Spirit Charmers+Virtual World

A Brief, Basic Synopsis of the Overall Strategy

A fast-paced beatdown/control Charmer deck composed of an oddball choice pairing of Virtual World. While Charmers are considered a more casual archetype, this particular idea (born of a friend's deck building recommendation) seeks to be one of many experimental decks I wanted to do for the archetype on a long road to finding its eventual niche when coexisting with meta decks. It is not meant to be truly meta-defining, but more to pave the road to finding a definitive deck for the archetype to one day see rogue potential. It combines the surprisingly good synergy of two archetypes one would never think to use together in a deck, and is arguably one of the beefiest Charmer Decks in sheer card total.

 

Why are Charmers the Main Focus Specifically for this Deck?

As a Yu-Gi-Oh! player who has tried to run Charmers since their debut in The Lost Milennium, I've become a bit of a main of the archetype. And as more support has come out for it over the years, I've commited to what many will deem a foolish endeavour. But I am a firm believer that any archetype can have a decent chance at being great with the right cards to balance out their glaring downsides. (As long as it wasn't intentionally designed to be awful, obviously)

 

Why Use Virtual World in this Deck?

One of the biggest problems with Charmers (from mine and many other people's experience) is that Charmers on its own is quite noticeably, painfully slow. Virtual World as a secondary archetype engine not only drastically speeds up Charmers with Virtual World's swarming potential, it also provides Virtual World's annoying amounts of recursion to maximize the usefulness of Unpossessed, Shenshen's removal and self-revival effects, and access to a lot of powerful Extra Deck cards that can win Charmers a game against more viable decks every once in a while. From personal testing, Virtual World surprisingly gets along really well with Charmers due to their Main Deck monsters more commonly being in the Lv3-5 ranges.

 

Key Cards and Tips for Using Them in the Deck

This deck has a variety of cards that do a variety of things, however these ones are deemed the most important for setup purposes:

• The "Channeler" retrains of Aussa and Wynn. They not only get Virtual World monsters into the GY faster to recur them later (giving the entire deck a proper flow to its synergy), but you can also search for Lili, Lulu or Nyannyan if they have not shown up in your hand yet.


• Unpossessed. This is a given for Charmers to do their part in the strategy. The "Channeler" retrains also have the same battle protection benefits as the six base form Charmers. Due to Virtual World's swarming capabilities, it is very likely you will be able to swarm your front row with "Charmer" monsters very quickly off just a single copy


• Fairy Tail - Luna. The quintessential bounce effect card in the deck, Fairy Tail - Luna is one of the essential cards the Charmer archetype is known to rely on.


• Secret Village of the Spellcasters and Secret Sanctuary of the Spellcasters. Because of your newfound ability to constantly swarm Charmers with help from the Virtual World engine, Secret Village and Secret Sanctuary become extremely annoying cards for your opponent to deal with. The only real catch is to not get caught with your pants down in regards to your Spellcaster total.


• Stumbling. While this might seem like a bad idea at a glance, this keeps the base form Charmers alive for a very annoying combo with Unpossessed.


• Virtual World City - Kauwloon, Virtual World Gate - Qinglong, Virtual World Gate - Chuche, and Virtual World Gate - Xuanwu. These cards are pretty much essential for any deck involving Virtual World, as it is the main way the Virtual World Monsters in the deck list can swarm the board.


• Virtual World Kyubi - Shenshen. Shenshen serves as an excellent way to get rid of problem cards from the game while it is on the board. It can also recur itself and set up other Virtual World swarming plays.


• Awakening of the Possessed and Dark Doriado. Both of these cards play nice with both your Virtual World and Charmer Cards. Both archetypes get stat boosts from these cards when used for backrow, and it grants card effect protection to both your Main Deck Charmers and their Link Monster retrains.


• Spirit Charmers, Stardust Charge Warrior, Magical Abductor, and Coral Dragon. These cards serve as even more ways to speed up the deck's pace. Spirit Charmers can exchange a brick draw card or Virtual World Monsters for either more setup or 1 backrow and 1 Charmer monster from your deck.


• Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon, and Ultimaya Tzolkin. CWSD can deal with problem cards and gain their ATK until the end phase. And while you can bring it out without issue due to Virtual World and Charmers playing nice in their synergy, Ultimaya Tzolkin can alternatively cheat it out without the materials.


• Cloudcastle, Ravenous Crocodragon Archethys, and Vermillion Dragon Mech. Your biggest possible Synchro plays from the Virtual World Engine. Especially in Master Duel, this will be necessary for the Very Fun Dragon.


• Abyss Dweller and True King of All Calamities. Depending on the legality of the cards where you use this deck, you want to use either Abyss Dweller or True King of All Calamities. The Very Fun Dragon is obviously the most ideal card of the two, albeit with the caviat that Charmers can only use its power in Master Duel at the moment. Abyss Dweller - while legal in the physical game - still has its uses, though, provided you're contempt with what the Virtual World Engine has set up for Charmers in advance due to its Necrovalley-like effect.


• Literally every card in the Side Deck. Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring requires little to no explanation given the current meta and pace of duels. Triple Nibiru is helpful against any and all much faster decks using the Virtual World archetype as an engine or primary archetype. (Just be wary of potentially bricking with it) Gameciel can get rid of extremely problematic monsters for the deck and is the universal Kaiju to easily beat over once a problem monster is gone. (Or if you're feeling really cheeky, have Eria steal it back after its special summon) Effect Veiler is a flat-out negate for the turn in the form of a handtrap. Called By the Grave can deal with any singular hand trap.


• Evenly Matched. There are a LOT of risks with this card depending on the opponent when playing it in Charmers in general, but thanks to the Virtual World engine a well-thought out Evenly Matched set or hand activation can completely devastate your opponent. (Though to be fair, the same can be said for Evenly Matched in any deck that uses it wisely)


• Powerful Staples. A well-timed Solemn Judgement can win you the duel, Harpie's Feather Duster is an incredibly powerful form of backrow removal, and Forbidden Droplet is a very powerful non-targetting negation to as much of your opponent's board as possible that cannot be responded to by card effects. While not in the Main Deck or Side Deck, you should at least consider owning copies for your collection in case situations come up where these cards can make a difference.

Cards to Keep Your Eyes Out For, Depending on Which Modern Format of Yu-Gi-Oh! You Play

There are a couple of key factors to deckbuilding that will likely need to be gone into. There are two above especially notable cards for the base strategy, however you will only be able to use one of them in Master Duel for the full effect of this deck's synergy; when in Master Duel (When Dharc's Link retrain releases), you want to swap out Abyss Dweller for True King of All Calamities. When looking to the future of both the TCG and Master Duel, Aussa the Earth Channeler will become essential as the final addition to the Main Deck deck at two copies to make an exact total of 60 cards. When Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy comes to Master Duel, he is a must-forge for the MD version of this deck.

 

The Deck

Monster:
2x Aussa the Earth Charmer
2x Dharc the Dark Charmer
2x Eria the Water Charmer
2x Hiita the Fire Charmer
2x Lyna the Light Charmer
2x Wynn the Wind Charmer
2x Aussa the Earth Channeler [When It Releases for TCG/MD]
2x Wynn the Wind Channeler
3x Virtual World Hime - Nyannyan
1x Virtual World Kirin - Lili
3x Virtual World Mai-Hime - Lulu
2x Virtual World Roshi - Laolao
2x Virtual World Xiezhi - Jiji
2x Fairy Tail - Luna
2x Dark Doriado
2x Magical Abductor

Spell:
3x Awakening of the Possessed
3x Spirit Charmers
3x Virtual World City - Kauwloon
2x Virtual World Gate - Qinglong
2x Secret Village of the Spellcasters
2x Secret Sanctuary of the Spellcasters
2x Stumbling

Trap:
3x Unpossessed
2x Virtual World Gate - Chuche
1x Virtual World Gate - Xuanwu
2x Evenly Matched
2x Infinite Impermanence

Extra:
1x Aussa the Earth Charmer, Immovable
1x Dharc the Dark Charmer, Gloomy
1x Eria the Water Charmer, Gentle
1x Hiita the Fire Charmer, Ablaze
1x Lyna the Light Charmer, Lustrous
1x Wynn the Wind Charmer, Verdant
1x Virtual World Kyubi - Shenshen
1x Cloudcastle
1x Coral Dragon
1x Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon
1x Ravenous Crocodragon Archethys
1x Stardust Charge Warrior
1x Ultimaya Tzolkin
1x Vermillion Dragon Mech
1x Abyss Dweller

Side:
3x Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring
2x Effect Veiler
3x Gameciel, the Sea Turtle Kaiju
3x Nibiru, the Primal Being
1x Called by the Grave
3x Crossout Designator

Other Card(s) to Consider:

• True King of All Calamities (Master Duel only as of right now)


• Forbidden Droplet


• Harpie's Feather Duster


• Solemn Judgement

 

In Conclusion, How Powerful is the Deck? And Should I give it a try?

After personal experience with it, this deck will still struggle a lot in current Yugioh purely because it's a Charmer Deck. (One archetype of note the deck has trouble beating especially being Altergeists) However, access to an extremely powerful second swarming engine gives Charmers as an archetype a significantly more likely chance of doing their thing against successfully some of the genuine meta deck archetypes. It definitely teeter-totters the fine line between casual and rogue with the current selection of cards in this deck for both Charmers and Virtual World. The potential is here, but might be easily dismissed due to the main archetype of focus and its infamy when compared to Virtual World as Charmers' companion engine. It is not a bad Charmer strategy by any means, especially due to the unexpected synergy with Virtual World. It's well worth messing around with if you're looking for a much more hectic and aggressive control variant of Charmers, or a much more...daring use of the Virtual World archetype. Though there's definitely room for more cards to be found that make this deck even better.