Purgatory Knight

It's funny how Purgatory Knights get their own archetype in Darkness Dragon World. I mean, Thunder Knights didn't get anything for Dragon World - but that's because in Dragon World, being an Armordragon was normal. In Darkness Dragon World? Armordragon/White Dragon is the most useless attribute set ever.

Thankfully, Bushiroad was gracious enough to gift Purgatory Knights an insane amount of support on entry, from spells to weapons to really good monsters. They get really interesting effects from sacrificing their own comrades in battle. Through a variety of means, sacrifice brings success. Besides that, Purgatory Knights has a pretty decent advantage game. They get gauge and hand very easily at the expense of life, but that's pretty typical for any DDW deck.

Feel my hate

Before we get to BT05 cards, don't forget that the first Purgatory Knight we've been introduced to was in the trial deck. That's right, the only Size 3 Purgatory Knights have available is Purgatory Knights, Malice Force Dragon. 2 gauge on-play for destroying one monster is alright. The fact that Malice Force has nothing else besides that though, not even like Move or something, is disappointing. Also 5K defense is bad. But it's technically your only Size 3 option.

Purging time!

There's a lot of really good options come Set 5, however. Like Gairahm Lance Dragon, the Size 2 that's actually a Size 1. It's a Size 1 if you have a buddy with Purgatory Knight in its name, which basically would be 100% guaranteed. Having him as a Size 1 is pretty great, especially since he's free. Free 6000/2/2000 is great as a Size 1 any day. But Gairahm even has more utility than that. As a counter effect during your turn, you can kill one of your units to give him +1 crit. This can only happen once per turn but that's all you really need. So if you're willing to take a -1, you can pump him with 1 crit (+0.5 if the attack hits) and add some pressure to your game.

Now, this is a pretty bad trade generally speaking. You're losing a card to gain the possibility of dealing slightly more damage at a conversion rate that's not even fairly costed. This definitely isn't a play you want to be doing regularly. However, you can use his effect to get 4 attacks of in a single turn with a weapon. Since the weapon is likely the crit-gaining weapon, the gains stack from a single payment and you actually gain advantage pretty decently. Since Gairahm is a "Size 1", you can pull this combo off with a full field of Size 1's or a combination including Size 0 monsters. And even without this effect, having a Size 1 6000/2/2000 is simply awesome.

Snap those swords in half!

Purgatory Knights comes with some pretty nice monsters that have unique effects. Sword Breaker Dragon, for instance, on-hits and destroys a weapon, becoming +1.5 if it hits a weapon (instead of +0.5). This is good against decks that use critical weapons (like Glory Seeker) and will force your opponent to waste shields on a 1-crit attack and makes them feel miserable.

Crossbow Dragon is an advantage gainer similar to Dragoarcher. There's some pretty huge differences though, the first being that Crossbow is a Size 0 that can't be called if your field doesn't already have a Purgatory Knight. His stats are meh but when he hits, you can topgauge. While I personally would prefer just 2 crit (it's the same advantage), getting gauge is pretty good also.

FOR-E-VER

Gauge gets paid out pretty fast with all the good advantage spells in the set. Purgatory Knights, Forever is just one of the great ways to get salvage cards. You pay a bit more than Black Revenger (1 life, which is really minor) but you get to do it free from restriction and you can choose any two Purgatory Knights you want. Pretty great.

Gairahm isn't the only Purgatory Knight who can sacrifice comrades to get good effect. Demios Sword Dragon can do the same, and his effect is a lot better. He's like the avatar of Purgatory Knights after all, being in the leader position like Kommandeur Fahne. Instead of getting 1 crit just once a turn, he can kill as many Purgatory Knights as you want to restand Demios multiple times. This is obviously a huge improvement over Gairahm. If you kill your center monster, you can get 5 attacks with this combination as long as you have a weapon. Since you double up on attacks (from the same minus), this ends up being a net positive even though you sacrificed a card.

Your sacrifices shall not
go in vain

There are still a few issues with Demios, however. First is that to get the most mileage out of Demios, you need to call Size 0's. This isn't an issue since there are quite a few available, but it does lock you into a specific field formation that's harder to achieve than the traditional triple offensive. The second issue lies with Demios himself. He's a Size 2 with 3000 defense. A lot of removal will blow him up, and your opponent can choose to do this after you sack that center slot monster with Demios's ability. Which really sucks. Sure, you can still attack with your weapon but that's definitely not what you were aiming for - and it frees up your opponent to punish you hard on the return. Demios is great when he gets going, but he's quite fragile and must be used with caution.

Sustain that Body, and
Crush Mine...waitno

Crush that Body, and Sustain Mine allows effects like Gairahm's and Demios's to be spammed without bleeding too much advantage. This strange Set spell allows you to topgauge whenever your Purgatory Knights gets destroyed by an effect (both yours or your opponent's). Not only does this allow you to recoup some of the loss inflicted by counter removal, but it also makes the -1 from Demios and Gairahm a -0.5 and a resource conversion: less field, more gauge. That being said, alongside Crossbow Dragon you might be getting a bit too much gauge just casually but too much never really hurt. Thanks to this card, you're allowed to run fewer Devil Stigma and completely forgo Death Wizard Dragon.

The second effect is similar to Glory Seeker's but is in fact a copy of a Dragon World set spell that was released in Japan in the Dual Buddy Decks. These will be coming to English Spring 2015 so you'll see what I mean. Anyhow, when you die you can mill the top card and revive if you hit a spell. Naturally, this encourages players to put more spells in their deck but keeping good ratios is still more important. When all is said and done, look to have about 20 spells in your deck, leaving the rest for monsters, items, and maybe even Impacts. With that much gauge and many ways to clear your center slot, Distortion Punisher isn't out of the question.

It's gone mad!

Mad Halberd Dragon is a Halberd Dragon clone. Surprisingly less useful in DDW since it competes for Size 2 space and it doesn't always have Move - only when there's something else on the field. Works well with Gairahm, and 6K stats all around is nothing to sneeze at.

Also I know the card says "Halbert" but I'm pretty sure that's a Gurdian-level typo.

There's more support to the sacrificing monsters to get benefits. This time, however, is less exciting. Purgatory Knight, Cruel Command would be a great card if it didn't cost 2 gauge to simply enter into existence. But indeed it does, with the suckiest of 5000/2/5000 stats any Size 2 could ever obtain. And its effect is only a wash that you have to activate during main phase, so you can't even milk an extra attack out of it. How lame. With Death Grip and Death Damage, monster removal is cheap and Cruel Command doesn't make the cut. If it at least had 3 crit it would be worth considering.

Body this, body that

Purgatory Flame that Resides Within the Body. What is up with all these spell names? Anyways, it's a pretty awesome counter negate spell that nullifies an attack at the cost of 2 gauge and a Purgatory Knight on your field. That's pretty freaking expensive (-3) but you then deal direct damage equal to the crit of the monster destroyed. When combined with a 3-crit sacrifice, not only do you nullify the attack (+1) but also deal 3 direct damage (+2.25). You plus in the most insane way possible. Even 2 damage is really good, since that puts you 2 steps closer to winning (and might just perfectly set up that Distortion Punisher).

Life Dwells in the Flame of Hades Too replaces Abyss Symphony. You could run both but there's no point when one is objectively better and the other is probably dead most of the time.

Reskinned Dragobrave

Purgatory Sword, Fatal is the final piece in the Purgatory Puzzle. It gains 1 crit every time a monster dies, once per turn, and thus is cheaper to equip than most 3-crit weapons. When paired with Demios, Gairahm, and the set spells, Fatal forms a critical corner piece in making sure Purgatory Knights can gain advantage aggressively. By getting multiple different plusses from the same minus (one single sacrifice), Purgatory Knights can increase damage output, field clear, gauge, and more. It's important to make sure you make the most out of a single sacrifice so you don't end up losing out on too much.

Purgatory Hyme, "The Cursed Being of the Faraway Homeland" is an imitation of the Dragon World songs. It's quite the failed one, however. First problem: they spelled "hymn" wrong. Second, what kind of crappy effect is that? -2000 defense to center only? Since when did defense actually matter that much in this game? Sure, I guess it's free (no gauge cost) but what good is a free card if it doesn't help you win? You can tech it at 1 copy if you have the room, or sideboard it for the Ancient World matchup.

Not that I would ever want to call Troubadour Dragon to the center...oh come on, why is it just a better TK Broadsword?

Oh man, Eval Grebe Dragon is not fair. All the previous "benefits when sacked" cards could at most +0.5, but why does this card get to +1 after sacking? Kill it, get it back. And with Demios to get an extra attack, you're basically drawing for free while giving your opponents the pain.

I guess life gain isn't that bad either.

Burn in hellfire

It's nor surprising that Demios would get an upgrade for Purgatory Knights in the Buddy Evolution booster. Demios Sword "Inferno" can be called over any Size 2 or larger Purgatory Knight. It costs 2 gauge more so we're looking at a -1 so far...however, Demios "Inferno" brings better stats and a better restanding ability to the table. When "Inferno" restands, you can also kill a Size 2 or less monster on the opponent's field. Pretty good for a card, but this card can also be dead so you're likely to get screwed if you put too many copies of this card in a deck. 2 is a pretty good number, and of course it gets sided out against a deck that tanks on Size 3s.

Inferno Shield has some weird implications when put into a Purgatory Knights deck, because you want to be sacking your monsters offensively to fuel effects like Demios and Inferno Shield more or less forces you to keep monsters around to be effective. Also Inferno Shield is like this really ironic way to protect your monsters, where you effectively trade a card in your hand for a gauge and a life (so Smile Charm that allows you to dodge situational on-destruction effects).

This is probably a Purgatory Knights card because of the name so I'm just going to leave it here. Nothing much more to say about H-BT04 besides using Tragedy to kill Demios to get another attack sounds cute.

- updated to H-BT04, CP01, H-EB04, H-TD02, PP01 -

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