Venom

Venom Monsters, featured in the release of "Tactical Evolution," are a small series of Reptile-type monsters intended to be used alongside the Field Spell card, "Venom Swamp." "Venom Swamp" places "Venom Counters" upon all monsters except Venom Monsters at the End Phase of each player's turn, weakening them dramatically and destroying them once their ATK hits 0. The penultimate Venom monster, "Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes", is easily summoned and gains ATK for each Reptile-type monster in the Graveyard, and if it is destroyed by a card effect, the Trap Card "Rise of the Snake Deity" can replace it with "Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes", a card that is practically invincible once in play and which can initiate its own special victory condition, by inflicting Battle Damage to the opponent three times (which, given Vennominaga's ability to increase it's own ATK, might not even take that long).

Since they rely upon Reptiles being sent to the Graveyard, Venom decks are at their most vulnerable when remove-from-play strategies are used, like "Dimensional Fissure". Venom deck users are also at risk of losing Life Points early, since the only reliable methods for quickly summoning "Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes" from the Deck involve taking Life Point damage (either via "Damage = Reptile" or "Damage Condenser".) All other Venom monsters happen to have low ATK for their level as well, so it is difficult for a Venom user to take the offense to the opponent early, especially if "Venom Swamp" is not yet on the field.

If you combined these cards with the other Reptile Archetype, Aliens, you might get a powerful Deck Type. It may also be a good idea to combine them with the recently released Reptilianne Archetype since both strategies involve lowering the opponent's attack points to 0.

Playing Style
The Venom deck is a powerful deck that focuses on lowering the opponent's monsters' ATK with Venom Swamp and summoning Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes. Since Vennominaga's ATK is dependent on the amount of reptiles in your graveyard, cards like Foolish Burial and Snake Rain are important in this deck, and the deck is vulnerable to cards like Big Burn, Macro Cosmos, Dimensional Fissure and Soul Release. Also, there are not many Venom Monster Cards, so a hybrid with other decks is inevitable.

Strengths
Venom Swamp is able to quickly weaken and eventually destroy any monster. Also, even if Venom Swamp is not on the field, Venom Burn can inflict serious damage to a player's Life Points.

In addition, the ace card of this deck, Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes, is almost invincible since it cannot be destroyed by any means except by battle, and can only be removed from the field by the effects of Volcanic Queen and Lava Golem.

Weaknesses
The deck relies on Venom Swamp for Venom Counters to have any effect on monsters, so if Venom Swamp is destroyed, Venom monsters' effects are useless. In addition, summoning Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes is difficult since you need to summon it with Rise of the Snake Deity, meaning that a mere Seven Tools of the Bandit or even Malfunction can ruin your chance to summon Vennominaga.

Also, Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes and Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes are weak unless there are Reptile monsters in the graveyard, so cards such as Dimensional Fissure and Macro Cosmos can easily ruin the entire deck strategy. So It's good to include Imperial Iron Wall.

The main weakness of the Venom deck, however, is the low ATK points of most Venom monsters. This means that your opponent can easily just summon a monster to destroy your Venom monster, ignoring Venom Cobra. Because of this, cards like Ambush Fangs and Negate Attack are essential to this deck.

Another weakness of this deck is the Zombie World. This card should make Vennominaga's ATK 0, plus when destroyed there would be no reptile monsters to remove for bringing her back. To stop this its important to have a Field Barrier protecting your Venom Swamp.

Tips
It may be wise to include Evil Dragon Ananta in case too many monsters are removed from play.

To protect Venom Swamp, it is important to include cards like Field Barrier. Terraforming can also help increase the chances of drawing out Venom Swamp.

Include at least 1 copy of Snake Rain. This card allows you to potentially send 4 reptiles to the graveyard, strengthening Vennominon and Vennominaga by at least 2000 ATK points. Since most Venom monsters are weak, Damage = Reptile is a great addition to this deck.

To protect Vennominaga from Lava Golem and Volcanic Queen, Mask of Restrict is also a great card to include.

Earthbound Immortal Ccarayhua is a good card for this deck since it cannot be attacked and can attack directly, plus when destroyed by Venom Swamp it will destroy the opponent's monsters and deal even more damage. Also you can always remove the venom counters from him via venom burn to deal even more damage, so that you can keep it on the field longer and keep dealing great damage trough it's ability to attack directly.

Monsters

 * Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes
 * Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes x3
 * Venom Serpent x3
 * Venom Boa x2
 * Venom Snake x3
 * Iron Chain Snake x3
 * Evil Dragon Ananta x2
 * Alien Shocktrooper x3
 * Earthbound Immortal Ccarayhua
 * Venom Cobra x2

Spells

 * Venom Swamp x3
 * Mystical Space Typhoon
 * Trade In x3
 * Snake Rain
 * Heavy Storm
 * Giant Trunade
 * Foolish Burial x2
 * Venom Shot

Traps

 * Bottomless Trap Hole x2
 * Mirror Force
 * Offering to the Snake Deity x2
 * Rise of the Snake Deity x2
 * Snake Deity's Command x2
 * Damage = Reptile x2
 * Limit Reverse x2
 * Venom Burn
 * Imperial Iron Wall
 * Snake Whistle

Important Support

 * Evil Dragon Ananta -- In the event that attempting to summon Vennominon or Vennominaga fails, this card can be very powerful as a backup by removing from play all Reptiles in the Graveyard.
 * Snake Rain -- Sends 4 Reptiles to the Graveyard from the Deck, powering up Vennominion or Vennominaga by 2000 ATK. In addition, if you discard a reptile monster for the cost, that's another 500 bonus attack points.
 * Damage = Reptile -- Allows the easy summon of Vennominon, since its original ATK is 0. Make sure to have at least a few Reptiles in the grave before summoning him with this, however.
 * Snake Whistle -- Summons another low-level Reptile when one you control is destroyed by effects, which can be handy.
 * Damage Condenser -- Allows the summon of Vennominon in the event you do not have any Reptiles on the field at all.
 * Destructive cards that target your own monsters -- Since Rise of the Snake Deity cannot activate in response to cards that would remove Vennominon from the field without destroying it, it is usually more reliable to destroy Vennominion yourself. The Trap Card Offering to the Snake Deity was specifically designed for this effect.  Tribute to the Doomed, Offerings to the Doomed and Hammer Shot are some of the other better choices for this.  Note that cards like Thunder Crash won't work, since they cause Rise of the Snake Deity to miss its timing.
 * Non-Venom Reptiles -- Vennominon and Vennominaga benefit from any Reptile in the graveyard, not just Venoms. Some of the better ones to include in a Venom deck can include Alien Grey, Alien Shocktrooper, Gagagigo, Razor Lizard and even a few Worm monsters.
 * Vengeful Bog Spirit -- Prevents monsters from attacking on the turn they are summoned. When Venom Swamp is in play, this will weaken opposing monsters by 1000 ATK before they are able to make their first move. If you have a face-up Venom Boa, this will ensure that any non-tribute monster your opponent summons will be destroyed before they even get a chance to use them.
 * Light of Intervention -- Venom Swamp can't place counters on face-down monsters--with this, even a defending opponent will be losing their monsters rapidly.
 * Final Attack Orders -- Will allow Vennominon and especially Vennominaga to inflict battle damage upon the opponent most easily, especially since Vennominaga cannot be equipped with a card that would grant it piercing damage. Make sure to activate Final Attack Orders only when ready, however, as most Venom monsters are quite weak compared to most monsters.