Post January 2024 banlist, Tearlaments truly has something to lament about - and that is the loss of Kelbek and Agido! These two losses remove a substantial amount of milling power available to the strategy, unfortunately reducing what Tear can do since all they do is rely on mills. With this development, is the saying "Tiaraments truly strongest" still true?
Thankfully, several mill tools are still available to Tear such as Zombie Vampire (made more accessible with the Horus Engine). Revolution Synchron coupled with Tuning can also mill and search various cards needed for combo!
This strategy certainly isn't "dead," Tearlaments can still put up some crazy boards and a respectable fight! All Tearlaments requires is a little King of Games luck and skillful piloting to pull off!
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
ARCHETYPES AND DECKBUILDING
Forming the core of this strategy, the Tearlament portion of this deck consists of 18 cards. 3 Perlereino allow you to search for the 9 maindeck Tearlament monsters, Scheiren, Havnis, Merrli, 3 Reinoheart and 3 Tearlaments Kashtira. 2 Scream, 2 Sulliek, 1 Heartbeat and 1 Grief search/recur for additional cards when milled.
A HORUS package is used mainly for turboing out Zombie Vampire for mills and is composed of 6 cards - 3 Imsety, 1 Hapi, and 2 King's Sarcophagus.
A SYNCHRON package is used, composed of 2 Revolution Synchrons and 3 Tuning so enable the summon of Visas Amritra and mill some cards. If you resolve Tuning and Revolution Synchron, it mills a total of two extra cards while searching extra cards!
A KASHTIRA package of 1 Wraithsoth (often the search target for AFD), 1 Fenrir and 3 Kashtira Tearlaments are used.
2 King of the Swamp and 1 Polymerization as a search target is included, since they function as specific names when used for fusion material in the GY when fusing with Tearlaments. This gives you access to strong fusion monsters like Rulkallos and Grapha.
You may have noticed that there are hardly any handtraps or generic staples in this deck. The theory behind this build of Tearlaments is that it has so much gas that it can play through all of your opponent's interruptions just fine, as long as your graveyard is accessible and you aren't floodgated to death.
40 cards are used to ensure this strategy is as consistent and compact as possible. In addition to bricking less, the mills will have much better results than bigger Tearlaments variants because of the deck's compact size.
COMBOS AND GAMEPLAN
Tearlaments' gameplan is to mill as much as possible to trigger Tearlament effects. Tearlament monsters are ideal to mill as much as possible to turbo out powerful fusion monsters like Grapha and Rulkallos to protect your combo lines. Like every Tearlaments strategy, this deck aims to mill as much as possible and gain beneficial effects from those mills. The reliance on mills makes this strategy unpredictable and luck dependant, meaning that there are hardly any straightforward combos. Combos are hand/mill dependent - leaving the rest of the game up to the duelists individual skill, decision making and mental fortitude (that's the Tearlaments is regarded as a difficult to pilot deck). Tearlaments are also infamous for requiring a great deal of skill, since the pilot has to be aware of the various interactions they have in the GY and the amount of cards left in their maindeck.
First, you do as much milling as possible to get searches triggered and your GY set-up. Your boards vary, but generally have a mix of Rulkallo's summon negate, Grapha's omni-negate, Kaleido-Heart's shuffle, Sulliek's negate, Perlereino's pop and Ishizu card's graveyard shuffling.
Going second, this deck's gas ploughs through interruption and negates (especially if you chainblocked to guarantee effects to go through). This deck can also side in a ton of boardbreakers and still remain consistent. Best cards to side out are your Synchron package (Tuning + Revolution Synchron) and Tearlament Grief + Hearbeat.
Here is the deck's new fancy combo featuring Ancient Fairy Dragon, Revolution Synchron and Visas Amritara:
Level 4 monster + Revolution Synchron = Field spell search, +1000 LP gain, Tearlament spell/trap search.
- Do your opening plays to search and mill to set up your GY.
- Normal summon your level 4 monster. If it has an effect, activate the effect.
- Synchro summon Ancient Fairy Dragon (AFD) using a Level 4 monster + Revolution Synchron.
- If there is a field spell on the board, activate AFD's effect to gain 1000 LP and search a fieldspell from deck.
- Special summon Revolution Synchron from the GY with it' effect and mill 1 card.
- Synchro summon Visas Amritara using AFD + Revolution Synchron (now a level 1).
- Activate Visas Amritara's on-summon effect to search for a needed Tearlaments Spell/Trap.
- Keep milling and fusing in the GY until you resolved all effects and your field is full of boss monsters!
GENERAL TIPS
- Mill as much as possible when before fusion summoning so you have as much options in the GY as fusion material as possible. If you milled King of the Swamps and Tearlament girls, you've hit a home run since they fusion summon Grapha or Rulkallos!
- Horus cards are incredible at cracking established boards and can out powerful boss monsters that have negates.
- Visas Amritara can trigger your Tearlaments monsters GY effects by destroying them on the field. For example, Amritara destroys Kaleido-Heart on the field -> Kaleido-Heart summons itself from GY and sends Tear girl to GY -> tear girl fusion summons using materials from GY. Amritara allows for additional extension!
Any Tearlaments strategy is infamous for requiring a great deal of skill to pilot, since the duelists is required to know all the various interactions that goes on in the GY, and to remember how many cards are left in their deck - the while considering how the opponent will react to the plays. This deck is not easy, so practice makes perfect with Tearlaments.
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I personally still find the Tearlaments playstyle quite fun - the randomness of the mills and the dopamine hit when the mills actually succeed feel so goooood (only if mills pop off)! I like how this deck actually requires skill - it rewards the pilot's decision making, resource management and situational awareness. I personally find it so badass and satisfying pulling everything off!
Despite the catastrophic loss of Agido and Kelbek, Tearlaments can still put up a respectable board! The Horus engine somewhat replaces the loss of the Ishizu package fairly well with its boardbreaking capability and mills with Zombie Vampire.
Tearlaments is the posterchild of archetypes "suffering from success" as they've had all their good cards and starters banned (RIP Chaos Ruler and rest in PISS Ishizu cards). COPIUM, dedication and creativity are the only things keeping Tearlaments players alive in this day and age - and now that is demonstrated with the new support post-AGOV/banlist! The question is, can Tearlaments continue to top despite the repeating hits to this strategy? Only time will tell!
GLHF Duelists!
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