Dragon Deck

Types of Dragon Decks
Dragons are one of the most supported types in Yu-Gi-Oh. Some of the most common decks focus on a single monster such as the Red-Eyes B. Dragon, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Five-Headed Dragon, King Dragun, Armed Dragon, or Horus the Black Flame Dragon. There are many ways to build a Dragon Deck, and all are powerful in their own way. Here are some different types of decks based around Dragon Monsters.



LV Dragon Decks
Some dragon decks are based on the LV dragons, Armed Dragon and Horus the Black Flame Dragon. These decks usually focus on leveling up their monsters quickly. To protect the high level monsters from trap cards Royal Decree, Jinzo, or King Dragun are usually used. Horus the Black Flame Dragon has added protection from Spell Cards and is well known for the infamous "Horus Decree" lockdown. Horus and Armed Dragon cards can even be combined to make a deck that not only locks down spell and trap cards, but also controls the opponents monsters that may get in your way.

Dragon Fusion Decks
These types of decks often focus on getting fusion monsters like Five-Headed Dragon, King Dragun, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and sometimes even Dragon Master Knight to the field. Usually Dragon's Mirror or Future Fusion is used to accomplish these tasks. If you want to summon King Dragun quickly, The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion is a great choice if you don't have Future Fusion or Dragon's Mirror in hand. The same goes for Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and The Light - Hex-Sealed Fusion if you're short on Blue-Eyes White Dragon or any fusion spell cards. Synchro Monsters like Stardust Dragon or Red Dragon Archfiend and Tuner Monsters like Magna Drago, The White Stone of Legend, and in some cases, Debris Dragon are also great choices for Synchro Summons if you can't Fusion Summon.

Rise of the Dragon Lords Structure Deck
The newest Dragon type Structure Deck is Rise of the Dragon Lords. This deck focuses on summoning powerful dragons to the field from the graveyard and activating their effects. Felgrand Dragon, Tyrant Dragon and Darkblaze Dragon are good examples of this. This deck also includes Mausoleum of the Emperor to get tribute monsters out quickly. Draining Shield and Rainbow Life can be used to recover life points used for Mausoleum of the Emperor and Trade-In can be used to put powerful dragons into the graveyard to revive while drawing two cards in the proccess. Decoy Dragon works exceptionally well with this deck, being able to make a powerful combo with Foolish Burial. Card of Safe Return is another great addition to this deck, since it lets you draw a card each time you summon a dragon like this. An awesome way to special summon Dragons from the grave is to use Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon since it gives you a free special summon of any dragon chilling in your hand or graveyard, no matter how high of a level it is. You can also use Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord with Divine Wrath to special summon Dragons in the Graveyard. The best way to make this deck truly effective is to buy multiple structure decks and combine the more important cards into one deck. This structure deck can also be bought to get key cards for any kind of Dragon Deck.

Dragon Beatdown
This type of deck is pretty old fashioned, but it has more variations than any of the other three decks. The deck revolves around playing abnormally powerful Dragon-Type monsters and brutally beating down the opponent's life points. High level monsters can be anything mentioned in the other decks, but smaller monsters may include Luster Dragon, Spear Dragon, and Blizzard Dragon. Even though Gray Wing is relatively weak in ATK points, it can deal up to 2600 damage to the opponent if there are no monsters in its way. Monsters like Troop Dragon, Masked Dragon, Twin-Headed Behemoth, and Totem Dragon can be used to tribute summon the more powerful monsters. Another way of playing high level Dragons without tributing is to use Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, which special summons virtually any kind of Dragon monster you want to dish out against the opponent. Mid-Level monsters often used in this build may include Kaiser Glider and Chthonian Emperor Dragon to rid the field of stubborn monsters and attack for huge damage. To protect your monsters from spell and trap effects, cards like Stamping Destruction and A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon (Which you can also combo with Montage Dragon for monsters to Discard) can help make sure that nasty traps and spells like Shrink and Dimensional Prison won't get in your way. Traps like Dragon's Rage can help drop the opponents life even quicker, especially when combined with monsters that have high attack points and, in some cases, attack more than once, such as Tyrant Dragon.

Dragon Lockdown
The Dragon lockdown Deck is a dragon deck that focuses on using strong monsters, that also prevent your opponent from doing anything besides attacking. The first major part of this deck could be what is known as Horus Lockdown, using Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8 to prevent your opponent from using any spellcards that may hurt you, and combining this with Royal Decree to prevent them from using any trap cards. Another card very important to this deck is Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode using his effect to stop your opponents spell, trap, and monster effets. Prime Material Dragon is another extremely useful dragon which prevents your opponent from destroying your cards by card effect, and it stops the use of effect damage. The final card to ensure your dragons safety could be Lord of D. or even better King Dragun to stop your opponent from targeting your dragons, and in King Dragun's case, lets you special summon a dragon a turn. If you can manage to get two or more of these powerhouse dragons on the field it stops your opponent from doing anything, besides attacking leaving them vulnerable to the power of your dragons.

Hopeless Dragon
Hopeless Dragon, known as Dragon of Despair 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", or even another "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon". 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.

This deck can also utilize the power of "Dark Armed Dragon" to make a possible OTK. This type of build is usually expensive, but also powerful.

Strengths
Dragons have been known to have the most powerful attacks and, in some cases, broken effects. An attack from a good sized Dragon like Five-Headed Dragon can take huge chunks out of the opponent's life points. Since most dragons have atk points that can overpower popular cards like Goyo Guardian, Thought Ruler Archfiend, Dark Armed Dragon, Judgment Dragon, and even Gladiator Beast Heraklinos, the only way to bring down a sizeable dragon is to use effects. Sometimes even that becomes hard though, since cards like Prime Material Dragon, Stardust Dragon, and even King Dragun will help prevent any vital Dragons from being destroyed or targeted by effects, not to mention Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8 will block out any spell cards from wreaking havoc on your field while a Royal Decree blocks out the trap cards (Tyrant Dragon can even protect himself from most trap cards without the help of either of the other dragons). Plus, even if you do end up losing one of your dragons, you can bring it back just as easy with the help of Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. If you do not have any of those monsters out, Dragonic Knight can special summon himself from your hand if the opponent tries to destroy your monsters with monster card effects. A well built Dragon Fusion Deck can also bring trouble since King Dragun has the power to protect all dragons you control from targeting effects like Dark Armed Dragon and Brain Control plus special summon powerful dragons like Tyrant Dragon or Blue-Eyes White Dragon from the hand. Montage Dragon also has the ability to become a powerhouse monster if you discard high level dragons from your hand, sometimes becoming even stronger than Five-Headed Dragon.

Weaknesses
However, there are major weaknesses with Dragon decks, and all have one in common: Summoning the Dragons. Since Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8 cannot be special summoned except with it's own effect, cards like Level Up! and Level Modulation are usually used to override this problem, but Counter Trap Cards like Solemn Judgment or Dark Bribe can impede your progress. Plus, Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6 has only 2300 ATK points, leaving it vulnerable to monsters like Goyo Guardian or any of the Monarchs. In Dragon Fusion Decks, it's highly important to be able to keep King Dragun on the field to be able to summon the bigger dragons, but it's 2400 ATK is low enough for any Monarch to destroy in battle. A good way to counter this kind of move is to use traps like Waboku or Threatening Roar to prevent the opponent from attacking or dealing battle damage. If your opponent knows you have a Dragon Fusion Deck, he or she may try to use Chthonian Polymer to gain control of any Dragon you fusion summon, which is deadly when playing Five-Headed Dragon. If King Dragun ends up getting destroyed, level 5 or higher dragons you draw later will become dead draws and slow the deck down to a crawl. A good counter measure for this would be to use Trade-In on level 8 monsters you draw but cannot play. Card effects that do not target like Judgment Dragon or Mirror Force cannot be negated with King Dragun and would therefore require a Prime Material Dragon or Stardust Dragon to stop them. If you do manage to play some good Dragons, the opponent might play Prehistoric Biological Graveyard, and that will wreck almost any kind of Dragon based deck. When playing with a Hopeless Dragon Deck, the opponent can also side in Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror, which will almost gaurantee your loss since nearly every monster in the deck is a Dark Attribute. Finally, cards like Royal Oppression, Vanity's Ruler, Vanity's Fiend, Jowgen the Spiritualist, Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo, and Thunder King Rai-Oh can also prevent any of these dragons from being summoned at all and will need to be removed from the field in order to summon your cards. In the case of a Hopeless Dragon Deck, a major drawback to this would be the number of high-level monsters, and therefore, drawing mostly unsummonable monsters with no means of discarding them could spell defeat. Also, the new Koa'ki Meiru Drago combined with a Imperial Iron Wall would singlehandedly shut down a Hopeless Dragon deck should the player not have any means of normal summoning and/or Spell and trap card destruction.

Anti-Dragon Cards
Another major weakness is that quite a few cards have been specially made for destroying or weakening dragons, otherwise known as Anti-Dragon cards. Not only does Buster Blader get stronger as dragon after dragon gets summoned and destroyed, but it is also the perfect candidate for Sword of Dragon's Soul. If Buster Blader was equipped with that plus Mist Body, it could take out virtually any dragon you throw at it, even the mighty Five-Headed Dragon who normally can't be destroyed in battle by anything not of the LIGHT Attribute. Also, a fairly new card called Victoria can special summon your dragons to the opponents field to be used agianst you, and dealing with your own dragons usually isn't an easy task to accomplish, especially if the monster the opponent took is a Tuner Monster like Magna Drago or The White Stone of Legend. Plus there's Dark Paladin, which can be used for/or against dragons and negate key spell cards like Dragon's Mirror and Trade-In. Dragon Manipulator and Dragon Seeker can be tricky to deal with, but can be easily overcome with King Dragun. Dragon Capture Jar can wreak severe havoc on any and all of your Dragons since King Dragun, Stardust Dragon, and Prime Material Dragon cannot stop it.

Solutions to Anti-Dragon cards
However, there are ways of getting around Anti-Dragon cards. One quick and easy method of accomplishing this is to use Exploder Dragon. Since it kills anything that destroys it in battle, it can overpower cards like Buster Blader and even Dark Paladin, while at the same time taking no battle damage. You may also use the Armed Dragon cards to destroy Dragon Seeker since it has relatively weak ATK points, and Armed Dragon LV10 can just wipe out all your opponents face-up monsters no matter how many ATK points they possess. Montage Dragon can also be used to potentially become more powerful than Dark Paladin or Buster Blader by discarding high level monsters like Blue-Eyes White Dragon or Tyrant Dragon. Dragon Piper can be used to rid the field of any Dragon Capture Jar cards on the field that are preventing you from attacking. If the opponent tries to play Victoria and gains control of some of your dragons, a good spell to counter this kind of move is Owner's Seal. With this, you can gain control of your dragons again and use them to get rid of Victoria. Finally, the spell card Dragon's Mirror can be doubly effective by removing any Dragons in your graveyard to fusion summon Five-Headed Dragon plus power down Buster Blader and Dark Paladin in the process (this is assuming that there are no cards to discard for Dark Paladin's effect).

Recommended Cards
Here are some cards that can be used in Dragon Decks.

Monsters

 * Armed Dragon LV3
 * Armed Dragon LV5
 * Armed Dragon LV7
 * Armed Dragon LV10
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8
 * Jinzo

Spells

 * Level Up!
 * Level Down!?
 * Level Modulation

Traps

 * Royal Decree

Monsters

 * Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon
 * Blue-Eyes White Dragon
 * Red-Eyes B. Dragon
 * Summoned Skull
 * Black Luster Soldier
 * Divine Dragon Ragnarok
 * Lord of D.
 * The Light - Hex-Sealed Fusion
 * The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion
 * Magna Drago
 * The White Stone of Legend
 * Debris Dragon
 * Paladin of White Dragon
 * Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
 * Salvation Dragon - Savior Dragon

Spells

 * Dragon's Mirror
 * Future Fusion
 * Polymerization
 * Super Polymerization


 * White Dragon Ritual

Traps

 * Return from the Different Dimension
 * Sakuretsu Armor
 * DNA Surgery(used with Super Polymerization to clear the opponets field and summon Five-Headed Dragon for a direct attack)

Fusion Monsters

 * Five-Headed Dragon
 * Dragon Master Knight
 * Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
 * B. Skull Dragon
 * King Dragun
 * Fiend Skull Dragon

Synchro Monsters

 * Stardust Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend
 * Black Rose Dragon
 * Iron Chain Dragon
 * Exploder Dragonwing
 * Light End Dragon
 * Dark End Dragon
 * Trident Dragon
 * Ancient Fairy Dragon (OCG Only)
 * Savior Star Dragon (Not yet released)
 * Savior Demon Dragon (Not yet released)

Monsters

 * Felgrand Dragon
 * Darkblaze Dragon
 * Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Decoy Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern
 * The Creator
 * The Creator Incarnate
 * Spear Cretin
 * God Phoenix (I think here's the "Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys meant.

Spells

 * Monster Reborn
 * Mausoleum of the Emperor
 * Foolish Burial
 * Trade-In
 * The Shallow Grave
 * Card of Safe Return

Traps

 * Draining Shield
 * Rainbow Life
 * Divine Wrath

Monsters

 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Dark Armed Dragon
 * Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord
 * The Dark Creator
 * White-Horned Dragon
 * Phantom of Chaos
 * Dark Horus
 * Armageddon Knight
 * Dark Grepher
 * Rare Metal Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern

Spells

 * D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation
 * Arms Hole (OCG Only)
 * Foolish Burial
 * Allure of Darkness
 * Trade In

Traps

 * Return from the Different Dimension
 * Escape from the Dark Dimension
 * Eradicator Epidemic Virus

Monsters

 * Spirit Ryu
 * Light and Darkness Dragon
 * Masked Dragon
 * Mirage Dragon
 * Montage Dragon
 * Twin-Headed Behemoth
 * Tyrant Dragon
 * White-Horned Dragon
 * Chthonian Emperor Dragon
 * Dragon Ice (TCG Only)
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Tiger Dragon
 * Phantom Dragon
 * Troop Dragon
 * Dragonic Knight
 * Des Volstgalph
 * Kaiser Glider
 * Gandora the Dragon of Destruction
 * Gray Wing
 * Luster Dragon
 * Spear Dragon
 * Blizzard Dragon
 * Strong Wind Dragon
 * Vice Dragon (OCG Only)
 * Infernal Dragon
 * Divine Dragon - Excelion
 * Element Dragon
 * Exploder Dragon
 * Cave Dragon
 * The Dragon Dwelling in the Cave
 * Frost and Flame Dragon
 * Handcuffs Dragon
 * Axe Dragonute (OCG Only)
 * Koa'ki Meiru Drago
 * Different Dimension Dragon
 * Flamvell Dragunov (OCG Only)
 * Lord of D.
 * Genesic Dragon (OCG Only)
 * Lava Dragon
 * Dragon's Vanguard
 * Totem Dragon (TCG Only)
 * Powered Tuner
 * White Night Dragon (OCG Only)

Spells

 * Stamping Destruction
 * A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon
 * Super Rejuvenation
 * The Flute of Summoning Dragon (Lord of D. only)
 * Dragon's Gunfire

Traps

 * Dragon's Rage
 * The Dragon's Bead
 * Burst Breath