Beetrooper

I kinda scoffed at Beetrooper at first, but when people figure out how insane these combos are this deck is gonna see play. New support in the near future is exciting, but what are we playing with right now? You're basically Insect Link Combo, putting up easy endboards with several quality interruptions in a combination of Monster Negates, a Counter Trap, and a lot of searchable hand traps.

Let's go over the deck. Cut it down to 40 cards by shrinking my packages down. It doesn't have as high a ratio of anti-hand trap tech this way, but in exchange, you get more consistent Resonance Insect starts. Seems fair.

So, for starters, we're running 3 Resonance Insect. This plus 1 extender is full combo, and the combo uses all three copies to search 3 times and send 1 time often for a fourth search. These are broken, and are the reason the deck is OP. You want to open this card, and you want at least 1 of your normal summons to be this card when you play out your plays. It is searchable with Gokipole and Retaliating "C", and can be equipped to monsters with Picofalena, so you always find 1 throughout your combos.

We're running the Battlewasp engine. Sting the Poison is a good starter - this plus an extender is a decent combo, since you search Arbalest for your extra normal summon with Armor Horn. It also puts a negate on the board when resurrected with Seraphim Papillion or Cicada King, and searches a follow-up in the process, so it is a very good engine to run.

We've got a full playset of Scout Buggy. This is usually the least important starter, it does lead into Armor Horn by itself, but it is more relevant for being special summoned with Invincible Atlas to make Cicada King. Still worth running the 3. You will banish these, but since copies summon from the hand, deck, or GY you want to leave redundant copies in the deck. Very powerful card, a combo piece, and a half-decent starter.

Next onto extenders. 3 Scale Bomber. These chain-block summon effects like Scout Buggy and Sting the Poison, provide an easy extender, and actually represents an additional interruption if you have enough extenders in your hand. 3 Pin the Bullseye and 1 Twinbow the Attacker are generic extenders and Battlewasps to search with Sting the Poison. Twinbow locks you into Insects, but so do your Link monsters which you make early in your combos. You mostly just summon insects so this restriction is not super relevant. We have 1 Monster Reborn. This represents an additional trigger for Resonance Insect sometimes, and while it doesn't combo off with just 1 starter it is a great high-quality extender late into your combos, so I think it is worth it to run. The search off Retaliating "C" is also not once per turn, so this is relevant with Monster Reborn. We have 2 Ready Fusion. We run 2 because it is sacky in multiples, and because we run a single Instant Fusion in the deck. That just about does it for extenders.

Beetrooper Sting Lancer is sort of an extender, sort of a hand trap, and definitely an engine card. Number one use for this card is summoning it with the Link 4, but you'll often search the second copy to your hand for more disruption, and when you summon the second copy on your opponent's turn it adds a follow-up. It's a little bit worse going second, but it can also represent an extra (very good) extender when you get hand trapped going first. I think 2 is the right number, I often summon 1 and search the other in my combos. 1 of the Field Spell, for follow-ups and the grind game (it's a decent extender late into your combos and helps keep a Beetrooper on field for the counter trap.) Lastly we run 1 Fly and Sting, the searchable recurrable Solemn in Archetype.

Gokipole is another engine card, but it's actually pretty good to Normal Summon, and fun to discard to Picofalena, so you never mind seeing this card. It is a hard once per turn, so you only get the 1 search off of this card a turn. It can add Retaliating "C" in some of your combos, and it adds Resonance Insect in others. You can equip this when you're out of Resonance Insect for more searching. It can also add Aztekipede for an extender, and can summon Killer Needle when you are going second to get an extender and break boards. Doom Dozer is another important card in the deck, but you can summon the one copy multiple times in your combos so you only need 1 (if you see the one, that's great - search something else high level!).

For Hand Traps we have 1 Retaliating "C". Pretty good against most strategies, provided they summon using the effects of a spell. Not a knockout in every matchup, but it is searchable, and it is quite good against some of the meta decks, and has applications against rogue decks as well, so you need 1. It can also help with your grind game by being equipped with Picofalena. If Max "C" comes back this card will be even more important and worth running a second, especially since the effect is not once per turn. The searching off this card is good, but I think you only need one, since you can shuffle it back into the deck from the GY and then add it again in your normal combos, using this to represent an extra Resonance Insect in your combos basically. We also have 1 Contact "C". It is searchable with Resonance and hits tribal decks pretty hard, and can even be searched with Retaliating "C". 1 Gadarla. It's searchable, and you need another high-level interactive monster to search for in your combos. Kaijus actually seem pretty good right now, and having the 1 of to search outs a lot of stuff rather nicely. We then have 1 Ash, 1 Ghost Belle, 1 Nibiru, and 1 Imperm. If the Mega Tin isn't out yet you can run more impactful hand traps, but post that you want to run Crossout Designator, and these are the 4 most important hand traps to protect against IMO, just by virtue of 3 of them being very commonly played and the 4th hitting you hard. There are more hand traps in the side deck for games 2-3. Lastly we have 3 Crossout Designator, 1 Called By The Grave, and 1 Instant Fusion for Millenium Eyes Restrict. Beating hand traps is good, and since our deck does require a lot of resources to go in to get them out, beating those hand traps is important. Instant Fusion is also our third copy of Ready Fusion for all intents and purposes, being the final generic extender.

In the extra deck we have some goodies. 3 Armor Horn. When the new support comes out I could see cutting this back to 2, but every copy of Armor Horn you have in the deck improves the grind game of the deck a lot, so right now I'm on all 3. 3 Inzektor Picofalena, these are essential to your combo. They're basically Union Carrier stapled to Pot of Avarice for insect monsters, and you can use that shuffle effect to have insane grind game. I see playing 3 of these as mandatory for your grind game, and so that you can use 2 in your combo going first sometimes, and I'll likely try and fit 3 in even if the new support it really good. We'll see. 2 Invincible Atlas. This is a combo piece and also your main boss monsters, you use this to help put up your final interactions and then leave it in the Extra Monster Zone as this Towers that people have to find an answer for. You could just run 1 and use Picofalena to shuffle the second back into the deck, but I like running 2 for now. You have 1 Seraphim Papillion, you want to make this at the end of your combos with Armor Horn and Sting Lancer (usually) and you want to revive Battlewasp Sting the Poison and in a pinch Scale Bomber to put up extra interruptions on your opponents turn. 1 is fine, you can shuffle it back if you need to and you don't make this turn 2 pretty much ever. 2 Cicada King. Again, Pico could shuffle the first copy back, but I like making 2 of these in a game, and this way Pico can focus on other more important cards. It's a negate, but it actually often represents 2 interruptions thanks to reviving Sting the Poison (or Scale Bomber). We have 1 Accesscode. You'll sometimes be able to make this, but honestly it's not usually where you want to be. It's good for now. 1 Almiraj. Sometimes you just need to use Resonance to search something, lame, but it comes up. Then we have the Fusion targets, Hercules for being and insect, and Millenium-Eyes to protect against hand traps.

Moving on to the side deck, we have an assortment of hand traps, partially for Crossout but also to increase hand trap density in games 2 going second. We have 1 Tri-Brigade Revolt for Crossout as well. It is an extra brick, but being able to use Crossout to shut down Revolt is pretty big in the matchup. We have 3 DRNM, because we want to be able to play the game going second. We have some assorted stuff for backrow, including Pankratops, always flexible. And then we have the 1 Killer Needle to push Gokipole going second.

One thing I want to point out about the deck is that the combos are very flexible. Sometimes it will be correct to summon Doom Dozer twice in a turn in order to build up more interactions, other times you pathway to the most effective plays are to try and search out as many hand traps as possible. You can even discard a hand trap you want to search, like Gadarla, shuffle it back into the deck, and then search it again very reliably. Speaking of, Gadarla is very good. The deck lacks tools to break boards, but easily puts up a lot of good interaction. However, Verte Anaconda can help a lot of those combo players break through your negation by summoning Dragoon, which can then pop what's left of your board, and force you to decide between crashing into it or giving up Atlas' protection on the follow-up. Right now Contact "C" is probably better, and since Sting Lancer represents an interruption that grabs you a follow-up it is sometimes the correct choice, but if you know you're in a Dragoon matchup search the Kaiju. Contact "C" is actually pretty good against a lot of decks that run Dragoon, for forcing them to go into Dragoon, which you can out. Also, even if your board gets broken you often add enough follow-ups throughout your combos to just rebuild turn 2, so even if they crash into Atlas after poping your board you're in an okay situation. When possible don't search Retaliating "C" with Sting Lancer. Generally Retaliating "C" is either very good or basically a dead card, and when it is good Sting Lancer is pretty redundant. You can search it when you know spell starters are played, Rokkets, Virtual World, Drytron, etc. It won't be as good against Tri-Brigade now that Tenki is at 1 and Barrage is banned. Lastly, a lot of people write off Scale Bomber's interruption, but when possible don't use it as material, leave it on the field. This will usually be the correct choice for putting up the highest number of interruptions. Don't be afraid discard the Counter Trap to Pico - while ditching an insect is often the better choice (so that you can use Picos second effect), in a pinch this will protect your card advantage, and might be the key to searching the relevant interruptions in your matchup. Also I'm hearing people say in combo tutorials "Leave Resonance in the GY" off of Pico's effect. While this is correct when you're going for Doom Dozer combos, when you're trying to maximize your searches it is often correct to shuffle the second resonance back into the deck to draw a card. This secures your follow-ups, letting you use one Resonance in your combo turn 2, since your first send of Gokipole is relevant when you don't see Gokipole, and your second send of Sting the Poison is relevant for setting up a negate on board, but your third send is irrelevant. If the deck gets some good GY enablers this may change, but for now I'd prioritize shuffling 1 Resonance back into your deck for the full combo.

Combo #1

So the combo I want to showcase is the Resonance Insect + 1 Extender combo. For our purposes, we're going to use Twinbow the Attacker.

So you normal summon Resonance, and extend with Twinbow (this locks you into insects, but that's not relevant)

Link them into Armor Horn. Resonance Insect Effect, add Doom Dozer

Banish Twinbow and Resonance to summon Doom Dozer

Resonance effect, send Gokipole. Gokipole effect, add your second Resonance Insect.

Armor Horn effect, normal summon Resonance.

Now you link Resonance and Doom Dozer into Picofalena. Pico equips Armor Horn with Resonance Insect, Resonance Insect searches a hand Trap, let's say Sting Lancer.

You could use Pico to draw a card here, but sometimes that messes up with your GY resources, so for the purposes of this tutorial you don't want to do it.

Link into Invincible Atlas. Resonance Insect effect adds hand trap number 2, so lets say that it is Contact "C". It could also be a Kaiju.

Banish Resonance + 2 others to summon our Armor Horn again. Resonance sends Sting the Poison.

Invincible Atlas effect, tribute Armor Horn. Here you have a choice. If the counter trap seems good you can summon Sting Lancer. However, since Sting the Poison is in the GY, you can summon Scout Buggy. Scout Buggy Summons a Scout Buggy and make Cicada King in Defense mode.

So our end board just looks like 1 interaction and 1 boss. However, Cicada King summons Sting the Poison for a second (ish) interruption while adding follow-ups, Sting Lancer does a D.D. Crow impression while adding a follow-up, and then you still have 2 cards in your hand plus potentially a draw off of Pico, plus Contact "C" or a Kaiju. The combos actually do get crazier from there, and there are games where I've got a hand full of interruptions at the end of my combo.

Combo #2

For this one you need Sting the Poison + 1 extender. For our purposes, let's show off Scale Bomber.

So you normal summon Sting the Poison, chainblock its effect summoning Scale Bomber. With its effect, you add Arbalest the Rapidfire.

Link 2 into Armor Horn

Armor Horn effect, normal summon Rapidfire.

Rapidfire effect, special summon Sting the Poison from your GY.

Link 2 into Inzektor Pikofalena, discard 1 card, equip Armor Horn with Resonance Insect.

If you discarded an insect you can shuffle it and everything but Sting back into the deck with Piko to draw a card. This also sets up follow-up plays, but isn't essential to the combo.

Link 4 into Invincible Atlas

Resonance Insect effect, search a hand trap (usually Sting Lancer, sometimes Contact "C" or a Kaiju)

Banish 3 Insects from the GY, including Resonance Insect, to summon Armor Horn to the field

Resonance Insect sends Gokipole, which adds Retaliating "C".

Invincible Atlas tributes Armor Horn, and either summons Scout Buggy to make Cicada King if Sting is still in the GY, or Sting Lancer to add Fly and Sting.

So your final Board is Atlas with 1 or 2 negates, and at least 2 hand traps, and you only used 1 Resonance Insect to do this. You also naturally search either "C" monster throughout this combo.

Note that while this represents the basic routes through the combos, these are also not the peak of the deck. At its best it searches for 5 cards in a turn while putting up Atlas plus 1 or 2 negates.

 

This deck is gonna be real, so learn the matchup now before it gets big. I'm not too sure what support Konami intends to release to help this archetype in the near future, but if even half of the new cards are playable it could make the deck a whole lot better. However, it seems really good as a rogue deck in the meta, putting up Towers + several interruptions fairly consistently once you learn the routes. The amount of searching in the deck is incredible, since you can search out multiple Level 5 or higher insect monsters, potentially multiple EARTH monsters with 1500 or less atk (right now we're not built to really capitalize on that but if Retaliating "C" becomes really good we could play more) and also once per turn we can search any level 4 insect throughout our normal combos. That's a lot of really generic searching, and there's plenty of decent insect support that exists. Cocoon of Ultra Evolution is a card I think could make it in some situations, if you want to summon weird Insect maindeck boss monsters, or search Resonance Insect an extra time, but I found it not useful enough as an extender to make the cut in my pure list. Still, any 1 strong insect maindeck boss monsters could make that card a viable option. Multiplication of Ants looks good on paper, but actually doesn't help with some of your main combos, so you can skip it.

Some things to look out for with the new support - Maindeck boss monsters (thanks to Coccoon of Ultra Evolution) could change the deck pretty substantially, since on its own Cocoon is mediocre as an extender, but if it searches out an absolute boss it would be worth occasionally having to burn up Scout Buggy. If Maxx "C" comes back it is a hit against the deck, as we are a combo deck, but also good for the deck since it is highly searchable in it, meaning more Maxx "C" for us. This deck would actually like Maxx "C" at 1. since then you could search it, but you wouldn't have to play against it as often. I actually think Maxx "C" formats would help the deck in terms of solidifying its gameplan going first and second, and would make Crossout better. Any tools that can help break boards could be pretty substantial for the deck, since it struggles a little bit going second. This is especially true of any extra deck boss monsters, which the deck is sorely lacking. A resource-generating Rank 3 Xyz is something to be on the lookout for in the archetype, since the deck easily makes rank 3s. Any Beetrooper that can Special Summon an Insect from the GY would help. Lastly, one thing that would help the deck a lot are any high-level insect hand traps that get printed, since some hands can search 4 high-level hand traps but there are only 3 (playable) that currently exist, Contact "C", Kaijus, and Sting Lancer.

Down to 1 Gokipole. It is an okay starter card in the deck, and it is brickier when you run 1, but I wanted the space to bring back in Called By the Grave to the main. I also put Meteonis Drytron into the side deck for the Drytron matchup.