Well maybe I am missing out on something, but at least as far as my knowledge of the huge card pool available in the Yu Gi Oh TCG goes, Warriors seem to be the most supportive Monster Type when you are trying to build a decent deck focused on XYZ Summoning and XYZ Monsters. What is more, many great XYZ Monsters I am aware of are Warrior Types, such as the powerful Number 39: Utopia of which I happen to own a playset as thankfully, they included it in more than one Starter Deck.
As I always like to grab some Starters (and Structure Decks) as soon as they come out, thinking they are offering great value for their price, I realized I had quite a few cards which would make for an at least half-decent XYZ Deck so I thought I should do just that. What I came up with is the first draft of a Warrior-XYZ Deck with some cards I would like to at least try out still missing. So here’s the card list for my Deck draft. Afterwards, as usual, I would like to give you some thoughts on the individual card choices.
So here we go:
XYZ Warriors (WIP):
Monsters…20
3 x Marauding Captain (Lv 3)
3 x Feedback Warrior (Lv 3)
3 x Giant Rat (Lv 4)
3 x Field Commander Rahz (Lv 4)
3 x Goblindbergh (Lv 4)
3 x Trident Warrior (Lv 4)
1 x Exiled Force
1 x D. D. Warrior Lady
Spells…15
3 x Reinforcement of the Army
3 x Generation Force
3 x XYZ-Energy
2 x Overlay Regen
2 x XYZ-Territory
1 x The Warrior Returning Alive
1 x Premature Burial
Traps…5
3 x XYZ-Effect
1 x Ultimate Offering
1 x Call of the Haunted
Extra…12
3 x Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
3 x Grenosaurus
3 x Gem-Knight Pearl
3 x Number 39: Utopia
The Strategy:
This Deck is pretty straightforward. Swarm the field with lots of Warrior Type Monsters, facilitated through the Special Summoning effects of cards such as Marauding Captain, Trident Warrior and Goblindbergh, to XYZ Summon multiple times and early on at best. Use your XYZ-Support cards to dominate the field and overpower the opponent in battle. General Warrior support cards like the extremely versatile Reinforcement of the Army ensure the deck is running smoothly.
And here’s some thoughts on my card choices:
Marauding Captain:
The “star” in many or most Warrior builds – for good reason. Not only does Marauding Captain provide you with a very easy to set-up two-card lockdown, he also has a secondary ability that goes extremely well with decks that make use of XYZ- (and Synchro-) Summoning. For no additional cost you can Special Summon any Level 4 or lower Monster from your hand when Captain is Summoned. This is a great way to set up an easy XYZ-Summon but can also be used defensively, setting up the “Marauding Captain Lock” easily if you drop a second Captain through the effect of the first one. Cards like Reinforcement of the Army and The Warrior Returning Alive work extremely well in helping to facilitate said lockdown. Overall probably the most useful Monster in this Deck and, in my opinion, any Warrior Deck.
Feedback Warrior:
This one is less thrilling than Marauding Captain, although it has a great synergy with the whole XYZ-Summoning theme of the Deck. When this one is Summoned (Normal or Special – it does not matter) you can change the Level of any face-up Monster to Level 3. This means you can sync up another of your Monsters with Feedback Warrior, who is also Level 3, to power off XYZ-Summoning into one of your Rank 3 Monsters easily. Pretty handy, especially when combined with Goblindbergh or Trident Warrior, who are both Level 4. Otherwise, Feedback Warrior is pretty useless with a puny 800 ATK and 700 DEF. Best used for XYZ-Summoning!
Giant Rat:
Giant Rat is the only non-Warrior Monster I am running in this deck, and while it is great in replacing itself when destroyed in Battle and for searching some of the Monsters in the Deck, I am considering to drop it for a more useful card I am not aware of at the moment or may have missed. So 3 Monster Card Slots in this deck are not set in stone at all – your card suggestions would be very welcome here!
Field Commander Rahz:
Rahz is a great search engine in a Warrior Deck that lets you pick any Warrior Type Monster from your Deck and put it on top of the Deck, to be drawn during your next Draw Phase (or whenever you draw your next card). It may be a good idea to search for a second copy of Marauding Captain if you already got one in hand or in play, so you can either set up the lockdown I talked about above or XYZ-Summon through Captain’s secondary effect. Do not play Field Commander Rahz if you are planning on playing Reinforcement of the Army in the same turn! This is pretty obvious but I thought it should be mentioned… 🙂
Goblindbergh:
Like Marauding Captain, this airborne Goblin Warrior lets you Special Summon a Level 4 or lower Monster from you hand, providing an easy and fast way to XYZ-Summon into a Rank 4 Monster – or a Rank 3 Monster if you use Goblindbergh’s effect to Special Summon Feedback Warrior, with which you can conveniently demote Goblindbergh’s Level to Level 3.
Trident Warrior:
The third Monster in this Deck that allows you to Special Summon from your hand. Trident Warrior is somewhat like Marauding Captain’s little brother, letting you Special Summon a Level 3 or lower Monster from your hand when you Summon him. Probably the best target for this is, yet again, Feedback Warrior, which can turn your Trident Warrior into a Level 3 Monster so you will be able to use Feedback and Trident Warrior to XYZ-Summon into one of your Rank 3 Monsters.
Exiled Force:
Just a one-of if you need to get rid of any troublesome Monster real bad. Searchable with Giant Rat and Reinforcement of the Army, you will be able to get it out of your Deck and use its effect to annihilate any Monster on the field, no matter how strong and in what position, easily.
D. D. Warrior Lady:
Similar to Exiled Force as I included only 1 copy in this particular deck and it should be used to get rid of a Monster for good. Sometimes destroying a Monster is not enough, but luckily your one-shot D. D. Warrior Lady will banish the Monster which is bothering you most.
Reinforcement of the Army:
This is a key-card in any Warrior Deck, letting you search out any Warrior in this particular build (as all your Warriors are Level 4 or lower). Reinforcment of the Army just turns your whole deck into one nice, big toolbox. Need another Warrior of a certain Level to XYZ-Summon? Need that second Marauding Captain to set up the lockdown? Wanna get rid of a Monster that is causing you troubles? Well look no further – Reinforcement of the Army is your all-in-one solution!
Generation Force:
This is a great way to add a copy of one of the many “XYZ-cards” from your deck to your hand. In the current build you can search for XYZ-Energy, which destroys any Monster if you have an XYZ Monster with some XYZ-Material still attached handy, search for XYZ-Territory, which will boost the power of your XYZ-Monsters in battle or search for XYZ-Effect which will destroy any one card on the field when you manage to XYZ-Summon a Monster. Also, Generation Force, while getting you a copy of the XYZ-card you need most at the moment, thins out your deck so your chances of drawing more useful cards from a slimmer Deck are increased. I would like to add more XYZ-cards as one-offs to be searched out by Generation Force, such as XYZ-Rebirth. I have to investigate a bit more regarding the different XYZ-cards availaible…
XYZ-Energy:
Nice Pinpoint Destruction in an XYZ-Deck. The penalty of having to remove one XYZ-Material from one of your XYZ Monsters is not too harsh, especially if you have Gem-Knight Pearl out, who has no inherent effect using up XYZ-Material and hence has no good use of those in itself anyways…
Overlay Regen:
This is somewhat of a semi-useful card. While it can, to some degree, “reload” your Leviathan Dragons, Grenosaurs and Utopias, this is the card that will most likely be replaced with more useful cards such as XYZ-Rebirth and Oni Gami Combo. More on that later.
XYZ-Territory:
This Field Spell should ensure the dominance of your XYZ-Monsters in battle, with Gem Knight Pearl being your strongest beater at a base ATK of 2600. XYZ-Territory gives your XYZ Monsters an ATK and DEF boost of 200 times its Rank. That will turn your Gem Knights for example into 3400 behemoths. A force to be reckoned with. And as a cool bonus, XYZ-Territory has an inbuilt protection mechanic against Spell and Trap Removal, as you can remove an XYZ-Material from any of your Monsters to prevent its destruction…
The Warrior Returning Alive:
I should rather be running Monster Reborn instead of this but it was my intention to skip what I call the “power cards” which are useful in pretty much any Deck in this build (cards like Pot of Greed, Raigeki, Change of Heart and Monster Reborn to name a few). The Warrior Returning Alive kinda turns your Graveyard into a “Warrior Toolbox” which offers more and more “tools” the longer the game lasts and the more of your Monsters are sent to the Graveyard.
Premature Burial:
This is best used to reanimate one of your fallen XYZ-Monsters and serves the same purpose as Call of the Haunted or to a lesser extent The Warrior Returning Alive which I commented on above. Of course you can use Premature Burial to revive any Monster from your Graveyard in order to use it as Material for XYZ-Summoning.
XYZ-Effect:
Your solution to any problem. Well at least XYZ-Effect can and will get rid of any troublesome card your opponent managed to drop – be it Monster, Spell or Trap. The only thing is that you need to pull off an XYZ-Summon to activate this Trap. That should not be a big problem as all the deck is focused on XYZ-Summoning easily and repeatedly.
Ultimate Offering:
Well this one is a staple in any Deck trying to swarm the field and, provided your hand is filled with Monsters, which should be the case early on in the game, you can use Ultimate Offering repeatedly to pull of more than one XYZ-Summon in one turn.
Call of the Haunted:
As Premature Burial, this one is best used to reanimate your powerful XYZ Monsters that have been destroyed previously and can of course be used to get you some generic Monster from your Graveyard in order to pull off an XYZ-Summon easily.
Number 17: Leviathan Dragon:
Can become a 3000 ATK Monster (which cannot attack an opponent directly in that stage) which is pretty amazing for a Rank 3 Monster. With XYZ-Territory in play, it is a 2600 ATK Monster in its basic form (during damage calculation only).
Grenosaur:
A neat 2000 base ATK combined with a pretty powerful direct damage effect. In conjunction with XYZ-Territory, Grenosaur will be able to take out most of the early Monsters the opponent manages to Summon, dealing 1000 extra damage when you remove an XYZ-Material.
Number 39: Utopia:
A good beater at 2500 ATK with a useful effect. You can use Overlay Regen to keep it alive while you are using its XYZ Material for negating your opponent’s attacks.
Gem-Knight Pearl:
A “vanilla” XYZ Monster with a more than decent ATK of 2600, even outnumbering Number 39: Utopia in terms of sheer ATK power.
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Well, there you have it – my initial draft of an XYZ Warriors Deck. It is far from finished and I have the feeling that it could be improved a lot. so here are some thoughts of how I want to improve the current build. Your comments and ideas how to make this deck rock would be much appreciated!!
What I want to add to the Deck:
- A replacement for Giant Rat:
Giant Rat is somewhat the oddball Monster in the Deck. While it can search for quite a few of the other Monsters in the Deck when destroyed in battle, I think it is somewhat semi-functional and useful in this build so I am looking for Monsters to replace it. Maybe I should swap it for a playset of the Tuner – Warrior Monster Rose, Warrior of Revenge and add just a pinch of Synchro to the Deck. But more on that later…
As mentioned above, I really want to have a greater variety of cards with “XYZ” in their names so Generation Force will be the key to a toolbox of different XYZ-cards with all kinds of effects. XYZ-Rebirth would be a perfect candidate for that and I would gladly replace one of the Overlay Regens with a copy of Rebirth – If I would only be able to find a copy on ebay or somewhere else 😛
Another card which I would like to add somehow to this deck but simply have no access to at the moment (my card trader of choice does not have it for once…). I think this would be a great addition to the deck (sadly it does not qualify for the Generation Force “XYZ toolbox” as it lacks “XYZ” in the card name) as enabling an XYZ Monster to attack twice in one Battle Phase sounds like a great potential for dealing a ton of damage and could quite possibly be THE finishing move in many games. This one is best suited for Gem-Knight Pearl, whose XYZ Material is pretty much useless on him anyways and the penalty of removing all XYZ Material from the Monster you use Oni Gami Combo on has no disadvantage to the Gem Knight as far as I understand.
As mentioned above, I could just swap the Giant Rats for a Playset of Rose, Warrior of Revenge, who is a Level 4 Tuner Warrior Type Monster, meaning it can be searched via Reinforcement of the Army and Field Commander Rahz and would add a whole new dimension to this deck, which I had intended to focus on XYZ-stuff. Combined with Goblindbergh and Marauding Captain, Rose could be used to Synchro Summon into stuff like Red Dragon Archfiend, Stardust Dragon among others. I am a bit reluctant to add even just a pinch of Synchro to this XYZ-oriented Deck but it might be something to consider as adding this pinch would not be very hard at all and could offer alternative ways to victory… Heck, I could even add in some lowly Tune Warriors for some extra Synchro Action, which would enable me to Synchro Summon into powerful Level 6 Synchro Monsters such as Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier. This could be done easily by combining Marauding Captain (Lv 3) with Tune Warrior (also Lv 3) starting on your very first turn.
- Changes in the Extra Deck:
With the possible addition of the Tuner Monster Rose, Warrior of Revenge, I would have to add some Level 7 and 8 Synchro Monsters to the Extra Deck. Scrap Archfiend, Red Dragon Archfiend and Stardust Dragon come to mind. I am also looking for some other XYZ Monsters of Rank 3 and 4 to add to the Extra Deck. Please suggest if you think you know some that may be worthwile to add or replace some of the XYZs I am currently running.
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OK this is about all I can tell you about my XYZ-Warriors Work-In-Progress Deck. As you have seen, or read rather, it is far from finished and needs some serious tinkering. Please let me know what you think and if you happen to know of one or more cards that could be added to improve this first deck draft, do not hesitate and suggest the card(s) you have in mind to me right away!
So thanks a bunch for reading. Hope you enjoyed my XYZ-ramblings!
Game on!
Andi
EDIT: I forgot to mention: Of course if I go the XYZ road, Colossal Fighter would be a MUST in the Extra Deck!
Casual Yu Gi Oh with Andi 