Deck Profile - Supercell (Outdated)

This used to be a pure Thunder Knights deck. Not anymore. Viable a year ago, I've felt that Bushiroad was moving too far away from the old Thunder Knights support that it was no longer feasible to simply depend on stuff like Thunder Formation and archetype-based love. But I also didn't want this deck to turn into some weird Armordragons toolbox. It was tough trying to figure out what to do with this, really.

Enter Japanese Regionals results. The person who topped played a Thunder-Crimson mix, weaving in the newer Hundred archetype with the old Thunder archetype. And guess what? It's not a bad idea on paper. Of course, being a Japanese player (great idea, really awkward ratios and choices) his deck was...kinda funky. So I'm more or less rebuilding it to be mathematically sound and efficient.

From Thunder Knights, we grab the plussing engine, damage pumps, and Penetrate effects. From Crimsons, the new weapons, control-based abilities, and the ridiculously good Impact. Play to the strengths of both worlds, and you find yourself able to do pretty much anything.

Now that we've overviewed the deck idea in general, let's go straight to the list.

Supercell - Thunder Crimson

Size 2

• 2 Crimson Battler, Drum Bunker Dragon
• 4 Thunder Knights, Drum Bunker Dragon
• 4 Thunder Knights Leader, Kommandeur Fahne

Size 1

• 4 Thunder Knights, Dragoarcher
• 4 Crimson Battler, Burn Guts Dragon
• 4 Crimson Battler, Rock Bunker Dragon

Size 0

• 1 Boomerang Dragon

Items

• 2 Steel Fist, Dragoknuckle
• 4 Sun Fist, Sunshine Impact

Spells

• 4 Green Dragon Shield
• 4 Blue Dragon Shield
• 4 Dragonic Loop
• 2 Dragonic Air Raid
• 2 Green Dragon Knights "Song of Ancient Lands"
• 2 Dragonic Grimoire

Impacts

• 3 Gigantic Crusher!!

Deck Deconstruction

It's a whole new beast now.

I won't go over what's changed, because practically the entire deck's been rebuilt. Instead, I'll cover what this new build does and does well.

First, take a good look at the monsters in this deck. Look at how much crit this deck packs. There's nothing in sight with less than 2-crit, and Kommandeur even makes all your Thunder Knights have 3. This deck is meant to hit fast and hard, winning without giving your opponent much of a say in things.

To aid that effort, we're going to be packing some good Penetrate at 2 in this deck. Specifically, two different Drum Bunkers: Crimson Battler and Thunder Knights. We're running more of the Thunder Knights one (don't give him any soul, please) even though Crimson Battler is technically better because A: he has Move and B: he has Thunder Knights in his name. You need as many Size 2 targets for Dragoarcher's requirement as you can. Plus Move helps mitigate some damage and gives you a few outs for strategic purposes. Kommandeur Fahne is pretty self-explanatory.

Size 1, Dragoarcher. This is literally the only reason we still keep Thunder Knights as a base in this deck, because Dragon World has virtually no draw power and Dragoarcher is that sole salvation. Dragoarcher works best with, obviously, Kommandeur Fahne - but don't feel shy about calling it even when Drum is on the board. You want your draws, desperately.

The other Size 1's get bonuses for having Fist items equipped, which means they won't be effective immediately but will surely get there. Rock Bunker Dragon is the special one, since he gives you a gauge on-call which is major news for this deck. Burn Guts Dragon gets Move which again helps out with controlling your board and redirecting attacks.

1 Boomerang Dragon because you don't need more in this deck, once you get it you keep it.

Your weapons are all Fists, a 4/2 spread of Sunshine Impact to Dragoknuckle. The reason you favor Sunshine Impact is for the additional power for reach and the fact that you have quite a lot of gauge ramp in this deck already. Since Sunshine Impact's your main focus, your buddy choice is pretty important. I recommend Thunder Knights Drum so you can link for infinite power and also get Penetrate.

Spells are where it gets a bit interesting. Green Blue Shields are normal, but what's Dragonic Loop doing in this deck? Well, that used to be 4 Dragobond until Dragonic Loop became a thing. Think about it. You bounce a monster (save it) and gain 1 gauge (+0.5). It's almost as much advantage as a Dragobond, but the important thing is that you get to play that monster again next turn. Does bouncing Dragoarchers for more draw appeal to you? Yeah? Well, how about I tell you that you can call Kommandeur Fahne, call Dragoarcher, draw 1, attack, Move Dragoarcher to the center to defend, Dragonic Loop Dragoarcher for 1 gauge, and then drop Dragoarcher again next turn to draw again? Best of all, with Green Dragon Song that gives you +1 life too. Dragobond's definitely been outclassed.

If you think about it, as long as Dragonic Loop targets a monster in your center it's essentially Blue Dragon Shield. With 12 Move, that shouldn't be a hard thing to do.

You have a lot of gauge in this deck, so it's a smart idea to use Dragonic Air Raid as a tech against scary threats that need to be gone immediately. Like Azi Dahaka, Excalibur,  Forcearms, etc.

Grimoire and Green Dragon Song explanatory.

Gigantic Crusher for game.

Sideboard Ideas

Dragon Breath has been a great counter to aggressive decks that run monsters with low power but strong effects. This includes DDW, Dungeon, Legend, and Magic to an extent. Since your monsters are mainly set, you want to give your spell and item lineup more flexibility to compensate. Dragonic Counter and The Skies in Your Hand are all other options of bouncing your monsters, and they're pretty good in this deck. Dragobond-Move is always an option as well. Choose which ones suit your style the most.

Sample Sideboard:

• 4 Dragon Breath
• 2 Dragonic Counter
• 2 The Skies in your Hand
• 2 Dragobond

Other Options

Dragoenergy is a great card and often can catch opponents off-guard, especially when they were expecting an easy kill. It's a perfectly viable alternative to Dragobond, and it works better with Halberd Dragon (so you can possibly bring him back). There's actually too many viable counter spells in Dragon World to really go over them all now, but I've more or less covered all the relevant ones for this deck.

Since gauge is virtually unlimited in this deck, you can feel free to utilize really gauge-expensive cards that you normally wouldn't run, like Dragonic Destroy or Dragogenius. If you really wanted to pressure damage unending, "Song of Burning March" could be a fun usage of all that gauge you get. On the topic of songs, "Proud Song of Soul" fixes a lot of power issues with the deck, bringing all your monsters to wall-breaking levels. And with the amount of bouncing you do, you may want to experiment with Return System.

Impact-wise, Dragon World has a lot to choose from. Notably, Dragonic Kaiser Nova is a neat alternative to Gigantic Punisher!! that does not require both centers to be open and allows you to field wipe in the process while dealing decent damage.

Avoid Running

Your monsters are almost completely fixed, although Burn Guts can be changed to whatever fits the purpose better. I chose Burn Guts over the others for synergy with Dragonic Loop and the fact that the Penetrate Size 1 and all the 3-crit ones have way too little power. This deck needs to hit acceptable power levels since it plays control until you can reach for game.

Day of the Dragon is a semi-common spell I see. I don't like it, because you can't deal the 3 ideal attacks that you normally would be able to and it only really allows you to deal at most 3 damage in one turn. That's far less than the average capabilities of this deck. Day of the Dragon is really a stop-gap last-ditch measure - you're more often than not better off using Dragonic Destroy.

There are more Dragon Shields than people know what to deal with now. Notably Primeval and Red Dragon Shield are alternatives in this deck, if you really want to go for the surprise. Actually, Red Dragon Shield sounds kinda fun.

Please. No.

Counters

This deck is mostly beatdown, so it loses to very dedicated walling and stalling decks. Not so much Magic World since they can't handle Penetrate and sticky monsters, but definitely stuff like Deep and Ancient World. You really need to keep your wits about you and choose carefully against those decks. I would have like to tech anti-soul stuff but unfortunately Dragon World has very bad options in that regard.

Otherwise, you pretty much out-DPS everything that lives and anything that tries to hit harder you wipe out.

Final Words

The deck's changed drastically, but I think change is for the better. It goes to show how older decks can still thrive with some adaptation. I mean, a variant of this won a Regionals, so it must have been alright. I personally think this deck has a lot of potential and combining with some of the newer support, this deck poses a serious midgame threat. Try it yourself and see if you like it.

Finally, while each deck profile will come with an article name that I predetermine and a preliminary deck name, I'd really like some input on deck names. For one week after a decklist is posted, feel free to post the most creative, humorous, clever, or awesome names you can think of. I'll choose my favorite at the end of the time (along with some honorable mentions) and the deck will be named such, with due attribution to the contributor. I'll be looking forward to what kinds of interesting stuff you guys can come up with!

Update: The names you guys had were great! I loved all the references, from famous books to other memetic characters. A Certain Scientific Drum? That one was almost too good! However, I love names that have a certain backstory to them and this one certainly delivered. Also, it gives me an excuse to post something Miku-related.

Winner of the deck-naming challenge: Bradley Stone @ Supercell

- updated to H-BT02, CP01, H-EB01, H-TD02, PP01 -

All images used obtained from the official Bushiroad website and used here solely for reference purposes. Future Card Buddyfight!, logos, and respective content belong to Bushiroad. Large images belong to the Buddyfight! Wikia.