, it just goes to show how high this deck can go. So, let's breakdown this interesting line-up, once we get into the additional extenders.
  
  
• Additional Extenders - 6, 56.68% chance to open. Nishipachi down to Limiter Removal. So, this list focuses heavily on recurring it's bodies through graveyard play, being Iron Call and the Dragon Ruler. In addition, it plays Instant Fusion to grab Synchro material when needed. Instead of a heavy 3 De-Synchro package, DSummon plays a strong revival line-up that allows him to extend into backrow and removal, instead of De-Synchro, which only resolves when you're winning. Cards like Iron Call allow him to keep himself in the game constantly and play through the attempts to lower his ceiling - which every deck has to do, given how high it is.
  
  Solar Wind Jammer at one is also an interesting choice that compliments this, as he said he only ran the one to avoid drawing into it during a simplified gamestate. De-Synchro follows similar reasoning, these cards are played as powerful extenders that in Jammer's case, is great if you see it immediately, but does not create enough value elsewhere, and De-Synchro for great if you see it as you're comboing, but does not create value elsewhere. Whilst they are not bombs, they are effectively put into this deck as such and an interesting note from a time long past.
  
  I also elected not to put Instant Fusion as a Starter, despite E-Tele functioning similar. This is due to the fact that E-Tele is able to output a tuner that can make Naturia Beast, Black Rose Dragon, Catastor or Karakuri Burei, whilst Instant Fusion can only summon Cyber Saurus (and Panzer Dragon). Because Emergency Teleport has far more options and thus, I will list as a Starter.
  
  
• Removal - 5, 49.69% chance to open. Book of Moon, down to Compulse. Interestingly, you can also put Limiter Removal here, as DSummon used it to out big attack boards and cards like Ophion. However due to the versatile nature, I wanted to put it in Additional Extenders, acknowledging both it's function as battle removal, but also incredible way to raise your own ceiling. However, these 5 slots solely take away from the opponent. They're very staple, so there's no much to explain.
  
  
• Defence - 7, 62.87% chance to open. Bottomless to Maxx C! DSummon isn't very fond of the TCG list and these were the only defence cards he deemed viable for the event.
  
  
• Engine Requirements - 2, 23.17% chance to open. Your two Psychic targets for Emergency Teleport.

Part 2.5 - DSummon Karakuri Analysis

Well, I guess Steam has a word limit on sections.

Interesting list, with a lot of take aways! First, the fact that he's playing 41 cards, instead of 40 with Upstart, being 39. Due to the presence of the two Engine Requirements and your Karakuri additional extenders being rather subpar draws, mitigating this by a few cards with the 41 card count is absolutely practical. Not only that, but the presence of your ED Extender adds both an insane consistency and ceiling boost to the deck, so that the extra cards are fine.

Next, much like Perfect Circle, Karakuri has an in-deck draw engine... again, through it's ED Extenders. Quite nifty cards! So, the strong Superior Extender line-up makes perfect sense and overall, the 3 Iron Calls, the Nishipachi, the Instant Fusions, the Dragon Ruler and the De-Synchro all align together to have your extenders, extend further.

So, let's check out the take aways from this list!

1 - Don't play an excess of win-more cards.
De-Synchro, is a win-more card. If you resolve it, you're already winning by being able to achieve the deck's win condition of putting a synchro on field and starting to combo, being in the position to safely resolve it. It's very powerful so it's still played, but there's no excess. Instead, cards like Iron Call and the Dragon Ruler are used to play through the attempts to lower Karakuri's power ceiling from the opponent.

2 - Starters that provide the most options are better
Every starter here provides an array of options, your three Karakuri starters can search you anything in the deck! In addition, Emergency Teleport allows you to make a range of synchros for various situations. The powerful blow-out in Naturia Beast, or Black Rose Dragon and Catastor going second. In general, cards with more options are better, which is why Limiter Removal was chosen.

3 - You can use higher deck counts to slightly offput garnets
Seen frequently in Dark Warrior lists, you can raise your ceiling by having amazing engines in your deck, such as Emergency Teleport. Alas, those cards will lower your consistency with engine requirements. If you have the powerful and wide array of starters like Karakuri, or the ED extenders... like Karakuri, you can afford to play a few extra cards. Or, like Dark Warrior, which maximises 60 cards for the highest ceiling possible.

4 - Monsters that create value is good
The Karakuri monsters all have really good effects, from searching, to floating, to double summons. This core Karakuri line-up will all multiply, replace themselves or extend. They are high impact normal or special summons!

Now, let's crunch the numbers.

Taking our 10 starters and our grand total of 17 extenders in both categories, we have a 71.92% chance to see one starter and one of our total extender line-up. Not bad! As long as the deck can get into a Synchro, it can extend from there given the rest of it's hand. If not, your opponent is on maximum pressure to OTK you that turn, before you can accumulate the advantage you need.

The big interest for me however, is calculating our 3 copies of Emergency Teleport and our 2 copies of Psychic Commander. There is an exactly 5.72% chance of seeing one copy of Psychic Commander and one copy of Emergency Teleport. Keeping in mind, Teleport can still summon Psychic Commander from hand, but that's one less card to play with. In total, you have a 6.50% chance to see any combination of the two, which is a very, very low number.

IMPORTANT NUMBERS FROM THIS CHAPTER

3 copies seen with 2 copies of a card, in 41 - 6.50%

3 copies seen with 2 copies of a card, in 40 - 6.81%

3 copies seen with 2 copies of a card, in 39 - 7.14%

3 copies seen with 1 copy of a card, in 41 - 3.38%

3 copies seen with 1 copy of a card, in 40 - 3.55%

3 copies seen with 1 copy of a card, in 39 - 3.73%

10 cards seen with 17 cards, in 41 - 71.92%

10 cards seen with 17 cards, in 40 - 73.42%

10 cards seen with 17 cards, in 39 - 74.94%

10 cards seen with 11 cards, in 41 - 60.38%

10 cards with 11 cards, in 40 - 62.06%

10 cards seen with 11 cards, in 39 - 63.79%

Of note, the differences between 40 and 41 are very marginal, the big impact is moving to 39. Take that as you will!

Part 3 - Duel Links Karakuri Analysis

Now that we've taken a Karakuri's biggest achievement in the TCG, let's look at a winning Duel Links list! In addition, we'll be discussing how 20 card decks and skills affect deckbuilding!

Karakuri in DL is, insane to say the least. It's what happens when you put Extra Deck Extenders (ED Extenders for short) in such a tight vaccum of cardpool and deckbuilding - you warp it, just like they have to the TCG. For better or worse, is for you to decide!

Karakuri DL players, you are absolutely lucky and I'm very happy for you. I only wish the deck saw this much success in the TCG! That isn't to say these new cards aren't good though, because they are - in both TCG and Duel Links.

The reason Karakuri is so relevant in DL, is that the consistency problems have totally been solved. By playing 20 cards and Restart, you can practically always see a starter and extender, going into your Synchro shenanigans. I have no doubt the deck will get better as the Rank 7 and Rank 8 toolbox is released into DL. I'd argue that even just Goggly-Eyes Drum Dragon would go a long way.

Interestingly, Karakuri players have begun cutting their copy of the engine draw-spell, something that kept them relevant in DL, the ability to see defensive cards and utility other decks couldn't, much faster. This is most likely due to the introduction of Karakuri Cash Inn and Karakuri Gamma Oil, in-engine defence on Cash's side and an in-engine extender (aside from the new LvL5) on Oil's side. Not only that, but considering Duel Links - the card is very win more. Unlike TCG, you don't need to synchro ladder and XYZ into an insane board, or use de-synchro to keep your tempo. By the time it's resolved, you should be winning.

The deck, basically has it all. Searchable extenders that don't require a normal summon? Well, there's two. An E-Emergency Call? Well, there's one that contributes to the defence changing mechanic. Defensive cards? An absolutely insane one for the format, given that it also has a graveyard effect. A good normal summon? Check. A good special summon? Check. Most importantly, Extra Deck Extenders? In spades.

Let's break down Manju's 3rd place decklist from the Point Battle #123.



Skill: Restart
3x Karakuri Bonze mdl 9763 "Kunamzan"
3x Karakuri Komachi mdl 224 "Ninishi"
3x Karakuri Merchant mdl 177 "Inashichi"
2x Cosmic Cyclone
2x Forbidden Lance
1x Enemy Controller
2x Karakuri Cash Cache
1x Karakuri Gamma Oil
2x Karakuri Cash Inn
1x Trecherous Trap Hole

Remember, because of the skill Restart, the probabilities to see your crucial cards are enhanced.
Big ups to my friend Falchion for figuring out the equation to calculate it, being "1 - [(1 - chance of seeing in opening hand)*(1 - chance of seeing in mulligan)]". I won't be using it here, but I'd certainly advise doing so if you want to use Restart in Duel Links.

So, sorting this into categories we would get...

• Starter Cards - 5, 71.83% chance to open. 177 and Cash Cache are the deck's starters, both being extremely versatile and able to grab the extenders you need to combo. I don't put Ninishi as a starter because it does nothing without another Karakuri, whereas 177 and Cash allow you to grab that Karakuri, or one of your engine S/T.
  
  
• Superior Extenders - 6, 79.34% chance to open. 224 and 9763 are your best extenders, with 9764 able to trigger the effects of Bureido and be used for a 7 or 8 synchro summon, whilst 224 allows you to pump more material onto the board. Both have a variety of uses and raise your ceiling exceptionally.
  
  
• Additional Extenders - 1, 20% chance to open. Karakuri Gamma Oil is a searchable revival spell that raises your ceiling exceptionally, able to let you synchro ladder in different ways and play through more disruption.
  
  
• Removal - 4, 62.44% chance to open. Forbidden Lance and Cosmic Cyclone are used to re-raise your ceiling, through the multitude of backrow in Duel Links. Lance is a very interesting choice, rendering your investments of Synchro monsters able to survive Trap Holes, whilst also rendering your 177 unable to be stopped by Cash Inn when you face the mirror.
  
  
• Defence - 4, 62.44% chance to open. Cash Inn, Enemy Controller and Treacherous Trap Hole. The latter two are staples in the game, pairing them with your big Synchros is an insane board, with incredible pressure. Enemy Controller paired with Gamma Oil also allows you to play through more going second.

Part 3.5 - Duel Links Karakuri Analysis

This is a pretty cool list! It's very optimised for going second, with the inclusion of Lance, Cyclone and Enemy Controller. It's also is running 3 of 9763 to play past a negated normal summon, whereas other lists only play 2. Whilst you can make an argument for redundancy, having the ability to consistently see such a powerful card going second is absolutely insane.

The addition of Restart renders this deck insanely consistent, maxing out on everything it needs except for Cash, which I'd argue would be redundant, given that it only searches normal summons. Here, we can see how the 20 card format changes how a deck is built. Whereas D-Summon had to play a suite of extenders for Synchro material, E-Tele and Karakuri floaters, here Manju is able to condense it into exactly what he needs - 9763 and Gamma Oil, instead of a multitude of Iron Calls, because he'll always see it.

So, let's look at some takeaways.

1 - The ability to play past the normal summon is very important in finding success, in TCG or Duel Links. This is even more important with the advent of the new XYZ box, reprinting Fiendish Chain and introducing D.D. Crow and Tellarknights to the game.

2 - A versatile engine is a good engine, the Karakuris are able to grab whatever monster they need and whatever spell they need, without losing the insane ceiling they have.

3 - Deckbuilding with your skill in mind gives you an automatic advantage, as you are able to utilise a mechanic some of your opponents might not, with Decks that are unable to take advantage of skills.

4 - The ability to re-raise your ceiling is incredibly important, especially with powerful backrow and hand-traps becoming more frequent.

Here's some important numbers for Duel Links deckbuilding! Again, if you want to factor Restart properly, use the equation I wrote out prior.

NUMBERS ARE COOL, USE THESE NUMBERS
1 in 20 cards - 20%

2 in 20 cards - 36.84%

3 in 20 cards - 50.88%

4 in 20 cards - 62.44%

5 in 20 cards - 71.83%

6 in 20 cards - 79.34%

7 in 20 cards - 85.24%

8 in 20 cards - 89.78%

5 with 6 in 20 cards - 53.77%

5 with 4 in 20 cards - 41.07%

5 with 3 in 20 cards - 32.92%

5 with 2 in 20 cards - 23.43%

6 with 4 in 20 cards - 46.11%

6 with 3 in 20 cards - 37.03%

6 with 2 in 20 cards - 26.40%

6 with 1 in 20 cards - 14.10%

Part 4 - Building A Deck!

So, let's take what we've learnt and the numbers we've crunched, to make a Duel Links deck!

I've been having a lot of fun with Gagaga and Yuma decks in the TCG for some funny challenge duels in my Noble Knight Discord server, where people challenged staff under specific rules to add an emote of their choice. Since Yuma's suite is coming into the game, let's try and use what we've learnt to build a deck!

UPDATED NOTE: This obviously did not age well, Onomats received way more cards than anticipated and a consistency skill that completely warped how deckbuilding operates for it. But the theory here is still valid.

First, I want to base the card around the powerful Special Summon of Zubababancho Gagagacoat, a card that will freely bring itself from hand and potentially revive a card in grave. I also want to make the most usage of Gagaga Sister, a card that allows me to freely grab any Gagaga spell or trap. What I'm interested in is Gagagabolt, offering me free removal that I can grab when needed. It can also search Gagaga Academy Emergency Network, a starter in itself that allows me to play through a Treacherous Trap Hole. Other options include Gagaga Draw for recovery, Gagaga Wind to bring out poorly-levelled Gagagas (however this shouldn't be too crucial currently).



Speaking of special summons, Gagaga Cleric is the only other Gagaga SS in the game currently, so I could consider playing three of her. Whilst her level is troublesome, I'm able to use her with Sister, the card I'm building my deck around. Coat also makes me hand so high-tempo it shouldn't matter anyways, as it's the strongest card in my deck.
Dododo Buster is also an interesting card, a Cyber Dragon that becomes Level 4. However, I doubt I'll be able to play both cards in my deck, so I'll have to decide between Cleric and Buster.

However, I do want another normal summon, which puts me towards the ever-powerful Utopic Onomatopeia. Able to be revived by Gagagacoat, whilst also able to summon up to two cards from my hand, rendering it much better than the newly added Tin Goldish and Goblindbergh in this deck.
To raise my ceiling further, I also want one copy of Gagaga Magician. Whilst it's a lackluster normal summon, being able to use it in conjunction with Gagaga Sister raises my ceiling and allows me to play any ranks I want, such as the Rank 3 Djins, Force Focus and more, instead of keeping to the R4s.



So, right now I'm playing 3 Utopic Onomatopeia, 3 Gagaga Sisters and 1 Gagaga Academy Emergency Network as my Starters. giving me 7 in total. This puts me at an 85.24% chance to see a starter, which is insane! Especially given that if I open both Sister and Onomatopeia, Onomat allows me to summon Sister from my hand regardless and make a Rank 6 play. This could be Sword Breaker or Force Focus, both very helpful in breaking powerful Synchro boards.

I'm playing 3 of my Gagaga Coat for a Superior Extender, it's an insane card! Not only does it provide a free body, but it also revives a Gogogo or Dododo from grave, being Onomatopeia. This allows me to keep myself in the game much longer than most decks, as I have a free resource each turn I can summon Coat, which summons Onomat, which in turn, will bring out the rest of my hand.

For additional extenders, I'm playing Gagaga Magician. I can tutor him with Academy when going second and trying to crack boards, since he's so versatile. His only problem is being a Normal Summon, amongst many other powerful ones. We also don't know how many copies we'll be getting, so I'll leave him at one.

For removal, I'm currently on 2 Cosmic Cyclone and 1 Gagaga Bolt. However, I'm contemplating if I should play 2 Bolt and use that extra slot for something else, like an extender. Because of Sister, I'm able to see the Bolt whenever I need, which is able to destroy both monsters and backrow. However, it needs a Gagaga on field, meaning I have to dedicate a card in my hand first. In addition, Cosmic Cyclone also banishes the Karakuri trap, which I'd argue is pretty relevant.



Lastly, I'm playing 3 Defensive cards. The deck lacks the powerful extenders from TCG, so my engine isn't quite as powerful yet. So, I play 3 Fiendish Chain to compensate. Really, this can be anything you have, I'm just using Chain as the example.

So, this gives me three slots left, for my three extenders. Either Cleric, or Buster.
Alternatively, I can cut a copy of Cosmic Cyclone and play 2 bolt, giving me the space to play 2/2. I can also play Dynatherium, a popular card in Infernity during the TCG, to make Rank 4s such as Lavalval Chain.

When playing 7 extenders ( 3 Coat + 2 Buster + 2 Cleric ) I'm at an 85.24% to see one. Now, factoring in my three normal summons, I'm put at 65.30% to see one of each. If I found room for one more extender, that number jumps to 69.43%, which is just short of 70%, which is about what we want.


So, now I'm playing 8 extenders, dropping Chain to 2 and Cosmic to 0, with two copies of Bolt. I opted to drop Clerk in her entirety, playing 3 Coat, 3 Buster and 3 Dynatherium. I felt Clerk wasn't exactly too good since I cannot search her when needed, meaning she can only be used with Sister. Dyna on the other hand, can be used whenever, with whatever. Even if it isn't an engine name, it's able to instantly come out from my hand, which is pretty good for this deck.

I could also play Gagaga Mancer, but I felt Coat would do it's job much better and more consistently, without needing a Normal Summon.

Since we don't know the ZeXal skills just yet, I'm opting to play Restart. It allows me to refresh my hand when I want to see a hand with higher-tempo through Gagagacoat.

Now, let's take a look at the deck and the maths that work within!

Skill: Restart (temporary)

• Starter Cards - 7, 85.24% chance to open. I play a powerful suite of Normal Summon starters, which are versatile and demand immense attention from the opponent to answer them. Alas, the spell card starters that the TCG has access to aren't in Duel Links yet. But the sheer amount of Extenders I can put onto the field does make up for this!
  
  
• Superior Extenders - 8, 89.78% chance to open. All of my extenders put themselves to the field, with Gagaga Coat being the star of the show. They all can be used together, or with my starters to ensure I can quickly access my Extra Deck toolbox. I already discussed how I came to this line-up, but do note that I'm maximising on Buster to ensure that I see it as consistently as possible going second. Whereas Dyna is good both first and second, it just ensures that Buster gets the most value out of his inclusion.
  
  
• Additional Extenders - 1, 20% chance to open. Magician, has no ways to be searched as of current (Outside of Academy). Plus, we might only be able to play one! But, it's powerful and versatile and worthy of inclusion.
  
  
• Removal - 2, 36.84% chance to open. Bolt is a fantastic card, but I also only need to run 2, as it's purpose it to be tutored off Sister. It's redundant otherwise and I'd rather dedicate the crucial slots to extenders. I would love to find room for Cosmic Cyclone however and as the new format shapes up, might dedicate one of these two spaces elsewhere.
  
  
• Defence - 2, 36.84% chance to open. Fiendish Chain, can really be whatever. Forbidden Lance seems really good in this deck! It protects your normal summons and bodies really well. So, this is simply where I would put the staple reactive cards.

Conclusion

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you managed to get something out of this guide, as long and intimidating as it is. Deckbuilding is my favourite aspect of the game and I'm glad I have a platform to ramble about it here. If you haven't, do check out my previous guide, linked in the introduction.

With the advent of XYZ, I'm so excited to play through all the good memories of ZeXal again. Hopefully they don't go too insane off the bat though, since we're starting off with Tellars and D.D. Crow.

If you have any questions, want to contact me, etc, just ask! I have my accounts on my profile, but you can also find me in the Noble Knight discord.

I might make an audio version of these guides eventually, on the NK Discord channel, for those who learn easier otherwise. If you enjoyed this guide, please give it a rating and favourite, thank you!

Thank you Duelists! Remember to go and bring it to em'!

[Darkshanubi]

Have to agree with D/D/Demon this should be in Master Duel's forum, though I appreciate the effort you put into your guides, they are unfortunately irrelevant to duel links players.

[LUUCAAAAAAAASS TINHA Q SER VOCÊ]

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[D/D/Demon]

Why do I find your articles on DUEL LINKS

[Thick Juicy Thotdog]

can't deny that genex controller does indeed have a funny lil hat.

[PJ DA LIGA👽💊]

;)

[Falchion]

hes got a funny hat

[「Beef」]

hi johnny lee falchion please explain why you chose to run 3 genex controller in your gimmick puppet mermail ftk

[Falchion]

im johhny lee