Forum:Deck Guide/Dragunity

Dragunity Decks - Take to the Skies!

by Runer5h

Intro

The Dragunity archetype started off in Duel Terminal - Dragunity of the Hurricane, and have gained more support in Duel Terminal - Charge of the Genex, Duel Terminal - Pulse of the Trishula, and Structure Deck 19: Dragunity Drive. Some of their support will be released in Hidden Arsenal 3.

So what are Dragunities? They're a series of WIND-Attribute Dragon and Winged Beast monsters, and they revolve around equipping the former to the latter. With your Dragons equipped to your Winged Beasts, you can do a number of interesting things, including quick synchro summons, attacking twice, attacking directly, and destroying your opponent's cards!

Meet the Archetype!

Monsters

• "Dragunity Aklys": This card is very useful in any and all Dragunity decks. It's a level 2 Dragon Tuner monster, but more important are its two effects: Firstly, when it's normal summoned, you can use its effect to special summon any Dragunity monster from your hand, and equip Aklys to it. This ties in well to its next effect, as when it's equipped to a monster and sent to the graveyard in any way, it automatically destroys a card on the field! This is undoubtedly very powerful, but be certain you don't activate it when your opponent controls no cards - you'll have to destroy one of your own. Also note that its effect will not activate if the monster it's equipped to is flipped face-down or is removed from the field - then it is no longer equipped to a monster when it is sent to the graveyard.

• "Dragunity Angusticlavii": This is a level 5 Winged Beast monster, and when it's equipped with a Dragunity Dragon-type monster it can inflict Piercing damage. However, it has no effect to equip itself with a Dragunity monster, so that somewhat limits its effectiveness. It also has only 2100 ATK, which is low for a monster that requires a tribute, so it's in general not that good.

• "Dragunity Arma Leyvaten": This Level 8 Dragon has not only 2600 ATK, but a number of useful effects. First of all, it can special summon itself from the hand - OR graveyard - by removing a Dragunity monster equipped with a Dragunity Dragon from play. Furthermore, it can equip ANY Dragon - not any Dragunity Dragon, just any Dragon - to itself whenever it's summoned. And if it would be destroyed by a card effect, it will special summon the equipped Dragon first! Equip it with a powerful Dragon, and if your opponent manages to get rid of Laevatein they may have to deal with the new monster!

• "Dragunity Arma Mystletainn": This card can essentially be regarded as Leyvaten's little brother. It has 2100 ATK and is level 6 - additionally, it can only special summon itself from the hand, and can only equip Dragunity Dragons. On the plus side, its summoning requirements are less strict, requiring only that you send a Dragunity monster from your side of the field to the graveyard.

• "Dragunity Brandistock": This card is pretty neat. It's a level 1 Dragon tuner, and when it's equipped to a monster, that monster can attack twice a turn! It's quite useful with some of the more powerful monsters of the archetype.

• "Dragunity Corsesca": Another level 1 Dragon tuner. When it's equipped to a monster and that monster destroys another monster by battle, you can use Corsesca's effect to add another monster from your deck to your hand. The monster has to be level 4 or lower, and must be of the same Type and Attribute of the monster that Corsesca is equipped to, but it's still very useful.

• "Dragunity Darkspear": This is a level 3 Dragon tuner with an odd revival effect. You can use its effect to revive a level 4 or lower Winged-Beast monster from your graveyard by tributing a Dragunity Dragon card you control - this includes equipped Dragons, and even Darkspear itself! Note that this does not work while Darkspear is an equip card, which makes it not that useful.

• "Dragunity Dux": Dux is one of the most useful of the Dragunities. It's a level 4 Winged-Beast non-tuner with 1500 ATK and two good effects. First of all, when it's normal summoned, it equips a level 3 or lower Dragunity Dragon in the graveyard to itself. Additionally, it gains 200 ATK for each Dragunity card you control. The upshot of this is that if you control just Dux, it has 1700 ATK - and when equipped, it has 1900! This is even better with Brandistock or Corsesca, the effects of which can make good use of Dux's ATK boosting.

• "Dragunity Javelin": Javelin is a level 2 Dragon tuner. If it's destroyed while it's a monster, and you control a Dragunity Winged-Beast monster, Javelin can equip itself to said monster. It's not useful at all, essentially.

• "Dragunity Legionnaire": This is another very useful Winged-Beast. With a level of 3 and an ATK of only 1200, its stats are meager, but its effects are great. It has the same equipping effect as Dux, but instead of gaining ATK, it can send any Dragunity equip card you control to the graveyard to destroy your opponent's face-up monster! This on its own is powerful, but when combined with Aklys - the one that destroys one card when it's sent to the graveyard - it can be a devastating one-two punch to your opponent's field!

• "Dragunity Militum": This level 4, 1700 ATK Winged Beast has an interesting effect. With him, you can special summon a Dragunity Dragon in your spell/trap card zone once per turn. This might seem very useful, except he has no ability to equip cards himself.

• "Dragunity Partisan": Partisan is a level 2 Dragon tuner, and it has a self-equipping effect similar to Dragunity Aklys - except while Aklys can equip itself to any Dragunity in your hand, Partisan only works on Winged-Beasts. However, when Partisan is equipped to a monster, that monster is treated as a tuner! That can make for some interesting synchro options.

• "Dragunity Phalanx": This card is the workhorse of the Dragunity archetype. Want to know why? Because it's a level 2 Dragon tuner that can special summon itself when it's equipped to a monster! Combined with all of the ways there are to equip monsters in this archetype, this card makes synchro summons easy! Synchro summon a level 5 monster with Legionnaire, a level 6 monster with Dux, a level 8 monster with Mystletainn, and the level 10 with Dragunity Arms Leyvaten!

• "Dragunity Pilum": This level 3 Dragon tuner has the same first effect as Partisan (equipping itself to a monster). However, when it's equipped to a monster, that monster can attack directly for half damage.

• "Dragunity Primus Pilus": This level 5, 2200 ATK monster has a very cool effect. When it's summoned, it can equip itself with a Dragunity Dragon FROM THE DECK. In other words, it requires even less setup than Dux or Legionnaire! Combine it with Dragunity Phalanx for an easy level 7 synchro monster.

• "Dragunity Tribus": Tribus is an interesting monster who allows you to send any level 3 or lower dragons from the deck to the graveyard. While "Dragunity Arma Mystletainn" is in your hand, tribus can send "Dragunity Phalanx" for instant level 8 synchro whereby sending tribus to special summon "Dragunity Arma Mystletainn".

Synchro Monsters

• "Dragunity Knight - Gae Bulg": Gae Bulg is a level 6 Dragunity synchro monster, and like all Dragunity synchro monsters, it's a Dragon that requires a Dragon tuner and a Winged-Beast non-tuner. Fortunately, this is easily accomplished with two Dragunity monsters: Dux and Phalanx. At 2000 ATK, Gae Bulg may not seem strong, but whenever it battles, you can remove a Winged-Beast in your graveyard from play to increase its ATK by that monster's ATK! Remove Dux to power it up to 3500, or Primus Pilus to buff it to 4200, enough to take down Obelisk the Tormentor!

• "Dragunity Knight - Gae Dearg": This is another level 6 Dragon synchro with the same synchro requirements as Gae Bulg. It has an ATK of 2400 and a useful effect - once per turn, you can add any level 4-or-lower Dragon or Winged Beast (not just Dragunities) from your deck to your hand, and then discard any Dragon or Winged Beast monster. You can use this to add a Winged Beast such as Dux, which can equip Dragunities, and then discard an equipping target such as Aklys or Brandistock. You can also use it as essentially a monster version of Foolish Burial, by adding a monster to your hand and then discarding that same monster.

• "Dragunity Knight - Vajrayana": This monster has the level, type, and synchro requirements of the other level 6 Knights. It has less ATK than even Gae Bulg at only 1900 - however, its effects more than make up for that. When synchro summoned, it equips a Dragunity level 3 or lower Dragon from your graveyard to it. It can then send that Dragon (or any equipped card, for that matter) to the graveyard to double its own ATK! This is particularly useful with Aklys, which destroys your opponent's card when it's sent to the graveyard. However, if you equip Phalanx to it, you can special summon Phalanx and pull off a level 8 synchro!

• "Dragunity Knight - Trident": This is a level 7 Dragon synchro with all the same requirements as the other Knights. Its effect is quite odd - you send up to three cards you control to the graveyard to send an equal number of monsters from your opponent's extra deck to the graveyard. Depending on the deck, this could be useful, but it generally isn't worth the extreme loss of cards.

• "Dragunity Knight - Barcha": Barcha is a level 8 synchro with 2000 ATK and the same requirements as the other 4 synchros. When it's synchro summoned, it can equip Dragunity Dragons to itself from your graveyard - as many as possible, in fact! And it gains 300 ATK for each equipped monster. It has a good effect, but its difficulty in synchro summoning severely limits its effectiveness.

Spell Cards

• "Dragon Ravine": This card is pure GOLD for a Dragunity deck, and 3 should be used in every single Dragunity deck. It's a field spell that allows you, once per turn, to discard a card to either add a level 4 or lower Dragunity monster from your deck to your hand, or to send any Dragon from your deck to your graveyard. It is simply amazing.

• "Dragon Mastery": This is a continuous spell that allows you to equip Dragunity Dragons in your hand to any face-up monster you control - keep in mind that this doesn't mean only Dragunities! It also grants any of your monsters equipped with Dragunity equip cards an extra 500 ATK. The card can be fairly useful, but depending on the deck you may not want it.

Play Style

So, what do the Dragunities do best with their equips? QUICK SYNCHRO, that's what. Here's a quick explanation of one of the combos they can easily pull off:

1. Have a Dragunity Dux in your hand and a Dragunity Phalanx in your graveyard.
2. Summon Dragunity Dux, and use its effect to equip Dragunity Phalanx.
3. Use Phalanx's effect to special summon itself.
4. Synchro summon Dragunity Knight - Vajrayana.
5. Use Vajrayana's effect to equip Dragunity Phalanx.
6. Special summon Phalanx with its own effect.
7. Synchro summon any level 8 monster!

It's a very easy combo to pull off - all you need to have is one Dragon Ravine and one Dragunity Phalanx in your hand. Discard Phalanx with Ravine to get Dux, and the rest is easy. You can also use Dux and Phalanx to synchro summon any level 6 monster, or use Legionnaire and Phalanx for a level 5.

When you don't feel safe synchro summoning, try destroying your opponent's cards with Dragunity Legionnaire. Normally, Legionnaire can only destroy monsters, but if you equip it with Dragunity Aklys, you can also destroy any other card on the field, including face-down spells and traps. Are you worried about a face-down that could be Solemn Warning or Bottomless Trap Hole? Use Legionnaire instead. It can be negated by Solemn Warning, but not removed with Bottomless Trap Hole - and if your opponent used that Warning on your Legionnaire they won't be able to use it on your synchro monster for next turn.

Meanwhile, with the effects of Dragunity Dragons, you can also conduct a quick beatdown - especially with Dragunity Dux's ATK-increasing effect. Equip it with Brandistock for a double attack, and if your opponent has a clear field you can strip away nearly half their life in one go! Or you can attack directly using Pilum, and search out cards with Corsesca. These can be even more powerful strategies with the Dragunity Arma monsters, which generally have higher base ATK than the Winged-Beast monsters.

Possible support cards

So, you've got the Dragunity cards. You think you can make a really good deck out of just those cards? Think again. You'll be much better off with support mixed in as well.

Support Monsters

• "Flying Kamakiri 1": When this monster is destroyed by battle, you can special summon a WIND monster with 1500 or less ATK from your deck in ATK mode. It's good for blocking attacks and fetching tuners when you don't have one (or if you don't have Dragon Canyon). And it can search any Dragunity monster weaker than Dux.
• "Masked Dragon": This would be used similarly to Kamakiri, but it can only search the Dragunity Dragons. The only upside to this is that Masked Dragon can special summon monsters in DEF mode, so it's more helpful at protecting your life points.
• "Blackwing - Zephyros the Elite": Zephyros is an amazing card for a number of reasons:

1. It can be discarded with Dragon Ravine, and it'll be in the graveyard, ready to use.
2. It can return Dragon Ravine to your hand to use its effect twice in a turn for massive searching, or it can return a Dragunity Legionnaire to use its destruction effect twice. (The latter is a combo that can make your opponent lose lots of cards!)
3. As a level 4 Winged-Beast, it combos with Phalanx or Aklys for a level 6 synchro summon - such as a Dragunity Knight!

• "Card Trooper": Since Dragunity decks rely on their graveyard so much, you can easily use this to send cards there, and then draw a card when this is destroyed. However! If you use this card, be sure to have a high monster count in your deck - at LEAST 20 or 21, to give you a better chance of sending a monster to the graveyard. Because everyone knows that milling spells and traps stinks.
• "Sangan": Use Sangan to search out any card you need from your deck, be it Dux for synchro summons, Legionnaire for destruction, or a tuner if you have a way of discarding it.
• "D.D. Crow": This is a pretty good tech card in its own right. However, it's even better here - it's searchable with Gae Dearg and compatible with any Winged-Beast support you may wish to include.
• "Light and Darkness Dragon": This card is very interesting in this deck - it can form an interesting loop with Dragunity Arms Leyvaten. First of all, notice that Leyvaten can equip any Dragon from your graveyard, and not just Dragunities. Secondly, notice that Light and Darkness Dragon wipes your field and special summons a monster from your graveyard when it is destroyed in any way. The upshot of this? If you have a Laevatein equipped with a Light and Darkness Dragon, whenever either one is destroyed in any way, you can special summon your Leyvaten again, and equip the Light and Darkness Dragon to it.
• "Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon": REDMD is one of the best Dragon support monsters. If you use the Dragunity Arma archetype or other high-ATK Dragons, this card can be very powerful. If you don't, however, you won't get much use from Red-Eyes - its level is too high for synchro summoning, and you can retrieve your low-level Dragon tuners easily anyways.
• "Koa'ki Meiru Drago": Against DARK and LIGHT decks that do lots of special summoning (for instance, Lightsworn or Infernity), this card can be useful. However, you'll never be able to make use of it against other decks - say, X-Sabers, Quickdraw Dandywarrior, or Machina Gadgets. At most, this card should be side-decked.

Support Spells

• "Cards of Consonance": This card is practically a Dragunity version of Destiny Draw. Use it to discard Dragunity Phalanx, Aklys, Corsesca, Brandistock, or Darkspear to the graveyard, where they are most useful!
• "Pot of Avarice": With all the synchro summoning, discards from Dragon Ravine and Cards of Consonance, and plain old destruction from battle that will be happening with this deck, Pot of Avarice is golden here. Recycle Dux, Vajrayana, and other cards for more synchro summons!
• "Foolish Burial": This one's a no-brainer. Use this to send targets for equipping to the graveyard the easy way.
• "Terraforming": Again, obvious - this searches Dragon Ravine. Considering how good a card the Ravine is, you'll probably want a Terraforming in your deck.
• "Field Barrier": Using this card is something of a toss-up. If your opponent uses Field Spell Cards, this card will be pretty useful, but otherwise you usually have better ways of protecting your Dragon Ravine. Not to mention the fact that if your opponent gets rid of your Dragon Ravine without destroying it (Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier and Caius the Shadow Monarch spring to mind) you'll be unable to play your field spell again unless you remove the Barrier from your field.
• "My Body as a Shield": Normal summons are important in this deck - without them, Dux and Legionnaire can't get their effects. Use My Body as a Shield to protect against Bottomless Trap Hole and the like. (Be warned - My Body does not work against Solemn Warning and Solemn Judgment).

Support Traps

• "Curse of Royal": Really, any negation card ("Solemn Judgment", "Dark Bribe", and the rest) to protect the key card Dragon Canyon is a must in this deck. But Curse of Royal deserves some special mention: With "Heavy Storm" banned, cards that destroy spells and traps now generally target. Use Curse of Royal to get rid of Mystical Space Typhoon, Dust Tornado, and Icarus Attack!
• "Icarus Attack": Speaking of which... this card could be pretty useful to you. Tribute your Winged-Beast to destroy 2 cards of your opponent's. The main problem with using this card is how often you'd rather be using your monsters in a synchro summon. Still, if you have a used Legionnaire on-field, this can be a great way to get even more out of it.
• "Spiritual Wind Art - Miyabi": This card is similar to Icarus Attack, but it works with more of your monsters and can easily be used to get rid of monsters you don't want to see in your opponent's graveyard.
• "Burst Breath": Tribute a Dragon you control to destroy all on-field monsters with less DEF than that Dragon's ATK. This should only be used if you use high-ATK Dragons (you won't destroy much with a tributed Dragunity Phalanx) but it can wipe out whole swarms of monsters if used properly.
• "Trap Stun": Stop Bottomless Trap Hole, Solemn Warning, or Dimensional Prison from messing up your strategies!

Pros and Cons of a Dragunity Deck

So, why should you use a Dragunity deck? And once you're using it, what do you need to watch out for? Those will be discussed in this section.

Pros

• High synchro capability. By equipping Dragunity Phalanx to Legionnaire, Dux, Mystletainn, or Leyvaten, you can easily summon a level 5, 6, or 8 synchro monster - even the level 10 Trident Dragion is a breeze!
• High draw and search power. It's been mentioned already that Cards of Consonance and Pot of Avarice are both useful in this deck/ Each of those cards allows you to draw 2 new ones, meaning that under certain circumstances you can easily draw many cards in one turn. Meanwhile, the deck has great search power, with Dragon Ravine and Dragunity Knight - Gae Dearg - not to mention Flying Kamakiri 1 or Sangan. The two combine to form a deck that makes it fairly easy to get the cards you need when you need them.
• The ability to abuse the everloving snot out of Dragunity Aklys. With Aklys in the graveyard and Legionnaire in the hand (and maybe even a Dragon Ravine to search out a new Legionnaire each turn), you can destroy lots of cards. As you keep destroying and destroying their cards, your opponent will steadily run out of options. And then you can start bringing on the synchros.

Cons

• HEAVY reliance on the graveyard. Even more so than, say, X-Sabers - at least THEY can use Boggart Knight for an easy synchro summon and not even touch their graveyard. But if you want to get any of the useful effects of a Dragunity deck - equipping, synchro summoning, destroying - you'll have to go through the graveyard, barring the lucky special summon effects of Dragunity Aklys and its brethren. The upshot of this is that an unchecked Macro Cosmos or Dimensional Fissure can destroy you on its own (not to mention Necrovalley, which can even destroy your Ravine when activated), and D.D. Crow will set you back a turn.
• HEAVY reliance on being Dragons and Winged-Beasts. Not the biggest problem, and most opponents can't take advantage of it. However, Zombie World will be a big problem for this deck if it gets activated, shutting off all of your strategies (and again, potentially destroying your Dragon Canyon).
• HEAVY reliance on monster effects. This isn't such a unique problem, but it's still a big one. Skill Drain can be the bane of this deck, so be sure to have plenty of ways to deal with it ready. Meanwhile, the cards Doomcaliber Knight and Effect Veiler will set you back a turn.
• HEAVY reliance on normal summons. If you lose your normal summon (by Bottomless Trap Hole, Solemn Warning, etc), you lose a turn. Simple as that. This deck really has NO way to simply special summon a monster unless you already have some field presence. Be prepared to include plenty of ways to deal with this problem - S/T destruction, negation, or finding ways to include non-normal summons in the deck. Also, if you fear a set Bottomless Trap Hole, and if your opponent has a monster out? Use Legionnaire, clearing the way for your other summons.
• Lots of special summons. This isn't as big a problem as some of the others. Even if your opponent has cards such as Royal Oppression, Archlord Kristya, or Thunder King Rai-Oh, you can still pull off big attacks with Dragunity Dux and destruction combos with Legionnaire. If you're using Legionnaire, it's likely you'll be able to destroy the card that's preventing your special summons anyways. Still it's something to watch out for.
• Dragon Ravine is very important. You CAN win without it, but it's harder. The more you get a Dragon Ravine in your hand, the better. If you don't have Ravine out, try to get Gae Dearg out as soon as possible.

Putting it all together - the Decklists

Here's generally what some of your Dragunity decks should look like. In this section, I'll showcase each new build and describe how it's used, and what its individual pros and cons are likely to be.

Pure Dragunity

This is more or less the basic build, with some tech choices thrown in. (Forgive my inclusion of Zephyros - it's just such a useful card, even if it is not yet released.) As mentioned before, this deck has the ability to easily synchro summon and destroy your opponent's cards, and with a decent opening hand you can do quite well in the duel.

Vayunity

This deck has many of the same cards as the Pure Dragunity deck shown above, but it is actually quite different. The main change is the addition of two each of Blackwing - Vayu the Emblem of Honor and Blackwing - Sirocco the Dawn. Vayu can remove itself and a Sirocco from the graveyard to special summon Blackwing Armed Wing from my extra deck, which alleviates one of the main problems of the Dragunity deck - reliance on normal summons.

With those new cards, there are some other changes to the deck, and there will be changes to how you play the deck. Now that you need to get those Vayus and Siroccos to the graveyard, Dragunity Knight - Gae Dearg becomes more important. You can use it to add a Vayu to your hand and then discard it. You can also, if you already have a Sirocco in your hand, add any Dragon or Winged Beast to your hand and discard Sirocco. Dragon Canyon is also even more useful, as it can discard those Vayus and Siroccos, so another Terraforming has been added. And finally, since there are more disposable Winged Beasts, there are now two copies of Icarus Attack.