1) Agents decks that draw cards easily at the cost of not attacking. Most variants run 2 normal summon monsters: Agent of Creations - Venus to make Gachi Gachi Gantetsu and Agent of Mystery - Earth to search Venus out of the deck. Once they get either of these into play, their boss monster Master Hyperion gets the green light. With a little more planning, Archlord Krystia becomes playable too. Using this style, the Agent deck is a powerful force simply because of how easy it is to drop boss monsters and how expendable are the Agents themselves.
2) Gravekeeper decks have not changed even with 3 MST and 1 Heavy Storm. A good pilot can still control the duel with 6 monster searches, 2-3 cards to replenish your hand, and plenty of spells and traps to stop bigger threats. Even if you go after Necrovalley on each of your turns, there is a high chance they can play another on their next turn.
3) Hero decks are even more responsive with Mask Change and the new Parallel World Fusion from Legendary Collection 2. Alongside Miracle Fusions, Super Polymerizations, Gemini Sparks and Honest, Hero decks seem to have an answer for any situation.
4) Twilight decks are possibly the scariest deck to face. If you don't keep an eye on your opponent's graveyard, you may lose the duel to MST or Heavy Storm. Because they don't play a lot of spells and traps, they will often have many monsters in their hand. This means, if you stop the first monster with something like Solemn Warning, they may remove it for Chaos Sorcerer. If you stop Chaos Sorc with Veiler, they could follow up with Judgment Dragon. If you somehow survive that and clear their field, they could easily have Gorz and/or Tragoedia in their hand along with 4 other cards. The deck does have some consistency issues, but the longer you leave it unchecked, the more likely you will see a boss drop!
5) Zombies could ALMOST be called a replacement for Plant Synchro decks (not in popularity of course). The premise is pretty much the same: Get zombies out of your deck and onto the field or in the grave. Synchro with them and get more zombies in return. If your opponent stops your Synchro summon, do another one using the zombies' effects. Really, the only thing that is lost is the ability to put synchros back into the deck with 2-3 copies of Pot of Avarice. Other than that, Zombies don't really need Avarice to win the game.
So what do all of these decks have in common?
Cannon Fodder.
Just about every deck has monsters that bait out spells, traps, and monster effects, then follow it up with a boss drop. Did you pay 2000 life points to stop a Normal Summon and search? Now they have a light in the grave for Hyperion or Krystia. Black Rose Dragon? Mask Change into Masked HERO Vapor. A lot of people have taken the time to reevaluate the spells and traps that can truly punish these plays. It may not be enough to run 2 Solemn Warning in the deck, 1 Mirror Force, 1 Torrential Tribute and 1-2 Dimensional Prison; that is a little predictable. What else is there to tech into your deck to punish powerful monster combinations?
Creature Swap - Sometimes, Creature Swap can be your only out to a ridiculous monster situation. It also always ends in an even exchange: you lose your monster and the creature swap spell card; they lose their monster and whatever card they use to rectify the situation. In decks where your monsters can replace themselves (Gadgets, T.G., Zombies, etc) your Creature Swap will let you set up your hand, field or graveyard for future plays. Sometimes, your opponent even has to spend their best card to get rid of the monster you had stolen: Honest, Dark Hole, or summoning a bigger monster they had planned to hold. In round 2, your opponent may think twice before they summon anything they themselves can't deal with.
Threatening Roar - I am not a big fan of T.Roar, but some decks don't have the luxury of losing certain monster cards. Threatening Roar does 2 things this format: Not only does it protect monsters you need on your turn, but it also prevents you from losing to Heavy storm or MST. Non-chainable cards like Dimensional Prison simply do not work against every deck. You can lose it to Lyla, Hyperion, Judgment Dragon, Gravekeeper's Descendant, Brionac, Caius, and many, many more monsters. Threatening Roar will ensure that your investment sees light. The issue on T.Roar of course is how you follow it up on your turn. If your monster has an ignition or trigger effect that you can only use on your turn (such as with Tanngnjostr of the Nordic Beasts) that may have been worth protecting. If you can Overlay into a Leviathan Dragon or Synchro into Brionac, you can swing the duel in your favor. It may not seem like the ultimate answer to destructive effects, but it can really benefit many decks.
Scapegoat - Like Threatening Roar, Scapegoat is a chainable card that can allow you to live in many situations where you normally would not. On your turn, Sheep tokens can be used to Synchro with or can be traded for an opponent's card using Creature Swap. You can also destroy your own goat tokens with little remorse. In this way, you can think of Scapegoat as a Nightmare Steel Cage. Your opponent can either overextend to destroy them all (if they didn't overextend already) or they can allow you to survive for even longer. A well timed Dark Hole or Torrential Tribute can really punish the opponent, while you have only lost 2 cards (your scapegoat and your destroying card). Be warned though, as Xsabers are still a force to be reckoned with. If you want to try Scapegoat in your main deck, side it out against Xsabers and their Fulhelmknights.
Compulsory Evacuation Device - Compulsory is another card that a lot of people want to use, but it may not be as great against Agents as one may think. If Hyperion uses his effect to destroy a card and you chain Compulsory to that, Hyperion will go back to the hand to be reused. It will cost your opponent 2 agent monsters and 2 other fairies to play Hyperion twice in 1 turn. At best, you may have 1 turn you can survive while they are drawing cards. If your deck is full of hard hitting monsters, then Compulsory may still work for you. Bouncing a face-down Gravekeeper spy or forcing their Seven Tools isn't so bad if you can attack directly with a Thunderking. Based on the decks listed above, Compulsory really won't stop any of their monster plays unless they choose not to summon again.
Maxx "C" - I have been using 1 Max "C" in Nordics for a few weeks now and it ALWAYS pays off. It is effective against 3 of the 5 decks listed above and gives you an advantage off of your opponent's deck choice. Against Agents, you can net 3 cards off of Venus. In Lightsworn you can stun their boss swarm lest they allow you to draw into Gorz or Effect Veiler. In zombies, their hand advantage is nullified when you draw 2 cards from their Plaguespreader+Goblin Zombie combo. Leaving cards on the field after committing to an effect is never a good idea, even when your opponent is getting rewarded for it. Most players will bite the bullet and finish their Special Summon push, rather than wasting their turn and giving you free cards to attack over. You will have to take out Maxx "C" against HEROs and Gravekeepers though.
Neo-spacian Grand Mole - Grand Mole is probably the ultimate card in generic boss monster hate besides Smashing Ground. It will usually stall the game for you, but in decks that can special summon small monsters to attack with, such as Cyber Dragon or Ghost Ship, you can follow up your Mole with a direct attack. Similar to Compulsory, Grand Mole will force Agents to remove additional Fairies or set up their grave again for Archlord Krystia. Against Gravekeepers, you can keep key monsters off the field while you attack their life points. In the early part of a Lightsworn matchup you can eliminate the use of cards in their hand because they can't put key cards into the grave. Be warned though, as a late game Mole does nothing to Twilight boss monsters.
Smashing Ground - In the past, the only deck that could run Smashing ground was Machine decks. Their monsters were decent, but nothing that will lock an opponent out of the duel. The typical 6 traps for monster hate weren't enough either, they needed more options for getting big attackers off of the field. In this format, we have follow-ups that can turn a good Solemn Warning play into a hopeless situation. Worse yet is if your traps were cleared by Heavy Storm. Smashing Ground almost seems like a necessity in this situation. Smashing Ground is always protected from field clearing effects and is rarely predictable. You don't really get an advantage from using Smashing Ground, but Solemn Warning and Bottomless Trap Hole are "1 for 1" cards too. In fact, I believe that the only reason to not using Smashing Ground is deck space. How many times has your opponent baited out or destroyed your set cards, then summoned Hyperion (you will see me talking about Agents a lot because they are too popular) directly afterward. Your in-hand Mirror Force, Torrential, D.prison, etc are all useless now unless you play Ryko or Grave Squirmier. That would be a great time to use Smashing ground. No lost cards, no stalling for better cards. We can just play Smashing Ground from the hand and move on. I for one will probably main at least 1 Smashing ground to complement Dark Hole. Just like many of you, I too have a grudge against smashing ground. I hate using generic "1 for 1" cards in any deck. You have to admit though; this seems like the format to bring it back.
If you know any other awesome tech cards, feel free to let me know. If you don't have a blogger or Google account, you can post on my Facebook page or Twitter @VeeDotMe.
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