The Last HERO From Another Planet

Been a busy week, so I’m just going to fall-back on an update on my current HERO deck.

First we have my new deck-list right here, and let me say it has changed a whole lot since the last time you’ve probably seen it. Most notably the HERO monsters are at an all time low, being 3. A lot of my card choices have been leaned down to the bare minimums to make way for a lot of more powerful cards. I’ve prioritized a lot of things in this build and it is pretty laser focused now and I’m very happy with it.  Right now it’s at 41 cards, which could easily be cut down to 40. I’m testing a lot of different cards in the last 2 slots, at the time being I’m testing Diamond Dude + Allure of Darkness in the deck for a couple reasons I’ll get to later.

First things first, the unholy 3 HERO monsters + 3 Miracle Fusion. It’s a little ridiculous to think someone would be running only 3 monsters to use Miracle Fusion with and with that number to actually be running 3 copies of Miracle Fusion, but I’ll try to explain why it works anyways. The first thing is you can think of it as a little more than 3 HEROs with a couple of the other cards: E-Call, Rota and Summoner Monk. With those you can pretend to be running 7 HERO access cards in total. 7 is still a rather small portion of the deck, but percentage wise the chances of opening 1 of them turn one is very high, upwards of 65%, but I don’t care the actual number. (I do know the chance of opening 1 of 6 cards in your deck is 65% though, don’t ask why) So more than half your games you’ll open with HERO stuff and then ideally proceed to draw into them later. There’s also Gold Sarcophagus, if you’re desperate, but I rarely Sarc for HERO stuff in this deck. I will say that if you open with no HERO access cards but do have Gold Sarc + Tour Guide you can do a Leviair into Stratos play to kick-start the entire deck, which is pretty nice.

That aside, how does the deck work? Think of it kind of like Chaos Agents except the Hyperions are Miracle Fusions and the Agent Monsters are the HERO stuff + Zombyra and Cyber Dragon. The “HERO engine” of sorts, takes up 10 cards, while the “Agent Engine” takes up 8 slots, so in that sense Agents are more lean. But in terms of deck play style the two decks have roughly the same goals. First phase is searching and setup through Stratos and Prisma, much like Earth and Venus. Then you present problems using solely these cards through XYZ and other such plays. Once you’re opponent has committed and exhausted a fair amount of resources you pull in the big guns (Chaos Sorcerer, BLS, Dark Armed and The Shining) to do some clean-up in the form of taking massive control of the game or an OTK.

Unless you are completely up to date with my ramblings at the beginning of each podcast, then you probably are looking at one card choice in particular and gawking. Zombyra the Dark, and 2 copies no less. Zombyra is one of the most essential cards in this new build’s design. As you know, Sangan was banned and I had to scrounge for alternate DARK monsters to mill with Prisma. Initially I was drawn to Spirit Reaper, but he proved to be not all too useful unless I invested heavily in the amount of Zombies I was running. So, I wasn’t too happy with Spirit Reaper and feared I may have to scrap my deck, so in my last ditch effort I went to the card database on the official site and looked at literally every Fusion monster we have for DARK Fusion Material monsters. I came across quite a few reasonable choices, but then I finally saw Zombyra and he was with one of my favorite Fusion Monsters no less: The Last Warrior From Another Planet. Zombyra has pretty much everything I could’ve ever wanted and it caused me to adapt the deck into what is possibly even better than the original.

Zombyra first off is DARK and can be milled by Prisma. This was the only criteria this card slot, so obviously it meets that criteria. Over and above, Zombyra is level 4, unlike all my previous targets for this position it has level Synergy with the deck’s main core. I can use it for Rank 4 XYZ quite easily since that’s a big part of the deck’s first phase. Also, it’s a Warrior type monster; this is especially useful since it makes Reinforcements of the Army much more versatile as well as allows me to summon Heroic Champion – Excalibur using it and another Warrior. Lastly, it’s just a freakin’ good monster. 2100 ATK and 500 DEF boosts the attack barrier of the deck to 2100 with itself, Thrasher and Cyber Dragon, making it 200 more than the average barrier being 1900 (including the majority of stun monsters ex. Thunder King Rai-oh, Doomcalibur Knight, Sabersaurus). It also trumps the 2000 ATK barrier which is usually the highest most decks get with there basic monsters ex. Venus, Vorse Raider w/ Tenki or Gene Warped Warwolf, Mist Valley Falcon and Rush Rhino to name a few. This means the deck holds likely the highest base stats for the basic line-up, which gives it a huge edge against any decks reliant on advantage through battle because it forces them to use extra cards to take out my naturally better monsters.

Zombyra of course has disadvantages: it can’t attack directly and it loses 200 ATK if it destroys a monster by battle. Both of which are pretty much irrelevant. Attacking directly is solved by XYZing with it and it only goes down to 1900 after one battle, which is still very good, and if it ever goes lower you can once again XYZ it away. In my experience I’ve had so far, it usually gets destroyed or XYZ’d with near immediately after it goes down to 1900;

Neos Alius is completely gone in this build. It started as one of the corner stones of the deck, but now it’s completely gone along with it’s support cards. The reason being is that Neos Alius is very slow and also doesn’t setup the deck’s major goals. When I say it’s slow, what I mean is that when you play Neos Alius at its best you’re playing a very heavy control game, and as you can see by my low trap count (albeit much higher than I used to run) you can tell I’m not playing a whole lot of control. Alius begs to remain on the board to access Gemini Spark plays for disruption and control, but the singularity of its destruction isn’t fast enough to deal with the speed of the quick decks we’re seeing right now. Against Mermails I found I rarely was able to fend off my opponent with an Alius on board and Gemini Spark and other defensive cards set, it’s simply not strong enough with the Mermail deck’s power and destruction. Most decks can easily force out back-row cards and proceed to put you in a near game situation unless you can comeback, and one thing Neos Alius doesn’t help do is mount a large comeback.

As I’ve said on the podcast, one thing that’s very important for decks that aren’t of the highest teir is the ability to translate hand advantage into field advantage at a moments notice so as not to be over-taken by the speed of the teir 1 decks. Many of the decks card choices as well as things that were omitted where for this reason. I do’t run Neos Alius because he can’t form a comeback, is inconsistent and and can’t protect against the power of large decks. I did add in Photon Thrasher and Instant Fusion, two cards that push cards onto the field very quickly if necessary. Also, Summoner Monk makes an instant rank 4 if you have a Spell in hand. All three of these cards can also drop a bunch of specific cards into the graveyard for setup at a moments notice as well to make live Chaos monsters and Miracle Fusion. To ensure that these plays go through I also added in Forbidden Lance. There’s also the obvious Dark Hole and Monster Reborn for comeback potential.

Now I’ll talk about some individual card choices.

Gold Sarcophagus:

I wasn’t running this card for a long while, but then I saw a fellow HERO player at locals running Gold Sarc and I decided to test it out. The idea behind it is that you want to see your big power cards as often and as fast as possible. Priority level 1 is probably Black Luster Soldier, of all the deck’s boss monsters it’s the most helpful. It banishes monsters for Leviair plays and has the most potent removal effect as well as beastly stats. Priority 2 is usually Miracle Fusion, we all know The Shining is very powerful and allows me to keep the ball rolling. Priority 3 is Dark Armed Dragon, it’s freaking Dark Armed, who’s your daddy? Priority 4 is Pot of Avarice, usually meaning I’ve already drawn a bunch of Boss monsters. Priority 5 is desperation, that means I’m completely desperate for setup and must search Stratos or Prisma. It’s rare but it happens. Most of the time though I’d rather search BLS in those instances anyway and just hope that I’ll draw into HERO stuff.

Dark Armed Dragon:

I was skeptical of myself for thinking this would work, but oh man is it so easy to set this card up in this deck. Frequently the graveyard floats around 3 DARK monsters in this deck and it’s very possible to press DARKs into the graveyard if you draw your Dark Armed Dragon. It’s important to note, when I XYZ the two XYZ monster I summon the most are Maestroke and Blackship of Corn, both of which are DARK, so that adds to the graveyard control. I’m rarely sad to see Dark Armed in hand, and I’m currently testing out Allure of Darkness as an extra option for getting rid of this card if need be.

The Warrior Returning Alive:

This card’s actually kind of funny why I run it. I was testing the idea of siding into Deck Devastation Virus with The Warrior Returning Alive so that I could add Zombyra back to my hand to facilitate and I accidentally left it in after a tournament and played some duels with it and it was just an all around helpful card to have. Mid game my graveyard is full of different Warrior monsters so it becomes a very strong toolboxing card. Ideal scenario you can choose from Stratos to Search, Prisma to mill, Zombyra to beat, Thrasher to XYZ and BLS to be the guy that played The Warrior Returning Alive to get back his BLS. (I’ve yet to do that though) All of which where very nice. Also, Stratos gets gimped a lot out of his effect through Veiler and Solemn Warning since he’s a magnet to those cards so Returning Alive can act as a mini Monster Reborn if Stratos fails and you needed his effect.

Allure of Darkness and Diamond Dude:

These two are the current points of testing in the deck. Before them was 2 Tragoedias, which where very good, but they didn’t really cut it against enough of the decks to make my main board so I put them in the side deck with 2 Maxx “C” so that I could side them against the relevant decks ex. Mermails, Lavals etc. That aside, the idea is pretty simple, Allure gets me to power cards quicker and gets rid of my dead dark monsters being Zombyra, Diamond Dude and Dark Armed Dragon, and I suppose Gorz if I have a floating Call of the Haunted. (which is something I always look out for if I haven’t drawn Gorz yet) Diamond Dude also has a couple key purposes. First he adds an extra search for Stratos (believe me it’s easy to run out), he’s a DARK for Chaos and DAD, he’s a Warrior so he can make Excalibur, he’s a Monk target that’s beneficial when summoned (the only other beneficial Monk target is Stratos), when I draw Allure I can simply search him with Stratos to thin my deck a lot and lastly I can potentially benefit with his effect since I run 14 Normal Spells. (it’s not Diamond Dude Turbo, but that’s still quite a lot) Not bad!

Some final notes:

• Tour Guide always makes Leviair unless you have Pot of Avarice or are going to lose otherwise.
• Traps are always to be used at the last possible moment or in order to protect Boss monsters.
• It’s okay to discard good cards with Monk, ex. Miracle Fusion
• Use Monk sparingly, don’t get owned by Solemn Warning.
• Always try to make the opponent make the big move first unless you have a for sure OTK.
• Don’t XYZ for no reason, because that’s unreasonable.
• Utopia sucks, so I don’t run it.
• Bad Shock Master can be a good Shock Master, because in the end it’s still Shock Master.
• Rota is very versatile, think before nabbing Stratos.
• Sometimes you gotta go fast, get Prisma before Stratos then.
• Don’t just summon Stratos simply to get advantage, Call of the Haunted is a power card!
• You can win a duel with Zombyra and trap cards, so don’t fret your bad hand.
• No Heavy Storm is pro, and no one likes getting Starlight Roaded.

that’s the end.