Red Dragon Archfiend (archetype)
"Red Dragon Archfiend", known as "Red Daemon" (レッド・デーモン Reddo Dēmon) in Japan and "Red Dragon" in the manga, is an archetype used by Jack Atlas in the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's anime and manga, Fake Jack Atlas, and an alternate dimension Jack Atlas in the Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V anime. The archetype is a sub-archetype of the "Archfiend" archetype, and primarily consists of Jack Atlas' Signer Dragon, "Red Dragon Archfiend", and Duel Dragon, "Hot Red Dragon Archfiend", and their upgraded forms in the anime and manga, respectively. This archetype is the rival to the "Stardust" archetype, used by Jack Atlas' rival, Yusei Fudo.
Design
In general, every member of this archetype appear as armored demonic dragons with curling horns and spikes all along the body, although the root of their design comes from the painting The Great Red Dragon by William Blake.
Playing style
In contrast to the Defensive, negation-focused "Stardust Dragon", "Red Dragon Archfiend" revolves around Offensive battle and destruction effects. Individual "Red Dragon Archfiend" monsters (and their related monsters) often have effects that destroy cards on both player's field en masse, as well as battle-related effects. Higher-Level "Red Dragon Archfiend" monsters have Summoning conditions that typically require DARK Dragon Synchro Monsters as their non-Tuner materials (which most of them are), and typically also require Double or Triple Tuning. As a Deck, "Red Dragon Archfiend" is typially combined with the "Resonator" archetype due to their dedicated synergies: "Red Dragon Archfiend" monsters have effects that support the swarming of "Resonator" monsters and/or Tuner monsters, while "Resonator" monsters focus on supporting DARK Dragon Synchro Monsters. Within the "RDA-Resonator" Deck, the two key monsters that enables the mass swarming of "Resonator" monsters are "Crimson Resonator", who can summon 2 "Resonator" monsters from the Deck if the player only controls it and a DARK Dragon Synchro Monster, and "Red Rising Dragon", who has a non-once per turn effect to revive a "Resonator" monster when Synchro Summoned. "Wandering King Wildwind" provides a source of self-Special-Summonable non-Tuner monsters to make "Red Rising Dragon", and can also search for follow up in the GY. Importantly however, "Crimson Resonator" and "Red Rising Dragon" both have the restrictive condition that, the turn their effects are activated, the player cannot Special Summon monsters from the Extra Deck, except DARK Dragon Synchro Monsters. This greatly restricts the player's Deck building options.
Recommended cards
Recommended cards
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Official Decklist
Post TDIL Deck[1]
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Weaknesses
- Because of the restrictions applied with "Crimson Resonator" and "Red Rising Dragon", the Deck has a very limited toolbox option, and its combos are very inflexible.
- "Crimson Resonator" and "Red Rising Dragon" are the Deck's main chokepoints; negating them typically means that the Deck will no longer be able to combo.
- The Deck can be directly countered by:
- Anti-Synchro cards (e.g. "Meklord")
- Anti-Dragon cards (e.g. "Buster Blader")
