Due to the September 2024 banlist, Thunder Dragon Colossus has been unleashed to full power! This meta-defining threat is now at TWO, making this "mistake-on-legs" extremely difficult for most players to out, especially with two of them on the field at the same time!
Since its 2019 iteration, Thunder Dragon has new tools in its disposal to increase its consistency, plays, boardbreaking and interruption. For example, 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 Zombie Vampire, easily accessible due to the rank 8s in this deck can mill and summon monsters from either GY for more plays! S:P Little Knight banishes your GY your Thunder Dragon monsters, triggering their effects!
Colossus and friends have certainly come back with a vengeance with the September 2024 banlist, this time with new powerful friends!
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 and Thunder Dragonmatrix 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 so that it can be linked away for Cross-Sheep.
BYSTIAL cards compose a large chunk of cards in this deck, functioning simultaneously as combo pieces (to banish Thunder Dragon cards), interruption (banish handtraps + removal), and grindgame (Branded Regained). 2 Lubellion and 2 Saronir allow for Branded Regained to 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. 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. 2 Assault Synchron are used since it allows easy access to Genex Return Zero, 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.
A sizeable CHAOS engine is also used in this deck. It is composed of x1 Chaos Space, x2 Levianeer, x1 Diabolos, x1 Chaos Emperor, x1 Dragon of Armageddon, x1 Seyfert, x1 Wyverburster and x1 Collapserpent. These cards provide extra bodies on board by banishing light/dark cards in the GY. By banishing Thunder Dragons, they trigger their effects. The chaos cards simultaneously act as starters and boardbreakers through their effects and massive bodies.
The rest of the deck are STAPLES! Consistency boosters in this deck are x3 Allure of Darkness (its banish effect triggers Thunder Dragon monsters), x1 Chaos Space and x1 Gold Sarcophagus. 3 Imperm is used as a generic interruption. Forbidden Droplet are used at x3 since this deck cannot use a critical mass of handtraps and instead uses boardbreakers and a lot of plays to get its gameplan going.
COMBOS AND GAMEPLAN
The GAMEPLAN with this deck is simple – lockdown the board going first with double Colossus, and OTK going second.
If the duel is forced into a grind-game, the Thunder Dragon/Bystial/Chaos 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 Thunder Dragon is summoning its signature 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, Levianeer's pops, 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 many staples this deck can utilize (additional handtraps/boardbreakers 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 Thunder Dragon Bystial:
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. (You can activate S:P to banish from your GY to trigger your own effect).
Here the ideal combo for Thunder Dragon Bystial:
Lubellion + Batteryman Solar + Melody of Awakening Dragon + Discard = Double Colossus (No Searching) + Potentially Dis Pater (Negates/Resources) + S:P Little Knight (Banish), Levianeer/Diabolos (handloop for 2), Branded Regained (draw 1 + resources), Baldrake (banish opponent's extra deck monster)
Activate Lubellion to search for Magnamhut.
Normal summon Batteryman Solar. Activate Solar's on-summon effect to send to GY Thunder Dragonroar.
Activate Magnumhut'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.
Activate Melody of Awakening Dragon by discarding 1 card to search for Darkest Diabolos and Levianeer.
Summon Lubellion from the GY by tributing Magnumhut.
Activate Darkest Diabolo's effect to summon from hand since you tributed a dark monster. (If you can, try to handloop your opponent for 1 card with your Diabolos by tributing one dark monster you don't need).
Activate Lubellion's effect to place from deck on the field Branded Regained.
XYZ summon The Vampire Zombie using Lubellion + Darkest Diabolos.
Activate Vampire Zombie's effect to mill 4 and summon 1 card from either GY that was milled.
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 a level 4 or lower monster (ideally Assault Synchron so you can get to synchro summoning). (You can also summon another Batteryman Solar so it can be a second Colossus).
Link away The Zombie Vampire + Cross-Sheep to link summon S:P Little Knight. (You can activate S:P to banish from your GY to trigger your own GY effects).
Summon Levianeer by banishing 3 dark monsters from your GY.
Activate Branded Regained CL1 to place one of your banished dark monsters on the bottom deck and draw 1 card, CL2 Levianeer to handloop your opponent for 1 card.
If you summoned Assault Synchro earlier with, you can synchro summon Dis Pater using Levianeer + Assault Synchron. Then you can summon from your banished pile, and keep comboing! If you summoned from GY another Thunder monster, you can make your second Colossus!
During the end phase, resolve Magnamhut's effect searching for Baldrake.
The endboard for this strategy more or less ends on the same things: Colossus (perhaps 2), Bystials set-up on the field, GY and hand, and S:P. With extenders and right cards, your board also ends on Branded Regained, Dis Pater, and handloops with Diabolos/Levianeer/Psy-Frame Omega.
This strength of Chaos Thunder Dragon Bystial 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 that make up this conglomerate of a deck.
The strategy has a ton of gas behind it similar to Dragonlink or Plantlink, so it can power through boards/handtraps through engine cards alone!
GENERAL TIPS
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 to four cards! Bystial Dis Pater + Psy-Framelord Omega make this possible. Darkest Diabolos and Levianeer also handloop for 1 each once you resolve their effects.
While siding for games 2/3, you can side out some of the Chaos package (Chaos Space, Wyverburster, Collapserpent, x1 Lubellion, x1 Melody of Awakening Dragon, x1 Levianeer) for additional three handtraps specific for the match-up or boardbreakers.
Think of Chaos Thunder Dragon Bystial 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 protected Colossus is 90% of the time an instant win vs. decks like Fiendsmith variants, Snake-Eyes, Floowandereeze, Yubel, Mannadium, etc. Be sure to defend your Colossus, it may be powerful and resilient, but it will quickly fall if its on its own.
Want to see the deck in action? Scroll to the very bottom for the Youtube video!
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I first thought that semi-limited Colossus from the September 2024 banlist was inconsequential, but it actually is a big game-changer! One Colossus is easy enough to out, especially with S:P Little Knight and TY-Phon being widely used, but now with two Colossus, your opponent will have to apply way more effort to out this "mistake-on-legs!" Thunder Dragon is an even stronger than ever - even more powerful than it's last incarnations especially with its new indirect support! Thanks to the recent banlist, double Colossus has been unsealed to impart on the TCG it's fulminating fury!
GLHF Duelists!
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