Fiendsmith Control

Hey guys, back for the first time in a while. I wanted to share the Fiendsmith list that got me to Master for the first time, because the list really felt strong, and I'm proud of it. From the conception of the deck, the idea was to run 4 5 card engines for 20 cards, leaving sufficient space to address the wild combo heavy format with a hand trap approach. 

For starters, the core of the deck is the Fiendsmith Engine.

2x Engraver

2x Tract

1x Fabled Lurrie

As well as in the Extra Deck

1x Moon

1x Requiem

1x Sequence

1x Linkuriboh

1x Lacrima Fusion

1x Dies Irae

1x D/D/D Wave High King Caesar.

Any of these represent at a minimum a D/D/D Wave High King Caesar, and 4 of the 5 also represent Dies Irae. Tract is super sweet in this deck, since you can search out the Magical Musket monsters, which are your best Normal Summons. You run 2 tract because it makes seeing tract+Engraver not a problem at all - you can discard the second tract to the first and ROTA your Musketeers. I don't think 3 is necessary, Engraver is semi-limited, I'm happy with this part of my deck. Linkuriboh is needed to link Lurrie off and put in in the Graveyard when you have access to the whole line. Moon means any 2 monsters are Caesar with extra steps. 

The next most important engine is the Musketeers. We run exactly 5, because we already have six Normal Summons, and you do only want to see exactly 1 of these cards.

3x Starfire

2x Caspar

As well as 1 Max in the Extra deck.

This version of the deck doesn't run any bullets. I know that may seem crazy, but Caspar's add to the hand helps fuel Wedju Temple, or provide follow-up. These link Summon into Max. Turn 1 going first, this is just an extra fiend in the graveyard to enable Sequence lines. But going second, or on turn 2 after you recycle it with engraver it represents and effect that often Special Summons 2 monsters. You don't need any bullets or a third summon for Max to be busted on turn 2+.

Next we've got a small Kashtira package.

This includes

1x Wraithsoft

1x Fenrir

2x Unicorn

1x Kashtira Birth

plus in the extra deck

1x Baronne De Fleur

These cards are actually not so bad to see in multiples, but we are in fact running as many of them as we're allowed. Fenrir is an endboard piece and a board breaker card all at once, and if drawn with exactly Birth you can search then normal summon Unicorn. Unicorn is the real star of the show, since Unicorn with a hand trap represents Caesar or Baronne, plus Unicorn if your Unicorn's search went through. The ability to snipe the extra deck gives key information, and I've won many games by tearing out all my opponent's options. You're bascially a big dumb control deck, trying to grind games to a halt, trade favourably with interaction to come out ahead.

Lastly, you know em, you love em, the Millennium engine!

3x Sengenjin

1x Golem

1x Wedju Temple

Plus in the extra deck

1x Snake-Eyes Doomed Dragon

1x Galaxy Eyes Photon Lord

This engine gives you the board breaking power of Doomed Dragon, protection from hand traps plus an extra negate off of Photon Lord, and by itself represents full fiendsmith combo. There's a couple different lines and I play it out a bit differently from game to game. You do burn up Doomed Dragon most of the time if you go first, in order to make Sequence with Engraver, or Photon Lord to stop Nib. I wish there was space for Hope Harbinger, but Ty-Phon is more essential. We can use Dies Irae as our spell/trap negate.

1x Apollousa

Can often be made with the bodies these combos spam, especially the Muskets. 

1x S:P Little Knight

1x Ty-Phon

Round out the extra deck with a little disruption.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the specific hand traps used in non-engine, because they're pretty standard. For part of my climb I replace Droll with Veiler, Droll is generally a strong card in this metagame, but it does next to nothing against Memento. Veiler does a little something in nearly every matchup, but often doesn't do enough, so for now I'm matchup fishing. 1 Ghost Ogre makes the cut, because of all the Primite Blue-Eyes, it can be a huge swing in the matchup, and it does a little somthing in most matchups. One thing I will comment on is the lack of Dominus Purge. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first on is Caesar. Some of your combo lines only make Caesar, and while I don't win every game I make just Caesar, you win enough of them. Turning off Caesar in the Fiendsmith deck seems like a mistake. And the second, more notable reason: I like to run Imperm with my Dominus traps, to get the destruction effect on occasion. However, this deck even with only 20 engine, did not have room for Dominus Purge and Imperm and Droll. I could pick 2 of the 3, and I picked Imperm and Droll.