Dragon

Dragons are a powerful Type to contend with, often focusing on brute ATK strength and powerful Fusion and Synchro Monsters. Dragons are also the most numerous monster Type and tend to be the strongest or key monster in numerous deck types that would otherwise have nothing to do with dragons. Ever since the Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card franchise began, Dragon monsters have been known for having attack points greater than any other type of monster in the game. Dragons and Dragon Support cards also tend to have effects that Special Summon other Dragon-Type Monsters, such as "King Dragun", "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon", "Lord of D." in combination with "The Flute of Summoning Dragon", "Decoy Dragon", etc. There are Dragon-Type Monsters for every Attribute; mainly LIGHT, DARK, WIND and FIRE.

As of now, the highest ATK monsters in the game, "Dragon Master Knight,""Five-Headed Dragon," and "Malefic Truth Dragon" are Dragon-Types. In addition, the most powerful Normal Monster is also a Dragon, the "Blue-Eyes White Dragon", including all its support cards. Red-Eyes B. Dragon and "Rainbow Dragon", and the famous OTK Maker "Rainbow Dark Dragon" are also notable. Plus two of the most powerful LV series, "Armed Dragons" and "Horus" are also Dragon-Types. Decks that run lots of high-level monsters may also consider "Montage Dragon". The most powerful Fusion and Synchro monsters are also Dragons. Legendary examples include "Stardust Dragon", "Red Dragon Archfiend", "Black Rose Dragon", "Five-Headed Dragon", "Dragon Master Knight", "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon","King Dragun" and "Surging Dragon Knight Dragoequites"

Dragons also have their own two Structure Decks, Structure Deck 1: Dragon's Roar and Structure Deck 13: Revival of the Great Dragon, whose TCG counterpart is Structure Deck: Rise of the Dragon Lords.

To date there are no Flip Effect Dragon-Type monsters.

The Dragon-Type is certainly one of the contenders for "Most Type-Specific Support Cards". Most Dragon-Type monsters have the word "Dragon" in its card name. The word "Dragon" also exists in many non-Dragon Monster Card names, typically denoting a creature of exceptional power. Examples include "Cyber Dragon", "Power Tool Dragon", "Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier", "Blowback Dragon", "Barrel Dragon", "Solar Flare Dragon", and "Megarock Dragon".

A recent trend with multi-type Archetypes is having the trump card of the set be a Dragon-type unlike the rest of the monsters in the set, such as "Rainbow Dragon" for "Crystal Beasts", "Judgment Dragon" for the "Lightsworns", "Koa'ki Meiru Maximus" for "Koa'ki Meirus", "Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon" in "Harpie" Decks, "Dark Armed Dragon" in DARK-based decks, "Black Rose Dragon" in Plant-based decks, "Iron Chain Dragon" in "Iron Chain" Decks, and "Infernity Death Dragon" in "Infernity" decks,. The only 3 "all Dragon-Type" Archetypes are the "Legendary Dragons", the "Signer Dragons", and "Majestic" but neither of these 3 Archetypes completely supports all the monsters in itself, instead the support for these Archetypes is mainly for the individual members of that Archetype. In addition, both these Archetypes were main plot points during an arc of their respective anime.

In every Yu-Gi-Oh anime and manga series up to date, the main character's rivals all use Dragon-based decks. Seto Kaiba uses a Blue-Eyes Deck, Chazz Princeton uses an "Armed Dragon" Deck in most seasons (or "Light and Darkness Dragon" Deck in the manga), and Jack Atlas's Turbo Deck is based on summoning his "Red Dragon Archfiend" while his Ground Deck plays numerous dragon cards like "Strong Wind Dragon", "Vice Dragon", and "Exploder Dragonwing" in addition to "Red Dragon Archfiend".

LV Dragon Decks
Some dragon decks are based on the LV dragons, "Armed Dragon" and "Horus the Black Flame Dragon". These decks usually focus on leveling up their monsters quickly. To protect the high level monsters from trap cards "Royal Decree", "Jinzo", or "King Dragun" are usually used. "Horus the Black Flame Dragon" has added protection from Spell Cards and is well known for the infamous "Horus Decree" lockdown. Horus and Armed Dragon cards can even be combined to make a deck that not only locks down spell and trap cards, but also controls the opponents monsters that may get in your way.

Dragon Fusion Decks
These types of decks often focus on getting fusion monsters like "Five-Headed Dragon", "King Dragun", "Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon", and sometimes even "Dragon Master Knight" to the field. Usually "Dragon's Mirror" or "Future Fusion" is used to accomplish these tasks. If you want to summon "King Dragun" quickly, The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion, along with other substitute Fusion-Material monsters, can be of great help.

Revival Dragon/Dragon Lords Deck
The Dragon-Type Structure Deck is Rise of the Dragon Lords. This deck focuses on summoning powerful dragons to the field from the graveyard and activating their effects. "Felgrand Dragon", "Tyrant Dragon" and "Darkblaze Dragon" are good examples of this. This deck also includes "Mausoleum of the Emperor" to get tribute monsters out quickly. "Draining Shield" and "Rainbow Life" can be used to recover Life Points used for "Mausoleum of the Emperor" and "Trade-In" can be used to put powerful dragons into the graveyard to revive while drawing two cards in the process. "Decoy Dragon" works exceptionally well with this deck, being able to make a powerful combo with "Foolish Burial". "Card of Safe Return" is another great addition to this deck, since it lets you draw a card each time you summon a dragon like this. However with the new banlists, this is traditional only. An awesome way to special summon Dragons from the grave is to use "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" since it gives you a free special summon of any dragon chilling in your hand or graveyard, no matter how high of a level it is. You can also use "Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord" with "Divine Wrath" to special summon Dragons in the Graveyard. The best way to make this deck truly effective is to buy multiple structure decks and combine the more important cards into one deck. This structure deck can also be bought to get key cards for any kind of Dragon Deck.

Dragon Beatdown
This type of deck is pretty old fashioned, but it has more variations than any of the other three decks. The deck revolves around playing abnormally powerful Dragon-Type monsters and brutally beating down the opponent's life points. High level monsters can be anything mentioned in the other decks, but smaller monsters may include "Luster Dragon", "Spear Dragon", and "Blizzard Dragon". "Vanguard of the Dragon" is a relatively good card because it's basically a 2000 ATK point beatstick if you discard a Dragon to the Graveyard. Even though "Gray Wing" is relatively weak in ATK points, it can deal up to 2600 damage to the opponent if there are no monsters in its way. Monsters like "Troop Dragon", "Masked Dragon", "Twin-Headed Behemoth", and "Totem Dragon" can be used to tribute summon the more powerful monsters. Another way of playing high level Dragons without tributing is to use "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon", which special summons virtually any kind of Dragon monster you want to dish out against the opponent. Mid-Level monsters often used in this build may include "Kaiser Glider" and "Chthonian Emperor Dragon" to rid the field of stubborn monsters and attack for huge damage. To protect your monsters from spell and trap effects, cards like "Stamping Destruction" and "A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon" (Which you can also combo with "Montage Dragon" for monsters to "Discard") can help make sure that nasty traps and spells like "Shrink" and "Dimensional Prison" won't get in your way. Traps like "Dragon's Rage" can help drop the opponents life even quicker, especially when combined with monsters that have high attack points and, in some cases, attack more than once, such as "Tyrant Dragon".

Dragon Lockdown
The Dragon Lockdown Deck is a dragon deck that focuses on using strong monsters, that also prevent your opponent from doing anything besides attacking. The first major part of this deck could be what is known as Horus Lockdown, using "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8" to prevent your opponent from using any spell cards that may hurt you, and combining this with "Royal Decree" to prevent them from using any trap cards. Another card very important to this deck is "Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode" using his effect to stop your opponents spell, trap, and monster effects. "Prime Material Dragon" is another extremely useful dragon which prevents your opponent from destroying your cards by card effect, and it stops the use of effect damage. The final card to ensure your dragons safety could be "Lord of D." or even better "King Dragun" to stop your opponent from targeting your dragons, and in "King Dragun's" case, lets you special summon a dragon a turn. If you can manage to get two or more of these powerhouse dragons on the field it stops your opponent from doing anything, besides attacking leaving them vulnerable to the power of your dragons.

Graveyard Dragon Power
This Deck's main focus is to keep sending Dragons to the Graveyard, so "Genesis Dragon" is recommended, to power up powerful Dragon monsters like: "Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon" or "Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon". This Deck could also be used as a lockdown. Once "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8" is on the field it could stop Spells from effecting your Dragons. You could also use the "Dark Paladin" to negate Spells's as well, but still gain the ATK points to crush your opponent. "Royal Decree", "The Dragon's Bead", and "Jinzo" would be useful to stop Traps, and then use "Divine Wrath" or "Destiny Hero - Plasma" to stop monster abilities from destroying your "Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon". You can also use "Destruction Jammer" to negate the activation of Spells, Traps and Monster effects. This will help you more in the long run giving you a better option in tight fix, as well as allowing you to summon Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord and use its effects depending on the card you negated.

Strengths
Dragons have been known to have the most powerful attacks and, in some cases, broken effects. An attack from a good sized Dragon like "Five-Headed Dragon" can take huge chunks out of the opponent's life points. Since most dragons have atk points that can overpower popular cards like "Goyo Guardian", "Thought Ruler Archfiend", "Dark Armed Dragon", "Judgment Dragon", and even "Gladiator Beast Heraklinos", the only way to bring down a sizeable dragon is to use effects. Sometimes even that becomes hard though, since cards like "Prime Material Dragon", "Light and Darkness Dragon", "Stardust Dragon", and even "King Dragun" will help prevent any vital Dragons from being destroyed or targeted by effects, not to mention "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8" will block out any spell cards from wreaking havoc on your field while a "Royal Decree" blocks out the trap cards ("Tyrant Dragon" can even protect himself from most trap cards without the help of either of the other dragons). Plus, even if you do end up losing one of your dragons, you can bring it back just as easy with the help of "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon". If you do not have any of those monsters out, "Dragonic Knight" can special summon himself from your hand if the opponent tries to destroy your monsters with monster card effects. A well built Dragon Fusion Deck can also bring trouble since "King Dragun" has the power to protect all dragons you control from targeting effects like "Dark Armed Dragon" and "Brain Control" plus special summon powerful dragons like "Tyrant Dragon" or "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" from the hand. "Montage Dragon" also has the ability to become a powerhouse monster if you discard high level dragons from your hand, sometimes becoming even stronger than "Five-Headed Dragon".

Weaknesses
However, there are major weaknesses with Dragon decks, and all have one in common: Summoning the Dragons. Since "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8" cannot be special summoned except with it's own effect, cards like "Level Up!" and "Level Modulation" are usually used to override this problem, but "Counter Trap Cards" like "Solemn Judgment" or "Dark Bribe" can impede your progress. Plus, "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6" has only 2300 ATK points, leaving it vulnerable to monsters like "Goyo Guardian" or any of the Monarchs. In Dragon Fusion Decks, it's highly important to be able to keep "King Dragun" on the field to be able to summon the bigger dragons, but it's 2400 ATK is low enough for any Monarch to destroy in battle. A good way to counter this kind of move is to use traps like "Waboku" or "Threatening Roar" to prevent the opponent from attacking or dealing battle damage. If your opponent knows you have a Dragon Fusion Deck, he or she may try to use "Chthonian Polymer" to gain control of any Dragon you fusion summon, which is deadly when playing "Five-Headed Dragon". If "King Dragun" ends up getting destroyed, level 5 or higher dragons you draw later will become dead draws and slow the deck down to a crawl. A good counter measure for this would be to use "Trade-In" on level 8 monsters you draw but cannot play. Card effects that do not target like "Judgment Dragon" or "Mirror Force" cannot be negated with "King Dragun" and would therefore require a "Prime Material Dragon", "Light and Darkness Dragon" or "Stardust Dragon" to stop them. If you do manage to play some good Dragons, the opponent might play "Prehistoric Biological Graveyard", and that will wreck almost any kind of Dragon based deck. "Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror" is used against a Hopeless Dragon Deck to negate the effects of the majority of DARK monsters, but it is not a major problem if you use your monsters correctly (Activate the effect of either "Dark Armed Dragon" or "Dark Creator" to remove "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon" from play, and special summon it using "D.D.R. - Different Dimension Reincarnation". This is allowed because the former two remove a card as their cost, and therefore cannot be negated by SIM). Finally, cards like "Royal Oppression", "Vanity's Ruler", "Vanity's Fiend", "Jowgen the Spiritualist", "Fossil Dyna Pachycephalo", and "Thunder King Rai-Oh" can also prevent any of these dragons from being summoned at all and will need to be removed from the field in order to summon your cards. In the case of a Hopeless Dragon Deck, a major drawback to this would be the number of high-level monsters, and therefore, drawing mostly unsummonable monsters with no means of discarding them could spell defeat. Also, the new "Koa'ki Meiru Drago" combined with a "Imperial Iron Wall" would single handedly shut down a Hopeless Dragon deck should the player not have any means of normal summoning and/or spell & trap destruction.

Anti-Dragon Cards
Another major weakness is that quite a few cards have been specially made for destroying or weakening dragons, otherwise known as Anti-Dragon cards. Not only does "Buster Blader" get stronger as dragon after dragon gets summoned and destroyed, but it is also the perfect candidate for "Sword of Dragon's Soul". If "Buster Blader" was equipped with that plus "Mist Body", it could take out virtually any dragon you throw at it, even the mighty "Five-Headed Dragon" who normally can't be destroyed in battle by anything not of the LIGHT Attribute. Also, a fairly new card called "Victoria" can special summon your dragons to the opponents field to be used against you, and dealing with your own dragons usually isn't an easy task to accomplish, especially if the monster the opponent took is a Tuner Monster like "Magna Drago" or "The White Stone of Legend". Plus there's "Dark Paladin", which can be used for/or against dragons and negate key spell cards like "Dragon's Mirror" and "Trade-In". "Dragon Manipulator" and "Dragon Seeker" can be tricky to deal with, but can be easily overcome with "King Dragun". "Dragon Capture Jar" can wreak severe havoc on any and all of your Dragons since "King Dragun", "Stardust Dragon", and "Prime Material Dragon" cannot stop it.

Solutions to Anti-Dragon cards
There are ways of getting around Anti-Dragon cards. One quick and easy method of accomplishing this is to use "Exploder Dragon". Since it kills anything that destroys it in battle, it can overpower cards like "Buster Blader" and even "Dark Paladin", while at the same time taking no battle damage. You may also use the "Armed Dragon" cards to destroy "Dragon Seeker" since it has relatively weak ATK points, and "Armed Dragon LV10" can just wipe out all your opponents face-up monsters no matter how many ATK points they possess. Montage Dragon can also be used to potentially become more powerful than "Dark Paladin" or "Buster Blader" by discarding high level monsters like "Blue-Eyes White Dragon" or "Tyrant Dragon". "Dragon Piper" can be used to rid the field of any "Dragon Capture Jar" cards on the field that are preventing you from attacking. If the opponent tries to play "Victoria" and gains control of some of your dragons, a good spell to counter this kind of move is "Owner's Seal". With this, you can gain control of your dragons again and use them to get rid of "Victoria". Finally, the spell card "Dragon's Mirror" can be doubly effective by removing any Dragons in your graveyard to fusion summon "Five-Headed Dragon" plus power down "Buster Blader" and "Dark Paladin" in the process (this is assuming that there are no cards to discard for "Dark Paladin's" effect).

Recommended Cards
Some cards that can be used in Dragon Decks.

Monsters

 * Blue-Eyes White Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Black Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Black Chick
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Decoy Dragon
 * The White Stone of Legend
 * Masked Dragon
 * Spirit Ryu
 * Divine Dragon Ragnarok
 * Spear Dragon
 * Luster Dragon
 * Montage Dragon
 * Prime Material Dragon
 * Tyrant Dragon
 * Exploder Dragon
 * Dark Armed Dragon
 * Dragon Master Knight
 * B. Skull Dragon
 * King Dragun
 * Five-Headed Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend
 * Black Rose Dragon
 * Stardust Dragon
 * Luster Dragon 2

Spells

 * Summoner's Art
 * Ancient Rules
 * Double Summon
 * Dragon's Mirror
 * Foolish Burial
 * Future Fusion
 * Heavy Storm
 * Mystical Space Typhoon
 * Swords of Revealing Light
 * A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon
 * Stamping Destruction
 * Cost Down
 * Mausoleum of the Emperor

Trap Cards

 * Burst Breath
 * Dragon's Rage
 * Sakuretsu Armor
 * The Dragon's Bead

Monsters

 * Armed Dragon LV3
 * Armed Dragon LV5
 * Armed Dragon LV7
 * Armed Dragon LV10
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV4
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV6
 * Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8
 * Mirage Dragon
 * Masked Dragon
 * Jinzo
 * Destiny Hero - Plasma

Spells

 * Level Up!
 * Level Down!?
 * Level Modulation

Traps

 * Royal Decree

Monsters

 * Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon
 * Blue-Eyes White Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Red-Eyes B. Dragon
 * Red-Eyes B. Chick
 * Buster Blader
 * Dark Magician
 * Genesis Dragon
 * Black Luster Soldier
 * Divine Dragon Ragnarok
 * Lord of D.
 * The Light - Hex-Sealed Fusion
 * The Dark - Hex-Sealed Fusion
 * Magna Drago
 * The White Stone of Legend
 * Decoy Dragon
 * Debris Dragon
 * White-Horned Dragon
 * Paladin of White Dragon
 * Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
 * Masked Dragon
 * Majestic Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend/Assault Mode
 * Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode
 * Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord

Spells

 * Dragon's Mirror
 * Future Fusion
 * Polymerization
 * Super Polymerization
 * Branch!
 * White Dragon Ritual
 * Fusion Gate
 * Black Luster Ritual
 * Super Rejuvenation

Traps

 * Dragon's Rage
 * The Dragon's Bead
 * Return from the Different Dimension
 * DNA Surgery (Use with Five-Headed Dragon and Super Polymerization. Also allows Dark Paladin to gain more ATK.)
 * Assault Mode Activate
 * Destruction Jammer

Fusion Monsters

 * Five-Headed Dragon
 * Dragon Master Knight
 * Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
 * Dark Paladin
 * King Dragun
 * Surging Dragon Knight Dragoequites

Synchro Monsters

 * Stardust Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend
 * Black Rose Dragon
 * Exploder Dragonwing
 * Light End Dragon
 * Dark End Dragon
 * Trident Dragion
 * Ancient Fairy Dragon
 * Majestic Star Dragon
 * Majestic Red Dragon

Monsters

 * Felgrand Dragon
 * Darkblaze Dragon
 * Tyrant Dragon
 * Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Decoy Dragon
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern
 * The Creator
 * The Creator Incarnate
 * Spear Cretin
 * Genesis Dragon

Spells

 * Mausoleum of the Emperor
 * Foolish Burial
 * Trade-In
 * The Shallow Grave
 * Gold Sarcophagus
 * Temple of the Sun

Traps

 * Draining Shield
 * Rainbow Life
 * Destruction Jammer
 * Call of the Haunted

Monsters

 * Spirit Ryu
 * Blue-Eyes White Dragon
 * Kaibaman
 * Paladin of White Dragon
 * Magna Drago
 * The White Stone of Legend
 * Debris Dragon
 * Exploder Dragon
 * Light and Darkness Dragon
 * Masked Dragon
 * Montage Dragon
 * Twin-Headed Behemoth
 * Tyrant Dragon
 * White-Horned Dragon
 * Chthonian Emperor Dragon
 * Dragon Ice
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
 * Tiger Dragon
 * Phantom Dragon
 * Troop Dragon
 * Dragonic Knight
 * Des Volstgalph
 * Kaiser Glider
 * Gandora the Dragon of Destruction
 * Luster Dragon
 * Spear Dragon
 * Blizzard Dragon
 * Strong Wind Dragon
 * Vice Dragon
 * Infernal Dragon
 * Handcuffs Dragon
 * Axe Dragonute
 * Koa'ki Meiru Drago
 * Genesis Dragon
 * Dragon's Vanguard
 * Totem Dragon
 * White Night Dragon
 * Lance Lindwurm (OCG Only)
 * Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon
 * Red-Eyes B. Dragon
 * Red-Eyes B. Chick
 * Red-Eyes Wyvern

Spells
dragons treasure
 * Stamping Destruction
 * A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon
 * Super Rejuvenation
 * Polymerization
 * Dragon's Mirror

Traps

 * Dragon's Rage
 * The Dragon's Bead
 * Burst Breath

Fusion Monsters

 * Five-Headed Dragon
 * Dragon Master Knight
 * Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon
 * B. Skull Dragon
 * King Dragun
 * Surging Dragon Knight Dragoequites
 * Backfire

Synchro Monsters

 * Stardust Dragon
 * Red Dragon Archfiend
 * Black Rose Dragon
 * Black-Winged Dragon
 * Ancient Fairy Dragon
 * Trident Dragion
 * Exploder Dragonwing
 * Light End Dragon
 * Dark End Dragon
 * Majestic Star Dragon
 * Majestic Red Dragon
 * Iron Chain Dragon