Dragon Deck

Types of Dragon Decks
Dragons are one of the most supported types in Yu-Gi-Oh!. Some common decks focus on a single monster such as the Red-Eyes B. Dragon, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Five-Headed Dragon, King Dragun, Armed Dragon, or Horus the Black Flame Dragon. There are many ways to build a Dragon Deck, and all are powerful in there own way. Here are some different types of decks based around Dragon Monsters.



LV Dragon Decks
Some dragon decks are based on the LV dragons, Armed Dragon and Horus the Black Flame Dragon. These decks usually focus on leveling up their monsters quickly. Level Modulation ignores summoning conditions so it can be used on any LV monsters. To protect the high level monsters from trap cards Royal Decree, Jinzo, or King Dragun are usually used. Horus the Black Flame Dragon has added protection from Spell Cards and is well known for the infamous "Horus Decree" lockdown. Horus and Armed Dragon cards can even be combined to make a deck that not only locks down spell and trap cards, but also controls the opponents monsters that may get in your way.

Dragon Fusion Decks
These types of decks often focus on getting fusion monsters like Five-Headed Dragon, King Dragun, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and sometimes even Dragon Master Knight to the field. Usually Dragon's Mirror or Future Fusion is used to accomplish these tasks. If you want to summon King Dragun quickly, The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion is a great choice if you don't have Future Fusion or Dragon's Mirror in hand. The same goes for Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and The Light - Hex-Sealed Fusion if your short on Blue-Eyes White Dragon or any fusion spell cards. Synchro Monsters like Stardust Dragon or Red Dragon Archfiend and Tuner Monsters like Magna Drago and The White Stone of Legend are also great choices if you can't Fusion Summon.

Rise of the Dragon Lords Structure Deck
The newest dragon deck is the Rise of the Dragon Lords Structure Deck. This deck focuses on summoning powerful dragons to the field from the graveyard, thereby activating their powerful effects. Felgrand Dragon, Tyrant Dragon and Darkblaze Dragon are good examples of this. This deck also includes Mausoleum of the Emperor to get tribute monsters out quickly. Draining Shield is used to recover life points used for Mausoleum of the Emperor and Trade-In can be used to put powerful dragons into the graveyard to revive while drawing two cards in the proccess. Decoy Dragon works exceptionally well with this deck, being able to make a powerful combo with Foolish Burial. Card of Safe Return is another great addition to this deck, since it lets you draw a card each time you summon a dragon like this. You can also use Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord with Divine Wrath to special summon Dragons in the Graveyard. The best way to make this deck truly effective is to buy multiple structure decks and combine the more important cards into one deck. This structure deck can also be bought for the key cards in any dragon deck.

Dragon Beatdown
This type of deck is pretty old fashioned, but it has more variations than any of the other three decks. The deck revolves around playing abnormally powerful monsters and brutally beating down the opponents life points. High level monsters can be anything mentioned in the other decks, but smaller monsters may include Luster Dragon, Spear Dragon, and Blizzard Dragon or possibly five headed dragon. Even though Gray Wing is relatively weak in atk points, it can deal up to 2600 damage to the opponent if there are no monsters in it's way. Monsters like Troop Dragon, Masked Dragon, and Twin-Headed Behemoth can be used to tribute summon the more powerful monsters. Mid-Level monsters often used in this build may include Kaiser Glider and Chthonian Emperor Dragon to rid the field of stubborn monsters and attack for huge damage. To protect your monsters from spell and trap effects, cards like Stamping Destruction and A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon (Which you can also combo with Montage Dragon for monsters to Discard) can help make sure that nasty traps and spells like Shrink and Dimensional Prison won't get in your way. Traps like Dragon's Rage can help drop the opponents life even quicker.

Strengths and Weaknesses
Strenghts

Dragon's have been known to have the most powerful attacks and, in some cases, broken effects. An attack from a good sized Dragon like Five-Headed Dragon can take a good chunk out of an opponents life points. Cards like Prime Material Dragon and Stardust Dragon will help prevent any vital Dragons from being destroyed by effects. If you do not have either of those two monsters, Dragonic Knight can special summon himself from your hand if the opponent tries to destroy your monsters with monster card effects. Plus, if you play either of those with a Horus Deck, your opponent could have a hard time bringing down the Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8 while you control Jinzo or Royal Decree. A well built Dragon Fusion Deck can also bring trouble since King Dragun has the power to protect all dragons you control from targeting effects like Dark Armed Dragon and Brain Control plus special summon powerful dragons like Tyrant Dragon or Blue-Eyes White Dragon from the hand.

Weaknesses

However, there are major weaknesses with Dragon decks, and all have one in common: Summoning the Dragons. Since Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8 cannot be special summoned except with it's own effect, cards like Level Up! and Level Modulation are usually used to override this problem, but Counter Trap Cards like Solemn Judgment or Dark Bribe can impede your progress. Plus, Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6 has only 2300 Atk points, leaving it vulnerable to monsters like Goyo Guardian or any of the Monarchs. In Dragon Fusion Decks, it's highly important to be able to keep King Dragun on the field to be able to summon the bigger dragons, but it's 2400 Atk is low enough for any Monarch to destroy in battle. A good way to counter this kind of move is to use traps like Waboku or Threatening Roar to prevent the opponent from attacking or dealing battle damage. If your opponent knows you have a Dragon Fusion Deck, they may try to use Chthonian Polymer to gain control of any Dragon you fusion summon. If King Dragun ends up getting destroyed, level 5 or higher dragons you draw later will become dead draws and slow the deck down to a crawl. A good counter measure for this would be to use Trade-In on level 8 monsters you draw but cannot play. Card effects that do not target like Judgment Dragon or Mirror Force cannot be negated with King Dragun and would therefore require a Prime Material Dragon or Stardust Dragon to stop them. Finally, cards like Royal Oppression and Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo can also prevent any of these dragons from being summoned at all and will need to be removed from the field in order to summon your cards.

Another major weakness is that quite a few cards have been made specially for destroying or weakening dragons, otherwise known as Anti-Dragon cards. Not only does Buster Blader get stronger as dragon after dragon gets summoned and destroyed, but it is also the perfect candidate for Sword of Dragon's Soul. If Buster Blader was equipped with that plus Mist Body, it could take out virtually any dragon you throw at it. Plus there's Dark Paladin, which can be used for/or against dragons. Dragon Manipulator and Dragon Seeker can be tricky to deal with, but can be easily overcome with King Dragun. Dragon Capture Jar can wreak severe havoc on any and all of your Dragons since King Dragun, Stardust Dragon, and Prime Material Dragon cannot stop it.

Solutions to weaknesses

However, there are ways of getting around Anti-Dragon cards. One quick and easy method of accomplishing this is to use Exploder Dragon. Since he kills anything that destroys him in battle, he can overpower cards like Dragon Seeker and even Dark Paladin. You may also use the Armed Dragon cards to destroy Dragon Seeker since it has relatively weak Atk points, and Armed Dragon LV10 can just wipe out all your opponents face-up monsters no matter how much Atk points they poccess. Montage Dragon can also be used to potentially become more powerful than Dark Paladin or Buster Blader by discarding high level monsters like Blue-Eyes White Dragon or Tyrant Dragon. Dragon Piper can be used to rid the field of any Dragon Capture Jar cards on the field that are preventing you from attacking. Finnaly, the spell card Dragon's Mirror can be used as a double-edged sword by removing any Dragons in your graveyard to fusion summon Five-Headed Dragon plus power down Buster Blader and Dark Paladin in the process (this is assuming that there are no cards to discard for Dark Paladin's effect).

Monsters

 * Armed Dragon LV3
 * Armed Dragon LV5
 * Armed Dragon LV7
 * Armed Dragon LV10
 * Blue-Eyes White Dragon
 * Paladin of White Dragon
 * Exploder Dragon
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8
 * Kaibaman
 * Light and Darkness Dragon
 * Masked Dragon
 * Mirage Dragon
 * Montage Dragon
 * Red-Eyes B. Chick
 * Red-Eyes B. Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern
 * Twin-Headed Behemoth
 * Tyrant Dragon
 * White-Horned Dragon
 * The White Stone of Legend
 * Chthonian Emperor Dragon

Fusion Monsters

 * Five-Headed Dragon
 * B. Skull Dragon
 * Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
 * King Dragun
 * Dragon Master Knight

Synchro Monsters

 * Stardust Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend
 * Black Rose Dragon
 * Iron Chain Dragon