Branded Springans [PHHY]

In keeping with the rest of the albaz lore, Kitt is hard carrying this deck. The idea is that, going first, you have access to the Springans xyz monsters and can set up pops and disruption, while setting up a resource loop and Branded fusion to close out the game if you are still alive. Going second, you can jump straight into the branded portion of the deck, using albaz as a searchable super poly to break your opponents board.

What is a Springan?

Springans are just funny little guys that live out in the desert. They're soot sprites that posses metal rocket suits, most commonly in the form of Springans Rockey. you can see in the art of Springans Merrymaker that there are several diffferent colours and patterns of rockey.

I'd recommend watching NOVAyugioh's series on the albaz lore for a more indepth look at the story, but to keep it brief, Albaz and eclesia are travelling across the desert to meet up with Kitt when they're captured by the springans. However, turns out tri-brigade kitt is going by springans kitt these days, and they clear up whole situation, kill the giant wurm thats been terrorising them and give the skull to Ecclesia as a reward (I think?)

Gameplan

The main goal of springans is to discard them to the effect of Great Sand Sea - Gold Golgonda to cheat out their XYZ monsters from the extra deck. Springans Merrymaker is a foolish burial, while Springans Ship - Exblowrer is a non targeting pop, splashing adjacent zones to the one picked up to the amount of material detached to activate it. On that last note, the machines in the archeytpe all share an effect that while in the hand, the GY or on the field, they can tuck themselves under a Springans xyz as ammunition. the xyzs also share an effect to tag themselves out during your opponents turn as a quick effect. Ths activates the second effect of gold golganda, allowing you to stop an oppoents monster from attacking. It also activates the second effect od Springans Booty preventing your opponent from activating a monsters effect on that turn.

The Archeytpe is incredibly flavourful. The loading up exblowrer wth ammo, popping your opponents cards, then disappering beneth the sands before they can retaliate is incredibly satisfying.

It's also not enough.

The deck suffers from not really being able to disrupt your opponent to well. a battle fade is fine, but once they've set up their negates, you arent dping much to them. Springans Kitt gave the deck access to branded plays, but it commited to many resources for not enough follow up to be worth it, and the time thief engine felt like the better pairing.

Until now. Photon Hypernova brings with it three incredibly pushed cards in Gigantic "Champion" Sargas, Tallyho! Springans!, and Lindwurm the Hammer Dragon, which all make splashing Branded into Springans feel not only thematically satisfying but powerful as well. 

Opening Lines

Basic Combo with Gold Golganda and any level 4 Spingan/Sargas:

1. Pitch the Springan to Great Sand Sea - Gold Golgonda  to make Springans Merrymaker 

2. Use Merry's effect to send Springans Captain Sargas  to the GY if you didn't send it for Golganda, or Springans Rockey  if you did

3. Use Sargas' GY effect to attach it to Merrymaker

4. Overlay Gigantic "Champion" Sargas over Merrymaker.

5. Use the Champion's effect to search Tallyho! Springans!

6. Use Tallyho to detach Sargas and Merrymaker from the champion. search Springans Kitt if she's not in rotation (Rockey is fine she is), then special summon the level 4 and Sargas in your GY.

7. Normal the level 4 in your hand. Search Branded Fusion  off Kitt when she's summoned from the GY with Tallyho or when normaled.

8. Overlay the 2 4's into Time Thief Redoer.

9. Use Tallyho in the GY detching a material from redoer to add back to the hand.

The end result is a sargas pop, a champion sargas pop and a redoer interruption with Golganda. If you live through your opponents turn 1, you have branded fusion and tallyho for your follow up plays.

Thoughts

Pros

The deck looks really fun. If you're a fan of the yoinky sploinky, detaching and reatching cards from the GY to your monsters to speical and search is incredibly silly and incredibly fun. It's a deck that could only exist in Yu-Gi-Oh, and I love it for it. There's also a ton of narrative meat on these cards, If you like the Albaz story, the deck will be fun to pilo.

Additionally, having in engine ways to search Albaz is incredibly funny, and very good going second. Super poly is a heck of a card, and although the extra deck is very tight, there's space to be found for cards like Garura, Wings of Resonant Life or Guardian Chimera if you have them.

Finally, there's a lot of potential here. This by no means is the optimal list, there's ratios to look into and tweak. If you have acess to the bystial monsters, that could be an effective hand trap engine when cards like Branded Beast are searchable, and the extra deck is pretty customisable as well, with I:P Masquerena into Knightmare Unicorn or even Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess being possibilities.

Cons

The main problems I see with the deck is how soft it is to disruption. Dimension shifter will basically stop your turn, and lots of those types of effects are in vogue right now due to the ubiquity of tearlament. Ash blossom and imperm also pretty much end your turn litterally whenever they're activated since all our searches are choke points, unless we get lucky and have exactly what we were missing.

Additionally, it's not difficult to lock yourself out of half of your extra deck. Branded Fusion is fairly of awkward since you can only summon fusion monsters the turn you activate it. If Albaz himself isn't in rotation, you're going to have to commit to the fusion lines. Since the fusions are the strongest monsters in the deck, it's not necessarily bad, it's just something you have to bear in mind if you open or search branded fusion. Activating Golganda will become muscle memory and can lose you te game if you needed to go into mirrowjade or something to clear.

Finally, it's still Springans. you'll notice the lack of combo lines I've written up for if you don't open Golganda. Although it's litterally 1 in 4 cards in your deck, there will still be games where you don't see it, and there will be games where you open two golganda, two booty and a terraforming. You will just lose those ones. It's bricky, and unless you have $100 for a playset of prosperity, there's not much you can do about that.

I think this will be a fun and relatively skill testing casual deck. But I don't expect it to be the best way to play Branded. It might not even be the best way to play Springans given that the champion can search Therion's to set up a negate, but unless you have the money to poney up for two cpoies of that card, this wil have to do.