Disaster Dragon

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See also: Hopeless Dragon.

Disaster Dragon is an aggressive control oriented Deck created by Richard Clarke[1]. It plays disruption strategies to gain and maintain control of the Duel. An evolution of the popular Hopeless Dragon deck, Disaster Dragon is one of the most popular dragon decks in the competitive scene and easily the most consistent. This can easily win in the first 8 turns against non-meta decks. Played right, this deck can hold its own with about any deck.

Gameplay

NOTE: This deck can easily recover from many situations through the use of Vice Dragon, Exploder Dragon, Totem Dragon, and Red-Eyes Wyvern

Disaster Dragon is a control deck that plays disruption strategies mixed with lockdown aggression to gain and maintain control of the board. It carries a lot of momentum and explosive power as the deck can consistently drop two or more monsters per turn without losing advantage and often times they will be big monsters. This is done through the use of the deck's backbone card, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Weighing in at 2800 ATK, this card is easily the most powerful or one of the most powerful dragons in the deck, outclassed only by a potential White Night Dragon. Red-Eyes' effect allows for the constant recursion of monsters from the graveyard as well as the ability to bypass the Normal Summoning limit and the requirements for Tributes that many decks suffer from. As a result, Disaster Dragon decks are packing some of the highest ATK monsters in the present Metagame because they can bypass the tribute mechanic required to summon them.

Through the usage of cards such as Koa'ki Meiru Drago, Exploder Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon the deck is capable of shutting down and eliminating a majority of plays made by the current popular decks. The deck plays like a toolbox, with Masked Dragon working to recruit the dragons you need for tributes, Synchro Monsters, battle, monster removal, etc and cards like Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Genesis Dragon allowing you to reuse them. Cards such as Foolish Burial and Future Fusion allow you to dump dragons into your graveyard faster while also aiding in the deck's inherent synergy; some dragons such as Yamata Dragon or Light and Darkness Dragon cannot be Special Summoned, thus they are unable to bypass their two-tribute requirement via Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon as most dragons would. Instead, the deck utilizes Totem Dragon, a self-recurring dragon that can act as two tributes in order to Tribute Summon a Dragon-type monster. Being a Dragon itself, Totem Dragon is a viable target to search with Masked Dragon or to dump with Future Fusion. It can also be easily revived by Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon.

The idea with Koa'ki Meiru Drago is to play it after REDMD is on the field, or remove him from the field by other means in order to summon REDMD. One of the most common analogies for Koa'ki Meiru Drago's usage compares it to a switch, courtesy of a feature match involving Richard Clarke, the deck's creator, where he flipped Koa'ki Meiru Drago on and off the field, allowing himself all the Special Summons and locking his opponent out of any.

Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8's ability allows it to negate and destroy the activation of any Spell Card(s). This not only restricts the amount of options your opponent has, but can shut down many popular deck types (especially Legendary Six Samurai and Dragunities, as both of them are the most Spell-reliant decks). Even though this deck uses the Graveyard, cards like Horus LV Dragon series, Prime Material Dragon, Stardust Dragon, Mirage Dragon, etc. that prevent your opponent from destroying your monsters (and more in the case of Horus LV Dragon and Mirage Dragon) are helpful.

Future Fusion (by selecting Five-Headed Dragon) not only allows you to summon a very strong monster in 2 turns, but also enables you to dump 5 dragons automatically into the Graveyard. Therefore, dumping key cards like Red-Eyes Wyvern, REDMD, Exploder Dragon, Totem Dragon, and Genesis Dragon (along with a tuner) will give you a massive advantage, and (providing you didn't summon anything) can get REDMD on the field if you don't have it already. Also, if you have Giant Trunade in your hand, using it, and then re-activating Future Fusion allows you to add 5 more dragons into the Graveyard, further increasing the pool of monsters REDMD can draw upon. Used with Genesis Dragon, you have the ability to address almost any situation.

With the release of Dodger Dragon in Extreme Victory (TCG Exclusive), Disaster Dragon deck can be even more consistent than before, as it can protect all of your Dragons from the now-commonly-used Counter Trap Cards such as Solemn Warning, Seven Tools of the Bandit, and Solemn Judgment. It can also used as Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon's Summon fodder, and has reasonably high ATK too.

Future Fusion also carries synergy with Genesis Dragon. Allowing you to discard dragons from your hand to the grave and retrieve others in a form of reverse tutoring. Genesis Dragon also carries synergy with Yamata Dragon and Light and Darkness Dragon. Both dragons cannot be Special Summoned from the grave, but with Genesis they can be re-summoned again and again. An infinite loop exists with Light and Darkness Dragon and Genesis Dragon in which you tribute Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Genesis Dragon for Light and Darkness Dragon. When LaDD dies you bring back Red-Eyes and use its effect to revive Genesis, who returns the Light and Darkness Dragon to your hand. Then, you can sacrifice them both to summon it again and spam LaDD. It's fairly unstable for obvious reasons but the ability to infinitely reuse a monster as powerful as Light and Darkness Dragon is definitely an option the deck has at its disposal[2].

All in all, Disaster Dragon is a control oriented deck that utilizes a full deck of dragons. As it doesn't rely on any combos to go off, it's by far the most consistent dragon deck and is one of the favored choices online. Future Fusion is the power house dumper of the deck, and, although it's not needed, it kicks the deck into high gear instantly by giving you five dragons of your choice in the grave which is right where you want them. Masked Dragon acts as a recruiter-toolbox engine. Red-Eyes can swarm the field or reuse dragons. Yamata and Light and Darkness Dragon rack up a large advantage and disrupt/lock down the field. Prime Material covers your dragons from your opponent's backrow. Drago stops the opponent from summoning powerful Light or Dark-attribute monsters and also acts as another control measure. Genesis Dragon allows you to recycle lost dragons, trading in dead ones[3].

The deck does not pilot itself and requires forethought and careful consideration of options. Every choice made with what you dump, search, and revive can tilt the scales in either player's favour. It plays aggressively, as almost every monster in the deck has higher ATK than opposing monsters. It can utilize this in its favour and play a momentum game. By locking down the opponent's options while you continue to amass your own it is quite easy to take complete control of a duel in a matter of turns.[4]

Variations

Disaster Dragon in addition to its control is capable of assuming many different forms to suit the tastes of a player, often utilizing different tech cards that either accent the deck or alter part of its play style while still retaining its control ability. The most famous and well known version of Disaster is often referred to as Standard which is a well rounded and consistent deck while also serving as the basis for the many different forms the deck can take. Variations include Catastrophe Dragon which runs Gandora the Dragon of Destruction to decimate an opponent's field and follow up with summoning Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, The Egg which focuses on Blue-Eyes White Dragon and numerous Draw based spells (Trade-In, Cards of Consonance) granting the deck immeasurable speed, Horus Control that focuses on Spell locking, Assault and Disaster that utilizes Stardust Dragon/Assault Mode for additional control or the surprising Stellar Destruct that summons Majestic Star Dragon with the goal of either winning in that turn or baiting the opponent into triggering Majestic Star Dragon's effect and decimating their field. Many more variations exist and others will come as new cards are released with future sets and Disaster Dragon enthusiasts look for ways to improve the concept.[5]

With the arrival of Structure Deck: Dragunity Legion, it is possible to combine this deck with a bit of Dragunities (most notably Dragunity Arma Leyvaten for Leyvaten Rider build). Beside Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon and Red-Eyes Wyvern, Totem Dragon and Genesis Dragon can be used as an additional auxiliary monster, since this deck also runs Light and Darkness Dragon. Most importantly Dragunity Legion's release allows the deck to run Dragon Ravine to quickly get specific dragons to the graveyard faster such as Totem Dragon in order to set up mid to late game plays; all at the cost of discarding a potential in hand Red-Eyes Wyvern or Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon to the graveyard where they benefit regardless. This greatly benefits the deck, as they now have alternative for the Limited Future Fusion, and gives the deck more consistency, regardless of deck format.

Recommended cards

Monsters

Spells

Traps

Extra Deck

Weaknesses

Disaster Dragon whilst being a very versatile deck does have quite a few vulnerabilities such as high reliability on the Graveyard. Red-Eyes Wyvern, Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Light and Darkness Dragon, Masked Dragon, Totem Dragon, Dragunity Arma Leyvaten and Prime Material Dragon all require use of the Graveyard to take advantage of their effects leaving them extremely vulnerable to Macro Deck. Disaster Dragon also extremely weak against deck with more brute force than themselves, such as Machina Gadget, Blackwings, Aesir (because of their gigantic Synchro Monsters) or Gravekeeper's decks, since the strongest monster in the Disaster Dragon deck usually never exceeds 3000 points and they don't have any internal sources for increasing their ATK power. To avoid this you can use Solidarity (assuming the Deck doesn't include any other support other than Dragon-type, such as Morphing Jar). Gravekeeper's deck can even bring more trouble, since Necrovalley prevents any access to the Graveyard, thus shutting down this deck's entire progress. Also, most recent Miracle Gemini decks can be the worst match-up, since almost 60%-70% of this deck are built with Anti-Meta cards such as Doomcaliber Knight, Thunder King Rai-Oh, and (especially) D.D. Crow or Banisher of the Radiance, which cripples Disaster Dragon deck greatly. Legendary Six Samurai decks can also be a major threat as they are much superior in terms of speed and lockdown (Legendary Six Samurai - Shi En negating key cards like Future Fusion, Legendary Six Samurai - Mizuho can destroy multiple cards at once, especially when Legendary Six Samurai - Shinai is also present, which probably even Stardust Dragon cannot counter, while Musakani Magatama blocks Burst Breath and Mirror Force). They also also unaffected by Rivalry of Warlords.

References

  1. ↑ yugioh-card.com USA National Championship 2009 event coverage
  2. ↑ yugioh-card.com European Championship 2010 event coverage
  3. ↑ yugioh-card.com European Championship 2010 event coverage
  4. ↑ yugioh-card.com European Championship 2010 event coverage
  5. ↑ A Guide to Disaster Dragon and Discussion on TCGPlayer.com's Forums
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