Ashened Prediction Princess

You could say that I had a tinge of hope that the second wave of Ashened support would at least give the Deck more of something to do. But I didn’t expect the second wave of support to be as bad as it is. I see Spearhead of the Ashened City as nothing more than a Level 4 because its effect not being a Quick Effect makes your whole game plan now centered on two of their other new cards: Videos the Dragon of Endless Darkness and Ashened to Endlessness. Same goes for Shaman of the Ashened City. Being able to recycle cards is nice, but it is still nothing more than a Level 4 which gives you some semblance of a potential follow-up play if you are even able to last through your opponent’s turn. Though, it is still one of their better cards in the new support. Extinguishing the Ashened is like basically another card that searches for the next (as if they didn’t have a ton already). Veidos the Dragon of Endless Darkness and Embers of the Ashened are practically just Super Poly targets for the Deck as they use Pyros as material (which you can turn your opponent’s monsters to Pyro with Ashened to Endlessness) with Embers being able to add back a Field Spell from GY and is a double attacker if attacking a Pyro and with Dark Veidos being Duster on Fusion Summon and a Quick Effect pop when your opponent activates a card or effect. This basically makes the Deck’s game plan be to keep monsters off the side of your opponent’s field either via destruction like with Veidos and Dark Veidos or through Super Polying their monsters with Ashened to Endlessness or Super Poly itself into Dark Veidos or Embers. And there is a lot of Decks you are unable to splash with Ashened due to their Spell line-up which locks you into Pyros from Deck and Extra Deck. So you either have to play Ashened pure with their Spells or you can forgo the Spells and mix them with something else. Or you have to find something that allows you to make some plays before you Pyro-lock yourself. Getting into today’s topic: Videos the Eruption Dragon of Extinction is a Level 9 DARK Pyro monster who can during the Main Phase, Quick Effect target a card in a Field Zone to Special Summon itself from your hand to your opponent’s field, destroying that card and then allowing you to add or set an Ashened Continuous Trap from your Deck. And if it is sent from your opponent’s Field to your GY, you can destroy all monsters on the field. This card does a lot…for its respective archetype that is. But it does not necessarily mesh well with other Decks. We can’t be using Veidos’s board wipe effect when we actually need to keep stuff on our field. And besides, Ashened has no way of actually Summoning Veidos to your field as it is supposed to be the enemy, hence summoning it to your opponent’s field. But with the existing Pyro support, I don’t see a way to reliably summon Veidos to our Field, so we gotta take the other route: we have to Summon Veidos to our opponent’s field and then take control of it back. Thank God Geonator Transverser exists. We can just use Transverser to swap a monster with Veidos, target Veidos with Monstrosity, and we are on our way. To start, we need Veidos, Obsidim, the Ashened City, an Ashened name, and World Legacy Monstrosity. There are a couple of ways to get to Veidos, an Ashened name, and Obsidim, so just tinker until you’ve got all the right parts. Activate Obsidim. Then activate Veidos targeting Obsidim to destroy it, Summoning Veidos to your opponent’s field in their Center or Right-Most Main Monster Zone (your right from your POV) and setting Ashened for Eternity from your Deck. Obsidim triggers off of being destroyed in your Field Zone to Special Summon King of the Ashened City from your Deck. Activate King to Special Summon Priestess of the Ashened City from your Deck. Priestess activates on Summon to search for another Obsidim. Activate that Obsidim, and now that it is on the field, Special Summon the Ashened name you have in hand. Make sure that your monster placement is correct on the field for Transverser to work. Link 2 monsters into Transverser and then swap your monster with Veidos. Activate Monstrosity targeting Veidos and the rest is history. I never said that this Deck was good, but as you can see, without a card like Awakening of Veidos, it is just miserable to work with these cards. All of Ashened’s searching power is condensed into their Spell line-up and it is definitely incredible, but the Pyro-lock really does stop a lot of potential plays. Essentially, you are able to end on a standard Prediction Princess board with Obsidim drawing you a card in the End Phase and having Ashened for Eternity set to add back a Veidos or Ashened name with the Field Spell already on field and also with the ability to take control of the Veidos you Summon to their field. While this combo that I gave you does get you where you need to go, it is still possible to get to the same result through a different opener. There is no real set combo, but this one that I gave you is probably going to be the most reliable one to get you all the way. I can see the pleasure in playing Ashened as a Deck, but with their cards, it is nigh impossible to combine them with another archetype without being hindered by the Pyro-lock or being forced to blow up your own board with Veidos. 

For the monsters: 3 Prediction Princess Tarotrei, 1 Prediction Princess Tarotreith, and 3 Prediction Princess Bibliomuse. Tarotrei is a Quick Effect to flip a monster face-up or face-down and during the End Phase, she can Special Summon a Flip Monster from hand or GY face-down. Tarotreith can either be Ritual Summoned or Special Summoned via Tarotrei’s End Phase effect. On flip, she can Special Summon a Flip Monster from your Deck face-down and she can Quick Effect flip any number of your monsters either face-up or face-down. Bibliomuse can Special Summon herself back from GY face-down if she was tributed and sent there. On flip, she can add a Prediction Princess monster other than herself and a Ritual Spell from Deck to hand, and while she’s face-up on field, your Ritual Monsters gain targeting and destruction protection from your opponent’s effects. 2 Deus-X Krawler which negates all activated monster effects on your opponent’s side of the field after it has been flipped face-up and if it is destroyed on field, you can search for a Level 9 monster with a different Type and Attribute than it from Deck. 2 Gizmek Kaku, the Supreme Shining Sky Stag which can Special Summon itself from your hand if there is a monster in the EMZ and it is a Level 9. 3 Veidos the Eruption Dragon of Extinction. The worst part of this card is the fact that it is not searchable if you are not playing any of the Ashened Spells which also happen to Pyro-lock you from the Deck and Extra Deck after using them. But what I think is even worse is how important this card is to starting your combo. In pure Ashened, you can still work your way around Veidos’s effect to pop a Field Spell and Summon itself being negated as it is a Quick Effect, so you could just do it on your opponent’s turn to at least do something rather than nothing with the rest of your cards. But playing it outside of pure Ashened like we are and having it be a pivotal part of our combo is an absolute nightmare as it being negated by something as simple as an Ash Blossom (because it says “add to your hand or set 1 “Ashened” Continuous Trap from your Deck which is stupid as a part of its effect to pop a Field Spell and Summon itself to your opponent’s field) practically stops your turn. You need this card to resolve so badly as it just generates so much advantage on its own, but it is also the Level 9 we need for our Prediction Princess stuff as well. For our Ashened monsters: 2 King of the Ashened City, 3 Priestess of the Ashened City, 1 Spearhead of the Ashened City, and 1 Shaman of the Ashened City. I originally was playing 1 King, 3 Priestess, and 1 Shaman, but in testing, I needed to see a name more often than not. All Ashened monsters have the ability to inherent Summon themselves from your hand if Obsidim, the Ashened City is in the Field Zone, being only able to summon each of them this way once per turn. King can Special Summon an Ashened monster from your hand except itself, but if your opponent controls a monster with 2800 or more ATK (i.e. Veidos), you can Summon it from Deck instead. This is an incredible way to get to cards like Priestess for searching or to Shaman for recycling. Priestess adds an Ashened card from Deck to hand except herself on Summon which is always nice, especially for a card that can Summon itself from your hand for no cost. Spearhead can Tribute itself to target a card your opponent controls and return it to the hand only if they control a monster with 2800 or more ATK. Why? Why the restriction? Eitherway, moving on, Shaman targets 3 Pyros in GY and/or banishment and shuffles them into the Deck, allowing you to search for Obsidim if you shuffled an Ashened monster. This is good for recycling and being able to grab another Obsidim is always nice. 

For Spell/Traps, 1 Multi-Universe and 3 Obsidim, the Ashened City. Multi-Universe can only be activated if you don’t control a face-up card in your Field Zone and can target a Field Spell that is banished or in either player’s GY to destroy itself and place that card face-up in your Field Zone. And if a card(s) in the Field Zone would be destroyed by a card effect, you can banish this card from your GY instead. Essentially, Multi-Universe is a good way to get yourself an Obsidim back onto the field after it has been destroyed by Veidos. Obsidim turns face-up Special Summoned monsters your opponent controls into Pyro monsters during your turn only which helps out with the Deck’s Super Poly-esque gimmick. During your End Phase, it can target another copy of itself in GY and place it on the bottom of the Deck to draw 1 and if it is destroyed or banished in the Field Zone, you can Special Summon an Ashened monster from Deck. As this card suggests, Obsidim and Veidos are the heart and soul of an Ashened Deck, so it is crucial that you see both of them in your opening hand or have a way to get to them which is limited in a non-pure or Pyro-focused version of the Deck like this one as the cards that give you access to both of them lock you into Pyros from Deck/Extra Deck which does really hinder other plays. 1 Terraforming for Field Spell searching. 3 Underworld Ritual of Prediction which Ritual Summons a Prediction Princess Ritual Monster from hand or GY face-up or face-down and you can banish it from GY during the Standby Phase to Special Summon a non-Ritual Prediction Princess monster from Deck face-down. 1 Instant Fusion for Master of Ham. 3 Bonfire which searches a Level 4 or lower Pyro from Deck. 3 Pot of Prosperity. 3 World Legacy Monstrosity which either Special Summons a Level 9 from hand or targets a Level 9 monster you control to Special Summon 2 Level 9 monsters from Deck with a different Type and Attribute than that monster but with different names. 1 Ashened for Eternity which is a Continuous Trap which adds a Veidos or an Ashened monster from GY to hand on activation and it can target a face-up monster your opponent controls that you own and take control of that monster, reducing the ATK of all face-up monsters your opponent controls by the targeted monster’s original ATK until the end of the turn. I am not playing Ashened to Endlessness because quite frankly, that card is pretty useless if you aren’t playing a pure Ashened Deck since it is just a Super Poly card that is so much worse than Yubel’s Eternal Favorite. 

Extra Deck: 1 Master of Ham which Special Summons a Flip Monster from hand or Deck face-down on Fusion Summon. 2 Herald of the Arc Light which searches a Ritual Monster or Ritual Spell from Deck if it is sent to GY. 1 Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS - Sky Thunder. 1 Super Starslayer TY-PHON - Sky Crisis. 2 Mereologic Aggregator which can send a monster from your Extra Deck to GY on Xyz Summon and it can target monsters in your GY up to the number of materials attached to it to detach the same number of materials and attach the monsters you targeted in GY to itself in exchange. 1 Laevateinn, Generaider Boss of Shadows and 1 Jormungandr, Generaider Boss of Eternity. 1 Infernal Flame Banshee which is a Rank 4 which can detach a material to either add a Pyro monster from your Deck to your hand or send it from Deck to GY. Under certain circumstances such as when you need access to a specific Pyro such as Veidos, you can use 2 of your Level 4 Ashened monsters to make this card to search for Veidos and then be able to pop Obsidim to put Veidos on your opponent’s side of the field while getting another Ashened monster onto your field to continue your plays. 1 Underworld Goddess of the Closed World. 1 Geonator Transverser which can switch control of the monsters it points to. 1 S:P Little Knight and 1 I:P Masquerena and 1 Gravity Controller.

Side Deck: 3 Nibiru, the Primal Being, 3 Kashtira Fenrir which is nice for getting a free body onto the field to either help make Transverser or be used as removal, 2 Dark Ruler No More, 1 Harpie’s Feather Duster, 3 Evenly Matched, and 3 Infinite Impermanence.