User:MrVariant/Support Efficiency and Indirect Synergy

This is one of the parts that you really need to examine all the cards for. Playing themed decks helps the game become more diverse, but unfortunately some themed cards are weaker than cards that benefit any type of deck. For example, Waboku is a million times better than Hero Blast because you do not need an Elemental Hero to use it. It is also better than Defensive Tactics because again, you do not need a monster to use it.

Dark Bribe is a superior card than these 2 Gladiator Beasts support cards: Parry and Disarm because you keep your monster. If your opponent plays Smashing Ground or Bottomless Trap Hole, and you use the respective cards, you pretty much did the removal for them. Meanwhile, Dark Bribe taunts them into giving them a card to try again. Although Dark Bribe is not a chainable trap, you can use it to protect your other spells/traps from Heavy Storm if you need it badly enough. However, its diversity more than makes up for its downsides.

Another example is the card Solidarity. This makes The A. Forces obsolete because you'd need 4 monsters to give them all 800 attack power boosts whereas Solidarity lets you doing so, so long as you have warriors on the field and the only monsters in your graveyard are also warriors. You can even take a chance and bypass this requirement by using Cyber Valley because if successful, it would be removed from play instead of being in your graveyard; the types in your graveyard would still be the same for Solidarity to work.

Fortunately, there are many cards that do support a theme that work better than cards that can work in any deck. For example, Mezuki or Rite of Spirit help zombies and Gravekeeper's respectively, much more than Call of the Haunted because spell/trap removal will not destroy the monster. Book of Life can also remove annoying monsters in the graveyard like like Treeborn Frog or Necro Gardna while giving you a zombie to revive with no strings attached unlike Limit Reverse; you just need a zombie in your graveyard and a monster in theirs. Gladiator Beast War Chariot works much better than Divine Wrath because it can lock your opponent down without wasting any cards you'd want to use to negate your opponent's spells/traps with Gladiator Beast Heraklinos.

There are times that cards can combine with other cards, even outside of their main use. For example, Zombie World turns all the monsters on the field and graveyards into zombies. This obviously works with Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon, but it also works for Getsu Fuhma and Marionette Mite, who are not even zombies. I note the importance of Getsu Fuhma because you can get it from your deck easily with Reinforcement of the Army and then with Zombie World you can destroy annoying stall monsters like Marshmallon, or stronger monsters like Cyber Dragon with ease. With Zombie World, Marionette Mite can let you steal an opponent's monster and use it to tribute for Red-Eyes Zombie Dragon.

Sometimes you need to wait for new set releases because cards that were once useless have future potential, like Mind Control. This card used to be a completely worthless card until Synchro Summoning bypassed all of its downsides. You can even use it with Cyber Valley to draw 2 cards and remove an opponent's monster from play. I myself once thought Give and Take was useless until I realized it could combine with Giant Kozaky to do 2500 damage to my opponent after I used Foolish Burial to send it to my graveyard, and then remove it from play, since it's a fiend monster in my graveyard, for Dark Necrofear. Give and Take is another multipurpose card given it lets you reuse your monsters with sent to the graveyard effects or raise the level of 1 of Fortune Ladies.

Several OTK decks are even based upon 1 or more seemingly useless cards alone that did wonders when combined, such as Black Ptera, Ultimate Offering, and Toon Cannon Soldier. Out of those 3 cards, the only one that could see play in several decks for its main purpose is probably Ultimate Offering, but this combo can win a game in a turn provided you have higher or equal life points to your opponent when this loop starts.

I mention Toon Cannon Soldier because it combines with Toon Table of Contents that lets you thin your deck and get Spell Counters if you need those. It's superior to the original Cannon Soldier because you can even use Allure of Darkness to draw 2 cards and remove it from play after Toon Table of Contents searches your deck for Toon Cannon Soldier while thinning your deck by 3 cards. Both cards are useful card for their many secondary uses; you could even throw in 3 Toon Table of Contents without any toons and use the last one to discard for Summoner Monk's effect.

The whole idea of using multipurpose cards is to make dueling a lot easier. I can use Thunder Dragon to fuse, discard for One for One or Beckoning Light, or even use as the only cards in my hand with Exchange. You can also use searchers or other cards you know your opponent will have in their hand via Reinforcement of the Army or Dark Eruption against them if you want to play what I call a selective discard deck, using cards like Mind Crush or D.D. Designator after Great Phantom Thief or Compulsory Evacuation Device to know what will be in their hand. If they have a face-up spell or trap card, I can even throw in Giant Trunade to know what card they have in their hand for me to tell them to discard. This will also bypass the counters in a regular discard deck, such as Despair from the Dark, or even worse, Dark World, who wreak havoc should you make your opponent discard 1.

Just remember to think of your combos within combos. This can really expand your abilities as a deck creator because you can give a value to cards that would otherwise be useless; you do not need to play only 1 type of monster for a deck to excel. For example, you can play The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh to get Kuriboh into your hand for you to discard and combine with either Forced Requisition or as a requirement for Dark Armed Dragon or any other cards needing you to remove dark monsters or fiends from your graveyard, from the game. You can otherwise summon itself or Winged Kuriboh with that flute to use for a tribute summon.

This helps explain many things mentioned in my Monster Efficiency article. You'll also find more uses and exceptions for things that you cannot staple into nearly every deck, such as Reasoning or Hero Kid if you are playing a deck that relies on tribute monsters. Having an extra deck will never hurt you even if you don't need it, making situational cards like Chimeratech Fortress Dragon have potential even if you do not use any machines besides Cyber Dragon because you could use your opponent's machines for that fusion.

Many cards with similar effects have better alternatives, such as using Dangerous Machine Type-6 over Brron, Mad King of Dark World because Brron's effect is too slow due to needing battle damage without getting a superb effect, monsters can easily be destroyed by battle, and you are probably wasting your normal summon whereas Dangerous Machine Type-6 can be reused easier although it could destroy itself or let your opponent draw a card. In that case, you could just use its spell/trap support, Dark World Lightning, Dark World Dealings or even Dark Deal, because although it's not reusable, they work faster. --MrVariant 01:37, September 17, 2009 (UTC)