Character Deck: Dinosaur Ryuzaki / Rex Raptor

 

Art Credit: FoolishLittleMortal

Deck Themes: Dinosaurs, high ATK, high-level summons, "Black" dinosaur series

Aesthetic: Pure dinosaur designs, wild prehistoric Earth, minimal influence from more modern or comedic tones.

Strategy: Summon high-ATK dinosaurs and buff them up with support cards, and hit the opponent hard. There are many cards to help cheat out the higher level Dinosaur monsters, and a smattering of high-level Dragons to bring the pain on the field. Destruction effects are minimal, with almost zero anti-S/T elements to the deck.

Card Choices: 

• Black Ptera: Acts to replace the anime-only Kaitoptera, so it has multiple copies instead of the single copy that the other Black dinos get.


• Black dinosaurs: A unique series/sub-theme not used by any other existing characters, this sort of non-archetype series of related monsters feels very true to early Yu-Gi-Oh!


• Jurassic World: A simple ATK boost for Dinosaurs, this card is ultra-basic and very true to early-era Duel Monsters. Although it and Destroyersaurus were used by Tyranno Kenzan in GX, I feel this is generic and basic enough of a card, and aesthetically perfect, to justify use in this deck. However, due to the connections to Tyranno, it is likely this will end up subbed out for the "Dinosaur Kingdom" Field Spell from the upcoming Ultimate Predators starter deck that is themed around Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood.


• The Earth - Hex-Sealed Fusion & Instant Fusion: Acts as a way to summon out the lower level Dinosaur Fusion monsters that Ryuzaki already has half of the fusion materials for. In the case of Instant Fusion, it can also provide handy tribute fodder for a Tribute Summon.


• Razor Lizard: Although comical and not quite fitting the naturalistic aesthetics of most of Ryuzaki's deck, this card fits vaguely with Balloon Lizard as a goofy-but-not-too-cartoonish Reptile and existed back in the DM era. The only other real option in non-archetyped Reptiles was Don Turtle, and since turtles don't have a strong relationship to dinosaurs in public perception I passed on choosing it.

Exclusions: Though there are many more strong high-level dinosaurs that could be options, many of them were excluded due to being used by or associated with Tyranno Kenzan in the GX anime. This includes Ultimate Tyranno, Super Conductor Tyranno, Ultimate Conductor Tyranno, Tyranno Infinity and Saurobeast Brachio.

Design Intent: Casual. All character decks I design are intended to play against each other and are tweaked to do so, being 50 cards and having a side deck as well. Generally a balance between consistency and authenticity is intended, so while multiple copies of cards may be run the idea is to see a wide variety of plays, much like in the anime/manga.