2023 Format - Amazoness

HAIL THE QUEEN!

It's been about 8 months since my last Amazoness deck and I really wanted to take another crack at it. This is such a challenging deck to build in the modern day (any era really...) but I'm extremely passionate about the archetype. Hopefully the enthusiam will come across in my write-up. I'm going to extensively cover everything in this deck I can, and even discuss alternate card options not present in this build. 

The first card to mention is Amazoness Queen. While we only play one copy, it is mandatory. The Queen can be summoned off of Princess or with the effect of Amazoness Augusta. Her continuous effect makes her a thorn in your opponents side, of which there should be many.

The next card is Amazoness Princess. Princess is a card that didn't debut until Legendary Duelists in 2017. This is a card this archetype desperately needed, and to be frank it was a little too late. Maybe in HAT format it could've shined. Regardless, we run 3 as it is our main searcher/starter. It also has a great battle phase effect to summon out another Amazoness monster at the cost of discarding a card. This can be used in tandem with Amazoness Secret Arts  to dish out some serious damage.

Our next monster is a newer one: Amazoness War Chief. War Chief is another great card in the archetype that we got very late in the TCG, and it helped the deck immensely. She is an extender that can be special summoned if you control no monsters or only Amazoness monsters, and upon summon you can set any Amazoness spell/trap or Polymerization . Typically, you’ll want to go for Polymerization if you need a big boss monster for the current turn. Otherwise, if you’re stable with some boss monsters, go for any other card you can get some value out of.

We’re finally nearing the end of the newest monsters of this tribe. Amazoness Spiritualist is a new extender that can search out Polymerization upon special summon by returning a different Amazoness monster back to hand. Usually, I like to use this effect with one of the Pendulum monsters we run since they don’t have any summon cost, and we can just activate them again. Important to note that she can work in the hand or the graveyard.

I’ll consolidate the Pendulum cards into one paragraph: Amazoness Silver Swords Master and Golden Whip Master. I’m often torn on how useful these cards are. It kinda comes down to personal preference on how many of each you choose to run. So far, 2x Silver and 1x Golden seem to be the sweet spot. Not every deck is backrow heavy enough to justify running more than a single copy of Whip Master, and Sword Master’s effect is much more versatile (it also helps that she doesn’t need a tribute to normal summon, if worse comes to worse…) Regardless, you’ll need 1x each at minimum.

Amazoness Baby Tiger is a great card. Its ability to recycle itself over and over can be handy in this deck. We run 2x in this deck. Another option is to run 1x Baby Tiger, and 1x of the Amazoness Tiger – it comes down to personal preference.

Amazoness Swords Woman doesn’t need much of an introduction. It’s one of the craziest cards they’ve ever printed and can catch your opponent by surprise. In any situation where your opponent has a huge ATK monster on field, it can be game winning.

For our non-engine monsters, we’re running 3x each of Ash Blossom and Nibiru.

Let's get into the spells and traps!

Amazoness Village is a crazy card. The ability to summon the field can help you out in the tightest of spots. (The 200 ATK boost is nifty too) Run 1x – you’ll have the ability to search it out with a few cards.

Next, let’s focus on Amazoness Call. Another card released in 2017’s Legendary Duelists, it can search out any Amazoness card in the deck and either add it to hand or send it to the graveyard. It’s a quick play spell, and it’s helpful being able to chain it to any removal effect if you want to set it with War Chief. To no one's surprise, Call is mandatory at 3.

Amazoness Secret Arts is another newer card for the engine that really helped out this deck. The fact that it's a quick play spell is huge, and the ability to fuse an Augusta during battle phase can be game winning. This can be searched out with a couple of our monsters. It's other bonkers effect is that you can banish it from the grave and use monsters from the extra deck or graveyard as one of your fusion pieces. FROM the extra deck. That makes it extremely easy to fuse Augusta with Empress, allowing you to make two attacks during battle phase. We run it at 2x, a third copy will likely brick.

The last in-engine piece is Amazoness Onslaught. Onslaught is truly the best card this archetype has ever gotten. Between its ability to banish anything, its effect upon destruction, and the ability to summon during the battle phase, it's nuts. This card alone is what made Amazoness viable in Duel Links. People just don't expect it.

Every other spell/trap I'm going to jam into one paragraph. 2x Polymerization, 2x Extravagance, 2x Lightning Storm, 3x Imperm, 1x Feather Duster, and 1x Reinforcement of the Army. If budget isn't a problem, Prosperity might be better than Extravagance. That will give you the oppurtunity to expand upon the extra deck.

Last but certainly not least, the extra deck!

The first card to discuss is our supreme leader Amazoness Augusta. She is the primary attacker and end board for the OTK. She can made with an Amazoness fusion monster and any Amazoness monster. Typically, you're going to want to make her with Empress or Queen so you can use her effect to attack twice during the battle phase. Her other handy effect is the ability to special summon an Amazoness monster from your deck upon fusion summon. Augusta should always be run at 3x.

The next monster is Amazoness Pet Liger King. The King forces your opponent to attack him, and at 2900 ATK, he can provide a sturdy wall. If you have both of the Amazoness Pendulum monsters set up, he’ll get a nice ATK boost. His other effect lets you send another Amazoness monster to special summon one from the graveyard, which can be handy for recycling Princess and War Chief to pop their effect again.

Amazoness Pet Liger is another 3x in the deck. If you haven’t noticed, I’m running 3x of each of the boss monsters, so it gels well with Extravagance. Pet Liger is a very vanilla Fusion monster that can provide a solid 3000 ATK but trust me – he’ll rarely come up. He’s more or less just there to fuel Fusions off of Secret Arts effect. Pet Liger can be made with Amazoness Tiger and one Amazoness monster - Amazoness Baby Tiger will fufill that fusion piece when he is ON the field.

The absolute last muscle mommy to present is Amazoness Empress. She can made with a Queen and one other Amazoness monster. On top of protecting your other Amazons from destruction, she can also do piercing damage and has a floating effect to summon Amazoness Queen upon leaving the field. If you can manage to stick her and Augusta to your board, you’ll leave your opponent in quite a bind.

The final piece is 3x of Knightmare Unicorn for consistency with Pot of Extravagance.

The final section of this deck is the side deck – I’m not too familiar with the current meta so I’m sure there are plenty of other options. At this point, Cosmic/Solemn seem like side deck staples. I always recommend 3x Solemn Judgment in every side deck – it’s one of the best cards ever printed.

So, are there any other cards to consider running in 2023 from the Amazoness archetype? Honestly, not really. Despite the fact we got newer traps like Amazoness Hall and Amazoness Hot Spring, they are just too slow for the modern game. Getting Onslaught AND Village on board is hard enough as it is.

This is by no means an objective “definitive” list, but I think it’s damn close and certainly my most optimized. There’s always room for improvement. If you took the time to read all this, I greatly appreciate it. If even five people get inspired by this write-up to experiment with the archetype, I consider it a success.