harpie splash

Harpie Tech 2016

Somehow I’ve spent the last month with Harpies. I’ve had an academic sort of fun with them. I’ve tested their Xyz options, many main deck options, and tried to add my own spin along the way. These are some of the Harpie tech cards I’ve tested along the way.

Harpie Deck YCGPodcast

Deck (40)

Monsters (22)

2 Harpies’ Pet Dragon
3 Harpie Queen
2 Silpheed
3 Harpie Harpist
3 Garuda the Wind Spirit
3 Harpie Channeler
1 Harpie Dancer
2 Summoner Monk
3 Speedroid Menko

Spells (8)
2 Instant Fusion
3 Hysteric Sign
3 Harpies’ Hunting Ground

Traps (10)
1 Waboku
3 Mirror Force
1 Blazing Mirror Force
3 Magical Hats
2 Dark Bribe

Extra (12)
1 Elder Entity Noden
1 Mavelous
1 Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon
1 Phantom Beast Dracosack
1 Queen Dragun Djiin
1 Number 101: Silent Honors ARK
2 Harpies’ Pet Phantasmal Dragon
1 Ice Beast Zerofyne
1 Lightning Chidori
1 Abyss Dweller
1 Gagaga Cowboy

Matchups

YCGPodcast Cozmo Tag

VS Kozmo, and Kozmo-like decks

While playing against Kozmos, I found the most success with a Harpie build that can get out Harpie’s Pet Phantasmal Dragon. Since it can’t be targeted, or attacked, no Kozmo card can touch it. They’ll have to rely on backrow or board clearing like Raigeki or Dark Hole.

After Phantasmal Dragon has attacked a couple times, Red-Eyes Flare Metal Dragon is a good option to summon. You can use it to punish/prevent your opponent from making comebacks.

Most of the Extra Deck is useless. None of the cards have enough attack to survive after their effects go off.

If you want to read more about my testing against Kozmo, you can view that article here.

YCGPodcast DarkLaw Tag

VS Dark Law, and Dark Law-like decks

While playing against a Dark Law build, I had to take a more backrow-centered approach with my Harpie build. Cards like Book of Moon, Book of Eclipse, and Dark Hole, helped to clear the field so that all of Harpies discarding and searching tools could come back online. The field spell also sees a lot more use.

If you want to read more about my testing against Dark Law/Masked Heros, you can view that article here.

Elegant Egotist

Elagent Egotist is not a bad card, it just supports bad monsters. I started my testing using as many basic Harpie cards as I could, but Harpie Lady #0, #1 #2 #3 and Cyber Harpy don’t do anything. They’re essentially all Vanilla monsters. You can use the Original because it can be revived with Daigusto Emeral. I could see using Cyber Harpie Lady because it has the highest attack in the theme. I could see using #1 because that provides a 300 attack boost to all Wind monsters. But, these are all situational benefits that don’t pull strongly in any direction, and are barely noticeable most of the time. Which one you choose, if you do end up running Egotist, is up to you. They’re all the same shade of bad.

Magical Hats

I think this is a must against Kozmos, or for any deck choosing to ignore Elegant Egotist. It acts as a phantom copy of Hysteric Sign, bringing its total up to six-ish. If it works, it gets you a +2 and protects whatever monster you have on-board to use as a set-up for Phantasmal Dragon.

Speedroid Menko

This wind monster drops out of hand during the battle phase when an opponent makes a direct attack and changes their monsters to defense position. If it survives, it combos into Harpie Channeler for a Phantasmal Dragon, or with either of the Wind Spirits for a quick Lighting Chidory or Rank 4.

It doesn’t perfectly defend against Kozmos. They can activate one of their Level 4/lower monster effects and drop a ship on the field. It combos with Magical Hats, in case your regularly summoned monsters were destroyed before the battle phase.

Level 4 Wind Spirits

Two cards, Garuda the Wind Spirit and Silpheed must be special summoned by banishing a Wind monster from the graveyard. Since Harpies rely on discarding, its not hard to set up. They also combo with Speedroid Menkoo if you need to do something before a Harpie play.

Harpie Dancer

I ran the deck without Dancer for a while. I realized that she’s needed. She bounces Channeler off the field and replaces her. Since Channeler becomes a level 7 monster when there’s a Dragon on the field, Dancer is the only way to get around that and make a Rank 4, or another Phantasmal Dragon. I run 1 because it’s rarely vary relevant.

Final Thoughts

I was surprised to find out that Harpies had it much harder than I expected. I figured their spell and trap destruction, and their unique Extra Deck monsters, would give them an easy time in this format.

I learned that for a Harpie deck to win, the build needs to be geared toward thwarting certain game mechanics. I spent a month with them and just barely figured out how to consistently compete with a meta deck – that’s not a good sign in Konami’s pick-up-and-play deck design style.

One thing that I tried to cut down on, that I see Harpie players point out a lot, is “bricking.” Coming from a Lightsworn background, if I can’t do a ton of things during the turn, I’m bored. Harpies can spam summon, sure. But they have to in order to XYZ to get rid of their problems. Those XYZ monsters don’t further their consistency, so they’re vulnerable if they face something that their extra deck can’t answer. So, I tried to work in ways wade through backrow and large monsters in the main deck, using the side only as a last-ish resort.

Harpies are enjoyable. They feel unique, and uniqueness always has potential to do something innovative.

 

If you’ve been playing, testing, or trying out Harpies, let me know in the comments or on twitter @mattcarterwa!

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