I’m generally known here, at the Yugioh Card Game Podcast, for coming up with random maybe-not-so-good ideas (haha). When deck building, I often times throw caution to the wind and just build.
When I think of a “Deck Idea”, often times it’s nothing more than a “Situation.” I have a specific action, play or “set-up” that I want to achieve. At this point in the deck-building process, I’m generally not concerned with what the rest of the deck may do. I’m just looking to achieve that “Situation.”
For instance, I’m thinking:
I want to use Leviair the Sea Dragon to bring back an Elemental HERO Stratos.
From there, you work backwards by figuring out the steps it takes to get there. You ask questions like:
How do I banish the Stratos?
What LV3 Monsters fit with the direction I’m going?
What cards make this situation happen easily?
I try to answer these questions with the first things that come to mind. Maybe I want to use Marauding Captain and a nice LV3 Water monster. That might give me more access to Absolute Zero. I do it this way because I’m not trying to make the deck pretty, just functional.
The goal is to test the scenario, and if it fails, choose one of two options: Try Again or Dont Try Again. At the very least, you’ve learned how a group of cards work together. They might be missing one more parts that allows them to suit you and your play-style.
With so many cards in the game, I look at “Scenario Testing” as a way of bringing cards I want to use out of the background and into my current play-style.
Use Don Turtle, Snake Rain, and Salvage for a Rank 3 Engine. Or run Rabbit HEROes with Tour Guide, Fusion Gate, and Miracle Fusion like I do.
Salvage + Don Turtle is a nice suggestion, thought it’s hard to justify Snake Rain since the pool of reptiles is so shallow. Gale Lizard is a LV4 Water Reptile to consider, it bounces an opponent’s monster back to the hand with its flip effect and it’s also a Salvage target.
Rabbit Heroes and Tour Guide are both good options to achieve the situation as well. I’ve watched Justen tweak his new Glad-beast deck to have access to Leviar with, I think, double Retiari coming out after a successful Gyzarus attack. Glads also have Test Tiger for more LV3 access.