Lair of Darkness

Intro

Rather basic list centred around the Lair of Darkness field spell and the playstyle built around it. Get field spell on board, all monsters become dark and you have the ability to tribute 1 dark monster on either field for a tribute effect per turn. The gameplan is a rather simple control strategy, tribute opponent's monsters for cost of effects - meaning even if the monsters are negated by opponent's effects or your own tour guide, you still have a way to clear monsters. 

Lair Core:

The core 'engine' or 'archetype' of the deck. Lair and Lilith are the main 2 cards you want to get on the field, since they enable the whole strategy of the deck and Diabolos acting as a 'boss' monster that lets you take away opponents resources in hand or just 3k beatstick. In total You have 9 ways to get Lair of Darkness on the board:
- 3 Lair of Darkness
- 3 Ahrima, the Wicked Warden
- 2 Metaverse
- 1 Terraforming
And even if you hard draw Lair + another one of these cards, they have their uses. Whether its baiting 'Ash Blossom', Metaverse to get Lair back on board if it gets destroyed or getting Ahrima on board for its 2nd effect to search/draw.

Whereas Lilith is the card that lets you get your traps on the board whilst tributing your opponents monsters (or tributing your own/itself if needed).
- 3 Ties of the Brethren
- 2 Tour Guide From the Underworld
Are the 2 tech cards I'm running to get Lilith on board, or in the case of already having Lilith on board Ties lets you get into more bodies for tributing away for effects. You have a lot of flexibility with what you can summon off of Tour Guide resolving from the extra deck as well, but in the case of resolving ties:

Normal Level3 -> eff Ties -> Sangan + Lilith -> eff Lilith, tribute Sangan -> get trap on board + search off Sangan (usually Ash or Droll if you have it).

Kaiser Glider is the final nice tech option, with Lair on board its a quick effect Kaiju or away to dodge targeted effects like an Imperm if you need one of your monster effects to resolve.

Critias Package:

This is honestly a pretty gimmicky and inconsistent part of the strategy, since it requires you to hard-draw 'The Fang of Critias' and either one of the 3 associated traps - 'Mirror Force', 'Crush Card Virus' and 'Ring of Destruction' - or Lilith in an attempt to get one of them on field. Realistically, in majority of matchups 'Doom Virus Dragon' is probably your best target, but I like running all 3 completely for nostalgia's sake. Plus, it synergises pretty well with the theme and play style of Lair when it gets going.

In most cases you can just swap out all 6 cards from this package and slot in the Bystials I'm running in the side deck, which are much more consistent.

Bystial Package:

Single copy of each normal Bystial + Lubellion and the 2 continuous back rows. Baldrake is the shining star of this package, since it lets you tribute an opponents DARK monster with Lair on board to pop extra deck monster

Extra Deck:

Don't actually currently own Zeus so my extra deck irl is only 14 cards but that's what the fortune is actually there for in theory. Outside of the Critias fusions, your main focus extra deck targets will be any of the link2 monsters - ESPECIALLY if you resolved Tour Guide and got Sangan on board, since linking it away lets you resolve the search effect.

Links:
- Muckraker: If opponent is playing fiend deck, you tribute one of their monsters or its way to get Lilith with effect on board through Tour Guide
- Beat Cop: Tribute opponent's monster, put counter on Lair to protect it
- Dharc: Dark Attribute deck staple
- Wee Witch: Nice tech option into someone Playing a Light Attribute deck.
- Knightmares + Avramax: Honestly, I just had these from pulls - can put anything else here

XYZ:
- D/D/D Darius -> Deviser: Cool boss monster option
- Fortune Tune -> Zeus: Zeus line

Fusions:
- Doom Virus Dragon / Destruction Dragon / Mirror Force Dragon: Critias fusions
- Sanwitch: Fusion Deployment target to get Sangan on Board

Side Deck:

My side deck is mostly just random cards that I currently have access to that can do something going 2nd or a few floodgates when the going gets tough.

Closing Notes:

To those that read through all this, appreciate for tapping into my lil tism moment to write all this up for some reason.

Is this deck actually any good? **** no bro - the moment you don't draw a 'custom' hand its kinda of cooked. My locals are what I would call pretty 'sweaty' as well, with the majority of players playing meta decks or very much rogue strategies that have ways to counter meta. But, I've managed to swipe a few wins and 50%-ish win rate. I'm also not a particularly big fan of floodgates, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to keep the game at your pace. I could've definitely stacked more floodgates than just D Barrier - but I find anything more permanent on the field a bit cringe.