Ashened Despia

Work in progress. Basically this is what happens when I try to figure out how to make Ashened work.

V1: Pure Ashened
By God it doesn't work. Don't let those YouTube videos with all their bombastic titles fool you. Cross my heart, this deck when run pure is just Dark Hole Dragon with extra steps. You'll wonder why the field is empty, then you'll realize you did all that yourself in the first place... on turn 1. Just don't.

V2: Ashened Gaia
Fusion Armament from Duelist Nexus gave the deck a nice tech: Gaia Prominence, the Fierce Force. For some reason both it and its named material Gaia Blaze, the Force of the Sun are both Pyro monsters. That's a monster negate in 4 summons, insulating you from a certain space rock. However, it trades with your main Ashened line, resulting in a weaker Veidos due to being summoned with less materials.

V3: Ashened Despia
When I think of Fusion-centric decks, Branded is the first thing that comes to mind. Obviously we can't fit the entire arsenal in here, but with what few cards that fit in, it does wonders for the deck. God bless Albaz.
It gives you extra bodies rapidly, gives you powerful interactions, and plays around your locks. You can even apply two locks (Fusion and Pyro) and still play through if you know what you're doing, but most importantly: it gave the deck an objective to build towards. Basic gameplan is to make sure you always have an access to a Fusion Summon. Where do the materials come from is a secondary concern-- Branded doesn't care. Haven't playtested this one as of the initial post, will update when I have more data.

V3.5: Ashened Despia (revised)
Added 1 more copy of Incredible Ecclesia, the Virtuous and swapped Ad Libitum for Dramaturge. Learned the hard way that multiple copies of Ecclesia means a fallback plan in case Albaz goes on a vacation in the Deck, or as a free Level 4 body to get into Infernal Flame Banshee faster. People also often correlate Ecclesia as a threat to tag out with her dragon boyfriend, which makes her a magnet for handtraps.

V4.0: Ashened Despia + Silhouhatte Engine
Compressed the Despia engine to 10 cards. Now that staple prices are down thanks to Quarter Century Bonanza, Bonfire is finally an affordable playset. Add to that the small engine of Silhouhatte Rabbit to give the deck new pieces of interaction, I think I'm gonna stick with this recipe for quite a while. Any 2 unused bodies can be linked off into the rabbit, and the rabbit can then set a multi-target Impermanence in Silhouhatte Trick or a searchable Solemn Judgment in Angel Statue - Azurune