Deck Fix: Harrison's Armed Dragon Deck.

2/13/2010

Dear Nick,
This is a deck that i have been working and playing with ever since the archetype came out back in Soul of the Duelist. This is my armed dragon deck, with a synchro component, simply because i find that the leveling up theme help in being able to synchro rather easily. So yeah, that is the deck. I look forward to seeing your opinion on the deck, and maybe what kind of improvements i can make on it. (granted i know this isnt a top tier deck or anything, but it does pretty well at my locals.)So without further ado, here is the deck:

Original Decklist.

Monsters (21) :

Armed Dragon LV3 x3
Armed Dragon LV5 x3
Armed Dragon LV7 x2
Exploder Dragon x1
Flamvell Guard x2 (thinking about adding a third)
Koa'ki Meiru Drago x1
Lava Dragon x1
Luster Dragon x1 (could swap this out for another KM Drago if needed)
Magna Drago x1
Masked Dragon x3
Prime Material Dragon x1
The White Stone of Legend x1 (this is the thing i would take out to add the 2rd flamvell guard)
Twin-Headed Behemoth x1

Spells (12) :

Cards of Consonance x1 (thinking about adding a second)
Heavy Storm x1
Level Up! x2
Lightning Vortex x1
MST x1
Pot of Avarice x1
Solidarity x3
Stamping Destruction x1
Swords of Revealing Light x1

Traps (7)
Bottomless Trap Hole x1
Call of the Haunted x1
Dragon's Rage x2
Mirror Force x1
Solemn Judgment x1
Torrential Tribute x1

Monster Analysis:

Harrison is using the Armed Dragon cards. For those of you who don't know, Armed Dragon is a deck archetype used by Chazz Princeton from the show. They focus on discarding cards to destroy other cards. While the deck may not be top tier, it's still fairly powerful and a blast to play.

When I'm fixing this deck, I'm going to use a mild budget. I'm also going to include cards from Absolute Powerforce and the Absolute Powerforce Special Edition (Most notably, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.)

Harrison has a pretty good ratio for his Armed Dragons - 3/3/2. I'm pretty much going to keep this ratio, except when I include REDMD, I will remove an Armed Dragon LV 3? Why? Because LV 5 doesn't need LV 3 to come out, and REDMD is another acceptable method.

For some reason, Harrison is using 2x Flamvell Guard and 1x The White Stone of Legend, but he is only using 1 copy of Magna Drago. I would say that Flamvell Guard and the White Stone aren't very good. They tune with LV 7 to make 8 stars. However, if you've already taken the time to make LV 7, you should keep him on the field. Instead, tuning with random LV 4's or LV 3/5 Armed Dragons will probably be the better strategy. He can then bring out Exploder Dragonwing, one of the best cards Dragons have.

Harrison is playing triple Masked Dragon. That's very important in a deck like this, which needs the tribute fodder and ways of bringing out Armed Dragon. He should play 1 Totem Dragon though, to increase the things Masked Dragon can bring out.

Another thing - he's not playing the biggest Armed Dragon of them all, Armed Dragon LV 10. One copy will be really beneficial. Even if it's dead in his hand, he can just discard it to fuel the other effects.

On paper, Lava Dragon sounds really good. It's a 1-1 that generates field presence! Yay! The problem is, the stats are way too low for it to be viable.

Last of all, he should maximize his copies of Koa'ki Meiru Drago, similar to Richard Clarke's famed Disaster Dragon build. Drago is really controlling, and when you swing for game, it stops Gorz, the Emissary of Darkness, and Tragoedia from ruining your fun.

Total Monster Fixes

-2 Flamvell Guard
-1 The White Stone of Legend
-1 Prime Material Dragon (there already is 3 tribute monsters, since you won't always use LV 3's effect.)
-1 Armed Dragon LV 3
-1 Luster Dragon (for Koa'ki Meiru Drago)
-1 Lava Dragon

+3 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
+2 Koa'ki Meiru Drago
+1 Armed Dragon LV 10
+1 Debris Dragon
+1 Totem Dragon

Right now, we have 41 cards in this deck. We'll have to cut some S/T.

Spell and Trap Analysis:

I've noticed that Harrison is running some Spells and Traps that aren't very good. So far, I've liked his monster choices, but the S/T are actually pretty icky. First, I'll cut Cards of Consonance. The reason this card is good is interaction with White Stone of Legend, pulling Blue-Eyes to use Trade-In on. He's not using Blue-Eyes, and now he isn't using The White Stone of Legend either.

Next is Level Up! I'm not too sure how viable this card is. I'll keep it at 2 for now. People who know more about the LV series, kindly comment on Level Up! with e-mails or just plain comments. (:

Stamping Destruction is a really good card, I'd like to point that out. One copy only though.

Solidarity. This card is really bad in this deck, even though Harrison is running all Dragons. The reason is that an 800 attack boost isn't that good. The only benefit I see from this is putting LV 5 over Stardust Dragon, allowing for attacks, then destruction. However, what happens if people destroy Solidarity, using Dust Tornado (which is mained in 1 copy in Zombie decks) or Mystical Space Typhoon? Granted, that's only 2 cards, but you only have 3 Solidarity, so statistically, they will have Dust Tornado/MST when you have Solidarity most of the time. In addition, people now side in 2x Fairy Wind and sometimes an extra Dust Tornado or Malevolent Catastrophe. Also, other S/T destroying effects can be used if your attack failed to lose you advantage. The problem with Solidarity is that it doesn't pay you back enough. The solution?

Burden of the Mighty. Sure, it doesn't give you as big of a boost as Solidarity, but it gives you benefits outside of the battle phase - it lowers the card you have to discard to kill something. For example, by lowing Stratos's attack to 1400, you can kill it with a Masked Dragon discard. To increase synergy, I will add in 3 copies of King Tiger Wanghu. King Tiger interacts wonderfully with Burden of the Mighty. It basically increases King Tiger's jurisdiction to 1800, and potentially more.

Pot of Avarice and Swords of Revealing Light also aren't very good. Harrison won't have many Dragons in the Grave anymore, their on the field now due to Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Swords is good with Armed Dragons, but the effect is just a 1-shot, and the stall won't be staying on the field very long, if at all.

When we go back to the Trap line-up, it's pretty standard. Dragon's Rage isn't as good as you would think, since pressing for damage isn't very relevant. Especially since monsters are rarely played in defense these days, Dragon's Rage is largely win more, and since this deck needs more power to beat the top tier, it's not a good idea to include win more just yet.

Interestingly enough, Mirror Force isn't as good as it was before. Brionac simply spins Mirror, and then wins the game. I would honestly play Bottomless over Mirror Force, as ridiculous as that sounds, don't forget that Brionac is played in every deck, and every deck always has him in their hand due to the Extra Deck mechanic.

Spell and Trap Changes

-1 Cards of Consonance
-1 Swords of Revealing Light
-1 Pot of Avarice
-3 Solidarity
-2 Dragon's Rage
-1 Mirror Force
-1 Armed Dragon LV 5 (Wanghu does the job better, but LV 5 has so many tutors that he stays, but only in 2.)

+3 King Tiger Wanghu
+3 Burden of the Mighty
+1 Brain Control
+1 Bottomless Trap Hole

Final Deck.

3x Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
3x Koa’ki Meiru Drago
3x Masked Dragon
3x King Tiger Wanghu
2x Armed Dragon LV 3
2x Armed Dragon LV 5
2x Armed Dragon LV 7
1x Armed Dragon LV 10
1x Debris Dragon
1x Magna Drago
1x Exploder Dragon
1x Totem Dragon
1x Twin-Headed Behemoth

3x Burden of the Mighty
2x Level Up!
1x Heavy Storm
1x Brain Control
1x Stamping Destruction
1x Lightning Vortex
1x Mystical Space Typhoon

2x Bottomless Trap Hole
1x Solemn Judgment
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Call of the Haunted

I just included this since I was unsure what to use. It's Richard Clarke's Disaster Dragon Extra Deck.

oo2 Exploder Dragonwing
oo2 Stardust Dragon
oo1 Trident Dragion
oo1 Red Dragon Archfiend
oo1 Black Rose Dragon
oo1 Ancient Fairy Dragon
oo1 Iron Chain Dragon
oo1 Mist Wurm
oo1 Colossal Fighter
oo1 Goyo Guardian
oo1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Boundary
oo1 Magical Android
oo1 Ally of Justice Catastor

27 Comments

harrison geyer

2/13/2010 01:22:14 am

hhmmm... i rather like the ideas talked about in this article...ill try out the whole burden of the mighty thing... but i dont get the king tiger... wont he kill my monsters too?

2/13/2010 01:38:34 am

Oh and thanks for taking the time to look over my deck too... this looks interesting!

2/13/2010 01:41:21 am

also the reason pot of avarice is in there is to recycly the armed dragon lv7 and potentially 10, since they cannot be specisl summoned from the grave, since they are nomi monsters... REDMD cant bring them back to the field....

2/13/2010 01:58:46 am

my extra deck looks something like this:

3x Iron Chain Dragon
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x Ancient Fairy Dragon
1x Exploder Dragon Wing
2x Stardust Dragon
2x Red Dragon Archfiend
1x Trident Dragion

Ace

2/13/2010 02:30:35 am

Absolutely, it was a lot of fun looking at such an interesting deck.

King Tiger really won't kill your monsters if you are playing right. When you have King Tiger on the field, don't play anything except for strong monsters. Another option is to lay down the groundwork first, then playing King Tiger as a lockdown. He's way too good with Burden to omit. In fact, Tomas Mijares got 4th place at the San Jose Regional using a deck based around King Tiger and Burden!

Pot simply isn't worth the effort. It takes too long just to recycle LV 7/10. Don't forget that this deck is much more high impact now with 3x REDMD, so you won't need 7/10 all the time.

2/13/2010 03:18:56 am

while he may have done so well with a deck based around king tiger and burden... this isnt a deck that is played to be based around that combo....

i just find that choice of a monster to be counter to my playing style, with no offense to your deck building/ fixing ability....

but ill use the rest of the deck... is there another 3 cards you could possibly recommend?

2/13/2010 05:05:50 am

That combo is REALLY good, trust me. Buy okay. Hm, I would suggest more high attack Dragons, perhaps Spear Dragon or Luster Dragon.

Colin

2/13/2010 06:24:06 am

I find this deck needs a 3 star tuner but dragons don't seem to have that... 2 good 3 star tuners would be gale and psychic commander

Eijiken

2/13/2010 06:37:27 am

King tiger is very counter-productive to the deck. it kills off...7 monsters in the deck, leaving only the tribute monsters and 4 other usable monsters (not counting wanghu himself).

Drop burdens and wanghu IMO.

Add future fusion, 1-2x D.D.R 2x Red-eyes wyvern and mirror force. Add 1x F.G.D to the extra deck or wedge it in.

Future to dump Armed level 5, 2x wyvern, 1x REDMD, and a random dragon for FGD.

D.D.R for recursion of whatever draogn you rfg as a cost and to push for damage, Red-eyes wyvern to have a nother dragon beater to replace wanghu, as well as combo with REDMD, and mirror force just because.

Those are my fixes....to the fixes. ha.

2/13/2010 07:10:25 am

@ Colin: Debris Dragon is a 3 star Dragon Tuner.

@ Eijikin: Thanks for posting that. It helped me follow why Harrison was worried about Wanghu. And there are actually 7 usable monsters (since Wanghu counts, not counting Wanghu is silly.) Now, look at those monsters again.

2x Armed Dragon LV 3
1x Debris Dragon
1x Magna Drago
1x Totem Dragon
1x Twin-Headed Behemoth

Now, let's analyze different situations.

1. Draw Wanghu, and then draw Twin-Headed Behemoth. In this case, why would you be trying to play Twin-Headed Behemoth?

2. Draw Dragons first. This situation is excellent for Wanghu. You can set-up, then drop Wanghu and control the game. You get to control the game either way. You can also discard Wanghu for a heavy nuke.

3. Draw Wanghu first, and then draw Armed Dragon LV 3. In this case, you just hold the Armed Dragon LV 3. It's not a very big deal, and Armed Dragon LV 3 is a dead draw regardless of whether or not

4. Draw Tuners. You shouldn't be trying to Synchro summon with Wanghu on the field anyways. When you have Wanghu on the field, you focus on controls. Wait until they finally get rid of Wanghu, then drop your Synchro and win anyways.

5. But wait! What if I draw Totem after Wanghu hits the grave? This situation sucks, I'll be honest with you. The thing is, Wanghu wins the LS/BW matchup when coupled with Burden of the Mighty that it's honestly worth having 1 dead draw in your deck.

Your fixes aren't that bad, but they remove a control aspect from the game. I tested this deck in 20 games with my friends yesterday, before I posted it. Wanghu helped me win probably about 65% of the games. Sometimes, I did not draw it. One time, it stopped my Totem Dragon from working. Overall, Wanghu is a very good card in here.

William

2/13/2010 10:41:48 am

Debris Dragon is Level 4.

2/13/2010 10:48:31 am

Misread the card, I thought Debris was 3, and Masked 4.

2/14/2010 12:42:07 am

als, i might want to point out that totem dragon's revival effect only works if there are all dragons in the graveyard. so if i had king tigers, or psychic commander in there, i couldnt use it..

i know its only 1 card, but icould potentially use it to revive and then get an armed dragon lv 5 or REDMD

2/14/2010 01:39:03 am

I already addressed that point. If you really are worried about that, then play either:

-3 Wanghu
+3 Wyvern

OR

-1 Totem Dragon
+1 Magna Drago

It's already fine as is though, during testing, this problem came out only once.

firevava

2/14/2010 01:50:37 am

why would you take out wanghu? wanghu fits in this deck.

2/14/2010 12:29:09 pm

Well, he wants to be more consistent, and even though Wanghu really benefits the deck a more cautious player might want Wyverns instead. Ejekirin's fixes are pretty good, except DDR isn't very good at all (I'm aware of the potential but it's going to be dead most of the time, ironically, much more so than Wanghu.)

Future Fusion is pretty good, I would try to squeeze it in, potentially over Totem Dragon or maybe over a Bottomless.

Burden is good regardless because it lets LV5 get over Stardust as well as lowers the stuff you need to discard to kill stuff.

Kestral

2/15/2010 11:32:41 am

If you're running Dragons controlling their monsters should be the least of your worries. Between KKM Drago to stop special summons, Prime/Stardust to shut down things that make your KKMs go boom, and the Armed Dragons casually nuking every monster in sight, the Wanghu/Burden combo, while good, is unnecessary.

Also, in every Armed Dragon deck I've run (3 different versions), LV 10 has been worthless. I've never had a situation where I drew a card and told myself that I would have won the game if it was Armed 10. I've had plenty where I've wished I didn't draw Armed 10. 7's firepower is more than enough to get the job done.

Personally, I'd cut the Wanghus, Armed 10, and Debris Dragon (I just don't see the point of it in here). I'd then add back in triple Wyverns (they get ridiculous with Future Fusion), another Prime Material/Armed 5 (depending on how much you like LV 8 synchros and how much you dislike monster destruction), and either another Magna Drago or the other of the Prime/Armed 5 equation.

For S/Ts, the Level Up!s can go. They're not great cards, honestly. LV 3 is easily turned into 5 by Masked Dragon tricks (simply set a Masked Dragon, summon the second/third as necessary to suck up their attacks, and when they're out of attacks pull Armed 3. Your next Standby you have Armed 5). If you're having problems killing a monster with a 2400 ATK monster in order to get 5 into 7, all I can say is that you're not playing Dragons right, because beating face is their stock in trade. Future Fusion absolutely needs to be in here. It needs to be in every Dragon deck. 5x Foolish in one card + possible 5000 ATK beater is too good to pass up. The last space from pulling the Level Up!s I'd fill by adding Mirror Force back in. It owns Blackwing swarms too hard to not be run.

I'm also really not feeling the Burdens. At the point that you're only using them to get Armed 5 over Stardust you might as well use Solidarity because the boost is usually the same or larger. Even then, however, I wouldn't run Solidarity with Armed Dragons either. Since LV 7 and REDMD don't like being in the graveyard, you might want to try a pair of Monster Reincarnations. Throw a Prime Material, bring back a REDMD, summon the REDMD and revive Prime. You've got a pair of beatsticks that can sidestep monster destruction. Or, throw Armed 5, kill a monster when you revive it, and you've got Armed 7. Also try Gold Sarcophagus. Future Fusion usually means game for the opponent in this deck, so bringing it to your hand, even with a two-turn delay, is a great thing.

For the Extra Deck, run Clarke's version with the Android dropped for F.G.D. Catastor is a better LV 5 synchro anyway.

To go into more detail on the Wanghu/Burden combo: yes, it's a great combo. It can be run to ridiculous effect and Lightsworns and Blackwings hate it. But they also hate KKM Drago, which stops all special summons they can make outside of a few synchros (which shouldn't be a big deal since most tuners are Dark or Light and can be killed by KKM Drago, stopping them from even synchroing in the first place).

Really, your best control option in any dragon deck is KKM Drago shutting down special summons. This deck has additional control options in the Armed series, which can blow up nearly every monster in sight. Prime Material and Stardust cover your monsters from nearly all destruction cards in the game, and Red Eyes makes sure that all of these control effects can come together, as well as being able to curbstomp anything that can be normal summoned. At the point that you control special summons (of the top decks at least) through KKM Drago, normal summons through multiple beatsticks, anything that does get to the field with Armed Dragon, and destruction through Prime Material or Stardust, Wanghu is blatantly unnecessary and really not all that useful. Triple Wyverns to set off Future Fusion combos and make sure you always have a REDMD on the field is much more efficient for control, because REDMD ensures that you control everything, not just 'most' summons.

2/16/2010 07:10:35 am

Thanks for the extremely well informed post, I have only casual experience playing Dragons, that was some amazing advice that I'll be sure to follow next Dragon fix.

2/17/2010 02:08:34 pm

I implemented the burdens, and swapped out a few things, now have 1 mist valley shaman and 1 mist valley soldier.

its working alot better, and is capable of being much more consistant. Plus i was playing against someone who had his level 7 monster reduced by 1400 atk n..n

22/7

2/27/2010 04:48:41 am

Ace, Debris Dragon is level 4. There is not a level 3 Dragon tuner to date, to the common lament of most Dragon players.

I was going to go off on the OP for the Wanghu stuff but Kestral already made an incredibly informed, well thought out post that summarizes my thoughts quite nicely.

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12/17/2010 02:16:52 pm

On n'est pas beau après l'amour.Mouvements ridicules ou on perd chacun un peu de matière.Grandes saletés !

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1/6/2011 11:13:23 am

great post.

tom richards

1/10/2011 09:14:07 pm

that deck might be OK but it just wont be up to snuff with dragon decks now because the power they have now and how well built they are getting my deck was somewhat similar to his in the beginning but ended up a whole lot better than originally intended here is my deck list

MONSTERS

x3 wyvern
x3 REDMD
x3 lv3 armed dragon
x2 lv5 armed dragon
x1 lv7 armed dragon
x1 lv10 armed dragon
x2 lv6 Horus the black flame dragon
x1 lv8 Horus the black flame dragon
x2 masked dragon
x1 luster dragon
x2 blue eyes white dragon
x1 red eyes black dragon
x2 red eyes b chick
x1 decoy dragon
x1 flamvell guard
x1 white horned dragon

SPELLS

x3 level up
x1 - 3 ddr
x2 solidarity
x1 giant trunade
x1 foolish burial
x1 magical stone excavation
x1 smashing ground
x1 monster reborn
x1 dark hole
x1 pot of avarice
x1 future fusion

TRAPS
x1 malevolent catastrophe
x1 bottomless trap hole
x1 call of the haunted
x1 mirror force
x1 divine wrath

this deck may not seem good at first but when you look at its play mechanics compared to the one you described then if you don't get any of those combination's than you can't win and mine doesn't need any special combos to win and you people think dragons need to synchro they DON'T! my variant of hopeless dragons can but doesn't have to and with just one flamevell guard i can get synchro monsters from level 2 to level 10 including stardust and shooting star although i usually synch for dragons only but i only synchro when i have to syncing can be good but decks like these aren't meant to sync

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