So, this is where we are at right now - the most competitive versions of Dragons is Dragon Waifus. When I first started playing, this would have seemed ridiculous. Part of it is that the archetype got a new sweet boss monster, the Omni-Negate value-engine that tags out - part of it is the broken trap and the new broken starter - but mostly, this deck was waiting for the metagame to shift, and for players who believed in the deck to develop it.
I'm not an amazing Dragonmaid player, but I love me some Dragon decks, and I genuinely think Dragon Waifus is not just the best Dragon deck, but the best home for the Rokket package right now in the Master Duel meta. I have been working on this for a little bit, and I think I have this engine humming right now, so I wanted to share it.
The interruptions in the format are pretty standard. Maxx "C" is kinda nutso, and Ash answers Maxx "C" - Called By is also nutso even in the absence of Maxx "C" and if one of the few great answers to the sneaky insect. I don't love Ash tbh, but so long as it is a Maxx "C" meta these cards seem pretty standard and essential. After that all I'm doing is leaning on in-engine interaction and extra-deck utility monsters.
So, for Maid form Dragonmaids I'm on 7 - 3 Chamber, 3 Parlor, and 1 Nurse. Chamber and Parlor are kind of your Aleister - they both have good setups into Hieratic Seal, they both search the Fusion spell for Fusion set-ups, which is important since Sheou is the deck's main game plan. In this deck, they also can help set up Romulus plays, which is pretty rad. Chamber is mostly better than Parlor, but they're at their best when you activate both in the same turn, so the deck is built to do that. It would be nice if Kitchen also worked as a decent starter, but in practice I'd rather cut it - it doesn't have a lot of great setups, and isn't a 1-card boss monster like these other starters. Nurse, on the other hand, is kind of awesome - it'll help make the god plays possible with Foolish effects, and is summonable off of Seal for incredible value. The main value in Parlor over Chamber is sending the Dragon Form high-level monsters from the deck to the GY, but it does enable a bunch of weird set-ups. I'd love more starts into these cards, since they are my main engine, but for now that means reliance on other 2 card combo engines.
I also knew I needed high-level Dragon monsters to make Sheou with, and I wanted a good solid package of 5. 1 Absorouter makes so much sense - getting to start plays by summoning Sheou, then searching Tracer is kinda cray, and this card being in the deck also makes Tracer searchable using the Extra Deck. You also do need high-level Dragonmaids to tag out into - I like 2 Lorpar, because going second the card is extremely good, but 1 Ernus seems fine. You could put whatever you wanted in the last slot really, but I like using Chaos Dragon Levianeer going second to break board, and it'll occasionally get a snipe going first. It also is just fine as Fusion material from the hand if you can't summon it. I shifted out a Lorpar into Nurdyle, which seems good so far.
I'm running 5 Fusion Spells, but you have a lot of access to the main one with the 6 other Dragonmaids - you want to see exactly one copy of these so you don't have to search is, so again, you run 5. Dragonmaid Changeover is the best generic poly available in Dragonmaids, and in addition to its Fusion effect not being once per turn, it also can enable loopy nonsense that is both value and interruptive when you see it, so the risk of running multiples is low while the payoff of seeing a copy is huge. if you wanted to you could run Verte and 1 copy of Poly, which will mostly just be Changeover for all intents and purposes, but in testing it never came up because it was always a bad value play. You could also run Despia, Theatre of the Branded, as all of your Fusion Monsters meet the criteria for summoning, but this build runs 2 other Fields and is trying to grind with either/or. Dragon's Mirror is busted, and when things are going well the card is insane, but it is bad in multiples and the low-end Mirror makes very sad Sheous with no friends. Changeover is just the best Dragon Fusion support card in general, anyways.
So, for Rokkets, we have 2 Tracer, 1 Silverr, and 1 Magna. You can actually trigger the Magna and Silverr with Hieratic Seal or Borrelsword, which is nice, but the real reason for 2 searchable Rokkets off of Tracer is that they come up in the grind game, and that doing so enables more turn 1 Rokket combos. I'm also on 1 Quick Launch, and 1 Boot Sector Launch. This might seem weird, but remember, we only need access to 1 Tracer, and we're trying to get some more consistency in another way. I like this engine a lot, even if it isn't entirely necessary. One thing to note is that, while you can, and occasionally should, pop your own field spell with Tracer, it is often better just to leave it up for the threat of the grind game, whichever one you've ended on.
So, the main consistency for all of these combos comes with the weird little thing we're doing with the rest of the deck. Foolish Burial and Dragon Shrine are effectively copies of the same card you can activate on the same turn in this deck, and Ravine gives us a searchable third copy, with the downside/occasional upside of coming with a discard, and being easily searchable. Meanwhile, Nurse Dragonmaid revives Dragonmaids sent to the GY for value, Hospitality does the same but with a free send often attached, and Monster Reborn is a hyper generic card that also allows access to the dragons sent off the sending package, as does World Legacy Guardragon, at least for the purposes of summoning Rokkets and low-level Maids.
Lastly, we have 3 Tidying. We're really leaning on these and on the weird activation cost of Hieratic Seal to out floodgates and give us game against dump floodgate decks - we also need a lot of this card, since it'll be sent to the GY to enable the extension of plays, and since it is a stupid busted trap and a big part of the decks viability. It's the dumb trap you search out, but since often enough you'll have to search out a Fusion spell, you want to see this anyways.
This deck can put up pretty insane boards - Sheou + Seal is still your bread and butter, but you'll add a Savage to that often enough. Many hands get to choose between Sheou + Savage and Sheou + Seal. Some get to choose between Sheou or Savage + Seal. You'll also sometimes make God boards. You can also Otk, break boards fine, and grind like a mofo, and going for the Ravine / Reanimate route has opened up some truly insanely broken opening plays that may be better than Dragon Links best god boards in a world with Pisty but not Elpy. Also, Tidying is nuts.
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