Incredibly powerful PUNK support finally comes out for the TCG with Battles of Legend - Monster Mayhem and I thought I would give my favourite cyberpunks a test run with the current meta! for the Rising Scale functions as an incredible extender summoning itself and another PUNK from deck, allowing these Cyberpunks to power through interruptions and handtraps. JAM FEVER! grants PUNK a unique monster negate as well, raising the power level of their endboards and insulating plays through handtraps like Nibiru.
Lacrima the Crimson Tears along with Agnumday also released with Wrath of the Tyrants, meaning Fiendsmith is now completely available to any strategy that can run it! Fiendsmith allows PUNK to play through handtraps especially Droll, since Fiendsmith cards summon from deck or send to the GY rather than adding them to the hand. If your PUNK deck was stopped by too much interruption, you can pivot to the Fiendsmith engine instead with any two bodies thanks to Moon of the Closed Heaven!
Combining the excellent new PUNK support with nearly full power Fiendsmith the PUNK duelist can end on a multilayered board with 8+ interruptions in the field, hand, GY and backrow!
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
ARCHETYPES AND DECKBUILDING
In all my testing, I found that the PUNK strategy functions very well as a compact 40 card deck because of the prevalence of Mulcharmies and Droll. There are 13 copies of Ze Amin (3 Ze Amin, 1 Ogre, 3 Foxy Tune, 3 Rising Scale and 3 Emergency Teleport) giving the duelist a fair chance of drawing into it with their starting hand. 6
The two archetypes in this deck are of course PUNK (16 cards) and Fiendsmith (6 cards). PUNK forms the main strategy and Fiendsmith is essentially the backup crutch the deck falls on if you get droll'd. Fiendsmith also adds another layer of powerful interruption since it converts two of your extra bodies at the end of your PUNK combo into Caesar (double special summon negate) or Desirae (omni-negate).
Due to the increased consistency given to PUNK thanks to Rising Scale giving three more starter/extenders, more staples can be jammed into the deck. 17 staple cards are used in this deck, with 16 of them are handtraps.
COMBOS AND GAMEPLAN
Despite the introduction of Rising Scale and JAM FEVER, the strategy of PUNK remains the same - interrupt your opponent as much as possible while building as much resource advantage as you can with multiple draws and searches through your multiple engines. The turn after, if your opponent hasn't surrendered yet, both PUNK and Fiendsmith have massive follow-up to enable an easy OTK. If your Fiendsmith cards are still in the GY and Field, they can recur and resummon themselves to generate a lot of attack while simultaneously picking apart your opponent's board! The PUNK cards have follow-up to, since Jam Session and Amazing Dragon is on the field and Dragon Drive is in the GY. Both engines can OTK independently!
The combo for this strategy is the standard PUNK combo -> Fiendsmith combo via the two spare bodies on the field. This is possible using a singular Ze Amin!
PUNK Ze Amin = Draw 3 cards (several handtraps in hand) + JAM FEVER! (monster negate destroy) + Desirae (omninegate) or High Wave King Caesar/Paradise (double summon negate and targeted send)
(The following is standard PUNK combo using new support) Summon Ze Amin. Ze Amin searches for Rising Scale.
Link summon Almiraj using Ze Amin.
Summon Rising Scale from hand using Ze Amin in the GY.
Activate Rising Scale's on-summon effect to summon Sharakusai from deck.
- Sharakusai fusion summons Rising Carp, using Sharakusai + Rising Scale.
- Tribute Rising Carp to summon Deer Note and Wa Gon from deck.
- Activate Wa Gon's effect to search for Jam Session from deck.
- Activate Jam Session.
- Synchro summon Dragon Drive using Wa Gon + Deer Note.
CL1 Dragon Drive to search for Ze Amin from deck, CL2 Deer Note to summon Rising Carp from GY.
Jam Session's trigger effect draws you 1 card.
XYZ summon JAM FEVER! using Dragon Drive + Rising Carp.
Activate JAM FEVER!'s effect by detaching Dragon Drive to draw 1 card.
Jam Session's trigger effect draws you 1 card a second time.
Activate Jam Session's effect to summon Ze Amin from hand by banishing a PUNK monster from the GY.
(The following is the Fiendsmith combo)
Link summon Moon of the Closed Heaven using Rising Scale + Ze Amin.
Moon of the Closed Heaven is FULL FIENDSMITH COMBO! You don't need me to detail you on this part, you've probably seen and done this plenty of times before. You can either end on High Wave King Caesar's double summon negate + Crimson Tear's mill of Paradise OR you can summon Desirae for an on-field omni-negate.
From 1 Ze Amin, you get up to 5 interruptions and a draw 3 (potentially handtraps)! Of course, this is the simplest endboard. Endboards get better and stronger the more extenders you have. It's possible on the biggest boards to end on 10+ interruptions with 3 draws if you're allowed to combo uninterrupted. You'll generally have 5+ cards in hand if you're allowed to full combo since you draw 2-3 cards, so you'll have plenty of handtraps and follow-up.
If you're interrupted mid-combo by a turn-ending card, your plan B is to pivot into the Fiendsmith combo or sit on Psychic End Punisher.
Going second, hopefully your 16 handtraps simplify the gamestate enough to the point your in-engine combo, supplemental engines and extenders are enough to allow you to play the game through your opponent's interruption.
Remember that 1 single uninterrupted Ze Amin + discard is an OTK!
1 Ze Amin + 1 discard can make Amazing Dragon synchro summoned with Rising Carp + Ze Amin clears 2-4 cards from the board while enabling it to attack twice with 3600ATK accompanied with Dragon Drive (2700ATK) totalling 9900 ATK!
PUNK Ze Amin + 1 discard = 3600ATK Amazing Dragon that can attack twice, bounce 4 cards your opponent controls with Amazing Dragon, 2700 ATK Dragon Drive.
- (The following is standard PUNK combo) Summon Ze Amin. Ze Amin searches for Foxy Tune.
- Foxy Tune effect to discard 1 card in hand to summon Sharakusai from deck.
- Sharakusai fusion summons Rising Carp, using Sharakusai + Ze Amin.
- Tribute Rising Carp to summon Deer Note and Wa Gon from deck.
- Activate Wa Gon's effect to search for Jam Session from deck.
- Activate Jam Session.
- Synchro summon Dragon Drive using Wa Gon + Deer Note.
- CL1 Dragon Drive to search for Ze Amin from deck, CL2 Deer Note to summon Rising Carp from GY.
Jam Session's trigger effect draws you 1 card.
Special summon Ze Amin from hand using Jam Session.
- Synchro Summon Amazing Dragon using Ze Amin + Rising Carp.
- CL1 Amazing Dragon to bounce up to 4 cards your opponent controls, CL2 Rising Carp targeting Amazing Dragon enabling it to attack twice, CL3 Ze Amin targeting Amazing Dragon boosting it's ATK by 600.
GENERAL TIPS
If you get hit by Droll & Lockbird, Dimension Shifter, or even Maxx "C," your typical plan B is to pivot into Fiendsmith combo or synchro summon Psychic End Punisher/Juraishin.
If you suspect your opponent has handtraps like Ash or Veiler, bait out you opponent's by playing your Fiendsmith and Kashtira cards first. Afterwards you can full combo with PUNK!
Other good supplemental engines that synergize with PUNK are Horus, Millenium, Bystial and Gold Pride! Feel free to replace Kashtira/Fiendsmith with these strategies.
With Necroquip Princess' effect, you can draw an additional card when you activate Ogre Dance or Foxy Tune's search. In that scenario, you play your Fiendsmith cards first.
If you successfully resolve Psy-Frame handtrap during your turn, you can synchro it with Driver to summon Dragon Drive and search for your PUNK starters.
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I have been playing PUNK since it came out in Grand Creators back at 2023, and it's one of the most fun decks I've ever had the pleasure of piloting! It's 2025, and it's incredible these cyberpunk performers get amazingly powerful support! PUNK can now comfortably catch up to the big meta decks plaguing Masterduel ladder like White Forest, Yubel, Snake-Eyes and Blue-Eyes quite easily thanks to Rising Scale, JAM FEVER! and full power Fiendsmith.
GLHF Duelists!
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