Red Dragon Archfiend Metalmorph

Red Dragon Archfiend and Metalmorph are 2 archetypes that you wouldn’t really think that they work together too well. And there is some merit to that thought. With the sheer amount of Red Dragon Archfiend and Resonator support that has been released over the years, Red Dragon Archfiend is a pretty competent Deck, albeit kinda one note since it is more or less another Synchro Spam Deck. On the other hand, while Metalmorph is a fully capable archetype, it isn’t the most explosive Deck ever. However, Metalmorph gets better when paired alongside other archetypes. While you can play Metalmorph as its own Deck, the addition of another archetype’s engine can allow for things like greater consistency, a more varied endboard, and possibly even better options either going first or second. Combining Metalmorph with Red Dragon Archfiend only improves the Metalmorph side to a certain degree. It will certainly not be as explosive or perform to the same degree as an actual Red Dragon Archfiend Deck. However, considering the non-engine slots that the Deck has available, it is still decently well-rounded.

The thing that connects Red Dragon Archfiend and Metalmorph is Crimson Blade Dragon. It is a Level 7 Synchro Monster that requires a Resonator Tuner and 1+ non-Tuners. Its name is always treated as Crimson Blader and if it is Synchro Summoned, you can take a Level 8 or higher monster that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set from your Deck or GY and either add it to hand or Special Summon it with its effects negated. Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon and Metalzoa X are both Level 8 monsters that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set and both have the effect of revealing themselves in your hand to set a Metalmorph Trap from your Deck, shuffling themselves into the Deck afterwards. If you Synchro Summon Crimson Blade Dragon, you can search for either Fullmetal Dragon or Metalzoa X, use it to set Max Metalmorph from Deck, and then, you also have a Level 5 or higher Dragon monster on field to Tribute for Max Metalmorph to Special Summon Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon from wherever. Again, this does not produce the same explosivity as RDA, but it does help Metalmorph put a Level 5 or higher Dragon readily on the field while also allowing you to further benefit off of the RDA-related cards, which you are able to access since you are playing the searchers and enablers for them. 

For the Main Deck, we are playing 1 Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon, 1 Metalzoa X, and 1 Metalflame Swordsman for our Metalmorph-related monsters. While Zoa the Fiendish Beast may mostly be replaceable by Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon in a Metalmorph Deck, there is nothing wrong with also playing Red-Eyes Metal Claws Dragon or even Metal Illusionist in this Deck. However, I am choosing deliberately not to play them. Metal Claws Dragon is the in-archetype way for Metalmorph to be able to easily put a Level 5 or higher Dragon onto the field while also being able to immediately use Metalmorph Traps the turn they are set, essentially giving you an omni-negate with Fullmetal Dragon as soon as Turn 1. I don’t think that it is necessarily bad to be playing Metal Claws Dragon in this Deck, but the idea behind this Deck is more focused on using the Resonator and/or RDA cards to access the Metalmorph cards alongside other useful RDA-related cards in the process. Metal Claws Dragon kind of favors an opening hand with a greater number of Metalmorph-related cards, which this Deck tries to avoid more or less. In a Deck with a heavier Metalmorph package or a Metalmorph Deck playing Red-Eyes searchers, Metal Claws Dragon would be more at home. As for Metal Illusionist, it acts like more of a Normal Summon going first. However, when it comes to the Normal Summons that we are already playing in this Deck, Incredible Ecclesia, the Virtuous and Fallen of the White Dragon are much better cards to be taking up your Normal Summon for the turn. Back to Fullmetal Dragon, Metalzoa X, and Metalflame Swordsman, each of them must first be Special Summoned with Max Metalmorph that was activated by Tributing a Level 5 or higher monster with their original counterpart’s Type: Dragon for Fullmetal, Fiend for Metalzoa X, and Warrior for Metalflame Swordsman. Each can also reveal themselves in the hand to do something before shuffling themselves back into the Deck afterwards. Fullmetal and Metalzoa both set a Metalmorph Trap from Deck while Metalflame adds 1 card that mentions Max Metalmorph from Deck to hand other than another copy of itself. Lastly, each has a unique effect on the field. Fullmetal can Quick Effect negate the activation of an opponent’s card or effect and then you can inflict damage to them equal to the original ATK of 1 Attack Position monster they control. Metalzoa X can twice per turn Quick Effect target and destroy a face-up monster your opponent controls when they activate a monster effect or Spell Card or effect. Metalflame gains 300 ATK and inflicts 500 damage to your opponent every time your opponent activates and resolves a card or effect. Metalzoa X and Fullmetal are great pieces of interruption while Metalflame kind of just grows bigger and keeps on damaging your opponent the more they activate and resolve cards and effects. Not to say that Metalflame’s effect on field is bad, but it has more limited application than Fullmetal or Metalzoa X. All of their in-hand effects are good, and while it can be argued that Metalflame’s is the best, we are kind of just using their effects, Metalflame included, to search/set a Metalmorph Trap from Deck. If we were playing Metal Claws Dragon or Metal Illusionist, Metalflame Swordsman’s in-hand effect would have more usage and it would probably warrant running 3 or it instead. 3 Power Vice Dragon and 2 Vision Resonator. If you control no monsters or all monsters you control are DARK Synchros, you can Special Summon Power Vice Dragon from hand, and if it is Special Summoned, you can add a Resonator monster from Deck to your hand, locking you into DARK Synchros from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. Power Vice Dragon is an excellent card for supporting both RDA and Resonators. And because of how the good Resonators are all of different useful Levels (from 1 to 3), you can pick and choose which one of them to grab and possibly even then Synchro Summon with Power Vice. But, because Power Vice is a Level 5 and we need to access the Level 7 Crimson Blade Dragon, Vision Resonator is the best option, especially in a Deck that actually isn’t RDA. You can Special Summon Vision from your hand once per turn if there is a Level 5 or higher DARK monster on the field and if it is sent to the GY, you can add a Spell/Trap that mentions RDA from Deck to hand. Power Vice and Vision Resonator essentially make Crimson Blade Dragon without using your Normal Summon, which is nice. But, Vision Resonator also can search for an RDA-related Spell/Trap, for which our options are Crimson Gaia, for recursion and a battle trick, or Red Dragon Archfiend’s Chain, which can either function as a good piece of monster negation or a nice boardbreaker of sorts. For our Normal Summons, we have 2 Fallen of the White Dragon and 3 Incredible Ecclesia, the Virtuous. Fallen of the White Dragon is always treated as Fallen of Albaz and he can also send a monster that mentions Fallen of Albaz from your Extra Deck to the GY to Special Summon himself from hand, locking you into Level 8 Fusion and Synchro Monsters from the Extra Deck for the rest of the turn. If Normal or Special Summoned, he can Special Summon an Ecclesia monster from your hand, Deck, or GY. Incredible Ecclesia can be Special Summoned from your hand once per turn if your opponent controls more monsters than you do. During the Main Phase, you can Quick Effect Tribute her to Special Summon a Swordsoul monster or a Fallen of Albaz from hand or Deck and during the End Phase, if a Fusion Monster(s) was sent to your GY this turn, you can add her from GY to your hand. Incredible Ecclesia and Fallen of the White Dragon are just really great cards for accessing Level 8 Synchro Monsters. In this Deck, they will mainly be used to access The Crimson King who searches a card that mentions RDA on Synchro Summon, getting you to Power Vice Dragon to start your combo. However, if you already have access to Power Vice Dragon in one way or another, they can be used to access other Level 8 Synchro Monsters like Stardust Dragon - Victim Sanctuary going first or Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend going second. A note on Fallen of the White Dragon’s effect to Special Summon himself from hand: if you want to use this effect, you have to do it after making Crimson Blade Dragon due to the restriction. As for the handtraps, we have a ton of room to play non-engine: 3 Fydraulis Harmonia, 3 Mulcharmy Fuwalos, 3 Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring, and 2 Droll & Lock Bird. If you don’t want to be playing Harmonia because of its price, which might remain pretty high depending on how it is reprinted in the future, you can absolutely play Ghost Ogre & Snow Rabbit or Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion instead. 

For Spell/Traps: 3 Incoming Machine! It adds a monster that mentions Max Metalmorph or a Metalmorph Trap from your Deck or GY to your hand. I’d rather use this as the searcher for Metalmorph-related cards instead of playing 3 Metalflame Swordsman because Incoming Machine also allows you to add them back from GY. Its second effect allows you to banish it from GY while you control a Metalmorph Trap and target a Defense Position monster your opponent controls to change it to face-up Attack Position. This is a pretty niche effect in this Deck. It can absolutely be used to go for damage, but Red Dragon Archfiend and most of its related cards focus on your opponent having Defense Position monsters in order to make use of RDA’s effect to destroy all Defense Position monsters your opponent controls after damage calculation. Just depends on the situation and what you are working with. 3 Crimson Gaia. During your Main Phase, it can add a RDA or a card that mentions it from Deck or GY to hand except another copy of Crimson Gaia. This is the main usage for this card in this Deck, but its other effects are still plenty useful. When your RDA declares an attack, you can change all monsters your opponent controls to face-down Defense Position and if a monster(s) on the field is destroyed by battle or card effect, you can Special Summon an RDA from your GY. 1 Foolish Burial which sends Vision Resonator from Deck to GY, getting Crimson Gaia, and then getting you to Power Vice Dragon. 3 The Fallen & The Virtuous. You can either send a monster that mentions Fallen of Albaz from your Extra Deck to the GY and target and destroy a face-up card on the field or if you have an Ecclesia monster in your field or GY, you can target a monster in either GY and Special Summon it to your field. Just a really good piece of non-engine, and because we are playing an Ecclesia monster in the Deck, this card has even more potential applications. 1 Called by the Grave. 3 Red Dragon Archfiend’s Chain. You can activate it the turn it was set by revealing an RDA in your Extra Deck. On activation, you reveal any number of monsters in your hand and target Effect Monsters your opponent controls equal to the number of Tuners revealed +1. Those monsters lose 100 ATK for each revealed card and their effects are negated. If all of the monsters affected by RDA’s Chain are no longer on the field, RDA’s Chain is destroyed. What an amazing card. Not only is this comically easy to search in RDA, it basically seconds as a non-engine boardbreaker that can be played in most Decks. But, it gets even better here because it is searchable and can be used as interruption as well. 1 Max Metalmorph which Tributes a face-up monster to Special Summon 1 monster that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set and mentions Max Metalmorph from your hand, Deck, or GY. Max Metalmorph can then be equipped to it, giving it 400 ATK/DEF, protection from being destroyed by Spell or monster effects, and your opponent cannot target it with monster effects or Spell Cards or effects. Just a really good card that not only accesses good monsters, it provides them with great protection as well. 1 Flame Coating Metalmorph which Tributes a face-up monster that mentions Max Metalmorph to Special Summon a monster that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set and mentions Max Metalmorph from your Deck, ignoring its Summoning Conditions. Then, you can equip it to the Summoned monster, giving it the effect that if it would be destroyed by battle or card effect, you can send Flame Coating Metalmorph to GY instead. This was actually a great addition to the Metalmorph archetype. It essentially tags any monster that mentions Max Metalmorph into one of their monsters that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set. This means that  you can tag out a spent Metalmorph monster into a different one, ignoring its Summoning Conditions. If you were wondering how we’d get to Metalzoa X or Metalflame Swordsman in this Deck, this is the way: by tagging out Red-Eyes Black Fullmetal Dragon into one of them with Flame Coating Metalmorph. 

Extra Deck: 1 Albion the Branded Dragon and 1 The Dragon that Devours the Dogma as our Fusion Monsters that mention Fallen of Albaz to be sent off of The Fallen & The Virtuous. Albion can set a Branded Spell/Trap from Deck if it is in the GY during the End Phase of the turn it was sent there and Dragon Devouring the Dogma can add a Dogmatika or Tri-Brigade card from Deck to your hand under the same pretenses. 1 Red Nova Dragon - Burning Soul. While it is a Level 12 Synchro Monster that requires 2 Tuners and 1 non-Tuner, you can also Special Summon it from your Extra Deck by banishing 2 Tuners and Red Dragon Archfiend from your GY. It cannot be destroyed by card effects and as a hard once per Duel in which you have Synchro Summoned RDA, if Red Nova Dragon - Burning Soul is Special Summoned, you can add 1 card from your GY to your hand, and if you do, it gains 2000 ATK. Adding a card back from GY and becoming a 5500 ATK monster that cannot be destroyed by card effects is so good. Not only do you have an indestructible huge beater, you also get to add a card back from GY. Ideally, you’d want to add back some kind of non-engine card that could immediately be used, but grabbing any card for potential follow-up if you can’t win this turn is still good. 1 Chaos Angel. This realistically could also be Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane or Bystial Dis Pater, but I just felt like as a follow-up option, Vision Resonator Synchroing with a Level 8 LIGHT or DARK Synchro Monster into Chaos Angel for a monster with good ATK and removal on-Summon is a little bit better. Chaos Angel can treat a LIGHT or DARK monster you control as a Tuner, which doesn’t really come up in this Deck. On Special Summon, you can target and banish a card on the field and it also gains effects based on the original Attributes of the monsters used for its Synchro Summon. LIGHT makes Synchro Monsters you control unaffected by your opponent’s activated monster effects while DARK makes monsters you control unable to be destroyed by battle. Bane can’t exactly be used as removal in the same way, but it stil does have 1 effect that we could use which tributes a monster to target and Special Summon an RDA monster in your GY, helping you to potentially go for an OTK. Dis Pater has a similar usage as it can target a banished LIGHT or DARK and Special Summon it to your field, which is usually The Crimson King in this Deck. But, it also has its other effect which can be activated as a Quick Effect in response to your opponent’s activated monster effect, shuffling a banished card into the Deck, either destroying that monster if shuffled into your Deck or negating the activation if shuffled into your opponent’s Deck. 1 Stardust Warrior and 1 Stardust Dragon - Victim Sanctuary. Victim Sanctuary can Quick Effect Tribute itself when your opponent activates a card or effect in response to your card or effect activation to negate the effect and destroy that card. Also, if a monster(s) in your possession was Tributed this turn, you can Quick Effect banish it from GY to Special Summon a Stardust Synchro Monster from your Extra Deck. Victim Sanctuary is one of the Level 8 Synchro Monsters that we can alternatively make with Incredible Ecclesia and Fallen of the White Dragon if we already have access to Power Vice Dragon, which provides us with some insulation for our plays. But, it can also be used to bring out a Stardust Synchro Monster from your Extra Deck by banishing itself from GY during the turn in which a monster(s) in your possession was Tributed. Unfortunately, because this isn’t treated as a Synchro Summon, you are limited to Stardust Warrior, Stardust Dragon, and Stardust Spark Dragon as your best options. Nothing wrong with the latter 2, but negating a Special Summon of a monster(s) is a bit more useful than protection from destruction. Stardust Warrior can Quick Effect Tribute itself if your opponent would Special Summon a monster(s) to negate the Summon and destroy those monsters. Can’t bring it back during the End Phase because it wasn’t properly Synchro Summoned, and while it can float into a Level 8 or lower Warrior Synchro Monster from your Extra Deck, that’s kind of a whatever effect. 1 The Crimson King which is a Level 8 Synchro requiring a Tuner and 1+ non-Tuner DARK monsters. If Synchro Summoned, you can add a card that mentions RDA from Deck to hand and when your opponent activates a monster effect, you can Quick Effect banish it to Special Summon 1 Red Dragon Archfiend from your Extra Deck. This is treated as a Synchro Summon, RDA’s ATK is doubled and it cannot be destroyed by your opponent’s card effects. Being able to search an RDA-related card while also tagging out into RDA itself, doubling its ATK and making it indestructible by your opponent’s card effects is really good. 1 Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend whose name becomes Red Dragon Archfiend on field or in GY and once per turn, you can destroy as many other Special Summoned Effect Monsters on the field with ATK less than or equal to its own ATK and then 500 damage is inflicted to your opponent for each monster destroyed. 1 Scarred Dragon Archfiend whose name also becomes Red Dragon Archfiend while on field or in GY. If it is sent from the Monster Zone to the GY, you can Special Summon 1 RDA from your Extra Deck. This is treated as a Synchro Summon, and then if it was sent to the GY as Synchro Material for a DARK Dragon Synchro Monster, you can destroy all Attack Position monsters your opponent controls. If you want the maximum benefit of that second effect, I’d definitely recommend playing HRDA Bane or Bystial Dis Pater over Chaos Angel. 2 Red Dragon Archfiend, the original one. 1 Ecclesia and the Dark Dragon. It is another good send off of The Fallen & The Virtuous as if it is in your GY,  you can target a Level 8 Fusion Monster in your GY or banishment and 1 card on the field to shuffle both those cards and Ecclesia and the Dark Dragon into the Deck. 1 Crimson Blade Dragon. I already talked about this card already, but its other effect I have yet to mention is that at the start of the Damage Step, if it battles a Level 5 or higher monster, you can destroy that monster. It is a pretty decent effect to have. Lastly, we have 1 Enigmaster Packbit and 1 Golden Cloud Beast - Malong as our sends with Fydraulis Harmonia. Packbit, if sent to the GY, can target 1 monster in your GY or 1 face-up monster your opponent controls to discard 1 card and place that monster in its owner’s Spell/Trap Zone as a Continuous Trap. Malong, if sent to the GY, can target 1 face-up card  your opponent controls and return it to the hand. 

Side Deck: 3 Nibiru the Primal Being. While you do have a couple of ways to deal with the Token, if you are worried about not having readily access to something that can get rid of the Token, you can replace this with Lava Golem or Kaijus. 2 Mulcharmy Purulia. 1 Harpie’s Feather Duster. 3 Spatial Trunade which returns up to 2 cards on the field to the hand, then each player places card from their hand on the bottom of the Deck in any order equal to the number returned to their hand. While OCG Tournament results with Beyond the Brave legal have yet to be seen, I imagine that Spatial Trunade will probably be a decent or pretty good Side Deck card for most Decks. For this Deck, it is mainly here to help against backrow going second, but it can also be used for monster removal as well. I did consider Lightning Storm, but I think that Spatial Trunade feels a bit better to use, especially coming out of testing. 2 Triple Tactics Thrust and 1 Triple Tactics Talent. 3 Infinite Impermanence.