Forum:Simply Smashing Sacred

When I took my first look at the Sacred archetype, in DT13, I was... unimpressed, to say the least. Very little compatibility between monsters (Sacred Dabaran could special summon Sheratan, but the latter wouldn't get its effect). No rank 4 Xyzs, and only a fairly sub-standard rank 3. Their rank 5 was pretty good - Pleiades - but very difficult to summon. So at the time, I wrote them off as another of Konami's failed archetypes.

Well, now I've taken another look and I'm impressed! Sacred Beehive, Sacred Kaust, and especially Sacred Ptolemys Messier 7 have turned this into a surprisingly competitive deck!

The monster line-up starts with 12 Sacred monsters - three of each of my personal favorites. Kaust's ability makes Sacred Xyzs of any rank not just possible, but easy! Gredi and Pollux can bring out another level 4 Sacred for an easy Xyz summon in one turn. Sheratan, meanwhile, searches whatever I need.

There's a few other monsters in here too. Thunder King Rai-Oh can combine with my other monsters for rank 4 Xyzs, but before then it's an excellent LIGHT beatstick, with two great effects. (As long as I don't summon Sheratan with it on-field...) Ghost Ship is a card I've found somewhat useful - combined with Kaust, it's an easy Pleiades. Finally, Honest's function in such a deck should be obvious.

Spell cards include three Star Sign of the Sacred, and with good reason - quickly drawing this card is often the difference between an easy victory and an uphill struggle. It provides me with a draw each time I Xyz summon a Sacred monster, providing me with easy access to all the cards in my deck! 3 Pots of Duality are pretty obvious choices here. Two Mystical Space Typhoons deal with pesky spells and traps. Reinforcement of the Army searches Pollux, giving me essentially four copies - thus, more consistency. Pot of Avarice refills my main deck, extra deck, and hand. The rest of the spells are staples.

2 Calls of the Haunted allow me to resummon Xyzs to get draws with Star Sign, or bring back potential Xyz materials. The rest of the trap cards should be pretty much self-explanatory (Starlight Road protects my Star Signs).

The extra deck is where things get fun. 3 Pleiades is first. It's easy to summon, and quite helpful - bouncing any card on the field, on EITHER PLAYER'S TURN. I can interrupt my opponent's attack like that, or bounce their spell/trap in their end phase. And with 2500 ATK, Pleiades is a good beater. But it's nothing compared to the trump card of the Sacred archetype - Sacred Ptolemys Messier 7! With 2700 ATK and the ability to "upgrade" any Sacred Xyz to it (IE - Xyz summon Ptolemy by overlaying it over one of your Sacred Xyzs, and any of its materials), it's already formidable. When you take into account its second effect, though, it becomes truly fantastic; Ptolemy can return any card in either player's field or graveyard to their hand, once per turn. So I can get back a used-up Sacred from the graveyard to allow more Xyz summons, for instance. Or I can send my opponent's monster to their hand. In any case, I can turn any of my Sacred Xyzs with no materials into Ptolemy - getting a draw from Star Sign in the process.

The other Xyzs are also quite useful. Omega can protect any of my Sacreds from spells and traps for a turn, making Dimensional Prison and Dark Hole irrelevant. Beehive has the truly impressive effect of detaching a material to boost the ATK of any Sacred by 1000 - permanently. It gets itself to 3400 ATK with ease. Finally, Hyades can put my opponent's monsters in DEF mode, making them easy targets. I've also got a single Stardust Dragon (for Starlight Road) and some staple Xyzs.

So that's the deck! Tell me what you think. Runer5h (talk • contribs) 03:49, December 22, 2011 (UTC)Runer5h