Branded (MD post-April 2024 Banlist)

Branded is a deck near and dear to my heart, something I've played for... almost as long as I played Master Duel. It's one of my main decks, one I go back very frequently. I've played it with Despia, with Dragonmaids, with Tearlaments, with the modern Bystial support, and now...

Here we are. In a format dominated by Snake-Eyes, this stands... as the strongest competitor I've managed to find. The arguable second best deck in the format (basically fighting with Labrynth for that spot), and one that I found a surprisingly high win-rate with against those ever-so-frustrating Level 1 Fires. I feel like most of us understand what Branded's cards do, so I'll keep the explanations brief on that front, but here's a breakdown of my choices.

Engine

• We run an effective 9 copies of Branded Fusion, across Aluber, Branded Opening, Springans Kitt, the Foolish Burial and Gold Sarcophagus to send Despian Tragedy, and some two-three card combos that net you the same (Despian Tragedy+Patchwork, Tragedy/Mercourier+Allure, or Tragedy+Polymerization+a DARK monster). You can run Keeper of Dragon Magic, either in place of Kitt or alongside her, if you're desperate for more copies or really want that discard instead of Kitt's cost, but I felt that's a bit excessive.
• On the subject of Kitt vs. Keeper, I favor Kitt because she can A: SS herself if you already have an Albaz fusion on field/GY, and B: can also pick up other Branded cards (whereas the best you're getting with Keeper is Fusion Deployment or Polymerization, if you already have Branded Fusion). I find the math adds up better in Kitt's favor, even with her cost for searching being worse. I also just like Kitt, she's really cute.
• I previously ran Nadir Servant and Dogmatika Maximus, but with the coming banlist (as of this writing) semi-limiting Nadir... I felt it was better to cut that engine. If you want to run it, the ratios I played were 3 Nadir (now 2), 1 Maximus, and 1 N'tss in the Extra Deck. It's a really good engine when you draw Nadir, giving you a draw by sending Garura and the ability to get two Albaz fusions into the GY (typically Titaniklad and Albion).
• Bystial Lubellion is run at 2 because I only have two copies. Count is flexible, depending on how desperate you are for access to the Bystial control engine. Access is still fairly easy even at one copy, because we can use Branded Fusion to send Bystial Lubellion for Albion (more on that in a bit).
• Quem is run at 1 because I only have one copy, and I generally would prefer to open Aluber/Kitt instead of her where possible. You only have 1 normal, and the choice between Aluber or Quem always adds up to Aluber being the better choice if you don't literally know your opponent has an Ash Blossom you can't stop. (though there's a decent chance they'll Ash your Quem, MD players will sometimes just click buttons even in Master Rank)
• The Bystial control engine mentioned prior consists of 1 Branded Beast, 1 Branded Regained, and then some Bystials (2 Lubellion and 1 each of the Level Sixes). This is primarily meant as an engine to counter stun and some backrow decks, a match-up we otherwise have an extremely poor time with. Branded's monster interaction is on point, but our Spell/Trap hate is otherwise limited to Guardian Chimera and our out-of-engine Feather Duster. And I guess Brightest, Blazing, Branded King, but I don't run that card. Beast and Regained with even just 1 Level 6 Bystial in rotation is a potent resource loop that basically wins a lot of grind games if it comes down to it. Unprotected backrow gets nuked by Beast, Regained revives Bystials for an endless conga line of big bunguses and also provides draw power and recovery for banished monsters. That said, sometimes stun games are effectively unwinnable, so be willing to just surrender and move on.
• Frightfur Patchwork is an old tech from the post-Albaz Strike days of Branded, and it's still extremely useful. The Edge Imp Chains are easy discard fodder that convert into a +1 and DARKs for some of our fusions, the Polymerizations provide you with extra access to fusion (and allow Guardian Chimera to be untargetable), and Patchwork searches both.
• Fusion Deployment is a post-Cartesia tech, and one I'm fond of. Fusion Deployment insulates any other plays you might have (allowing Aluber/Kitt/Albion/Lubellion to dodge Imperm/Veiler by fusing them with Cartesia), allows you to break/pressure boards by summoning Albaz, and provides extension via Cartesia's effect.
• Allure of Darkness I chose because we have a lot of DARKs, including a couple who benefit from being banished, and every drop of consistency is practically gold. Sometimes you'll be forced to banish a DARK you didn't want to lose, but you also were probably in a bad position if you were that desperate.
• Most of our Extra Deck is pretty standard for modern builds. 1 Lubellion+2 Albion+2 Mirrorjade+1 Titaniklad+1 Rindbrumm+1 Granguignol+1 Guardian Chimera is more or less default for current decklists, and the questions mostly just come from the rest of our ED. I chose Masquerade as our Despia fusion (I just prefer it over Quaeritis), I chose Alba-Lenatus to hate-crime Dragon decks (and as extra fodder for Mirrorjade), I chose Luluwalilith as a Granguignol target, and Garura+Mudragon are Super Polymerization/Branded Banishment targets (and Mudragon can be the target for a Tragedy+DARK fusion, if you end up in that kind of situation).
• Non-engine is flexible, pretty much everything that isn't a Branded card or mentioned already can be swapped out at your preference. I've deliberately cast my net wide, trying to cover most of the meta with my choices of handtraps and the like, but you may want to consider making a more targeted meta calls. Use your head here, I'm not your mom.
• We also just recently got a new bit of support in the OCG, in the form of Dogmatikalamity Alba System. It is not worth running. It's cool, but it's not very good. I will not be running it unless they give us some absolutely bonkers support to make turboing it out optimal.

On the Subject of a Certain Gimmick

The Gimmick Puppet, or Ido the Supreme Magical Force, or any other number of monsters you can use for this, lock is an infamous one ever since Branded Expulsion's release. It's the other win condition of Branded, able to completely lock your opponent out of playing the game. Very few decks are able to outright play through it, or necessitate cards like Forbidden Droplet to be able to remove Ido so they can play.

It also sucks. This sounds absurd to say, considering how despised it is, but I genuinely believe that the strategy of locking your opponent out of summoning by using Albion the Sanctifire Dragon's effect... is bad. I wasn't really able to articulate why for the longest time, but Daimax's "Stop Building Worse Centur-Ion" article managed to help me figure it out.

You have to effectively center yourself around the concept of the Gimmick Puppet Nightmare lock (the most famous, and arguably best, variant of the lock), from the moment you start your plays. If you see the line, you basically have to go for it, since Master Duel is a Best of 1 format (so you can't determine if your opponent can play around it or stop it dead then decide). In doing so, you're typically forced to pass up much better boards.

All for a strategy that dies if your opponent drops even the slightest hint of GY hate. In Master Duel, where everyone and their mother is running Called by the Grave at minimum. In Master Duel, where giving your stun-maining opponent a big body is basically just buying them another turn. In Master Duel, where people run a lot of control decks that legitimately do not care if they've been locked down for the turn.

Basically, you are trading Branded's greatest strengths (its absurd grind game, its ability to play through blow-out handtraps like Droll or Shifter and still end on functional boards, and the potency going first or second) to instead inflict a middling turn skip upon your opponent that may not even win you the game. I specifically caution against playing this in a Bo1 format, and don't even necessarily believe it's a particularly good in Bo3.

It's the same reason why Daimax believe that a pure Raidraptor build that puts down multiple Towers-type monsters on the board was better than the Kali Yuga turn skip. Everyone is effectively prepared for a Puppet lock (because everyone runs Called By, and probably some other form of GY hate) and you had to go first to get it anyway (in which case you were in a winning position regardless of whether it's by summoning Mirrorjade or performing the Puppet lock). A lot fewer people are prepared to deal with an extended grind game with Branded, and only two decks can actually match it in a grind at all (Lab and Snake-Eyes, and even then it often ends up in our favor). A deck that wins even just 51% of its games going first and going second is going to be better than a deck that wins 90% of its games going first and 10% of its games going second, and a lot less miserable to play on ladder.

Combo and Other Play Advice

There's a lot of possible combo lines to do, and Branded is fairly skill-intensive and requires a lot of thought between managing resources and deciding what you're putting on the board. Here's the best combo I've found off 1.5 cards.

1. (open either Branded Fusion+1 DARK or one of its searchers and literally any other card to discard)
2. Search Branded Fusion with Aluber/Kitt if you have not opened it. If you have opened Branded Fusion+Aluber/Kitt, I typically search Branded Lost to insulate plays but it's up to preference.
3. Activate Branded Fusion, sending Albaz and Bystial Lubellion to summon Albion the Branded Dragon.
4. Use Albion effect to fuse Albaz+1 DARK that isn't Albion the Branded Dragon (Aluber or Kitt if you summoned them, another DARK in hand if you have to) to summon Lubellion the Searing Dragon.
5. Fuse Lubellion the Searing Dragon and Albaz to make Mirrorjade by using its effect.
6. Use Bystial Lubellion's SS effect to tribute Albion the Searing Dragon.
7. Bystial Lubellion effect, place down a Continuous Spell/Trap (Regained, probably).
8. In the end phase, use Albion's effect to set a Branded Spell/Trap. If this was your only play (IE, you didn't open any extenders), Beast is probably the best in a vacuum (immediately usable by tributing Lubellion and able to do something against most decks in the format), but Banishment and Retribution are both viable choices. Red is also good... if you actually have an Albaz/Despia in GY, so depends on how you navigated your plays beforehand.

Match-up advice:

• VS Snake-Eyes: Actually a good match-up for us... for a slightly silly reason. In my own personal experience, Snake-Eyes takes too long to kill us and will often outright lose to time limit before they get the chance to actually win. Aside from MD's timer problem, we have a decent match-up with Snake-Eyes, in spite of Mirrorjade being easily outed by Subversion/Flamberge. Our grind game is obscene, and even Snake-Eyes can find it difficult to bust through our boards without non-engine help. Honestly, the biggest problem they can present us with is Apollousa as we often can't burn through that many monster negates (especially if they don't mindlessly negate the first 3/4 monster effects you activate and actually save their negates for key cards). It's a surprisingly even match-up, all things considered, and I've found pretty good success this season already (currently Master 4) against Snake-Eyes. The Kashtira variant with Unicorn is a lot more problematic, since they can easily screw us out of important ED cards, but it's still perfectly winnable.
• VS Labrynth: Definitely a lot more annoying, honestly our worst match-up in this current meta. Dimensional Barrier and the Virus cards can kick us out of the game entirely, and even Lovely's handrips can prove very annoying. Branded generally matches poorly against backrow-oriented strategies (removal requires some level of setup, and we can't negate Spell/Traps without Brightest, Blazing, Branded King, which is also not a great solve since it'll only negate face-up Spell/Traps at the time of activation), and Labrynth is no exception. We can still get wins, but you'll likely have to rely on getting through your first turn or opening non-engine like Ash Blossom.
• VS Unchained: I have not encounted enough Unchained to actually come to any conclusions about our match-up. We are neither super concerned about being destroyed (Opening can protect our fusions, most of our monsters will have their effects still resolve if they're destroyed, only Albaz's effect to fuse is particularly worried) or destroying things (we have plenty of monster removal that doesn't destroy, just be careful about Mirrorjade's effect when removed). Wave High King Caesar's effect to negate summons is honestly our only major concern, and even that is rendered moot if Branded Lost is on the field. I'd put it at being in our favor, but I really couldn't tell you.
• VS Kashtira: By far our most annoying match-up, though Kash is not highly represented as a pure strategy these days. Long story short, Arise-Heart turns off a lot of our stuff thanks to its Macro Cosmos effect, including Mirrorjade's banish and typically ends up with 3 materials by the time you can try to fuse it away with Albaz. Combine that with Unicorn and Fenrir being general pains in the butt, and you have a match-up I generally do not look forward to.
• VS Stun: Our outright worst match-up, highly dependent on what you managed to open. Aluber and Albaz can easily beat over most of the common floodgate monsters (the Barrier Statues, Pachycephalo, Jowgen), and most of our other monsters can do the same. However, they typically supplement those monsters with Moon Mirror Shield and the Solemn cards. If you get into a winning position, you'll probably maintain that position until victory, but it'll be a difficult climb to victory. A lot of the time, it's probably best to just surrender if you don't think you can win. Save your time and energy for games you can actually beat.