Pure eep (Nemleria midrange)

Introduction - Wow, do i enjoy playing Nem. Its such a fun way to play the game, and while not the best, and maybe not even good, this archetype can do some cool stuff and do some cool wins. Nemleria is, without a doubt, my favorite archetype thus far in Yugioh, being my MD ol' reliable i can always rely on while experimenting with other gimmicky and fun decks. And so, this is my MD decklist i play with (a bit idealised in terms of ED tbf). Please dont judge floodgates, those are easily removable for any generic handtraps if you have any morality left in you, and Nemleria might be the deck that is moraly allowed to use some floodgates, because she is eepy and needs to keep her sleep alright :3

Basic rundown - Your wincon is always resolving Nemleria effect, so this has to be your top priority. This facilitates slower gameplay, where you take your time, stall and distrupt your opponent, while always being one step away from going offensive (those guys are beeg fr fr). This deck values its backrow A LOT, especially Dreaming Tower (it gives protection, searches, burns through your ED, required to be in deck to set Nem on ED, this is the absolute chad of the deck), so keeping it up is your second top-priority. It means potentially keeping stuff like Solemn, Dragon's Mind or Couette effects for backrow removal negates, and Repeter with any defense monster will handle the rest. Since Nem package is not the largest, it keeps it open for various funky inclusions you wont usually put in other decks. Deck plays pretty well around Maxx C becuase you usually aint summoning more than 2 monsters per turn (which means Summon Breaker aint affecting you all that much. wink wink.). Deck, while still wishes to go first, can realistically go second and do shenanigans, so you are not 100% lost in going second

Combos and interactions - To be honest, Nem dosent have a lot of combos. This deck is pretty straightforward in its plays. But it also means it leaves room for creative uses of your effects and inclusions, which i will discuss now. Nem scales with any face-down banish cards, so Desires can add 3 more cards for you to banish with Nem, Let's Go Together can add 2 and In Papa's Footsteps adds 1. Two last cards also apply some pretty annoying effects to your opponent, sometimes winning you the game on the spot if you banish any important one-off (not the lowest chance against basic 40 card deck). Starting hand of Sweet Dreams, Nemleria and Eater of Millions opens you for legendary OTN (One-Turn-Nem), where you search for Dreaming Nemleria with spell, scale her, put her on ED with GY effect of said spell, feed your whole ED to Eater and have an ability to summon Nem AND get her right back here with Gravity Controller or something, doing a massive play. Dreaming Tower search always has to be priorities over other draws (except Extravagance of course), so you can feed your Reveil to Tokusano first to bait Ash. Because no one plays Nem on ladder, you can realistically expect your opponent to not read what your cards do. It leads to them attacking into you while you have Tower or throwing monster destructions on you and be very confused, why they are still standing. GY effect of Louve saves lives, omg its pretty good even if its really basic. You can nerf something by a lot even after one Desires, and it helps with your wincon. Sometimes ED summons are favored instead of banishing them, because you have natural access to some really strong XYZ monsteres and generic good links. It also can help you to get rid of last card you need to summon Nem. Halving your dmg taken with Repeter sometimes is the best option. If you can squeeze even one more turn, it can be the difference-maker, and this effect allows you to do just that. Especially relevant in the situation when your opponent can attack directly over your undestructable dudes (inevetable Toon reign will be stopped by one eepy girl, mark my words). Dont forget about your wincons and play the long game. Dim Fissure turns off your negate effect of Repeter and discard effect of Reveil, be mindfull of that

Stengths - Your grind game is really good. You can stand into your opponent face sentor Armstrong style and slowly chip away at them until you drop Nem and win instantly. Deck is easy to play. You dont need to remember long combos or do spreadsheets, no effects are particulatly complicated - you just summon big dudes and they do big dude things. Also its generally UR friendly. Your must-have cards are just x3 Dreaming Nem, x3 Sweet Dreams and x3 Dreaming Tower, so you can add any stuff you seem fit and tweak any other ratios. Comebacks you can do with this deck are unreal (it aint over until eeper cannot wake up anymore). Nem works around targeting and destruction protections, so not a lot of stuff are save from her eepy wrath. You generally get to your desired cards pretty easily, adding the deck some consistency. ED space is aboslutely free for you to experiment with, or you can ignore it, saving on even more UR dust. And... this deck is just plain fun. Resolving Nem is pure dophamine injection, and after first summon you can spam her more often (because in basic conditions you can only return 5 cards to your ED after summon, and its just 1 Tower search and 1 Reveil summon), giving you even more dophamine. And Repeter is kinda crazy, like wow, he can do it all, card does wonders to your endboard

Weaknesses - Oof, this deck can be slow. You need to brun through 15 cards, and its not always as fast as you wanted. Combo decks leave you in the dust. None of the monster effects are really strong, so your endboards are kinda just big dudes without a lot of interaction. While being sturdy, you rely on Dreaming Tower so much that if it gets removed you can find it problematic to find your footing. Random feather dusters will destroy your soul a lot. Also, this deck is prone to bricking quite a lot. Out of your cards almost none of them are useful summons to search something with, so you can lose before game even started a lot of times. Deck can find it hard to go through established boards going second or more that 1-2 handtraps going first, which is also dependant on your starting hand and your opponent knowledge (so its heavy RNG). Because of your clearly telegraphed wincon, one snipe negate on Nem summon can ruin your day in the most unfun way possible. Consisting only of light and dark monsters is not the best thing in Branded format, you will be thrown into super poly or Dogma dragon guy constantly. 

Potential tweaks - If you dont like floodgates (based), you can always throw them off and replace them with something like more Ash and Imperm and stuff. Deck is not reliant on them, they are just cool. Main cards you tweak ratios of are Nem trap cards, especially Repeter. I usually ran 2, but most of the time only 1 was properly utilized so i removed one of them.  Dragon's Mind can be either a supplement or replacement of Solemn because it does similar things in this deck (protecting your backrow on spell speed 3), so its a debate on it being on 1 or 2. Desires is perfect representation of love-hate relationships, so throw him away every time he banishes 3/3 Nems from your deck (happend to me not once and not twice T-T). Let's Go Together and In Papa's Footsteps are really fun tech cards i enjoy using, but they can be non-practical from time to time, usage is based on preference. Anything that does cool things and banishes face-down are welcomed additions. 

Finishing thoughts - I will repeat myself - this is my favorite archetype in Yugioh. Its not the best out there, its not even rouge maybe, you will lose games with it. Some games you end up 1 card away from summoning Nem. Sometimes you open with nothing but bricks. Sometimes opponent wont respect your desire to play back-forth games and annihilate you into oblivion. BUT. This deck is absolutely fun to play. And its always at least solid. With enough skill, luck and potential additons you can climb with this deck and win against meta (my best game was a win against Branded where i survived on low LP because of Repeter and proceeded to grind them down until they absolutely ran out of steam, which is not something Branded known for). And hype moments and aura from those games will mean a lot for you. Its a deck for chill people who are fine with losing a few times, or midrange enjoyers who want to try new fun stuff. So, if you want to play a different way from what you usually do and still use playable deck, catch people not reading in 4k or do some laid-back gaming with friends - Nemleria is here for you, and i hope you will enjoy it :3