I've always liked Winged Beasts and Harpies, and after I acquired the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys from the Elemental Energy Special Edition release, I decided to at long last construct a deck around them. But with this deck I didn't aim to make something fierce or that would show off a lot of flashy rare cards. Instead, this workshop article will detail a deck that is wildly original and still plays pretty well. This article is for the *fun* in the game which most tournament players have long since forgotten about.
The theme of the deck is Wind and Fire and making the two elements work together as much as possible. The inspiration for this comes from the Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys herself, who is a Winged Beast of Fire who is reborn from her own ashes any time an effect destroys her. She'll be our centerpiece, and we'll include some specific support for her as well.
- Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
[FIRE/Level 8/Winged Beast/ATK 2400/DEF 1600]
If this card is destroyed by a card effect, Special Summon this card during your next Standby Phase. If you Special Summon this card in this way, destroy all Spell and Trap Cards on the field.
- Hand of Nephthys
[WIND/Level 2/Spellcaster/ATK 600/DEF 600]
Tribute 2 monsters on your side of the field, including this card, to Special Summon 1 "Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys" from your hand or Deck.
- Flame Ruler
[FIRE/Level 4/Pyro/ATK 1500/DEF 1600]
If you Tribute Summon a FIRE monster, you can treat this 1 monster as 2 Tribute Monsters for the Tribute Summon.
- Rope of Life
[Normal Trap Card]
When 1 of your monsters is sent to the Graveyard as a result of battle, discard your entire hand to activate this card. Special Summon the monster to the field, increasing the ATK of the monster by 800 points.
Hand of Nephthys is critical for making the Sacred Phoenix more playable, since her status as a Level 8 monster makes her difficult to summon and would also make her 2400 ATK hard to stomach. Though the tributes required are not reduced, you can call the Phoenix from your deck as a Special Summon, which can be very powerful.
Flame Ruler on the other hand will allow us to normally summon the Phoenix with just one tribute and is thus great for this deck. I also include Rope of Life here, and although it's not necessarily specific to the Phoenix, it does combo with her extremely well, making up for her resurrection effect's limitation and simultaneously making her ATK much more worthy of her level.
Just with these first three cards a theme of Wind, Fire, and Winged Beasts has rapidly emerged, so let's add more monsters of these types and attributes to create some synergy. Harpies are simply a must in any Winged Beast deck, and the newer effect versions of Harpie Lady have effects that can help our other Wind monsters.
- Harpie's Brother
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1800/DEF 600]
With eyes like a hawk and a flying speed exceeding Mach 5, this monster is a master of the sky.
- Harpie Lady 1
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1300/DEF 1400]
This card's name is treated as "Harpie Lady". As long as this card remains on the field, increase the ATK of all WIND monsters by 300 points.
- Harpie Lady 2
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1300/DEF 1400]
This card's name is treated as "Harpie Lady". Negate the effects of any Flip Effect Monsters that are destroyed by this monster as a result of battle.
- Harpie Lady 3
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1300/DEF 1400]
This card's name is treated as "Harpie Lady". Your opponent's monster that battles with this card cannot declare an attack for your opponent's next 2 turns.
- Birdface
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1600/DEF 1600]
When this card is sent to the Graveyard as a result of battle, you can add 1 "Harpie Lady" from your Deck to your hand. Then shuffle your Deck.
- Harpie's Hunting Ground
[Field Spell Card]
When "Harpie Lady" or "Harpie Lady Sisters" is Normal Summoned or Special Summoned to the field, destroy 1 Spell or Trap Card on the field. Increase the ATK and DEF of all face-up Winged Beast-Type monsters on the field by 200 points.
- Elegant Egotist
[Normal Spell Card]
You can only activate this card when there are 1 or more "Harpie Lady" on the field. Special Summon 1 "Harpie Lady" or "Harpie Lady Sisters" from your hand or your Deck.
This is a great start. We already have things that'll power up both Wind and Winged Beast monsters, but it's not enough. For the rest of the monster line-up, let's take a look at some of these baddies:
- Roc from the Valley of Haze
[WIND/Level 6/Winged Beast/ATK 2400/DEF 1400]
When this card is sent directly from your hand to the Graveyard, add this card to the Deck and shuffle it.
- Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
[FIRE/Level 6/Pyro/ATK 2400/DEF 1000]
When this card is Tribute Summoned successfully, randomly discard 1 card from your opponent's hand to the Graveyard. If the discarded card was a Monster Card, inflict damage to your opponent's Life Points equal to the Level of the monster x 100 points.
- Winged Sage Falcos
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1700/DEF 1200]
You can return your opponent's face-up Attack Position monster that this card destroyed and sent to the Graveyard as a result of battle to the top of your opponent's Deck.
- Spirit of Flames
[FIRE/Level 4/Pyro/ATK 1700/DEF 1000]
This card can only be Special Summoned by removing 1 FIRE monster in your Graveyard from play. Increase the ATK of this monster by 300 points during your Battle Phase.
- Element Dragon
[LIGHT/Level 4/Dragon/ATK 1500/DEF 1200]
This monster gets the following effect(s) while there is a monster(s) with the following Attribute(s) on the field:
* FIRE: Increase the ATK of this card by 500 points.
* WIND: If this card destroyed your opponent's monster as a result of battle, it can attack once again in a row.
- Fushi No Tori
[FIRE/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1200/DEF 0]
This card cannot be Special Summoned. This card returns to the owner's hand during the End Phase of the turn that this card is Normal Summoned, Flip Summoned, or flipped face-up. When this card inflicts Battle Damage to your opponent's Life Points, increase your Life Points by an amount equal to the Battle Damage.
- Fox Fire
[FIRE/Level 2/Pyro/ATK 300/DEF 200]
During the End Phase of a turn when this face-up card was destroyed as a result of battle, Special Summon this card from the Graveyard to your side of the field. This card cannot be Tributed for a Tribute Summon.
There are a lot of things to consider here. Roc and Thestalos are just some obligatory tributes of each type that I chose. You could opt to leave them out, or to replace them with other similar monsters (hopefully ones with better effects). Winged Sage Falcos can become ridiculously powerful under influence of our Winged Beast support cards, and his Back to Square One style effect jams up the opponent's draw phases. Element Dragon is a logical choice for this deck and he will have both of his effects active at once most of the time, turning him into an odd sort of Berserk Gorilla. Fox Fire is an interesting card which is almost like Sinister Serpent. There's a card we need to add to make him work right for us, however:
- Light of Intervention
[Continuous Trap Card]
Monster Cards cannot be played face-down. Monsters Set in Defense Position are played face-up on the field and are considered summoned.
Note that we are not running any Flip Effect monsters of our own, so why not include Light of Intervention and shut down the opponent's completely? I recommend more than one copy of it too, as it will simultaneously allow us to play Fox Fire in face-up Defense Position. Fox Fire is extremely useful with the Hand of Nephthys, for while he cannot be tributed in a Tribute Summon, Hand of Nephthys' effect is a Special Summon and therefore Fox Fire can be used for it. How crafty!
We're still missing one thing, though. One thing that no self-respecting Wind deck should do without. And while I said we weren't running any Flip Effect monsters, that's not technically going to be true. However, we're not really running this one because it's a Flip Effect, but because it's just plain awesome:
- Slate Warrior
[WIND/Level 4/Fiend/ATK 1900/DEF 400]
FLIP: Increase the ATK and DEF of this monster by 500 points. The ATK and DEF of a monster that destroys this monster as a result of battle is decreased by 500 points.
- Soul Reversal
[Quickplay Spell Card]
Return 1 Flip Effect Monster from your Graveyard to the top of your Deck.
Ahhh, yes, the mighty Slate Warrior. And since he's our most powerful beatstick, I've included the interesting spell Soul Reversal, which seems tailor-made to work with Slate Warrior. So now, while Winged Sage Falcos shuts down the opponent's draw phase, we can play Soul Reversal to control the outcome of our own. This is really useful and has won me some duels.
This completes the line-up of monsters, and believe it or not, the line-up of everything that is unique about the deck. I kid you not. Fill up the rest of it with generic staples or even more support of your choosing, because we're done with theme-specific cards.
Final Deck List
Here's the final deck which I put together based only on cards I own. Keep in mind that this list only represents a suggestion, and that as noted above, there are many other possibilities. This deck is a fun deck, so I'm not making it overly aggressive or crowding in unrelated garbage like Jinzo or Exiled Force. Leave that to the Cookie Cutters.
- Monsters x 21:
- Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
- Hand of Nephthys x 2
- Flame Ruler
- Harpie's Brother x 2
- Harpie Lady 1
- Harpie Lady 2
- Harpie Lady 3
- Birdface
- Roc from the Valley of Haze
- Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch
- Winged Sage Falcos
- Spirit of Flames
- Element Dragon x 2
- Fushi No Tori
- Fox Fire
- Slate Warrior x 2
- Sangan
- Spells x 14:
- Brain Control
- Elegant Egotist
- Graceful Charity
- Harpie's Hunting Ground x 2
- Heavy Storm
- Lightning Vortex
- Magical Mallet
- Mystical Space Typhoon
- Nobleman of Crossout
- Premature Burial
- Snatch Steal
- Soul Reversal
- Swords of Revealing Light
- Traps x 7:
- Call of the Haunted
- Light of Intervention x 2
- Rope of Life
- Seven Tools of the Bandit
- Spell Shield Type-8
- Torrential Tribute
- Total Cards: 42
Some alternative cards you might consider running in this deck that I didn't mention in the article before include the following:
- Harpie Lady Sisters
[WIND/Level 6/Winged Beast/ATK 1950/DEF 2100]
This monster can only be Special Summoned with the Magic Card "Elegant Egotist".
If you opt to include the Harpies element of the deck (and I recommend it whole-heartedly) and you choose to run Elegant Egotist, you might want to include the more powerful Harpie Lady Sisters. However, she's a dead draw most of the time. Some other alternate Harpie cards follow below. I won't provide any review of them but rather leave you to think about the consequences of running them on your own:
- Cyber Harpie Lady
[WIND/Level 4/Winged Beast/ATK 1800/DEF 1300]
This card's name is treated as "Harpie Lady".
- Harpie's Pet Dragon
[WIND/Level 7/Dragon/ATK 2000/DEF 2500]
Increase the ATK and DEF of this card by 300 points for each face-up "Harpie Lady" on the field.
- Triangle Ecstasy Spark
[Normal Spell Card]
Until the End Phase of this turn, the ATK of all "Harpie Lady Sisters" becomes 2700, your opponent cannot activate any Trap Cards, and the effect of every Trap Card on your opponent's side of the field is negated.
- Flying Kamakiri #1
[WIND/Level 4/Insect/ATK 1400/DEF 900]
When this card is sent to the Graveyard as a result of battle, you may select 1 WIND monster with an ATK of 1500 or less from your Deck and Special Summon it to the Field (no Tribute is required for monsters of Level 5 or more). The Deck is then shuffled.
There are also many, many different options when it comes to Fire monsters, but most of them tend toward the realm of Burn, which is not something I was going for in this project. You could do it, but I don't think the Wind attackers have much synergy with a stall-based Burn strategy, which will by necessity crowd out most of their support.
This concludes the second Advanced Deck Workshop article, and I hope you enjoyed seeing a deck built for fun rather than out of the need to gratify some kind of grotesque brain-washed superiority complex that seems to make a lot of players believe their manhood rides on their deck's win/loss ratio and that this somehow makes them more special than the hundred other idiots who think the exact same thing. This is Quasar signing out!