Elemental HERO

The Elemental Hero series are a set of Warrior-Type monsters, with few exceptions, without a specific Attribute, most frequently used by Jaden Yuki and less heavily by Aster Phoenix in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. They were designed by Kazuki Takahashi personally.

It is alleged that the Elemental Heroes draw inspiration from American super heroes, although the cards appearing in the manga generally resemble Japanese super heroes. They are mostly fused in order to summon more powerful monsters. The "Elemental Hero" Fusion Monsters are generally very strong, and are used for gaining the upper hand on an opponent.

The Elemental Heroes are also supported by many Spell and Trap Cards, and they can be easily used in combination, besides their fusions, granting the player a myriad of strategies. In order to gain access to the desired Fusion monster for the situation that calls for it, Fusion Substitute Material Monsters and searching options are vital in a good Elemental Hero deck.

The Elemental Heroes are one of the most supported Archetypes in the OCG & TCG, if not the most supported. Most of the individual non-fusion Elemental Heros have at least one support card specific to that monster. They can be further supplemented by common Warrior Support Cards such as "Reinforcement of the Army".

The maximum limit of monsters that can be stored in the Extra Deck, previously known as the Fusion Deck, is 15. You are allowed to have as many fusion/synchro monsters you want in the Extra Deck as long as it doesn't exceed the maximum limit of 15 Cards.

The most supported single Elemental Hero monster is Elemental Hero Neos. It is the only Elemental Hero monster, and possibly the only monster in the game, to be the Fusion Material Monster for 12 different Fusion Monsters.

Some of the newer Elemental Hero Fusion Monsters that have been released in the OCG, such as Elemental Hero Gaia, Elemental Hero The Shining and Elemental Hero Absolute Zero, don't have specific Fusion Material Monsters, rather, the Fusion Material Monsters for these cards are 1 Elemental Hero, Destiny Hero, or Evil Hero monster, and 1 other monster with the same Attribute as that Fusion Monster.

Play Style
Some of Elemental Heroes have low ATK, so to support their ATK, you need The A. Forces and/or Skyscraper to boost the ATK of your Elemental Hero monsters. You may need Wall of Revealing Light or Elemental Absorber to protect your monsters from attacks.

An Elemental Hero Deck is focused to the fusion summon in order to get the more powerful monsters with the special abilities. So, Polymerization is one of the most essential cards for this Deck. If you want to get Polymerization or Fusion Materials quickly, you may need Fusion Sage, Elemental Hero Woodsman, Elemental Hero Stratos, Reinforcement of the Army, E - Emergency Call, Heart of the Underdog, and some monsters which can be subtitutions for the Fusion Materials. You also can multiply Elemental Heroes Fusion Summons by using Miracle Fusion.

To revive your Elemental Hero monsters and create more Fusion Summons, you can use Skyscraper 2 - Hero City, O - Oversoul, Elemental Hero Ocean, Elemental Hero Woodsman, and The Creator. If you want to Fusion Summon the Elemental Heroes without waiting for Polymerization, Future Fusion or Fusion Gate will be the best choice. If your Elemental Heroes were sent to Graveyard, you can fuse them with Miracle Fusion.

Though generally Elemental Hero monsters (excluding Fusions) are used merely for fusions and seen as weak monsters, there are a few notable Effect Heroes such as; Another Strategy is to use Fusion Substitute Monsters such as King of the Swamp to avoid using weaker Elemental Heroes. Another one card to put in a deck like this is Freed the Matchless General.
 * Elemental Hero Wildheart - Wildheart is unaffected by all Trap Cards, meaning his attacks are difficult to prevent. Combos include Torrential Tribute after Summoning him, leaving only him on the field.
 * Elemental Hero Stratos - This card can be used for either fetching any Elemental, Destiny or Evil Hero monster from your deck or destroying your opponent's backfield. Basically an essential for any Hero deck(Elemental, Destiny, or Evil).
 * Elemental Hero Ocean - Ocean can be used to recycle fusion material monster or to recycle Stratos.
 * Elemental Hero Woodsman - Woodsman makes the use of Fusion Monsters a much simpler task by pulling Polymerization from the Deck or recycling it from the Graveyard.

Fusion-Based Deck Variants
Different varieties of Elemental Hero Fusion-based decks exist. Though they do differ from one another, they all tend to use a few of the same basic cards, such as:


 * Elemental Hero Ocean, for its effect.
 * Elemental Hero Wildheart, for its effect and the versatility of its Fusion Monsters - depending on which Fusion Monster is selected, this card plus a Fusion Substitute Monster can be used to form a different monster, depending on what cards the opponent controls that the player wishes to remove: Elemental Hero Wildedge to remove many monsters, and Elemental Hero Wild Wingman to remove one or more spells or traps. It can also be used for Evil Hero Wild Cyclone.
 * Elemental Hero Sparkman, partially for its ATK but more significantly for its fusions, especially Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman. It can also be used to gain instant field advantage with Evil Hero Lightning Golem.
 * Elemental Hero Avian, Like Sparkman, it can be fused into any of six Elemental Hero fusion monsters. With the exception of Elemental Hero Neos, these are the two Elemental Heroes compatible with the most fusions.
 * Elemental Hero Prisma, for its effect. In addition to becoming any valid Fusion Material Monster in the deck for a fusion, Prisma also places a Fusion Material Monster in the graveyard to be used in another Fusion.
 * Hex-Sealed Fusion monsters, as Fusion Substitute Monsters. Each version uses a different Hex-Sealed Fusion, but each one has the double advantage of both working well in its deck and being Rock-Type for Evil Hero Dark Gaia.
 * King of the Swamp, as a Fusion Substitute Monster. It can also be discarded to the Graveyard to retrieve a Polymerization from the Deck, and then used with Miracle Fusion. King of the Swamp is especially useful in Summoning Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman, which is very difficult to Summon.

Evil Hero Malicious Edge and Royal Decree are also used in some builds. They are also notable for an absence of standard Fusion Summoning cards such as Polymerization, Fusion Gate, and Dark Fusion; instead, cards that take Fusion Material Monsters from the deck or graveyard are used, thus maintaining card advantage.

Monsters:

 * Elemental Hero Avian
 * Elemental Hero Burstinatrix
 * Elemental Hero Clayman
 * Elemental Hero Sparkman
 * Elemental Hero Bubbleman
 * Elemental Hero Bladedge
 * Elemental Hero Wildheart
 * Elemental Hero Stratos
 * Elemental Hero Captain Gold
 * Elemental Hero Woodsman
 * King Of The Swamp x3

Spells:

 * Polymerization x3
 * Miracle Fusion x1
 * Fifth Hope / Pot of Avarice x1
 * Future Fusion x1
 * Skyscraper/Skyscraper 2 - Hero City x2
 * Lightning Vortex x1
 * R - Righteous Justice x2
 * E - Emergency Call x2
 * Heavy Storm x1

Traps:

 * Mirror Force x1
 * Mirror Gate
 * Call of the Hauntedx1
 * Bottomless Trap Hole x1
 * Negate Attack x1
 * Magic Cylinder x1

Extra Deck

 * Elemental Hero Gaia
 * Elemental Hero Flame Wingman
 * Elemental Hero Electrum
 * Elemental Hero Plasma Vice
 * Elemental Hero Wildedge
 * Elemental Hero Tempest
 * Elemental Hero Terra Firma
 * Elemental Hero Thunder Giant
 * Elemental Hero Steam Healer
 * Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
 * Elemental Hero Mariner
 * Elemental Hero Mudballman

Evil Heroes
This version has fewer Elemental Heroes than the other variants, and sometimes does not even use Miracle Fusion; however, Dark Calling is one of the deck's strong points. Unlike other versions, in which Evil Hero Malicious Edge will sometimes be used as tech, he is always used in this version, along with other powerful DARK monsters such as Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, Caius the Shadow Monarch, and Snipe Hunter. The deck uses DARK support such as Mystic Tomato or Armageddon Knight to quickly place The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion in the graveyard and Elemental Hero Prisma to quickly place Heroes in the graveyard for fusion. Cards like Dimension Fusion and Return from the Different Dimension that return removed monsters to the field are also used, both to recycle Fusion Material Monsters and to push to finish the game. This deck has lost much face since the banning of Dimension Fusion and the limitation of Return from the Different Dimension.

Hero Beatdown
This deck focuses on four Elemental Heroes, Wildheart, Bladedge, Sparkman, Necroshade, and the five fusions between these monsters, Elemental Hero Necroid Shaman, Elemental Hero Darkbright, Elemental Hero Plasma Vice, Elemental Hero Wildedge and Elemental Hero Gaia. Three of these fusions get Necroshade into the Graveyard to allow Bladedge to be summoned without Tribute, and three are fusions with Bladedge itself, putting a strong monster on the field (one of which does piercing damage, another of which can attack all monsters the opponent controls.) Monster Reincarnation allows you to discard Elemental Hero Necroshade to get Elemental Hero Bladedge, therefore, summon him onto the field. This is the most straightforward "brute force" Elemental Hero deck build and relatively easy to use because of the synergy between these four material monsters, but it lacks overall flexibility but cards like Elemental Hero Stratos and Elemental Hero Prisma help a lot to keep hand advantage, and they become more useful as fusion material thanks to Elemental Hero Gaia. Also, cards like Royal Decree, Jinzo and Magic Jammer are needed to prevent your opponent from activating any spells and/or traps. Sakuretsu Armor and Mirror Force should be used to prevent attacks and clear the field.

Elemental Recycle
The main focus of this deck is to continuously recycle cards needed to fuse E-Heroes, using mainly Stratos, Ocean, and Woodsman. Though it fares well in battles of attrition, it currently lacks the explosive plays necessary for competitive decks today. If you manage to fusion summon Elemental Hero Tempest, use its effect to make itself, Ocean, and Woodsman invulnerable to attacks. You can send Heroes and Polymerization(s) to the graveyard for its effect, and then recover them with the other two monsters.

Knospe Beatdown
This deck is similar to the recycle deck, in that Stratos, Ocean, and Woodsman are used to summon any fusion monster. But it also takes from the Big City deck because it uses Skyscraper 2 - Hero City to swarm. The focus of this deck is to have Elemental Heroes that are hard to destroy, along with Elemental Hero Knospe, to continually attack the opponent directly. Battle protection aside, you should also include cards that protect your monsters from effects like Destruction Jammer.