Let’s Make MPB: Extra Deck

Back again, more Mecha Phantom Beasts again, but this time we talk about the Extra Deck.

The Extra Deck is one of the most crucial pieces to a Mecha Phantom Beast deck. I found out pretty quickly that you need a constant stream of Tokens on the field to be most effective and what better way to gain that than their ace monster Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack.

We’re all pretty familiar with Dracossack by now because of the prolific Dragon Ruler decks we’ve been seeing since last format. It’s no less of a slouch here than in Dragon Rulers, but he takes on a couple new roles for the deck. While in most instances yes, you will use his effect to destroy cards, it’s more likely that you’ll benefit in a Mecha Phantom Beast deck from his ability to generate a lot of Tokens.

Once the deck has 1 Dracossack on board, every other Mecha Phantom Beast monster comes on line. Both Hamstrat and Megaraptor can get their effects pretty easily and aren’t vulnerable to destruction. You also have the ability to counterattack without attacking with Dracossack’s destruction effect. You’ve basically got it made as soon as you get a Dracossack gets on the board in this deck. The problem then becomes getting it on the field.

This is a pretty strange issue for the original set of Mecha Phantom Beasts because it requires a lot of setup. (it’s kind of strange to complain about this, but the best decks in the format usually require minimal setup to obtain boss monsters or controlling fields. This deck on the other hand actually has to work for its boss monsters, which is fair, but puts it at a disadvantage. I would like every deck to suffer from this flaw, but it seems too late for that when we’ve got super easy boss monsters to use like Grapha floating around at every corner) The original set has almost no ways to put 2 Mecha Phantom Beast monsters on the field in one turn, this meant one of two things: run cards that crash Mecha Phantom Beasts onto the field or run outside the archetype monsters that provide Level 7’s. Both of which where pretty necessary. Then came along the new set, two of which also suffer the same issue and two of which are Tuners, which is important.

Mecha Phantom Beast Warbluran
300 ATK / 300 DEF
WIND / Machine / Level 1 / Tuner

If this card is sent to the Graveyard for the Synchro Summon of a Machine-Type monster: Special Summon 1 “Mecha Phantom Beast Token” (Machine-Type/WIND/Level 3/ATK 0/DEF 0), also, for the rest of this turn, you cannot Special Summon any other monsters, except WIND monsters. While you control a Token, this card cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects. You can Tribute 1 other “Mecha Phantom Beast” monster; increase this card’s Level by 1. You can only use 1 “Mecha Phantom Beast Warbluran” effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Mecha Phantom Beast Blue Impala
1400 ATK / 1100 DEF
WIND / Machine / Level 3 / Tuner

Cannot be used as a Synchro Material Monster, except for the Synchro Summon of a Machine-Type monster. The other Synchro Material Monster(s) are “Mecha Phantom Beast” monsters in your hand or on your side of the field. While you control a Token, this card cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects. If your opponent controls a monster and you control no monsters: You can banish this card from your Graveyard; Special Summon 1 “Mecha Phantom Beast Token” (Machine-Type/WIND/Level 3/ATK 0/DEF 0).

At first glance, these are some pretty underwhelming Tuner monsters. Warbluran is practically a vanilla Level 1 Tuner, and Blue Impala is an inherent Neg 1 every time you use him. So why run them if they’re bad? Because they have very particular use in the Mecha Phantom Beast deck that was built into the card.

I’d also like to take a quick look at the Mecha Phantom Beast Synchro monster too.

Mecha Phantom Beast Concoruda
2400 ATK / 1200 DEF
WIND / Machine / Level 7 / Synchro
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner

Tokens you control cannot be destroyed by battle or card effects. If this card you control is destroyed by your opponent’s card (either by battle or by card effect) and sent to your Graveyard: You can Tribute all Tokens you control, then target 1 Level 4 or lower “Mecha Phantom Beast” monster in your Graveyard; Special Summon that target.

Concoruda is a very interesting monster. Unlike all the other Mecha Phantom Beast monsters, he can be destroyed while you control Tokens, in fact it welcomes destruction in a way. It also has no effect to summon Mecha Phantom Beast Tokens. His effect protects all Tokens on the field, making a soft lock when you have Concoruda and Dracossack. Dracossack  can’t be destroyed by effects or battle and neither can the Tokens. This forces all the opponents cards to be pressured towards Concoruda, which when destroyed, will tribute all the Tokens to summon a Mecha Phantom Beast from the graveyard, which seems bad but is purposed for a specific monster, Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing, which when Special Summoned (if you control another Mecha Phantom Beast) will summon 2 Mecha Phantom Beast Tokens. Which in the case of the soft lock, makes the field remain in lock down. I’ll talk about Coltwing next week. One of the most important things to note about Concoruda though is he can be revived by Hamstrat, meaning once you’ve summoned him once you can revive Level 7 monsters from the graveyard more easily to make Dracossack.

Back to the Tuners. Both Tuners reference Machine-type Synchro monsters, in the case of Blue Impala that’s all he can be used to Synchro for. So we’re looking at mostly Machine-type Synchros for the deck which brings to mind this quick list of things we can Synchro for:

• Level 2 – Formula Synchron
• Level 4 – Armory Arm
• Level 5 – AOJ Catastor
• Level 7 – Karakuri Burei, Mecha Phantom Beast Concoruda
• Level 8 – Karakuri Bureido

It’s a pretty small list (though not exhaustive), but it keeps are scope pretty confined and easy to wrap our minds around, which is nice. With that though, I guess I’ll just move straight into some plays that involve these Tuners, and other important tech cards.

First off, if you don’t know either of the Karakuri Synchro monsters, they both require Machine non-Tuners to be summoned, and on their summon they both Special Summon a Karakuri monster from the deck. That means in order to run them most effectively, you’ll probably be running at least 3 Karakuri monsters in the deck, most notably Karakuri Watchdog mdl 313 “Saizan”, which is pretty much a generic Level 4, Machine Tuner.

The first play involves only 2 cards and yields 2 Dracossacks, but it requires some particulars to do so. You start with Hamstrat and any Level 1 Tuner other than Warbluran and 3 copies of Karakuri Watchdog in the deck. In a lot of my builds I’ve ran Effect Veiler so I could make this play or similar plays.

• You start by setting Hamstrat and it survives a turn without being flipped. This is a pretty lofty goal, because it means your opponent did very little or you have a lot of Traps.
• Your turn, flip summon Hamstrat, summon 2 Tokens.
• Normal Summon Effect Veiler.
• Synchro with 2 Tokens and Veiler for Karakuri Shogun Burei.
• Burei summons Watchdog from the deck.
• Synchro with Watchdog and Hamstrat for another Burei, and summon another Watchdog from the deck.
• XYZ the two Bureis to summon Dracossack.
• Dracossack summons 2 Tokens.
• Synchro the Watchdog and 1 Token for the last Burei and summon the last Watchdog from the deck.
• Synchro with the Watchdog and the last token for Concoruda.
• XYZ Concoruda and Burei for a 2nd Dracossack and summon 2 more Tokens.

This ends with 2 Dracossacks and 2 Tokens, which is really good. The issue of course is the setup is a little fanciful, so it’s doubtful that it will actually occur. An interesting card from the next set that could possibly help setting up Hamstrat plays is the card Burst Reverse. It’s a normal Trap, you pay 2000 to summon a monster from your graveyard in face-down defense. If you activate it during your opponent’s end phase you can flip Hamstrat during your turn. I’ll test it out when it comes out. That aside, here’s some more reasonable variations.

Let’s assume you drew a Watchdog. You’re running 3 so I don’t see why you wouldn’t. Hamstrat survives again after being set:

• Flip Hamstrat, summon 2 Tokens.
• Normal Watchdog, Synchro with Token for Burei, summon Watchdog.
• [From here you can continue summoning Bureis and Watchdogs, or make a simpler play so you don’t exhaust the Bureis from your extra deck]
• Synchro with the Token and Watchdog for Concoruda.
• Concoruda and Burei XYZ for Dracossack, detach Concoruda to summon 2 Tokens.
• Hamstrat’s effect tribute 1 Token to revive Concoruda from the graveyard.

Now instead of 2 Dracossacks you have a Dracossack, Hamstrat, Concoruda and 1 Token. This is arguably more threatening than 2 Dracossacks because it has the potential to make more plays on your next turn because of the Hamstrat and because it’s more resilient to destruction because of the Concoruda.

The reason why the original play doesn’t work with Warbluran is because, once Warbluran Synchro summons a Machine Synchro it summons a Token, which is mandatory. And if it uses this effect you can only summon WIND monsters the rest of the turn. This means if you Synchro for a Burei, you’ll summon a Token and not be allowed to summon a Watchdog from your deck since Watchdog is an EARTH monster. Because of this “flaw” you usually get stuck with a Concoruda and a Hamstrat instead of a Dracossack, which isn’t horrible, but not nearly as good. The benefit of Warbluran though is that it can be moved by the archetype more easily than an Effect Veiler. Warbluran can be revived with Hamstrat and Concoruda and searched with Megaraptor, meaning you only really want to run 1 copy of if.

Warbluran forms some very strange plays though using the less important Synchros, mainly Armory Arm. Warbluran can Synchro with 1 Mecha Phantom Beast Token to summon Armory Arm, and then Warbluran will summon its own Mecha Phantom Beast Token because Armory Arm is a Machine. Armory Arm is a generally good card because it makes any Mecha Phantom Beast really annoying to deal with, because it’ll have very high attack and a burn effect and also be hard to kill because of Tokens. Armory Arm is also Level 4 meaning you can XYZ with it and any Level 4 Mecha Phantom Beast for Gear Gigant X, who can search all the Mecha Phantom Beast monsters.

Moving on to Blue Impala. Blue Impala combos with any Level 4 Mecha Phantom Beast in hand. At the very least you can Synchro with it and a Level 4 in hand for Burei, to get a Watchdog to Synchro for Star Eater if you’re in a pinch, which is a nice bonus. The real benefit here though is the speed at which this card allows the deck to move.

Here’s my favorite play using Blue Impala. It requires the following: 1 Blue Impala and 1 Level 4 Mecha Phantom Beast in hand and 1 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms in hand or graveyard.

• Normal Summon Blue Impala and Synchro for Burei with in hand Mecha Phantom Beast.
• Summon a Watchdog from the deck.
• Banish Blue Impala and the other Mecha Phantom Beast to summon Tempest.
• XYZ for Dracossack, summon 2 Tokens.
• Synchro Token for Burei, summon Watchdog.
• Synchro Token for Concoruda.
• XYZ for Dracossack, summon 2 Tokens.

This once again ends with a field of 2 Dracossacks and 2 Tokens, which is pretty fantastic.

Similar plays can be done if you run at least 1 copy of Karakuri Strategist mdl 248 “Nishipachi”, a Level 3 Tuner. They involve a Level 4 Mecha Phantom Beast in hand and on the field and a Blue Impala in hand. For now let’s say we have 2 Megaraptors and 1 Blue Impala.

• Megaraptor already on the field.
• Normal Summon Blue Impala and Synchro for Burei, summon Strategist from the deck.
• Synchro with Strategist and Megaraptor for Burei and summon Watchdog from the deck.
• XYZ for Dracossack, summon 2 Tokens.
• I hope the rest is evident from this point onward.

I hope you enjoyed some of these combos! I’ll be back next week to talk about a some interesting tech cards for the deck.

QOTW: Question of the Week?

What would you think if Konami decided to limit the Extra Deck to 10 cards, or if they raised the minimum deck size to 50?

Written by: Kyle