Archfiend

Naming
According to the Upper Deck Entertainment website, "Archfiends are a special category of card. Most Archfiends can be easily identified by their name. Any card with "Archfiend" in the card name, is an Archfiend."

This category was officially introduced with the release of Dark Crisis, as a way to standardize the English translation of OCG card names containing "Demon" 「デーモン」. To avoid confusion, "Demon" is often spelled "Dæmon" or "Daemon", to show that the card is an Archfiend: some non-Archfiend cards have "Demon" spelled differently, and some monsters have Japanese names with "Demon" as a possible translation.

Theme
Some of the Archfiends are chess themed including Terrorking, Infernalqueen, Desrook, Darkbishop, Shadowknight and Vilepawn Archfiend, all of whom are named after Chess pieces, and feature a chessboard pattern as their background. The support card "Checkmate" is named after Checkmate, the final winning move in Chess.

Graphically, most of the Archfiend monsters place strong emphasis on bones, often appearing as skeletal creatures wielding weapons of bone.

Naming Changes
Since some Japanese cards with names containing "Demon" 「デーモン」 had already been released in the English TCG, they were retroactively classified as "Archfiends", although their official names were left unchanged. These include:


 * A Deal with Dark Ruler
 * Axe of Despair
 * B. Skull Dragon
 * Beast of Talwar
 * Fiend Skull Dragon
 * Lesser Fiend
 * Shadow Tamer
 * Summoned Skull
 * Toon Summoned Skull

Deck
Building a deck around "Chess Archfiends" is tricky since they require your Life Points as payment and paying is not optional. Therefore your Life Points will be drained pretty quickly, especially since you must worry about the continued attacks and further Life Point drain through battle damage from your opponent. Most "Archfiends" do not have enough attack power to hold their ground. To help scrap usefulness, "Archfiends" come with the effect of negating an opponent's effect that target them by a roll of the dice. However, this is not a reliable defense, and only two of the cards have a 50% chance of negation (though one of them, Darkbishop Archfiend, works for any of your Archfiends, including the ones that have their own protection).

It is advised that a deck built around these cards is difficult and does not insure victory. "Archfiends" must rely on heavy support. Try to activate Pandemonium as soon as possible and add Terraforming. To help an "Archfiend" deck run smoothly, it is highly advisable to make good use of "Archfiends" that don't sap your Life Points but still offer good attack or defense, like "Archfiend Soldier" and "Archfiend of Gilfer". Another route to go is to simply stop caring about your Life Points, throw in a few more suicidal cards to help, like "Bark of Dark Ruler", and hope you kill your opponent before your deck kills you. But if you're a fan of the game chess and are going for a "Chess Archfiend" deck for novelty's sake, then you should really make it geared more towards a general fiend-themed deck, adding Goblin King and other fiend support cards. This way, when the heat is high, you can turn to a Plan B.

Take advantage of the high atk of most archfiends, namely Shadowknight Archfiend, Archfiend Soldier and Terrorking Archfiend. Archfiends are one of the few archetypes with an abundance of high atk non-tributers in the game. Summoned Skull and it's retrained counterpart can provide late-game power, as well as recieve a considerable boost when used in conjunction with Axe of Despair. If you can weather the lifepoint payments, you may be able to destroy your opponent under a barrage of massive attacks. Piercing cards, such as Big Bang Shot and Fairy Meteor Crush can further the punishment, while the Archfiend's own innate immunities can provide some defense.


 * Pandemonium is a field card (which doesn't take up a normal Spell/Trap zone), negates the cost, and helps keep up a steady stream of Archfiends.
 * A small help is Life Absorbing Machine which gains you half of the life points paid in the last turn. Having multiple copies may be excess, but having two copies will result in no loss after the initial payment. Three copies, while zone clogging will actually gain life points. However, once Pandemonium is on the field, all three would become dead weight.
 * Solemn Wishes gives a steady stream of life points.
 * Solomon's Lawbook skips the standby phase, and avoids the maintenance cost.

"Pandemonium" is a must in an Archfiend Deck: as well as negating any costs to your Life Points to keep Archfiends in play, when an Archfiend monster is destroyed you can add a Level 4 or lower Archfiend to your hand. You can search and protect "Pandemonium" with "Archfiend General" and "Pandemonium Watchbear" respectively. "Falling Down" is another staple: if you control an Archfiend, you can clear the field and attack directly. In the same vein, "Earthbound Immortal Ccapac Apu" can benefit from Pandemonium to help heavily weather down the opposition. Other cards to help stifle or downright negate the Archfiends' weaknesses are "My Body as a Shield" to protect the Archfiends from their weakness to cards that affect multiple monsters, or "Dark Ruler Ha Des" to negate opponent monsters' effects for all summoned Archfiends.

"Thought Ruler Archfiend" and "Red Dragon Archfiend" are good Synchro Monsters: "Thought Ruler" can pay Life Points to negate the effect of Spells and Trap that target it and replenish your Life Points when it destroys a monster in battle, while "Dragon" can destroy all defense position monsters your opponent controls.

Monsters

 * Desrook ArchfiendX3
 * Infernalqueen ArchfiendX3
 * Imprisoned Queen ArchfiendX2
 * Terrorking ArchfiendX3
 * Archfiend GeneralX3
 * Skull Archfiend of LightningX2
 * Darkbishop ArchfiendX2
 * Vilepawn ArchfiendX2 to create the Pawn Wall (opponent can't attack)
 * Shadowknight Archfiend
 * Cyber Archfiend (to draw cards)
 * Any lvl 4 Tuner Monster
 * Mist Archfiend x3 (to get Terrorking with Pandemonium's effect)
 * Summoned Skull for deck-purists only)

Spells

 * Pandemonium x3
 * Foolish Burial(To get imprisoned Queen Archfiend in to your graveyard as fast as possible)
 * Lightning Vortex
 * Mystical Space Typhoon
 * Monster Reborn
 * Field Barrier(To defend your pandemonium)
 * Axe of Despairx3 (actually an Archfiend card)
 * Checkmate x3

Traps

 * Mirror Force
 * Scrap-Iron Scarecrow
 * Hate Busterx3
 * Altar for Tributex2

Extra Deck

 * Red Dragon Archfiend X3
 * Thought Ruler Archfiend X3

Archfiends are Beatdown decks that don't rely on special summoning, so cards like Vanity's Fiend is a great compliment to fend-off synchros and higher-level monsters.