Witchcrafter Starter [Trinity | April '24]

My version of adjustments to the Witchcrafter Starter for Trinity Format.

As referenced in the original starter, the Witchcrafter archetype allows us to make pretty generously potent plays with just our Normal Summon or any one of the lower level Witchcrafters (whom I will refer to as Apprentices for the purposes of this guide). Due to this, we can play very nicely with a coalition of other Spellcasters and related support to eek out advantage engines outside of just what the normal deck would provide. We'll be taking advantage of Windwitch Monsters, Odd-Eyes, and more of the Possessed Engine to try and snowball hard.

Statistical Breakdown

- Difficulty -
★★☆☆☆
Witchcrafter are a very unga bunga strategy with all of the ceiling in Trinity being limited to applications of Golem Aruru, Witchcrafter Masterpiece, and determining if you'll be using the Spell for its effect or for Discard fodder. That's about it. Since that's the core of our strategy, to supplement it we're going to reduce the floor even further with our various 1 card combos and safe lines of play to back us up.

 - Consistency -
★★★★☆
This strategy is rather consistent as basically any Apprentice + Spell enables Haine with varying degrees of annoyances attached. Since this isn't a purist deck; however, you may be a bit pressed to find interaction outside of Haine and Aruru as we want the majority of our good cards to be Spells that can double as Discard fodder, so, our Traps aren't exactly premium, nor guaranteed to be cycled into (barring Spellbook Tower gamestates).

- Sackiness -
★★★☆☆
You can run Heavy Storm in this deck in place of Last Will if you'd like to add another sack factor to the deck. Your Cont. Spell/Traps should benefit from the nuke either way in the long term. Regardless, we can't sack very well outside of cards like Ultimate Providence, opening Golem Aruru (not searching it), or opening Unpossessed and even then, the turnover isn't terribly massive and gets diminishing returns the longer the game goes on. Fortunately with Unpossessed face up, attacks aren't encouraged anyway.

- Viability -
★★★☆☆
Legal Dridents will take you pretty far in Trinity. That said, most of the actual viability in this deck just comes from Aruru gamestates as cards in hand are very hard to deal with in Trinity. Our Extra Deck is loaded with powerful cards to convert the advantages provided from our Tuner roster and since the engine is so elegant and simple, I'd argue if you can concoct a brew that's simplier and even more oppressive, then the viability would skyrocket. Witchcrafters are therefore get 5★s in Versatility.

The Good & The Bad

   Pros:

• Unfair Snowball: The Snowball provided from the various engines in the deck frankly aren't very fair when it comes to raw numbers advantage. You aren't necessarily seeing fresh cards each time; however, Haine combos being able to set herself up and get her revival are rather obnoxious gamestates to deal with. Every Witchcrafter Spell also recycling itself back to your hand/Field during your EP is extremely strong as well and helps us buffer decision making for Discard effects as we only stand to benefit from it in the end and maintain our generic Spells in hand. Lastly, if we find Spellbook Tower then free draws will take us even further with finding 2 fresh cards per turn and threating a minimum Genni most of the time.
  
  
• Double Drident: Borreload Furious Dragon (92892239) is something we can bring out as a 1 card combo thanks to Odd-Eyes Fusion (48144509). We can pretty comfortably destroy Scroll or Bystreet to search it since those cards will come back anyway.

   Cons:

• Rough Choke Points: Due to the linearity of the Apprentice's field effects, if you're at all disrupted during the process you go extremely negative, with Called By the Grave being the absolute worst offender and is a psuedo-FTK against you. We have a Garnet in Iris Swordsman and some of the Windwitches when drawn out of order as well but those are things that can be remedied.
  
  
• Limited Interaction: Spell disruption isn't the best. Some things to consider are cards like Forbidden Chalice, Droplet, and Book of Moon/Sol & Luna for things of that avenue but even then, removal tends to be highly favored in comparison, especially for a deck like this that has to bait around Aruru or Discard for Haine to remove cards effectively.
  
  
• Stat-Checked: Without Verre or the Fusion Monster, we get walled pretty hard by anything 2900 or greater, especially when summoned en masse. Under those situations we'll just have to do some juggling with Bystreet to protect our Haine as we slowly disect the board.

The mock-up's done. Let's review the basics.

Gameplan & Navigation

OPENERS
This strategy features a few lines that we can access and still put up a reasonable enough threat, even if Haine has bricked us in some cases.

• Haine-Haine: This is our boss monster at the time of the writing this due to the state of the banlist. Haine's pretty good nonetheless, she redirects all targeting effects to herself, is kinda big, and most importantly, wields a Drident effect for a Spell Discard. We can also send our Witchcrafter Continuous Spells for the cost as well while they're face-up on Field. She'll be trading one Spell each time to out a face-up Card; however, with the Witchcrafter Spells returning to us during EP, this is ultimately a non-issue. Even against the most cautious of players, this will always trade 1f1 in the short term and be a net +1 in the long term. If you're wondering about Eda, that Monster can grab us Witchcrafter Pittore who doubles as our stand-in for any 1500 DEF Spellcaster synergies.
  
  
• Odd Inclusion of a Fusion: Furious Dragon can be summoned by the effect of Odd-Eyes Fusion by sending Odd-Eyes Venom Dragon and Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon Overload to the GY directly from our ED. Since all of our Apprentices enable Haine, we can just start with this and beam out Furious immediately (assuming the conditions are met) then play our turn as normal. If done while under the protection of Witchcrafter Bystreet (83289866) (which a Witchcrafter Schmietta (21744288) opener gets us to anyway), then we can safely target any Witchcrafter monster on our side of the field for the effect of Furious Dragon to pop a free card on the opponent's side and keep the monster around. Double this up with Haine and we're getting 2 pops per turn with only 1 requiring use to actually lose a card (and at that point you can just send away the Bystreet as it cannot protect the Haine anymore and you'll just get it back during the next EP anyway!)
  
  
• Charmed to Meet You: Spirit Charmers (91530236) is still one of the silliest Spellcaster support cards that doesn't see use here despite working wonders for any Albaz deck. Nonetheless, we'll be using it to either setup Grand Spiritual Art - Ichirin, Unpossessed (25704359), or Possessed Partnerships (65046521) with the latter two being primary targets for our setup.

You should be opening any of these general setups with most hands with this deck but even in the event you find yourself with a Haine or Advance Dragon in hand, that's fine as well. You'll just have to pivot for going into turns 3+ for the most effective midgame you might be able to muster until your engine properly comes online.

MIDGAME

This is where the deck shines the most really and where the snowball tends to stack up to hilarious levels.

• Windwitchcrafter: Outside of Windwitch - Glass Bell being a target for Unpossessed and related cards, we can go into Windwitch - Winter Bell by finding Glass or Windwitch - Ice Bell. Winter Bell will allow us to summon out Haine and any Apprentice in our hand for free during either player's battle phase simply by targeting itself. If that isn't needed, then we'll just pivot with Windwitch - Freeze Bell to summon Cyber Slash Harpie Lady (63261835) and make her completely Battle Immune. Since we're cycling reliable Spells at the minimum, we'll be able to bounce something back on our own turns. Anything gained beyond that is honestly a given since this is still just going to remain on the field and demand removal answers. Lastly, if we find ourself not wanting to perform Windwitch lines or drawing them out of order somehow, we can just send them to the GY for the Summoning Condition of Awakening of the Possessed - Rasenryu and bounce back an opponent's card. Once we get rid of Rasenryu, we'll be able to grab any of our "Possessed" Spell/Traps right after, making this conversion pivot into all of our engines in the deck.
  
  
• Advancing the Gamestate: Odd-Eyes Advance Dragon (61391302) is our secondary target for Sky Iris' searching capabilities and can be Tribute Summoned by Tributing over Haine, Borreload Furious Dragon, Iris, etc. Since all of the monsters we play (besides the Magistus Extra Deck) should be assumed to have been summoned correctly, we can not only destroy and burn the opponent down, but also attack something with this 3k body and resummon most of our ED boss monsters or just Haine back with its revival effect. This is a very potent swing and represents a really large swing in LP as well.

The games may be drawn out and honestly the next section doesn't necesarily mean that you have to be a in deep grind game to take advantage of the following lines of play, just that they're good for closers if you haven't already won.

LATEGAME & CLOSERS

• Mathematical: Zoroa, Ecclesia, Golden Swordsoul, and Glass Bell all allow us to access Synchros in this deck pretty comfortably. Being Level 4 Tuners enables us to just go into Geomathmech Magna and steal games with the insanity of its tempo swing. This card is extremely underrated and really potent just as an equalizer or way to clear 3 Monsters with one attack.
  
  
• Arude Introduction: Witchcrafter Golem Aruru (71074418) will win you games more than anything with an extremely lazy amount of effort required. Find this card and beat your opponent up with it. It's fine to even waste your Apprentices to summon this out during the opponent's MP1/2 if it means adding it to your hand during your upcoming SP. This card is really strong on its own.
  
  
• The Power of Reliability: The Continuous Trap Witchcrafter Patronus (94553671) is unmatched when it comes to grind game conversions (though it itself can run out of targets in the long game which is a bit funny to consider). It is our primary way of recycling our banished Apprentices or any instances of Haine being hit by Bottomless, Dinomischus, etc. When it's sent to the GY either due to the opponent, Schmietta, or our Magicians' Souls  (who can also send away our Field Spells and/or Scroll/Bystreet), we can cycle back any banished Spells that we might've used for Witchcrafter Genni's duplication ability. It's for this reason that if you find yourself opening Patronous or a way to it, you're incentivized to be greedy with Genni if it means you'll snowball sooner.

As you can tell from the guide the engines all talk to each other very well and operate on a level that's pretty silly when put into practice. Witchcrafter in Highlander will always run into the issue of the Spells doing virtually nothing (besides Scroll) without any of their archetypal monsters in play, but such is the sacrifices you make to try and put such strategies in the spotlight. Regardless, here's a few things to consider when coming up with your own brew!

Viability Boosters: Runick | Dragonmaid & Dragon Ruler | more Spellbook | Majespecter Spell/Traps | Albaz Support | Crossout Designator & all silver bullets | Voiceless Support
General Purpose: Chaos Creator, Magistus & Performages, Ancient Warriors - Ambitious Cao De, Xeno Meteorus, Loop of Destruction, Super Team Buddy Force Unite!, Duality

Legal Dridents will always be somewhat relevant and give the weaker archetypes of Trinity a leg to stand on, especially when they're as consistent to access as Haine or Moerk. The most important thing is to play into your deck's strengths and be sure to have a back-up plan in mind for one things go awry.

50 Card Deck = 4 Points with 4p used.
1p Witchcrafter Schmietta (Extra Copy)
1p Witchcrafter Patronous (Extra Copy)
1p Witchcrafter Golem Aruru
.5p Heavy Storm
.5p Titanocider

Thanks for checking out my iteration of the Witchcrafter Starter for Trinity Format. In the event that Diabellestar winds up getting some cards back for us, then you might want to consider adding those cards in to make Haine even more oppressive. Nonetheless, good luck and take care.