A plunge into Darkness – My Dark World Deck

Dark World Monsters and support cards first came to my attention when the “Gates of the Underworld” Structure Deck came out.

Since I have a soft-spot for Dark Monsters, I grabbed a copy of said Structure Deck and immediately fell in love with the Dark World cards it came with! Monsters that can be played for free or have some awesome effects activated when discarded from your hand? That sounded awesome to me and I packed my Dark World Deck with lots of cards that let you discard cards from hand like Card Destruction, Graceful Charity, Dark Core and Raigeki Break.

Now the readers with more profound Yu Gi Oh knowledge will have noticed that I had been getting something completely wrong. So inevitably, I was a bit disillusioned when my good friend and fellow Yu Gi Oh player Joe Rowland from the UK pointed out to me that the whole Dark World thing doesn’t work like  this. For me it was not at all obvious that cards that include discards as part of their cost or effect won’t trigger my kickass Dark World Monsters. 😦 So no first turn Card Destruction to drop a handfull of Dark World critters. I was a bit disappointed and a bit puzzled as well, as, and I said it before, the card text on the Dark World Monsters sounded like you could use cards that require one or more discards as part of their cost to activate the Dark World effects.

Anyways, after being a bit bummed, I decided to have another go at a proper Dark World Deck, as I am noramlly a guy who doesn’t throw in the towel all too quickly! 🙂

So here’s my Dark World deck list for you:

Andi’s Dark World Deck:

Monsters…19

3 x Beiige, Vanguard of Dark World

3 x Sillva, Warlord of Dark World

3 x Kahkki, Guerilla of Dark World

2 x Grapha, Dragonlord of Dark World

1 x Gren, Tactician of Dark World

1 x Scarr, Scout of Dark World

1 x Breaker, the Magical Warrior

1 x Mystic Tomato

1 x Goblin King

1 x Newdoria

1 x Gravewinder

1 x Mask of Darkness

Spells…17

3 x The Gates of Dark World

3 x Dark World Lightning

2 x Gateway to Dark World

2 x Allure of Darkness

1 x Dark World Dealings

1 x Card Destruction

1 x Foolish Burial

1 x Monster Reincarnation

1 x Premature Burial

1 x Mystical Space Typhoon

1 x Heavy Storm

Traps…4

2 x Escape from the Dark Dimension

1 x Dark Scheme

1 x The Forces of Darkness

Although my first Dark World Deck was more fun, due to myself having misunderstood how the Dark World Monsters work, I think the revised version of the deck turned out pretty decent as well. You got 8 cards in total that let you discard and activate the effects of your Dark World Monsters, namely Dark World Lighting, Dark World Dealings, Dark Scheme and The Gates of Dark World. The latter is THE key in the deck, as it allows for repeated discards and has some other nice interactions and synergies with other cards in the deck.

Not only does this great Field Spell give all your Fiends (and almost all of your Monsters are of the Fiend type) a decent 300 ATK boost, it lets you banish a card from your Graveyard to discard a Fiend Type Monster AND draw a card once per turn! Your prime targets for discarding will obviously be your Dark World Monsters. I really love to summon Beiige and Sillva at no cost and with the ATK bonus from Beige will be 1900 ATK and Sillva an impressive 2600!

Of course you can gain field advantage by just discarding your Kahkkis to destroy ANY one Monster on the field, no matter how strong. I cannot emphasize enough how useful and versatile Gates to the Dark World is in this deck. The requirement to banish one Fiend type Monster in your Graveyard can come in very handy as I am running 2 copies of Escape from the Dark Dimension, which will return any banished Dark Monster to the field at no additional cost whatsoever. And on top of the ATK and DEF Boost, the banishing of Dark Monsters and the triggering of Dark World Monsters, Gates lets you draw a card on top of that. That’s really the icing on the cake so to say!

Dark World Lightning is another great way of triggering your Dark World Monsters’ effects. If you let your opponent go first and they set a Monster face-down you can destroy it during your first turn and discard Sillva for example so you have a 2300 ATK Beast and can still normal summon another Monster. Lightning can also be useful to take out possibly dangerous, set cards which might come in handy if you want to attack safely knowing your opponent might have a face-down Mirror Force in their Spell&Trap card zone.

This deck also features a good deal of reanimation besides the aforementioned Escape from the Dark Dimension, which revives banished Dark Monsters, in the form of Premature Burial and two copies of Gateway to the Dark World which reanimates any Dark World Monster from the Graveyard.

But oh my I haven’t mentioned the most awesome Monster in this deck yet: Grapha, Dragon Lord of Dark World!

Grapha has a lot going on for him! When you discard him from your hand via Gates to the Dark World, Dark World Lightning or Dark World Dealings for example, you can destroy ANY one card on the field. That includes any pesky Spells or Traps as well. And once he is in your Graveyard, you can Special Summon him from there just by returning one of your Dark World Monsters from play to your hand. What a great card. I have to note that I included one copy of Foolish Burial as an alternative method of getting Grapha into the Graveyard. Once Grapha hits the field, you will have a 2700 or even 300o ATK beatstick (when Gates are out) to pummel the opponent while you keep their side of the field clear from Monsters mainly through Kahkki and Dark World Lightning.

I added some seemingly random Monsters to the deck such as Goblin King, Mystic Tomato and Gravewinder and Newdoria. These might be replaced for more useful / thematic cards but so far I like their effects. Mystic Tomato gets me any of these odd Dark Monsters while Goblin King can grow huge with all the Fiends I am running in this deck. Newdoria is great for taking out any opponent Monster and Gravewinder is even better as he destroys ANY one card on the field when destroyed in battle.

One last card worth mentioning: Allure of Darkness makes for a great replacement for Pot of Greed and is an awesome draw card overall. The drawback of banishing one Dark Monster from your hand can actually be an advantage if you banish a big guy and then Special Summoing him through Escape from the Dark Dimesion!

Well that is my take on a Dark World Deck for you. I will follow up with another deck I created around a pretty cool (but hard to pull off) combo involving Dark World Monsters and maximising their effects.

I hope you enjoyed this article and thank you for reading and for your interest!

Game on!

Andi