Skill Drain Deck

A Skill Drain Deck uses the Trap Card Skill Drain to remove the negative effects from monsters like Goblin Attack Force, Giant Orc, and Indomitable Fighter Lei Lei and use them for pure power purposes.

Aside from the cards listed above, Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast is a much-played monster and Beast King Barbaros is a high valued monster with Skill Drain. They can be Normal Summoned without Tributes being offered since it has a provision for it in its effect, which in turn, cuts their ATKs. However, Skill Drain would remove the ATK limit, so you'd immediately have their original ATK. A great combo is to also include Beast Machine King Barbaros Ür with the above monsters to surprise your opponent with a high ATK monster. Monsters such as Zombyra the Dark which can be played without skill drain are perfect for skill drain decks for versatility.

Cards like Chainsaw Insect, Mystical Beast Serket, Majestic Mech - Ohka, Mist Archfiend, and Ultimate Obedient Fiend, cards with otherwise questionable advantages, suddenly become very playable with Skill Drain active. Giant Kozaky is perhaps the best to play with this deck, since it has 2500 ATK and 2400 DEF, and will not be destroyed by itself. Armor Exe (If "Skill Drain" is active and "Armor Exe" is Summoned, or if "Skill Drain" is activated after "Armor Exe" is Summoned, in both cases "Armor Exe" CAN attack the same turn it was Summoned. ) and Naturia Spiderfang are nice additions, though are not as usable if Skill Drain is not available compared to other 4-Star monsters of their ATK.

And of course, since Skill Drain will not negate effects that do not resolve on the field, Solemn Judgment and Divine Wrath are very worthy choices. A Cat of Ill Omen and Mask of Darkness may be necessary in order to draw into Skill Drain or to recover them. Berserk Dragon is also a great addition to this deck since this deck has many lvl 8 monsters thats easy to summon like Beast King Barbaros and since its attack decreases, then, you have a great deck.

Other cards to negate with Skill Drain are Yubel, Yubel - Terror Incarnate and Yubel - The Ultimate Nightmare, since their first effects resolve on the field, and Skill Drain also takes care of Yubel's effect of growing into her other forms.

You may consider including Final Attack Orders in the deck as well, as it will negate the effects of many of the cards you will use, such as Goblin Attack Force and Giant Orc.

With the release of Forbidden Chalice in the Raging Battle set, Skill Drain decks have seen a significant increase in power, as this card allows you to negate the effect of one monster, and increase its ATK by 400. An ideal use for this card in a Skill Drain deck would be to activate it on either Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast or Beast King Barbaros if Skill Drain is not on the field, effectively restoring their ATK back to its original amount and increasing it by a further 400.

Weakness
One deck type that can have an advantage over Skill Drain Decks is a Dark World Deck because they rely on sending cards in there hand to the Graveyard to activate there effects, which Skill Drain cannot stop.

Another weakness to skill drain decks are decks that revolve around synchro summoning. Since you usually don't need monster effects to summon Stardust Dragon or Colossol Fighter (which are nearly unaffected by skill drain)synchro decks poses a problem for Skill Drain decks and usually whenever Colossol Fighter is summoned, you usually cannot destroy it with any cards in your deck.

Monster Cards

 * Cyber Valley
 * Exiled Force
 * Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast
 * Beast King Barbaros
 * Cyber Dragon
 * Beast Machine King Barbaros Ür
 * Stardust Dragon
 * Colossal Fighter
 * Chainsaw Insect

Spell Cards:

 * Heavy Storm
 * Swords of Revealing Light
 * Brain Control
 * Mystical Space Typhoon
 * Smashing Ground
 * Giant Trunade
 * Forbidden Chalice

Trap Cards:

 * Royal Oppression
 * Skill Drain
 * Bottomless Trap Hole
 * Dimensional Prison
 * Mirror Force
 * Dark Bribe
 * Macro Cosmos
 * Judgment of Anubis

Dark Skill Drain
Unlike TeleDAD, this deck revolves around the cards Skill Drain, Mystic Tomato and Forbidden Chalice. Because most of the monster effects work in the Graveyard (such as those of Tomato, Destiny Hero - Malicious, and Plaguespreader Zombie), Skill Drain does not hurt the deck - it just just hurts the opponent's deck. Also cyber valley and machine duplication is a great choice aslo destiny hero plasma.

Zombie Skill Drain
Zombie Skill Drain is a viable deck type because of the card Pyramid Turtle. The fact that it searches monsters based on DEF (with a high upper limit) means that it can search out powerful beatsticks such as Ryu Kokki, Malevolent Mech - Goku En, and Paladin of the Cursed Dragon, which other decks simply cannot do. With the recent semi-limitation of Mezuki (which is also unaffected by Skill Drain) this kind of deck is even more a viable option.

Plant Skill Drain
Though not as common an option as other types of Skill Drain, Plants have two large assets that still work with Skill Drain. The first is Lonefire Blossom, which will work under Skill Drain's influence if it tributes itself. The other is Tytannial, Princess of Camellias, which also works under Skill Drain's influence if it tributes itself, and has the advantage of having high ATK and the ability to be special summoned with Lonefire. Also of note is Mystic Tomato, Lord Poison, Dandylion, and Violet Witch which all also have an effect that activates off-field.

Light Skill Drain
Since the effect of Honest is not affected by Skill Drain, a good and solid version of this deck could be built around LIGHT Monsters. Thunder King Rai-Oh is a good choice, since it negates a Special Summon and it's a target to Honest. Some versions include Elemental Hero Neos Alius and Elemental Hero Stratos; the last one should be Summoned before activating Skill Drain in order to generate Card advantage. This version always mounts three copies of Beast King Barbaros and should not be confused with "Little City" (described below), since this deck is not Elemental Heroes-oriented.

Little City
Main article: Little City Deck Little City uses Skill Drain in combination with Skyscraper, which can boost the ATK scores of attacking Elemental Heroes. This is combined with powerful, level 4 heroes such as Elemental Hero Captain Gold, Elemental Hero Neos Alius, and Elemental Hero Stratos. Honest is also often used in this deck.

Necrofear Skill Drain
This deck focuses on getting fiends in the graveyard to remove from play to special summon Dark Necrofear. Many of the monsters used in this deck have effects that activate in the graveyard such as Giant Germ, Newdoria, and Slate Warrior, so Skill Drain can be very effective & deadly choice for this deck.