Madolche

"Madolche" (マドルチェ Madoruche, pronounced as "mah-DOL-chay") is an archetype of EARTH-Attribute monsters.

The names of the "Madolche" are puns of French and Italian desserts and titles or animal sounds, depending on the monster's type. The Fairy-type monsters are the royalty, and thus have royalty-based puns (i.e. "Madolche Puddingcess" which is a pun of the dessert "Pudding" and the royal title of "Princess"). The Warrior and Spellcaster-type monsters make up the servants, and have puns that relate to their occupation (i.e. "Madolche Butlerusk" is a combination of the job title, "Butler," and the snack, "Rusk"). The Beast-type monsters have puns reflecting the sound that they make in Japanese. For example, ("Madolche Cruffsant" is a mixture of "Croissant" and "wan" (the Japanese equivalent of "woof")).

The name of the archetype, "Madolche," is itself a pun. It is a combination of the words "magic" ("mahou" in Japanese) and "dolce" (pronounced "dol-chay), the Italian word for "sweet". All Madolche monsters stand on various sweets in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece. Also, close inspection on the limbs of the animals of the Madolche artworks (including the horse that Madolche Chouxvalier rides) shows what appear to be sewing seams, implying the animals are all plushies.

The following list displays each of the cards' names, and the puns that form them.

Playing Style
The Madolche focus on recycling their cards for repeated use, with all of the Madolche monsters being sent either back to the deck or to the hand after being destroyed by an opponent. Several of those monsters have effects that send Madolche-specific Spell and Trap cards from the Graveyard back to the deck, or from the deck to your hand. This makes the Madolche very difficult to Deck Out, a strategy almost entirely opposite to many other contemporary archetypes.

While the deck does not do any deck thinning on its own, it does however feature a wide variety of searchers, making the deck highly stable. "Madolche Butlerusk" is capable of scanning the deck for a field spell, which is mostly exclusively used for "Madolche Chateau". "Madolche Messengelato" can search for any Madolche spell or trap card, allowing easy access to many support cards. "Madolche Magileine" and "Madolche Ticket" are easily capable of searching for other monsters from the deck, and "Madolche Marmamaid" can recycle spells and traps, which are likely the only cards that will stay in the graveyard.

This also gives the Madolche a unique ability to deplete your opponent's resources; the archetype is largely unaffected by widespread destruction cards like "Dark Hole" or "Torrential Tribute", and in fact benefit from their opponents' use of it, able to quickly swarm back to the field while their opponent has no monsters with help from cards like "Madolche Ticket" and "Ultimate Offering".

The ultimate goal of most Madolche decks is to swarm the field with low-level monsters and power them up quickly through use of "Madolche Chateau" and "Madolche Lesson". The main powerhouse cards used are "Madolche Puddingcess" and "Queen Madolche Tiaramisu"; they have relatively high ATK (so long as Puddingcess' effect requirement of the Graveyard being empty is met) and powerful effects to deplete your opponents' field presence, clearing the way for the weaker monsters to attack directly.

Because of their ability to swarm the field, they can also quickly and easily Xyz Summon Rank 4 or 3 monsters, and especially EARTH Attribute support such as "Soul of Silvermountain" or "Fairy King Albverdich". "Genex Ally Birdman" makes ideal support for performing a Synchro Summon, bouncing a Madolche back to your hand so you can use their effect again to summon itself. "Genex Ally Triforce" is ideal for this, since Level 4 monsters are common in this archetype, and using an EARTH Attribute activates the effect of "Triforce" to keep an opponent's Spell and Trap cards from activating during battle. But be careful with these styles of summon, since they place Madolche in the Graveyard unavoidably.

The Madolche also wields a very powerful OTK combo much alike the Gadget, with Ultimate Offering and a single copy of "Madolche Magileine" in the hand (suppose your opponent controls 2 cards - which is the ideal case):
 * Activate "Ultimate Offering" and use it to continuously Normal Summon Majoleine, use its effect to add another copy to the hand, then finish with "Butrusk" to add "Madolche Chateau".
 * Activate Chateau, then Xyz Summon "Tiaramisu" and another rank 4 Xyz Monster which can detach freely (recommended "Lavalval Chain" or "Fairy King Albverdich"). Detach Majoleine from it for the Graveyard presence, then detach another "Magileine" from "Tiaramisu" to target both "Magileine", return them to the hand (with the effect of "Chateau") and shuffle 2 opponent's cards from the field back to the Deck.
 * Use "Offering" to summon 2 "Magileine" back to the field, adding "Cruffsant" and "Mewfeuille" (or "Messengelato") to the hand.
 * Use Offering to summon Cruffsant, use its effect bounce back a "Magileine" to hand to make it level 4. Then summon that "Magileine" again to get "Messengelato" (or "Mew-feuille", the order is up to you).
 * Xyz Summon "Number 16: Shock Master" using 2 "Magileine" and level 4 "Cruffsant".
 * Use Offering to summon "Mewfeuille", use it to Special Summon "Messengelato" to fetch "Madolche Ticket".
 * From this point, you can either activate the effect of "Shock Master" declaring "monster" to prevent things like "Gorz" and "Tragoedia", or "trap" to prevent those nasty ones, then attack for game. Or you can just leave it until Main Phase 2 if something happened. With both "Chateau" and "Ticket" backing you up, along with "Tiaramisu" and some "Madolche", declaring "spell" would lock the opponent down badly for the upcoming turns.

Total damage: 2700 + at least 1800 + 2300 + 1000 + 2100 = at least 9900 battle damage, with the cost of 4000 Life Points (8 Normal Summons with "Offering" in addition)

Weaknesses
The biggest weakness to the archetype is their reliance on access to the Graveyard; card effects that banish or simply remove that access, like "Necrovalley" or "Macro Cosmos", are a big problem, and there are few cards that help return banished cards back to the deck or hand, where the Madolche can use them. They also rely heavily on Spell and Trap support, so if their resources are limited - such as through the use of the common "Great Shogun Shien" or "Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En" - they won't be able to reach their full strength and will have a hard time finding victory. Note that despite having "Necrovalley" active on the field, the "Madolche" monsters can still use their own effects when they're sent to the Graveyard.

Cards that disrupt the searching capabilities of this deck, such as "Thunder King Rai-Oh" or "Drastic Drop Off" can swiftly lock it down.

"The End of Anubis" and "Soul Drain" will prevent Madolche monsters from activating in the Graveyard, greatly hindering their recycling efforts.

Cards that simply send cards to the Graveyard, rather than destroying them, like "Number 50: Blackship of Corn" or "Card Destruction" will also prevent a Madolche's effect from activating, and can quickly become crippling.