After 11 rounds of Swiss, Honorable Billy Brake rose to the top with his Red and Blue Samurai Deck, emerging in first place! He then went on to win his Top 32 match against Honorable Joshua Harris’ Six Samurai. As this tournament draws to a close, we caught up with Brake to take a look at his innovative “Red and Blue” Deck.

Brake’s Deck can make the same basic plays that the other Six Samurai Decks profiled earlier are capable of, but with 2 copies of Legendary Six Samurai – Mizuho and 1 copy of Legendary Six Samurai – Shinai added into the mix, Brake is able to pull off a combo that gives him a virtually infinite number of Bushido Counters to use with his Gateway.

Monsters:

1 Grandmaster of the Six Samurai

3 Legendary Six Samurai – Kageki

2 Legendary Six Samurai – Mizuho

1 Legendary Six Samurai – Shinai

3 Kagemusha of the Six Samurai

3 Legendary Six Samurai – Kizan

Spells:

3 Gateway of the Six

3 Six Samurai United

3 Shien’s Smoke Signal
1 Giant Trunade

2 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Reinforcement of the Army

3 Book of Moon

1 Monster Reborn

1 Dark Hole

Traps:

1 Mirror Force

3 Solemn Warning

1 Solemn Judgment

1 Dust Tornado

1 Double-Edged Sword Technique

1 Musakani Magatama

1 Seven Tools of the Bandit

There are a few ways that Brake can pull off his combo to load his copies of Gateway of the Six with Bushido Counters, but all of them involve having 2 copies of Mizuho and a copy of Shinai. Since Gateway of the Six and Shien’s Smoke Signal can search for Mizuho and Shinai, it’s still pretty easy to get all 3 of these monsters together. The easiest way to do the combo involves 2 copies of Gateway.

Once Brake has 2 copies of Gateway of the Six in play, all he needs is a copy of Shinai or a copy of Mizuho to make his big move. Mizuho allows Brake to Special Summon Shinai from his hand, and Shinai allows Brake to Special Summon Mizuho from his hand. After Summoning one of them and gaining 4 Bushido Counters, Brake can remove those 4 Bushido Counters to search his Deck for the counterpart that he’s able to Special Summon. Following that, he’ll gain 4 more Bushido Counters and be able to search his Deck or Graveyard for the last copy of Mizuho he needs. He can Special Summon it to the field to get 4 more Bushido Counters on his Gateway. That’s when the fun really starts for Brake.

Once he has Shinai and both copies of Mizuho on the field, Brake can Tribute Shinai with the effect of Mizuho to destroy his other Mizuho. Shinai’s effect will allow Brake to bring Mizuho back to his hand, and then he can remove 4 Counters from his Gateway to return Shinai from his Graveyard to his hand. He can then Special Summon Shinai and Mizuho back to the field, adding 8 Bushido Counters total to his Gateways. He can repeat this process as many times as he wants, Tributing Shinai to destroy Mizuho and return Mizuho back to his hand, and removing 4 Counters from his Gateway to get back his Shinai from the Graveyard. Each time he repeats the loop, Brake gains 4 Bushido Counters.

“I like to do this a trillion times and put two trillion counters on each Gateway. That way I can remove a billion, and still have so many Counters,” Brake told me. With all of those Bushido Counters, Brake can give his monsters a near-infinite number of Attack Points, or search his Deck for whichever Samurais he needs. “I like to search my Deck for all of the monsters first turn. I keep some in my hand and put some in my Graveyard. With ‘infinite’ counters, I can get them back from the Graveyard with Gateway any time.”

Brake can also pull off his combo with 1 copy of Gateway of the Six and a copy of Six Samurai United. Instead of gaining 4 Bushido Counters each time Brake pulls off the combo to destroy his Mizuho and bring it back with Shinai, Brake will only have a net gain of 2 Bushido Counters. (He removes 4 Bushido Counters, 2 from Six Samurai United and 2 from Gateway of the Six, to return Shinai from his Graveyard to his hand, and then gains 6 Bushido Counters when he Special Summons Shinai and Mizuho back to the field.) But gaining 2 Bushido Counters each time Brake performs the loop is still enough to give Brake as many Bushido Counters as he desires.

If Brake’s opponent uses the effect of Maxx “C” to try to stop him on any given turn, Brake can actually perform the loop to Special Summon Mizuho and Shinai multiple times, forcing his opponent to draw a card each time, and enabling Brake to Deck his opponent out.

There are many ways to build tournament-winning Six Samurai Decks, and several different versions have found their way to the top of the tournament this weekend. Time will tell whether Brake’s build that utilizes the synergy between Mizuho and Shinai will reign supreme among the Samurai Decks!