ShaddollBox

Shaddoll Warrior Toolbox

This week I have an interesting concept involving Shaddolls and an unexpect Warrior Toolbox engine.

This idea was brought to my attention when watching a guy from locals playing a duel while I was at Regionals a while back and recently the idea resurfaced in my mind so I decided to think about taking the idea as far as I could. The idea is actually pretty simple, use Reinforcements of the Army in Shaddolls to form a versatile toolbox for the deck. Now, the idea alone isn’t enough to make a deck, what’s not obvious about it is what monster you should be running for the warrior toolbox.

There’s 2 core monsters to the engine that were initially run in Nekroz as a similar engine, but Shaddolls can take full advantage of the engine and they have a few tricks of their own. The original engine was run in Nekroz and consisted of Nekroz of Clausolas (who is a level 3 Warrior) and Armageddon Knight. Armageddon Knight was used to quickly send Djinn Releaser of Rituals to the graveyard and then using a single Clausolas’ effect to search Nekroz Cycle you can perform the infamous Djinn Lock. Combining this with Reinforcements of the Army (RoTA) you could get any combination of 2 of RoTA, Armageddon Knight, Clausolas or Djinn and perform the lock, making it pretty versatile and easy to setup. In addition, RoTA could search Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz and Armageddon Knight could also be used to send copies of Farfa, Malebranche of the Burning Abyss as an out to the Djinn lock. It wasn’t necessarily the most popular Nekroz engine, but it works and is of interest at least for this article not particularly in regards to Nekroz.

What’s so cool about this engine though is that it can easily be taken out of a Nekroz and completely implemented into a Shaddoll deck with many other potential additions. Shaddolls have a multitude of other advantages when running this engine than Nekroz do though, the biggest one being the power of Armageddon Knight in the deck. Before Mathematician came out, Armageddon Knight was the obvious choice for Shaddoll decks because it could send any of you Shaddolls from the deck to the graveyard. I don’t really have to give much of an explanation for why Armageddon Knight is good in the deck, but it basically works the same as Mathematician would except rather than draw cards when dieing it has the bonus of activating upon its special summon, meaning you always run it with Call of the Haunted and Soul Charge.

Nekroz of Clausolas:

Nekroz of Clausolas is a bit of a weird fit though, but it does have some good synergy in the deck. The obvious utility is that it can be used to fusion summon the Shaddoll WATER Fusion. This is beneficial against Nekroz of course and also can be used to stop Call of the Haunted, which isn’t very relevant except maybe a handful of times against Satellarknights.

Speaking of Satellarknights though, one of the most important things Clausolas can do is be an out to Stellarknight Constellar Diamond. Clausolas can negate Extra Deck monster effects and make their attack zero, so you can simply negate it and attack over it with Clausolas, or after negating play Shaddoll Fusion using material from the deck. This is becoming increasingly relevant with the release of Stellarknight Ptolemaeus giving access to Diamond in most decks.

Clausolas is also quite exceptional in the mirror match because it can negate any of the Fusion monsters effects, effectively mitigating the power of Shaddoll Fusion because you can potentially leave Fusion monsters on the field if they’re backed by a Clausolas, though I’m still not sure if I would do that. But in short though, Shaddolls have somewhat a difficult time dealing large amounts of damage without using the Extra Deck, and Clausolas makes that more difficult, giving you a minor leg up in the mirror.

Of course, it would be silly not to mention the Djinn lock as well when talking about Clausolas. Simply by adding in 1 copy of Djinn Releaser of Rituals you would have access to the lock, which can easily be setup by using either Mathematician or Armageddon Knight sending Djinn to the graveyard and either Clausolas or a ROTA to search Clausolas.

There’s also the added benefit of providing easy side space. What I mean by that is the Clausolas, Nekroz Cycle and Djinn technically only have to take up 3 card slots (if you only run 1 of each), which is barely any space, and those cards can easily be sided out, giving you a malleable main deck for when you need to side. Naturally, against a deck like Nekroz, these cards work rather nicely potentially preventing special summons or allowing you to go into the WATER fusion, but against a deck like Qliphorts you can simple side them out for 3 MSTs without much ramifications.

Additional Warriors:

One thing I’ve personally liked about ROTA whenever I run it is that it provides you an incredibly consistent toolbox from your deck as well as really easy side deck options because you only need to side in 1 copy of a Warrior-type monster and you’re still very likely to get it when running 3 ROTA in your deck. For example, against Nekroz I could side in a Exiled Force or a D.D. Warrior Lady if I fear the Djinn lock as an out (you could just as easily main either as well). Here’s a list of some warriors that I thought could add some potential benefits to the deck:

  • Raiden, Hand of the Lightsworn
    • Raiden is kind of a more random version of Armageddon Knight except with the added bonus of having higher attack (significantly higher) as well as being a Tuner. He also doubles as a LIGHT monster for fusion summons giving you a searchable LIGHT with ROTA when you need one.
  • Justice Bringer
    • Justice Bringer is a Level 4 EARTH Warrior with 1700 attack. One per turn he can negate the activation of a special summoned monster’s effect. Justice Bringer would best be paired with a high amount of removal traps, so it requires a rather different Shaddoll build to flourish, but at one it’s a potential answer to a lot of good monsters like Trishula for example. It also doubles as a EARTH fusion target for Shekhinaga.
  • D.D. Warrior Lady
    • As I mentioned before, D.D. Warrior Lady is an out to the Djinn lock as well as Diamond and it’s also just an all around good card, being LIGHT doesn’t hurt either.
  • Exiled Force
    • Exiled force is a more proactive version of D.D. Warrior Lady but it doesn’t banish, making it less effective and is also EARTH which isn’t nearly as good as being LIGHT because of the prefered El Shaddoll Construct. In the end it’s more of a matter of preference.
  • A/D Changer
    • I’ve run this card in the past and it’s quite good and I would say you should definitely be running it if you run ROTA. A/D Changer allows you to expedite your Shaddoll flip effects and also is a LIGHT monster for Construct and also a Djinn out with Mathematician assuming the opponent doesn’t have Trishula, Valkyrus or Gungnir. One of my favorite benefits is that A/D Changer allows you to manually flip summon a Shaddoll Falco setting an important monster then immediately flip the monster set with Falco. This is especially helpful when you want to push aggressively by reviving a Fusion monster.
  • D.D. Unicorn Knight
    • This card is incredibly obscure so I’ll just literally put its effect below. Basically, you keep Falco’s on the board and this card allows you to easily recycle A/D Changer or other monsters banished if you run Collapserpent and Wyverburster. It’s also a LIGHT monster and is pretty big with 1800 attack.

This card cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. This card can only be Special Summoned if your opponent controls a monster(s) and you control a face-up Tuner monster(s). When this card is Special Summoned this way, you can select 1 of your removed from playLevel 3 or lower non-Tuner monsters and Special Summon it. Its effect(s) are negated. You cannot Normal Summon or Set the turn you Special Summon this card.

QOTW? Question of the Week:

Who watched some of the North American Nationals this week? What’d you think of the finals and the players who will represent the U.S. at worlds?

 

Written by: Kyle Oliver

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