Chaos Dragon Sidedeck Picks

An article from Nate, our Idaho branch's co-captain :)
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Hey it’s Nate, I haven’t written an article in quite a while so I thought I’d go for it once more. This time I’m going to discuss how to side deck in chaos dragons.

Usually I prefer to keep my side deck choices to myself, only because I feel that the side deck is one of the most skill based parts of this game. Any dragon deck can go derpy and win game one, but what about the next two? Unless you can side, the first game won’t even matter.

With that being said, just because the side deck is the ultimate way to alter a deck to your own play style doesn’t mean that people don’t sometimes need help. I’m going to go down a list of a few key cards in the dragon side and why they are important.

Marshmallon/Spirit Reaper:
Of all of the cards to side these two seem to be almost mandatory. It’s great for the mirror, rabbit, six sams and any other deck that can OTK. When piloting a chaos dragon deck against another deck which can OTK it is important to have defense. There is no way to guarantee that you will draw better than them so use one of these, and stall until you get the cards you need. Try it out, it will make a world of difference in tournament play.

Doomcaliber Knight:
This side deck option is a little less obvious than the first. Many people have been counting this card out for quite a while, but after reading Thunderpants’ article on ARG I decided to reanalyze it as a side option in this deck.

The first important thing to note is that any monster in the side deck should be able to stand on its own without issues (considering you run zero traps). With amazing stats of 1900/1800 I would say Doomcaliber Knight easily fits this criteria.

The second thing to pay attention to is the number of potential problems that this card can solve for you in games two and three. With the majority of veilers, if not all of them, having been pulled out of your opponents deck he should force out the negate that makes him good. The most obvious problem he solves is any inzektor deck will have a hard time baiting him out without the use of a normal summon. A couple more important possible decks to side it against include both rabbit and wind-ups, whose power plays are based around monster effects.

The last point that I want to make is that in chaos dragons it is entirely possible to OTK with a Doomcaliber Knight on the field the entire time. All of those combined make him an excellent choice in my opinion.

Soul Release:
Of all of the cards I’m discussing, this one is most likely the most… rogue. For a long time Soul Release saw little to no play because D.D. Crow was simply better. It is a ss2 hand trap, and that alone has made crow a better choice in many situations, until now.

I don’t know if you have tried playing D.D. crow against chaos dragons, but it is rarely very effective. Removing one monster just is not enough when it fills the grave with new light and dark monsters so quickly.

This is where Soul Release finally has the upper hand. Taking either five light or five dark monsters out of your opponents grave can give you those needed few turns to gain field control and deal enough damage for game. Another important thing to note is that the text reads “select up to 5 cards from either you or your opponents Graveyard and remove them from the current duel.” I am pretty sure you can figure out why those two phrases are so important.

Well thanks for reading, I hope it helped in some way.

On a side note, I recently got another video camera. I’ll be posting videos very regularly regarding Team Overload, and everything that yugioh has to offer. Check out OverloadYGO at http://www.youtube.com/overloadygo.