Hey guys, David here with a yugioh article this week. Here at showtime, we try to put out an article every week on Monday, most of which are going to be articles on Magic the Gathering decks. But in our store, our highest tournament turnout is for Yu-gi-oh so the last Monday of each month is going to be a Yu-gi-oh article. And to start off this trend I’d like to talk about my newest pet deck, a Crystron Halqifibrax Combo deck
This card is notorious for being super easy to make and extend into degenerate combos. Well this deck looks to take this to the limit. We play 12 ways to get to Halqifibrax in our deck and once we get there, the entire rest of the combo comes out from the deck or extra deck. Those who are familiar with Halqifibrax combos will likely also be familiar with his best friends, Mecha Phantom Beast Auroradon and Deskbot 001. This is where this deck starts off, but hopefully the end board is a bit of a surprise.
This is how we get to Halqifibrax as soon as possible. Playing 12 starters means that going first we have an 85% chance of seeing any one of these and a 90% chance if we go second. This deck bricks sometimes, but significantly less than most other decks. If you can afford 3 Pot of Prosperity, just throw them in the deck and don’t even cut anything. There are two combo lines this deck can take and either way, you are left with at least 6 cards in your extra deck meaning you can always banish 6 from Prosperity to go digging even farther. Draconnet special summons a lvl 2 normal monster from the deck, and if that lvl 2 normal monster is a tuner, that makes Halqifibrax and we are off. Cynet Mining acts both as bait for hand traps, since it doesn’t commit our normal summon, as well as sometimes putting a useful card into the graveyard with the discard. It always searches for Draconnet as that is our only target. Next is Plaguespreader Zombie. After normal summoning Plaguespreader, link into Salamangreat Almiraj and bring back Plaguespreader with its own effect. The deck plays 2 bricks that if you draw lock you out of different parts of the combo, if you see either of these put them back on top with Plaguespreader’s effect, otherwise it doesn’t matter what you put on top. And lastly, the best starter of the bunch is Deskbot 003. This deck has two main lines, a line where we have only 1 Deskbot 001, and a line where we have 2. Deskbot 003 guarantees that we have both Deskbot 001s in rotation since he will summon one and Halqifibrax will summon the other.
Both lines will start off the same, then branch off from each other. I’ll go over the weaker and simpler line with only one Deskbot 001 first but for now the combos are the same. Once you’ve gone to Halqifibrax, summon Deskbot 001 from the deck and link summon into Mecha Phantom Beast Auroradon. Auroradon will summon 3 lvl 3 machine tokens and bring back Deskbot 001. Synchro summon a herald of the Arc Light using 001 and a token. Use Auroradon’s effect to tribute both tokens and special summon Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing from the deck. Coltwing will then summon 2 more lvl 3 machine tokens and Deskbot 001 will summon itself again. Synchro into a second Herald of the Arc Light and then overlay both Heralds into Number 60: Dugares the Timeless. Dugares will detach both Heralds and bring back Deskbot from the graveyard. This will trigger a search from both Heralds to add a ritual monster or spell from your deck to your hand. Remember this for now, I’ll come back to it in a bit. Using Deskbot and the last token, synchro summon into the third Herald of the Arc Light. This is the first part of the weaker combo, I’ll come back to this in the next section but for now I’ll explain what to do with two Deskbot 001s in rotation. The line here is slightly different though very similar. Another Deskbot means that we really have to watch our zones. Zone placement doesn’t matter but if we do the combo the same way, we miss out on some summons that can propel us into an insane board. So rewinding back to summoning Auroradon, we make 3 lvl 3 machine tokens but now both Deskbot 001s come back. Synchro summon one deskbot and a token into a Herald of the Arc Light, and do the same with the second Deskbot and a second token. Overlay the two Heralds into Number 60: Dugares and use his effect to bring back either Deskbot. This will trigger both Heralds, but again I’ll come back to this in a bit. Use the Deskbot and the last token to make our third Herald and now use Auroradon’s effect to tribute Dugares and the Herald to summon Coltwing from the deck. Now we get a third search from Herald and when Coltwing summons 2 more tokens, both Deskbots come back. This is the end of the first section of the better combo as well. A similar board to the first one but with many more plays to go.
Picking up from where we left off with the weaker combo. Our board is Auroradon in the Extra Monster Zone, Number 60: Dugares the Timeless, Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing and one Herald of the Arc Light in the main monster zones. Fusion summon N’tss from the extra deck using Herald and Dugares, triggering another Herald search, and then overlay N’tss and Coltwing for Any rank 4 of choice; mine is Abyss Dweller. Whatever you pick, you need to be able to detach a material at Quick Effect speed and always detach N’tss first. When N’tss is detached her effect triggers and lets you destroy any card on the board. This is basically where this board ends. An Abyss Dweller with N’tss underneath and Auroradon on the board. But remember those Herald of the Arc Light triggers we didn’t do anything with from earlier, well now we are going to do something with them. During the combo you are searching for these cards when the Herald’s go to the grave, but I always end the combo with these cards after everything else has come out. With the Heralds search Dawn of the Heralds, Cyber Angel Benten, and Herald of Perfection. Use Herald of Perfection, tributing Benten to summon Dawn of the Heralds. Then Benten will search a light fairy from your deck to your hand, we grab Archlord Kristya. Interestingly enough, there are exactly four fairies in your graveyard, the three Herald of the Arc Lights and now Benten which lets us summon Kristya from our hand. Finally, Kristya adds Benten back to hand so that Herald of Perfection can discard her for its negate. So now our ending board is Abyss Dweller with a N’tss underneath, Herald of Perfection with one negate in hand, and Archlord Kristya preventing anyone from special summoning. Not bad if I do say so myself, but we can do better.
Back to the board with two Deskbots. We left with Auroradon in the Extra Monster Zone, Mecha Phantom Beast Coltwing, two lvl 3 machine tokens, and two Deskbot 001s, a full board. Lets make some space by Synchro summoning one Deskbot with both tokens for Karakuri Shogun MDL 00 “Burei”. When he is summoned, he will summon Karakuri Strategist MDL 248 “Nishipachi” from the deck. If we are going second, sometimes Nishipachi’s position changing effect can be useful for pushing for damage or getting over big attack cards. Either way synchro Nishipachi with the remaining Coltwing for your choice of lvl 7 synchro. I’ve gone with F. A. Dawn Dragster for a spell/trap negate but whatever you want works here. Finally, use the last remaining Deskbot with Burei to synchro summon Borreload Savage Dragon, equipping Halqifibrax from grave onto him. This gives him a small attack boost as well as the ability to negate anything your opponent does. So far we have a spell/trap negate and an omni negate with Dawn Dragster and Borreload Savage, but we still have the Herald searches from earlier. This part is the exact same as in the other combo, search for the ritual monsters and spell, and end with Herald of Perfection and Archlord Kristya. So now our final end board is one spell/trap negate, two omni negates, and neither player can special summon.
That's the combo folks. One deck that supports two combo lines that aim to make our opponent unable to play the game at all. Getting to two deskbots isn’t as hard as it sounds and maybe 40% of my games I get to two Deskbot 001s. These cards are just to help us hedge our bets when our opponents open hand traps. Called by the Grave stops our opponent’s hand traps as long as they only have one and it discards itself to the grave. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing and has won me games that I would have otherwise lost. One for One, Monster Reborn, and Quickdraw Synchron act as extenders for when our starting plays get negated. One for One finds Deskbot 001 if Halqifibrax gets negated, Monster reborn can bring something back to try to get to Auroradon and Quickdraw Synchron summons itself if our way to get to Halqifibrax is negated. All of these are incredibly situational, but they are better than nothing and every single one has come in handy at least once. The best part about this deck is that, after all these, two Coltwings so we don’t lose to drawing one, and the lvl 2 tuner for Draconnet, there are still 15 slots left in the deck. All of these should be going second board breaking cards and hand traps to stop the opponent on their turn. This combo is incredibly fragile as one point of interaction literally anywhere stops us dead in our tracks and we lose the game. Stopping our opponent from stopping us is what these 15 cards need to be doing, and funny enough a sideboard is also 15 cards. This means that we have 30 cards that are used to stop our opponents from setting up before we do. These 30 cards should be tuned to your budget and meta but can be basically anything and give us a real game plan for going second beyond just praying.
All in all, I love this deck. It is exactly what both Yu-gi-oh players and non-Yu-gi-oh players alike complain about with this game, making your opponent unable to play. However, this deck is so fragile that it almost feels like a puzzle trying to clear the way for your combo to go off, especially going second. Admittedly, once you start to go into your combo, the deck plays the same every time, but side boarding and deploying the right hand traps at the right time are key to winning with this deck. Hopefully you guys like the deck breakdown and I’ll see you next week for more Magic articles.
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