Deck Profile: Shaddolls

A deck profile of the deck I’m currently running.

Hello, Kyle here with a deck profile again. This week I have my Shaddoll deck I’ve been using as of late. I got first at my last locals with this build and tied for second the week before. I lost only to 1 Qliphort player in those two weeks, but beat 3 other Qliphort players to make up for it I suppose. I didn’t have any close games other than the ones against the Qliphorts and 1 match against Burning Abyss because I bricked really hard game 1. So safe to say it works. I wouldn’t really describe it as any of the popular variants running around like Denko Shaddolls or the previous Shaddoll Artifacts, I would say it’s more of an OCG type build, but name it whatever you’d like.

The deck isn’t exactly how I’d like it, but I’ll talk about some of the card choices I might switch around later in the article.

Monsters (23):

• 1 Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning
• 1 Dark Armed Dragon
• 3 Shaddoll Beast
• 2 Shaddoll Dragon
• 1 Black Dragon Collapserpent
• 3 Shaddoll Squamata
• 2 White Dragon Wyverburster
• 1 Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress
• 1 Felis, Lightsworn Archer
• 3 Mathematician
• 2 Shaddoll Hedgehog
• 1 Shaddoll Falco
• 2 A/D Changer

Spells (13):

• 1 Allure of Darkness
• 2 Shaddoll Fusion
• 1 Foolish Burial
• 3 Mystical Space Typhoon
• 3 El Shaddoll Fusion
• 2 Enemy Controller
• 1 Snatch Steal

Traps (4):

• 3 Sinister Shadow Games
• 1 Shaddoll Core

Extra Deck (15):

Fusions (7):

• 2 El Shaddoll Shekhinaga
• 3 El Shaddoll Construct
• 2 El Shaddoll Winda

Synchros (6):

• 1 Leo, Keeper of the Sacred Tree
• 1 Yazi, Evil of the Yang Zing
• 1 Black Rose Dragon
• 1 Arcanite Magician
• 1 HTS Psyhemuth
• 1 Armades, Keeper of Boundaries

XYZs (2):

• 1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overlord of Heliopolis
• 1 Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer

Side Deck (15):

• 1 Raigeki
• 1 Mind Control
• 1 De-Fusion
• 1 Enemy Controller
• 2 Trap Stun
• 3 Fairy Wind
• 2 Breakthrough Skill
• 2 Vanity’s Emptiness
• 2 And the Band Played On

Non-Standard Things:

For the most part it’s your normal Shaddoll deck, so I won’t talk about anything that isn’t out of the ordinary like BLS, Mathematician and the like. I will talk about anything non-standard though to shed some light on my thought process.

The most important part that separates my build from the standard is A/D Changer, in my opinion. A/D Changer is a LIGHT Level 1 Warrior; while he’s in the graveyard you can banish him during your main phase to change to battle position of a monster. The immediate application of this is to be able to set a Shaddoll monster and flip it to attack mode with A/D Changer on that turn to get your Shaddoll’s Flip Effect. This helps push the deck forward a turn instead of having to wait for the opponent’s turn to use a Shadow Games, or have them attack or for your next turn to flip summon it. This extra speed is integral in beating the Qliphort match-up in my opinion. A/D Changer also is an out to Vanity’s Fiend, which is also really important. You can simply summon Mathematician and send A/D Changer and use it to change a Vanity’s Fiend’s battle position and then attack over it with Mathematician. A/D Changer also can randomly combo with Lyla, although I’ve never done it; you use Lyla’s effect and them destroy a Spell or Trap, then use A/D Changer to put her back into attack mode and use her effect again to destroy another Spell or Trap.

There are is basically one main play with A/D Changer. You want to have A/D, a Shaddoll monster and a Shaddoll Fusion card. You’ll fuse the the A/D and the Shaddoll for a Construct and then Construct will send Hedgehog. Depending on the matchup and scenario, you search a specific Shaddoll you want to flip effect of and then set it and flip with with A/D Changer. Against Qliphorts I usually try to get a Squamata to disrupt their first turn Carrier plus Saqlifice play and attack for 4600, additional damage with any other cards. Against the mirror I’ll search Beast, attack with the Construct then tribute set over it for Beast getting back my Fusion in the process and also allowing me to draw 2 then discard 1. Against BA you’ll probably want a Dragon to return Dante, but that matchup is more flow based, so I don’t always do that, it’s more based on what’s happening in the duel for what plays you make than auto-plays.

I run 3 Squamata and 3 Beast, which I think is becoming more standard. 3 Beast because it’s the Shaddoll you always want to fusion summon with, 3 Squamata because it’s really good to draw because it can become any Shaddoll when fusion summoned with, has a large body and probably one of the most valuable flip effects in combination with A/D Changer. The combined effectiveness of all 3 of those attributes makes it worth running 3 in my opinion. I am also in the camp of people who thinks you should play 1 Falco. Most duels I don’t use it at all, it’s a really slow card that really only gets it’s value in 3 turns, which is forever in this meta. It’s also a terrible card to draw, since it gains no tangible advantage when used for fusion summons and also requires other pieces to function if you can’t fusion summon. In addition he gets hurt by Vanity’s Emptiness quite frequently.

2 Shaddoll Fusion might be a bit of a surprise to many, but I really don’t think it’s that important to the deck’s functionality. I would be tempted to drop it to 1 if Burning Abyss wasn’t a deck, but against Burning Abyss you can almost always resolve it using fusion material from the deck, thus I run 2 to see it more. El Shaddoll Fusion is infinitely more useful to the deck, and as such I run 3, like everyone else. Anybody else who’s running Shaddolls, I highly suggest testing 2 Shaddoll Fusion, you will probably not notice it’s even gone, but you’ll have room for another card in your deck.

I run Felis and Lyla. Felis is more or less a preference choice for Shaddoll players, but not really necessary. I like the versatility that Felis brings to the deck and I have never really felt any downside to having it in my deck. On the other hand, Lyla is pretty much a fantastic card for this deck. You could run 2 because you’d probably see it every game with 2 but I don’t think I want it that bad. Lyla is good for way to many things though, it’s a great bait, a great LIGHT attribute for fusions, it mills Shaddolls, it works with A/D changer and it gets through already flipped Vanity’s Emptiness, unlike Denko Sekka.

Speaking of Denko Sekka, I don’t run that by choice, I honestly just don’t think the card is that great in Shaddolls. More often than not it becomes a fusion material because you want LIGHT monsters for Construct, making it meaningless. Also, the reason people run it in the deck is for OTKs, but it actually makes OTKs more inconsistent in my opinion because it increases the number of cards you need for an OTK, but while you don’t have an OTK it’s not a helpful card to have. Basically it’s by definition a win-more card. It makes good hands better and bad hands worse. Lyla does almost the same things but has additional benefits other than that it makes weaker OTKs. A/D Changer provides a more helpful LIGHT fusion material.

Heliopolis is sitting in that Extra Deck looking funny at you isn’t he? The reason behind Heliopolis is because multiple duels I have gotten into a situation where I wished I had a Rank 8 XYZ and didn’t run one. Since a lot of the Extra Deck is fluff anyways, I decided to just add in Heliopolis and I actually won 2 games with it, so I’m going to keep it in. You can make it with a combination of Constructs, BLS and your opponent’s Level 8’s you take with Snatch Steal or Enemy Controller (if only Core wasn’t level 9).

Things I Don’t Like That Much:

I’ve been testing out the Black and White Dragons recently and they’ve been really sub-par. I haven’t really been hurt by running them, but I’ve never felt that when I used them I really got anything extra as opposed to having a generic card in its place. There’s a lot of theoretical plays that sound really good with them, but most are too elaborate to do in an actual duel without getting disrupted, and if you could perform the play in a situation you’re probably better off doing another play or you could simply win without it. The main problem is I don’t really know what I should replace them with.

I also don’t like Dark Armed Dragon that much. Notably I don’t have the Eclipse Wyvern to go with it, but in order to run the Eclipse Wyvern you pretty much need to run 3 White Dragon and 2 Black Dragon, which is 3 additional cards for the deck that only apply when the opponent summons from the Extra Deck, which even without that engine you could gain massive advantage from, basically more excessiveness. That engine also produces more bad hands. I do like the idea of Dark Armed in the deck though. If you open with it and summon a Construct, you’ve pretty much summoned a Dark Armed and can OTK, but if you get it later it’s dead. I’ll probably keep it in the deck, but always side it out game 2 and 3.

Side Deck:

The Raigeki and the Enemy Controller are filler, I never side them in. They will probably become 2 copies of Mistake for when Nekroz come out.

Here’s how I side with this deck versus the big 3:

Vs. Qliphorts:

• Side out Dark Armed Dragon, 1 Sinister Shadow Games & Allure of Darkness.
• Side in 3 Fairy Wind.

Vs. Burning Abyss:

• Side out Dark Armed Dragon, 1 Sinister Shadow Games, Allure of Darkness, 2 Wyverburster & Collapserpent.
• Side in 2 And the Band Played On, 2 Breakthrough Skill, 2 Trap Stun.
• Also, I choose to go first when sided in if possible in this match-up (btw, I always choose to go second with this deck otherwise).

Vs. Shaddolls:

• Side out Dark Armed Dragon, 2 Wyverburster & Collapserpent.
• Side in Mind Control, De-Fusion & 2 Vanity’s Emptiness.

Other Cards I Might Run:

• Soul Charge:
  • This card is still pretty good in the deck and provides a multitude of plays. Not being able to attack though sucks a lot for this deck now though because you need to play much more aggressively against decks like Qliphorts, which I would side it out against most likely. My locals is flooded with Qliphort players and there’s only 2 Shaddoll players (counting myself and not little kids running the deck that have bad builds) and 2 Burning Abyss players, one of which doesn’t always run it and sometimes runs Qliphorts, which makes me tentative about running Soul Charge.
• Call of the Haunted:
  • This card is the most likely option for replacing the Black and White Dragons. I would probably only run 2 at max though, meaning I would still have an extra slot. Call of the Haunted provides more OTK opportunities after a turn of setup and is quite helpful in the mirror when you’re tributing your Fusions for Beast. Once again though, the flood of Qliphort players at my locals make me really not want to run it in the main.
• A second Core:
  • Core is a really good card and does a lot of cool fusion looping plays. Once again it’s a little passive for a playing against Qliphorts.
• Chaos Sorcerer:
  • I’ve always loved Chaos Sorcerer, it provides amazing spot removal, which is good against all the big 3. It’s also inherent, making it awkward for the opponent to use Vanity’s Emptiness on. The only problem is that it’s a DARK monster, so it’s bad for fusion summoning with and also getting enough LIGHT monsters in the graveyard to summon it with is sometimes tough. If I was to run it I would have to supplement it with another LIGHT monster.
• 2 Honest:
  • This was a really weird one. I don’t really run any LIGHT monsters to use Honest with, but it would provide really random OTKs and game stealing and be really good with Construct in the Qliphort matchup. If I ran it I would probably run Soul Charge and potentially Thunder King Rai-oh.
• Effect Veiler:
  • It’s good against Burning Abyss and Nekroz, but it’s terrible in the mirror match and versus Qliphorts.

Well, that’s all I have to say. Feel free to ask any questions about the deck in the comments below, I’ll be sure to answer.

QOTW? Question of the Week:

How good do you think Nekroz will be compared to the current meta? Will it completely usurp the current decks? Will it not even be good enough to compete? Comment below!

Written by: Kyle Oliver