Update November 2020: The game rules have been changed to allow all xyz, fusion, and synchro monsters to be summoned to any of the 5 monster zones as well as the extra zones. This has also come with a ban/limitation to many of the cards, and that applies to the decks below. So if you are looking here for competitive deck inspiration, know that the Thunder Dragon deck is no longer a great option due to its best cards being banned for competitive play. Look forward to an updated list with new deck ideas for competitive play in the newest update soon.
Like many other old fans, the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise recently stormed back into my life with the release of Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution for the Nintendo Switch.
Not only is it portable now, but it has nearly every card, and a pretty good system for online ranked battles.
I’ll be honest, the new rules did offend me a little bit at first, since they nerfed the former strategy I was so proud of with the Mermail archetype. But, by the time I finished the campaign, I actually loved the introduction of link rules, since they really level the playing field against the handful of OP pendulum and XYZ decks that were pretty much unbreakable before.
So after I learned the new rules and got myself some points for some custom decks, it was time to hop online and test my skills for real.
I’ll be honest, it didn’t go great at first.
Long story short, I lost, lost some more and then lost a few more times. But along the way I took notes on everyone beating me, and before long I had mimicked some pretty good decks and put my own final touches on some truly competitive decks.
With these I was finally able to compete, and went from the absolute last ranking to better than #500 in the world (and counting) in less than a month.
Through over 500 ranked matches, I’ve noticed a handful of decks perfectly suited for S ranked competitive play, so I’ll save you a few dozen hours and just tell you a few of the best ones for anyone looking to easily build a competitive deck in the modern era
1. Zombie World
One of the decks that came up over and over again until I was at least above #1000 in the rankings is a type of zombie deck centered around getting out Zombie World — a field spell that makes all monsters on the field and in the GY zombies, and neither player can tribute summon, except for zombies.
By itself, this isn’t too hard to get around, unless you’re running a deck like the Monarch deck where you absolutely HAVE to use tribute summoned monsters, but the main crux of the deck is how well it works with Doomking Balerdroch — a zombie monster that lets you negate the effect of a zombie monster (which is every monster when Zombie World is out on the field) and banish 1 monster from the field or GY each turn, as well.
Now mix in a few zombies that help you get both of those cards out and boom! You’re ready to start dominating.
All you really need here is cards like Uni-Zombie, which let you send Doomking to the GY, where you can pull him out to the field anytime you have a field spell out.
Zombie World Deck List:
Main cards to start with:
- Doomking Balerdoch
- Zombie World
- Terraforming
- Uni-Zombie
- Mezuki
- Gozuki
- Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring
- Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion
- Glow-Up Bloom
- Dragon’s Mirror (if you have Dragonecro Nethersoul Dragon in your Extra Deck)
Extra deck cards:
- Vampire Sucker
- Dragonecro Nethersoul Dragon
There’s quite some variability here in which cards to add along with these, so just keep in mind while your making a deck around these cards that what you need are zombies with effects that send cards to and from the GY
2. Thunder Dragon
Now this one is a personal favorite of mine, and as long as you don’t get a really bad match-up, I believe a well made thunder dragon deck could take down just about anyone.
This deck is centered around the classic card Thunder Dragon (obviously) who can be discarded to add another “Thunder Dragon” or two to your hand.
Originally this wasn’t so useful, but with the new fusion monsters, Thunder Dragon Colossus and Thunder Dragon Titan, all you have to do is use any effect that activates in the hand (which every “thunder dragon” monster does) and then send 1 thunder monster to the graveyard to get Colossus out.
Not only is Colossus 2600 ATK and available pretty much first turn every duel, but he also keeps your opponent from adding cards from the deck to their hand AND he can’t be destroyed by battle or card effect, as long as you can banish 1 thunder monster from your GY instead.
On top of that, “thunder dragon” monsters also have effects that activate when they’re banished, so his effect works doubly well. And if that wasn’t enough, all you have to do to get Thunder Dragon Titan (3200 ATK) out is banish 1 fusion monster you control and one thunder monster in your hand.
And if even that doesn’t sound strong enough, Thunder Dragon Titan has the effect where every time a thunder monster activates an effect in the hand (which happens constantly with this deck) you can destroy one card on the field!
Then you can start activating effects in your hand and get the added benefit of destroying 1 card on the field each time you do so, in addition to whatever that effect did.
Honestly, this is one of the decks with the most options per turn IMO, and the biggest problem I’ve had with it is just that I sometimes run out my turn’s time limit because of the overwhelming amount of options on any given turn.
Thunder Dragon Colossus & Thunder Dragon Titan Deck List:
Main Deck:
- Thunder Dragon
- Thunder Dragonroar
- Thunder Dragondark
- Thunder Dragonhawk
- Thunder Dragonmatrix
- Thunder Dragonduo
- Thunder Dragon Fusion
- Thunder Dragons’ Hundred Thunders
- Allure of Darkness
- Gold Sarcophagus (banishing a thunder dragon by this effect will also activate its effect)
- Batteryman Solar
- Instant Fusion
- One for One
Extra Deck:
- Thunder Dragon Colossus
- Thunder Dragon Titan
- Kaminari Attack (if using Instant fusion)
- Linkuriboh
- Some Summer Summoner
3. Blue-Eyes Chaos & Chaos MAX dragons + Impcantation
This is one of the most OP decks that is straight forward. You don’t have to have some crazy 10 step plan to win, all you need to do most of the time is get 1 or two ritual monsters out and you can win.
In case you aren’t familiar, Blue Eyes Chaos Dragon & Blue Eyes Chaos MAX dragon are both relatively new to the game. They came out when the last movie Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions came out, and they added on to the ever-popular Blue-Eyes archetype enough to stay competitive in the modern era.
They’re ritual monsters, who can be summoned with either Chaos Form or Advanced Ritual Art, and they can also be searched for in your deck with any card that calls on a card listing Blue-Eyes White Dragon (like Bingo Machine, Go!!!)
Not only do they have ATKs of 3000 and 4000, respectively, but they also can’t be targeted OR destroyed by your opponent’s card effects. This leaves very few options to stop them, many of which are uncommon until you get to a really high level in the rankings.
Beyond that, their other effects work especially well together. Chaos Dragon does piercing damage, and changes the position of all your opponent’s monsters, while permanently making all of their ATK and DEF 0. And Chaos MAX Dragon does double piercing damage.
That means if you can turn even a single card to defense position and make its DEF 0, one attack from Chaos MAX dragon will result in 8000 damage, which is usually a win.
Now, the downside is that this won’t happen unless for Blue Eyes Chaos Dragon unless you use Blue-Eyes White Dragon as a material, but both of the ritual spells I mentioned a minute ago make this pretty easy by letting you send Blue-Eyes from either the deck (Advanced Ritual Art) or the hand, field or GY (Chaos Form)
To top all of this off, if you just want to make the deck about getting out the Chaos Dragons, the Impcantation cards are perfect for the job.
Impcantation is a small sub-archetype with just 4 monsters, but they let you special summon each other out of the deck by showing either a ritual spell or ritual monster in your hand, which will then add either a ritual spell or ritual monster to your hand.
By using cards like “Bingo Machine, Go!!!,” “Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands,” “Senju of the Thousand Hands” and the impcantations, you’re able to get at least 1 of these OP dragons out 9/10 turns
And let’s be honest, the idea of decks revolving around just 1 or 2 behemoth tank monsters was the best part of playing the original Yu-Gi-Oh! back in the day, so I consider this deck a welcome addition to the Blue-Eyes family.
Blue Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon Deck List:
Main Deck:
- Blue-Eyes white Dragon
- Dragon Spirit of White
- Senju of the Thousand Hands
- Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
- Sonic Bird
- Impcantation Bookstone
- Impcantation Candoll
- Impcantation Talismandra
- Impcantation Penciplume
- Advanced Ritual Art
- Chaos Form
- Book of Moon (trust me)
- Blue-Eyes Chaos Dragon
- Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon
- Bingo Machine, Go!!
Extra Deck:
- Dark Rebellion XYZ Dragon
- Thunder End Dragon
- Castel the Skyblaster Muskateer
- Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon
- Number 39: Utopia Roots
- Linkuriboh
(Extra deck can’t be used with Impcantations on the field, so it’s not too important if you use this play-style)
4. Sky Striker Ace
If you find that you really like the new link rules and want to build a deck largely centered around link monsters, look no further than the Sky Striker cards.
Now, with the vast amount of possibilities in link play, there’s probably a lot of versions of this deck floating around out there. So I won’t go as far into detail here and instead just mention why the basic structure is so good.
The Sky Striker cards are a rarity in that they have link monsters that specifically mention them by name. Instead of “2 effect monsters” or “2 thunder monsters” etc, they specifically call for “sky striker” monsters.
Because they get called on by name, they require only 1 of them, and can even be used to summon each other.
Take a close look at the sky striker cards above
Not only do they only require 1 “sky striker” monster of any attribute except one, they also are that attribute.
This means that once you summon one and use its effect, you can immediately summon any other one and use its effect! This creates multiple different actions you can take almost any turn, leaving a lot of room to adjust your actions to go toe-to-toe with your opponent.
For instance, you could summon all of the related link monsters each turn:
“Sky Striker Ace – Kagari” during your main phase 1, and use its effect to add a spell from your GY to your hand, then use that monster to summon “Sky Striker Ace – Hayate” immediately after and use its effect to attack directly during the battle phase. After that, you can summon “Sky Striker Ace – Shizuku” and use its effect at the end of your turn to add a “Sky Striker” spell card to your hand
Also, on top of having multiple link monsters for them, there are a lot of spell cards specifically made for this deck, which are searchable with the effect of many of the “Sky Striker Ace” link monsters.
A lot of these revolve around having no monsters in your main zone, but they’re still great to use as long as you turn your monsters into link summons first.
Sky Striker Ace Deck List:
Main Deck:
- Sky Striker Ace – Raye
- Sky Striker Mobilize – Engage!
- Sky Striker Airspace – Area Zero
- Sky Striker Maneuver – Vector Blast
- Sky Striker Maneuver – Afterburners
- Sky Striker Mecha Modules – Multirole
- Sky Striker Mecharmory – Hercules Base
- Sky Striker Mecha – Hornet Drones
- Sky Striker Mecha – Widow Anchor
Extra Deck:
- Sky Striker Ace – Kagari
- Sky Striker Ace – Hayate
- Sky Striker Ace – Shizuku
Keep in mind that this is a less full deck than the others I mentioned so far, and you will need to do some tweaking of it on your own if you wish to do exceedingly well with it.
5. Mekk-Knight + World Legacy
I have to start off saying that, while this deck truly a force to be reckoned with, it does add a lot of extra thinking on your part, and it might waste too much time at first online to make it practical until you’re familiar with the cards.
Personally, I hate the meta aspect that this deck adds to the game, but it was just too powerful for me to ignore when I was picking decks for this list.
Anyways, the deck revolves around what is arguably the most meta deck concept yet: card placement.
For instance, most of the Mekk-Knight monsters have this as their first effect:
“If 2 or more cards are in the same column, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand) in that column”
This means that if your opponent has a spell and a monster in the same column on the field, you could special summon a Mekk-Knight to that same column in the monsters zone on your side of the field.
Likewise, it could be that they have a spell/trap set in their spell/trap zone, so you can place a spell/trap in that same column on your side of the field, and now there’s 2 cards in that column, letting you special summon a Mekk-Knight to it
On top of being able to get out strong monsters this way multiple times per turn, they have multiple effects, some of which let you move the cards on the field so that you can summon to the same zone (because the columns had 2 or more cards in them) multiple times by letting you move the card you just summoned out of the way and put a new one there.
As if this wasn’t enough, there are many support cards that leverage this further by having effects like ‘any spell or trap your opponent activates in the same column as a Mekk-Knight you control is negated’ and a similar one that negates monster effects.
Still not enough for you?
Well that’s fine, because to put more icing on top of this overpowered cake, they even have a Mekk-Knight link monster whose effect makes any Mekk-Knight incapable of being destroyed by OR EVEN TAKING BATTLE DAMAGE from any monster that isn’t in the same column as it is.
And just to reiterate, anything in the same column most likely has its effects negated, and the person using the Mekk-Knight can usually move the cards around so that it works in their favor no matter what. PLUS, you don’t get to choose which column extra deck monsters go to, so you couldn’t even use one to fight off their link monster with the effect that’s keeping their monsters from being destroyed.
Mekk-Knight Deck List:
Main Deck:
- Mekk-Knight Indigo Eclipse
- Mekk-Knight Purple Nightfall
- Mekk-Knight Green Horizon
- Mekk-Knight Orange Sunset
- Mekk-Knight Avram
- Mekk-Knight Blue Sky
- Mekk-Knight Red Moon
- Mekk-Knight Yellow Star
- World Legacy’s Secret
- World Legacy Key
- World Legacy’s Memory
- World Legacy Succession
- Infinite Impermanence
Extra Deck:
- Mekk-Knight of the Morning Star
- Mekk-Knight Spectrum Supreme
Now keep in mind that not all of these lists are complete decks, but they instead highlight all of the cards that you need to look at before adding the last few to make them your own.
Best luck in your duels to come!
