Disaster Dragon

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See also: Hopeless Dragon.

Disaster Dragon is an aggressive control oriented Deck, created by Richard Clarke^[1]. It plays disruption strategies to gain and maintain control of the Duel. An evolution of the popular Hopeless Dragon deck, Disaster Dragon is one of the most popular dragon decks in the competitive scene and easily the most consistent.

Gameplay

Disaster Dragon is a control oriented deck that plays disruption strategies mixed with lockdown aggression to gain and maintain control of the board. It carries a lot of momentum and explosive power as the deck can consistently drop two or more monsters per turn without losing advantage and often times they will be big monsters. This is done through the use of the decks backbone card, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Weighing in at 2800 ATK, this card is easily the most powerful or one of the most powerful dragons in the deck, outclassed only by a potential White Night Dragon. Red-Eyes' effect allows for the constant recursion of monsters from the graveyard as well as the ability to bypass the normal summon limit and the requirements for tributes that many decks suffer from. As a result Disaster decks are packing some of the highest ATK monsters in the present Metagame, because they can bypass the tribute mechanic required to summon them.

Obviously ATK points don’t do much on their own, but the fact that its carrying these powerhouses only serves to solidify Disaster Dragon's real strengths: disruption and lockdown. Through the usage of cards such as Koa'ki Meiru Drago, Exploder Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon alone the deck is capable of shutting down and eliminating a majority of plays made by the current popular decks. The deck plays like a toolbox, with Masked Dragon working to recruit the dragons you need for tributes, Synchro Monsters, battle, monster removal, etc and cards like Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Genesis Dragon allowing you to reuse them. Cards such as Foolish Burial and Future Fusion allow you to dump dragons into your graveyard faster while also aiding in the deck's inherent synergy; some dragons such as Yamata Dragon or Light and Darkness Dragon cannot be Special Summoned, thus they are unable to bypass their two-tribute requirement via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon as most dragons would. Instead, the deck utilizes Totem Dragon, a self-recurring dragon that can act as two tributes in order to summon a dragon-type monster. Being a dragon itself, Totem Dragon is a viable target to search with Masked Dragon or to dump with Future Fusion. It can also be easily revived by Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.

The idea with Koa'ki Meiru Drago is to play it after REDMD is on the field, or remove him from the field by other means in order to summon REDMD. One of the most common analogies for Koa'ki Meiru Drago's usage compares it to a switch, courtesy of a feature match involving Richard Clarke, the decks creator, where he flipped Koa'ki Meiru Drago on and off the field, allowing himself all the Special Summons and locking his opponent out of any.

Future Fusion also carries synergy with Genesis Dragon. Allowing you to discard dragons from your hand to the grave and retrieve others in a form of reverse tutoring. Genesis Dragon also carries synergy with Yamata Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon. Both dragons cannot be Special Summoned from the grave, but with Genesis they can be re-summoned again and again. An infinite loop exists with Light and Darkness Dragon and Genesis Dragon in which you tribute Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Genesis Dragon for Light and Darkness Dragon. When LaDD dies you bring back Red-Eyes and use its effect to revive Genesis, who returns the Light and Darkness Dragon to your hand. Then, you can sacrifice them both to summon it again and spam LaDD. It's fairly unstable for obvious reasons but the ability to infinitely reuse a monster as powerful as Light and Darkness Dragon is definitely an option the deck has at its disposal.

In basic summary, Disaster Dragon is a control oriented deck that utilizes a full deck of dragons. As it doesn't rely on any combos to go off, it's by far the most consistent dragon deck and is one of the favoured choices online. Future Fusion is the power house dumper of the deck, and, although it's not needed, it kicks the deck into high gear instantly by giving you five dragons of your choice in the grave, right where you want them. Masked Dragon acts as a recruiter-toolbox engine. Red-Eyes can swarm the field or reuse dragons. Yamata and Light and Darkness Dragon rack up a ton of advantage and disrupt/lock down the field. Prime Material covers your dragons from your opponent's backrow. Drago stops the opponent from summoning powerful Light or Dark-attributed monsters and also acts as another control measure. Genesis Dragon allows you to recycle lost dragons, trading in dead ones.

The deck does not pilot itself and requires forethought and careful consideration of options. Every choice made with what you dump, search, and revive can tilt the scales in either favour. It plays aggressively, as almost every monster in the deck has higher ATK than opposing monsters. It can utilize this in its favour and play a momentum game. By locking down the opponent's options while you continue to amass your own, it is quite easy to take complete control of a duel in a matter of turns.

Recommended cards

Monsters

Spells

Traps

Extra Deck

References

↑ yugioh-card.com USA National Championship 2009 event coverage

[1] yugioh-card.com USA National Championship 2009 event coverage

[1]