Hopeless Dragon


 * See also: Disaster Dragon

Hopeless Dragon, known as Dragon of Despair (or even Material Deck) among Japanese players, is a Dragon Deck centered around "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" and swarming the field with DARK Attribute Dragons and other useful DARK monsters.

The goal of this Deck is to Special Summon Dark Monsters by the effects of "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" or "The Dark Creator". "Foolish Burial", "Armageddon Knight", or Dark Grepher can be used to dump "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" or "The Dark Creator" from your deck into the Graveyard. "Phantom of Chaos" is then used to copy their effects and Special Summon cards like "Dark Horus", "Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord". If "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" is removed from play, a player may use "D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation", "Escape from the Dark Dimension", or "Return from the Different Dimension" to bring it back and use it to Special Summon more monsters.

Another way to bring out Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is using Red-Eyes Wyvern. Most effective if Future Fusion is used to bring the dragons into the graveyard.

The 'Hopeless Dragon OTK' consists of:


 * Future Fusion
 * The Dark Creator
 * D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation (or as an extension, Hidden Armory)
 * Darklord Zerato
 * High-ATK DARK Dragons, preferably Dark Horus because of its 3000 ATK

First, activate Future Fusion to send at least 2 Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragons plus another 3 DARK Dragons. Second, Special summon The Dark Creator, since there are 5 DARK monsters the Graveyard. Use its effect to remove one Darkness Metal Dragon and Special Summon the other. Third, use DDR to Special Summon the other REDMD you've removed via The Dark Creator (it would be wise to discard a DARK monster for DDR). Fourth, Tribute any monster to Summon Darklord Zerato. Lastly, use Zerato's effect to clear your opponent's field and use REDMD to revive the discarded Dark Horus. Attack for over 8000 damage. If there are still dragons in your graveyard, special summon them through either of the Darkness Metal Dragons for good measure.

A counter measure for this OTK against Mirror Force or Torrential Tribute and the like would be Royal Decree; Should the OTK attempt fail, according to the steps above, Red-Eyes Wyvern's effect cannot be used to revive a REDMD during the end phase because Zerato was Tribute(Normal) Summoned.

This type of build is usually expensive, but also very powerful because of the multiple OTK strategies (mostly based around Swarming the field with strong Dragons). With the release of Absolute Powerforce: Special Edition players building this deck will have easier access to the main card to this deck, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon

Strengths and weaknesses
Hopeless Dragon counts on fast summoning and powerful attacks. Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon is the deck masterpiece, able to summon nearly every dragon on the field from the Graveyard or the hand. The best combo to accelerate the deck is to use Future Fusion for Five-Headed Dragon. If you choose Red-Eyes Wyvern and Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon among the five dragons, then you'll be able to bring REDMD back to the field during the End Phase. D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation and Hidden Armory work together to summon the dragons removed from play by Dark Armed Dragon or Dark Creator. Deck Devastation Virus is really good against decks with weak monsters, like Blackwings, Morphtronics or Gadgets, and you can Tribute a powerful Dark Dragon that you plan to bring back then with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Either ,King Dragun is perhaps a great addition for this Deck, as he may be Fusion Summoned easily with Future Fusion and Dragon's Mirror, and his effect allows a Special Summon each turn and keeps your opponent from targeting your monsters. However, Hopeless has some issues. The most difficult is a bad first hand: with so many high level monsters in the roster, it would sometimes not allow you to summon any monster. The spell card Zombie World also presents a major problem to this deck. All your Dragon-type monsters in the graveyard cannot be summoned by Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Dark Armed Dragon and Dark Creator both require a perfect graveyard management to summon them. Moreover, with mostly DARK monsters, Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror can be a major threat to the deck strategy, along with Royal Oppression or Koa'ki Meiru Drago who will prevent Special Summon. In order to combat these effects, include cards such as Magical Mallet, Reload and Card Trader. Another way to deal with high level dead draws is Trade-In; not only can you dump a high-powered monster into the grave, you can also gain a powerful draw engine to aid you in your OTK. Lastly, some cards can return the Hopeless Dragon brutal force against you, like Dimension Wall, Magic Cylinder or Honest. Prime Material Dragon can help to counter Magic Cylinder, one of the more popular cards; you can also utilize Interdimensional Matter Transporter to remove from play the target of Mind Control. This same card can also be useful to implement your own strategies; use it on Koa'ki Meiru Drago to temporarily remove him from the field and conduct your Special Summons; then, once they're done, it brings Koa'ki Meiru Drago back, locking down your opponent's Special Summons. Perhaps, the fastest way to defeat this deck is by using Tualatin. Hopeless Dragon uses extremely powerful dragons to attack and defeat your opponent. Tualatin can than stop summons with dark type monsters stopping the deck completely.

Monsters

 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern
 * Prime Material Dragon
 * Dark Horus
 * Dark Armed Dragon
 * Darklord Zerato
 * The Dark Creator
 * Dark Grepher
 * Armageddon Knight
 * Phantom of Chaos
 * Sky Scourge Norleras
 * Plaguespreader Zombie
 * Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
 * Morphing Jar

Spells

 * Allure of Darkness
 * Burial from a Different Dimension
 * D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation
 * Foolish Burial
 * Future Fusion
 * Hand Destruction
 * Hidden Armory
 * Monster Reborn
 * Trade-In

Traps

 * Bottomless Trap Hole
 * Call of the Haunted
 * Dark Bribe
 * Starlight Road

Extra Deck

 * Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
 * Iron Chain Dragon
 * Stardust Dragon
 * Dark End Dragon
 * Thought Ruler Archfiend
 * Colossal Fighter
 * Infernity Doom Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend
 * Ally of Justice Decisive Armor
 * Five-Headed Dragon

Side Deck

 * Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord
 * Infernal Dragon
 * Rainbow Dark Dragon
 * Level Eater
 * Necro Gardna
 * King Dragun
 * Card Destruction
 * Dragon's Mirror
 * Gold Sarcophagus
 * Reinforcement of the Army (Search card for Armageddon Knight/Dark Grepher)
 * Chivalry
 * Compulsory Evacuation Device
 * Deck Devastation Virus
 * Escape from the Dark Dimension
 * Phoenix Wing Wind Blast
 * Return from the Different Dimension