The April 2024 banlist was a complete emotional rollercoaster for me. I was ECSTATIC seeing that my beloved Thunder Dragon Colossus is now legal again for the TCG! This singular, game warping boss monster has plagued competitive formats in the past, gatekept rogue decks from properly competing, and strikes reverent fear into the hearts of every duelist that has crossed its path. After 5 years of being sealed away, this "mistake" on legs is now back in the TCG to wreak havoc and prevent opponents from searching!
Thunder Dragon has new tools in its disposal to increase its consistency, plays, boardbreaking and interruption. First, the Bystial package allows Thunder Dragon to enter recycle cards, maintain card advantage, provide massive level 6/8 bodies on board, and apply pressure with various removal effects as well as with high 2500 ATK. Bystials also banish both light/dark monsters from the GY, allowing Thunder Dragon monsters to trigger their effects even during your opponent's turn. The Horus package turbos out Zombie Vampire to simultaneously mill and summon combo pieces from deck, as well as apply pressure on established boards with high ATK and King's Sarcophagus' non-targeting non-destroying removal.
Colossus and crew have certainly come back with a vengeance, this time with new powerful friends! Thunder Dragon is an even stronger than ever - even stronger than it's last incarnations when it was banned so long ago at 2019. As of the April 2024 TCG banlist, Colossus has been unsealed to impart on the metagame its fulminating fury!
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
ARCHETYPES AND DECKBUILDING
Forming a compact but potent centrepiece of the strategy, the THUNDER DRAGON cards in this decklist turbo out Colossus. The original Thunder Dragon, Thunder Dragonmatrix and Thunder Dragon Fusion along with its main target Thunder Dragon Titan aren't are cut to fit the other supporting archetypes in the deck. Only 3 Dragondark, 2 Dragonhawk and 2 Dragonroar are used. 3 Batteryman Solar is the best normal summon the deck has, since it simultaneously sends to GY a Thunder Dragon on summon (setting up to be banished to trigger their effects) and generates a token to it can be linked away for Cross-Sheep.
The HORUS package is used mainly for summoning Zombie Vampire for mills and it is composed of 7 cards - 3 Imsety, 1 Hapi, 1 Duamutef and 2 King's Sarcophagus. King's Sarcophagus is particularly good at providing a discard outlet to send the cards in your hand to the GY, especially Thunder Dragon monsters so they can be banished by your Bystials.
BSYTIAL cards compose the last big set of cards in this deck, functioning simultaneously as combo pieces (to banish Thunder Dragon cards), interruption (banish handtraps + removal) , and grindgame (Branded Regained). 3 Lubellion and 3 Saronir allow for maximum consistency to get Branded Regained set up. 1 Magnumhut, 1 Baldrake and 2 Druiswyrm round out the Bystial monsters. Finally, 1 Branded Regained is used since it is highly searchable. In the side deck, 1 Etude is present as a searchable "macro cosmos" for extra deck material your opponent is using. With Bystial cards enabling banishment from the GY and the Thunder Dragon's effects triggering when getting banished, it seems like these two archetypes were made for each other! They support each other's weakpoints and enable each of their effects. 3 Assault Synchron are used since it allows easy access to Bystial Dis Pater and Chaos Angel. Assault Synchron can also summon Dis Pater from the GY/banished if it is tributed or banished, especially by Lubellion's effect.
The rest of the deck are STAPLES! The Psy-Frame package is used with 1 Gamma and 2 Delta to negate monster effects and spells respectively. This deck does a lot of actions without putting a monster on board to bait your opponent's handtraps. 3 Imperm, 2 Ash are used as generic interruption. Including the Bystials, this deck sports 15 handtraps!
COMBOS AND GAMEPLAN
The GAMEPLAN with this deck is simple – lockdown the board going first, and OTK going second.
If the duel is forced into a grind-game, the Thunder Dragon/Bystial/Horus resource loop and the previous turn's graveyard set-up can whittle an opponent down. Thunder Dragon Fusion can also be banished the turn after you use it to allow you to search for Thunder Dragonroar, which can be discarded to recover Thunder Dragon Fusion from the banished pile. Provided your GY/Banished Pile set-up, another Titan can be easily made.
GOING FIRST, boards that end on a supported Colossus is often enough to ensure your survival until the next turn and keep your opponent at a stand still. The board might be even so far advanced that the opponent may straight up surrender, since the boards that deck deploys turn one are almost an FTK with the floodgate and interruption present. The win condition of Bystial Horus Thunder Dragon is summoning its signature newly unbanned boss monster Thunder Dragon Colossus. Everything else is designed to allow the player to "get there," and "protect the castle" (in this case the castle is Colossus).
GOING SECOND, boards are easily picked apart by your giant beatsticks, Bystials, Horus + King's Sarcophagus and Accesscode's multiple pops. After breaking an opponent’s board, this deck can combo easily to generate enough gigantic monsters onboard to obliterate your opponent’s lifepoints in one turn. The 15-18+ handtraps this deck can utilize (additional handtraps can be sided in) should also simplify your opponent's gamestate to the point where your in-engine cards can use their natural boardbreaking potential.
Here is the main COMBO for Bystial Horus Thunder Dragon (if you want more combos, feel free to check out Yacine656's Thunder Dragon tutorial):
Any Bystial + Batteryman Solar = Colossus (No Searching) + Chaos Angel (Battle immunity) + S:P Little Knight (Banish).
Normal summon Batteryman Solar. Activate Solar's on-summon effect to send to GY Thunder Dragonroar.
Activate Bystial's effect in-hand to banish from your GY Thunder Dragonroar.
Activate Dragonroar's trigger effect to summon from deck Thunder Dragondark.
Activate Solar's trigger effect to summon a Batteryman Token.
Link away Thunder Dragondark + Token for Cross-Sheep.
Activate Thunder Dragondark's GY effect to search from deck Thunder Dragonhawk.
Synchro away Bystial + Batteryman Solar for Chaos Angel. This Chaos Angel has all it's effects live since it's made with a light and dark monster. Summon Chaos Angel under one of the zones Cross-Sheep is pointing to. (Don't activate it's effect yet)!
Activate Thunder Dragonhawk summoning from Banishment Thunder Dragonroar.
Special summon Thunder Dragon Colossus by tributing Thunder Dragonroar. Summon Colossus under one of the zones Cross-Sheep is pointing to.
Activate Cross-Sheep's effect to simultaneously summon from the GY Batteryman Solar and increase every monster's attack by 700 since it's pointing to a fusion (Colossus) and a synchro (Chaos Angel).
Link away Batteryman Solar + Cross-Sheep to link summon S:P Little Knight. (If you have an extender, you can also make a 3-4 Material Apollousa or I:P Masquerena).
The endboard for this strategy more or less ends on the same things: Colossus, Bystial set-up on the field, GY and hand, Horus monsters, and either S:P or Apollousa (dependant on the number of extenders you have).
If you have multiple tuner access due to Cross-Sheep being on the field and Assault Synchron in the GY, you can go for Psy-Framelord Omega's double handloop with Dis Pater.
This strength of Bystial Horus Thunder Dragon is that while it is predictable, it is adaptable to various situations due to the randomness of it's mills, the composition of certain hands and the trio of archetypes present this conglomerate of a deck.
GENERAL TIPS
Horus cards are incredible at cracking established boards and can out powerful boss monsters that have negates/interruption. After clearing your opponent's board, XYZ summon Zombie Vampire with Imsety and Hapi and get milling!
With Bystial monsters and a set-up GY containing Thunder Dragons, you can search/summon during your own turn AND your opponent's turn! This is possible with Bystial's quick effect to trigger your Thunder Dragon's effects during your opponent's turn. You get twice as much resources!
Certain incredibly powerful hands allow you to handloop your opponent for two! Bystial Dis Pater + Psy-Framelord Omega make this possible.
If you're willing to make this deck bigger (50ish cards) for a higher power ceiling, you can incorporate more in-engine Thunder Dragon cards such as Titan and Fusion. You can also play Dragonlink staples to form Thunder Dragonlink!
While siding for games 2/3, you can side out the mini-Chaos package (Chaos Space, Wyverburster and Collapserpent) for an additional three handtraps specific for the match-up.
Think of Bystial Thunder Dragon as Dragonlink. You can bait out your opponent's interruption with certain plays, threatening the battle phase with beatsticks, Druiswyrm's removal etc. then you can power through with your combo when your opponent's gamestate is sufficiently simplified. Try to fish and bait for your opponent's interruptions before truly committing to your big plays!
Unlike other combo decks, Thunder Dragon doesn't have a proper "chokepoint," and players facing it often don't know when to disrupt/handtrap it. Use that to your advantage!
A well insulated Colossus is 90% of the time an instant win vs. decks like Snake-Eyes, Floowandereeze, Dragonlink, Mannadium, etc. Be sure to protect your Colossus, it may be powerful and resilient, but it will quickly fall on it's own.
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Having enjoyed this deck's Masterduel incarnation, finally witnessing it's unmitigated power complete with Colossus return in the TCG is such an amazing privilige! Colossus is a true powerhouse threat that shuts down commonly used decks like Snake-Eyes, Floowandereeze and Dragonlink. Colossus and crew have certainly come back with a vengeance, this time with their new powerful friends - Bystials and Horus! Thunder Dragon is an even stronger than ever - even more powerful than it's last incarnations when it was banned so long ago at 2019. Now, Colossus has been unsealed to impart on the TCG it's fulminating fury!
GLHF Duelists!
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