Former SHONEN JUMP Championship winner Ryan Spicer is back this weekend, and he always like to bring a Deck that has also been picked up and run by his friends. Earlier in this round we looked at a Chaos beatdown Deck from Taylor Raflowitz, but this Deck shows another way to approach this strategy, using a more complicated Chaos build that looks to take advantage of Special Summon effects and Synchro Monsters.

(By the way, a ‘Chaos Deck’ is a Deck that uses mostly LIGHT and DARK monsters. It takes its name from powerful monsters that require both Attributes, like “Chaos Sorcerer.” This isn’t to be confused with a ‘Twilight Deck,’ which uses mostly Lightsworn monsters for the LIGHT part of its Deck, combined with DARK monsters like “Dark Armed Dragon.”)

Monsters:

1 Elemental Hero Stratos
2 Destiny Hero – Malicious
1 Destiny Hero – Fear Monger
1 Dark Grepher
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Card Trooper
1 D.D. Crow
1 Caius the Shadow Monarch
2 Mystic Tomato
1 Sangan
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Krebons
1 Dark Armed Dragon
2 Chaos Sorcerer
1 Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter
1 Cyber Valley
2 Dimensional Alchemist

Spell Cards:

2 Destiny Draw
1 Reinforcement of the Army
1 Lightning Vortex
2 Allure of Darkness
1 Book of Moon
1 Heavy Storm
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Brain Control
1 Mind Control
1 Smashing Ground

Trap Cards:

1 Solemn Judgment
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Call of the Haunted

This Deck is fueled by a Destiny Hero draw engine, packing cards like “Destiny Hero – Malicious” and “Destiny Hero – Fear Monger” to discard for “Destiny Draw.” Malicious easily combines with “Krebons” or “Plaguespreader Zombie” to make Level 8 Synchro Monsters.

The monster lineup can be divided into two parts: the big, swingy Special Summon monsters, and the disposable self-replacing monsters. “Mystic Tomato,” “Sangan,” “Card Trooper,” and “Dimensional Alchemist” can all be played really aggressively, because if they get destroyed in battle, Spicer just gets another monster to replace them, thanks to these monsters’ effects.

“Dimensional Alchemist” is especially useful, because when destroyed, you get back a monster that has been removed from play.”Plaguespreader Zombie” or “Destiny Hero – Malicious” can both be recycled with the Alchemist’s ability, and anything removed with “Allure of Darkness” is fair game, too. “Cyber Valley,” or the monster it removes, can be retrieved, and a big monster swallowed up by “Bottomless Trap Hole” can be played again (especially useful in the case of “Chaos Sorcerer” or “Dark Armed Dragon”). And if none of these combos develop, “Dimensional Alchemist” can just remove a card itself to gain 500 ATK, and if it’s destroyed, you can get back the monster it removed.

Spicer’s big monsters can be easily Special Summoned to remove opposing cards from the field, or to attack for big damage. If your Life Points are as low as 4100, you may be in danger, since an easily Summoned “Chaos Sorcerer” plus any 1800+ ATK monster can come out of nowhere to take you down. With cards like “Lightning Vortex,” “Mind Control,” “Brain Control,” and “Smashing Ground,” Spicer’s Deck is very good at leveraging just two big attackers into a sudden win.

Lots of Decks here today use monsters like “Pyramid Turtle” and “Mystic Tomato” as a flexible defense against the faster Decks this format offers. “Card Trooper” is everywhere, and “Dimensional Alchemist” is seeing a lot of play as well. At the same time, everybody’s already looking for the fast wins with big strings of Special Summons, and with Lightsworn Decks very fast here today, that’s going to become more and more of a goal for Deck builders.

In the mean time, competitors like Ryan Spicer may be at a distinct advantage today, leading the pack in some of these trends. Spicer took a loss in Round 1, but many of the Duelists running this Deck were undefeated mid-way through the day, and Day 2 is not far off!