Forum:I need help with a revamped Dark Paladin deck...

Please, no tl;dr. At least I'm using paragraphs! There is no great wall of text here. There are several considerably smaller walls of text. Sorry about that in advance, but please-keep it mature enough. I welcome goofing off, but don't troll me.

I'm... er... I'm technically new at this game, though that's only because I quit about 6 and a half years ago. A lot has changed around me and I'm pretty much clueless with all the new-fangled synchro summons and all that riff-raff. Back in my day...

Seriously, though-I need some help. I've been trying to find help on the Pojo forums for a long time, but nobody wants to even pay attention to my deck.

I'm basically running a revamped version of my old Dark Paladin beatdown deck, but I've run into a few snags.

Without further ado... version two, now with fiber!

Fusion: Dark Paladin x2

High level: Dark Magician x3

Buster Blader

Chaos Sorcerer

Dark Red Enchanter

Sorcerer of Dark Magic

The Tricky x3

Low level: Skilled Dark Magician x3

Breaker the Magical Warrior x3

Elemental Hero Prisma x2

Gagaga Magician

Summoner Monk x2

Apprentice Magician x3

Jester Confit

Magic: Future Fusion

Monster Reborn

Lightning Vortex x2

Secret Village of the Spellcasters x2

Resonance Device

Swords of Revealing Light x2

Trap: Rivalry of Warlords

Call of the Haunted

Magic Cylinder

Mirror Force

Royal Command

Pitch-Black Power Stone

No side deck necessary

Okay! Time for you to read more words and stuff.

I'm getting back into casual dueling with a few friends. Two of them play with synchro monsters. One runs an all-fiend lockdown-ish deck with Rivalry of Warlords. One runs a burn-ish deck with cards like Dark Snake Syndrome. Another currently runs a warrior-ish beatdown deck. I'm trying to be able to counter them, but not to the point where I always win. I want to make sure we all can still have fun.

(IMPORTANT) The key cards here are Dark Paladin/Secret Village (kills the opponent's magic cards), Sorcerer of Dark Magic (kills the opponent's trap cards and lets me use mine), Light of Intervention/Chaos Sorcerer (prevents flip effects and Chaos Sorcerer can remove any dangerous face up monsters from play), and Rivalry of Warlords (completes the lockdown). I can take out Dark Paladin, but honestly, I don't want to. I can also take out Sorcerer of Dark Magic, but that's only if I can find another good card to block the opponent's traps with. PLEASE, don't say Royal Decree or Jinzo. I really don't want to use the Sorcerer of Dark Magic, to be honest. It's hard to summon. Still, I absolutely need Light of Intervention and Rivalry of Warlords. Sorcerer of Dark Magic is, to my knowledge, the only anti-trap monster that will allow me to do that in a Spellcaster deck. I can take out Light of Intervention IF I can block the opponent's flip effects from screwing me over. Penguin Soldier will ruin this deck once the lockdown is started unless I have Light of Intervention.

I will consider using Arcanite Magician, but I don't know how to put it in properly with this deck type. I'm not willing to tear my deck apart, since I've always loved using Dark Magician-based decks. I can take out both Swords of Revealing Light cards, Mirror Force, Magic Cylinder, Ground Collapse, both Lightning Vortex cards, and both Magician's Valkyria cards to do that, but I doubt that's enough room to run Arcanite Magician and synchro support cards without going past the 40-card limit. Please keep this in mind...

Thank you very much for reading/skimming this.

Reapsoul964 (talk • contribs) 01:27, March 2, 2012 (UTC)

Gemini's not a type, so no, Rivalry of Warlords won't affect them! Also, if you're using Dark Paladin, meet Future Fusion. And seeing that you want to use spell counter's, would you like me to make you a spell counter deck? I'll also explain Synchro's for you if you want. (Because there is 1 Spellcaster Synchro monster that is insanely overpowered Neo Seraph (talk • contribs) 02:38, March 2, 2012 (UTC)

If you want to try to refit this to work better with spell counters, be my guest. I'm starting to like the second deck I posted more than the first (mainly because it would be about $40 cheaper for me to build when not factoring in the unnecessary ~$20 side deck I built), so if you could work it into that one, I'd appreciate it.

If you think the /Gemini monsters really should stay in, then I'm alright with that.

Either way, if you want to try to convince me to use Arcanite Magician, go on ahead. I've been looking at it, the fusion version, and the assault version. I'm impressed, but I don't exactly know how to work that into the deck. I would be able to easily get those out even with Rivalry of Warlords on the field, right? I was under the impression Synchro monsters often were basically impossible to use when RoW is active.

So, yeah, if you want to try to incorporate a little bit of synchro monsters, go for it.

I'll also definitely consider Future Fusion, since that'll help me guarantee that Dark Paladin can get out quickly AND it'll give me a guaranteed dark type to remove for the Chaos Sorcerer...

Fire away!

Reapsoul964 (talk • contribs) 03:00, March 2, 2012 (UTC)

It's a pretty good deck, the main strategy is to get Supreme Arcanite Magician out. Also, Rivalry of Warlords will not screw synchro's so long as the Synchro Monster and the materials are all the same type. This is how you synchro summon.

• Take a Tuner monster (it will say "Tuner" by it's type) and 1 or more non-tuners. Send them to the grave, add their combined levels up and special summon a Synchro monster with equal stars to the field. Keep in mind the the level MUST be equal.Neo Seraph (talk • contribs) 14:04, March 2, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to go through this. Unfortunately, the deck you suggested is... well, I can definitely see why it would be a good deck, but it doesn't really do anything for the lockdown I was building. I know Dark Paladin is probably rarely used in today's metagame (if at all). I was building a lockdown around Dark Paladin so that I could still use my favorites from over 6 years ago. I can't really work with what you built, to be honest. I was hoping that you would have combined the two.

I really am thankful for the quick response and I'm sorry I'm closed off to that idea, but again, I'm really trying to build a lockdown deck more than just a spellcaster deck.

I'll put in Arcanite Magician and stuff if I can, but only if I can figure out what to move around.

EDIT:

So, I found a few cards that I might want to put in to help get Sorcerer out. Jester Confit and Resonance Device seem like they'll work pretty well with Gagaga Magician. Summoner Monk can help me get Gagaga Magician out and Jester Confit/Resonance Device will make it so that I have two easy summons that I can use to quickly get Sorcerer out.

I also will replace Light of Intervention with Royal Command, since I'm mainly worried about flip effects anyway. Of course, that still leaves me open to Wall of Illusion (which my friends DO use...), but I can be careful there. I don't want to build a perfect deck. I just want a fun deck.

I'm still considering taking out Dark Red Enchanter and most of the cards I listed in the original post. Would that be enough to get a couple good synchro spellcasters in or should I just stick with what I've got here?

Reapsoul964 (talk • contribs) 18:49, March 2, 2012 (UTC)