Introduction

Myutants, aptly named for the deformed wall of texts on every Myutant card text, is a new archetype now available for both TCG and OCG now. Depicted as having escaped from KONAMI's R&D department, these aberrations seek to befuddle both you and your opponent into misconstruing these effects into anything playable. But enough with the big and fancy words, I am here to beat these Alien vs Predator wannabes into you.

Meeting the Myutants

Myutants are based on... mutants with an additional Y. They are loosely based on the concept of escaped specimens merging with various elements of Yu-Gi-Oh. The lower specimens will begin their mutation by tributing itself, and banishing any card type from the player's side. Then, the test subjects will then transform into the card type absorbed.

The archetype is split into 3 portions: the modest caged specimens, the untamed roaming mutants, and their eventual amalgamations in the form of Fusions. The usual playstyle will constantly cycle around easily summoning the major Myutants, and eventually overwhelming with the Myutant Fusions. As this archetype brings a relatively new concept to the table, it is difficult to optimize through the support of other existing engines. Thus, I believe this deck currently adopts a Beatstick mentality in games.

I would also like to credit the Yugipedia page for letting me comprehend a huge portion of these stranger things. It is extremely detailed for such an archetype, so please do check it out along with this article!

Special Specimen Starters

As mentioned earlier, these Myutants start out as captured specimens. With a lot of text. They will share a common effect in this matter.

Simply put, they will tribute themselves, then you can banish any card from your side. The specimens will react accordingly to the specific card type banished, and you can summon the mutated choice from your deck! All current Myutant specimens can summon any of the mentioned major Myutants, so it would be beneficial to utilize the costs used to mutate the specimens.

Along with this effect, the specimens will have one additional basic effect as well, boosting the much needed consistency for the deck.

• M-05 (Searches Monster)
• ST-46 (Searches Spell/Trap)
• GB-88 (Performs mutation on opponent's turn)
• Mutator (Special Summons itself)

The Myutant Mutator is a new addition to this archetype, and adopts the same mutation effect but from the deck instead. This alleviates the major banishing costs which I will cover later on.

Major Mutant Matter

Now exposed to the horrors of Yu-Gi-Oh, the developed Myutants are ready to wreak havoc.

• Beast (using Monster)
• Mist (using Spell)
• Arsenal (using Trap)

Beast resembles the cumulation of several organic lifeforms merged into a chimeric monster. Mist is composed of multiple mana crystals, the Spell Card factor granting the mutant mystical magic powers. And Myutant Arsenal has adorned itself with various weaponry from the exposure of the Trap Card.

As for their effects, here is where it gets extremely confusing, but they will all share a similarity.

These massive Myutants are meant to be summoned through the effects of the specimens, or mutation, so you will never Special Summon them through other means. Summoning these monsters will also give them target protection against the component they have fused with.

In ④, all three Myutants can negate another specific card type, but not their own! Myutant Beast, for example, can negate a Spell. This carousel does not stop here, as in the ⑤ effect, Myutant Beast being immune to Monsters, and negating Spells, will retrieve a Trap card when destroyed! For the specifics, you will need to consult the card text constantly.

Colossal Cosmic Conglomerations

Unsurprisingly, an archetype themed on assimilating is also Fusion-based deck. Myutant Synthesis represents the second stage of Myutant GB-88, and Myutant Ultimus as the eventual zenith.

Myutant Synthesis is the easier Fusion to summon, requiring only two Myutants with different attributes. All specimen are WATER, while the grown Myutants are generously varied in attributes and tribes. Mixing any two is easy with Myutant Fusion, allowing you to easily save on Fusion costs. Synthesis will destroy one card on summon, and recycle banished cards after destruction, making it extremely worthwhile to summon it.

Ultimus is this clan's eventual end goal. With a costly requirement of at least 3 level 8+ Myutants, Ultimus will reward its summon with its almighty effects. Once per turn, Ultimus is able to negate and banish any activated card effect! Then when it finally succumbs, the Myutant player is able to retrieve one of each card type from the banished realms. Although unnecessary, this omni-negate effect will definitely disrupt your opponent heavily along with the other Myutants, and retrieving 3 cards upon its demise will definitely help in the grind game.

Quite frankly, for such steep costs, these are really subpar Fusion Monsters. Myutant Synthesis will only destroy one card, and only on its summon. Myutant Ultimus can only employ an omni-negate when the grown Myutants already wield a similar effect and more.

Are summoning these Fusion monsters really necessary, especially when the grown Myutants are better off on the field? Well, these cards would be terrible without the help of its supporting Spell/Traps.

Spell and Traps

Due to the Myutant theme of being exposed to various components, this archetype is blessed with an abundance of variety of Spells and Traps.

Enter Myutant Fusion and Myutant Cry, the two intended ways to perform a Fusion Summon. Fusion has a convenient requirement to trigger, allowing you to save costs just like Shaddoll Fusion. Cry follows up on this by recycling back banished monsters to Fusion Summon. Between these two cards, you can constantly manipulate any card in and out of the Banish Zone. This recycling will allow you to play a lower count of other undesirable monsters, since you now can access them any time of the game.

Evolution Lab allows you to extend your plays by summoning another specimen. It also swaps out a possible unwanted monsters from hand back into the deck. Blast and Expansion are also extenders in their own way, both allowing you to summon the other variants of Myutants roaming around in your deck.

Myutant Blast and Myutant Clash provides the deck with additional aggressive options, just in case you felt big cosmic horrors were not enough to take anything down.

Other then clobbering your Fusions to retrieve back resources, the current support has given this archetype little to no resource generation nor recursion. It barely provides any sort of board acceleration and will rely on the player's frugal maneuvering of the deck to compete in the resource race. After all, the Specimens require an additional card to assimilate with, and the developed Myutants require a card to fuel its negations.

Disastrous Decklists

Myutants has provided us Monsters with all brawn no brain, Spells and Traps with generic dissatisfactory effects. In this fast paced environment where players value multiple advantageous factors, Myutants seem to dawdle. In order to even make this deck even remotely functionable, either clever engineering of the deck or playing it as intended is needed.

As a demanding archetype that expects extra cards to fuel any of their effects. What would be the best way to use them?

Pure Myutant

In order to fully benefit from the Fusions' recursion effects, it is ideal to banish relevant copies of Myutants. Thus, an increase in the ratios of Myutant cards, as well as their archetypical Spell/Traps are included. In a normal Myutant deck, the easiest developed Myutant to summon is Myutant Beast, as it is more convenient to use a Monster Card to pay as cost.

This pure variant will seek to turbo out the Fusions as fast as possible, hopefully through the ever accommodating Predaplant Verte Anaconda. Ideally you can summon Myutant Synthesis through Myutant Cry as well, providing an easy disruption on the opponent's turn. The common strategy in this deck is to overwhelm with sheer numbers. Each Myutant has a small recursion effect and negation, allowing each individual monster to stand their ground against any deck. This sort of beatstick strategy has proven itself effective in any simplified game state.

Even though banishing Myutant cards for the costs are ideal, it is not advantageous to do so. Some players have resorted to mitigate the heavy losses by introducing several archetypes that benefit from such an expense.

Thunder Myutant

Thunder Dragons are one of the few archetypes that embraces the banished zone. A simple interaction such as Myutant ST-46 banishing a Thunder Dragonroar can easily escalate into oppressive boards. Although the general idea of constant recursion is dropped in favor of a stronger beatstick strategy, there is no point prolonging the game when you can just simply overwhelm the opponent and win, am I right?

There are other variants agreeing with this idea including Invoked, Nemesis and so much more. Please check out our user-created ideas for more inspiration!

Dissecting the Deviants

Although this archetype is not impressive enough to cause concern, it is still important to know their counters.

The common idea behind this deck is to constantly banish, so anti-banishing techs will work just fine. Just beware of effects activating on an empty field. This deck can easily take advantage of your counters with their own PSY-Framegear Gamma. Otherwise, Myutants are excellent at depleting their own resources. You will eventually win the resource game given you play around their Fusion Monsters. Chances are, the engines are usually more dangerous then the Myutants.

My Thoughts and Combinations

I chose to write this article right when WPP2 came out. It is unfortunately the best archetype of the set, and boasts the most impressive artwork, so I felt obligated to write something up about it. RAM has also developed an interest in the deck, so it should be something at least right? Myutants are currently the most confusing cards in the game to me. But I believed I could translate all of those into something literate to you readers. I hope you guys will retain at least something when faced against any rare Myutant players. Just like any Alien vs Predator fans out there, players are far to few, but they are definitely not zero.

I hope this article has given any reader a clear and conclusive understanding of this confusing archetype. After all, this deck's major game plan is to befuddle the opponent into frustration. Nothing beats dominating them back with the power of context!