User:MrVariant/Monster Summoning Efficiency

The name of the game is efficiency. Given how quickly you can kill someone in one-turn as well as clear their field, you need to make a deck that can get things quickly for free or bargains. I think of even the format I made for myself, seen in my profile, where many things can still be obsolete, like a Ben Kei Deck, Life Gain outside of Fire Princess/Bad Reaction to Simochi since those can accumulate quickly while actually hurting your opponent, or Counter Fairies. The problem is you need strong monsters with effects (or weaker monsters that work very quickly, such as Black Salvo) that overwhelm your opponent and a possible dead draw will kill you.

I can easily play Miraculous Descent or Escape from the Dark Dimension rather than play Layard the Liberator. It's a 2 card setup that does not do much; Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord does a lot more and unlike Dark Voltanis, does not cost a tribute for its effect summon although it won't work with cards that don't always negate things, be it monster effects via Solemn Judgment since it negates monster summons, or if your opponent discards for Magic Drain. Therefore the only 2 monsters worth using there are Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord and Dark Voltanis, in which you can use Allure of Darkness or Trade-In to get rid of both and possibly bring back with Escape from the Dark Dimension or Call of the Haunted, both of which much faster than using Bountiful Artemis, and do not waste your normal summon.

Another thing you have to remember is that these days your special summons should either be from the cards themselves, like with Cyber Dragon, easily searchable, like with Demise, King of Armageddon or be brought from your deck, like Rescue Cat or Gladiator Beasts. Otherwise, they need to be very powerful and easily brought out, like using Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder over Rainbow Dragon in a Crystal Beasts deck. This makes cards like Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen or Call of the Mummy worthless because you need to wait to get the appropriate monsters into your hand as well as that card and you heavily risk stacking your hand with useless cards that you cannot even play due to their high cost.

Here's another easy summon combo that special summons from your deck: Foolish Burial with Wulf, Lightsworn Beast. You don't even need to play a Lightsworns Deck for this combo because you can tribute Wulf, Lightsworn Beast for Raiza the Storm Monarch to make your opponent redraw a card while removing it for a turn. It also will not stack because you'll only need 1 Wulf, Lightsworn Beast with 2 Foolish Burial.

The graveyard and remove from play area are also good areas to special summon. Foolish Burial is an overpowered card due to its versatility. You can also use it with Mezuki to make reviving zombies even easier than using Book of Life. Compare that to using Airknight Parshath (even with Nova Summoner which needs a 3rd card, The Sanctuary in the Sky to work) and you'll see it's quite laughable. You can even combine Escape from the Dark Dimension with Gold Sarcophagus, choosing Jinzo to negate a non-counter trap your opponent plays if you want to get rid of it, or attack with only quickplays and monster effects to harass you on your turn.

Lastly, while the game allows it, clone cards will help you but you don't want it to stack. You can use Armageddon Knight in a similar manner to Foolish Burial to help you get Peten the Dark Clown or other dark monsters in your graveyard for combos. This can even be better should you get it from Mystic Tomato or reuse it with Call of the Haunted or Dark Eruption.

--MrVariant 21:12, September 16, 2009 (UTC)