Madolche

"Madolche" (マドルチェ Madoruche, pronounced as "mah-DOL-chay") is an archetype of EARTH-Attribute monsters.

The names of the "Madolche" are puns of French and Italian desserts and titles or animal sounds, depending on the monster's Type. The Fairy-Type monsters are the royalty, and thus have royalty-based puns (e.g. "Madolche Puddingcess" which is a portmanteau of the dessert "Pudding" and the royal title of "Princess"). The Warrior and Spellcaster-Type monsters make up the servants, and have puns that relate to their occupation (e.g. "Madolche Butlerusk" is a combination of the job title, "Butler," and the snack, "Rusk"). The Beast-Type monsters have puns reflecting the sound of the animal that they make. For example, ("Madolche Baaple" is a mixture of "Maple" from "Maple Syrup" and "Baa" (the sound a sheep makes)).

The name of the archetype, "Madolche", is itself a pun. It is a combination of the words "magical" ("madō" in Japanese), "doll", and "dolce" (pronounced "dol-chay"), the Italian word for "sweet" or "dessert". All "Madolche" monsters stand on various sweets in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece. Also, on close inspection of the limbs of all the "Madolche" artworks (including the horse that "Madolche Chouxvalier" rides) shows what appear to be sewing seams, implying that all characters are dolls or plushies. This seems to be true, as the artwork of "Madolche Nights" shows the "Madolche" monsters as dolls in a room.

The following list displays each of the cards' names, and the puns that form them.

Playing Style
The "Madolche" focus on recycling their cards for repeated use, with all of the "Madolche" monsters being sent either back to the Deck or to the hand after being destroyed by an opponent. Several of those monsters have effects that send "Madolche"-specific Spell and Trap Cards from the Graveyard back to the Deck, or from the Deck to your hand. This makes the "Madolche" very difficult to Deck Out, a strategy almost entirely opposite to many other contemporary archetypes.

While the Deck does not do any Deck thinning on its own, it does however feature a wide variety of searchers, making the Deck highly stable. "Madolche Butlerusk" is capable of scanning the Deck for a field spell, which is mostly exclusively used for "Madolche Chateau". "Madolche Messengelato" can search for any "Madolche" Spell or Trap Card, allowing easy access to many support cards. "Madolche Magileine" and "Madolche Ticket" are easily capable of searching for other monsters from the Deck, and "Madolche Marmalmaide" can recycle Spells and Traps, which are likely the only cards that will stay in the Graveyard.

This also gives the "Madolche" a unique ability to deplete your opponent's resources; the archetype is largely unaffected by widespread destruction cards like "Dark Hole" or "Torrential Tribute", and in fact benefit from their opponents' use of it, able to quickly swarm back to the field while their opponent has no monsters with help from cards like "Madolche Ticket" and "Ultimate Offering".

Normal Madolche
The ultimate goal of most "Madolche" Decks is to maintain card advantage and take advantage of openings to quickly deal damage. The main powerhouse cards used are "Madolche Puddingcess" and "Madolche Queen Tiaramisu"; they have relatively high ATK (so long as the effect of "Puddingcess" requirement of the Graveyard being empty is met) and powerful effects to deplete your opponents' field presence, clearing the way for the weaker monsters to attack directly. Out of the two, "Queen Tiaramisu" is more prominently used as the Deck's boss monster, as it not only features a massive ATK stat, but it also possesses the ability to eliminate targets on the opposing field by returning cards to the Deck. This is particularly effective because "Queen Tiaramisu" has an effect that does not target, making responding to this effect very difficult to do in most scenarios.

Because of their ability to swarm the field, they can also quickly and easily Xyz Summon Rank 4 or 3 monsters, and especially EARTH Attribute support such as "Soul of Silvermountain" or "Fairy King Albverdich". "Genex Ally Birdman" makes ideal support for performing a Synchro Summon, bouncing a "Madolche" back to your hand so you can use their effect again to Summon itself. "Genex Ally Triforce" is ideal for this, since Level 4 monsters are common in this archetype, and using an EARTH Attribute activates the effect of "Triforce" to keep an opponent's Spell and Trap Cards from activating during battle. But be careful with these styles of Summon, since they place "Madolche" in the Graveyard unavoidably.

The "Madolche" are also in possession of an effect damage loop that abuses the effects of "Madolche Waltz", "Madolche Chateau" and "Desperate Tag". While those three cards are active and the player controls at least two of the Warrior-Type "Madolche", they can use "Desperate Tag" to continuously attack a more powerful opponent, cause 300 damage with "Waltz", Special Summon a new Warrior, and return the old one to the hand. "Madolche Messengelato" is preferable for this so long as you also have a Beast-Type on the field, since each time it is Special Summoned you can add one of the "Madolche" Spell or Trap Cards to your hand, further increasing your hand and field advantage. "Madolche Chouxvalier" works fine as well, since his effect prevents your other "Madolche" monsters from being targeted for attacks. If you have "Madolche Ticket" and a Fairy-Type "Madolche" monster, you can Special Summon another Warrior-Type "Madolche" monster in addition to this loop. For "Messengelato", as long as this loop happens in your Battle Phase, you can use it's effect again and again.

Psychic Madolche
With the addition of "Madolche Hootcake", one can easily construct a Deck focusing around his effect and those of the more recent members of the Psychic-Type, such as "Silent Psychic Wizard" and "Serene Psychic Witch". As many of these Psychics are the same EARTH Attribute as the "Madolche" themselves and are heavy in Tuner monsters, this sort of build makes it easy to quickly achieve Level 5 or 6 Synchro Monsters, and especially those that require all EARTH Synchro material, such as the very potent "Naturia Beast" and "Naturia Barkion".

This can be a very risky play style, since with fewer "Madolche" monsters in the Deck, you may find it harder to recover and keep a monster on the field to defend yourself with if your opponent manages a mass destruction card like "Black Rose Dragon" or "Judgment Dragon", but can make field control easier thanks to the "Naturia" Synchro Monsters and a few of the Psychics effects.

Weaknesses
The biggest weakness of the archetype is its reliance on its Spell and Trap support; cards efficient at negating or destroying them, like "Great Shogun Shien" or "XX-Saber Hyunlei" are a serious threat to most "Madolche" Decks. "Lightray Daedalus" in particular, as it's easy to Summon and specifically targets Field Spells before targeting other cards, and fits neatly into a Deck able to Summon "Judgment Dragon", another powerful destruction engine. "Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En" can also be difficult to counter, though whether its effect is more potent than "Great Shogun Shien" is arguable, or even situational, since destroying a "Madolche" Spell or Trap Card and leaving in the Graveyard makes a valid target for "Madolche Queen Tiaramisu".

Cards that can limit a player's ability to search, like "Thunder King Rai-Oh", "Drop Off" or "Drastic Drop Off" can severely hinder a "Madolche" player's ability to gather resources. "Rai-Oh" can also block the Summoning of "Tiaramisu" and send all the monsters involved to the Graveyard, and no other "Madolche" is strong enough to destroy "Rai-Oh" without help. It is therefore recommended that people choosing to run "Madolche" as a Main Deck utilize copies of cards like "Smashing Ground".

"The End of Anubis", "Soul Drain" and "Forbidden Graveyard" will negate the effects of "Madolche" in the Graveyard, greatly hindering their ability to recycle themselves (although "Madolche Hootcake" and "Tiaramisu" can take advantage of this). Similarly, cards like "Macro Cosmos", "Banisher of the Light", "Divine Knight Ishzark" and "Transmigration Break" will prevent any "Madolche" cards from being sent to the Graveyard at all, preventing not only their own effects, but keeping "Tiaramisu" from having any valid targets in the Grave. "Necrovalley" will keep other cards from targeting "Madolche" cards in the Grave, but "Madolche" monsters themselves will still be able to activate their own effects.

Should a "Madolche" monster be Tributed by the owner of the monster, its effect will not trigger, resulting in it being sent to the Graveyard. This also applies whenever a "Madolche" is destroyed by it's controller's card effects, such as "Torrential Tribute" or "Dark Hole". This can heavily restrict other monsters that rely on an empty Graveyard, such as "Madolche Puddingcess". This does not extend to opponents Tributing a "Madolche" monster on the other side of the field (an example of which is "Alien Skull", as the effect of primary "Madolche" will be triggered as normal, with them being returned to the Deck as though destroyed.

"Madolche" monsters also have rather low attack, tending to swarm and use their xyz boss monster's effects to clear the field and win the game; once the kill is prevented, and the xyz boss monster is gotten rid of, the "Madolches" cannot sustain a strong offense, since even with their field spell, even their strongest non-xyz monster can only reach up to 2300 attack, not enough to even defeat, say, a "Monarch".

"Imperial Iron Wall" or a "Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer" controlled by your opponent will easily shut down "Hootcake" and any Psychic "Madolche" builds, slowing progress to a crawl until those obstacles can be overcome. It's wise to keep "Mystical Space Typhoon" or some other card capable of destroying Spells and Traps in the Side Deck to be ready to take down either "Imperial Iron Wall" or the "Spellbook Star Hall" likely to be backing up an opponent's "Kycoo".

"Re-qliate" is also an exceptional counter to "Madolche" effects, since it inhibits the use of special summoning another "Madolche" monster onto the field as most of the monsters are Level 4. The second effect of it also allows "Qli" monsters to be special summoned with their original attacks, making it extremely easy to destroy "Madolche" monsters.