Red Dragon Archfiend, October 2021

This is my current build for Red Dragon Archfiend, Resonators, Red Supernova Dragon turbo, whatever you want to call it. The idea of the deck is to get to our Synchro Monsters as consistently as possible, using Resonators and our Level 4 Monsters to Synchro Summon Red Rising Dragon, then bringing back a Resonator with its effect to use the two Monsters to Synchro Summon once more. The main gameplan is as follows: Special Summon Crimson Resonator with its effect, followed by Normal Summoning a Level 4 Monster, preferably Witch of the Black Forest, or Special Summoning Wandering King Wildwind. Then, Synchro Summon Red Rising Dragon, and use its effect to bring back Crimson Resonator. Use Crimson Resonator's effect to Special Summon two Resonators from our deck whose Levels add up to 4 (preferably Synkron Resonator and Creation Resonator for reasons I'll go into later, but two Red Resonators also works) and use our three Resonators and Red Rising Dragon to Synchro Summon this deck's strongest Monster, Red Supernova Dragon. Red Supernova Dragon combats many Monster-focused strategies by waiting to banish the opponent's field in just the right moment to remove problem cards and stop the opponent's plan in its tracks, and ending games quickly with its extremely high attack power.

The ideal Level 4 Monster to perform this setup with is Witch of the Black Forest. This is because she can search any Monster in our main deck after she's sent to the Graveyard, so using her in a Synchro Summon is excellent. In the above setup, using Crimson Resonator and Witch of the Black Forest to make Red Rising Dragon would allow us to search a Monster, such as Red Familiar. Then, using Synkron Resonator as one of the Tuners for Red Supernova Dragon allows us to add a Resonator from our Graveyard to our hand, such as the Creation Resonator we also used. Because Red Familiar can tribute itself to bring back a DARK Dragon Synchro from the Graveyard, and Banish itself to change that Synchro's Level, then combining it with the Creation Resonator (Special Summoned, assuming we still have Red Supernova Dragon) allows us to access most of our other Synchros, Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss. In short, this means if we have Crimson Resonator and Witch of the Black Forest in our opening hand, we have the setup for not only Red Supernova Dragon, but also for another powerful Synchro Monster the following turn. Alternatively, if we open with Crimson Resonator, Red Familiar, and Wandering King Wildwind, we can achieve something similar by Special Summoning Crimson Resonator and Wandering King Wildwind with their respective effects, Synchro Summoning Red Rising Dragon and Red Supernova Dragon as normal, but then Normal Summoning Red Familiar and Special Summoning Creation Resonator. Tribute Red Familiar for its effect to bring back Red Rising Dragon, then use it and Creation Resonator to make Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss, similar to the above setup with Witch of the Black Forest, but on the same turn we Summon Red Supernova Dragon. Regardless, when Abyss deals battle damage we can bring back Synkron Resonator and make Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Bane. This would normally deprive us of Abyss's amazing negation effect for the following turn, but Synkron Resonator lets us add Creation Resonator back to our hand once more, which we can then Special Summon and tribute for Bane's effect to bring back Abyss. Afterwards the main use of Bane will be using it to make Hot Red Dragon Archfiend King Calamity, either through Bane's own effect, or, if we have two level 1 Resonators in the GY already, we can use Red Rising Dragon to bring them back and make King Calamity before the Battle Phase. This is the general gameplan, of the deck, but Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons and Void Ogre Dragon, provided we can empty our hand of cards, provide a solid backup plan for different scenarios.

Unfortunately, there will be times where we don't have Crimson Resonator available, despite having three copies of it and three copies of the two cards we can use to search it (Resonator Call and Resonator Command) in which case we need to improvise. If Red Resonator is available, along with a Level 4 Monster, we can still go into Red Rising Dragon, but you'll have to stop on a Level 8 Synchro, being Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend, or Chaos Ruler, the Chaotic Magical Dragon, as neither Void Ogre Dragon nor Beelze of the Diabolic Dragons can be summoned this way. (Both require a DARK Tuner). Scarlight is good for clearing the field or simply being "Red Dragon Archfiend", while Chaos Ruler can be more helpful going first as it can dig through the deck to help further our plays next turn, or ideally, find a Synkron Resonator we can use to make Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss, the ideal monster to have if Red Supernova Dragon isn't an option. If not, we may be forced to fall back on Samsara, Dragon of Rebirth, or Black Rose Moonlight Dragon, or, the worst case scenario, nothing at all. This is where we get into the deck's weaknesses; if we can't Synchro Summon on our first turn, there isn't really anything we can do. It's tempting to add Link Monsters to circumvent this, but I couldn't find any that were good enough to justify the space they'd take, and even if we decided to run the Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon engine, it would hurt the deck's consistency and we wouldn't even always be able to have two Monsters we could Summon to make Predaplant Verte Anaconda anyway. Another issue is the deck struggles to play through hand traps; Effect Veiler and Infinite Impermanence in particular can stop us in our tracks, leaving us on a Red Rising Dragon we can't do anything with. Fortunately, this is something we can address with Called by the Grave, which we include in the Main Deck to give us a shot at shutting these cards down. The final weakness worth mentioning is the deck doesn't have much for dealing with Spells and Traps, though Hot Red Dragon Archfiend Abyss, Infinite Impermanence, and Red Reign can help circumvent this, as can the Side Deck.

The Side Deck contains two six-card packages: a Kaiju package, and a Crossout Designator package. The idea here is we can decide which one we need, and take out the same six cards from the Main Deck for either one; the three Red Sprinters, the two Resonator Engines, and the one Chain Resonator. This is the most painless way I've been able to think of to fit these packages in without hurting the deck's consistency too much. The Crossout Designator package is designed for combating hand traps, specifically Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring, Effect Veiler, and Ghost Belle and Haunted Mansion. These are the ones that I've found tend to foil our plans the most, but Nibiru, the Primordial Being, is also a significant threat. Depending on the current climate of the game it may be wise to use that to replace one of the other targets. In fact, in some contexts it might be better to simply have this package in the Main Deck by default, but as this is a non-meta deck I've designed it with the assumption it will usually be used against other non-meta decks, which may or may not be using hand traps at all. The Kaiju engine, however, is simple enough to use, as its main purpose is simply monster removal when going second. However, in this deck specifically there's enough possible interactions that I think it's worth going into in more detail. I've always been fond of Kaijus, as unlike most other outs to dangerous cards, Kaiju Monsters can interact with the rest of your deck in fun ways, with their varied Types, Levels, and Attributes. This deck plays Dogoran, the Mad Flame Kaiju, Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju, and Radian, the Multidimensional Kaiju, along with three Interrupted Kaiju Slumber, as a package to clear out problematic Monsters and possibly enable our Synchro Monsters in one swoop. For example, if we use Interrupted Kaiju Slumber to give ourselves Dogoran and our opponent Gameciel, we can Banish a Red Rising Dragon in the Graveyard to Special Summon two Level 1 Resonators from our Graveyard and use those along with Dogoran to Synchro Summon Tyrant Red Dragon Archfiend, or if we have Radian we can use a single Level 1 Resonator to make a Level 8 Synchro Monster. Of course, we can also keep our Kaiju on the field as means of preventing our opponent from using their own Kaijus to out our Synchro Monsters, particularly Red Supernova Dragon. As for the three Lightning Storm, they're a good safe option if we expect to go second and don't think either the two six-card packages are necessary, in which case we simply side out Chain Resonator and the Resonator Engines.

This deck is subject to change and improvement. It's currently my main focus as far as Yu-Gi-Oh is concerned. I may edit this list in the future to keep it up to date, or as further playing reveals improvements to be made. Let's kick this duel into overdrive!