Monarch Control Deck

A Monarch Control Deck revolves around using the following Monarch cards:
 * Granmarg the Rock Monarch
 * Mobius the Frost Monarch
 * Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
 * Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
 * Raiza the Storm Monarch

The focus of a Monarch Control deck is to utilize the effects of the Monarch cards (Zaborg, Mobius, Thestalos, Granmarg and Raiza) to gain card advantage over the opponent. These decks use many strategies to ensure that the opponent is losing more cards than they are. Some of these strategies include: reviving tribute material (Treeborn Frog, and a side deck D.D. Survivor), utilizing Recruiter monsters and gaining control of the opponent's monsters for use as tribute material (via Brain Control or Soul Exchange).

While a very powerful deck types ever since their release, Monarch decks (due to high amounts of problems from Chaos Decks) have not truly made a game changing impact until September 2006, when Chaos Sorcerer was banned from competitive play. However, Monarch Control successfully dominated the North American metagame for the duration of the format, and still proves to be a major competitive deck type today.

Monsters

 * Mobius the Frost Monarch
 * Gaius the Wicked Monarch
 * Kreis the Light Monarch
 * Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
 * Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
 * Raiza the Storm Monarch
 * Granmarg the Rock Monarch
 * Gravekeeper's Spy
 * Spirit Reaper
 * Green Gadget
 * Red Gadget
 * Yellow Gadget
 * Nimble Momonga
 * Legendary Jujitsu Master
 * Peten the Dark Clown
 * Treeborn Frog
 * Hydrogeddon
 * Twin-Headed Behemoth
 * Cyber Dragon
 * Spell Striker
 * Destiny Hero - Fear Monger
 * Destiny Hero - Malicious
 * Destiny Hero - Disk Commander
 * The Tricky (OCG only)
 * Dragon Ice (TCG only)
 * Hero Kidx 3

Spells

 * Brain Control
 * Soul Exchange
 * Stray Lambs
 * Back to Square One
 * Enemy Controller
 * Destiny Draw
 * Feinds Sanctuary (ocg only)

Traps

 * Conscription
 * Stronghold the Moving Fortress

On an alternative manner, a Soul Control Deck is essentially a Monarch Control Deck with a few different cards. The essential difference is that Soul Control Decks use between two and three Soul Exchange cards and one Brain Control, while most Monarch Control Decks before the new format used between two and three Brain Controls and only one Soul Exchange. Players using Soul Exchange instead of Brain Control allows a Soul Control Player to tribute Face-down monsters and does not require a player to pay 800 life points. The major drawback to this is that a player using Soul Exchange must skip their Battle Phase for that turn, which slows this deck down a lot. Most players that choose to use Monarchs prefer Brain Control because of this downside.