Hey yu-gi-oh! nerds, after much slumber and finally graduating from high school your boy is back with another deck profile! This time, I wanted to go back and use a concept I came up with years ago back when crystron haq was still running lose. The strategy I made back then(Initially dubbed "Bamboo Sword" unironically since the deck was supposed to be a bamboo sword buster blader deck then was scrapped after testing) is roughly the same as before but with bystials around and a few touch-ups to make the deck better. Now before I go over the deck, why use buster blader cards over generic dragon link stuff, and why it's a 50 card deck, I wanted to thank you guys for the support and views on the last profile I made being "Darklord/Despia". I never got that many views on anything on the internet before so I just wanted to say thank you so much for the support.
As you guys may or may not know, the Meta Game right now is in a mixed bag of decks that aren't the absolute best or "Tier 0" but are one of the most popular out there. One of the decks returning from the shadows since tears ban was the "Branded" and "Labrynth" Strategies, along with the ever present "Kashtira" decks running amok even though Diabolosis was banned and Arise-Heart being limited, and the newly released "Vanquish Soul" making waves into the competitve format of the TCG. Luckily Dragon Link hasn't fell out the meta game just yet and there is still some cards that are genuinly amazing but hasn't been tapped into. The deck I am running is still your average Bystial Dragon Link deck, having a similar end board with Borreload Savage Dragon, Hieratic Seals and Borrelend Dragon. Along with having the same main combo pieces and objects as the last one, normal summoning Starliege Seyfert while getting Rokket Tracer into hand to resolve the field spell "Boot Sector Launch" later.
Now to go over why this deck is running the "Buster" engine. To put it simply, it's a one-card skill drain on resolve as long as you have 1 dragon in your graveyard, and when I mean skill drain, I mean ONLY for your opponent and not yourself. This engine essentially gives you two boards your opponent has to worry about and break through, which i'll go over how that is momentarily. The original formula I had back then wasn't so based on dragon link, and was more on a supporting role if anything. Since Rokket Tracer was a one card level 8 Dark synchro that got itself to the graveyard easily, I used the engine to protect "Prologue of the Destruction Swordsman" from a genuinly good removal card like "Lightning Storm" or "Evenly Matched". Now you might be wondering, "What is prologue and what does it do?". To put it short, it sends Buster Blader and any "Destruction Sword" card to the grave to special summon "Buster Dragon" onto the field. So why is this a good card effect? It only summons a monster that changes the type of other monsters on the field. While Buster Dragon Becomes good later, prologue's other effect makes this card busted. Since it allows you to send any destruction sword card, you can send "Destruction Sword Memories" along with Buster Blader to trigger a Fusion on the same turn, summoning out "Buster Blader, the Dragon Destroyer Swordsman", a card that makes it so that your opponents monsters can't activate their card effects on the field or attack(Unless they control a Link Monster) as long you control Buster Dragon on your side of the field.This play is only available to you if you can get a dragon in the graveyard, which is precisely what the dragon link engine was for, to get cards to the grave while also establishing a decent board before hand. This deck has a lot of combo starters to allow you to get to an amazing board, even if you don't have Prologue. Generally speaking this deck has a lot of combo starters and extenders, and can also search for your main combo pieces easily, hence why I decided to play a 50-card deck instead of your standard ratio of 40. I don't normally like to use handtraps in the deck because my mind process when making a deck is priotize making the board rather than adding handtraps which will sometimes make you brick, but running the 50 helped me minigate a problem I was having with this deck in which i'll go over the pros and cons in a sec, and these handtraps are very important against certain mu's. Impermance is a good hand trap against Kashtira since it's a monster negate that isn't a monster, and ash single handedly stops certain strats from functioning(like for example branded fusion). So in summary, the bystial DL package allows you to send dragons to the grave to summon out powerful Link and Synchro monsters with help from the field spells, while the Buster package allows you to shut your opponent out from monster effects unless they have removal or they are playing a deck that isn't too worried about monster effects on field and can even shut them out of the extra deck. Now for the tips, tricks, pros and cons...
-As I have said earlier, rokket tracer can set up a lvl 8 DARK synchro easily by popping one face up card on our side of the field, but you can pair this effect with Bystial druisworm, which when sent from field to grave it can pop one special summoned monster on the field, which can serve as disruption.
-If you open Starliege or Chaos space, you can special summon Strike Dragon and Dragunity Knight Romulus on the same turn by using the twin dragons Collapserpent and Wyverbuster, giving you easy access to rokket tracer.
-You always want to see a Tracer, Starliege, Whelp, Chaos space, or Quick launch in hand because they tend to start your combos.
-I never went over this formally, but if you can send dragon buster to the grave after the combo if you searched for Prologue, you can lock your opponent from special summoning from the extra deck because of buster dragon's ability to equip a destruction sword monster card onto your buster blader monster on the field.
-If you already have tracer in hand, summoning romulus isn't required unless you want to send Starliege or Lubellion to the grave.
-Nibiru was a must play for this deck since so many decks aren't respecting the card in the first place. If it wasn't being main'ed, it was being used for the side deck.
-Kurikara is an amazing card and is likely to get more over priced as the generations flow by because of it's effect to tribute cards and gain so much attack points for free and also summon your opponents monster on the field from the graveyard. Evenly and Cosmic Cyclone are amazing removal options and is a stun deck's worst nightmare. And Dark Ruler can help break through the toughest boards with ease.
-One issue I have ran into when I was playing this deck at 40 was when I drew into Buster Blader, the garnet of the deck and was only discard fodder. The reason it's bad to draw him in this varient of this deck is because if he isn't in the deck, Prologue cannot be activated anymore resulting in 5 dead cards in the deck. While it is still possible to get the lock going still, it won't be as strong because typically you'd sacrifice summoning Buster Dragon over Savage Dragon. Because it is a 50 card deck now, the problem has been minagated to a good degree and bricking isn't very common in this deck.
-The Mirror Mu in bystial DL and Danger Darkworld has proved to be troublesome in the past who has a decent pilot since they can either activate card effects in the hand or grave to avoid the floodgate, or they can banish my cards before I even get the chance to. Generally be careful of cards that can force all of your cards to be banished. Do be mindful of these deck lists, otherwise go wild.
Cards i considered adding into the deck consists of...
Assault Synchron
Droll and Lock Bird
Ghost Belle and Haunted Mansion
Baronne De Fleur
Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss
Solemn Judgement
Lightning Storm
Harpie's Feather Duster
The Melody of Awakening Dragon
Pot of Prosperity
Assault Synchron is probably one of the most buster cards to be ever printed and has shown potential since release. I never played it in the deck because I didn't have enough room to play it in this specific varient of the deck, but if you plan making a version of dragon link I would highly recommend you try and see if it fits you. My guy "TheCaliEffect" is absolutely labbing out the card with this archetype and I would love it you checked out the link listed here for a better guide on how to use the card: https://youtu.be/sBcnYQAOrHw
Droll was originally going to be in the deck because of how many decks like to search for their entire combo like Manadium or Heavy Samurai. Droll and Ash are equally important and therefore interchangeable in terms of which card is more important, but I personally leaned towards Ash Blossom because of how much branded has been popping up lately. Ghost belle i previously used when testing a Vanquish Soul deck i've been cooking it was actually pretty good, but however niche since it only ever had something to do with the graveyard so I never included it.
Baronne was close to being in the deck over Dis Pater but I figured it would be a bad inclusion because tracer can lock out of special summoning non-darks, so it would've felt out of place and clunky
Allure of Darkness, TMOAD and Pot of P are all interchangable but in my preference I liked Allure better. It depends on the player but they work the same really
LS and Feather duster were all great removal options and is still amazing to this day, however the meta more leans towards evenly matched due to it's ability to banish cards face down and punish your opponent for crafting a crazy board
With that being said... I hope you guys enjoyed this months deck list. I didn't say this in the previous list but I will continue working on all the decks I have posted to see what works in the current format, to always try to make them stronger as time progresses, but let me know what you guys think in the comments with this deck if yall have questions or not! And again I would like to say you should definitely check out Calis channel in the link provided, he is truly cooking up something that will take the format by storm. But with that I only have a few more words to say... Have an amazing day!
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