Hopeless Dragon


 * See also: Disaster Dragon

Hopeless Dragon, known as Dragon of Despair (or even Material Deck) among Japanese players, is a Dragon Deck centered around "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" and swarming the field with DARK Attribute Dragons and other useful DARK monsters.

The goal of this Deck is to Special Summon Dark Monsters by the effects of "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" or "The Dark Creator". "Foolish Burial", "Armageddon Knight", or Dark Grepher can be used to dump "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" or "The Dark Creator" from your deck into the Graveyard. "Phantom of Chaos" is then used to copy their effects and Special Summon cards like "Dark Horus", "Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord". If "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" is removed from play, a player may use "D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation", "Escape from the Dark Dimension", or "Return from the Different Dimension" to bring it back and use it to Special Summon more monsters.

Another way to bring out Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is using Red-Eyes Wyvern. Most effective if Future Fusion is used to bring the dragons into the graveyard.

The 'Hopeless Dragon OTK' consists of:


 * Future Fusion
 * The Dark Creator
 * D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation (or as an extension, Hidden Armory)
 * Dark Armed Dragon
 * High-ATK DARK Dragons, preferably Dark Horus because of its 3000 ATK

First, Activate Future Fusion to send at least 2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Dark Horus (or any other dragon-type DARK monster to the graveyard). Second, Special summon The Dark Creator, since there are 5 DARK monsters in the graveyard. Use its effect to remove one Darkness Metal Dragon and special summon the other. Third, special summon Dark Armed Dragon as there are now three DARK monsters. Fourth, used DDR to special summon the other Darkness Metal from the RFG zone (it would be best to discard a DARK Type monster for DDR's cost). Lastly, use Dark Armed Dragon to remove any possible threat (leaving high-ATK dragons in your graveyard as much as possible) and attack for over 8000 damage. If there are still dragons in your graveyard, special summon them through either of the Darkness Metal Dragons for good measure.

A counter measure for this OTK against Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute and the like would be to discard some Red-Eyes Wyverns (either by the effect of Future Fusion, the effect of "Hidden Armory", the cost of DDR, or through cards like Foolish Burial) to special summon the Darkness Metal Dragons at the end phase (as none of the above steps involved a Normal Summon or Set). Royal Decree can also make this combo extremely powerful by crippling your opponent's Trap Cards.

This type of build is usually expensive, but also very powerful because of the multiple OTK strategies (mostly based around Swarming the field with strong Dragons). With the release of Absolute Powerforce: Special Edition players building this deck will have easier access to the main card to this deck, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

SOL Hopeless
This deck follows the same strategy as Dark Hopeless, except that Dark Horus is replaced by Blue-Eyes White Dragon. The White Stone of Legend benefits the deck with its ability to bring Blue-Eyes quickly out of the deck, to discard it then for the effect of Trade In, destroy every opponent's monsters with Burst Stream of Destruction, or Fusion Summon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. The name comes from The White Stone of Legend (Shortened to SOL), the tuner monster for Blue-Eyes White Dragon which powers the deck. You can also add Dread Dragon to the deck for synchro summon power. Since it is a level two dragon monster along with Prime Material Dragon. You can also use Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon's effect to special summon Prime Material Dragon from your hand or graveyard. From there prime material dragon will hopefully give you enough time to get your field ready if you really have a bad hand.

Dragon Nohr
Based upon the combo Phantom of Chaos+Sky Scourge Norleras. First, send Norleras to the graveyard with cards such as Foolish Burial. Then, summon Phantom of Chaos and copy Norleras' effect. Activate it to send every card in both hands and fields to the graveyard, and draw a card. Without any option, the opponent will be left with the hope of a good topdeck. To make it stronger, it's better to have some Red-Eyes Wyvern and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon in the graveyard, in order to prepare your field for a full force attack. What makes Dragon Nohr powerful is that Norleras cannot be countered by effects such as Stardust Dragon.

Strengths and weaknesses
Hopeless Dragon counts on fast summoning and powerful attacks. Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is the deck masterpiece, able to summon nearly every dragon on the field from the graveyard or the hand. The best combo to accelerate the deck is to use Future Fusion for Five-Headed Dragon. If you choose Red-Eyes Wyvern and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon among the five dragons, then you'll be able to bring REDMD back to the field during the End Phase. D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation and Hidden Armory work together to summon the dragons removed from play by Dark Armed Dragon or Dark Creator. Deck Devastation Virus is really good against decks with weak monsters, like Blackwings, Morphtronics or Gadgets, and you can Tribute a powerful Dark Dragon that you plan to bring back then with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. However, Hopeless has some issues. The most difficult is a bad first hand : with so many high level monsters in the roster, it would sometimes not allow you to summon any monster. The spell card Zombie World also presents a major problem to this deck. All your dragon type monsters in the graveyard cannot be summoned by Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Dark Armed Dragon and Dark Creator both require a perfect graveyard management to summon them. Moreover, with mostly DARK monsters, Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror can be a major threat to the deck strategy, along with Royal Oppression or Koa'ki Meiru Drago who will prevent Special Summon. In order to combat these effects, include cards such as Magical Mallet, Reload and Card Trader. Another way to deal with high level dead draws is Trade-In; not only can you dump a high-powered monster into the grave, you can also gain a powerful draw engine to aid you in your OTK. Lastly, some cards can return the Hopeless Dragon brutal force against you, like Brain Control, Dimension Wall, Magic Cylinder or Honest. Prime Material Dragon can help to counter Magic Cylinder, one of the more popular cards; you can also utilize Interdimensional Matter Transporter to remove from play the target of Brain Control. This same card can also be useful to implement your own strategies; use it on Koa'ki Meiru Drago to temporarily remove him from the field and conduct your Special Summons; then, once they're done, it brings Koa'ki Meiru Drago back, locking down your opponent's Special Summons.

Recommended Cards
Dark Hopeless

Monsters

 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern
 * Dark Armed Dragon
 * Phantom of Chaos
 * Prime Material Dragon
 * Dark Grepher
 * The Dark Creator
 * Dark Horus
 * Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
 * Infernal Dragon
 * Sky Scourge Norleras
 * Morphing Jar

Spells

 * D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation
 * Foolish Burial
 * Hidden Armory
 * Allure of Darkness
 * Trade-In
 * Future Fusion
 * Dragon's Mirror
 * Card Destruction
 * Burial from a Different Dimension
 * Gold Sarcophagus

Traps

 * Return from the Different Dimension
 * Dark Bribe
 * Solemn Judgment
 * Eradicator Epidemic Virus
 * Deck Devastation Virus
 * Tyrant's Temper
 * Divine Wrath

Extra Deck

 * Five-Headed Dragon
 * Stardust Dragon

Side Deck

 * Trap Eater/Royal Decree (if the opponent use Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror or Royal Oppression)


 * Phoenix Wing Wind Blast/Mystical Space Typhoon in case of Removal decks or Skill Drain. The Phoenix Wing Wind Blast will also dump 1 potential addition of DARKs for Dark Armed Dragon or The Dark Creator.