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 pun 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 Puddingcess' effect 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, "Madolche Queen Tiaramisu" is more prominently used as the Deck's boss monster, as it not only features a massive attack 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 Madolche 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 also wields a very powerful OTK combo much alike the Gadget, with Ultimate Offering, and a single copy of "Madolche Magileine" (suppose your opponent controls 2 cards - which is the ideal case): (Note: Due to the September '13 ban list, this combo cannot be performed)
 * Activate "Ultimate Offering" and Normal Summon "Madolche Magileine" continuously until you fetch "Madolche Butlerusk".
 * Normal Summon "Madolche Butlerusk" to search out "Madolche Chateau".
 * Activate "Madolche Chateau", then Xyz Summon "Madolche Queen Tiaramisu" and another rank 4 Xyz Monster which can detach freely (recommended "Lavalval Chain" or "Fairy King Albverdich"). Detach "Magileine" from it for the Graveyard presence, then detach another "Magileine" from "Tiaramisu" to target both "Magileine", return them to the hand (with the effect of "Chateau") and shuffle 2 opponent's cards from the field back to the Deck.
 * Use "Ultimate Offering" to summon 2 "Magileine" back to the field, adding "Madolche Cruffssant" and "Madolche Mewfeuille" (or "Madolche Messengelato") to the hand.
 * Use "Ultimate Offering" to summon Cruffsant, use its effect to bounce back a "Magileine" to your hand to make it level 4. Then summon that "Magileine" again to get "Messengelato" (or "Mew-feuille", the order is up to you).
 * Xyz Summon "Number 16: Shock Master" using 2 "Magileine" and a level 4 "Cruffsant".
 * Use "Ultimate Offering" to summon "Mewfeuille", and use it to Special Summon "Messengelato" to fetch "Madolche Ticket".
 * From this point, you can either activate the effect of "Shock Master" declaring "monster" to prevent things like "Gorz" and "Tragoedia", or "trap" to prevent those nasty ones, then attack for game. Or you can just leave it until Main Phase 2 if something happened. With both "Chateau" and "Ticket" backing you up, along with "Tiaramisu" and some "Madolche", declaring "spell" would lock the opponent down badly for the upcoming turns.

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 playstyle, 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 his 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 "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.

"Imperial Iron Wall" or a "Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer" controlled by your opponent will easily shut down "Madolche 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.