Light Fiend Summon Part 4

The Fabled deck has been one of my favorites since I first tried it in Yugioh 2009 Stardust Accelerator. The monsters are cute, the win condition is very painful, and the amount of skill required to play can be very high. As much as making Ragin and drawing 2 cards sound easy, the real skill involves playing around your opponent. Losing your entire hand to Torrential Tribute, mistiming Ragin because of Effect Veiler and Dark Hole are the worst nightmares of this deck.

One thing the deck does well is that it moves through a large number of cards. Even after losing 1 Avarice, we have a few options to replace it with. In a format where noone sets a large amount of cards in the first turn, it is much safer to overextend in turn 1 than ever before. Right now, I am running 3 MST and 1 Heavy storm, which is a very excessive amount of backrow removal. The Fabled deck is severely crippled by traps so it is important to have an answer to them. There are a few other choices in this format so I want to talk about all the cool options available.

Eh_Chavo over at Outstanding Innovations has been testing Mega Hamster in the deck. The best card in the deck, Fabled Chawa, is a beast and so is his big brother Cerburrel. If you run multiple Hamsters, you can play Ryko, which gives the deck defensive options it never had before. Ryko has slim chances of milling anything good, but if it does, then you have even more plays. We already added in 1 Monster Reincarnation to replace 1 Pot of Avarice, using Ryko may call for a 2nd Reincarnation in the deck. Imagine it: Your opponent attacks Hamster with Thunderking, you special Ryko. On your turn, you can flip Ryko to destroy Tking. A Cerberrul in your hand or in the graveyard can make Ragin as easily as Normal Summoning it, Monster Reincarnation, Reborn, Call of the Haunted(if you run this), or a Krus+Chawa combo. If your opponent attacks you with something under 1900, you can search Chawa out of the deck and make a Ragin with no cards wasted. You also have options for Leviathan:

• If you have a level 4 in hand (Tengu) you can search for Chawa to make Leviathan.
• If you have a level 3 in hand (Ganashia) you can search for Cerberrul to make Leviathan.
• If you have a level 3 tuner in hand (Kushano) you can search for Ganashia to make Leviathan.

Leviathan isn't the best boss monster in the game, but it will stun a few different decks. Chaos Plants will have to rely on Chaos Sorc, BLS, or Caius to not lose card advantage and Agents will have to drop Kristya to stop you(just like any other matchup they have). Like I always say, Hamster is one of the best 1st turn sets in the game along with Sangan, and it almost always pays off. If you don't play against a deck that will attack your Hamster (GKs?) Then you can easily side it out.

Now the problem I have with running multiple Hamsters is adding them into the deck. In a basic skeleton of:
3 Chawa
3 Cerberrul
3 Grimro
3 Tengu
2 Krus
2 Ganashia
1 Kushano,
you have room for anywhere up to 6 cards. Most of us use 3 Snipe Hunter, and I am afraid to run the deck without Snipe Hunter. If you use 3 Snipe and 2 Hamster, the deck will be up to 22 monsters which isn't half bad. Once you start adding Ryko and Sangan, the numbers get higher. If you want to run Tragoedia, things get even worse. The only real answer is to test, test, test, but there is a lot of anecdotal evidence on the internet:
"Running too many non-fabled cards ruins Ragin plays."
"Relying on Ragin makes the deck to easy to counter. You need more options."
"Each non-fabled synchro play increases your chances to win. You don't have to discard as many cards and you still have awesome cards left in the deck."
"Non-synchro fabled mosnters don't have enough field presence. Your field presence should be non-fabled monsters like Tengu and Hamster."
All of those are believable and is hard to decide who is right. In my opinion, I am starting to believe that the non-fabled monsters are the most important part of the deck on the competitive level. Choosing which ones to play is solely dependent on your matchup.

For now, I am playing 3 Snipe Hunter and 1 Hamster.
Snipe Hunter pros:
-60% chance of clearing all the resources your opponent has including the Gorz you may predict.
-Great Effect Veiler bait for bad players. (some Veiler responses actually help you win! You can still discard your entire hand and you know they won't stop you from drawing 2 or banishing 3)
-Great bait for Bottomless Trap Hole(for whoever still uses it).
-Dark Attribute for Chaos Decks.
Snipe Hunter cons:
-Susceptible to Effect Veiler.
-Uses a Normal Summon.
-Usually isn't worth summoning if you choose to go first.

Mega Hamster pros:
-Better topdeck and great 1st turn set.
-1800 Def baits out attacks from Earth and Sangan.
-Replaces itself if destroyed by battle.
-Slight more guaranteed synchro. Hamster also makes 1-card synchro summons.
-Searches Ryko.
Mega Hamster cons:
-Earth attribute.
-Doesn't contribute to emptying your hand.
-First turn Mind Control may stop you cold.

I may rebuild Fabled for locals on Monday. There was actually 1 Fabled player that topped last week, a newcomer to the store. Of course he had the ever-so-awesome Tour Guides to pull Kushano right out of the deck. I did see some choices I didn't agree with like The Tricky, but there is nothing wrong with personalization. Maybe I can get lucky with some Tiras plays!

Sometimes you just can't get out Stardust. May as well drop Tiras and hope they don't have BLS(just like every duel).