As I was saying, there are so many variations of Chaos Dragon that every deck you will see is going to be different (until someone tops a YCS with it).
A) Do I use Darkflare Dragon and how many?
B) Do I use Lightsworn?
C) High monster count? Low trap count?
D) Should I fit in 2 Hanzo and 2 Super-transformation? What about other non-dragon tech like Chaos Sorcerer, Tragoedia, Gorz, Summoner Monk, Herald of Creation, Thunder King, Effect Veiler, Honest, Kycoo, Doomcaliber Knight, Armageddon Knight, etc?
E) What other boss dragons do I use? Prime Material? Dark Horus? White-Horned Dragon? Blue-eyes White Dragon?
F) Gold Sarc? Duality? Upstarts? Card Trooper? Shard of Greed? How badly should I dig for Future Fusion?
I had all of these questions too when I built my "version" of Chaos Dragons. The only thing I can suggest is to test, test, test to see what you're comfortable with and play that. In my opinion, there are only 3 workable versions of Chaos Dragons:
1) High Monster count (26+) Lyla Dragons.
2) Mid-to-low monster count (21 and lower) High-tech Dragons.
3) Mid Monster count Super-Transform Dragons.
And mixtures between the three.
All versions of the deck are capable of beating the top 3 decks of the format (probably with Future Fusion's help), but what sets each deck apart is their normal summons and hand traps.
In Lyla Dragons, one good mill can win you the game. You also have an equal chance to mill all spells and traps and not get those Chaos pieces you needed. There is also a chance to mill your best boss drops(BLS, DAD, REDMD) without having a ready means to get them back (Light Pulsar Dragon, Divine Dragon Apocralyph, Monster Reincarnation, etc). Ryko and Lyla are decent normal summons, but they don't work against every deck. Lyla's ability to force the activation of a trap card is a great set-up for a boss-drop. When you have no follow-up to her ability, then you will end your turn with nothing but a 200def monster and 3 extra cards in your grave. Ryko on the other hand doesn't mind sitting on the field. Unless they have Inzektor Hornet or Evolsaur Dolkka, you're bound to destroy something. As a first turn set, you're probably trading monsters, which isn't as useful in Chaos Dragons as you may think(Unless it was a Laggia or equally hate-filled effect monster). Most threats involve non-attacking cards like Inzektor Hornet's effect and traps like Solemn Warning, Fiendish Chain and Mirror Force. Whenever Ryko misses a chance to destroy these, I consider it a waste. Therefore, I feel that Lyla Dragons are only as good as their milling, just like Lightsworn. The difference here is that the Dragon deck has monsters that can summon themselves from the grave, whereas Lightsworn need to return those cards to the hand or use Lumina to get them to the field.
Ninja Dragon decks solve one of the biggest problems I have with Dragon's Collide: the dark count. Dark monsters are usually feared in Yugioh, but as actual support to the dragon theme, it seems to be lacking. Every deck will automatically include 3 darks; Red-eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. The rest of the darks you will PROBABLY see at your locals are Dark Armed Dragon, Chaos Sorcerer, Gorz, and Darkflare Dragon...all monsters that require a set-up to play. So what other darks are even worth using?
Vice Dragon
Axe Dragonute
Divine Dragon Apocralyph
Darkfire Dragon (Instant Fusion)
Interplanetarypurplythorny Dragon
Anything that isn't a Dragon?
D.D. Crow
Spirit Reaper
Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
Doomcaliber Knight
Armageddon Knight
Necro Gardna
Tour Guide of the Underworld
Sangan
Inzektors
etc etc
Out of all the generic darks out there, it is easy to see how helpful Grandmaster Hanzo is. He is Dark, his normal summon will thin out your deck, he has 1800 atk to get over Guaiba, Lyla, and other monsters not named Rai-oh, and if he stays on the field past your End phase, he will apply pressure to your opponent. A successful Hanzo will actually remove 2 cards from your deck and 1 from the opponent's side of the field at the cost of 1 card. You lose 1 card in your hand to summon Hanzo and you get Super Transform for free. Once you use Transform, both you and your opponent lose a monster, then you gain a new one from your deck). Depending on what your opponent summoned, You will probably want to super-transform as soon as possible. Just be careful not to allow your opponent to make an Xyz or anything else non-targettable. Perhaps the best part about Super Transform is that it has 0 cost to activate! That's right, if you thought it wasn't good because they can chain MST, then your worries are over; sending the monsters on both sides of the field to the graveyard happens in the resolution of Super-Transform. Even if your opponent has Macro Cosmos on the field, you can activate and resolve the card completely.
With all of these fine points, the ninja build (in my opinion) has the potential to be the best. Perhaps it is not even correct to call it a "Ninja Dragon" deck because we only care about Hanzo as a Dark target. Perhaps Hanzo is just THE best non-dragon dark monster available, and we splash him into Lightsworn and/or Lighsworn-less builds.
Which brings me to Lightswornless Chaos Dragons. This is what I play and feel the most comfortable with. The main idea of the build is to remove the luck factor that Lyla, Ryko, Charge, Ehren, etc bring with Dragon's Collide and replace it with (light) monsters that are relevant to the meta. Of course, let's not assume that LS Dragons can't play the best Light monsters; and let's not say that LS-less decks can't tech or side Ryko and Lyla. Non-LS builds have the ability to include traps, which make winning a lot easier than relying solely on Future Fusion or excellent mills. You can easily side with both decks, but in LS-less decks, you can main more of the things you would typically side against the top decks. For example, I main 1 D.D. Crow, 1 Spirit Reaper, 1 Thunder King, 2 Effect Veiler, and Honest.
The LS build can play these too, most likely at the cost of a few spell/trap slots. Most likely, those anti-meta cards will work against most competitive decks. For those that aren't too fazed by it, you can side into OTHER Light's and Darks that will affect their deck. Typically, I replace Crow for another Spirit Reaper against things that don't need the graveyard, and vice-versa for things that do. Tkings and Veilers can become Cyber Dragons. Sangan and Honest can become Doomcaliber or another Tking. We even have Electric Virus and Victoria for anything that runs Dragon monsters. Excessive siding is often a little difficult to do with so many single and double copies of cards. I typically go for the same cards to remove when I have to side for games 2 and 3:
Sangan
Reaper/D.D. Crow
Honest
Effect Veilers
1 Apocralyph
Solemn Judgment
Solemn Warning
Torrential Tribute
Book of Moon
Foolish Burial
All of those above cards are in the deck because of how universally good they are in game 1. The only side possible with this deck is to take out redundant, generic cards for things that are disruptive to the opposing duelist's entire deck. My side needs a LITTLE work, but so far, I am pretty confident in it:
2 Maxx "C"
1 Thunder King Rai-oh
1 D.D. Crow
1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
2 Electric Virus
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Cyber Dragon
2 Skill Drain
2 Chain Disappearance
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
As far as my deck is concerned, you can see that 21 monsters is EXTREMELY low for a Chaos Dragon deck.
Lights: The easiest part of the deck are the lights. Eclipse Wyvern counts for 2 lights and is one of the best cards in the deck. Unfortunately, I don't run 3 because it does not work with the build as a whole. Perhaps in Lightsworn variants or in a deck with more than 40 cards would it be possible. The only time I find myself wanting a 3rd Eclipse is when I have 1 in hand with Future Fusion. When that happens, you should really mill 4 Darks including Apocralyph and just play Dark Armed instead. Tking is one of the best 1st turn normal summons now and will almost guarantee a response from your opponent. Both of these are backed by Honest and can turn an easy attack from your opponent into frustration. Finally, even though Light Pulsar Dragon is one of the best Dragon's ever created, I am only using 2. With BLS, I only have 3 Chaos monsters in the entire deck. Yes there are some moments where you wish you could draw at least 1 of them. With all of the deck thinning from other cards, It usually works out just fine.
Darks: As you see, I don't play Darkflare Dragon. Even as a sideboard, I find it to be lacking. It is a Chaos monster, which is good, but it doesn't apply any of the pressure that a LPD can. The only use Darkflare has is to set up your grave for a potentially unseen play. You may have a wyvern in grave, attached to a Dark Armed that only requires 1 Darkflare to be live. Darkflare can almost disrupt the opponent's grave-based strategies too. The part I hate about it is that Darkflare's effect requires you to discard a Dragon monster. The discard is okay and Apocralyph proves it. Restricting the discard to Dragon-monsters kills his versatility. Instead of Darkflare, I tried Vice Dragons for a little while. They interact very well with REDMD, but as a turn 1 monster (and without REDMD to follow up), Vice doesn't provide much to the duel. After a lot of testing, I have resorted to 2 Axe Dragonute. Axe Dragonute can swing over most level 4 monster, and can do it every turn unlike most "Goblin Attack Force" style creatures. At 2000 ATK, he has great interaction with REDMD's summoning effect. When I side in Skill Drain against decks that require it, Axe Dragonute's presence increases. If you asked me months ago about using Axe Dragonute, I would have laughed at the thought. For now, until I get some Hanzo to try, Axe Dragonute has cemented his position in the deck.
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