Monarch Control Deck

A Monarch Control Deck revolves around using the following Monarch cards:
 * Granmarg the Rock Monarch
 * Mobius the Frost Monarch
 * Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
 * Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
 * Raiza the Storm Monarch
 * Caius the Shadow Monarch

The focus of a Monarch Control deck is to utilize the effects of the Monarch cards (Zaborg, Mobius, Thestalos, Granmarg, Raiza, and Caius) to gain card advantage over the opponent. These decks use many strategies to ensure that the opponent is losing more cards than they are. Some of these strategies include: reviving tribute material (Treeborn Frog,utilizing Recruiter monsters and gaining control of the opponent's monsters for use as tribute material (via Brain Control or Soul Exchange).

While a very powerful deck types ever since their release, Monarch decks (due to high amounts of problems from Chaos Decks) have not truly made a game changing impact until September 2006, when "Chaos Sorcerer" was banned from competitive play. However, Monarch Control successfully dominated the North American metagame for the duration of the format but is now less popular since Raiza was Limited in the new banlist, leaving the Monarchs weaker and incapable to compete with DAD and DDT decks.

Monster Cards

 * Granmarg the Rock Monarch
 * Mobius the Frost Monarch
 * Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
 * Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
 * Raiza the Storm Monarch
 * Caius the Shadow Monarch
 * Kuraz the Light Monarch
 * Cyber Dragon
 * Spell Striker
 * Nimble Momonga
 * D.D. Warrior Lady
 * Marshmallon
 * Spirit Reaper
 * Exiled Force
 * Treeborn Frog
 * Gravekeeper's Spy

Spell Cards

 * Monster Reborn
 * Heavy Storm
 * Mystical Space Typhoon
 * Enemy Controller
 * Lightning Vortex
 * Soul Exchange
 * Change of Heart
 * Snatch Steal
 * Brain Control
 * Smashing Ground
 * Stray Lambs
 * Book of Moon

Trap Cards

 * By Order of the Emperor
 * Bottomless Trap Hole
 * Royal Decree
 * Trap Dustshoot
 * Torrential Tribute
 * Ultimate Offering


 * 'Note: By Order of the Emperor is purely optional, it will just allow you to use the effects of Monarchs without needing to activate their effect(s) every time.

On an alternative manner, a Soul Control Deck is essentially a Monarch Control Deck with a few different cards. The essential difference is that Soul Control Decks use between two and three Soul Exchange cards and one Brain Control, while most Monarch Control Decks before the new format used between two and three Brain Controls and only one Soul Exchange. Players using Soul Exchange instead of Brain Control allows a Soul Control Player to Tribute face-down monsters and does not require a player to pay 800 life points. The major drawback to this is that a player using Soul Exchange must skip their Battle Phase for that turn, which slows this deck down a lot, except for Kuraz. Most players that choose to use Monarchs prefer Brain Control because of this downside.

An alternative to a Monarch Control Deck is an Apprentice Monarch Deck, which uses cards like Apprentice Magician, Crystal Seer and Old Vindictive Magician to gain the upper hand in a duel. Old Vindictive Magician lets you destroy your opponent's monsters and Crystal Seer gives you extra cards, giving you more strategies to play with. Apprentice Magician summons those monsters in the damage step when your opponent can't do much about it. These little monsters are also very good tribute materials for Monarchs.