Casual Dueling: Alternative Blue-Eyes Decks

One of the few things keeping me in the game of Yu-Gi-Oh well past the point of diminishing returns is the continued legacy support Konami has been putting out for older archetypes. Iconic monsters like Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon are more playable now than they've ever been, and we've even reached the point where the big daddy himself, Blue-Eyes White Dragon, is the deck to beat following a victory at the 2016 World Championships. Which also means, of course, that Blue-eyes has ceased to be anything close to a "budget" deck: those new cards are crazy expensive.

"Screw the rules, I have money!"

Nevertheless, I've had a lot of fun trying out the new Blue-Eyes cards on Devpro in between server crashes (I really should migrate to a different platform one of these days). While the pure Blue-Eyes build is what's seeing competitive play, the cards are quite versatile and there are a lot of different ways to build the deck to open up new and interesting plays. One of these, which I've become quite fond of recently, is focused on The Fang of Critias and its roster of Fusion Monsters. You may remember Critias as one of the Legendary Dragons from Season 4 of the anime: it was Kaiba's dragon and it was able to fuse with Trap cards in order to create new monsters. That's more-or-less what it's real-life counterpart does, as well. By sending the corresponding Trap card from the hand or field to the Graveyard, you can Special Summon a Fusion Monster from the Extra Deck that requires The Fang of Critias for its summoning condition.

You, too, can pull off Tyrant Burst OTK!

While using Fang of Critias is technically a minus one since you require both the Spell and proper Trap, what's fun about this deck is that the Critias Fusions are insane. Doom Virus Dragon is basically pre-errata Crush Card Virus with an admittedly underwhelming 1900 ATK body, Tyrant Burst Dragon can attack each monster your opponent controls and equip itself to a monster to give it three attacks per Battle Phase on top of a 400 point boost (which can actually result in an OTK under the proper circumstances), and Mirror Force Dragon can wipe your opponent's entire field should they attack or target one of your monsters. While the Critias build is slower than standard Blue-Eyes thanks to the required Trap cards, the Critias Fusions are powerful monsters in their own right and expand upon Blue-Eyes' already expansive toolset. Having a Mirror Force Dragon up can force your opponent to play around it (and can be quite deadly with a Return of the Dragon Lords in the Grave), allowing you to protect vulnerable Sages and set up an even stronger board. And pulling off an OTK with Tyrant Burst Dragon is one of the most hilarious victories you can pull off on an unsuspecting opponent.

A couple of notes on composition: in this build, I've maxed out on copies of both Fang of Critias and Mirror Force, to increase the odds of a first-turn Mirror Force Dragon. To help with consistency, I've included two copies of Maxx "C", and cut down on a couple of staple Blue-Eyes cards. That means no Maiden with Eyes of Blue (which requires a more dedicated targeting effect than Sage, who is better put to use searching out Stones and Veilers) or Silver's Cry (which, while a great card, I had difficulty finding room for). I initially thought about running Keeper of the Shrine so that Crush Card Virus would have a target in the main deck, but for the purposes of this build, Crush Card only serves as a means for bringing out Doom Virus Dragon. Anyways, without further ado...

Monsters x 18
Blue-Eyes White Dragon x3
Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon x3
Dragon Spirit of White 
Maxx "C" x2
The White Stone of Ancients x3
The White Stone of Legend
Sage with Eyes of Blue x3
Effect Veiler x2

Spells x 17
Return of the Dragon Lords x3
The Fang of Critias x3
Raigeki
Trade-in x3
Cards of Consonance
Dragon Shrine
The Melody of Awakening Dragon x3
Twin Twister x2

Traps x 5
Mirror Force x3
Tyrant Wing
Crush Card Virus

Extra Deck
Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon
Tyrant Burst Dragon
Mirror Force Dragon x2
Doom Virus Dragon
Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon
Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon x2
Stardust Spark Dragon
Michael, the Arch-Lightsworn
Galaxy-Eyes Dark Matter Dragon
Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Blade Dragon (note: not in the TCG yet)
Galaxy-Eyes Full Armor Photon Dragon
Galaxy-Eyes Cipher Dragon
Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy

Moving on, I wrote a post last year about mixing Blue-Eyes with the Dragunity archetype, and I'm pleased to report that that particular build of the deck is made even stronger thanks to the addition of the new Blue-Eyes support and the advent of Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon, which is one of the most powerful Synchro monsters we've seen in a good long while. Dragunities can make Crystal Wing with relative ease, and in fact doing so is one of the deck's stronger first-turn plays. The Dragunity build of Blue-Eyes is also considerably faster than the Critias version, thanks to the increased number of Cards of Consonance targets and Dragon Ravine shenanigans.

One card that I've included in this build that I'll bet you haven't seen in a while is Starlight Road. Now that Stardust Dragon isn't an Extra Deck staple and a lot of decks can clear an opponent's field without mass destruction, the card has sort of fallen by the wayside, but it's been putting in some serious work during my playtesting, thanks in no small part to Raigeki and Twin Twister. Having a set card along with an active Dragon Ravine is just asking for your opponent to use Twin Twister, which just makes it all the more amusing to flip Starlight Road and get a Stardust Dragon for your trouble.

Monsters x 20
Blue-Eyes White Dragon x3
Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon x3
Dragunity Arma Mystletainn x2
Dragunity Dux x3
Dragunity Phalanx x3
The White Stone of Ancients x2
The White Stone of Legend
Sage with Eyes of Blue x2

Spells x 17
Return of the Dragon Lords x3
Raigeki
Trade-in x3
Cards of Consonance x3
Terraforming
Twin Twister x2
Dragunity Spear of Destiny x2
Dragon Ravine x2

Traps x 3
Starlight Road
Solemn Strike x2

Extra Deck
Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon
Trident Dragion
Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon
Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon x2
Crystal Wing Synchro Dragon
Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend
Crimson Blader
Stardust Dragon
Stardust Spark Dragon
Michael, the Arch-Lightsworn
Dragunity Knight- Vajrayana x3
Number 38: Hope Harbinger Dragon Titanic Galaxy

So, there you have it: two slightly different Blue-eyes builds for your dueling pleasure. I don't know how often I'll be revisiting this blog, but I enjoyed putting this together, so who knows- maybe there will be some more casual Yu-Gi-Oh posts around here!