Rope-a-Dope

Hey guys, I got bored of playing Mermails recently, so I decided to pick up a nifty tier 2 deck as an alternative. The deck I chose was pretty legit in testing:


DN Pic:

Spoiler:

Monsters: 27

3 Caius the Shadow Monarch
3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
2 Light and Darkness Dragon
1 Dark Dust Spirit
1 Jinzo
3 Battle Fader
2 Effect Veiler
2 Maxx "C"
2 Tragoedia
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
3 Swap Frog
3 Treeborn Frog
1 Ronintoadin

Spells: 13

3 Enemy Controller
3 Soul Exchange
2 Pot of Duality
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 Heavy Storm

Extra Deck 15:

2 Slacker Magician
2 Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1 Daigusto Phoenix
1 Photon Strike Bounzer
1 Inzektor Exa-Beetle
1 Gaia Dragon, the Thunder Charger
1 Formula Synchron
1 Armory Arm
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Thought Ruler Archfiend
1 Crimson Blader

Side Deck 15:

2 Vanity's Fiend
2 The End of Anubis
3 Mobius the Frost Monarch
1 Jinzo
2 Dust Tornado
1 Mytical Space Typhoon
2 Breakthrough Skill
2 Snowman Eater


Deck Name: Frog Monarch

Status: Tier 2

Strategy:

Frog Monarchs follow a rope-a-dope strategy. Your tribute fodder like Treeborn Frog and Battle Fader allows you to put minimal recources on the field, while wasting your opponent's recources by summoning Monarch after Monarch. The countless hand traps prevent game pushes. The more the opponent extends, the more vulnerable he becomes to Caius and friends.

This decks advantages are OTK prevention, card advantage and poweful tribute monsters who can change the tide of the game in a split second.

Matchups:

Frog Monarchs have an excellent matchup against Mermails.Your OTK stoppers will prevent any of their attempts to kill you ,whilst you can just counter back with your Monarch plays. Also, 3 Enemy Controllers and 3 Soul Exchanges get rid of an opposing Abyssgaios fairly easily.

Game 2 you will side more hate like Vanity's Fiend and The End of Anubis (these cards shut down almost their entire deck).Deck Devastation Virus is another viable side deck card to further destroy Mermails.

This deck should also have a good matchup against Evilswarm, because there is not much they can do to stop you from dropping Monarchs. Caius, Raiza and Dark Dust Spirit are instant outs to Ophion.

The Fire Fist matchup is really bad though. Any Monarch you drop will be blown up by Bear and your removal/bouncing was pretty much useless because they can search out whatever they need with Tenki. Gorilla eats Treeborn Frog , Bear eats Battle Fader,Gorz and Tragoedia.

Siding:

since I just picked up the deck again, this might not be optimal. It should give you an insight into my thought process nonetheless.

vs Mermails:

- 3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
- 1 Jinzo

+ 2 Vanity's Fiend
+ 2 The End of Anubis

vs Fire Fists:

- 3 Raiza the Storm Monarch
- 1 Dark Dust Spirit
- 2 Maxx "C"
- 2 Effect Veiler
- 1 Pot of Duality


+ 3 Mobius the Frost Monarch
+ 1 Jinzo
+ 2 Dust Tornado
+ 1 Mystical Space Typhoon
+ 2 Breakthrough Skill


Cost: $120+

Concluding Thoughts:

If your meta is mostly Mermails, I'd give Frog Monarchs a shot. The deck is cheap to build and only gets better upon Evilswarm release. It's also a decent choice for Regional events.

I've always loved this deck simply because Treeborn is such a freaking star here. That's it. That's all I care about.

Here's my equation for why I love this deck:

Treeborn + E Con + Raiza or Caius or Dark Dust Spirit = so much fun.

LAD does some crazy work in this deck too, considering this deck is one of the decks that made summoning it very efficient. Ophion is sad when he sees Caius or Raiza, and LAD is so awesome against decks that usually go for a 1 to 2-card combo to get rolling. Jinzo is such a great tech, stopping the traps that become massively troublesome like Macro. Also, this deck can use it's hand traps SO effectively, it's ridiculous. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten rid of a tiny Gorz Token to drop Caius and -1 my opponent. Trag gets in there as well, with the option to steal and copy to go for easy rank 1's, 2's, and 6's.

And yeah. If they don't have the answer for it, tribute set Dusty is the best move ever. Ever.

Okay, I'm done. I just love this deck so much.

Good article, still like to mess with my opp by having creature swaps in, but it isn't the best card in this format, I guess.

How's it working without dupe frog? Is it stable enough?

Some people tend to tech sword breaker in the side deck as well.

I guess, since you only have 1 ronin and no dupes, 1 teched salvage isn't gonna be that good as well.

Still would replace 1 treeborn with a roning or dupe, 3 is just too much.

Dupe/ronin is 2000 def and dupe searches for swap, which mills treeborn, so I would go for that instead of the third treeborn.

How about treacherous trap hole?

How about mist wurm instead a lvl 8, like thought ruler?

Vongola-x wrote:

Good article, still like to mess with my opp by having creature swaps in, but it isn't the best card in this format, I guess.

Didn't even bother trying. Seems to be shit against Mermails. (also Evilswarms. )

Vongola-x wrote:

How's it working without dupe frog? Is it stable enough?

Dupe is slow,hard to kill and just sits on the field without advancing your position.
Also can't be tributed because he will miss timing. (Mermail players can make
him miss timing as well ) He just doesn't do anything until it's too late.

Duality is there to make it more stable.

Vongola-x wrote:

Some people tend to tech sword breaker in the side deck as well.

Seems decent, but most of the time you'll summon Beetle to get rid of stuff. *shrugs*

Vongola-x wrote:

Still would replace 1 treeborn with a roning or dupe, 3 is just too much.

I just like getting to him asap. Already thought about maining Foolish.Also, you can make Slacker Magician out of two Treeborns.

You could go -2 Duality,-1 Treeborn + 2 Dupe,+ 1 another tech and see how it works. Dupe didn't cut it for me.

Vongola-x wrote:

How about treacherous trap hole?

Decent tech, if you have the room. I'll give it a try again, because it's an easy Dweller/Shock Master out.

Vongola-x wrote:

How about mist wurm instead a lvl 8, like thought ruler?

Never made an 8 except Scrap. Never was in position to make a 9.
Since M7 got released, I'd rather make room for him. He is just sick in this deck and recycles all your stuff.

And yeah NUN, I love this deck too. Lost to rogue decks like WU and Heroes a couple times though (dat Shock Master/Dweller) In my opinion, it's a meta call deck more than anything. You have quite a bit of wiggle room of which cards to run and one has to determine the right cards/card ratios to be successful with the deck. e.g. if your meta is all Mermails, you should max out Maxx "C" and main Vanity's Fiend. meta is all Fire Fist, main 3 Veilers , drop a Trag and maybe tech a Mobius,etc.

My list is pretty standard and shall help you guys to get started, but one has to find out the perfect build by himself, mostly by teching right against the expected meta.

Also, guys have brought up Evilswarm Thunderbird as a side deck card, which is pretty dope actually.
Runs over Banishers,walks through backrows, serves as tribute fodder,etc.

Another cool side deck card is Ryko. He's an out to both Macro and Banisher.

I would main PoA for sure, probably by dropping Treeborn (though you should have 3 in main and side combined). Dualities are usually dead to me in this deck so you can go with Vongy's ideas but it's fine to run them. Otherwise, looks good.

Deck will change into Tidal-Moulinglacia-something post-Tachyon, which I will post later. And yeah Avarice most likely will be played in that version.

Interesting i like it