Mai Valentine - Harpie Lady / Pet Dragon (LOTD:LE)

This is a deck for Mai Valentine, one of the first female characters in Yugioh Original which were able to compete at such a high level.

Mai's deck theme is based on the Harpie archetype. But this archetype comes with so many problems... A lot of the cards search certain names. So, you have to understand and learn every single card's NAME and RULLING such as: "harpie" cards, "harpie lady" monsters, cards that mentions "harpie lady sisters"

While this seems like not a big deal in the first glance, after some hours of trying and testing you can understand that there are so many limitations and bad cards. One even bigger problem is that the extra deck cards like "Harpie's Pet Phantasmal Dragon" and "Harpie Conductor" are very specific of what their effects can do and there is no real reason to summon them. To make these cards work, you can build the deck around heavy-stun with cards as "Gravity Bind" and "Level Limit - Area B", but it will make the gameplay very slow and versus strong decks like Odion's or Vetrix you might lose in one turn.

On the other hand this strategy is quite OK, as you mostly use rank 4 or 7 monsters and many Link monsters, so YOU will be able to attack your opponent. If you don't need one of these floodgates to your field, you can always destroy them with "Harpie's Hunting Ground". One more thing that I don't like and it's so difficult to execute is the combo with "Harpie Harpist" + "Harpie Dancer" + "Harpie Conductor". If you are fine with these mechanics this control deck can be useful to you with the addition of "Ancient Pixie Dragon".

For me this final deck that I've came up with is quite less complex and easy to use (Worth mentioning the strongest card out there "Lightning Chidori"). The most reliable combo is the one with "Harpie Channeler", you can go for a Rank 7 xyz monster or for "Harpie Perfumer" to get access to one of your spell cards. Cards like "Aqua Chorus" and "Phalanx Pike" are very strong with this archetype and they can give you a very big advantage (in one game my 1400 attack Harpie went to 9400 attack with Phalanx Pike). My decision of running 2 "Blazing Mirror Force" instead of "Mirror Force" is that a single combo of Harpies can deal around 4000 dmg or more, so you might OTK after it's activation in your turn.

Harpies act like cheap bodies without huge attack points, that's why I also run 3 copies of "Harpie Lady 1" to boost the other cards a bit, while I use and some synchro monsters to be able to have a second plan of beatsticks for over 3000 attack points. You might have big trouble in the first matches, but as you continue playing this deck you will understand that you don't have to overuse these cheap bodies for extra deck's monsters. It's better to have patient and wait of your opponent's big threats before you act.