Early into the Synchro Era, Konami decided to try something different with their cards, and that is to tell a story through said cards. Over several years, we continuously got cards and archetypes that tied together into the same lore that told a story when analyzed closely. The first lore the game ever saw was the classic Duel Terminal storyline, consisting of multiple archetypes from 2009 all the way until 2015, and arguably even beyond that (but that's for another time). Even when said lore ended, the archetypes involved continued to recieve legacy support to tie up loose ends and add a little bit extra to the completed story. With a project like this, a lot of archetype designing is required to make the cards thematically fit what they do in said lore, while also hoping to make a playable archetype in the Yu-Gi-Oh TCG and OCG. In this series, I will go over every single archetype part of this lore and see how successful the designing process of said archetypes were in the competitve landscape to see what archetypes held some real power in the actual game and what archetypes felt like they were just pack filler.
Introduction
We have officially left the era of Hidden Arsenal sets, but the Duel Terminal lore isn't done. We approach the end of the story with potentially some of the best archetypes in the game's history, as these Decks brought a ton of power creep to the game on their release. The era of these archetypes feeling like mostly pack filler with only a few good cards are past us. Now we get viable meta strategies that left an impact during their time, and some still to this very day. We've reached some of the best now, but first I should address five Decks previously covered.
Ice Barrier Revisited
Last time I talked about Ice Barriers, I mentioned how they really only accelled at giving us good Synchro monsters. Well now we've seen the release of Terminal World in the OCG, and Ice Barriers have now become somewhat of a viable rogue strategy with just 4 new cards, though Frozen Domain Leading to the Ice Barrier hasn't had much of an impact in the Deck.
Georgius, Swordsman of the Ice Barrier is a new Level 6 Tuner that's free to Special Summon if you already have an Ice Barrier on the field, along with being able to summon a Level 5 or lower Ice Barrier from the hand or grave on summon. It also comes with a solid floodgate effect if you control another Ice Barrier monster, locking the opponent from using effects of their monsters in the graveyard.
Mirror Magic Master of the Ice Barrier is a 2nd new Tuner for the archetype, this time being a Level 2, that tributes any Effect Monster for Ice Barrier Tokens alongside the card itself getting a Level increase, plus it retrieves any Ice Barrier card that's banished or in your Deck to your hand upon hitting the graveyard.
Finally, we get a new Synchro with Lancea, Dragonic Ancestor of the Ice Spirit Mountain. This card has a powerful effect once per chain after the opponent Special Summons, letting you summon any Ice Barrier from the hand, Deck, Extra Deck, or graveyard while swapping an opponent's monster from Attack to Defense Position. This is also a twice per turn effect, meaning you should be able to turn on the floodgate effects of some of your Ice Barriers. Also if you control this card and it leaves the field by an opponent's card, you can summon an Ice Barrier Synchro from the Extra Deck by treating it as a Synchro Summon, being able to trigger the removal effect of either Trishula.
Beisdes those new cards, several of the old Ice Barriers have found what place they have in the Deck. The archetype has a decent level of swarming to be able to make your big boards. Revealer of the Ice Barrier is great for getting to the archetype's Tuners from the Deck. Speaker for the Ice Barriers summons itself from hand if you control an Ice Barrier, while also being able to banish itself from grave to summon a Token. Hexa Spirit of the Ice Barrier can change its Level by sending an Ice Barrier from Deck to grave. General Wayne of the Ice Barrier can be a free Special Summon if the opponent has a monster and you have an Ice Barrier monster, also being able to search for your Ice Barrier backrow on summon.
Speaking of backrow, Ice Barrier has a few decent options. Winds Over the Ice Barrier can tribute Ice Barrier monsters to summon that amount of Level 4 or lower Ice Barriers from the Deck while also having the effect to banish itself from the grave to recover an Ice Barrier that's banished or in your grave to your hand. Freezing Chains of the Ice Barrier can simply revive a Level 4 or lower Ice Barrier on activation, as well as making your Ice Barriers unaffected by the effects of opponent's monsters summoned from the Extra Deck while you have 3 or more of them. Medallion of the Ice Barrier is your searcher for any Ice Barrier monster in the game. Finally, you can run the Ice Barrier Trap itself, mainly to try and get it into the grave to search for your Level 5+ Ice Barrier monsters or other generic WATER monsters like Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju or Icejade Ran Aegirine.
The archetype also has access to some solid floodgate effects besides Georgius. General Raiho of the Ice Barrier might be the best, making the opponent have to discard a card to resolve the effect of a monster on their field. Spellbreaker of the Ice Barrier can discard an Ice Barrier monster to lock out the use of Spells while it's on the field until the end of your next turn. You also got General Wayne's other effect while you control an Ice Barrier monster to banish all the opponent's Spells & Traps that are sent to the graveyard. There are a bunch of other floodgate options within the Ice Barrier archetype, but these are the most prominent.
With an improved sense of consistency and swarming to add on to what the archetype already had, alongside a new boss monster to summon your floodgate monsters from the Deck that also comes with a great floating effect, Ice Barriers are now a Deck you have to somewhat respect. It likely won't be a Tier 1 strategy still, but the Deck is bound to be a rogue contender when it comes to the TCG with its ability to swarm and lock the opponent out of the game.
Genex Revisited
The second Deck to revisit from previous installments is the Genex archetype. Previously the Deck didn't really have a coherent strategy to work off of, needing some insane creativity to pull anything off with the archetype. Now, the Deck is certainly the least competitve of the 4 archetypes in Terminal World to get support, but it can at least do something. Repaired Genex Controller is the heart and soul of the Deck now, working with all the searchers, hand bouncing, and graveyard recovery in the archetype to continue Normal Summoning to your heart's content so you can make a board. Arms of Genex Return Zero is also at least a great boss monster, being able to negate a monster effect of each Attribute every turn, just as long as you have said Attribute in the graveyard. R-Genex Undine adds itself and another Genex from the grave to your hand to restart the effect of your Link-1, while R-Genex Turing is a way to Synchro Summon on the opponent's turn for any Genex, helping get Return Zero out, or making use of Locomotion R-Genex.
The Deck is pretty basic, using the effects of R-Genex Turbo, R-Genex Magma, R-Genex Crusher, Genex Power Planner, or Genex Undine to get a search and then Link it off into your new Controller to recover them and start Normal Summoning and searching in a loop. Once you clog your field, you use Genex Ally Birdman to return a Genex to hand to summon itself and restart the effect of Repaired. You keep doing this til you are unable to, hopefully building a board of powerful Synchro Monsters.
Now, this Deck certainly won't be meta, and it'll likely be lucky to top a Regional event. The main issue is that Repaired Genex Controller is vulnerable to cards like Infinite Impermanence, Effect Veiler, and Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit to name a few weaknesses, while the whole combo falls to Droll & Lock Bird. You can use cards like Magical Mid-Breaker Field, Crossout Designator, and Called by the Grave to protect it, but that can only take you so far and you have to draw them or hope the opponent doesn't draw an out to your plays. The Deck is fun casually, and might be able to win you a locals tournament, but that's about as far as you might be able to go with this Deck. Still, it's at least better than being functionless like it was before the support.
Fabled Revisited
Alas, I didn't think I'd hold off Part 3 til a second Terminal World released, but here we are, so I can at least talk about it. The first of three Decks to update from Terminal World 2 is Fabled, which of course got 4 new cards. The Fabled Behillmoth is the first of these new cards, and one of the more interesting pieces of support since it basically lets you Synchro Summon your Fabled Synchros by discarding cards from the hand, and in this case it doesn't matter if you use only Tuners, making it an easy Level 4 Synchro while discarding your other Level 2s that like to be discarded like The Fabled Cerburrel or Fabled Krus. It also has a second effect to banish itself from the grave to summon a Fabled from the hand if you sent another card from the hand to the grave while its there, letting you extend your Synchro plays.
Speaking of Level 4 Fabled Synchros, we have a new one in the arsenal with Fabled Gamygyn, a Synchro Tuner who on summon can summon any Fabled from the hand or Deck, getting you whichever monster you need for whatever specific Synchro you want to summon, like Fabled Soulkius for a Level 10. It also offers your other Fabled Synchros protection from targeting effects, and also if it is sent to the graveyard, you can draw cards equal to the number of Fabled Synchros you control, then it lets you discard a card, meaning you can increase your draw power in Fableds even more while getting another discard for another Fabled effect.
The new Level 10 Synchro of the archetype, Fabledswarm Leverzebul, offers an in archetype boss monster the Fabled archetype has honestly been missing since Fabled Leviathan was never really enough as an archetypal boss. It has a Quick Effect for any Main Phase to tribute any number of your Fabled monsters to take control of the opponent's monsters equal to the number of monsters you tributed, and while those monsters will have their effects negated, they don't go back during the end of the turn like most control stealing cards do. It also returns itself from the graveyard to the Extra Deck while also adding any other Fabled monster in your grave back to your hand, so it at least somewhat recovers itself in case the opponent is able to out it.
The last new card for the archetype is a third addition to the Spell/Trap arsenal for the Fabled Deck, Fabled Realm Resurrection. This Continuous Spell on activation lets you set another Fabled Spell/Trap directly from the Deck, getting you access to your Stairway to a Fabled Realm or Fabled Treason. It also prevents the opponent from activating effects when your Fableds are Synchro Summoned, letting you ensure your in-archetype monsters are at least able to hit the board. Finally, once a turn, you can discard a Fabled card to either draw a card or revive any Fabled from your graveyard or banishment, offering either draw power or recovery for whatever you might need in your combos.
The support overall is pretty good for Fabled, giving more ways to Synchro Summon, improving consistency, and giving them their own dedicated boss monster. It's still early to judge the Terminal World 2 Decks as of writing this, but I don't have the highest expectations for Fabled since their problems do still remain of potential brick hands. You at least have the Fiendsmith archetype as well with cards like Fiendsmith Engraver and Fiendsmith's Tract to help Fabled out since most of them are LIGHT Fiends (which Fabled Lurrie has found use with that engine in other Decks for being a LIGHT Fiend you can summon off the discard from Tract to revive and get to an instant Fiendsmith's Requiem). The Deck is in a better place than before, and honestly is bettter off compared to Genex from the original Terminal World since it's far less fragile, but it might be the weakest of the Terminal World 2 support overall.
Jurrac Revisited
The second archetype from Terminal World 2 was long overdue for an overhaul, and that is Jurrac. A Battle Phase centric archetype from 2010 is now updated to improve their ability to Synchro Summon and offer an actual game plan for the archetype, which has become to summon Jurrac Meteor as much as possible it seems to constantly wipe the board out. The first card is Jurrac Stigo, a Level 4 who can destroy a card you control to then let you send any Dinosaur from your Deck to the graveyard to summon Jurrac monsters from the hand or Deck whose combined Levels equal the Level of the sent monster. You can't summon other copies of Jurrac Stigo, nor can you Special Summon any monsters for the rest of the turn, unless they are Dinosaurs. This is mainly another way to destroy Babycerasaurus while also spamming out your Level 1 Jurrac Tuners. You can climb into Jurrac Velphito easy with this and use copies of Jurrac Aeolo to revive any other Jurrac you might want to make bigger Synchros in the archetype. It also returns a face-up monster on the field to the hand when destroyed in battle, but relying on battle destructiton in the modern day isn't very reliable, so you mainly run this for the first effect.
Aeolo is also no longer the only Level 1 Jurrac Tuner, as they now have Jurrac Megalo as well. This little guy can Special Summon itself from the hand if you control any Dinosaur monster, making it a free extender for anything Dinosaur related. While you control it, you can discard 2 cards (as long as you include at least 1 Jurrac card) to draw 2 new cards, which can help unbrick your hand. Finally, upon being destroyed by battle or card effect, you can send any Jurrac monster from the Deck or Extra Deck to the graveyard, which offers more graveyard setup for Dinosaurs as a whole for all the cards they can banish from there.
Jurrac Astero is the new Level 10 Synchro, needing only a Tuner and at least 1 non-Tuner Dinosaur monster, making it easier to actually Synchro Summon than the aforementioned Jurrac Meteor. Upon Synchro Summon, you get to set any Jurrac Spell/Trap directly from the Deck, getting you to Jurrac Impact for another field nuke to go alongside Meteor, or the new Field Spell that'll be discussed in a second. If the opponent would Special Summon a monster(s), you can banish 2 Dinosaurs from your graveyard to negate that summon and destroy that monster, preventing potential threats from hitting the board. Finally, during the opponent's turn, you can banish 2 Jurrac monsters from your graveyard (including this card) to summon a Jurrac Meteor from your Extra Deck, with that being treated as a Synchro Summon. This means you get the board wipe effect of Jurrac Meteor, stopping the opponent in their tracks while reviving a Tuner from your graveyard to restart your plays next turn.
Finally, we got Jurrac Volcano as the archetypal Field Spell that's a decade and a half in the making. This Field Spell can destroy a Dinosaur monster you control to summon a Jurrac from the Deck, basically being able to destroy Babycerasaurus to summon Jurrac Stigo to make your plays. If the opponent Special Summons a monster and they've already used at least 4 monster effects that turn, this Field Spell lets you summon a Jurrac Meteor from the Extra Deck, once again being treated as a Synchro Summon, to nuke the opponent's board. Volcano, however, can at least help your Jurrac monster(s) from being destroyed by card effects by letting you banish a Dinosaur monster from your graveyard instead, which I believe should help with Jurrac Meteor not destroying your entire board as well.
Jurrac, after so many years, now seemingly has a gameplan finally and can be more than just using Jurrac Guaiba in Dino Rabbit or using Jurrac Aeolo as a Level 1 Tuner in Dinosaurs for so many years. You don't run many Jurrac cards, sticking mainly to the new support, Aeolo, and Meteor with little variance every once in a while. The OCG also getting Burial Bicorn Carnovorus as a Jump promo also helps Jurrac by Synchro Summoning on the opponent's turn and being able to summon big Dinosaurs from the hand like Ultimate Conductor Tyranno. You at least also see the other Jurrac Synchros as well, with Velphito being nice Synchro climbing, and even seeing Jurrac Giganoto every once in a while to make your Jurracs bigger. Again, it's mostly the new support and a few old Jurrac cards, while the rest is the modern Dinosaur support like Souleating Oviraptor and Miscellaneousaurus, but Jurracs have seemingly been successful with this new support as of writing, so it's a major improvement from where we were before.
Gem-Knight Revisited
The final Terminal World 2 archetype to get updated before I get to the Terminal World 1 and 2 stuff that would have been discussed here either way is the Gem-Knight archetype. In my opinion, honestly, Gem-Knights were probably the biggest winner from the Terminal World 2 waves of support, as it has seen a decent amount of OCG success. The bigger accomplishment is that Gem-Knight is no longer just an FTK Deck, as this new support goes against the FTK by halving a bunch of the effect damage you would do, instead focusing on being a combo Deck to spam out a bunch of bodies on board to make a bunch of Fusions, Xyzs, and Links mainly.
Gem-Knight Nepyrim is the first new card, who searches for any Gem-Knight card upon being summoned, getting you to whatever combo piece you might need. It does half any damage the opponent would take during the Main Phase that turn, meaning it's extra hard to FTK with the Deck, but it can still go back to its original roots and OTK the opponent still. It can also provide you the extra Normal Summon of any Gem- monster, meaing you could also Normal Summon a Gem-Armadillo for another search. Finally, if sent from the hand or Deck to the graveyard, you can revive it by discarding a card, so getting you a body back on board after using it as a Fusion Material basically.
Gem-Knight Hollowcore is the second new card, and is basically a Mathmech Circular for the archetype, being able to be summoned from the hand by sending any Gem-Knight Normal Monster or a Gem-Knight Fusion directly from the Deck to the graveyard. So you get your main Fusion Spell in the grave so it can recover itself while also getting you a body on field, likely to help make Gem-Knight Phantom Quartz for more Gem-Knight plays. It also becomes an omni-negation in the graveyard if you already control a Gem-Knight Fusion Monster, letting you banish 3 Gem-Knight cards from the graveyard, including itself, when the opponent activates a card or effect and you control the aforementioned Fusion to negate that effect and boost all your Gem-Knight monsters by 1000 ATK, which is a pretty insane graveyard effect for an extender this good.
Gem-Knight Master Diamond Dispersion is the new Fusion Monster in the archetype, and only needs 3 Gem- monsters to summon, so you could use something like Gem-Armadillo as Fusion Material. This new Fusion has a Quick Effect to tribute itself to summon 3 Gem-Knight Fusion Monsters from the Extra Deck that aren't Rock-types with different names from each other from the Extra Deck and/or graveyard, though after that you can only summon Fusions from the Extra Deck for the rest of that turn. This helps get more bodies on field and makes older Gem-Knight Fusions more useful. Gem-Knight Lady Rose Diamond will be great to summon as a way to destroy the opponent's cards when they use effects, and Gem-Knight Aquamarine has use finally if you get an I:P Masquerena on board to bounce an opponent's card. The third Fusion you summon will be up to you, if you even want to summon a 3rd monster since the Aquamarine and Lady Rose Diamond can be enough, but you can summon Gem-Knight Prismaura for removal, Gem-Knight Topaz for a double attacker, and Gem-Knight Citrine for a guaranteed attack to go through. Gem-Knight Seraphinite is also a target if you have more plays you can make with another Normal Summon. Master Diamond Dispersion also revives itself if a Gem-Knight Fusion Monster is destroyed in battle, which is honestly just icing on the cake at this point with that first effect.
Gem-Knight Dispersion is the final piece of support, and it can either be another Fusion Spell for you, or it can be another searcher for you for any Gem- monster. The Fusion Summon effect uses the standard hand or field for your materials, but if you have Gem-Knight Fusion in your graveyard, you can also use up to 2 non-Rock Gem-Knights in your Deck as material. If you would search for a Gem- monster, once again the opponent takes half damage in the Main Phases of that turn, so another deterrant for the FTK there. You can use both effects in the same turn, so 2 copies of this in the hand can't really be considiered a brick either.
Overall, Gem-Knights are in a great place with this new support with the consistency and combo extenders in the archetype being bumped up significantly. You can make massive end boards with this archetype now thanks to the new support, and the lack of any restrictions on what you can summon on a lot of this stuff means you can get into some generic monsters. Run Adamancipator Researcher with a Level 8 to summon a Level 10 Synchro, like Baronne de Fleur (which is banned in the TCG). Get 2 Level 8s on the field and make Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy with greater ease, though that usually needs Block Dragon (which is also banned in the TCG). Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess is a common end board piece for Gem-Knights now, but that's yet another card banned in the TCG. The only banned card in the OCG Gem-Knight Deck I can really see coming back by the time we get this new support is Brilliant Fusion, which will still help a ton. I imagine the TCG end boards will be different than the OCG ones, relying more on cards like S:P Little Knight, Thunder Dragon Colossus, and Silhouhatte Rabbit, but I imagine it'll still be a decent Deck over here, but it's really strong in the OCG with all the tools they still have.
Yang Zing
Now we go back in time to 2014 when Hidden Arsenal and Duel Terminal as a set and machine respectively were done away with as the lore for this series moves to core and side sets. We've made it now to Duelist Alliance to debut three themes for the lore, starting with the least successful of the three: Yang Zing. Now, this wasn't to say that Yang Zing was all that bad, as it did fine moments of success, but it just didn't compare to the other two. This archetype is a Synchro-centric strategy where all the monsters summon other monsters from the archetype upon destruction and gave your Synchros some bonus effects. The main issue Yang Zings always had, however, is the destruction effects are "when, you can" effects, therefore could potentially miss the timing if Chain Links were structured to where the destruction of your monsters wasn't the last thing to happen in the chain.
Before we get into success of the archetype on its own merits, some of the Yang Zing cards did find their way into other strategies. The most notable example of this has to be Denglong, First of the Yang Zing and his place in the True King Dinosaur Yang Zing strategy that was powerful enough to win the World Championship in 2017. First off, Denglong on summon could search for any card, which would usually be Nine Pillars of Yang Zing since it's basically omni-negation if you can keep a Yang Zing on the field. Denglong's main role, however, was to send a Wyrm from the Deck to the graveyard to change its Level to that monster's, mainly sending a Level 9 like any of the True King monsters to help give you access to True King of All Calamities in the Deck until Denglong was banned. If you would use Denglong for something else, like a Synchro play, you could summon another Yang Zing from the Deck to make the Nine Pillars you likely searched live, or get to the combo of Bi'an, Earth of the Yang Zing and Chiwen, Light of the Yang Zing to make a Herald of the Arc Light that cannot be destroyed in battle.
Denglong wasn't the first Yang Zing to see play outside its own archetype, however, with Swordsoul being well known for using some of the Yang Zing Synchros as toolbox options. The most popular would be Baxia, Brightness of the Yang Zing to be able to shuffle up to two cards the opponent controls into the Deck if you used Swordsoul of Taia and the Swordsoul Token you summoned, or you can get at least one card shuffled back into the Deck if Swordsoul of Mo Ye was the non-Tuner. You could also use Chaofeng, Phantom of the Yang Zing in Swordsoul since Baxia can destroy one of your cards to revive a Level 1 Tuner like Tenyi Spirit - Adhara to have Chaofeng lock the opponent from the effects of LIGHT monsters. If you reduced the Level of your Swordsoul by 1, you could make a Yazi, Evil of the Yang Zing to destroy itself and another card the opponent controls to summon another Swordsoul from the Deck while clearing out another threat if you need. There were also Synchro/Link combo strategies that could summon Yazi and destroy it to summon a Mare Mare to go deeper into their combos as well, but the Yang Zing Synchros outside their own archetype are more known for their role in Swordsoul as utility options.
Now if you look at Yang Zing for their own merits as a pure archetype, it lacks in comparison to what some of the other cards did in Decks like Dinosaurs and Swordsoul. It has topped several YCS and Regional events, though never really taking the gold home. They really peaked when they had most to all of their support released. Jiaotu, Darkness of the Yang Zing was a strong card for the archetype to discard two cards and summon two Yang Zings from the Deck, hopefully to make a big Synchro you can give two bonus effects to. Most of the non-Tuner Yang Zings also have effects to Synchro Summon during the opponent's Main or Battle Phase, which could bring up interesting options to summon on the opponent's turn like the aforementioned Baxia, a Black Rose Dragon, or eventually Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier when it was unbanned in 2015. 
The non-Tuners can give some nice effects to your Synchros, like Pulao, Wind of the Yang Zing making your Synchro unaffected by Spells, while Bixi, Water of the Yang Zing does the same for Traps. Bian's battle destruction immunity was already mentioned with Dinosaurs and making a Herald of the Arc Light. Taotie, Shadow of the Yang Zing and Suanni, Fire of the Yang Zing give alright effects like preventing your Synchro from switching control and giving it a 500 ATK/DEF boost respectitvely. Chiwen's effect to revive itself when your Yang Zing is destroyed should also be mentioned since its your other Tuner in the archetype.
Some Yang Zings that aren't like the rest of the archetype are Zefraniu, Secret of the Yang Zing and Zefraxi, Treasure of the Yang Zing since they also belong to the Zefra archetype that'll be discussed later in this series. The main things to note with them is that Zefraniu searches for any Yang Zing Spell/Trap for you and Zefraxi can turn any monster into a Tuner for you. The Spell/Trap lineup for Yang Zings overall is fine with Yang Zing Path being a minature version of Pot of Avarice for the archetype and Yang Zing Creation basically being a double float once per turn when your Yang Zing is destroyed, and you can't forget Nine Pillars mentioned earlier for some negation.
Overall, Yang Zing is a fine archetype, but it's long overdue for support. Being so reliant on destruction is not as strong when you'll more than likely have to be the one to destroy them, and you can't forget the major issue they have of missing the timing. Besides that, most their own Synchros can't do much on the opponent's turn unless you do summon them on their turn like Baxia. Yazi just sits there and has targeting protection, and Denglong is another combo piece that's thankfully no longer banned from what it did with Dinosaurs. The best Synchro to sit on for the opponent's turn is Chaofeng, since it locks the opponent from monster effects with matching Attributes to the Yang Zings you used as material, but that also requires knowledge on your matchup. You got the generic Synchros, but it doesn't help when Konami banned Baronne de Fleur and Borreload Savage Dragon as some of the Synchros. Hopefully it gets support in Terminal World 3 or another set, cause it's the most overdue considering the potential that's here.
Shaddoll
The second of the three Duelist Alliance archetypes might be one of the better ones from this era, and eventually got more support years later to give it another boost. Shaddoll is a Fusion-based archetype that uses Flip Effect monsters that also have effects that trigger in the graveyard. They also have what was one of the most unique Fusion Spells at the time with Shaddoll Fusion being able to use materials from the Deck if the opponent controls a monster summoned from the Extra Deck. 
Outside its own Deck, Shaddoll doesn't have as much to its name as Yang Zing. Shaddoll Beast and Shaddoll Dragon were sometimes ran outside their archetype for draw power and Spell/Trap removal when sent to the graveyard via card effects, good in Decks that can trigger them. There was also an era with Dogmatika that they would use a Shaddoll Schism they search off the El Shaddoll Apkallone they send from the Extra Deck to the graveyard to fuse it with any other DARK in grave to make El Shaddoll Winda to make sure both players could only Special Summon once a turn. Tearlaments could also use Winda since they were DARK monsters and they could shuffle themselves back into the Deck with something like Shaddoll Beast or Helshaddoll Hollow they'll use for extra mill power to make Winda.
Now where Shaddolls might not be as active as the Yang Zing Synchros outside their archetype, but that's not to discredit their power outside the archetype, Shaddolls might be more successful as a Deck. You can play pure Shaddolls, or play one of many different variants of Shaddolls that are out there, which is fairly extensive enough to be its own article. One of the best cards in a Shaddoll strategy, besides the aforementioned Winda and Shaddoll Fusion, has to be El Shaddoll Construct for her abilities to send any Shaddoll from Deck to grave on Special Summon, destroying any monster she battles that was Special Summoned, and like Winda and every other Shaddoll Fusion Monster, she can add back a Shaddoll Spell/Trap when sent to the graveyard, recovering Fusion Spells like Shaddoll Fusion or El Shaddoll Fusion as your way to Fusion Summon on the opponent's turn. Now Construct needing a LIGHT monster as Fusion Material should be noted in an archetype full of DARK monsters, but there are more than enough good generic LIGHT monsters in the game to make up for this, or Shaddoll Core for a time being used to treat itself as any Attribute to summon a Shaddoll.
For some Shaddolls you would send, Beast and Dragon were already mentioned, but there's also Shaddoll Hedgehog to search Shaddoll monsters, Shaddoll Squamata to send another Shaddoll from Deck to grave, and Shaddoll Falco to revive itself in face-down Defense Position to use its Flip Effect. To mention some of the Flip Effects on Shaddolls, Beast let you draw 2 and discard 1, Dragon bounced an opponent's card, Hedgehog searched for a Shaddoll Spell/Trap, Squamata destroyed an opponent's monster, and Falco revived another Shaddoll in face-down Defense Position. For a time, Sinister Shadow Games was ran to flip your Shaddolls face-up while also sending another from Deck to grave.
Besides Construct and Winda, some of the better Shaddoll Fusions during the initial run were El Shaddoll Shekhinaga for negating the effects of your opponent's Special Summoned monsters and El Shaddoll Anoyatyllis to prevent the opponent from Special Summoning monsters from the hand or graveyard via Spell/Trap effects, which the latter was good mainly during Nekroz format. Shekhinaga and Anoyatyllis each needed an EARTH and WATER monster respectively, but you could find options easily with Shaddoll Core from earlier or any good generic EARTH/WATER monster like how Peropero Cerperus had a spot in Shaddolls at the time.
The initial run for Shaddolls came to an end towards the tail end of 2015 when El Shaddoll Construct was banned and El Shaddoll Fusion was limited, but those would eventually make a comeback, as would the Deck as a whole in 2020 after they got a Structure Deck dedicated to them that was the winner of a fan poll on which archetype Konami would turn into a Structure Deck. One of the cards from this Deck was already mentioned, that being El Shaddoll Apkallone. Apkallone does more than search any Shaddoll card when sent to the graveyard, which also included a discard to trigger other Shaddoll Effects. It's a Fusion that needs any 2 Shaddolls with different Attributes to summon, cannot be destroyed in battle, and negates the effects of a face-up card on the field upon summon to make it a great El Shaddoll Fusion target. The summoning condition became easier in the Structure Deck as well since Shaddolls also got monsters in the Main Deck that weren't DARK.
The best of the new monsters was the WIND Reeshaddoll Wendi with her Flip Effect to summon a Shaddoll from the Deck in face-up or face-down Defense Positon as well as being able to summon a Shaddoll from the Deck in face-down Defense Position if sent to the grave by a card effect. Naelshaddoll Ariel was also good for the archetype's WATER monster with her Flip Effect summoning a banished Shaddoll in face-down Defense Position, and her main effect triggering by being sent to the grave to then let her banish up to 3 cards from either grave. Helshaddoll Hollow is their FIRE monster, but it was only really ever used in Tearlaments for its mill effect and wasn't out when Shaddolls made their resurgence. They also have a LIGHT and EARTH monster with Qadshaddoll Keios and Nehshaddoll Genius, but Keios was too underwhelming to play and Shaddolls were back out of the meta by the time Genius arrived. Besides those cards, they got Resh Shaddoll Incarnation to revive and help use the Flip Effects of your Shaddolls, and the aforementinoed Shaddoll Schism to use the grave for materials.
Shaddolls second run in 2020 was nice to see after the Structure Deck, mixing well with the Invoked archetype from a few years previous and later being able to mix with Dogmatika when they released later that year. The archetype never really took any more hits again, however. Their exit from the metagame came more from powercreep as time passed, so it remains at full power to this day. It had two great runs, so it doesn't really need to get more support compared to the other archetypes. With that said, more support could see the third-coming of Shaddolls in the meta potentially, or Konami will tone it down to not make another resurgence too big, so the future of this archetype will be interesting.
Tellarknights
After Fusion and Synchro, we have to get Xyz, and the third archetype from Duelist Alliance supported that with Tellarknights. Tellarknights are basically an extension of Constellar lore wise, but Tellarknights are more focused on Rank 4 spam in general. This does bring out some cards to be used generically at least, like Stellarknight Delteros being a generic Rank 4 who prevents the opponent from responding to your summons and is able to detach a material to pop a card each turn, though needing 3 Level 4s to summon does make it more niche, but useful for turbo Rank 4 spam and anything that used Star Seraph Scepter and Star Seraph Sovereignty at the time. The other generic Rank 4 was Tellarknight Ptolemaeus, who was banned for many years since it could detach 3 materials from itself to summon any Rank 5 monster that isn't part of the Number archetype, helping Rank 4 spam get to a Constellar Pleiades or Cyber Dragon Nova into Cyber Dragon Infinity when they shouldn't otherwise be able to. Also requiring at least 2 Level 4s to summon means it's easy to summon and you can get the third material with the End Phase effect to attach a Stellarknight from the Extra Deck to it. Ptolemaeus also has a turn skip ability, but needing 7 materials to pull this off meant you didn't see it often.
Besides those two, we also had the Rank 5 Stellarknight Constellar Diamond you could slap on top of any tellarknight Xyz during the Main Phase 2. In return, you get a monster who prevents cards from being sent from the Deck to the graveyard, and anything that would return from the graveyard to the hand is instead banished. It also negated the effects of the opponent's DARK monsters by detaching a material from itself, while also destroying said monster. It's a pretty blantant counter to the Shaddoll archetype, but it also helped in the TCG that Burning Abyss was also a DARK-based strategy. So any Rank 4 Deck at the time could use Ptolemaeus or Delteros to summon Constellar Diamond against the right matchups.
As an archetype of its own merits, Tellarknights were also fairly successful alongside Shaddoll, mainly due to the fact they could access the extremely versatile Rank 4 toolbox. The main cards in the archetype for the Main Deck were Satellarknight Deneb to search for your Tellarknights, Satellarknight Vega to summon them from the hand, Satellarknight Altair to summon them from the graveyard, and Satellarknight Unukalhai to send any of them to the graveyard. Deneb would search for your other Satellarknights you needed while the others mainly aimed to interact with Deneb for more advantage. It also helped to have a card like Satellarknight Skybridge to swap a Tellarknight you controlled with another from the Deck if you needed to. They also had access to their own Infernity Barrier like card with Stellarnova Alpha to put Deneb back in grave and let you draw a card.
For the Xyz pool, they of course used the generic good stuff at the time like Number 101: Silent Honor ARK, Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer, and Evilswarm Exciton Knight to name a few, but the archetype was mainly designed to make those Xyzs that needed 3 Level 4s to make. Now the TCG didn't have Number 16: Shock Master legal at the time, but they could use Evilswarm Ouroboros or the Xyzs dedicated to their own archetype. We've already been over Delteros (who also summoned a tellarknight from the hand or Deck when sent to the grave) and Ptolemaeus, but they also had the powerful Stellarknight Triverr to bounce all cards on the field on summon and could detach a material to send a card from the opponent's hand to the grave. Triverr bouncing the whole rest of the field back to the hand helped make cards like Call of the Haunted and Oasis of Dragon Souls useful in the archetype to reuse after they stick on your field when you're making your Xyzs. Triverr also revived a tellarknight from the grave when sent from the field to the graveyard, similar to Delteros fetching one from the hand or Deck. Now Triverr did only let you Special Summon tellarknights the turn it is Xyz Summoned, but if you were making Triverr, that was most likely all you needed alongside maybe throwing Constellar Diamond on top.
Tellarknights were most certainly a product of their time in an era where Rank 4s were some of the best cards in the game. This alongside hits to multiple other top strategies in either the TCG or OCG at the time (or being unreleased in the OCG in the case of Burning Abyss) was able to lead Tellarknights to winning the World Championship in 2015, and thankfully for the Deck nothing else was hit after that win besides Reinforcement of the Army going to 1 in the TCG as powercreep did the rest needed to knock this archetype out of the meta.
2014-2015 was the peak of the success of the Tellarknight archetype without a doubt, but they did still recieve support in 2023 that also tied the bridge between them and the Constellar archetypes. Tellarknight Altairan popped cards on the field up to the number of LIGHT and DARK Xyz monsters you have and could revive itself from the grave if you summoned a Constellar or Tellarknight monster. Tellarknight Lyran also summoned itself from the hand if you Normal Summoned a Constellar or Tellarknight monster and searched for a Tellarknight Spell on summon, which now would be Constellar Tellarknights to summon more Constellars or Tellarknights from the hand or grave on activation, as well as using your Tellarknight or Constellar Xyzs to summon a different Tellarknight or Constellar Xyz with a different Rank to help you summon Constellar Pleiades, Stellarknight Constellar Diamond, or Constellar Ptolemy M7 when you're only running Level 4 monsters mainly. The archetype also got a new Rank 4 with Tellarknight Constellar Caduceus, who retrieved a Tellarknight and/or a Constellar card on summon and could detach a material from itself while also banishing a Constellar or Tellarknight from the Deck to copy the effect it has on Normal Summon, usually working with Constellar Sheratan to search for Altairan or Lyran. Now, the modern support didn't bring the Deck to its original heights, but it was enough to find success on a smaller scale for a bit with the new plays it could make, but it has since fallen off again, so more support likely wouldn't hurt.
Qliphort
Moving from Duelist Alliance to The New Challengers with a Pendulum archetype joining the folds finally, we have the Qliphorts, who focus on Pendulum Summoning a bunch of monsters to provide tribute fodder for Tribute Summons. Now, not much from Qliphort was used outside the archetype except for a few cards. Qliphort Genius is a generic Machine Link-2 for EARTH Machine toolboxes that could also search for monsters like Therion "King" Regulus. There was also a time Metalfoes used Qliphort Scout and Qliphort Monolith to make Cyber Dragon Nova and Infinity since the Metalfoes could destroy a Scout in the Scale after you search Monolith.
Now for the Deck's own merits, it all based around Qliphort Scout being a Normal Monster you could search off of Summoner's Art so it could keep searching for your Qli cards, and sometimes you'd see cards like Performapal Trampolynx used to bounce Scout back to the hand for an additional search since it was a soft once per turn only. Qliphort Monolith also rewarded your Tribute Summons with a card drawn at the end of the turn for each Qli monster you tributed. The archetype provided good tribute fodder as well, since Qliphort Carrier bounced a monster back to the hand after being tributed and Qliphort Helix destroyed a Spell/Trap on the field.
The monsters you would Tribute Summon were also fairly powerful. Qliphort Disk would summon 2 more Qli monsters from the Deck when it was Tribute Summoned, Qliphort Shell could make two attacks during each Battle Phase and do piercing, and Qliphort Stealth bounced any card on the field to the hand with the opponent not being able to respond to this. All these effects would only trigger when Tribute Summoned using other Qli monsters, which was easy since you could Pendulum Summon mulitples of them a turn and they all could be Normal Summoned without tribute, but they all came with the catch that their Levels become 4 and their original ATK becomes 1800, which also helped make a card like Skill Drain a mainstay. 
Qlis also had more in common with each other as well, all being unaffected by the activated effects of monsters whose original Level/Rank was lower than the current Level of your Qlis. This was most powerful on the archetypal boss monster, Apoqliphort Towers. Towers being a Level 10 would mean most monsters in the game wouldn't affect it, and Towers also had the bonus of being protected from Spells and Traps as well. Now it did require 3 Qli monsters to Tribute Summon, but being a Pendulum archetype and having cards like Saqlifice to treat Qlis as 2 tributes does help. Saqlifice also searched for a Qli when sent to the grave, which it would always do when you're tributing the monsters it is equipped to. Towers also had other effects, like debuffing all the opponent's Special Summoned monsters by 500 ATK and DEF and also allowing you to make the opponent send a monster from their hand or field to the graveyard of their choice, which no matter what is ripping a resource from them.
Now, there were two well known ways to play Qli during its time. The first way was to rely on floodgates like Skill Drain and Vanity's Emptiness. It was already mentioned how Skill Drain would help buff your Qlis back to their original Level and ATK, even if you lose the protection they all come with, and Vanity's Emptiness locking you from Special Summons won't matter since all your Qlis could be Normal Summoned and have good stats. Qli also being Pendulums also meant they returned to the Extra Deck after leaving the field, meaning you could more easily control when your Vanity's Emptiness left the field, likely by using a Spell/Trap of your own or tributing a Qli with Saqlifice equipped. They also came with their own floodgate in Re-qliate as another Skill Drain against the low Level monsters that would be Normal Summoned or the high Level ones that would be Special Summoned.
The other way to play the Deck was to turbo out summoning Apoqliphort Towers as fast as possible. This was done to try to get to Qliphort Scout as fast as possible with cards like Summoner's Art or Wavering Eyes, which at the time putting the Qlis in the Extra Deck wasn't as big of a deal since there was no limit to Pendulum Summoning from the Extra Deck during this era. They would also use draw power like Upstart Goblin, Into the Void, Trade-In, and Sacred Sword of Seven Stars to draw through their Deck, with Qli offering enough fodder for the latter two. The gameplan really was to search and draw through your Deck until you could get to Apoqliphort Towers and slap it on the field while the opponent likely struggled to out it unless they had something niche like Number 52: Diamond Crab King or later the much less niche Number S39: Utopia the Lightning.
The Deck had a good run in late 2014 into most of 2015, getting many major tops. However, this time powercreep didn't bring the archetype's run to an end as we've seen many hits relevant to the archetype. Indirectly, we saw cards like Skill Drain and Vanity's Emptiness each go to limited status to give the floodgate version less to sit on. Directly, however, we saw Qliphort Scout and Saqlifice each go to 1 to neuter the consistency of the archetype with how much they could search, and Towers Turbo was popular enough to see Apoqliphort Towers banned in the TCG for many years to take that win condition away from the Deck. They did have Apoqliphort Skybase still after that, but it just wasn't the same, nor was having to rely on Qlimate Change to recover a Scout that might end up in the Extra Deck. The Deck as its own archetype is at full power in 2024, only Skill Drain is once again limited after a short period back at 3, and Vanity's Emptiness is outright banned. The main issue of Qli is a lack of support, with Qliphort Genius during the Link Era only being able to do so much. I don't expect this Deck to reach the status it once had, especially since every Link in the game affects Towers, nor do I think many would want Qli to be like it was before. Still, another case of new support likely going a long way to revive this archetype.
Conclusion
While this was initially going to be a three part series, the Terminal World support for the previously covered archetypes and the details of the more modern archetypes in this lore make it best to split the last bit up, especially considering how big the the last four archetypes can be with their past impact and the Terminal World support they have. With that said, you can see now we're at the point where Konami will put their best foot forward with these archetypes to make them more successful. Shaddoll, Satellarknights, and Qliphort were all big for their time and Yang Zings even had some good stuff going for them on their own or with some of their cards thrown into other Decks. We can also see how good the Terminal World series has been for some of these old archetypes as well. Ice Barrier has a new lease on life and is somewhat viable on a smaller scale. Genex at least has something they can focus on now, how fragile that it is. Fabled has a much improved game plan with their new support and the Fiendsmith archetype mixing in. The new Jurrac cards have been great to go with all the generic Dinosaur support we've seen in the past, and Gem-Knights are finally a strong contender without being an FTK Deck. Hopefully we see more Terminal World sets to revive some more of these old Duel Terminal archetypes, but the last part will cover some of the more complex and some highly successful archetypes that serve as the tail end of this lore.
